Re:Trading currency derivatives
on
WAP Bashing
·
· Score: 1
Doh!! Slashcode has now included the [site.com] naming convention. Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything??
Trading currency derivatives
on
WAP Bashing
·
· Score: 2
Trading currency derivatives is one place, at least, where WAP has succeeded. Check E-gold[e-gold.com] for their WAP client[pcs.e-gold.com]. This allows you to do E-gold spends and also check your account from a PCS or WAP enabled phone.
I was impressed when I saw that, as I had previously thought WAP was simply vapour.
If we invade Arghanistan we will break out back. Don't believe me? Just ask Russia. Or anyone else who has tried to take over Afghanistan (Including the "ruling" Taleban who only controls about 2/3 of the territory).
Defensive perimeters, land mines, etc., have proven historically to be ineffectual in that kind of territory with a motivated enemy. But, as one mujahdeen was quoted, "I do not fear the Russians, but I fear their helicoptors."
Now IANAG (General), but I believe the best way to go about something like this is a long series of directed raids by missile, bomber, helicopter and (most importantly) Special Forces units. They need to be focused though, and directed by good intelligence. Something we have precious little of in that area. We would be well advised to ally ourselves with the Northern Alliance if we are going to have any sort of protracted involvement in the area, because they actually have people who know the terrain and are in contact with the enemy. (This of course assumes that the Taliban will back bin Laden).
In defense of Jon Katz, technology will most certainly play a pivotal role in the intelligence gathering (although I definitely hope we invest more money, time and effort in HUMINT). It will also be big in any kind of attack. A large part of the reason our Special Forces are so effective is their superior helicopters, our planes achieve dominance because of their better technology. Saying that the technological portions of this battle will not be significant would be terribly naive.
Under the AT&T Roadrunner TOS, running a personal server is explicitly allowed. I believe it says something about not running a commercial one, but that makes perfect sense.
I agree, though, that they still have the right to turn off any inbound ports to protect their network integrity. I think it would be unreasonable for them to block ALL inbound traffic, because that blocks things that people expect to get from an online experience (like multiplayer gaming). But if there is activity on a certain port that is flummoxing things up, sure, block it.
Good point about http being a "nice" protocol, although I think you'll find that any protocol originating in the Unix world behaves similarly.
Encrypting everything via IPsec tunnels will stop echelon specifically, but not all "attacks" such as Carnivore.
Anything that monitors the email server rather than simply sniffing traffic will be able to sidestep the IPsec tunnel (assuming we are still using email and not some p2p tunneling mail protocol). Although it would be nice and much easier to just implement IPsec across the board (and easier still once IPv6 is more widely adopted), to stop system attacks rather than just network atacks requires encrypting each message. Oh well.
Another War Department that is not controlled by environmentalists will develop more effective but less environmentally friendly weapons.
I have no problems with the current plan of refining the fuel process in rockets and the propellent in bullets, but I sure hope they don't take it too far. There is a reason we use DU rounds, and there is a reason M1A1's use not-very-clean fuels.
The only way stuff like this can work on a large scale is if everyone agrees to do it (or at least everyone that matters). Because otherwise someone who doesn't care will come along and ream the guys who are trying to measure what kind of emissions their new machine gun gives off.
Maybe this isn't really an issue given the current power-distribution in the world, but it's something to keep in mind.
I think that artificial intelligence wpould be best measured with an understanding of emotion and ethics, so psychological and ethical examinations, such as those administered in Blade Runner.
What do you think a Turing test is? In Blade Runner, they were not looking to see if someone had a proper sense of ethics... they were seeing if someone had *any* sense of ethics. Also, the idea of a human playing against a computer in chess and thinking it is another human is utterly silly (at this point) when you are talking outside the chess-game. Sure, the person might think they know the playing style of the computer, and therefore assign a human identity to it, but the instant a conversation comes up about stuff like "What'd you do yesterday" and "Why don't you live with your parents anymore" the cat would be out of the bag faster than you can blink.
