My idea is that programs are individual entities with no direct connection to the "leader of machines" or whatever that wierd talking face was that wanted Smith gone. For that reason nothing could be done about Smith by the machines because they couldn't control him directly, howerver when smith took over neo (who the machines were currently connected to) they could do something (implant code?) that would nullify the smith program.
They could always hold on to the PC version until the overseas house finishes. More likely the overseas house gets the functional specs and starts coding simultaneously with the in house team. Then both products come back to macromedia and are tested simultaneously by the test team (if they even have one heh).
He wanted to go home as in home to the machine world (whether virtual or real I'm not decided) not to zion. Also it seems apparent that smith was a new incarnation of the agent program, and in that way he wouldn't have seen past reboots, he only knows what was imprinted on his memory space. Since he was the equal but oppisite of neo it seems that he wouldn't know any more than neo did about the history of the matrix at any particular time.
And that explains nothing, it just says "he is able to do it" in another way. The best part about them waving thier hand at the subject in this way is it leaves the matter open to speculation.
I think you have it mostly right, however its very clear that the Oracle is the mother (smith greets her by saying "Well hello mother").
I think that the flaw with the matrix was indeed the free will exhibited by humans. The architect mentioned that the way to fix the flaw was to introduce another flaw, free will, that would allow the machines to adapt to the free will exhibited by humans. They learned this free will from neo but each iteration of neo they didn't get it quite right.
Where Smith comes into the picture is that the architect (I'm assuming) needed to balance the power of neo (the oracle says that he is the equation balancer and she is the unbalancer) and so he (or maybe the oracle, it doesn't really matter) built Smith as a counteraction of Neo. In the end the machines learn that sometimes the way to win a game (the war, the fight for existance) is to lose a battle (neo is defeated by smith but leaves smith fully exposed to be defeated himself).
I was always bothered by the idea that humans were a powersource. After the second movie I was starting to think that thier purpose was to teach the machines something, or perhaps the machines were built with a limitation to not kill off humanity so they rendered them usless, though protected and provided for, in the matrix. The second part of my thought wasn't disproven in any way, but it was made very clear that the first part of my thought rung true.
I have an alternative explaination about Neo's powers and smith/bane for those who might want to hear it. First you need to realize that the little zion subs "broadcast" into the matrix, seems that they use wireless technology of some sort and a series of hacks to hook into the datastream that is the matrix. This datastream is formatted in such a way that our brains can interact, by reading and writing into the stream or memory area or whatever it is.
Smith got into bane by reprogramming him, just like he reprogrammed all of the people in the matrix by the end of the movie. When the link to the matrix was broken, the software in banes brain was still smith, wierd but not unexplainable.
Neo's powers are harder to explain but still not impossible, basically I figure that he had some sort of "wireless interface" built into him that others don't know exists or how to use. Anyways he used that interface to communicate his powers into the matrix. Since all programs for the machines seem to "live" in the matrix his ability to change the source would allow him to broadcast into the matrix the change and then the machines would have to follow it, thus blowing up or whatever it was he "commanded". I don't think Neo is any particular person in the matrix, but instead they pick a person that fits the profile they need and then add some extra software into his mind which allows him the special interaction required to change the source.
I liked the movie too, it was fun to watch, I didn't think about it much until well after I watched it the first time (I got to see the movie at 10:00am pacific time on November 4th).
I have sort of formulated the opinion that a major point of the series is outlining the difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. The series portrays the machines as logical and unable to exert free choice. They lack the ability to understand things such as love or free choice. That as far as I can tell is the flaw in the matrix, and why people eventually want out.
It seems that Neo is a tool of the matrix to attempt to learn about "being human". In the end it seemed like Kadya (the little girl that is the child of the power subsystem and the creative interactive programmer) was the next evolution of matrix programs because she had no purpose (something no program in the past was allowed) and was able to chose, that choice being represented in her love for her parents and in her admiration of Neo.
Neo also seemed to be a tool of the matrix to make choices that they could not make themselves. At the end of the 2nd movie Neo made the choice for the machines on whether or not to end the war, he chose to end the war by not returning to the source and repopulating Zion. At the end of the 3rd movie you see Neo making the choice on how to end the war, to ahnnialate all machines and humans, or to let both live in peace.
