Many practicing Buddhists feel that in this life, they are not yet ready to achieve enlightenment. They practice and support their monks, in the hopes that in the next life (or the one after) they will be in a better situation to enter the monastary and work towards enlightenment.
In this sense, the goal of freeing oneself from desire isn't for everyone...yet. If you're truly happy with life, then you're doing better than much of the planet already.
It's not 2050, it's 1950! That's when all of the jobs were going to be done by robots, leaving us to lead a life of leisure, until they rise up and force us into servitude!!!
Yes it's amusing, but it was also believed to be imminent. I don't see that this is any different.
But I've been thinking--what if every single spam that was sent got replied to by someone saying, 'piss off you,' and then their site visited by every person who received the 'invitation' to it? If it happened all at once, the internet would be FLOODED with mail, all of it going to either spammers, or (more likely) hapless drop-boxes on yahoo, etc. Web sites would crumble under the load--the internet would stagger for a day, and then the companies who suffered would start to get SERIOUS about spam.
I had a run-in with the X-plane people (Basically Austin and his buddy Mike Brown on sales) over their "guaranteed upgrades for life." In a word, they lied. Furthermore, they continue to lie, and are absolute ASSHOLES about it.
To be specific here, they will always make the latest patch available for the current version. That is, if they're developing X-P 6.x, then the latest 6.x patch is available. However...
1) You cannot get any older patches. This is a problem because several times the current versions has been buggy, unstable, or broken.
2) Once the initial 7.x release is out, you are absolutely SOL on downloading the final 6.x patch. He will NOT provide it under any circumstances, once he's decided to get rid of 'free support for life' on a previous version.
I'm sorry to have to post this. I think that X-P is a really cool program. I'm utterly amazed at how far he's gotten with it. However, his code review (poor), attitude ("fuck you!"), and flat out lying on support all lead to something that I'll never drop money on again.
Pity, really. If he lost his ego, he'd write better software.
The company designed and created innovative software. It's now being used by Microsoft to make billions of dollars. Shouldn't they be entitled to some compensation for the work they've done?
I've no doubt they will. In fact, about a year ago I predicted (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that they'd not only "borrow" the features, but then proceed to sue the Mozilla organisation for stealing their ideas in the first place.:-)
I use Solaris a lot, and Linux a bit. Mozilla is on both of those platforms.
But Windows--Oh man, it's nice to have a really GOOD broswer on the universal de facto platform. Given that Windows is a toy to begin with (no insult intended--I use it for games, and nothing else), why would you NOT want to have the best browser on it?
OK, look at it another way: If 99% of the Linux people used Mozilla (an exaggeration, I'm sure) and 0.5% of the Windows market used it, then which group would account for more browser downloads?
(Hint: The answer is Windows)
At any rate, I know a lot of people--100% pure Windows users--who are quite happy about having Mozilla. Tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking is a boon.
The point is compelling, but I'm no more interested in seeing a crappy burn of Sex Lies and Videotape, than I am T3. I want a movie to involve me, and downloads just don't do it.
However, the MPAA is being pretty smart in one manner: Unlike the RIAA, they've realised that trading crappy burns of movies is a limit of technology, and in some time (three years?) we'll be able to download DVD quality movies in realtime, or better. They're smart to go after people now, rather than later when it's become generally accepted.
On the other hand,
(a) Will this EVER really cut into theatre sales significantly?
(b) Will it really be a bad thing if the movie industry suffers so badly that actors make less than a million dollars per year? These people are paid as if they were gods, and half of them are worse actors than an average high-school can produce!
The movie industry is as top-heavy as the music industry, and file trading will only hurt the abusers.
FINALLY, a large, respected organisation telling the RIAA to go fuck themselves until they bleed.
As far as I'm concerned, the RIAA has driven more people to illegal file sharing than any other force or organisation, and they've done it deliberately just so they can get indignant and prosecute those same people.
Fucking RIAA. At least have the decency to treat the musicians better than dirt.
I never said that I agreed with Bill's view that we Must Stop Research in some fields, for the very same reason that you stated: It's going to happen. You can't stop it. If you try to prevent it, then it will likely be developed by the WORST group to have that sort of power, whatever it is.
That said, I do still believe that as technologists, we have a moral responsibility to at least look at the research we do. We can't stop it, but if we see the potential for danger, then we can potentially sidetrack it--push hard for development in the "good" ways, and development of the worst aspects will lag.