For two (or something like that):
The whole point of the Turing test is that if a computer can fool a trained human in a double blind test reliably... it doesn't matter if they are naturally or artificially intelligent. Think about that. If you can't tell if it is human or not... does it matter whether it is actually human? Shouldn't you treat it as if it were human? This is a pragmatic approach (formal pragmatics, not pragmatics which is that same as "practicality"), but no less valid for that. If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, walks like a duck...
Funny how the review bellyaches about a Winmodem as a resource hog and a pain in the neck. I remember way back when (oh, maybe 6 months or a year ago?) if the modem was a winmodem, you didn't even bellyache about it being a resource hog. It just plain didn't work.
One thing I wonder about, though, is what kind of support comes with this laptop? Normally you don't get support from Corel unless you bought the product over the counter, and I wonder if IBM will give it's (Linux) laptop buyers the same kind of support as its desktop buyers. A lot of established Linux users scoff at using customer support, but that is the sort of thing that convinces businesses to buy, say, 500 units for their sales force.
Great post! If I had any moderator points left I'd mod it up that last little bit so more people could read it, but I don't think you'll have that problem anyway.
You outlined a number of things that have been on my mind in recent months. For one, if I can hear it, see it, feel it, etc., I can copy it. Finding clever ways to stop that will only delay the inevitable, you are building sand walls against the tide.
Also, the current music industry is not the way it has always been. It was only practical to make recordings of singers after microphone and recording technology was able to make a reasonable copy of the way it sounded originally.
At this point, it is still necessary to have a few thousand dollars to make a quality home studio, but I think even that price will continue to plummet in coming years. Look at Demudi [demudi.org]. It is obvious that at this point the whole Linux side of the recording/editing/sequencing field is fairly weak. It will not stay that way. Also, look at the extrememly low cost of programs like Acid Music, right off the shelf. These give Pro Tools type functionality without Pro Tools cost.
I think soon we will be living William Gibson's vision of the Garage Kubrick. Very soon the line in quality between talented amateur and seasoned pro will be very much blurrier. I can't wait to see that day.
Hey wait a minute here. Everyone knows that the standard mouse is only really practical in gravity. If you use a mouse in zero G, you have to hold it down against a table, and obviously holding it down would almost certainly make you bounce off into the depths of space (think Darth Vader). For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...
Now, what they *should* be using for a pointing device is a trackball. That way they don't have to hold it down and therefore will remain safe. Man these space guys sure are dumb. First it's the whole feet and meters thing, now this.
I wonder, if since the desktop rover can be hooked up via tcp/ip to a computer, and since it has laser tag capabilities...
Could one hack it to be a remote IrDA port? maybe be used as a second remote control for your TV? There must be some super-cool use for a radio controlled remote control...
Apple has historically had *Great* marketing. They can't help it if the OS market is held by... errrmm.. who was that again? AMD just needs to market a single part of the computer that is fully compatable with everything else the person runs (except maybe the motherboard, but most people don't just buy the proc, they buy a whole new system and choose one proc over another). In order to switch to Apple, people need to switch their entire computer platform and also the entire OS.
Apple's marketing has some huge challenges to overcome, and they've done really well so far. I suspect that in a few years we'll be looking back at their genius rather than their failures (particularly if something is actually done to stop a certain software monopoly).
btw, I'm not a Mac user, but recent marketing efforts have persuaded me that I might want to get an Apple for my next laptop. Something I *never* thought I'd see happen.
Arrrrggg, just when I thought AMD would actually have a chance in the marketplace vs. Intel they go and do a stupid thing like this.
This is the tactic of a loser. Look where it got Cyrix. What they *should* be doing is emulating Apple, and run a lot of ads expostulating on the "Myth of the Megahertz". This has the double bonus of getting them airtime and also slamming Intel without mentioning Intel outright (or even *with* mentioning Intel, that's fine). They don't even need to get into technical details, just say stuff like "In the most demanding benchmarks, our processors come out ahead. They are more efficient, and better able to perform the tasks that will launch you into the Internet Era.. etc. etc.::Insert Marketing Stuff::"
If they want to be seen as a serious competetor in the business arena, this is NOT the tactic to take. Bogus "power ratings" are just that. Bogus. I had just started to genuinely *like* AMD as a company that put out a good, solid product with a minimum of BS. Man, I'm so pissed off about this. Grrr!!