They totally don't explain how Neo is able to interact with the matrix when outside of it or how he was able to destroy machines. My personal feeling is that he wasn't, he was only able to communicate with the Oracle, she did all the dirty work. Why didn't she choose to do that on her own and instead rely on the choices of Neo? Programs were (until kadya I think) unable to make free choices, especially (or maybe only) ones that made no sense or served no preconcieved purpose, so a human was necessary to make those choices. Once made the Oracle carried them out.
I honestly have no idea who the Merovingian is, though it seems that he has something to do with bugs in the system, keeping around old code that is no longer necessary, working withing the bounds of the programming but outside of what was desired (by who? I don't know). The reason Persephony wanted a kiss in my opinion is that she wanted some way to feel some humanness, she wanted to feel love, which again is something foreign to the machines.
The final battle went on way too long, and didn't really help the movie any, though a battle of wills (which is what the story asked for) wouldn't look good on the screen. I wouldn't have minded some cut into the "computer world view" where they battle with thier minds and then a bit of dialog where smith tries to win by overcoming neo, and then neo realizing that in order to win he needs to make the less obvious choice, to lose.
Unlike most of the posts I've read, I really enjoyed the battle scene in the dock. It gripped me, had me jumping, cheering, and nearly crying. Maybe I'm odd but I haven't seen a battle scene that compelling since the trench run in StarWars 1.
Can someone explain to me why a robot would need to manually reload its guns from a backpack on its back though? Seemed kind of silly, about as silly as the people running ammo out to the APU's with a wheelbarrow when electric bolts seemed to be far more effective in destroying the sentinals. Also why the heck didn't the digging machine detect that it had broken through a pocket and do something to lower itself gently to the next level?
Anyways I enjoyed the movie, I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation and suspense even though it was always obvious what would happen next. I must agree that they could have taken the movie to whole new philosophical levels but left it at a pretty low and obvious level.
Add to that the fact that it seems microsoft is starting to take writing stable code seriously and we might have a major change in atmosphere. Don't expect the changes for a while though, I wouldn't imagine you will see major movement until the next version of the OS releases. I think that microsoft has realized that the request for security is real and they were losing customers by not fulfilling that request.
If I have seen anything from MS in the last 10 or 15 years, its that when they finally decide to do something, they really do it. Lets see what happens in 3 to 5 years with MS and then decide whether they took security seriously.
I make no comments on the efficiency of cars, but I think the fact that it takes 98tons of plants to make one gallon of gasoline speaks volumes on how inefficient the natural process of making oil is.
The paper ballots would only need to be counted in a case where the race was very close or where there was good reason to suspect fraud.
The reason for allowing the printed ballot to be examined by the voter is to ensure that the hard copy is for sure what the voter wanted.
There is also the fact that the hard copy would be an absolute persistant store, if the electronic copies got nuked for one of a host of reasons (I test software to store large amounts of data, there are lots of reason that data could go away or be written incorrectly) then you have a voter verified hard copy that can be counted.
I'd like to see the information you use to back this up as the last time I looked North and South Dakota had the best school performance and nearly the lowest spending on schools. Good schools are a result of good people something we have a growing lack of in the United States today. I don't have the slightest clue how to do it but our society needs to find a way to realign its expections of what is provided for them vs what they need to provide in return.
My basic point if it wasn't already clear is the big downfall of schools today is that parents don't care as much how thier kids do, and so they don't make them do as well as they could. I might well be a total loser with no job right now if my parents didn't force me through school with a high expectation of my output, especially given the fact that I am borderline ADD with mild dyslexia (which might even manifest itself in my typing on this post).
Its less about speed and more about convienece of network connection. Its much easier for me to plug into the ethernet at home than it is to set up a serial connection to another computer on the network.
The question I have (and its one for the lawyers) is who is considered to be "making the copy" in this case. Is the person sharing the music making the copy and distributing it? Or is it a case of the distributor making a copy, letting someone borrow it who is also making a copy? In the first case it would seem to be disallowed by the Canadian law, the second case might be allowed. I also have a question of if you copy a cd yourself, and let someone borrow that, would that be distribution? I think the spirit of the canadian law would protect filesharing, and the courts may rule that file sharing is protected, but the letter of the law doesn't necessarily offer any protection.
