I was running some Linux already in '95.. on my grand ole 486DX. I was using a plain old X desktop without any of these fancy desktop enviroments. Back when the Linux desktop really did look like shit. (But hey it ran in 4M of memory.):)
Win95's one big bonus IMO was when they intergrated TCP/IP. Connecting to the web with Win3.1 or DOS was just a pain in the ass. Allowing long file names was pretty nice too. I don't remember ever having DOS/Win3.1 crash the way Win9x did though and files were generally organized in a more logical way. Actually I still have a DOS/Win3.1 box being used in my business. It's still working just fine so there is no reason to change it.
It still doesn't change the fact that Microsoft sold lots and lots of copies to people that didn't even have a computer or know you needed one to use Windows. I'm not sure if that is more funny or sad. That proves how stupid people are IMO.
Leaving the command line behind was a huge mistake. Make an OS that even a blind three fingered ape can use and everyone will get used to blindly using a three finger keystroke to fix every problem. My experience has been that total computer illiterates learn to use Linux faster than experienced Win/Mac users. They don't think it's hard because they've never been trained to expect it to be chimp-easy.
You can remove a lot of those extra features from Mozilla if you don't want/need them. Compiling such a large program can be rough unless you have a studly system though. Tabs and pop-up blocking are cool features but the excellent standards support is great too.
Is the XUL the main complaint you have against Mozilla or is there something more? On shitty old computers you can feel the hit from XUL but on anything halfway modern it's unnoticable and it makes it much easier to port Moz to new systems. XUL is also awesome for those interested in modifying the browser. You can pretty much do absolutely anything to it. To some degree I expect to see XUL eventually migrate into the desktop especially in the Unixes.
Not really. Linux controls a good percentage of the worlds servers and embedded devices and is becoming more popular for desktop enviroments (especially in businesses). With companies like IBM and RedHat providing that extra support and accountability business adoption is moving along well.
As for home users I'd prefer them to ignore Linux for a while longer. Companies like Lindows are really doing everyone a disservice. Linux on the desktop is getting better but for non-geeks you really need a geek to configure it for you in the first place and it helps if they know your personal needs. Companies like Lindows are jumping the gun and leaving a sour taste in peoples mouths.
My experience has been IE has gotten ever worse since IE 4. It is less trouble because Windows has improved but my experience is that in many ways IE has felt like it was suffering growing pains. Mozilla is 100% free and has some handy features and to me feels less clumsy. Mozilla is certainly suffering growing pains too but to me Mozilla's pains are in the fine tuning of features where IE's is in the basic look and feel.
For any great length? Probably a couple months ago. I go through spurts of usage as I take on different projects. Still I have to use it more often than I like for general testing. Oh the joy of testing between multiple browsers and operating systems.:)
I still think IE sucks but as I've said it's better than Nutscrape 4.x and probably on par with Opera. It's better than Konquerer. Sucks is a relative term. I think most software sucks. As I said Mozilla sometimes sucks if you're getting nightly builds - other days it kicks ass.
I don't expect, or want, everyone to switch to Mozilla. My main argument is with people who think IE is the one true way. Neither IE or Mozilla would continue to improve without an evil rival to compete with. Opera is probably the closest to a third runner there is. Nothing else feels like a grown up browser.
You don't have to have a large section of the market to be competition. Remember how fast IE destroyed Netscape? You just have to have a product good enough to keep the heat on. If IE stops progressing Mozilla will catch up and surpass them and eventually eat their lunch. Unlike Netscape Mozilla isn't going to be easy to kill. It's been designed from the ground up to be maintainable and flexible. It's independent of a commercial company. You can't buy it ot put it out of business.
You only think IE is reliable as you've not experienced anything better. Some versions of Mozilla do suck especially if you're grabbing random nightly builds. Of course with Windows a lot of if this sucks or that sucks depends on fine tuning for the individual apps. IE has been an ass on all the machines I've used it. Users typically don't complain but if they sit down at a machine that only has Mozilla for a while a lot of them don't want to go back.
As for my own experience I can run Mozilla with a dozen tabs open and being used and have it run for weeks with never a problem. The only irk I have with Mozilla is their fonts can be weird sometimes if you don't compile it yourself.
You really think the average person is smart enough to know IE sucks? Remember how many copies of Windows 95 Microsoft sold to people that didn't even own computers? For the most part people are sheep and take what they are given. They don't think to look for anything else. If they try something else and it's better though sometimes they'll make the effort to switch.