*Is* Westron translated? I had thought not, but I might be forgetting. If you translate/decode the Elvish script on the title pages of the books, you find that it's actually in English (although spelled phonetically). Also, the language of the Rohirrim is similar to OE, but differs in a few respects.
Thanks for the info, just the same.
BTW, Tolkien inspired me to *major* in Linguistics:-).
Is Tolkien's Letters published under Christopher Tolkien as well? That's one of the few I don't have. The Book(s) of Lost Tales are great though, I haven't read them in a few years, but those are some of the ones I'm planning on rereading.
If you like Book of Lost Tales, you'll probably also like Unfinished Tales, I forget if it's published under John or Christopher. But then you seem pretty in to this, so you probably have that one, too:-).
There is so much in the speculative fiction world that borrows from Tolkien. These books are great. At least read Lord of the Rings, maybe The Hobbit (if you do, you should read it first). Read my other post to find out part of why I love these books so much (too lazy to find post url (-:).
Read them. they will change your view of the world.
I have been in love with Tolkien's work since I was 11 or 12 years old, and the love hasn't ceased growing yet. Some comments:
Although the great maps Tolkien obviously created to detail the civilizations, migrations, and geography/geology of his world(s) have a huge impact on their shocking reality, I think there are many other factors that contribute as much or more. First of all is the languages. Look at the appendices of Return of the King if you want to know what I mean. These languages are in depth, realistic, and utterly amazing. Many of them closely parallel structure and syntax of North-Germanic languages (e.g. Norwegian, Danish, Old English). They parallel them enough that it isn't entirely inconceivable that the Common which is spoken in Middle Earth is in fact written as it sounds. It sounds just like English. Notice how Tolkien doesn't use very many words of Latin origin (which can often give a clinical feel to speech). This gives the books a hominess (sic?) and a feeling of old beauty.
Also, the mythology. My favorite Tolkien book of all is the Silmarillion because of the great mythology it presents for Middle Earth. Also look how closely it mirrors our own mythologies, particularly Norse, Greek, and Christian. The stories are so rich and so human (even though many of them take place before humans are invented:-)), we could almost accept them as our own natural mythos rather than one invented by a telented writer. Harry Harrison's "Warriors of the Way" trilogy has opened up some new intellectual doors for me regarding Asgardian myth (particularly the role of Loki), and I plan to re-read as much of Tolkien's work as I can to look into the topic further. This stuff never ceases to amaze me.
One of the best articles I've seen...
on
The Internet Backlash
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This is one of the best articles I've seen on the whole IP/copyright/DMCA issue. It basically mirrors most of my opinions on the matter. I recently realized some things, though, which both give me some hope and make me fear for the future.
First, the part that makes me fear for the future. The laws in our country generally reflect the "will of the people". Stop. Think about this. Sure, there are the odd examples where something gets slipped in almost as an afterthought and people don't realize it until it's too late (e.g. the CDA, remember that?, also to a lesser extent the DMCA). In general, though, the laws don't get passed unless a decent number of people think they should be.
Notice that I didn't mention the Constitution anywhere in the preceding paragraph. This is one of the things I realized: Most people in the US DON'T CARE about the Constitution. You may argue with me and say that I'm making sweeping judgments without any fact (but then, hey, this is Slashdot). You may say that the Constitution and human rights are important to everyone in the country. To which I reply: Native Americans. Slavery. Imperialism. Manifest Destiny. McCarthyism.
People here care about the Constitution for just as far is is suits THEM. Not anyone else. Not some pinko kike nigger who wants to be able to raise a family and maybe live in peace. Face it; most people in this country (including many judges, prosecutors, policemen) don't really care about the "intent" behind the Constitution. In fact, if you were able to convince them of what the intent actually was, they'd probably try to get the damned thing changed, and fast.
