One of the things that threaten government and large industry the
most is the fact that these technologies empower the individual in a
way that only government and industry were empowered before. They
would like to use the excuse that these technologies can be used for
crime to remove them from everybody's hands.
But this is precisely the danger of technology. It is destabilizing
to government and society to give more power to individuals.
It's quite sensible to assume, based on evolution, that there will be
some percentage of crazy people in the world. In the past, the worst
damage they could do was kill a few people with clubs. In the future,
with enough technology, they might be able to wipe out the planet.
However, not all technology, will lead to these types of problems.
Some may even reduce the danger. Careful thought and debate is needed
to determine what types of technology need strict controls. As Philip
Zimmermann pointed out, this debate has already occurred for
encryption.
Consider that, to my knowledge, we've still got no higher
understanding of why two positively charged ions repel, or why a
positively charged ion attracts a negatively charged ion. Nor do we
really understand anything more about magnetism's lines of force than
the pretty little lines of iron filings on the paper when we rest it
over a bar magnet. Like gravity, they're fundamental forces. We know a
little bit about how to use them - the variables involved. Mass,
materials which maintain an electrostatic charge well, and ferrous
metals. We know they're inter-related. But how do the forces
themselves work?
All theories are going to have some undefined terms. It's like a
dictionary; some words can never be properly defined. At best we can
understand how the terms relate to each other through equations.
Therefore someone can always claim that we don't understand basic
terms, such as charge, since these terms don't have a definition
grounded in simpler phenomenon. This is not a flaw of the theory;
it's just the nature of any theory. A flaw in a theory is when it
makes predictions that don't correspond to reality. For example,
Newtonian physics has trouble predicting the specific orbit of
Mercury, while general relativity does a much better job. Given this
criteria, electromagnetism seems like a fairly solid theory. I'm not
aware of any experiments that conclusively show it is making bad
predictions.
Re:How many points for telling you the odds?
on
Bioinformatics
·
· Score: 1
When you are looking for a random sequence (of length N) within a
longer sequence (length M), the probability of finding it is the above
probability multiplied by M-N (the same chance over and over again for
every sub-sequence of length N, assuming you don't count wrapping
substrings).
First multiplying by M-N will, for a big enough M, give you a
probability greater than 1. Clearly this is wrong. What you
seem to want is a series of Bernoulli trials where each trial has the
probability of randomly matching the N characters.
However there are not going to be M-N independent trials. This is
because when checking character 1 through N of the longer sequence
with the shorter sequence, there are going to be a lot a matches and
mismatches on the individual characters. This is going to impose
constraints on getting a match for characters 2 through N+1. So you
just can't shift the sequence over one character and get an
independent trial.
You can see similar ideas in efficient string matching algorithms.
If a match fails on a subsequence of characters you can use the
information to control the shift to the next character check.
I can give you my perspective. Eight years ago I graduated with a
BS in Computer Engineering. Now I'm working on my PhD in Computer
Science.
A lot could depend on where you go. Don't assume that because a
school has a strong Computer Engineering Department, that they will
have a strong Computer Science Department.
A lot also depends on what you want to do. If you think you may be
interested in eventual graduate education avoid Computer Engineering.
In my experience Computer Engineering is more focused with giving you
skills for the market then allowing you to really understand the
material. You will spend a lot of time memorizing EE equations, and
not enough time understanding the math behind the equations. Still,
from the perspective of boolean logic, the computer hardware material
will make sense, but it isn't really that deep. In the end, you will
just end up doing low level programming with lots of tedious
debugging. (Of course, the stuff is often hands on and can be fun...)
For someone interested in graduate work, I would recommend Math with a
minor or double major in CS.
If you want to stop after a BS, I would recommend CS. For the most
part the material is self-contained. You still need math to really
understand the material, but it is possible to learn that math while
getting an undergrad degree. Also the material is very practical.
You will learn more about programming than a Computer Engineer and
odds are that your programming skills will matter most in the job
market. (Almost all my friends, no matter what their major, ended up
doing programming after they left school.) While a CS degree often
avoids teaching the details of modern tools, a broad CS degree at a
good school will allow you to use those tools with minimal effort.
In summary, a Computer Engineering
degree doesn't have a very substantial foundation to teach you.
Instead they spend a lot of time having you memorize formulas for the
EE side, since the foundation is too difficult, or try to give you
practical experience in things such as microprocessor design since
there is no serious foundation. Computer Science does have a
reasonable foundation that they try to teach you. The only complaint
is that it often seems they spend all four years giving this
foundation. I don't think this is a problem. If you really
understand the material, you should be able to go out and apply it in
the world and get real experience. (Of course, I shouldn't talk; I'm
still in school.)