It's an interesting problem. We can't stop technology from arriving, but we can't (or at least I can't) morally justify throwing up our hands and saying, "oh well--nothing we could have done." If technology--hell, ANYTHING--is going to be an asset to society, then we have to thoughtfully approach it from a social aspect.
Most people here have read Bill Joy's article on "why the future doesn't need us." One thing he mentioned in the article is that he may have a moral directive in the near future to stop developing in the field he helped create, because it was doing more harm than good to society.
This is exactly how I see Woz's latest project. It sounds like something that has FAR more potential to be invasive and violating than it does to be useful. I'm a bit surprised, actually--Woz has always struck me as doing weird but cool stuff, not nasty stuff.
Anyways, it seems a sad day when one of the proto-geeks is forgetting to look at what he's actually doing from a larger perspective.
Thank you SOOOO much for dismissing an article that was probably directed at the 95+% of the population who have NOT been mastering DVDs for clients since 1999.
Your specialised knowledge doesn't make this general article less relevant for us--only for you.
One might argue that Al Qaeda members qualify under the first point. Consider again:
" 1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces."
Aren't Al Qaeda precisely the members of the armed forces of the opposing party here? After all, GWB declared war on terrorism.
Regardless, all of this sidesteps the fact that there are Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as well, and they definitely qualify as POWs under a handful of the above rules. After all, Afghanistan's government was in power for a good long time.
Hmm. Can those fingerprints be used as evidence in criminal investigations after a person has been discharged? If so, then you're right--there's little or no difference.
As far as the prisoners in Cuba, try reading the Geneva convention again. There is no such thing as an "illegal combatant." In fact, the third convention states very clearly that people held as suspected members of a militia or volunteer corps MUST be treated as prisoners of war. It then goes on to lay out the fact that if there's any doubt as to their status, then they must be treated as POWs until tried by a tribunal.
So by declaring them to be anything other than POWs, the US is violating the Geneva convention. Then by not treating them as POWs, they're violating it further.
According to the DoD themselves, "This is a very simple program, solely for the identification of remains."
They modify this somewhat, with this statement: "People also wonder whether the samples can be used in criminal cases. "The only way that they'd be released is if we had a court order," he said."
Well in a murder case, a court order to confirm evidence isn't that hard to get, as this trial showed. In other words, the DoD is entirely incorrect about the possible uses for this database.
Furthermore, this means that any US military personel are being held to a more rigorous evidence screening process than the rest of the population, due to their DNA files. Doesn't this violate the spirit (if not the letter) of everyone being 'equal in the eyes of the law?' Sadly, this leads to the "solution" of making a DNA repository mandatory for the entire population. In other words, being forced to give evidence in advance of any potential wrongdoings. This comes close to not having to incriminate yourself, in my mind.
Of course, what http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/07/18/uk_guantanamo 030718can one expect from a government that's holding nearly 700 people against their will, US law, the laws of the captives' nations, and international law (the Geneva convention)? Did you know that they're building an execution chamber in Guatanamo bay?
But I digress. We've had fingerprints for a century or so as legally admissable evidence, and there's no mandatory registry for them. Why then does ANY nation need a registry of DNA samples?
Although I have a long history of criticising Michael (and before that, Jon Katz until I stopped reading his articles at all) for his stupid editorial comments, I can't see anything he said this time which is particularly knee-jerk, shallow, or stupid. Not particularly insightful, but that's not a huge crime.
Didn't you understand what I said? This won't pass--in this form! It will act to soften people (and Congress?) up, and then be rewritten into something that sounds far nicer, but will pass. That's EXACTLY what happened with the DMCA.
This bill as it's worded, is just a softening up--a sucker punch.
Since the days when 5.25" floppies cost $8 each (and 8" floppies were still not uncommon), I've had more problems with Verbatim media than any other brand in existence! Somewhere between one and three disks bad per box of ten has been a fairly consistent average for over two decades now. I avoid them like the plague, but somehow they always crop up.
This bill doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing--it wasn't written to pass, and it isn't expected to get very far.
HOWEVER, the 'rewrite' of it, which is far less egregious and overreaching, will seem like a huge compromise in comparison, and will get through without much problem. If it was introduced on its own, it would be fought tooth and nail, but now...