Then another thought occured to me. This is what the Supreme Court is for. It may take them forever to reach a real conclusion on any case that really affects society, and they may take a middle-ground stance on many issues we think are hugely important. By and large, though, they succeed in taking overzealous prosecutors, executives, legislators, and even judges to task on things that most people don't care about (the whole constitution thing).
However, they are damned slow. So if we want things to change now we're going to have to fight a social battle. Why are these laws bad for the economy? Why are they bad for national security? Why do they stop academic researchers from discussing topics which will affect Joe Consumer in a couple years, long after he has any ability to stop them? Okay, now explain it to Joe Consumer. If you talk to him the right way, you will persuade him. The vilified large media conglomerates and multinational corps have been very talented at talking to Joe; they have practice. Start talking about his wallet. Start talking about his kids. He will listen. The NYT and other major publications' pieces are a step in the right direction. This is a PR battle. If you stop this law, another will come along until public opinion changes.
Quite off the subject, I thought the design of heise.de/tp/ was exceptional. I like the little identifier symbols next to the links to tell you whether they were local or off-site. I liked the clean, easy to read sidebars, with pull downs that make sense. The download and forum icons were also very intuitive. Great design.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and this is a good time to bring it up.
I've been reading articles about the incredibly low cost of fiber lines relative to T*'s; with common prices for a 1.5 Mb/s T1 being about $850/month and a 12Mb/s fiber line being approximately $1500/month. Also, with the fiber line you can get bandwidth upgrades without any physical modifications; you just call the provider, they flip a switch, and boom, more bandwidth.
Why not create a non-profit or not-for-profit a la Spindl3top that goes out, leases a fiber line, and then provides instructions to roll your own DSL. People could also use 802.11b with directional and omnidirectional antennae. You could, say, provide the wireless access for free (maybe with a bandwidth cap) and charge a small fee for the DSL access or no-bandwidth-cap wireless access. People would be able to split a mega-fat pipe at cost. Hmm, maybe if I run into some money I'll...::goes to find some money::
OT: slashcode
on
SIGGRAPH 2001
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Is it just me, or is the new slashcode buggy as a MoFo? I'm getting missing titles on stories, internal server errors, and all sorts of silly things. Something tells me the newest slashcode was not ready for prime time yet.
For one, as an above poster mentioned, a con artist or a magician needs to be intelligent in order to fool you.
Also, it isn't the rigamarole of the test itself that is important, it is the idea behind it. Basically, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck... etc., then we must conclude it is a duck.
If there is no way to discern an AI from a human then we must treat them the same. I think the Turing test is really a great example of pragmatics. Granted there is no set procedure to test the computer, if there were we could specifically program around that set procedure. The test needs to be adaptive; however the basic premise would still be the same. If the AI seems intelligent to everyone, then it IS intelligent to everyone (until someone else comes up with a way to prove that it isn't).
I agree with the "needle in a haystack" idea. It doesn't seem like this technique would be practical given the relation between bandwidth and image size.
Given a certain state of network bandwidth, the quality of images transferred over the network is likely to increase as the ability to transmit that data increases. This means that anyone trying a large scale data mining for steganographic data, for example in a Carnivore-type application, would need to have many times the bandwidth of ALL the senders/recievers in order to analyze that much data.
That would make it so the only real application of this method would be for people you already suspect of sending steganographic data. You could direct the search toward them. However, then it is still trial and error to find which steganographic protocol they used, etc., and you're back to square one.
Maybe if the steganographic checking system was actually *intergrated* to the Carnivore system you could get somewhere. It might be a good way to search for messages that were "suspicious".
It is interesting, though, that this method is possible without knowing the individual steganographic protocols. It just seems that it would be too resource-intensive to deploy on a wide scale, and a wide scale is the only place it would be really more useful than trial and error.