How long will it take AOL-TimeWarner to buy a Digital Millennium
Advertising Revenue Protection Act to make filtering proxies
illegal. After all, by using filtering proxies we're getting all this
content without paying for it, denying hard working Shockwave artists
of their hard-earned money...
I don't think any new laws are required. Just encrypt the content
and let the user download a free plugin to read the content. Any
tampering with the plugin to remove the commercials would break the
DMCA. I'm sure there are some technical issues to make sure the
commercials can't be blocked in other ways, but I assume they can be
solved. Furthermore anytime someone hacks around the system you just
develop a new free plugin and force everybody to upgrade.
If the FBI couldn't do things like this, they'd have no power to
enforce the laws of this country, we'd have total anarchy, and having
someone monitor your keystrokes would be the least of your
problems!
I tend to doubt it. Wiretaps were legalized to enforce laws that
involve consenting adults committing immoral actions. Examples are
gambling, prostitution, and the sale/use of drugs. (Almost all
wiretaps are used for prosecutions stemming from these types of
crimes.) If we get rid of these bad laws, we could also get rid of
wiretaps.
It's not obvious that you've contradicted the research. I suppose that one could look up all the references and check, but it would be helpful if you would have provided a synopsis of your argument. As it stands, it's not clear that any of the papers you sited refute the claim that the first night of sleep is necessary to learn improvements in procedural memory from a days practice.
In general, with research that is experimental and has little theoretical foundation, unless you duplicate the experiment completely, it's possible that you would have results that might seem contradictory. Without a good theory, any small variation in the inputs could effect the output of the experiment, and with something as complicated as the human brain, there are often many inputs.
While what you say is accurate I think some people would like more
than the GPL. They think free software should be a right and not just
a community.
With the GPL, free software is just a community of people who decide
to work with free software under various motivations. Some people
would like the ideas of free software written into the law then
there would be no need for the GPL since all software would be free.
The GPL is just a pragmatic way of using the existing laws to attempt
to achieve free software.
Does this mean the ideas of free software are communist. I don't
think so. Free software is more about the debatable intellectual
property laws in many countries.
I'd bet that most motorcycle riders had ridden a bicycle before they
tried a motorcycle. Of course most heroin users have tried pot.
Anyone with intelligence is going to experiment with the weaker drugs
before he graduates to the harder drugs. This doesn't mean pot causes
someone to try heroin it just means pot is a rational precondition to
trying heroin.
If we want less people to try heroin we should legalize marijuana.
If someone doesn't have to go to a drug dealer to buy pot he is less
likely to go to a drug dealer to buy heroin. This is a big part of
the plan in Amsterdam.
He should have said that a larger percentage of income tax goes to
non-social programs. That is what is really relevant in the current
discussion. (The rich pay a very small percentage of the social
security tax.)
I agree with the notion that the rich don't pay enough taxes in
this country. A large percentage of our income tax goes towards
protecting the assets of the people. (The largest example is the
military.) People should pay for the benefits they receive.
Therefore if the rich control 90% of the assets they should pay the
majority of the taxes.
Actualy, it's somewhat of a myth that Prohibition didn't work or
that it created Organized Crime (which already existed and was near
the peak of its rule BEFORE Prohibition- but alcohol was what got many
figures popularized). Believe it or not, Americans used to drink FAR
more than they do now, and a good portion of that drop came during
Prohibition, when alcohol consumption dropped by nearly 3/4s and never
really recoverd.
Do you have a source for any of this information? If you look at
drug library you can find a wealth of information that does not
support your claims. For example your main claim that alcohol
consumption is currently lower because of a long lasting effect of
prohibition is clearly false. Based on data from the U.S. Alcohol
Epidemiologic Data Reference Manual which was published by the
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Service in 1985, in 1916-19
(pre-prohibition) the average legal alcohol drinker consumed 1.96
gallons of ethanol (this includes all types of alcohol) per year. In
1983 (the last year of statistics) that number was 2.690.
If you check out the reference you'll find the rest of your claims
are also disputed.
The only thing I want my country to do is protect me from the tyranny of other men. I never asked my country to take steps to increase the quality of my life.
Seems that protecting you from the tyranny of other men is taking steps to increase the quality of your life. I think the government can and should increase the quality of life in many ways.
>Libertarians know that there is an appropriate role for government, >but that its role should be minimized to prevent an unhealthy >accumulation of power in one corruptible institution.