This is standard practice: If you want the moon, shoot for the sun. If you want a controversial law passed, start by asking for something ten times worse.
Quite honestly, I don't care what they decide to do. If they want to allow selling, then ignore it. If they say it's not allowed, then come down as hard as a hammer on those selling.
But under no circumstances should they do what Mythic has done to ruin Dark Age of Camelot: Ignore their own rules, let cheaters prosper, and destroy the integrity of the game, all for the sake of not losing accounts.
I spent countless hours leveling up with my own money and crafting my way to legendary, only to be undercut by people who used cheats to craft and obtain money, and level.
Mythic did NOTHING when handed damning evidence, because they'd lose accounts if they banned people. As a result, there's no point in playing for anyone or any purpose except your own damned skin. Thanks Mythic.
So not only have we hit the point where websites require flash (and the latest version, no less), but they're actually demanding a minimum processor to view?!!
I don't care if there's only one person left on the whole planet who has less than a P-III (which of course is nonsense--outside of the first world, the P-III is fairly rare, compared to the older machines). Excluding part of your target audience is a REALLY STUPID idea, especially when it's for no reason other than hype and flash.
But a few years ago, checkers was solved as a mathematical problem. There is a computer program that can play a perfect game of checkers, all the time. That project was headed by Jonathan Schaeffer, one of the people involved in this Poker AI project.
Just a footnote, to let you all know that this group has some serious history in gaming AI.
1) It's a violation of the rules to do this on any of the online poker sites. If you're busted, you'll lose ALL of the money you've paid in. (buy in, registration, etc.) They might even press charges.
2) Perfect poker strategy is only perfect in a vacuum. When playing against real players, you can make more money by playing imperfectly. In fact, if you always play perfectly, the game will change to conpensate for you, and leave you playing poorly.
Slashdot Mirror
Many practicing Buddhists feel that in this life, they are not yet ready to achieve enlightenment. They practice and support their monks, in the hopes that in the next life (or the one after) they will be in a better situation to enter the monastary and work towards enlightenment.
In this sense, the goal of freeing oneself from desire isn't for everyone...yet. If you're truly happy with life, then you're doing better than much of the planet already.
"As a practicing Buddhist I have no problem with people taking Yoga and Meditation in these ways..."
When I first saw this, I read it as "...I have a problem..." and thought it was a rather un-Buddhist attitude to take.
Then I wiped the sleep from my eyes, reread it, and everything fell into place.
Carry on.
It's not 2050, it's 1950! That's when all of the jobs were going to be done by robots, leaving us to lead a life of leisure, until they rise up and force us into servitude!!!
Yes it's amusing, but it was also believed to be imminent. I don't see that this is any different.
Sure sure, we all know this.
But I've been thinking--what if every single spam that was sent got replied to by someone saying, 'piss off you,' and then their site visited by every person who received the 'invitation' to it? If it happened all at once, the internet would be FLOODED with mail, all of it going to either spammers, or (more likely) hapless drop-boxes on yahoo, etc. Web sites would crumble under the load--the internet would stagger for a day, and then the companies who suffered would start to get SERIOUS about spam.
I had a run-in with the X-plane people (Basically Austin and his buddy Mike Brown on sales) over their "guaranteed upgrades for life." In a word, they lied. Furthermore, they continue to lie, and are absolute ASSHOLES about it.
To be specific here, they will always make the latest patch available for the current version. That is, if they're developing X-P 6.x, then the latest 6.x patch is available. However...
1) You cannot get any older patches. This is a problem because several times the current versions has been buggy, unstable, or broken.
2) Once the initial 7.x release is out, you are absolutely SOL on downloading the final 6.x patch. He will NOT provide it under any circumstances, once he's decided to get rid of 'free support for life' on a previous version.
I'm sorry to have to post this. I think that X-P is a really cool program. I'm utterly amazed at how far he's gotten with it. However, his code review (poor), attitude ("fuck you!"), and flat out lying on support all lead to something that I'll never drop money on again.
Pity, really. If he lost his ego, he'd write better software.
You can read more about it here.
OK, let me ask you this then:
The company designed and created innovative software. It's now being used by Microsoft to make billions of dollars. Shouldn't they be entitled to some compensation for the work they've done?
Congratulations!!!
That was perhaps the single most brainless and illiterate troll I've seen in the last year. You have really outdone your genre.