As far as I can tell, the story has moved down the/. front page and SeanBaby.com is *still* unaccessable. Maybe it's just me or my T1, but I doubt it.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Doh!! Slashcode has now included the [site.com] naming convention. Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything??
Trading currency derivatives is one place, at least, where WAP has succeeded. Check E-gold[e-gold.com] for their WAP client[pcs.e-gold.com]. This allows you to do E-gold spends and also check your account from a PCS or WAP enabled phone.
I was impressed when I saw that, as I had previously thought WAP was simply vapour.
If we invade Arghanistan we will break out back. Don't believe me? Just ask Russia. Or anyone else who has tried to take over Afghanistan (Including the "ruling" Taleban who only controls about 2/3 of the territory).
Defensive perimeters, land mines, etc., have proven historically to be ineffectual in that kind of territory with a motivated enemy. But, as one mujahdeen was quoted, "I do not fear the Russians, but I fear their helicoptors."
Now IANAG (General), but I believe the best way to go about something like this is a long series of directed raids by missile, bomber, helicopter and (most importantly) Special Forces units. They need to be focused though, and directed by good intelligence. Something we have precious little of in that area. We would be well advised to ally ourselves with the Northern Alliance if we are going to have any sort of protracted involvement in the area, because they actually have people who know the terrain and are in contact with the enemy. (This of course assumes that the Taliban will back bin Laden).
In defense of Jon Katz, technology will most certainly play a pivotal role in the intelligence gathering (although I definitely hope we invest more money, time and effort in HUMINT). It will also be big in any kind of attack. A large part of the reason our Special Forces are so effective is their superior helicopters, our planes achieve dominance because of their better technology. Saying that the technological portions of this battle will not be significant would be terribly naive.
Under the AT&T Roadrunner TOS, running a personal server is explicitly allowed. I believe it says something about not running a commercial one, but that makes perfect sense.
I agree, though, that they still have the right to turn off any inbound ports to protect their network integrity. I think it would be unreasonable for them to block ALL inbound traffic, because that blocks things that people expect to get from an online experience (like multiplayer gaming). But if there is activity on a certain port that is flummoxing things up, sure, block it.
Good point about http being a "nice" protocol, although I think you'll find that any protocol originating in the Unix world behaves similarly.
Encrypting everything via IPsec tunnels will stop echelon specifically, but not all "attacks" such as Carnivore.
Anything that monitors the email server rather than simply sniffing traffic will be able to sidestep the IPsec tunnel (assuming we are still using email and not some p2p tunneling mail protocol). Although it would be nice and much easier to just implement IPsec across the board (and easier still once IPv6 is more widely adopted), to stop system attacks rather than just network atacks requires encrypting each message. Oh well.
Another War Department that is not controlled by environmentalists will develop more effective but less environmentally friendly weapons.
I have no problems with the current plan of refining the fuel process in rockets and the propellent in bullets, but I sure hope they don't take it too far. There is a reason we use DU rounds, and there is a reason M1A1's use not-very-clean fuels.
The only way stuff like this can work on a large scale is if everyone agrees to do it (or at least everyone that matters). Because otherwise someone who doesn't care will come along and ream the guys who are trying to measure what kind of emissions their new machine gun gives off.
Maybe this isn't really an issue given the current power-distribution in the world, but it's something to keep in mind.
For one:
I think that artificial intelligence wpould be best measured with an understanding of emotion and ethics, so psychological and ethical examinations, such as those administered in Blade Runner.
What do you think a Turing test is? In Blade Runner, they were not looking to see if someone had a proper sense of ethics... they were seeing if someone had *any* sense of ethics. Also, the idea of a human playing against a computer in chess and thinking it is another human is utterly silly (at this point) when you are talking outside the chess-game. Sure, the person might think they know the playing style of the computer, and therefore assign a human identity to it, but the instant a conversation comes up about stuff like "What'd you do yesterday" and "Why don't you live with your parents anymore" the cat would be out of the bag faster than you can blink.