I believe the standard Libertarian rational is that markets solve social problems better than governments.
>For the same reason, libertarians often oppose organized religion. And >for the same reason, libertarians are now increasingly wary of >aggregating corporate power.
Just because someone claiming to be a libertarian makes the above claims does not make them Libertarian claims. In fact, the above ideas seem completely against any consistent Libertarian policy. How can a libertarian oppose organized religion. If these people don't interfere with your rights how can you oppose their religion. How can a libertarian complain against a corporation. As long as the corporations don't trample anyone's rights, who should stop them from growing large and powerful. (These are rights as defined by a libertarian. If you sign a exploitative contract with a corporation this isn't a rights violation. You chose to sign the contract.)
Ironically these points you make about organized religion and corporations are more in line with the anarchists fear of hierarchical organizations. It seems you are confusing libertarianism with anarchism. (Unless your not refering to the modern Libertarian party.)
In truth, I think the points you make are true if misattributed. A society should have a system of checks and balances to stop any individual or group from attaining too much power. Unfortunately this goes against the existing Libertarian position which is part of the conflict the Salon article was trying to articulate.
Now, IIRC, the "Church-Turing-Tarski Thesis" states that all
reasonable (realistic) models of computation will have the same
limitations, so if that theorem is true, then no computer will ever
solve these problems.
This is really a question of physics. As such it will never be
proven. At best on can show that a for a particular model (physics)
of the world that the Church-Turing Thesis is true. Warren Smith of
NECI has some papers on these types of results.
Also, when you say "no computer will ever solve these problems,"
that's a little misleading. Nothing will be able to solve these
problems. Using the (unrealistic) model of the Turing machine, these
problems all suffer from logical problems similar to Cantor's diagonal
slash. If Church-Turing is true then nothing will be able to avoid
these logical problems.
I don't think your arguments are valid. While Stallman's main principles may be debatable, he does seem to consistently follow his principles.
One problem is that you seem to be confusing an individuals freedom with societies freedom. It's perfectly reasonable to restrict what an individual does, if those actions will trample on the rights of a large amount of society. The purpose of the GPL isn't to increase an individuals freedoms when using software; the GPL is a pragmatic tool to increase societies freedom when using software. For example, if I allow a commercial developer to use my code, I will allow my code to be used to restrict the rights of all the people who buy that software. Stallman wants free software in society, and the GPL is his tool to get it.
This isn't an uncommon occurrence when protecting rights. For a stranger example look at Democracy. Is it possible for the people in a Democracy to vote out of the Democracy? I would claim that the very nature of a Democracy guarantees certain laws and rights. One such law is that you can't abolish the Democracy.
As to your complaint against using the word free, Stallman argues that he just took a word that has a meaning that is closest to the desired meaning. Either you show there is something intrinsicly wrong with this procedure (which is what open source does on pragmatic grounds) or you satisfy the procedure with a better word. To claim that the common use of the word freedom (as in speech) is not perfect is not an argument. The common use of words is not rigorously defined and will never be the same as a more technically defined word. I feel it's perfectly reasonable to give a new technical definition for a related common word, as long as you stick to the new definition of the word and don't equivocate. It's done in science all the time. What I don't think is honest is, when told the new definition, to argue against the idea by using equivocation with it's other meanings. Stallman is the one who is being consistent. Others are dishonest.
Slashdot Mirror
But this is precisely the danger of technology. It is destabilizing to government and society to give more power to individuals.
It's quite sensible to assume, based on evolution, that there will be some percentage of crazy people in the world. In the past, the worst damage they could do was kill a few people with clubs. In the future, with enough technology, they might be able to wipe out the planet.
However, not all technology, will lead to these types of problems. Some may even reduce the danger. Careful thought and debate is needed to determine what types of technology need strict controls. As Philip Zimmermann pointed out, this debate has already occurred for encryption.
All theories are going to have some undefined terms. It's like a dictionary; some words can never be properly defined. At best we can understand how the terms relate to each other through equations. Therefore someone can always claim that we don't understand basic terms, such as charge, since these terms don't have a definition grounded in simpler phenomenon. This is not a flaw of the theory; it's just the nature of any theory. A flaw in a theory is when it makes predictions that don't correspond to reality. For example, Newtonian physics has trouble predicting the specific orbit of Mercury, while general relativity does a much better job. Given this criteria, electromagnetism seems like a fairly solid theory. I'm not aware of any experiments that conclusively show it is making bad predictions.
First multiplying by M-N will, for a big enough M, give you a probability greater than 1. Clearly this is wrong. What you seem to want is a series of Bernoulli trials where each trial has the probability of randomly matching the N characters.
