For a long time, I've thought that the most interesting aspect of both SF and Fantasy is that they allow us to investigate aspects of humanity, isolated from the limitations of current society and technology. The Matrix -- beyond it's stunning special effects goes deeply into that space. It explores the question of "how do our preconceptions of ourselves and our abilities limit what we can actually accomplish?"
IMO, the central plotline of The Matrix seems to be around getting Neo to let go of his preconceptions of the limits of reality and his ability to affect it. The climax occurs when he has the 'breakthrough' in realizing just how far he'd been constrained by his taught limitations.
The questions which it raises are: Where in my life have my own preconceptions of myself and others been limiting what we've been able to accomplish? and: What is it going to take for me to push myself past that point? The big rushes of the movie actually occur when Neo has those breakthroughs (e.g. Choosing the pill, training with Mobeus, the final fight scene). Each breakthrough opens up a brand new 'realm of possibilities'.
Where would you like to have your breakthrough today? `ø,,ø!
It wouldn't work for IBM to open up the entire code base of AIX. It's still a cash cow for them and it would really hurt their bottom line if people were free to copy the entire OS right now. On the other hand, it would be entirely to their advantage to support Linux becomming something that they could use as part of their commercial releases. Opening up parts (even large parts) of their code base would allow them to ride both horses -- Give the Linux groups just about anything that they actually wanted to work on, while keeping enough of AIX proprietary to prevent killing a current cash cow.
I trust IBM as far as I can throw them -- which is to say, about as far as they're willing to be thrown given their own financial self interest. They (like many others in the Open Source movement) see value in supporting the movement. As such, I think that their support is about as sincere as anybody else who sees supporting the Open Source model as valuable.
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In a lot of ways, it seems to me that the open source model is going back to the original copyright law intent -- by giving people an incentive to create a work that would ultimately go into the public domain. Now we have laws which, for all practical purposes, never let any creative work go into the public domain. I think that the Free and Open Source movements are now proving that the original idea of putting intellectual creations into the public domain is socially -- and even financially -- a sound concept. IBM is simply riding this horse forward. `ø,,ø!
What's the peacefire guy's problem? He can't sign up for a free email account at one of the hundreds of providers? It kind of sucks they got blacklisted, but that's the price we all pay for spam sympathizers.
As Ghandi said: "We have absoloutely no interest in secrecy. We intend to let our enemy know exactly what we're doing and hope that they overreact."
From what I can understand, Peacefire's primary complaint was that they didn't know. BTW: it wasn't Peacefire's IP that was being blacklisted, this time. They just weren't getting mail from the blacklisted site.
Above.net (their ISP) was willfully dropping packets, but not telling customers. When the peacefire guys asked above.net, their Customer Support people said "No we're not".
I've got no problem with above.net blacklisting an entire block of IPs. In fact we almost reveled when they forced Microsoft to cry uncle. They just need to be open about it. If above.net is using RBL to block sites, they should let customers know about it, and even give them a tool to check if the reason why they can't get to a site is that it's being blackholed.
There are a couple of reasons to be open about such blacklisting. The obvious is that you owe it to your customers. The other is that -- if you want to put pressure on an ISP to change policy, then people have to know that there's something going on. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Source and Binaries reference different (overlapping) markets. Source is for the very adventuresome programmer, or the paranoid user. Object is for people who are more interested in seeing if it works. Otherwise said: some people like to break things -- some like to fix them. Even pre-alpha has a use for both groups.
In some cases, even non-technical users can notice things that are much easier to fix before a product leaves alpha.
In my own case, I will often download the binary out of laziness, and then, If I find a bug, I may either
1.) Report it to the appropriate authorities
2.) download a current ({non-.}recent) source
But, as far as I'm concerned, there's no need to download the source until I find a problem/future feature that I think that I can meaningfully fix/contribute to in that way. Until then, I'll submit bug reports -- whether I have the source or not.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
It's one thing to find oil to run (and make) computers. It's another thing, entirely, to kill people who complain that your methods of exploration and extraction are destroying their environment.
From their activities in Nigeria (and, I'm sure, elsewhere) Shell is a terrorist organizaion. The question isn't whether you want oil, it's whether you want your oil supply controlled by a terrorist organization.
