I've read three of his other books: The Terminal Experiment, Flashfoward, and Calculating God -- Hoping that maybe they would get better. But sadly, they don't.
He takes far too many of his scene descriptions directly from public spaces. If you've ever lived in Toronto, you know the exact locations he's talking about, and you really wish he would shut up about it, and stop using the word Toronto. He goes into such inane detail that you know which subway stop to get off at, how many blocks over to walk, and which side of the street to be on to be standing right where his cardboard characters uttered something absolutely obvious, and then go over to Pizza^H^H^H^H^HFood Food for all their dietary needs.
I don't know if I'll be running out to buy a cellphone with a projector in it to show of my family photos -- but I could see this being much more useful in developing countries where the cost and power consumption of LCD/CRT/OLED will be a significant factor for a long time to come. It looks perfect for something like the projects Inveneo is doing in Uganda with their bycicle powered thin client and phone service.
I'd be curious to know what the build of materials is for something like this.
I think we're mistaking what the black box concept is trying to stop us from doing -- tampering, and violating the design contract.
I would say that the glass box is a better metaphor. Though a well documented module would make it mostly unnecessary to see inside it as it's operation should be documented so that you would know how to use it. You can see in the box, but may only manipulate it through the public interface.
Oh, it's not a guage, oh, why don't they print out a number... Sounds like a bunch of frustrated programmers who haven't had an idea of their own.
It's called human computer interaction. The doctor has his hands and eyes full. A small auditory queue of whether it's safe to try to move that robotic arm (via an APPROPRIATE interface, not the keypad on your keyboard) is of great benefit.
It's simple, effective, and doesn't require an understanding of networking or what the numbers mean. Low pitch bad, high pitch good (or whatever the mapping is)... It's so simple, it's perfect. Like treemaps. Have you ever seen hiarchial data represented in such a useful manner?
I was visiting the Vancouver site a couple of months ago when they were assembling it. It looks sweet. A nice big array of Dual Athalons. The system is being linked together over CA*Net 3, a nation wide OC192 fibre network.
They're also experimenting with distributing different parts of the system in different locales. Like disk storage in one part of the country, heavy number crunchers in the other, to see how distributed a system can really be and still function well.
CA*Net is still looking for applications, the network is being severely underutilized. http://www.canarie.ca/advnet/canet3.html
First, thank you for your reply. Out of context, the lines that you pasted from mine don't accurately represent what I was saying, so
I'll try to avoid doing the same.
On the subject of the US being a repesentative democracy, where the representatives are hired for for years,my question remains the
same. Who is accountable? In a dictatorship, it's obvious. But if these elected representatives are truely acting based on the will of
the people, and the people agree with their decision, who takes the fall when the rest of the world disagrees, and decides that someone
needs to be penalized?
Should the punishment be absorbed by the entire community, or should the representative be punished?
I in no way meant to discount those that were lost in the WTC, Pentagon, and the other flight that crashed. I acknowledge that the
Taliban is a known supporter of the Al Qaeda network and an abusive and oppresive government, remember though that they didn't directly
attack you, they refused to turn over a suspect. Finding evidence after the fact doesn't justify the means. The FBI can't walk into your
home without a warrant (well, maybe they can now), any evidence they found would be inadmissable.
It's dangerous to blend Al Qaeda with the Taliban. If one says that the Taliban is accountable for the attacks agains the US, one could
also say that the US is responsible for the attacks against the US. Bin Laden was part of a group fighting against the Northern Alliance
(who were supported by the USSR), and the US was more than willing to support these freedom fighters. It makes the US' decisions look
like rhetoric.
I may have missed something in all the headlines of the media conglomerates feeding me, but I don't recall there being much due process
before the bombing campaigns began. It seems more like vigilante activities, as deserved as they might be, than justice. If we compare
the WTC to the Oklahoma bombing (granted they're on different scales, but they're at least comparable -- ie. apples and apples, rather
than apples and oranges), and the reaction afterwards, the response to the Oklahoma bombing followed due process even though it was not
clear that there was not a continued risk of further attacks. Correct me if I'm wrong, my memory is less than perfect.
