One of the really silly assumptions in Sci-Fi seems to be that, as soon as any computer reaches a certain level of intelligence, that it will magically develop self-awareness and decide to take over the world. The truth about computers is that they are highspeed idiots that do only what you program them to do. If you program a computer to think in a certain way, it will think only in that way.
Is it possible to have a sentient computer? Yeah, I think so. But not as long as what we think of as AI is nothing more than beefy expert systems. A system that is based totally on logic and cannot change its core nature is therefore stuck doing only what you programmed it to.
The up-side to that is when we design intelligent systems to do specific things, they're not going to rebel and decide not to do what we programmed them for. What is required for an AI to think outside of the box? I don't know. But until we figure that out, they never will have that ability.
With Linux, we have practically unlimited resources. As soon as we jump a kernel version, the last version can be handed off to a new volunteer who will maintain it indefinately. For Microsoft, they have limited engineering resources and, as large as they are, can't afford to expand indefinately to maintain older versions of their OS. Particularly as they feel more and more the pressure from the Free Software movement bearing down on them, they're going to have to devote more and more of their resources to newer versions of their OS and other products, and as FS developers get ever more organized, we're going to get ever harder to compete with. Microsoft is doing the best thing for themselves and for the rest of us, because, frankly, we need the competition to keep us motivated.
Why do companies throw around the word "Proprietary" as if that's a good thing? Do they think people are going to be impressed because it's "Proprietary"?
"Yes, that's right, folks! We avoid the use of open standards, and that's what makes us great!"
Hmmm... Consider this: Let's say _I_ write a piece of software onto which I put the GPL license. But I decide that, because it's kinda broken, I would rather wait an extra month before I go totally live, so I send it only to a few close friends who promise to keep it under wraps.
Then one of those people leaks the code, which spreads around to people who mistakenly think it's a production version, causing word to get around that my app sucks.
What do you think about this situation? I, as the author, am not doing anything unethical by trying wanting to wait an extra month, or am I? Do I not have rights to control my own code ever?
Intellectual property aside, what about the fact that that "friend" broke their promise to me? Is it ethical to break a promise any time you like? That is my beef with the original leaker anyhow. I was not bothered by there being a leaked version of the browser. I was bothered by the fact that some jerk decided to be untrustworthy and ruined a good thing for lots of other people.
I really love the GPL because of its benefits. There's a ton of excellent software out there which stays excellent and doesn't get hijacked by commercial interests (but gets helped by them a lot!). I also 100% respect it. In any case where I would derive from GPL code, I would follow the license to the letter. If I were ever to release a derivative work, I would make sure that the original source and my source are freely available. I think it's vital that people do that. The GPL must be respected, at the very least, out of respect for the people who have contributed.
And that's what it comes down to for me: respect. I'll admit that I have had more than a few illegal copies of commercial software at various points in the past, but at the same time, I'm relieved that I don't have to do that anymore because (a) I make enough money to pay for it if I want it now, and (b) there are great OSS alternatives. Out of RESPECT, I heed the wishes of producers of intellectual property to not use their products in ways which they disallow. (Out of respect for Microsoft, I don't use Windows, because I don't like their price and licensing terms.)
Are you one of those people who thinks that all information must be free? Do you want to outlaw commercial software or force ISV's to open their source code? Are you the kind of person who says that if I produce ANYTHING AT ALL, I should make it publically available? What about privacy? What if I make a video of my wife and me having sex? Are you saying you have rights to that? Am I not allowed to say "You may not have a copy of that"?
And so you say, I am an individual with privacy rights, but Apple is a fictional entity. But you forget that Apple is made up of people who care about their work. They take it personally, both the work and what others do with it. Does it not matter to you that some of the INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPERS might not appreciate someone leaking their software prematurely? Forget corporate interests. This is a matter of trust and respect.
The fact that Free Software tends to become excellent software is not a justification for forcing every piece of software to be Open Source. If someone wants to keep their source closed, and therefore sucky, that's their business and their loss. Are you in the business of trying to FORCE developers to open their source? Why bother? If OSS is inherently better, then it'll win out naturally, because people will choose it over the closed alternative. That's the great thing about an open market where both the developers AND the consumers are free to CHOOSE amongst alternatives.
I read the page you pointed me to on the FSF web site. Its first premise, basically that authors have no right to control what they produce, I think is absolute bollox. Authors take pride in their work and want to be recognized for it. We should respect that. And besides, slapping the GPL on something exerts no less control than any other license. It is a statement
I'm all for Free Software. But in this case, it was Apple's work, so Apple gets to dictate what people can do with it. I don't believe in abuse of intellectual property, but this wasn't abuse. This was Apple making a reasonable request.