(just because they make a profit doesn't mean that they're not a terrorist org. Drug dealers and hitmen make a profit too.) `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
He was talking about the colapse of the Micro$oft monopoly. The company itself will be just fine for years and years to come. IBM's monopoly colapsed in the mid '80s, but they're still a force to be reconed with in the computer industry. It's just that people are no longer saying "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM..." all the time.
A few years ago, I walked into a used computer store, looking for a machine for my sister. They had a few boxes sitting there with just a boot prompt -- No OS. when I asked why, they explained that the machines didn't come with proven MS licenses, so they couldn't load dos or windows onto them to prove that the machine worked. Microsoft was being snarky about cutting them a deal.
I suggested that they get a copy of Linux and explained that there would be NO problem with counting licenses. I figured that, if nothing else, seeing a bunch of storefront machines loaded with a competing operating system would cause the Microsoft marketing weenies to reconsider their intransigent attitude.
I think that that possibility is still there, but on a market-wide rather than a single-store basis. Although I find Linux far easier to install than Wintendos it's still a nontrivial task for most 'consumer' types. People going home with a box loaded with Linux and a couple of 'free' applications would go a long way towards breaking the 'linux is difficult' myth. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Obviously you don't live in Vancouver. We had a Hemp Store that ran just fine for years. It was a great store. Had all sorts of neat stuff (I bought some hemp paper there that I filed in the Court of Appeals). Apparently their neighbours liked them because they were attracting some nice up-scale clientele.
They didn't get touched until they got presented on 60-Minutes. At that point our glorious mayor (a sour little so and so who seems to care more about what looks good than what works good) took on shutting them down as his personal crusade.
I think he wasted City Hall's time for more than a year, trying to pull their business license. In the meantime, grotty little stores that were obvious crackhouse fronts didn't get touched. Even though I don't smoke, I was still pissed.
Then there's the Compassion club. They sell to people with a medical need for pot. They didn't get busted until they went to the cops, last month, to complain about someone stealing their stash -- One pound of organic pot. I guess the cops couldn't quite turn a blind eye to a formally filed report that essentially said
Yeah, we've got the stuff -- at least we did untill some bastard stole it from us (we think it was mikey). It's gonna cost us a
lot to replace it. Do you think you could get it back for us?
It's also easier to just punt a duplicate of all the software onto every computer but only pay for people who REALLY use the software. In many cases, if people who are making 'illegal' copies had to pay the extra $500 for every copy, they might just buy a few copies, and have a machine or two reserved as "The Excel Machine".
I.E. Some 'Piracy' may simply be the result of a sloppy "pay for what's appropriate" protocol. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Like it said in the article, Earth-type conditions are more likely to exist on sattelites of the gas giants. Given that both Saturn an Jupiter have moons of roughly earth size, I think it's probably a good bet that these exoplanets may, as well. As I remember it, tides are considered useful in the life-generation process, so being the moon of a large planet would make life even more likely.
The other question that comes up for me is: Did earth start as a gas giant? I'm thinking that what we're living on could easily be the evaporation residue of something the size and composition of Jupiter. If so, then what we're seeing could well orbiting those suns could well be a precursor to an earth-type planet. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
I doubt that the girl in England who managed to snipe at her schoolmates (source of the BoomTown Rats "I don't Like Mondays" song) probably didn't play quake (I don't think it even existed then).
People who are unbalanced play quake. People who are unbalanced watch TV. I don't think that there's much of a correlation.
My guess is that there's FAR more of a correlation between living in a gun-owning family and being the source of a shooting incident than there between live shooting and game shooting.
On the other hand, there may be a correlation between certain TYPES of obsessions with
shooter games and becomming a real-life shooter, but that's more likely to be a symptom showing in the game world than one originating there. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Unfortunately -- The only way you can (apparently) be allowed to short is if you can put up massive collateral. This means that the only way you can make money like this is if you already have this sort of money. Poorer folk who have the stock simply get hosed. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
I'd pretty much concur. Most of the NPs that I've worked with have fewer than 5 computers. -- in fact, 90% of all BUSINESSES may have need for less than 15 computers (most businesses are SMALL. Many just need one or two computers).