Just because most people can't code doesn't mean source isn't useful to them. They can still pay someone to fix a bug for them if needed. If you think/anything/ comes without bugs you obviously aren't any kind of an engineer. Everything has bugs. If it's not important sure you can throw it away and look for a new one. If there are no better alternatives and you can't fix it and you can't make a new alternative from scratch then you're shit outta luck. Try throwing your car away if a fan belt breaks. Gets expensive fast.
It screws Windows up to due to the nice intergration. It only seems to use less RAM because of it's nice intergration. Also you can compile/configure Mozilla to use considerably less RAM if you're really worried about it.
You can use Mozilla with your native widgets if you really want to. Having widgets shared between platforms is excellent if you move between multiple OS's and want them all to be familiar. Also Mozilla allows you to modify the look of the browser using CSS which lets you do some really useful things.
Frequent patches are a feature not a bug. You don't have to wait months for a security fix you should have in days. Not everyone makes as horrible patches as Microsoft that break as much as they fix. Nobody forces you to download the patches when they are offered.
Opera is sort of ugly but not as ugly as IE.. well except for the free version that has that ass ugly ad banner in the toolbar. I've never had it crash on me but I only use it for testing.
IE goes down more than a crack ho. It locks up for no reason whatsoever on certain sites. Sure the sites are probably horribly coded but it shouldn't freeze up. It's not much better than Nutscrape 4.x.
Of course the best web browser of all time is Lynx. It does what you need and nothing else. Pictures are for wimps and commies.:)
Naw. I think Mozilla is great if you have anything even remotely new for a computer. I still think they should put more effort into making it run better on crappy hardware but it runs well on most gear.
Mozilla uses less memory than IE and doesn't leak memory like Netscape 4.x so that is good. If you don't want all the extras you can easily compile Mozilla without them for less memory and hdd use.
Mozilla is very stable and full of useful features. Not crap like a talking paperclip but things that are actually useful. It looks a lot nicer than any other browser I've seen to. Some other browsers allow themes but they are pretty limited and still pretty ugly. Mozilla also has a lot better CSS support than other browsers which results in nice looking standard compliant web pages.
The fact that it's opensource is a great feature. It allows for unlimited customization and bug fixes. The fact that it gives IE some real competition is good for both IE and non-IE users. Having a choice is one of those features we all should appreciate.
Seriously IE sucks. Even die hard Windows users I know switch to Mozilla or Opera. I do use the best tool for the job which is why I use Mozilla. Maybe if Microsoft opensourced IE it'd improve and not suck so much. Pitiful considering how few platforms they even support and the headstart they had.
The same with Linux. I use Linux because it's better than Windows (for my needs at least). I do have major complaints about Gnome 2 though. It seems like they've slipped a lot. They actually are making XP look good in some ways.
The one really kickass program Microsoft makes.. M$ Flight Sim. Flight Sim is cool. Haven't seen it in a while though. They still selling it? I have yet to see an opensource program that was anywhere as cool as Flight Sim.:)
Also keep in mind that having access to the source is one feature that defines how useful that program is as a tool. Would you buy a car if it were impossible to open the hood? Of course not because to keep the car useful as a tool you need the ability to fix things that break. Maybe you wouldn't be the one to fix it but you could pay somebody to. Unless you have really deep pockets just try to get Microsoft to fix a bug just for you.
Go into physics or mathematics. Maybe you can solve the problem once and for all. I don't have the patience. Besides people thought I was crazy when they saw my digrams of infinite recursive hyper objects.;)
When I was a teenager I was obsessed with this basic concept and trying to turn it into some sort of programming metaphor. Infinite recursive containment. I thought the same applied to time and that by understanding how time and space contain each other recursively you could learn to move from any point in space time to any other point just by knowing the right move to make. For the most part I treat time as space. Thinking of each layer of space or time as either a hyper sphere or torus (do any other shaped make sense?) that intersect with infinite hyperspace objects there should be infinite possible moves we could make to leap from one point to any other. I thought of the whole thing as a hyperspace object that wrapped back on itself so if you passed the limit of the most infinite outter object you'd be back dealing with the most infinite inner object.. but that there really wasn't a difference in the two.
I'm not really into physics or theoretical math but it worked out rather nice for creating some novel approaches to representing data. I guess it's more my personal concept of how space and time works. I've found the concept lends itself to data compression if you can keep from getting brain fried for long enough.
