In terms of the planet: no. I guess there are plenty of organisms which are designed to survive such extreme conditions (read: one-celled organisms, bacteria).
In terms of the human race: fear is valid. We still depend on a huge amount of bio-processes to survive (oxygen is a simple one, drinking water another). Another issue is our huge population. At first this seems to be an advantage (less chance of extinction), but note that on a logarithmic scale chances can be very extreme. Most chances occur exponential, not lineair (and so I believe for populations, but I'm not an expert). Balance can change *really* quickly and balance doesn't always take races into account (read: complete eco-systems).
Well, it is easy to believe that science does not make correct claims when they are not sure about cooling or warming at all.
What the point is here is that the balance breaks. At a certain point one or more of our CO_2 and NO_2 buffers will be depleted. What exactly will happen at that point is not easy to research but those buffers are there for a good reason: limit extremes! They make sure high or low values of CO_2 and NO_2 will not have a high impact on smaller eco-processes. Analogies can be made with the buffer in your soundcard: as soon as it is depleted your music stops or pops.
Its not heating or cooling we should be afraid of, but extremes.
I don't think your statement is true for all people. Actually, most socialized people try to comprehend the reasons for you trying to convert them. Sometimes they do give a valueable answer and sometimes they do not. Generally, it is better to try than to give up before even doing something.
It is with love as it is with religion and even Linux: give and do no expect something to return, it will if you do it out of passion.
Don't forget that Hans also helped to organize We Are Networking (WAN) '99 and '98. He also was sysop of a dutch BBS for a long period. I know him personally from this WAN period and although he could be a pain in the ass sometimes during the organisation meetings, he had a tremendous amount of energy and original input. For what it's worth, this tragic event has brought friends together (in a sad situation nevertheless), whom have not seen eachother for a long time. Thanks Hans, for everything you did.
I'm sorry, but right now you're really hurting my vi feelings... It is unthinkable to even consider removing the escape key from keyboards in the next 50 years or so, how else will hackers code?!
What I would like to work on is fixing some of the 'standards' Microsoft proclaims to abide. It would allow other products to interoperate with MS software and allow fair competition. But hey, somehow I think that MS won't feel happy for these contributions.
I was actually a bit disappointed by the article. First of all: it is very hard to search in distributed knowledge networks, if not impossible. Some structures, which are a necessity to make explainable in an onthology are possible to describe, but not possible to make deductions on (some of the queries cannot be proved to finish at all). An example are meta-classes (a Chardonai wine can be an instance of the class Wines, in which case a specific bottle of wine can be an instance of Chardonai as well as a normal wine).
Second of all, the article fails to mention anything about the Ontology Web Language (OWL, see this site on W3), which has become an official specificion of W3C since May this year. This language, based on RDF is much more expressive than RDF is, it also contains several 'language levels' based on the amount of complexity and decidability involved.
Last, but not least: the article is still very vague on privacy and thrustworthyness. I would think that public-private key cryptography would not do in these areas: far too many single points of failures when, for example registering. Only one user with a hacked account can derail the whole system!
I'm really interested, by the way, to speak with some people who are deep (at least above their knees) in OWL and RDF. Planning on making a study at intelligent databases and datamining.
Hmmm, I feel that the parent of this post should actually be rated "Insightful", whereas the parents, parent should have the rating "Funny" or "Hilarious" instead.
I really would like to stress here that innovation does not come without research. Most people think that innovation is just 'something different'. Well, quite the opposite can be true. Sometimes, after research, it appears that a widely adopted solution is, indeed, the best option for that particular problem.
Considering KDE and GNOME: my opinion is yes: although they are very well designed in the core (particulary KDE), the end-user interface is not thought of well. Many of the bad design issues of Microsoft are copied blatently. If I had some more time, I would be really happy to contribute to some of the designs, but please people: THINK! What can be made better? When you look at an existing product, look at its positive and negative points. Write them down, see if some of them are related. Try not to be technologically brilliant, but user-brilliant. I am sure that opensource programmers today will be the mainstream programmers of tomorrow.
A procedural texture is nothing more than a function with a 2-vector as input (x and y coordinates), and a scalar as output. The scalar is then used for example as a rgb-color value, the specular (how much the material shines), for normal calculation (to create bumpy surfaces) etc. etc. Sometimes recursive functions are used to create things like fractal patterns. The possibilities are endless.
Moreover, one can also generate a scene in a procedural manner. Same trick.
I see alot of fellow slashdot posters slamming on "Why only WMP?". Well, the outcome of this sanction is wider than WMP alone, much wider. It will leverage future sanctions on other software bundled with Windows in speed and decision power. By taking this case as an example, it will become much easier to make sanctions against other monopoly misuse. That is what the real power of this decision is all about.