It seems that the middle east is enslaved to Western nations in some respects. Western countries want their oil, their governments want
western money. Afghanistan is stuck in the middle, literally. There's oil in Turkmenistan, and people want to get it to the gulf. The
pipeline either goes through Afghanistan and US friendly Pakistan, or through Iran. There are so many interested parties being served by
this campaign, that I hope that you agree that something doesn't smell right.
My car runs on the blood of the innocent! Hurray.
Your question of how to deal with these terrorists is the same one I have in my mind. I don't believe bombing a country and then cleaning
up the mess afterwards is an acceptable solution, and it saddens me that we couldn't think of something better.
Be safe, be good. Hope to meet you some day, instead of fighting you. Good passage.
And I wish you the same. If you're ever in Toronto, I'd be more than happy to debate over a cup of tea, or beverage of your choice;)
Sorry I didn't respond to everything, I ran out of steam.
Go visit iran if you can to get some prespective
on
The Satellite Subversives
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I spent a week in Tehran, Iran this month. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay with people I knew, and visit with their friends.
It's a beautiful city, if a bit polluted (I had a lung infection while I was there, so I spent a lot of time coughing), and everyone I met was
extremely friendly and warm hearted. Filled with courage, and optimistic that change would come soon, that they will have more liberties soon and it will be by the will of their own people.
Support for the regime has declined to about 10%, and over 50% of the population is under the age of 25. In my mind, that makes for an ideal environment for change. Things will change, and I think the best thing is for foreign interests to stay out of the way. Offer advice, offer knowledge without hidden motives. If the US attacks this country, or further manipulates the situation for their economic benifit, I hope that somewhere, someone will speak against such
inhumane and criminal acts.
The US government has already gone too far with Afghanistan, and I hope that we, the people of the world wake up and hold them accountable for
their crimes against humanity.
Who "they" are should also be thought about carefully. Are the American people responsible for the acts of their governments? I certainly
wouldn't hold the Afghans, or Iranians to that standard; but what's the case in a democracy?
You can't attack a government without hurting the people it governs. You also can't use the same thought constructs from one country to justify the attacks against another. The Afghans are not in control of their government. It doesn't represent them. It's supported by atomatons, not the belief of the people.
In theory the US government is a representation of the belief of it's people. It would be wrong to use that though construct to justify an attack against Afghanistan. So if the US government truly does represent the people, please stop blowing up innocents in what is already a war-torn region of the world in an attempt to thwart the government that oppress them. Think of some other way. There are over 250 million of you, and over 6 billion of us in the rest of the world, what could we do differently?
This TV station seems like a good idea. They're broadcating their ideals into Iran, and the people there have the option to acknowledge them. What else can we do to disceminate other views and ideals in a manner that does not trample over their right to choose on their own?
I don't really have any ideas yet, so maybe you can help me get started...
The first things that comes to mind is that many people there are poorly educated, so that they're easily manipulated and taken advantage of. So, if we could translate educational material into Farsi so that the people there who can read could help disceminate knowledge.
What knowledge do you think is essential to help stop people from taking advantage of you?
A services model for business is exactly what they're doing. They're shifting their revenue stream away from the operating system, so that in a few years time, they can justify giving the operating system away free of charge.
It's not that different from what many Linux companies are doing. Service fees are the way of the future.
I agree. From the tone of the article, it sounded like Look was targeting the residential market. The average consumer isn't willing to pay more than $50/mo for a highspeed connect.
One of my clients is a wireless company (which also happens to be based out of Ontario), and they are only targeting the business market, where there is no qualm about paying $500-700/mo for the equivalent of a T1. They have been extremely successful.
If you look at how successful technology has been introduced in the past, first you build up your infrastructure with the high-paying customers, and once that is in place, then you go after the residential market.
I'm working on some more visually pleasing console monitoring tools (currently hacked into iwspy, soon to be using a nice library I'm working on), and an SNMP module for ucd-snmp. If anyone is interested, skip on over to http://unitycode.org/main/OpenSourc e/W OWLIB/.
My employer actually encourages us to take time off, and that work starts and stops at definite times.
But I can't stop myself from working more, because I feel like I'll fall behind. It's the internet that pushes me into longer hours -- trying to keep up with all the changing software, so that I'm not taken by surprise by the competition.