Who said they couldn't sell it? I can sell it and they have a much better marketing department than I do (I don't have any marketing dept.) so they should be set.
For those of you with no sense of humor the 'dark side' thing was a joke. Obviously you don't read User Friendly or GPF or any comics like those.
A company has every right to claim IP rights to what they fund. I have every right not to work for a company that does so. It's my right as an employee to have a job contract that satisfies me as much as the company I'm working for. For me money and the color of my office are less important than the right to have an open community around my projects.
You can make money off open source software as easily as off closed source software. I've done so for quite some time and have not had a customer that cared. They are willing to pay for things like nice installation programs, support, etc.
Capitalists are still pigs. To bad I like to make money too. Guess that makes me a pig. It's not being a capitalist that is bad. It's the monopolisitc behavior of Microsoft that really irks me. That and the fact that their products have a history of sucking but not half as much as their support. The renewed competition I think is helping them though. Win2K and XP didn't suck nearly as bad as older versions of Windows. The competition they are getting from Solaris, Linux, and MacOS is especially making a difference I think.
If you waste the money on a PhD you're a schmuck. Especially in an area such as computers where education is typically far behind the cutting edge. I'm not paying anybody to tell me things I've known for years.. or worse things that are no longer true.
Microsoft's hiring practices seem odd to me. Of the people I know that do, or have, worked there the ones Microsoft actually hired were sort of morons and the smart people all had been brought over from companies M$ bought (like Hotmail).
I'd apply at M$ if they'd let me develop opensource software and use Linux on my development machine. As long as I see them as an evil empire though I couldn't work there. Their loss.
For me my dream job - of jobs I'd do for other people - would probably be Google. I love designing spiders and search engines and stuff like that and I know a couple people that work there and they seem to like it. To bad I don't have a PhD. They seem to snub lonewolf hacker types.
I'm always curious how they sepperate search engines spider action from average Joe's porn lust? I am a programmer and so I experiment with spiders that index and copy files from the web, usenet, gnutella, irc, etc. I get a lot of sick shit that comes over the Net to my spiders.. probably more porn than any of these small time traders could imagine. I am always wondering if so crazy government spook is just waiting to come knock down my door, arrest me, and steal my computers so that they can claim to have made a huge porn bust. My spiders don't look for porn but they still find it. I keep copies of everything they find (cached) but that doesn't mean I actually am looking at this stuff. Sure some of the porn I look at but not the sick shit like children and snuff.
If this would pass it'd be an important step in the government providing support for opensource programmers. I'd love to be able to check a list and see what programs they aren't finding available and be able to write one. It'd be even better if they'd provide grants to each project they use. A small fraction of the cost of commercial programs donated to each project.
I think web hosts should support customers that want to allow traffic only from large caching proxy networks. This allows sites to get traffic from anyone but only if they use a caching proxy.. removing the majority of the load from the web site. It'd be a real nice option to switch to when you hit your 75% point on bandwidth.
I've been seeing DVD-R discs on a spindle for about $1.11 each. Not to bad for 4.7Gb of space. Especially with DVD-R(W) drives costing less than $200 now. Get a PC, a decent digital video camera, and a DVD-R burner and you could have some fun making you own home movies and sending them to friends. Or am I the only person that likes to edit together my own lil films?
That'd be 1/10th of the hdd space I have in this computer alone not even counting all my other machines. If I can figure out how to mount another 120Gb drive in this case it'll be even less a percentage of one computers drive space. Three 120Gb hdds and a dvd drive in a system the size of a toaster is pushing it - that's probably the max for this box.
24Gb would still be helpful if they can bring the price down and especially if the discs are compat with current dvd players. That'd let me burn a couple movies to a dvd rather than the current problem of needing 2-3 dvd's per movie. Still I think removable media is a dying concept. Cheap hdd space and fast/easy networking will take over the tv and the computer.
Now when will hdd space be $1/Tb? I'm ready to start working on my home petabyte file server. If my math is right you could store over 200,000 ripped dvd's in a petabyte without loss of quality or features. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Does anyone else see this spawning a monster-eats-Tokyo type of television series? Swarms of cyborg insects invading Tokyo and implanting tiny webservers in every person they land in.. watching our children slowly become cyborgs... arghhhh Borg Bugs!