This is no different from how an open source developer can use the GPL to dictate that you may not turn his work into a closed-source commercial product.
I consider this to be a small ethical violation on the part of the individual who leaked the beta, at least compared to many other things. Nevertheless, Apple had placed their trust in a group of developers, and some jerk decided to violate that trust. However small of a violation that this may be, as compared to, say, murder, I would still like to see that individual publically flogged.
So, the requirement is that the school not BUY any new Microsoft products. But what about anything that Microsoft gives away to the school for free? See, if MS is desperate enough to indoctrinate the impressionable youth into using their stuff when they graduate, then they'll give stuff to the school as sortof an "investment" in the future.
While I agree with the idea that CS courses should be about concepts and problem-solving, but I find it to be very sad when numerous CS graduates I interview don't know any programming language at all. (Oh, and they didn't seem to learn any concepts either.)
Maybe they need something like VMS's file versioning. If done right, they could keep the directory clutter down, while maintaining multiple versions. To an extent, the multiple DLL's could appear as one file.
1) Too many US government agencies use Windows. Opening the source code would allow hackers to find and exploit even MORE Microsoft bugs, and far more easily. Numerous government, as well as civilian, installations will get hacked big-time. Since Microsoft would never listen to anyone who noticed a bug while looking through source, this isn't an opportunity for improvement.
2) Windows includes a number of encryption algorithms whose ability to be secure may benefit from being closed source. It's harder to crack encryption if you know neither the key nor the algorithm. This is the sort of thing that M$ could omit from their shared source, however.
So are you saying that Amazon is doing us all a favor by patenting common-sense ideas so that no one will get sued over them? If they only enforce their patents in a few cases that they are forced to pay attention to and even then only for trivial royalties, then in fact, they're doing something which protects the intellectual commons from excessive exploitation.
Has Amazon ever sued anyone over their patents?
Don't lawyers have a responsibility to be ethical?
on
Verbing Weirds Google
·
· Score: 1
I once attended, as an observer, a swearing-in ceremony for the Florida Bar Association. From the judges conducting the ceremony, there was a lot of talk about "ethics" and "responsibility" and all sorts of other lofty things. It all sounded great.
But then we have lawyers like this one who works for Google who produces and out-and-out LIE and professes it to be the truth. Unless he's a complete IDIOT, then he should know the law in this area. It's his speciality, after all.
Speaning as someone who has designed a graphics accelerator chip, I can say that having to include a VGA controller is a total waste of design effort and circuit area. It's useful ONLY for boot-up on PC's, and then as soon as a real OS comes up, it's turned off and forgotten about. It's a pointless anoyance, and I'll be elated to see it go away.
that any server or ISP serves a porn site is tainted and therefore deserves to have everything blocked, because, you know how one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, kinda like Catholic priests who molest little boys.
On the second page of the article, they have this text:
Let's dip our toe into the waters right here: in order to compress a 1.2 GB DV-video file to MPEG 2, the 1996 Intel Pentium 166 MMX takes an excruciating 7,688 seconds - equivalent to two hours and eight minutes of processing time. By contrast, Intel's top of the range processor, the 3.06 GHz P4, completes this task under the same conditions in 292 seconds, or 4 minutes, 52 seconds. We are looking at a 26-fold difference in performance here.
So, for an 18x increase in clock speed, they get a 26x improvement in performance. That means the number of instructions per clock has gone up by only a factor of two, at least for this application. That's not very impressive, considering how much extra hardware they've thrown at it over the years.
One platform outperforming another is not the major factor affecting people's interests. Marketing is. Yes, we have to have the debate out in the open so that MS can state their side so that we can refute it. Yes, we have to be open and honest about it. But the platform will never 'stand on its own merits'. We beat Microsoft by out-marketing them.
The fact that Berman doesn't know why it tanked is the reason it tanked.
Seriously, I mean, if producers knew that the movies they were producing were going to suck, do you think they'd produce them? (Well, maybe some of them.)
So, when you take a producer, writers, and director who don't know how to make something good, they're very likely to make something awful, and that's what happened with Nemesis.
The movie had no plot. Everything that happened in the movie that might have been interesting (like the naked wedding) was glossed over for a main plot-line that didn't go anywhere. Literally. The primarly segment of the plot happened in damaged ships in the Romulan neutral zone.