The sad thing is that people fail to realize that P2P includes most instant messaging. Its really a generic definition for a system where your computer directly contacts the peer computer without being routed through the central server. A generic ban on P2P sharing would be absurd.
Last I checked there were plenty of people working on completely closed proprietary software projects that are not owned by Microsoft. Microsoft really doesn't complete in THAT many markets, only the ones where you need billions of copies of the software. There are lots of less common pieces of software that MS has no interest in.
More to the point they have plenty of cash to figure out a different way to accomplish the same goal. In fact an earlier/. post said that they already had a couple ideas of things to try if they lost the patent case.
Yeah, I agree its infeasable, luckily I dislike enough of the music produced today that I haven't purchased a cd in a couple years for that reason alone. I will continue to advocate the solution though, because if it ever got going it would work. America is a country where a vote with your pocket book is worth far more than a vote in the ballot box.
I don't feel sorry for anyone, the RIAA is within thier rights to pursue people illegally distributing thier copyrighted material.
That said I want things to change in the record industry so we should fight this the correct way, a true boycott. In order to do that not only must we not buy cd's, we must not download the music either. As long as people are getting the music through illegal means the record industry and the government has someone to blame other than the people who have kept the price of cd's artificially high even after telling us that cd's would be cheaper than cassettes because they cost less to manufacture.
I don't really understand why its wrong for them to sue a 12 year old girl if she is distributing thier music illegally. Unfortunately for the RIAA they will have to prove the parents knew that the girl was distributing the music and let her do it anyways, which is next to impossible. At least thats the way it worked where I was from.
In the end the way to fight the record companies is to not listen to the music at all, don't buy it, don't download it, and turn off the radio. When the record industry sees piracy numbers falling and cd sales falling faster they will have to do something to fix the issue or die. Either way the system will evolve into something that is hopefully better. So long as we continue to download and distribute music in an illegal fashion the record industry and government will continue to change things in ways that are harmful to the consumers and have justification for doing so.
Moreover there is nothing stopping the RIAA from filing a criminal complaint before, after or during civil proceedings. They are not doing this both because it would not serve thier economic goals and because it is VERY hard to criminally procecute someone for this type of infringement.
I think MS needs to go learn what communism is all about, of course the Chinese government would be producing the products that China wants to sell, thats they way it works. As much as it seems unfair and all that jazz, the cold war is over and MS should deal with the fact that the Chinese government as an entity is going to be a powerful competitor. On the other hand if it looks like the new OS is going to cause a large trade inbalance between the two countries the US government needs to set up the appropriate taxes and import laws to try and balance that out. I must admit that I did not read the article in depth, but if MS is doing anything other than asking that import tariffs be placed on the product they are showing that they really do think they are above the law. Moreover they are showing that they want to be above the law in the entire world.
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My idea is that programs are individual entities with no direct connection to the "leader of machines" or whatever that wierd talking face was that wanted Smith gone. For that reason nothing could be done about Smith by the machines because they couldn't control him directly, howerver when smith took over neo (who the machines were currently connected to) they could do something (implant code?) that would nullify the smith program.
They could always hold on to the PC version until the overseas house finishes. More likely the overseas house gets the functional specs and starts coding simultaneously with the in house team. Then both products come back to macromedia and are tested simultaneously by the test team (if they even have one heh).
I think they were trying to show that windows XP was empowered by MSN. I sort of feel like its burdened but hey who am I to say.
He wanted to go home as in home to the machine world (whether virtual or real I'm not decided) not to zion. Also it seems apparent that smith was a new incarnation of the agent program, and in that way he wouldn't have seen past reboots, he only knows what was imprinted on his memory space. Since he was the equal but oppisite of neo it seems that he wouldn't know any more than neo did about the history of the matrix at any particular time.
And that explains nothing, it just says "he is able to do it" in another way. The best part about them waving thier hand at the subject in this way is it leaves the matter open to speculation.
I think that the flaw with the matrix was indeed the free will exhibited by humans. The architect mentioned that the way to fix the flaw was to introduce another flaw, free will, that would allow the machines to adapt to the free will exhibited by humans. They learned this free will from neo but each iteration of neo they didn't get it quite right.