Slashdot Mirror
I've read three of his other books: The Terminal Experiment, Flashfoward, and Calculating God -- Hoping that maybe they would get better. But sadly, they don't.
He takes far too many of his scene descriptions directly from public spaces. If you've ever lived in Toronto, you know the exact locations he's talking about, and you really wish he would shut up about it, and stop using the word Toronto. He goes into such inane detail that you know which subway stop to get off at, how many blocks over to walk, and which side of the street to be on to be standing right where his cardboard characters uttered something absolutely obvious, and then go over to Pizza^H^H^H^H^HFood Food for all their dietary needs.
I don't know if I'll be running out to buy a cellphone with a projector in it to show of my family photos -- but I could see this being much more useful in developing countries where the cost and power consumption of LCD/CRT/OLED will be a significant factor for a long time to come. It looks perfect for something like the projects Inveneo is doing in Uganda with their bycicle powered thin client and phone service.
I'd be curious to know what the build of materials is for something like this.
I think we're mistaking what the black box concept is trying to stop us from doing -- tampering, and violating the design contract.
I would say that the glass box is a better metaphor. Though a well documented module would make it mostly unnecessary to see inside it as it's operation should be documented so that you would know how to use it. You can see in the box, but may only manipulate it through the public interface.
sorry, bad link. http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemaps/
Oh, it's not a guage, oh, why don't they print out a number... Sounds like a bunch of frustrated programmers who haven't had an idea of their own.
... It's so simple, it's perfect. Like treemaps. Have you ever seen hiarchial data represented in such a useful manner?
It's called human computer interaction. The doctor has his hands and eyes full. A small auditory queue of whether it's safe to try to move that robotic arm (via an APPROPRIATE interface, not the keypad on your keyboard) is of great benefit.
It's simple, effective, and doesn't require an understanding of networking or what the numbers mean. Low pitch bad, high pitch good (or whatever the mapping is)
Sorry, CA*Net 4 is the OC192 network, CA*Net 3 is OC3, but it's being underutilized too!4 mapl3. htm
http://www.canet3.net/stats/CAnet4map/CAnet
Actually, they are Linux Clusters.
I was visiting the Vancouver site a couple of months ago when they were assembling it. It looks sweet. A nice big array of Dual Athalons. The system is being linked together over CA*Net 3, a nation wide OC192 fibre network.
They're also experimenting with distributing different parts of the system in different locales. Like disk storage in one part of the country, heavy number crunchers in the other, to see how distributed a system can really be and still function well.
CA*Net is still looking for applications, the network is being severely underutilized. http://www.canarie.ca/advnet/canet3.html
On the subject of the US being a repesentative democracy, where the representatives are hired for for years,my question remains the same. Who is accountable? In a dictatorship, it's obvious. But if these elected representatives are truely acting based on the will of the people, and the people agree with their decision, who takes the fall when the rest of the world disagrees, and decides that someone needs to be penalized?
Should the punishment be absorbed by the entire community, or should the representative be punished?
I in no way meant to discount those that were lost in the WTC, Pentagon, and the other flight that crashed. I acknowledge that the Taliban is a known supporter of the Al Qaeda network and an abusive and oppresive government, remember though that they didn't directly attack you, they refused to turn over a suspect. Finding evidence after the fact doesn't justify the means. The FBI can't walk into your home without a warrant (well, maybe they can now), any evidence they found would be inadmissable.
It's dangerous to blend Al Qaeda with the Taliban. If one says that the Taliban is accountable for the attacks agains the US, one could also say that the US is responsible for the attacks against the US. Bin Laden was part of a group fighting against the Northern Alliance (who were supported by the USSR), and the US was more than willing to support these freedom fighters. It makes the US' decisions look like rhetoric.
I may have missed something in all the headlines of the media conglomerates feeding me, but I don't recall there being much due process before the bombing campaigns began. It seems more like vigilante activities, as deserved as they might be, than justice. If we compare the WTC to the Oklahoma bombing (granted they're on different scales, but they're at least comparable -- ie. apples and apples, rather than apples and oranges), and the reaction afterwards, the response to the Oklahoma bombing followed due process even though it was not clear that there was not a continued risk of further attacks. Correct me if I'm wrong, my memory is less than perfect.