For two (or something like that):
The whole point of the Turing test is that if a computer can fool a trained human in a double blind test reliably... it doesn't matter if they are naturally or artificially intelligent. Think about that. If you can't tell if it is human or not... does it matter whether it is actually human? Shouldn't you treat it as if it were human? This is a pragmatic approach (formal pragmatics, not pragmatics which is that same as "practicality"), but no less valid for that. If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, walks like a duck...
Funny how the review bellyaches about a Winmodem as a resource hog and a pain in the neck. I remember way back when (oh, maybe 6 months or a year ago?) if the modem was a winmodem, you didn't even bellyache about it being a resource hog. It just plain didn't work.
One thing I wonder about, though, is what kind of support comes with this laptop? Normally you don't get support from Corel unless you bought the product over the counter, and I wonder if IBM will give it's (Linux) laptop buyers the same kind of support as its desktop buyers. A lot of established Linux users scoff at using customer support, but that is the sort of thing that convinces businesses to buy, say, 500 units for their sales force.
Great post! If I had any moderator points left I'd mod it up that last little bit so more people could read it, but I don't think you'll have that problem anyway.
You outlined a number of things that have been on my mind in recent months. For one, if I can hear it, see it, feel it, etc., I can copy it. Finding clever ways to stop that will only delay the inevitable, you are building sand walls against the tide.
Also, the current music industry is not the way it has always been. It was only practical to make recordings of singers after microphone and recording technology was able to make a reasonable copy of the way it sounded originally.
At this point, it is still necessary to have a few thousand dollars to make a quality home studio, but I think even that price will continue to plummet in coming years. Look at Demudi [demudi.org]. It is obvious that at this point the whole Linux side of the recording/editing/sequencing field is fairly weak. It will not stay that way. Also, look at the extrememly low cost of programs like Acid Music, right off the shelf. These give Pro Tools type functionality without Pro Tools cost.
I think soon we will be living William Gibson's vision of the Garage Kubrick. Very soon the line in quality between talented amateur and seasoned pro will be very much blurrier. I can't wait to see that day.
You're right, my plan is ruined!!!!
They'll have to use touchpads, then, it's the only choice.
Hey wait a minute here. Everyone knows that the standard mouse is only really practical in gravity. If you use a mouse in zero G, you have to hold it down against a table, and obviously holding it down would almost certainly make you bounce off into the depths of space (think Darth Vader). For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...
Now, what they *should* be using for a pointing device is a trackball. That way they don't have to hold it down and therefore will remain safe. Man these space guys sure are dumb. First it's the whole feet and meters thing, now this.
I wonder, if since the desktop rover can be hooked up via tcp/ip to a computer, and since it has laser tag capabilities...
Could one hack it to be a remote IrDA port? maybe be used as a second remote control for your TV? There must be some super-cool use for a radio controlled remote control...
At least you'd never lose it!!
Apple has historically had *Great* marketing. They can't help it if the OS market is held by... errrmm.. who was that again? AMD just needs to market a single part of the computer that is fully compatable with everything else the person runs (except maybe the motherboard, but most people don't just buy the proc, they buy a whole new system and choose one proc over another). In order to switch to Apple, people need to switch their entire computer platform and also the entire OS.
Apple's marketing has some huge challenges to overcome, and they've done really well so far. I suspect that in a few years we'll be looking back at their genius rather than their failures (particularly if something is actually done to stop a certain software monopoly).
btw, I'm not a Mac user, but recent marketing efforts have persuaded me that I might want to get an Apple for my next laptop. Something I *never* thought I'd see happen.
Arrrrggg, just when I thought AMD would actually have a chance in the marketplace vs. Intel they go and do a stupid thing like this.
::Insert Marketing Stuff::"
This is the tactic of a loser. Look where it got Cyrix. What they *should* be doing is emulating Apple, and run a lot of ads expostulating on the "Myth of the Megahertz". This has the double bonus of getting them airtime and also slamming Intel without mentioning Intel outright (or even *with* mentioning Intel, that's fine). They don't even need to get into technical details, just say stuff like "In the most demanding benchmarks, our processors come out ahead. They are more efficient, and better able to perform the tasks that will launch you into the Internet Era.. etc. etc.