I always wondered why all those people want to have the latest versions of WordPerfect or Word. I mean, most of them don't even know how to use styles, page numbers, different fonts or other features anyways. In that way, nothing has changed in the past 15 years. WYSIWYG isn't anything either, since what I see as the average markup in a standard letter sent by Joe Average User is just as ugly on screen as it is on hardcopy.
Most, if not all, of these features existed long before.net came (at least enums, generics and foreach loops do for sure). The problem with these features is that they actually make a sort of syntactic sugar which will make the language harder to implement and test. Moreover, foreach loops do require a specific class library (just like exceptions do), therefor coupling the Java library to Java syntax and introducing alot of complexity and removing elegance. Its just a matter of aesthetics. It's not hard to implement these features (actually, we've made a language called "taaltje" that could run on the JVM and had stuff like enums and a "sort of" boxing). It wouldn't be hard at all to implement a foreach statement (just typecheck the argument and place it in a boilerplate JVM intructionlist).
When I was reading through these posts it appeared to me that most people would like to use better quality software, but don't know either how to install it, or do not want to go through the hassle of setting all this up (and go to tens of sites).
There is a simple solution!
Make one program, (Open Source ofcourse), which will list alternatives for stuff like IE, MS Media Player, Notepad, compression ultilities, office applications, etc. etc. Then allow software developers to register their application to it (similar to apt-get), and allow users to rate the different software packages provided and allow them to sort the results on popularity, vitality and rating (just like Freshmeat does). Then, to allow for ease of use, let maintainers make a good selection of the best media players, compression utilities, office applications and allow users to install these selections in a couple of clicks. When registration is necessary for certain programs, make a standard XML interface to these websites so people can do everything in one program.
Eventually, it is sort of a combination of Freshmeat and Debians apt-get system with the ease of use of a standard installer.
I'm certain that if users will get this ease of use and see the added benefit, they'll have a much more compelling reason to use these alternative programs. They'll start telling eachother about the software which will raise it's popularity.
The problem of rewrites does absolutely not lie in the current codebase, but in what has happened before that. There are a couple of reasons why rewrites become necessary:
1. The system was not well specified or designed in the first place (eg. no modularization, no frameworks or reusability, no clear documents for the specification or design, client changes mind during development process) 2. Updates on the software were made ad-hoc on the code base and not to the specification, leading to out of sync specs vs. code base. 3. Pieces of code were used for things they shouldn't be used for (eg. using wrong types) 4. (very important) Changes in technology or changes in demand (eg. nowadays communication mostly goes with RPC using XML, whereas in earlier times each communication channel would use another structure and syntax. Another example: users are more demanding to receive mail spamfiltering with specialized bayasian filtering rules instead of simple keyword rules)
Ok, how to solve these very difficult problems (they are indeed difficult)?
First of all, design your system for change in mind from step 1. Build a prototype which has the capability to be extended and throw it away, so you can see how extendability can best be implemented on your specific project.
Second of all, use specifications and design documents, if necessary use UML diagrams so you can still understand the design after 4 years.
Third of all, design and build every part of your system as if you expect it to be reused, even if it is not going to be reused in your current application. Design with modularization in mind. Make sure that the design you made and the piece of code you wrote is only going to be used for what it is intended for (but use generalisation to give it a broad intended range of uses).
Fourth and most important, try to explain to your manager or client that in the long term quick hacks are going to cost alot more than work than solving the problem the right way.
This advice may be a bit oriented toward businesses instead of open source development, but opensource has one big pre: not as much time pressure.
What is te problem with the technique to erase memory? The workings of our brain! We do not reserve a seperate space of memory for every seperate thing we do, but spread it over alot of neurons (unlike longterm computer storage). This happens in two stages, just as our cache and secondary storage works in our PC. The 'cache' can actually be erased (some say it will happen each night during our dreams), but the longterm storage cannot, unless we also remove other memories.
Maybe this can best be compared with taking a large bag of stones and putting the stones one after another in alot of similar buckets. Each stone represents a memory and strengtens percepts with actions and other percepts. Percepts that are very particular (such as your first kiss, first working day, your own wedding day, etc. etc.), are stored connected with these events, and that makes them easy to recall. Percepts that are not particular (a random kiss, a random working day, a weddding day of yet another family member), are stored connected with each other, and are harder to recall. If you want to remove all events with a particular company for example, you would also have to remove (or damage) parts of other working days with other companies. Imagine your sexual attraction with one of your co-workers. Removing all of these thoughts would most likely damage other romantic thouhgts as well.
Another way to think of it is like a hologram. In a hologram, every part of the material 'more or less' represents every part of the image. The only way to delete the image (or part of it) is by imprinting another image over it, or destroying the material.