Where Smith comes into the picture is that the architect (I'm assuming) needed to balance the power of neo (the oracle says that he is the equation balancer and she is the unbalancer) and so he (or maybe the oracle, it doesn't really matter) built Smith as a counteraction of Neo. In the end the machines learn that sometimes the way to win a game (the war, the fight for existance) is to lose a battle (neo is defeated by smith but leaves smith fully exposed to be defeated himself).
I was always bothered by the idea that humans were a powersource. After the second movie I was starting to think that thier purpose was to teach the machines something, or perhaps the machines were built with a limitation to not kill off humanity so they rendered them usless, though protected and provided for, in the matrix. The second part of my thought wasn't disproven in any way, but it was made very clear that the first part of my thought rung true.
Moreover its a reference to the underground railroad and the transport of slaves.
No, it was clearly stated that the subway station was a "portal between your (Neo's) world and the matrix".
Smith got into bane by reprogramming him, just like he reprogrammed all of the people in the matrix by the end of the movie. When the link to the matrix was broken, the software in banes brain was still smith, wierd but not unexplainable.
Neo's powers are harder to explain but still not impossible, basically I figure that he had some sort of "wireless interface" built into him that others don't know exists or how to use. Anyways he used that interface to communicate his powers into the matrix. Since all programs for the machines seem to "live" in the matrix his ability to change the source would allow him to broadcast into the matrix the change and then the machines would have to follow it, thus blowing up or whatever it was he "commanded". I don't think Neo is any particular person in the matrix, but instead they pick a person that fits the profile they need and then add some extra software into his mind which allows him the special interaction required to change the source.
I liked the movie too, it was fun to watch, I didn't think about it much until well after I watched it the first time (I got to see the movie at 10:00am pacific time on November 4th).
It seems that Neo is a tool of the matrix to attempt to learn about "being human". In the end it seemed like Kadya (the little girl that is the child of the power subsystem and the creative interactive programmer) was the next evolution of matrix programs because she had no purpose (something no program in the past was allowed) and was able to chose, that choice being represented in her love for her parents and in her admiration of Neo.
Neo also seemed to be a tool of the matrix to make choices that they could not make themselves. At the end of the 2nd movie Neo made the choice for the machines on whether or not to end the war, he chose to end the war by not returning to the source and repopulating Zion. At the end of the 3rd movie you see Neo making the choice on how to end the war, to ahnnialate all machines and humans, or to let both live in peace.
They totally don't explain how Neo is able to interact with the matrix when outside of it or how he was able to destroy machines. My personal feeling is that he wasn't, he was only able to communicate with the Oracle, she did all the dirty work. Why didn't she choose to do that on her own and instead rely on the choices of Neo? Programs were (until kadya I think) unable to make free choices, especially (or maybe only) ones that made no sense or served no preconcieved purpose, so a human was necessary to make those choices. Once made the Oracle carried them out.
I honestly have no idea who the Merovingian is, though it seems that he has something to do with bugs in the system, keeping around old code that is no longer necessary, working withing the bounds of the programming but outside of what was desired (by who? I don't know). The reason Persephony wanted a kiss in my opinion is that she wanted some way to feel some humanness, she wanted to feel love, which again is something foreign to the machines.
The final battle went on way too long, and didn't really help the movie any, though a battle of wills (which is what the story asked for) wouldn't look good on the screen. I wouldn't have minded some cut into the "computer world view" where they battle with thier minds and then a bit of dialog where smith tries to win by overcoming neo, and then neo realizing that in order to win he needs to make the less obvious choice, to lose.
Unlike most of the posts I've read, I really enjoyed the battle scene in the dock. It gripped me, had me jumping, cheering, and nearly crying. Maybe I'm odd but I haven't seen a battle scene that compelling since the trench run in StarWars 1.
Can someone explain to me why a robot would need to manually reload its guns from a backpack on its back though? Seemed kind of silly, about as silly as the people running ammo out to the APU's with a wheelbarrow when electric bolts seemed to be far more effective in destroying the sentinals. Also why the heck didn't the digging machine detect that it had broken through a pocket and do something to lower itself gently to the next level?
Anyways I enjoyed the movie, I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation and suspense even though it was always obvious what would happen next. I must agree that they could have taken the movie to whole new philosophical levels but left it at a pretty low and obvious level.