I remember users of my BBS and MUD's that'd do that to each other. None of the term programs I used was ever affected but it was pretty sloppy coding not to think of people doing that. On the other hand you rarely see much done with term programs these days. Back then you'd frequently create fairly impressive interactive programs. It's just not something you see much any more. My favorite was when RIPTerm came out. I actually had some RIPTerm-based websites that'd only work if you were using a text-based web browser (like Lynx) and the RIPTerm client. Was sort of fun and predated Flash by quite some time.:)
Uneducated/ignorant people that are easy to control and have the trouble telling that they are oppressed.. hrm sounds amazingy like your average American. The people who think Jerry Springer is good tv. We're not where Iraq is yet but we're sure on a dangerous downward spiral and the education system isn't getting better.
Morals belong to the individual. I have the moral right to do anything that doesn't cause me to feel evil. The original poster was right that damn near everything is illegal in some context but does it really matter?
I don't consider myself a citizen of any country so I feel no obligation to follow their laws. Of course I probably follow most of the ones people would worry about due to my own morals but it certainly doesn't keep me from pirating data.
I break laws constantly and what are they going to do about it? Sure they could arrest me but what good would it do them? I'd pirate stuff even from jail.
For that matter I'd probably break out of jail. It'd be my moral obligation to defend myself so I'd feel no wrong in killing and causing chaos if the government of a country attacked me first. So to keep me from ripping a few movies they'd make me kill.. just to take a guess of my own abilities I could kill a couple dozen people trying to break out.. then they'd kill me. To keep me from watching a DVD without the disc?
Piracy should be a civil issue not a legal issue. If company X wants to sue me for their imagined damages that would be reasonable. It wouldn't be reasonable to send me to jail. Sending people to jail often causes them to become more criminal. There is no benefit to society to take non-violent people and make them violent.
To be honest they are just pissing their own customers off. They seem to think that only they can offer broadband. Don't they realize that it is possible to cut them out of the picture? Community wireless networks are getting pretty popular and improving in quality. It is possible to cover long distances by relay. It is also possible to run our own wire in some cases. We could, and probably will, start to just cut MaBell out of the picture. Sure the Internet might have to change form somewhat to handle the change but it'd be a healthy change. It's time for the end user to be the biggest peer.
The reason the turing test is interested is that for a computer to similate normal conversation across a free range of topics requires a lot of abstract reasoning ability. You can use cheap tricks to similate a simple conversation but to jump between a human range of topics requires a lot more. Ask most these programs a simple question like "What is the difference between red and purple?" and they'll crap out. To REALLY pass the turing test requires an abstract reasoning framework, an emotion framework, the ability to learn, etc.
Like Eliza style programs most of what we call AI is based on simple tricks and mathematics rather than any real cognition. The difference is the lack of adaptiveness. You can't take the AI from a game engine and expect it to run your dye-master processes. There is nothing wrong with single-purpose programs to add more intelligence to automated systems but it really isn't AI.
Intelligence isn't the knowledge of how to do something - it's the ability to discover the knowledge of how to do something and apply that knowledge. I'd say the proper judge of an intelligence is how adaptive it is. My dog can figured out how to open the front door and that shows intelligence but my dog wouldn't figure out how to create the door in the first place.
Changing their mood is up to you. If you know where your starting it's a lot easier though. Given the average geeks inability to intuit such data mood sensing cloths could be a real help. Maybe the makers of the cloths could include a phrase book that is color coded.
But can you hack your girlfriends software to run Linux? I'd be really geeky cool to make your girlfriends new bra and panty set run Linux and do something useful like provide bio feedback. Just imagine if womens cloths would let you know if their in the mood to jump you or just punch your eye! Who needs mood rings.:)
Just think of this with bluetooth intergration. Your PDA, cellphone, and laptop could all intergrate with your cloths. If you have a meeting coming up your PDA blinks your shirt cuffs to remind you. Got a call? Don't set it to ring or vibrate.. make your cloths color cycle. Kicking ass and getting frags? Make your cloths show a flame pattern.. smokin!
For the most part it's write-once read-often. The files don't change, only the directories. I was actually thinking of a fun backup project to make a machine that could etch the bits in a aluminum sheets with a machine that could read them back in. Something like industrial strength punchcards. Possibly with each sheet 5ft x 5ft in size. Trying to decide the proper size for the bits. I'd like them large enough to be hard to destroy by accident or time but small enough that it doesn't take thousands of dollars worth of metal to store a single file. Was thinking of drilling the bits into the metal and using a laser on a mechanical arm to read them. I'd like to copy Google's Usenet db and copies of old game roms etc onto such a medium to preserve our lil bit of history for future generations.