Big nonprofits, like the Smithsonian are the exception, rather than the rule. They may account for lots of computers, but they're only one entity. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
2M radios are probably only legal for HAMs (and it doesn't sound like this guy is a ham). there are, however, all sorts of audio repeaters, FM transmitters, etc. that could be legally used instead. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
The infinite liability is relative to the current price of the stock. If the stock is worth $10, and I short, the most I'm going to make on that stock is $10. On the other hand, if it goes to $1k, then I'm going to loose $990 in the hopes of making that $10.
Given that the stock market is designed to encourage a general rise in price, that's quite a steep (theoretical) bet to make. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
personally, I'd be inclined to use something like lightgreen on palegreen1:-).
I definitely like the idea. I guess that the next thing would be to put invisible (to human readers) links to poison pages on my main web pages. That and generating aliases to localhost.bcgreen.com, to point email adddresses at. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
A mistake/screwup is one, whether it's done by the big bully or the nice underdog. Many of Intel's and MSs mistakes made it out to the public because they were arrogant enough to think that they could get away with (and -- for the most part, they have). Intel is getting bitten because now they're used to letting get mistakes out, but they now have some realistic competition (AMD) who can take market share in the aftermath.
As Linux (hopefully) takes more of the desktop mindspace, we'll see MicroSloth FSCK-ups giving market share away to the Linux world, as well -- for the same reason: Residual arrogance.
The Linux world makes mistakes, too. It's just that we don't (usually) push those mistakes on the public as if they're the next best thing since sliced bread. Most of them get caught in the inherent quality control system of the Open/Free Source model. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Guh! It wasn't invented by Intel. The Little Endian system was in use around 800AD. (no joke!).
the concept of Algebra was made famous by the work of
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi
His work was brought to Europe in the 12th Century. At that time -- although the words were translated from the (right-to-left) Persian to (left-to-right) Latin, the (right-to-left) numbers in the book were copied verbatim.
This mistake has been perpetuated for the last 900 or so years. Ever wondered why you do most simple math operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication) from right to left?? It's because The European number system is written backwards.
If the original translators of Al-Khwarizmi's works had thought to write the numbers the way that european words are written, We would be little-endian too. As it is, I'm sure that there are many persian/arab immigrants who wonder why we switch from european left-to-right to the arab right-to-left whenever we deal with numbers.
As for those people who think that bits in a little-endian byte are stored backwards, they're not. In a 32 bit word, they're stored 0,1,2,3....31. we just WRITE them in big-endian nibble format because to do otherwise might confuse our already warped notion of how numbers work.
If you think about it, it makes complete sense to store data in little-endian format. You start work with the bits where the pointer points to; Truncating from fullword to byte requires simply ignoring the extra bytes; Arbitrary-precision math doesn't require you to skip to the end and count back... You simply do your operation until you run out of bytes. Data can be stored as [max-len] [used-len] [data] [sparebytes]; extending precision simply requires using more bytes.. No need to change pointers or copy data to make space for the extra digits.
If computers had been developed in Persia, where modern Algebra developed, there wouldn't be any big-endian/little-endian fight to speak of. Ditto if the original translators had their shit together. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Under the Gnu terms, there's nothing wrong with charging for a copy. Red Hat is free to charge $1K for the basic RedHat distribution. Once I get my $1K CD, the GNU license says I'm free to make and sell copies for $1.50 each.
If RedHat is able to make money selling, for $1K what I'm selling for $1.50 then all the more power to them. My guess is that they'd also have to provide scads of support, or something, to be able to hold amarket share under those conditions. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
No big problem with having to register all code with Microsoft (possibly even having to show them your source) -- It's kinda like needing internal passports to travel between states... This would have make things a good deal more difficult for the Oklahoma Bombers....
Then we can add fingerprinting all children in Junior High. Makes tracking rapists and killers that much easier.
Then there's this "innocent until proven guilty" bullshit.... I mean do you know how many guilty murderers have gone free because of this? Why not have the accused prove their innocence? .....
The road to a dictatorship is paved with good explanations. `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Slashdot Mirror
IMO, the central plotline of The Matrix seems to be around getting Neo to let go of his preconceptions of the limits of reality and his ability to affect it. The climax occurs when he has the 'breakthrough' in realizing just how far he'd been constrained by his taught limitations.