I've no doubt they will. In fact, about a year ago I predicted (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that they'd not only "borrow" the features, but then proceed to sue the Mozilla organisation for stealing their ideas in the first place. :-)
Hah!
I use Solaris a lot, and Linux a bit. Mozilla is on both of those platforms.
But Windows--Oh man, it's nice to have a really GOOD broswer on the universal de facto platform. Given that Windows is a toy to begin with (no insult intended--I use it for games, and nothing else), why would you NOT want to have the best browser on it?
OK, look at it another way: If 99% of the Linux people used Mozilla (an exaggeration, I'm sure) and 0.5% of the Windows market used it, then which group would account for more browser downloads?
(Hint: The answer is Windows)
At any rate, I know a lot of people--100% pure Windows users--who are quite happy about having Mozilla. Tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking is a boon.
I don't see it.
The point is compelling, but I'm no more interested in seeing a crappy burn of Sex Lies and Videotape, than I am T3. I want a movie to involve me, and downloads just don't do it.
However, the MPAA is being pretty smart in one manner: Unlike the RIAA, they've realised that trading crappy burns of movies is a limit of technology, and in some time (three years?) we'll be able to download DVD quality movies in realtime, or better. They're smart to go after people now, rather than later when it's become generally accepted.
On the other hand,
(a) Will this EVER really cut into theatre sales significantly?
(b) Will it really be a bad thing if the movie industry suffers so badly that actors make less than a million dollars per year? These people are paid as if they were gods, and half of them are worse actors than an average high-school can produce!
The movie industry is as top-heavy as the music industry, and file trading will only hurt the abusers.
FINALLY, a large, respected organisation telling the RIAA to go fuck themselves until they bleed.
As far as I'm concerned, the RIAA has driven more people to illegal file sharing than any other force or organisation, and they've done it deliberately just so they can get indignant and prosecute those same people.
Fucking RIAA. At least have the decency to treat the musicians better than dirt.
Hmm.
I never said that I agreed with Bill's view that we Must Stop Research in some fields, for the very same reason that you stated: It's going to happen. You can't stop it. If you try to prevent it, then it will likely be developed by the WORST group to have that sort of power, whatever it is.
That said, I do still believe that as technologists, we have a moral responsibility to at least look at the research we do. We can't stop it, but if we see the potential for danger, then we can potentially sidetrack it--push hard for development in the "good" ways, and development of the worst aspects will lag.
It's an interesting problem. We can't stop technology from arriving, but we can't (or at least I can't) morally justify throwing up our hands and saying, "oh well--nothing we could have done." If technology--hell, ANYTHING--is going to be an asset to society, then we have to thoughtfully approach it from a social aspect.
Most people here have read Bill Joy's article on "why the future doesn't need us." One thing he mentioned in the article is that he may have a moral directive in the near future to stop developing in the field he helped create, because it was doing more harm than good to society.
This is exactly how I see Woz's latest project. It sounds like something that has FAR more potential to be invasive and violating than it does to be useful. I'm a bit surprised, actually--Woz has always struck me as doing weird but cool stuff, not nasty stuff.
Anyways, it seems a sad day when one of the proto-geeks is forgetting to look at what he's actually doing from a larger perspective.
Thank you SOOOO much for dismissing an article that was probably directed at the 95+% of the population who have NOT been mastering DVDs for clients since 1999.
Your specialised knowledge doesn't make this general article less relevant for us--only for you.
Interesting details. Thanks.
One might argue that Al Qaeda members qualify under the first point. Consider again:
" 1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces."
Aren't Al Qaeda precisely the members of the armed forces of the opposing party here? After all, GWB declared war on terrorism.
Regardless, all of this sidesteps the fact that there are Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as well, and they definitely qualify as POWs under a handful of the above rules. After all, Afghanistan's government was in power for a good long time.
Hmm. Can those fingerprints be used as evidence in criminal investigations after a person has been discharged? If so, then you're right--there's little or no difference.
As far as the prisoners in Cuba, try reading the Geneva convention again. There is no such thing as an "illegal combatant." In fact, the third convention states very clearly that people held as suspected members of a militia or volunteer corps MUST be treated as prisoners of war. It then goes on to lay out the fact that if there's any doubt as to their status, then they must be treated as POWs until tried by a tribunal.
So by declaring them to be anything other than POWs, the US is violating the Geneva convention. Then by not treating them as POWs, they're violating it further.