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I was running some Linux already in '95.. on my grand ole 486DX. I was using a plain old X desktop without any of these fancy desktop enviroments. Back when the Linux desktop really did look like shit. (But hey it ran in 4M of memory.) :)
Win95's one big bonus IMO was when they intergrated TCP/IP. Connecting to the web with Win3.1 or DOS was just a pain in the ass. Allowing long file names was pretty nice too. I don't remember ever having DOS/Win3.1 crash the way Win9x did though and files were generally organized in a more logical way. Actually I still have a DOS/Win3.1 box being used in my business. It's still working just fine so there is no reason to change it.
It still doesn't change the fact that Microsoft sold lots and lots of copies to people that didn't even have a computer or know you needed one to use Windows. I'm not sure if that is more funny or sad. That proves how stupid people are IMO.
Leaving the command line behind was a huge mistake. Make an OS that even a blind three fingered ape can use and everyone will get used to blindly using a three finger keystroke to fix every problem. My experience has been that total computer illiterates learn to use Linux faster than experienced Win/Mac users. They don't think it's hard because they've never been trained to expect it to be chimp-easy.
You can remove a lot of those extra features from Mozilla if you don't want/need them. Compiling such a large program can be rough unless you have a studly system though. Tabs and pop-up blocking are cool features but the excellent standards support is great too.
:)
Is the XUL the main complaint you have against Mozilla or is there something more? On shitty old computers you can feel the hit from XUL but on anything halfway modern it's unnoticable and it makes it much easier to port Moz to new systems. XUL is also awesome for those interested in modifying the browser. You can pretty much do absolutely anything to it. To some degree I expect to see XUL eventually migrate into the desktop especially in the Unixes.
Not really. Linux controls a good percentage of the worlds servers and embedded devices and is becoming more popular for desktop enviroments (especially in businesses). With companies like IBM and RedHat providing that extra support and accountability business adoption is moving along well.
As for home users I'd prefer them to ignore Linux for a while longer. Companies like Lindows are really doing everyone a disservice. Linux on the desktop is getting better but for non-geeks you really need a geek to configure it for you in the first place and it helps if they know your personal needs. Companies like Lindows are jumping the gun and leaving a sour taste in peoples mouths.
My experience has been IE has gotten ever worse since IE 4. It is less trouble because Windows has improved but my experience is that in many ways IE has felt like it was suffering growing pains. Mozilla is 100% free and has some handy features and to me feels less clumsy. Mozilla is certainly suffering growing pains too but to me Mozilla's pains are in the fine tuning of features where IE's is in the basic look and feel.
For any great length? Probably a couple months ago. I go through spurts of usage as I take on different projects. Still I have to use it more often than I like for general testing. Oh the joy of testing between multiple browsers and operating systems.
I still think IE sucks but as I've said it's better than Nutscrape 4.x and probably on par with Opera. It's better than Konquerer. Sucks is a relative term. I think most software sucks. As I said Mozilla sometimes sucks if you're getting nightly builds - other days it kicks ass.
I don't expect, or want, everyone to switch to Mozilla. My main argument is with people who think IE is the one true way. Neither IE or Mozilla would continue to improve without an evil rival to compete with. Opera is probably the closest to a third runner there is. Nothing else feels like a grown up browser.
You don't have to have a large section of the market to be competition. Remember how fast IE destroyed Netscape? You just have to have a product good enough to keep the heat on. If IE stops progressing Mozilla will catch up and surpass them and eventually eat their lunch. Unlike Netscape Mozilla isn't going to be easy to kill. It's been designed from the ground up to be maintainable and flexible. It's independent of a commercial company. You can't buy it ot put it out of business.
You only think IE is reliable as you've not experienced anything better. Some versions of Mozilla do suck especially if you're grabbing random nightly builds. Of course with Windows a lot of if this sucks or that sucks depends on fine tuning for the individual apps. IE has been an ass on all the machines I've used it. Users typically don't complain but if they sit down at a machine that only has Mozilla for a while a lot of them don't want to go back.
/anything/ comes without bugs you obviously aren't any kind of an engineer. Everything has bugs. If it's not important sure you can throw it away and look for a new one. If there are no better alternatives and you can't fix it and you can't make a new alternative from scratch then you're shit outta luck. Try throwing your car away if a fan belt breaks. Gets expensive fast.
As for my own experience I can run Mozilla with a dozen tabs open and being used and have it run for weeks with never a problem. The only irk I have with Mozilla is their fonts can be weird sometimes if you don't compile it yourself.