The questions which it raises are: Where in my life have my own preconceptions of myself and others been limiting what we've been able to accomplish? and: What is it going to take for me to push myself past that point? The big rushes of the movie actually occur when Neo has those breakthroughs (e.g. Choosing the pill, training with Mobeus, the final fight scene). Each breakthrough opens up a brand new 'realm of possibilities'.
Where would you like to have your breakthrough today?
`ø,,ø!
I trust IBM as far as I can throw them -- which is to say, about as far as they're willing to be thrown given their own financial self interest. They (like many others in the Open Source movement) see value in supporting the movement. As such, I think that their support is about as sincere as anybody else who sees supporting the Open Source model as valuable.
------
In a lot of ways, it seems to me that the open source model is going back to the original copyright law intent -- by giving people an incentive to create a work that would ultimately go into the public domain. Now we have laws which, for all practical purposes, never let any creative work go into the public domain. I think that the Free and Open Source movements are now proving that the original idea of putting intellectual creations into the public domain is socially -- and even financially -- a sound concept. IBM is simply riding this horse forward.
`ø,,ø!
OK: so peacefire ISbeing blocked. It was the mailing list provider who's a customer of above.net.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
From what I can understand, Peacefire's primary complaint was that they didn't know. BTW: it wasn't Peacefire's IP that was being blacklisted, this time. They just weren't getting mail from the blacklisted site. Above.net (their ISP) was willfully dropping packets, but not telling customers. When the peacefire guys asked above.net, their Customer Support people said "No we're not".
I've got no problem with above.net blacklisting an entire block of IPs. In fact we almost reveled when they forced Microsoft to cry uncle. They just need to be open about it. If above.net is using RBL to block sites, they should let customers know about it, and even give them a tool to check if the reason why they can't get to a site is that it's being blackholed.
There are a couple of reasons to be open about such blacklisting. The obvious is that you owe it to your customers. The other is that -- if you want to put pressure on an ISP to change policy, then people have to know that there's something going on.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Source and Binaries reference different (overlapping) markets. Source is for the very adventuresome programmer, or the paranoid user. Object is for people who are more interested in seeing if it works. Otherwise said: some people like to break things -- some like to fix them. Even pre-alpha has a use for both groups.
In some cases, even non-technical users can notice things that are much easier to fix before a product leaves alpha.
In my own case, I will often download the binary out of laziness, and then, If I find a bug, I may either
1.) Report it to the appropriate authorities
2.) download a current ({non-.}recent) source
But, as far as I'm concerned, there's no need to download the source until I find a problem/future feature that I think that I can meaningfully fix/contribute to in that way. Until then, I'll submit bug reports -- whether I have the source or not.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Boogie nights isn't porn. It's about porn (at the start of the video era).
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
From their activities in Nigeria (and, I'm sure, elsewhere) Shell is a terrorist organizaion. The question isn't whether you want oil, it's whether you want your oil supply controlled by a terrorist organization.
(just because they make a profit doesn't mean that they're not a terrorist org. Drug dealers and hitmen make a profit too.)
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
A few years ago, I walked into a used computer store, looking for a machine for my sister. They had a few boxes sitting there with just a boot prompt -- No OS. when I asked why, they explained that the machines didn't come with proven MS licenses, so they couldn't load dos or windows onto them to prove that the machine worked. Microsoft was being snarky about cutting them a deal.
I suggested that they get a copy of Linux and explained that there would be NO problem with counting licenses. I figured that, if nothing else, seeing a bunch of storefront machines loaded with a competing operating system would cause the Microsoft marketing weenies to reconsider their intransigent attitude.
I think that that possibility is still there, but on a market-wide rather than a single-store basis. Although I find Linux far easier to install than Wintendos it's still a nontrivial task for most 'consumer' types. People going home with a box loaded with Linux and a couple of 'free' applications would go a long way towards breaking the 'linux is difficult' myth.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
They didn't get touched until they got presented on 60-Minutes. At that point our glorious mayor (a sour little so and so who seems to care more about what looks good than what works good) took on shutting them down as his personal crusade. I think he wasted City Hall's time for more than a year, trying to pull their business license. In the meantime, grotty little stores that were obvious crackhouse fronts didn't get touched. Even though I don't smoke, I was still pissed.