However there are not going to be M-N independent trials. This is because when checking character 1 through N of the longer sequence with the shorter sequence, there are going to be a lot a matches and mismatches on the individual characters. This is going to impose constraints on getting a match for characters 2 through N+1. So you just can't shift the sequence over one character and get an independent trial.
You can see similar ideas in efficient string matching algorithms. If a match fails on a subsequence of characters you can use the information to control the shift to the next character check.
I can give you my perspective. Eight years ago I graduated with a BS in Computer Engineering. Now I'm working on my PhD in Computer Science.
A lot could depend on where you go. Don't assume that because a school has a strong Computer Engineering Department, that they will have a strong Computer Science Department.
A lot also depends on what you want to do. If you think you may be interested in eventual graduate education avoid Computer Engineering. In my experience Computer Engineering is more focused with giving you skills for the market then allowing you to really understand the material. You will spend a lot of time memorizing EE equations, and not enough time understanding the math behind the equations. Still, from the perspective of boolean logic, the computer hardware material will make sense, but it isn't really that deep. In the end, you will just end up doing low level programming with lots of tedious debugging. (Of course, the stuff is often hands on and can be fun...) For someone interested in graduate work, I would recommend Math with a minor or double major in CS.
If you want to stop after a BS, I would recommend CS. For the most part the material is self-contained. You still need math to really understand the material, but it is possible to learn that math while getting an undergrad degree. Also the material is very practical. You will learn more about programming than a Computer Engineer and odds are that your programming skills will matter most in the job market. (Almost all my friends, no matter what their major, ended up doing programming after they left school.) While a CS degree often avoids teaching the details of modern tools, a broad CS degree at a good school will allow you to use those tools with minimal effort.
In summary, a Computer Engineering degree doesn't have a very substantial foundation to teach you. Instead they spend a lot of time having you memorize formulas for the EE side, since the foundation is too difficult, or try to give you practical experience in things such as microprocessor design since there is no serious foundation. Computer Science does have a reasonable foundation that they try to teach you. The only complaint is that it often seems they spend all four years giving this foundation. I don't think this is a problem. If you really understand the material, you should be able to go out and apply it in the world and get real experience. (Of course, I shouldn't talk; I'm still in school.)
I don't think any new laws are required. Just encrypt the content and let the user download a free plugin to read the content. Any tampering with the plugin to remove the commercials would break the DMCA. I'm sure there are some technical issues to make sure the commercials can't be blocked in other ways, but I assume they can be solved. Furthermore anytime someone hacks around the system you just develop a new free plugin and force everybody to upgrade.
If the FBI couldn't do things like this, they'd have no power to enforce the laws of this country, we'd have total anarchy, and having someone monitor your keystrokes would be the least of your problems!
I tend to doubt it. Wiretaps were legalized to enforce laws that involve consenting adults committing immoral actions. Examples are gambling, prostitution, and the sale/use of drugs. (Almost all wiretaps are used for prosecutions stemming from these types of crimes.) If we get rid of these bad laws, we could also get rid of wiretaps.
It's not obvious that you've contradicted the research. I suppose that one could look up all the references and check, but it would be helpful if you would have provided a synopsis of your argument. As it stands, it's not clear that any of the papers you sited refute the claim that the first night of sleep is necessary to learn improvements in procedural memory from a days practice.
In general, with research that is experimental and has little theoretical foundation, unless you duplicate the experiment completely, it's possible that you would have results that might seem contradictory. Without a good theory, any small variation in the inputs could effect the output of the experiment, and with something as complicated as the human brain, there are often many inputs.
While what you say is accurate I think some people would like more than the GPL. They think free software should be a right and not just a community.
With the GPL, free software is just a community of people who decide to work with free software under various motivations. Some people would like the ideas of free software written into the law then there would be no need for the GPL since all software would be free. The GPL is just a pragmatic way of using the existing laws to attempt to achieve free software.
Does this mean the ideas of free software are communist. I don't think so. Free software is more about the debatable intellectual property laws in many countries.
I'd bet that most motorcycle riders had ridden a bicycle before they tried a motorcycle. Of course most heroin users have tried pot. Anyone with intelligence is going to experiment with the weaker drugs before he graduates to the harder drugs. This doesn't mean pot causes someone to try heroin it just means pot is a rational precondition to trying heroin.
If we want less people to try heroin we should legalize marijuana. If someone doesn't have to go to a drug dealer to buy pot he is less likely to go to a drug dealer to buy heroin. This is a big part of the plan in Amsterdam.