You really think the average person is smart enough to know IE sucks? Remember how many copies of Windows 95 Microsoft sold to people that didn't even own computers? For the most part people are sheep and take what they are given. They don't think to look for anything else. If they try something else and it's better though sometimes they'll make the effort to switch.
Just because most people can't code doesn't mean source isn't useful to them. They can still pay someone to fix a bug for them if needed. If you think
It screws Windows up to due to the nice intergration. It only seems to use less RAM because of it's nice intergration. Also you can compile/configure Mozilla to use considerably less RAM if you're really worried about it.
:)
You can use Mozilla with your native widgets if you really want to. Having widgets shared between platforms is excellent if you move between multiple OS's and want them all to be familiar. Also Mozilla allows you to modify the look of the browser using CSS which lets you do some really useful things.
Frequent patches are a feature not a bug. You don't have to wait months for a security fix you should have in days. Not everyone makes as horrible patches as Microsoft that break as much as they fix. Nobody forces you to download the patches when they are offered.
Opera is sort of ugly but not as ugly as IE.. well except for the free version that has that ass ugly ad banner in the toolbar. I've never had it crash on me but I only use it for testing.
IE goes down more than a crack ho. It locks up for no reason whatsoever on certain sites. Sure the sites are probably horribly coded but it shouldn't freeze up. It's not much better than Nutscrape 4.x.
Of course the best web browser of all time is Lynx. It does what you need and nothing else. Pictures are for wimps and commies.
Naw. I think Mozilla is great if you have anything even remotely new for a computer. I still think they should put more effort into making it run better on crappy hardware but it runs well on most gear.
Mozilla uses less memory than IE and doesn't leak memory like Netscape 4.x so that is good. If you don't want all the extras you can easily compile Mozilla without them for less memory and hdd use.
Mozilla is very stable and full of useful features. Not crap like a talking paperclip but things that are actually useful. It looks a lot nicer than any other browser I've seen to. Some other browsers allow themes but they are pretty limited and still pretty ugly. Mozilla also has a lot better CSS support than other browsers which results in nice looking standard compliant web pages.
The fact that it's opensource is a great feature. It allows for unlimited customization and bug fixes. The fact that it gives IE some real competition is good for both IE and non-IE users. Having a choice is one of those features we all should appreciate.
Seriously IE sucks. Even die hard Windows users I know switch to Mozilla or Opera. I do use the best tool for the job which is why I use Mozilla. Maybe if Microsoft opensourced IE it'd improve and not suck so much. Pitiful considering how few platforms they even support and the headstart they had.
:)
The same with Linux. I use Linux because it's better than Windows (for my needs at least). I do have major complaints about Gnome 2 though. It seems like they've slipped a lot. They actually are making XP look good in some ways.
The one really kickass program Microsoft makes.. M$ Flight Sim. Flight Sim is cool. Haven't seen it in a while though. They still selling it? I have yet to see an opensource program that was anywhere as cool as Flight Sim.
Also keep in mind that having access to the source is one feature that defines how useful that program is as a tool. Would you buy a car if it were impossible to open the hood? Of course not because to keep the car useful as a tool you need the ability to fix things that break. Maybe you wouldn't be the one to fix it but you could pay somebody to. Unless you have really deep pockets just try to get Microsoft to fix a bug just for you.
Go into physics or mathematics. Maybe you can solve the problem once and for all. I don't have the patience. Besides people thought I was crazy when they saw my digrams of infinite recursive hyper objects. ;)
When I was a teenager I was obsessed with this basic concept and trying to turn it into some sort of programming metaphor. Infinite recursive containment. I thought the same applied to time and that by understanding how time and space contain each other recursively you could learn to move from any point in space time to any other point just by knowing the right move to make. For the most part I treat time as space. Thinking of each layer of space or time as either a hyper sphere or torus (do any other shaped make sense?) that intersect with infinite hyperspace objects there should be infinite possible moves we could make to leap from one point to any other. I thought of the whole thing as a hyperspace object that wrapped back on itself so if you passed the limit of the most infinite outter object you'd be back dealing with the most infinite inner object.. but that there really wasn't a difference in the two.
I'm not really into physics or theoretical math but it worked out rather nice for creating some novel approaches to representing data. I guess it's more my personal concept of how space and time works. I've found the concept lends itself to data compression if you can keep from getting brain fried for long enough.