And of course, the Remans were just a BAD idea. Talk about YASTPOTW! (Yet Another Star Trek Particle Of The Week.) It was a plot devices pulled out of someone's nether regions. They used it because they thought it was cool, but they never stopped to consider if it was a bad idea or try to develop it into something interesting.
I have hated the last two Star Wars movies. Lucas totally sold out, and it's completely tainted my feelings about the three movies that came before. BUT, at least we get a proper introduction to some of the creatures. I mean, we actually get to see some interesting things about the Gungans.
Of course, it's possible that I missed some of the character development. I was bored and maybe didn't pay attention well.
The bottom line is that Star Trek has been going down-hill (except maybe Enterprise, but it's got problems too) since Roddenberry died. It's a case where other people just do not understand Roddenberry's vision but are arrogant enough to believe they can continue on with it. I don't know a small fraction of what it is that made Star Trek Star Trek when Roddenberry was around, and I have a feeling that, while Berman may know a lot more, he doesn't know it all either. And by 'know', I mean 'grok'.
There have been countless vector graphics formats since the beginning of computer science, and presumably all of them have been scalable. What's different about this one that makes it better and/or will make it not die like the rest of them?
When I was in college, I found myself in classes with many other students that just did not understand the material well. Sure, plenty of them did--some naturally, some through hard study (a combination of both for me). But many of those students who were poor performers, either because they were lazy or their brains just weren't up to the task, were getting relatively high grades.
On the plus side, it wasn't easy to go from a B to an A, but on the other side, it wasn't too hard to get a B. And many poor students were getting A's anyhow, somehow.
Now that I've been out in the industry for 6 years, and my work history can speak for me, it doesn't bother me so much, but when I first got out of college, I was very frustrated that an employer couldn't distinguish my A's from someone else's.
Inflating grades is bad for students and employers. It's bad for the students who ARE smart and willing to work, and it's bad for employers, because they can't use grades as a way to evaluate people they interview.
If Marlboro were to sell nic-free cigarettes, and that caused people to lose their addiction, therefore causing probably a good number of them to quit, wouldn't that be a hit to the bottom line?
Mono sounds great, but one of the biggest things that has isolated Linux from Windows-based viruses is that they're incompatible. Adding.NET to Linux means that every Linux box will now require very sophistocated anti-virus software.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the really silly assumptions in Sci-Fi seems to be that, as soon as any computer reaches a certain level of intelligence, that it will magically develop self-awareness and decide to take over the world. The truth about computers is that they are highspeed idiots that do only what you program them to do. If you program a computer to think in a certain way, it will think only in that way.
Is it possible to have a sentient computer? Yeah, I think so. But not as long as what we think of as AI is nothing more than beefy expert systems. A system that is based totally on logic and cannot change its core nature is therefore stuck doing only what you programmed it to.
The up-side to that is when we design intelligent systems to do specific things, they're not going to rebel and decide not to do what we programmed them for. What is required for an AI to think outside of the box? I don't know. But until we figure that out, they never will have that ability.
With Linux, we have practically unlimited resources. As soon as we jump a kernel version, the last version can be handed off to a new volunteer who will maintain it indefinately. For Microsoft, they have limited engineering resources and, as large as they are, can't afford to expand indefinately to maintain older versions of their OS. Particularly as they feel more and more the pressure from the Free Software movement bearing down on them, they're going to have to devote more and more of their resources to newer versions of their OS and other products, and as FS developers get ever more organized, we're going to get ever harder to compete with. Microsoft is doing the best thing for themselves and for the rest of us, because, frankly, we need the competition to keep us motivated.
Why do companies throw around the word "Proprietary" as if that's a good thing? Do they think people are going to be impressed because it's "Proprietary"?
"Yes, that's right, folks! We avoid the use of open standards, and that's what makes us great!"
Because when I push it to 7x, it crashes.
Hmmm... Consider this: Let's say _I_ write a piece of software onto which I put the GPL license. But I decide that, because it's kinda broken, I would rather wait an extra month before I go totally live, so I send it only to a few close friends who promise to keep it under wraps.
Then one of those people leaks the code, which spreads around to people who mistakenly think it's a production version, causing word to get around that my app sucks.
What do you think about this situation? I, as the author, am not doing anything unethical by trying wanting to wait an extra month, or am I? Do I not have rights to control my own code ever?