According to the DoD themselves, "This is a very simple program, solely for the identification of remains."
o 030718can one expect from a government that's holding nearly 700 people against their will, US law, the laws of the captives' nations, and international law (the Geneva convention)? Did you know that they're building an execution chamber in Guatanamo bay?
They modify this somewhat, with this statement: "People also wonder whether the samples can be used in criminal cases. "The only way that they'd be released is if we had a court order," he said."
Well in a murder case, a court order to confirm evidence isn't that hard to get, as this trial showed. In other words, the DoD is entirely incorrect about the possible uses for this database.
Furthermore, this means that any US military personel are being held to a more rigorous evidence screening process than the rest of the population, due to their DNA files. Doesn't this violate the spirit (if not the letter) of everyone being 'equal in the eyes of the law?' Sadly, this leads to the "solution" of making a DNA repository mandatory for the entire population. In other words, being forced to give evidence in advance of any potential wrongdoings. This comes close to not having to incriminate yourself, in my mind.
Of course, what http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/07/18/uk_guantanam
But I digress. We've had fingerprints for a century or so as legally admissable evidence, and there's no mandatory registry for them. Why then does ANY nation need a registry of DNA samples?
Hmm.
Although I have a long history of criticising Michael (and before that, Jon Katz until I stopped reading his articles at all) for his stupid editorial comments, I can't see anything he said this time which is particularly knee-jerk, shallow, or stupid. Not particularly insightful, but that's not a huge crime.
Didn't you understand what I said? This won't pass--in this form! It will act to soften people (and Congress?) up, and then be rewritten into something that sounds far nicer, but will pass. That's EXACTLY what happened with the DMCA.
This bill as it's worded, is just a softening up--a sucker punch.
Verbatim. Augh, blech, fooey!
Since the days when 5.25" floppies cost $8 each (and 8" floppies were still not uncommon), I've had more problems with Verbatim media than any other brand in existence! Somewhere between one and three disks bad per box of ten has been a fairly consistent average for over two decades now. I avoid them like the plague, but somehow they always crop up.
This bill doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing--it wasn't written to pass, and it isn't expected to get very far.
HOWEVER, the 'rewrite' of it, which is far less egregious and overreaching, will seem like a huge compromise in comparison, and will get through without much problem. If it was introduced on its own, it would be fought tooth and nail, but now...
This is standard practice: If you want the moon, shoot for the sun. If you want a controversial law passed, start by asking for something ten times worse.
Quite honestly, I don't care what they decide to do. If they want to allow selling, then ignore it. If they say it's not allowed, then come down as hard as a hammer on those selling.
But under no circumstances should they do what Mythic has done to ruin Dark Age of Camelot: Ignore their own rules, let cheaters prosper, and destroy the integrity of the game, all for the sake of not losing accounts.
I spent countless hours leveling up with my own money and crafting my way to legendary, only to be undercut by people who used cheats to craft and obtain money, and level.
Mythic did NOTHING when handed damning evidence, because they'd lose accounts if they banned people. As a result, there's no point in playing for anyone or any purpose except your own damned skin. Thanks Mythic.
So Sony, do what you will. Just do it for real.
This web site REQUIRES:
P-III
Netscape6 or IE5
Flash6
So not only have we hit the point where websites require flash (and the latest version, no less), but they're actually demanding a minimum processor to view?!!
I don't care if there's only one person left on the whole planet who has less than a P-III (which of course is nonsense--outside of the first world, the P-III is fairly rare, compared to the older machines). Excluding part of your target audience is a REALLY STUPID idea, especially when it's for no reason other than hype and flash.
No, it's not a troll. :-)
But a few years ago, checkers was solved as a mathematical problem. There is a computer program that can play a perfect game of checkers, all the time. That project was headed by Jonathan Schaeffer, one of the people involved in this Poker AI project.
Just a footnote, to let you all know that this group has some serious history in gaming AI.
Well, there are a few things to consider.
1) It's a violation of the rules to do this on any of the online poker sites. If you're busted, you'll lose ALL of the money you've paid in. (buy in, registration, etc.) They might even press charges.
2) Perfect poker strategy is only perfect in a vacuum. When playing against real players, you can make more money by playing imperfectly. In fact, if you always play perfectly, the game will change to conpensate for you, and leave you playing poorly.