Who said they couldn't sell it? I can sell it and they have a much better marketing department than I do (I don't have any marketing dept.) so they should be set.
For those of you with no sense of humor the 'dark side' thing was a joke. Obviously you don't read User Friendly or GPF or any comics like those.
A company has every right to claim IP rights to what they fund. I have every right not to work for a company that does so. It's my right as an employee to have a job contract that satisfies me as much as the company I'm working for. For me money and the color of my office are less important than the right to have an open community around my projects.
You can make money off open source software as easily as off closed source software. I've done so for quite some time and have not had a customer that cared. They are willing to pay for things like nice installation programs, support, etc.
Capitalists are still pigs. To bad I like to make money too. Guess that makes me a pig. It's not being a capitalist that is bad. It's the monopolisitc behavior of Microsoft that really irks me. That and the fact that their products have a history of sucking but not half as much as their support. The renewed competition I think is helping them though. Win2K and XP didn't suck nearly as bad as older versions of Windows. The competition they are getting from Solaris, Linux, and MacOS is especially making a difference I think.
If you waste the money on a PhD you're a schmuck. Especially in an area such as computers where education is typically far behind the cutting edge. I'm not paying anybody to tell me things I've known for years.. or worse things that are no longer true.
Microsoft's hiring practices seem odd to me. Of the people I know that do, or have, worked there the ones Microsoft actually hired were sort of morons and the smart people all had been brought over from companies M$ bought (like Hotmail).
I'd apply at M$ if they'd let me develop opensource software and use Linux on my development machine. As long as I see them as an evil empire though I couldn't work there. Their loss.
For me my dream job - of jobs I'd do for other people - would probably be Google. I love designing spiders and search engines and stuff like that and I know a couple people that work there and they seem to like it. To bad I don't have a PhD. They seem to snub lonewolf hacker types.
I'm always curious how they sepperate search engines spider action from average Joe's porn lust? I am a programmer and so I experiment with spiders that index and copy files from the web, usenet, gnutella, irc, etc. I get a lot of sick shit that comes over the Net to my spiders.. probably more porn than any of these small time traders could imagine. I am always wondering if so crazy government spook is just waiting to come knock down my door, arrest me, and steal my computers so that they can claim to have made a huge porn bust. My spiders don't look for porn but they still find it. I keep copies of everything they find (cached) but that doesn't mean I actually am looking at this stuff. Sure some of the porn I look at but not the sick shit like children and snuff.
If this would pass it'd be an important step in the government providing support for opensource programmers. I'd love to be able to check a list and see what programs they aren't finding available and be able to write one. It'd be even better if they'd provide grants to each project they use. A small fraction of the cost of commercial programs donated to each project.
I think web hosts should support customers that want to allow traffic only from large caching proxy networks. This allows sites to get traffic from anyone but only if they use a caching proxy.. removing the majority of the load from the web site. It'd be a real nice option to switch to when you hit your 75% point on bandwidth.
I've been seeing DVD-R discs on a spindle for about $1.11 each. Not to bad for 4.7Gb of space. Especially with DVD-R(W) drives costing less than $200 now. Get a PC, a decent digital video camera, and a DVD-R burner and you could have some fun making you own home movies and sending them to friends. Or am I the only person that likes to edit together my own lil films?
That'd be 1/10th of the hdd space I have in this computer alone not even counting all my other machines. If I can figure out how to mount another 120Gb drive in this case it'll be even less a percentage of one computers drive space. Three 120Gb hdds and a dvd drive in a system the size of a toaster is pushing it - that's probably the max for this box.
24Gb would still be helpful if they can bring the price down and especially if the discs are compat with current dvd players. That'd let me burn a couple movies to a dvd rather than the current problem of needing 2-3 dvd's per movie. Still I think removable media is a dying concept. Cheap hdd space and fast/easy networking will take over the tv and the computer.
Now when will hdd space be $1/Tb? I'm ready to start working on my home petabyte file server. If my math is right you could store over 200,000 ripped dvd's in a petabyte without loss of quality or features. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Does anyone else see this spawning a monster-eats-Tokyo type of television series? Swarms of cyborg insects invading Tokyo and implanting tiny webservers in every person they land in.. watching our children slowly become cyborgs... arghhhh Borg Bugs!