Intellectual property aside, what about the fact that that "friend" broke their promise to me? Is it ethical to break a promise any time you like? That is my beef with the original leaker anyhow. I was not bothered by there being a leaked version of the browser. I was bothered by the fact that some jerk decided to be untrustworthy and ruined a good thing for lots of other people.
I really love the GPL because of its benefits. There's a ton of excellent software out there which stays excellent and doesn't get hijacked by commercial interests (but gets helped by them a lot!). I also 100% respect it. In any case where I would derive from GPL code, I would follow the license to the letter. If I were ever to release a derivative work, I would make sure that the original source and my source are freely available. I think it's vital that people do that. The GPL must be respected, at the very least, out of respect for the people who have contributed.
And that's what it comes down to for me: respect. I'll admit that I have had more than a few illegal copies of commercial software at various points in the past, but at the same time, I'm relieved that I don't have to do that anymore because (a) I make enough money to pay for it if I want it now, and (b) there are great OSS alternatives. Out of RESPECT, I heed the wishes of producers of intellectual property to not use their products in ways which they disallow. (Out of respect for Microsoft, I don't use Windows, because I don't like their price and licensing terms.)
Are you one of those people who thinks that all information must be free? Do you want to outlaw commercial software or force ISV's to open their source code? Are you the kind of person who says that if I produce ANYTHING AT ALL, I should make it publically available? What about privacy? What if I make a video of my wife and me having sex? Are you saying you have rights to that? Am I not allowed to say "You may not have a copy of that"?
And so you say, I am an individual with privacy rights, but Apple is a fictional entity. But you forget that Apple is made up of people who care about their work. They take it personally, both the work and what others do with it. Does it not matter to you that some of the INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPERS might not appreciate someone leaking their software prematurely? Forget corporate interests. This is a matter of trust and respect.
The fact that Free Software tends to become excellent software is not a justification for forcing every piece of software to be Open Source. If someone wants to keep their source closed, and therefore sucky, that's their business and their loss. Are you in the business of trying to FORCE developers to open their source? Why bother? If OSS is inherently better, then it'll win out naturally, because people will choose it over the closed alternative. That's the great thing about an open market where both the developers AND the consumers are free to CHOOSE amongst alternatives.
I read the page you pointed me to on the FSF web site. Its first premise, basically that authors have no right to control what they produce, I think is absolute bollox. Authors take pride in their work and want to be recognized for it. We should respect that. And besides, slapping the GPL on something exerts no less control than any other license. It is a statement
I'm all for Free Software. But in this case, it was Apple's work, so Apple gets to dictate what people can do with it. I don't believe in abuse of intellectual property, but this wasn't abuse. This was Apple making a reasonable request.
This is no different from how an open source developer can use the GPL to dictate that you may not turn his work into a closed-source commercial product.
I consider this to be a small ethical violation on the part of the individual who leaked the beta, at least compared to many other things. Nevertheless, Apple had placed their trust in a group of developers, and some jerk decided to violate that trust. However small of a violation that this may be, as compared to, say, murder, I would still like to see that individual publically flogged.
So, the requirement is that the school not BUY any new Microsoft products. But what about anything that Microsoft gives away to the school for free? See, if MS is desperate enough to indoctrinate the impressionable youth into using their stuff when they graduate, then they'll give stuff to the school as sortof an "investment" in the future.
:)
Yeah, I know. Stupid idea.
While I agree with the idea that CS courses should be about concepts and problem-solving, but I find it to be very sad when numerous CS graduates I interview don't know any programming language at all. (Oh, and they didn't seem to learn any concepts either.)
Haven't people been doing this for decades? Back in the 80's, I'd seen more than one PBS show on it.
Maybe they need something like VMS's file versioning. If done right, they could keep the directory clutter down, while maintaining multiple versions. To an extent, the multiple DLL's could appear as one file.
1) Too many US government agencies use Windows. Opening the source code would allow hackers to find and exploit even MORE Microsoft bugs, and far more easily. Numerous government, as well as civilian, installations will get hacked big-time. Since Microsoft would never listen to anyone who noticed a bug while looking through source, this isn't an opportunity for improvement.
2) Windows includes a number of encryption algorithms whose ability to be secure may benefit from being closed source. It's harder to crack encryption if you know neither the key nor the algorithm. This is the sort of thing that M$ could omit from their shared source, however.
So are you saying that Amazon is doing us all a favor by patenting common-sense ideas so that no one will get sued over them? If they only enforce their patents in a few cases that they are forced to pay attention to and even then only for trivial royalties, then in fact, they're doing something which protects the intellectual commons from excessive exploitation.