If I have seen anything from MS in the last 10 or 15 years, its that when they finally decide to do something, they really do it. Lets see what happens in 3 to 5 years with MS and then decide whether they took security seriously.
I make no comments on the efficiency of cars, but I think the fact that it takes 98tons of plants to make one gallon of gasoline speaks volumes on how inefficient the natural process of making oil is.
The reason for allowing the printed ballot to be examined by the voter is to ensure that the hard copy is for sure what the voter wanted.
There is also the fact that the hard copy would be an absolute persistant store, if the electronic copies got nuked for one of a host of reasons (I test software to store large amounts of data, there are lots of reason that data could go away or be written incorrectly) then you have a voter verified hard copy that can be counted.
My basic point if it wasn't already clear is the big downfall of schools today is that parents don't care as much how thier kids do, and so they don't make them do as well as they could. I might well be a total loser with no job right now if my parents didn't force me through school with a high expectation of my output, especially given the fact that I am borderline ADD with mild dyslexia (which might even manifest itself in my typing on this post).
Its less about speed and more about convienece of network connection. Its much easier for me to plug into the ethernet at home than it is to set up a serial connection to another computer on the network.
The question I have (and its one for the lawyers) is who is considered to be "making the copy" in this case. Is the person sharing the music making the copy and distributing it? Or is it a case of the distributor making a copy, letting someone borrow it who is also making a copy? In the first case it would seem to be disallowed by the Canadian law, the second case might be allowed. I also have a question of if you copy a cd yourself, and let someone borrow that, would that be distribution? I think the spirit of the canadian law would protect filesharing, and the courts may rule that file sharing is protected, but the letter of the law doesn't necessarily offer any protection.
The sad thing is that people fail to realize that P2P includes most instant messaging. Its really a generic definition for a system where your computer directly contacts the peer computer without being routed through the central server. A generic ban on P2P sharing would be absurd.
Last I checked there were plenty of people working on completely closed proprietary software projects that are not owned by Microsoft. Microsoft really doesn't complete in THAT many markets, only the ones where you need billions of copies of the software. There are lots of less common pieces of software that MS has no interest in.
More to the point they have plenty of cash to figure out a different way to accomplish the same goal. In fact an earlier /. post said that they already had a couple ideas of things to try if they lost the patent case.
Yeah, I agree its infeasable, luckily I dislike enough of the music produced today that I haven't purchased a cd in a couple years for that reason alone. I will continue to advocate the solution though, because if it ever got going it would work. America is a country where a vote with your pocket book is worth far more than a vote in the ballot box.
That said I want things to change in the record industry so we should fight this the correct way, a true boycott. In order to do that not only must we not buy cd's, we must not download the music either. As long as people are getting the music through illegal means the record industry and the government has someone to blame other than the people who have kept the price of cd's artificially high even after telling us that cd's would be cheaper than cassettes because they cost less to manufacture.
In the end the way to fight the record companies is to not listen to the music at all, don't buy it, don't download it, and turn off the radio. When the record industry sees piracy numbers falling and cd sales falling faster they will have to do something to fix the issue or die. Either way the system will evolve into something that is hopefully better. So long as we continue to download and distribute music in an illegal fashion the record industry and government will continue to change things in ways that are harmful to the consumers and have justification for doing so.
Last I checked, breeder reactors were the most unstable and dangerous type, that may be a reason we don't do this.
Moreover there is nothing stopping the RIAA from filing a criminal complaint before, after or during civil proceedings. They are not doing this both because it would not serve thier economic goals and because it is VERY hard to criminally procecute someone for this type of infringement.
I think MS needs to go learn what communism is all about, of course the Chinese government would be producing the products that China wants to sell, thats they way it works. As much as it seems unfair and all that jazz, the cold war is over and MS should deal with the fact that the Chinese government as an entity is going to be a powerful competitor. On the other hand if it looks like the new OS is going to cause a large trade inbalance between the two countries the US government needs to set up the appropriate taxes and import laws to try and balance that out. I must admit that I did not read the article in depth, but if MS is doing anything other than asking that import tariffs be placed on the product they are showing that they really do think they are above the law. Moreover they are showing that they want to be above the law in the entire world.