If they want to be seen as a serious competetor in the business arena, this is NOT the tactic to take. Bogus "power ratings" are just that. Bogus. I had just started to genuinely *like* AMD as a company that put out a good, solid product with a minimum of BS. Man, I'm so pissed off about this. Grrr!!
*Is* Westron translated? I had thought not, but I might be forgetting. If you translate/decode the Elvish script on the title pages of the books, you find that it's actually in English (although spelled phonetically). Also, the language of the Rohirrim is similar to OE, but differs in a few respects.
:-).
Thanks for the info, just the same.
BTW, Tolkien inspired me to *major* in Linguistics
Thanks for the info!!
:-).
Is Tolkien's Letters published under Christopher Tolkien as well? That's one of the few I don't have. The Book(s) of Lost Tales are great though, I haven't read them in a few years, but those are some of the ones I'm planning on rereading.
If you like Book of Lost Tales, you'll probably also like Unfinished Tales, I forget if it's published under John or Christopher. But then you seem pretty in to this, so you probably have that one, too
There is so much in the speculative fiction world that borrows from Tolkien. These books are great. At least read Lord of the Rings, maybe The Hobbit (if you do, you should read it first). Read my other post to find out part of why I love these books so much (too lazy to find post url (-:).
Read them. they will change your view of the world.
I have been in love with Tolkien's work since I was 11 or 12 years old, and the love hasn't ceased growing yet. Some comments:
:-)), we could almost accept them as our own natural mythos rather than one invented by a telented writer. Harry Harrison's "Warriors of the Way" trilogy has opened up some new intellectual doors for me regarding Asgardian myth (particularly the role of Loki), and I plan to re-read as much of Tolkien's work as I can to look into the topic further. This stuff never ceases to amaze me.
Although the great maps Tolkien obviously created to detail the civilizations, migrations, and geography/geology of his world(s) have a huge impact on their shocking reality, I think there are many other factors that contribute as much or more. First of all is the languages. Look at the appendices of Return of the King if you want to know what I mean. These languages are in depth, realistic, and utterly amazing. Many of them closely parallel structure and syntax of North-Germanic languages (e.g. Norwegian, Danish, Old English). They parallel them enough that it isn't entirely inconceivable that the Common which is spoken in Middle Earth is in fact written as it sounds. It sounds just like English. Notice how Tolkien doesn't use very many words of Latin origin (which can often give a clinical feel to speech). This gives the books a hominess (sic?) and a feeling of old beauty.
Also, the mythology. My favorite Tolkien book of all is the Silmarillion because of the great mythology it presents for Middle Earth. Also look how closely it mirrors our own mythologies, particularly Norse, Greek, and Christian. The stories are so rich and so human (even though many of them take place before humans are invented
This is one of the best articles I've seen on the whole IP/copyright/DMCA issue. It basically mirrors most of my opinions on the matter. I recently realized some things, though, which both give me some hope and make me fear for the future.
First, the part that makes me fear for the future. The laws in our country generally reflect the "will of the people". Stop. Think about this. Sure, there are the odd examples where something gets slipped in almost as an afterthought and people don't realize it until it's too late (e.g. the CDA, remember that?, also to a lesser extent the DMCA). In general, though, the laws don't get passed unless a decent number of people think they should be.
Notice that I didn't mention the Constitution anywhere in the preceding paragraph. This is one of the things I realized: Most people in the US DON'T CARE about the Constitution. You may argue with me and say that I'm making sweeping judgments without any fact (but then, hey, this is Slashdot). You may say that the Constitution and human rights are important to everyone in the country. To which I reply: Native Americans. Slavery. Imperialism. Manifest Destiny. McCarthyism.