Then there's the Compassion club. They sell to people with a medical need for pot. They didn't get busted until they went to the cops, last month, to complain about someone stealing their stash -- One pound of organic pot. I guess the cops couldn't quite turn a blind eye to a formally filed report that essentially said
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
I.E. Some 'Piracy' may simply be the result of a sloppy "pay for what's appropriate" protocol.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
The other question that comes up for me is: Did earth start as a gas giant? I'm thinking that what we're living on could easily be the evaporation residue of something the size and composition of Jupiter. If so, then what we're seeing could well orbiting those suns could well be a precursor to an earth-type planet.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Bwahaha! Microsoft, here we come! (and the DOJ thought it already had problems...)
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
People who are unbalanced play quake. People who are unbalanced watch TV. I don't think that there's much of a correlation.
My guess is that there's FAR more of a correlation between living in a gun-owning family and being the source of a shooting incident than there between live shooting and game shooting.
On the other hand, there may be a correlation between certain TYPES of obsessions with shooter games and becomming a real-life shooter, but that's more likely to be a symptom showing in the game world than one originating there.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Unfortunately -- The only way you can (apparently) be allowed to short is if you can put up massive collateral. This means that the only way you can make money like this is if you already have this sort of money. Poorer folk who have the stock simply get hosed.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
This data brought to you courtsey of the program 'units(1)', and the OS 'Linux'.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Big nonprofits, like the Smithsonian are the exception, rather than the rule. They may account for lots of computers, but they're only one entity.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
2M radios are probably only legal for HAMs (and it doesn't sound like this guy is a ham). there are, however, all sorts of audio repeaters, FM transmitters, etc. that could be legally used instead.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Given that the stock market is designed to encourage a general rise in price, that's quite a steep (theoretical) bet to make.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
personally, I'd be inclined to use something like lightgreen on palegreen1 :-).
I definitely like the idea. I guess that the next thing would be to put invisible (to human readers) links to poison pages on my main web pages. That and generating aliases to localhost.bcgreen.com, to point email adddresses at.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
As Linux (hopefully) takes more of the desktop mindspace, we'll see MicroSloth FSCK-ups giving market share away to the Linux world, as well -- for the same reason: Residual arrogance.
The Linux world makes mistakes, too. It's just that we don't (usually) push those mistakes on the public as if they're the next best thing since sliced bread. Most of them get caught in the inherent quality control system of the Open/Free Source model.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
the concept of Algebra was made famous by the work of Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi His work was brought to Europe in the 12th Century. At that time -- although the words were translated from the (right-to-left) Persian to (left-to-right) Latin, the (right-to-left) numbers in the book were copied verbatim.
This mistake has been perpetuated for the last 900 or so years. Ever wondered why you do most simple math operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication) from right to left?? It's because The European number system is written backwards.
If the original translators of Al-Khwarizmi's works had thought to write the numbers the way that european words are written, We would be little-endian too. As it is, I'm sure that there are many persian/arab immigrants who wonder why we switch from european left-to-right to the arab right-to-left whenever we deal with numbers.
As for those people who think that bits in a little-endian byte are stored backwards, they're not. In a 32 bit word, they're stored 0,1,2,3....31. we just WRITE them in big-endian nibble format because to do otherwise might confuse our already warped notion of how numbers work.
If you think about it, it makes complete sense to store data in little-endian format. You start work with the bits where the pointer points to; Truncating from fullword to byte requires simply ignoring the extra bytes; Arbitrary-precision math doesn't require you to skip to the end and count back... You simply do your operation until you run out of bytes. Data can be stored as [max-len] [used-len] [data] [sparebytes]; extending precision simply requires using more bytes.. No need to change pointers or copy data to make space for the extra digits.
If computers had been developed in Persia, where modern Algebra developed, there wouldn't be any big-endian/little-endian fight to speak of. Ditto if the original translators had their shit together.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
If RedHat is able to make money selling, for $1K what I'm selling for $1.50 then all the more power to them. My guess is that they'd also have to provide scads of support, or something, to be able to hold amarket share under those conditions.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
As for me, I'm going after the KDEssian Federation.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Then we can add fingerprinting all children in Junior High. Makes tracking rapists and killers that much easier.
Then there's this "innocent until proven guilty" bullshit.... I mean do you know how many guilty murderers have gone free because of this? Why not have the accused prove their innocence?
.....
The road to a dictatorship is paved with good explanations.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!