He should have said that a larger percentage of income tax goes to non-social programs. That is what is really relevant in the current discussion. (The rich pay a very small percentage of the social security tax.)
I agree with the notion that the rich don't pay enough taxes in this country. A large percentage of our income tax goes towards protecting the assets of the people. (The largest example is the military.) People should pay for the benefits they receive. Therefore if the rich control 90% of the assets they should pay the majority of the taxes.
Do you have a source for any of this information? If you look at drug library you can find a wealth of information that does not support your claims. For example your main claim that alcohol consumption is currently lower because of a long lasting effect of prohibition is clearly false. Based on data from the U.S. Alcohol Epidemiologic Data Reference Manual which was published by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Service in 1985, in 1916-19 (pre-prohibition) the average legal alcohol drinker consumed 1.96 gallons of ethanol (this includes all types of alcohol) per year. In 1983 (the last year of statistics) that number was 2.690.
If you check out the reference you'll find the rest of your claims are also disputed.
Seems that protecting you from the tyranny of other men is taking steps to increase the quality of your life. I think the government can and should increase the quality of life in many ways.
>Libertarians know that there is an appropriate role for government,
>but that its role should be minimized to prevent an unhealthy
>accumulation of power in one corruptible institution.
I believe the standard Libertarian rational is that markets solve
social problems better than governments.
>For the same reason, libertarians often oppose organized religion. And
>for the same reason, libertarians are now increasingly wary of
>aggregating corporate power.
Just because someone claiming to be a libertarian makes the above
claims does not make them Libertarian claims. In fact, the above
ideas seem completely against any consistent Libertarian policy. How
can a libertarian oppose organized religion. If these people don't
interfere with your rights how can you oppose their religion. How can
a libertarian complain against a corporation. As long as the
corporations don't trample anyone's rights, who should stop them from
growing large and powerful. (These are rights as defined by a
libertarian. If you sign a exploitative contract with a corporation
this isn't a rights violation. You chose to sign the contract.)
Ironically these points you make about organized religion and
corporations are more in line with the anarchists fear of hierarchical
organizations. It seems you are confusing libertarianism with
anarchism. (Unless your not refering to the modern Libertarian
party.)
In truth, I think the points you make are true if misattributed. A
society should have a system of checks and balances to stop any
individual or group from attaining too much power. Unfortunately this
goes against the existing Libertarian position which is part of the
conflict the Salon article was trying to articulate.
Chris Mesterharm
This is really a question of physics. As such it will never be proven. At best on can show that a for a particular model (physics) of the world that the Church-Turing Thesis is true. Warren Smith of NECI has some papers on these types of results.
Also, when you say "no computer will ever solve these problems," that's a little misleading. Nothing will be able to solve these problems. Using the (unrealistic) model of the Turing machine, these problems all suffer from logical problems similar to Cantor's diagonal slash. If Church-Turing is true then nothing will be able to avoid these logical problems.
I don't think your arguments are valid. While Stallman's main
principles may be debatable, he does seem to consistently follow his
principles.
One problem is that you seem to be confusing an individuals freedom
with societies freedom. It's perfectly reasonable to restrict what an
individual does, if those actions will trample on the rights of a
large amount of society. The purpose of the GPL isn't to increase an
individuals freedoms when using software; the GPL is a pragmatic tool
to increase societies freedom when using software. For example, if I
allow a commercial developer to use my code, I will allow my code to
be used to restrict the rights of all the people who buy that
software. Stallman wants free software in society, and the GPL is his
tool to get it.
This isn't an uncommon occurrence when protecting rights. For a
stranger example look at Democracy. Is it possible for the people in
a Democracy to vote out of the Democracy? I would claim that the very
nature of a Democracy guarantees certain laws and rights. One such
law is that you can't abolish the Democracy.
As to your complaint against using the word free, Stallman argues that
he just took a word that has a meaning that is closest to the desired
meaning. Either you show there is something intrinsicly wrong with
this procedure (which is what open source does on pragmatic grounds)
or you satisfy the procedure with a better word. To claim that the
common use of the word freedom (as in speech) is not perfect is not an
argument. The common use of words is not rigorously defined and will
never be the same as a more technically defined word. I feel it's
perfectly reasonable to give a new technical definition for a related
common word, as long as you stick to the new definition of the word
and don't equivocate. It's done in science all the time. What I
don't think is honest is, when told the new definition, to argue
against the idea by using equivocation with it's other meanings.
Stallman is the one who is being consistent. Others are dishonest.
Chris Mesterharm