Has Amazon ever sued anyone over their patents?
I once attended, as an observer, a swearing-in ceremony for the Florida Bar Association. From the judges conducting the ceremony, there was a lot of talk about "ethics" and "responsibility" and all sorts of other lofty things. It all sounded great.
But then we have lawyers like this one who works for Google who produces and out-and-out LIE and professes it to be the truth. Unless he's a complete IDIOT, then he should know the law in this area. It's his speciality, after all.
Makes me sick.
Speaning as someone who has designed a graphics accelerator chip, I can say that having to include a VGA controller is a total waste of design effort and circuit area. It's useful ONLY for boot-up on PC's, and then as soon as a real OS comes up, it's turned off and forgotten about. It's a pointless anoyance, and I'll be elated to see it go away.
that any server or ISP serves a porn site is tainted and therefore deserves to have everything blocked, because, you know how one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, kinda like Catholic priests who molest little boys.
So, for an 18x increase in clock speed, they get a 26x improvement in performance. That means the number of instructions per clock has gone up by only a factor of two, at least for this application. That's not very impressive, considering how much extra hardware they've thrown at it over the years.
One platform outperforming another is not the major factor affecting people's interests. Marketing is. Yes, we have to have the debate out in the open so that MS can state their side so that we can refute it. Yes, we have to be open and honest about it. But the platform will never 'stand on its own merits'. We beat Microsoft by out-marketing them.
The fact that Berman doesn't know why it tanked is the reason it tanked.
Seriously, I mean, if producers knew that the movies they were producing were going to suck, do you think they'd produce them? (Well, maybe some of them.)
So, when you take a producer, writers, and director who don't know how to make something good, they're very likely to make something awful, and that's what happened with Nemesis.
The movie had no plot. Everything that happened in the movie that might have been interesting (like the naked wedding) was glossed over for a main plot-line that didn't go anywhere. Literally. The primarly segment of the plot happened in damaged ships in the Romulan neutral zone.
And of course, the Remans were just a BAD idea. Talk about YASTPOTW! (Yet Another Star Trek Particle Of The Week.) It was a plot devices pulled out of someone's nether regions. They used it because they thought it was cool, but they never stopped to consider if it was a bad idea or try to develop it into something interesting.
I have hated the last two Star Wars movies. Lucas totally sold out, and it's completely tainted my feelings about the three movies that came before. BUT, at least we get a proper introduction to some of the creatures. I mean, we actually get to see some interesting things about the Gungans.
Of course, it's possible that I missed some of the character development. I was bored and maybe didn't pay attention well.
The bottom line is that Star Trek has been going down-hill (except maybe Enterprise, but it's got problems too) since Roddenberry died. It's a case where other people just do not understand Roddenberry's vision but are arrogant enough to believe they can continue on with it. I don't know a small fraction of what it is that made Star Trek Star Trek when Roddenberry was around, and I have a feeling that, while Berman may know a lot more, he doesn't know it all either. And by 'know', I mean 'grok'.
There have been countless vector graphics formats since the beginning of computer science, and presumably all of them have been scalable. What's different about this one that makes it better and/or will make it not die like the rest of them?
This Xupiter thing sounds like it's more like a virus to me. Not that most spyware programs aren't viruses to some degree or other...
When I was in college, I found myself in classes with many other students that just did not understand the material well. Sure, plenty of them did--some naturally, some through hard study (a combination of both for me). But many of those students who were poor performers, either because they were lazy or their brains just weren't up to the task, were getting relatively high grades.
On the plus side, it wasn't easy to go from a B to an A, but on the other side, it wasn't too hard to get a B. And many poor students were getting A's anyhow, somehow.
Now that I've been out in the industry for 6 years, and my work history can speak for me, it doesn't bother me so much, but when I first got out of college, I was very frustrated that an employer couldn't distinguish my A's from someone else's.
Inflating grades is bad for students and employers. It's bad for the students who ARE smart and willing to work, and it's bad for employers, because they can't use grades as a way to evaluate people they interview.
If Marlboro were to sell nic-free cigarettes, and that caused people to lose their addiction, therefore causing probably a good number of them to quit, wouldn't that be a hit to the bottom line?
Are they animal dropping-free also? I mean, that's half the taste!
Mono sounds great, but one of the biggest things that has isolated Linux from Windows-based viruses is that they're incompatible. Adding .NET to Linux means that every Linux box will now require very sophistocated anti-virus software.