It seems that the middle east is enslaved to Western nations in some respects. Western countries want their oil, their governments want western money. Afghanistan is stuck in the middle, literally. There's oil in Turkmenistan, and people want to get it to the gulf. The pipeline either goes through Afghanistan and US friendly Pakistan, or through Iran. There are so many interested parties being served by this campaign, that I hope that you agree that something doesn't smell right.
My car runs on the blood of the innocent! Hurray.
Your question of how to deal with these terrorists is the same one I have in my mind. I don't believe bombing a country and then cleaning up the mess afterwards is an acceptable solution, and it saddens me that we couldn't think of something better.
Be safe, be good. Hope to meet you some day, instead of fighting you. Good passage.
And I wish you the same. If you're ever in Toronto, I'd be more than happy to debate over a cup of tea, or beverage of your choice ;)
Sorry I didn't respond to everything, I ran out of steam.
Here is some interesting material if you feel like reading more opinions about afghanistan:
afghanistan.unitycode.org
globalcitizenthinktank.com
It's a beautiful city, if a bit polluted (I had a lung infection while I was there, so I spent a lot of time coughing), and everyone I met was extremely friendly and warm hearted. Filled with courage, and optimistic that change would come soon, that they will have more liberties soon and it will be by the will of their own people.
Support for the regime has declined to about 10%, and over 50% of the population is under the age of 25. In my mind, that makes for an ideal environment for change. Things will change, and I think the best thing is for foreign interests to stay out of the way. Offer advice, offer knowledge without hidden motives. If the US attacks this country, or further manipulates the situation for their economic benifit, I hope that somewhere, someone will speak against such inhumane and criminal acts.
The US government has already gone too far with Afghanistan, and I hope that we, the people of the world wake up and hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity.
Who "they" are should also be thought about carefully. Are the American people responsible for the acts of their governments? I certainly wouldn't hold the Afghans, or Iranians to that standard; but what's the case in a democracy?
You can't attack a government without hurting the people it governs. You also can't use the same thought constructs from one country to justify the attacks against another. The Afghans are not in control of their government. It doesn't represent them. It's supported by atomatons, not the belief of the people.
In theory the US government is a representation of the belief of it's people. It would be wrong to use that though construct to justify an attack against Afghanistan. So if the US government truly does represent the people, please stop blowing up innocents in what is already a war-torn region of the world in an attempt to thwart the government that oppress them. Think of some other way. There are over 250 million of you, and over 6 billion of us in the rest of the world, what could we do differently?
This TV station seems like a good idea. They're broadcating their ideals into Iran, and the people there have the option to acknowledge them. What else can we do to disceminate other views and ideals in a manner that does not trample over their right to choose on their own?
I don't really have any ideas yet, so maybe you can help me get started...
The first things that comes to mind is that many people there are poorly educated, so that they're easily manipulated and taken advantage of. So, if we could translate educational material into Farsi so that the people there who can read could help disceminate knowledge.
What knowledge do you think is essential to help stop people from taking advantage of you?
A services model for business is exactly what they're doing. They're shifting their revenue stream away from the operating system, so that in a few years time, they can justify giving the operating system away free of charge.
It's not that different from what many Linux companies are doing. Service fees are the way of the future.
I agree. From the tone of the article, it sounded like Look was targeting the residential market. The average consumer isn't willing to pay more than $50/mo for a highspeed connect.
One of my clients is a wireless company (which also happens to be based out of Ontario), and they are only targeting the business market, where there is no qualm about paying $500-700/mo for the equivalent of a T1. They have been extremely successful.
If you look at how successful technology has been introduced in the past, first you build up your infrastructure with the high-paying customers, and once that is in place, then you go after the residential market.
If only they had an IE theme.
I'm working on some more visually pleasing console monitoring tools (currently hacked into iwspy, soon to be using a nice library I'm working on), and an SNMP module for ucd-snmp. If anyone is interested, skip on over to http://unitycode.org/main/OpenSourc e/W OWLIB/.
But I can't stop myself from working more, because I feel like I'll fall behind. It's the internet that pushes me into longer hours -- trying to keep up with all the changing software, so that I'm not taken by surprise by the competition.