People here care about the Constitution for just as far is is suits THEM. Not anyone else. Not some pinko kike nigger who wants to be able to raise a family and maybe live in peace. Face it; most people in this country (including many judges, prosecutors, policemen) don't really care about the "intent" behind the Constitution. In fact, if you were able to convince them of what the intent actually was, they'd probably try to get the damned thing changed, and fast.
Then another thought occured to me. This is what the Supreme Court is for. It may take them forever to reach a real conclusion on any case that really affects society, and they may take a middle-ground stance on many issues we think are hugely important. By and large, though, they succeed in taking overzealous prosecutors, executives, legislators, and even judges to task on things that most people don't care about (the whole constitution thing).
However, they are damned slow. So if we want things to change now we're going to have to fight a social battle. Why are these laws bad for the economy? Why are they bad for national security? Why do they stop academic researchers from discussing topics which will affect Joe Consumer in a couple years, long after he has any ability to stop them? Okay, now explain it to Joe Consumer. If you talk to him the right way, you will persuade him. The vilified large media conglomerates and multinational corps have been very talented at talking to Joe; they have practice. Start talking about his wallet. Start talking about his kids. He will listen. The NYT and other major publications' pieces are a step in the right direction. This is a PR battle. If you stop this law, another will come along until public opinion changes.
Quite off the subject, I thought the design of heise.de/tp/ was exceptional. I like the little identifier symbols next to the links to tell you whether they were local or off-site. I liked the clean, easy to read sidebars, with pull downs that make sense. The download and forum icons were also very intuitive. Great design.
I meant to include this link.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and this is a good time to bring it up.
::goes to find some money::
I've been reading articles about the incredibly low cost of fiber lines relative to T*'s; with common prices for a 1.5 Mb/s T1 being about $850/month and a 12Mb/s fiber line being approximately $1500/month. Also, with the fiber line you can get bandwidth upgrades without any physical modifications; you just call the provider, they flip a switch, and boom, more bandwidth.
Why not create a non-profit or not-for-profit a la Spindl3top that goes out, leases a fiber line, and then provides instructions to roll your own DSL. People could also use 802.11b with directional and omnidirectional antennae. You could, say, provide the wireless access for free (maybe with a bandwidth cap) and charge a small fee for the DSL access or no-bandwidth-cap wireless access. People would be able to split a mega-fat pipe at cost. Hmm, maybe if I run into some money I'll...
Is it just me, or is the new slashcode buggy as a MoFo? I'm getting missing titles on stories, internal server errors, and all sorts of silly things. Something tells me the newest slashcode was not ready for prime time yet.
Also, it isn't the rigamarole of the test itself that is important, it is the idea behind it. Basically, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck... etc., then we must conclude it is a duck.
If there is no way to discern an AI from a human then we must treat them the same. I think the Turing test is really a great example of pragmatics. Granted there is no set procedure to test the computer, if there were we could specifically program around that set procedure. The test needs to be adaptive; however the basic premise would still be the same. If the AI seems intelligent to everyone, then it IS intelligent to everyone (until someone else comes up with a way to prove that it isn't).
Given a certain state of network bandwidth, the quality of images transferred over the network is likely to increase as the ability to transmit that data increases. This means that anyone trying a large scale data mining for steganographic data, for example in a Carnivore-type application, would need to have many times the bandwidth of ALL the senders/recievers in order to analyze that much data.
That would make it so the only real application of this method would be for people you already suspect of sending steganographic data. You could direct the search toward them. However, then it is still trial and error to find which steganographic protocol they used, etc., and you're back to square one.
Maybe if the steganographic checking system was actually *intergrated* to the Carnivore system you could get somewhere. It might be a good way to search for messages that were "suspicious".
It is interesting, though, that this method is possible without knowing the individual steganographic protocols. It just seems that it would be too resource-intensive to deploy on a wide scale, and a wide scale is the only place it would be really more useful than trial and error.
As far as I can tell, the story has moved down the /. front page and SeanBaby.com is *still* unaccessable. Maybe it's just me or my T1, but I doubt it. :-)