I remember users of my BBS and MUD's that'd do that to each other. None of the term programs I used was ever affected but it was pretty sloppy coding not to think of people doing that. On the other hand you rarely see much done with term programs these days. Back then you'd frequently create fairly impressive interactive programs. It's just not something you see much any more. My favorite was when RIPTerm came out. I actually had some RIPTerm-based websites that'd only work if you were using a text-based web browser (like Lynx) and the RIPTerm client. Was sort of fun and predated Flash by quite some time. :)
Uneducated/ignorant people that are easy to control and have the trouble telling that they are oppressed.. hrm sounds amazingy like your average American. The people who think Jerry Springer is good tv. We're not where Iraq is yet but we're sure on a dangerous downward spiral and the education system isn't getting better.
Morals belong to the individual. I have the moral right to do anything that doesn't cause me to feel evil. The original poster was right that damn near everything is illegal in some context but does it really matter?
I don't consider myself a citizen of any country so I feel no obligation to follow their laws. Of course I probably follow most of the ones people would worry about due to my own morals but it certainly doesn't keep me from pirating data.
I break laws constantly and what are they going to do about it? Sure they could arrest me but what good would it do them? I'd pirate stuff even from jail.
For that matter I'd probably break out of jail. It'd be my moral obligation to defend myself so I'd feel no wrong in killing and causing chaos if the government of a country attacked me first. So to keep me from ripping a few movies they'd make me kill.. just to take a guess of my own abilities I could kill a couple dozen people trying to break out.. then they'd kill me. To keep me from watching a DVD without the disc?
Piracy should be a civil issue not a legal issue. If company X wants to sue me for their imagined damages that would be reasonable. It wouldn't be reasonable to send me to jail. Sending people to jail often causes them to become more criminal. There is no benefit to society to take non-violent people and make them violent.
To be honest they are just pissing their own customers off. They seem to think that only they can offer broadband. Don't they realize that it is possible to cut them out of the picture? Community wireless networks are getting pretty popular and improving in quality. It is possible to cover long distances by relay. It is also possible to run our own wire in some cases. We could, and probably will, start to just cut MaBell out of the picture. Sure the Internet might have to change form somewhat to handle the change but it'd be a healthy change. It's time for the end user to be the biggest peer.
The reason the turing test is interested is that for a computer to similate normal conversation across a free range of topics requires a lot of abstract reasoning ability. You can use cheap tricks to similate a simple conversation but to jump between a human range of topics requires a lot more. Ask most these programs a simple question like "What is the difference between red and purple?" and they'll crap out. To REALLY pass the turing test requires an abstract reasoning framework, an emotion framework, the ability to learn, etc.
Like Eliza style programs most of what we call AI is based on simple tricks and mathematics rather than any real cognition. The difference is the lack of adaptiveness. You can't take the AI from a game engine and expect it to run your dye-master processes. There is nothing wrong with single-purpose programs to add more intelligence to automated systems but it really isn't AI.
Intelligence isn't the knowledge of how to do something - it's the ability to discover the knowledge of how to do something and apply that knowledge. I'd say the proper judge of an intelligence is how adaptive it is. My dog can figured out how to open the front door and that shows intelligence but my dog wouldn't figure out how to create the door in the first place.
Changing their mood is up to you. If you know where your starting it's a lot easier though. Given the average geeks inability to intuit such data mood sensing cloths could be a real help. Maybe the makers of the cloths could include a phrase book that is color coded.
But can you hack your girlfriends software to run Linux? I'd be really geeky cool to make your girlfriends new bra and panty set run Linux and do something useful like provide bio feedback. Just imagine if womens cloths would let you know if their in the mood to jump you or just punch your eye! Who needs mood rings. :)
Just think of this with bluetooth intergration. Your PDA, cellphone, and laptop could all intergrate with your cloths. If you have a meeting coming up your PDA blinks your shirt cuffs to remind you. Got a call? Don't set it to ring or vibrate.. make your cloths color cycle. Kicking ass and getting frags? Make your cloths show a flame pattern.. smokin!
For the most part it's write-once read-often. The files don't change, only the directories. I was actually thinking of a fun backup project to make a machine that could etch the bits in a aluminum sheets with a machine that could read them back in. Something like industrial strength punchcards. Possibly with each sheet 5ft x 5ft in size. Trying to decide the proper size for the bits. I'd like them large enough to be hard to destroy by accident or time but small enough that it doesn't take thousands of dollars worth of metal to store a single file. Was thinking of drilling the bits into the metal and using a laser on a mechanical arm to read them. I'd like to copy Google's Usenet db and copies of old game roms etc onto such a medium to preserve our lil bit of history for future generations.