Hope this clears stuff up. In short, neural nets work by storing information seperated over all neurons, removing one thought will remove similars as well. Time is not so important here, percepts are.
Hmmm, you read the article *and* wrote this comment in 1 minute (according to the post times, 20:14 vs. 20:13)? I find that highly unlikely, even with an article so full of non-saying half-thruths.
Oh yes, I am not against P2P file sharing at all! All I'm trying to say is that most 'real musicians' (which is totaly an oppinion), do not have the resources to get their music to the people *and* making a living.
Please understand that it takes a long time and alot of manhours to produce an album(especially if it is filled with original music, not like the stuff you usually hear on MTV). Most not commercially oriented musicians only do this because they enjoy the artform of it. Now come to understand that it is from the same musicians that new styles and genres are born.
"Musicians look so poor when I see them on television"
As an amateur musician I'm sad to read that. Actually most musicians have a hard time getting the ends together. Unfortunately, the 'selection' process of the record companies doesn't really help that problem, since they select more on sex appeal and neutralness than on musical abilities or originality.
For those musicians who are original and are making what I like to call "real music", it would be nice to have a little extra money to get their music out to the public.
Oh wait, we should call everything by its function then: Ford and Porsche must then be called eg. "NormalCar" and "FastCar". Is that what you intended?
Consider the fact that China is the largest country in the world. Now try to see that internet is the big antidote against propoganda. Internet in China is unstoppable, and we will probably see a revolution in less than 10 years there. If such a large country starts participating in the industry with opensource software, it could tupple the balance for Microsoft. The Empire isn't stupid, they just can't make software.
Is this a pathetic joke? They are both modeled after Windows. Replace the "K" icon and the foot icon with a "Start" icon and you have Windows GUI. But, it's not even as coherent as Windows. Not all X applications use the same widget set.
Please check out your sources better. The "Toolbar" in KDE has been around for a long while. Ideas of representing running applications with icons or buttons have been around long before Windows was even thought of.
No, not all applications under X use the same toolkit, right now there is Motif, GTK, LessTif, Qt, Xt and some others. And no, that is not intuitive. On the other hand: does windows have the same toolkit for everything? Old applications written for Windows 3.x still have the same white background. Applications written for 95 don't have the same UI style as those written for XP. Many applications under Windows use their own 'personalised' toolkit (example: SoundBlaster software).
Then turn your face towards the Qt/KDE toolkit. Not only do these toolkits allow much better window design, it also is consistent, skinable, more userfriendly, easier to code, better integration etc. etc. (this list is endless).
About the piping ASCII text from one program to another, this idea is based on flexibility. Allowing experienced users to filter data between programs is still a much better way to handle data than to supply a userinterface for each thinkable relation between two or more data providers/processors.
Oh yes, there are without doubt options to handle these cases much better. IMHO, this is not on how Microsoft did things. There have been many developments in computer science in the past decades, overshadowing the design principles of UNIX. But don't forget that UNIX is a system which has been tested, used and developed by litterally millions of people. IMHO, Plan 9 is a very good new alternative to those who would like to work with a well designed system.
Slashdot Mirror
In terms of the planet: no. I guess there are plenty of organisms which are designed to survive such extreme conditions (read: one-celled organisms, bacteria).
In terms of the human race: fear is valid. We still depend on a huge amount of bio-processes to survive (oxygen is a simple one, drinking water another). Another issue is our huge population. At first this seems to be an advantage (less chance of extinction), but note that on a logarithmic scale chances can be very extreme. Most chances occur exponential, not lineair (and so I believe for populations, but I'm not an expert). Balance can change *really* quickly and balance doesn't always take races into account (read: complete eco-systems).
Well, it is easy to believe that science does not make correct claims when they are not sure about cooling or warming at all.
What the point is here is that the balance breaks. At a certain point one or more of our CO_2 and NO_2 buffers will be depleted. What exactly will happen at that point is not easy to research but those buffers are there for a good reason: limit extremes! They make sure high or low values of CO_2 and NO_2 will not have a high impact on smaller eco-processes. Analogies can be made with the buffer in your soundcard: as soon as it is depleted your music stops or pops.
Its not heating or cooling we should be afraid of, but extremes.
I don't think your statement is true for all people. Actually, most socialized people try to comprehend the reasons for you trying to convert them. Sometimes they do give a valueable answer and sometimes they do not. Generally, it is better to try than to give up before even doing something.
It is with love as it is with religion and even Linux: give and do no expect something to return, it will if you do it out of passion.
Don't forget that Hans also helped to organize We Are Networking (WAN) '99 and '98. He also was sysop of a dutch BBS for a long period. I know him personally from this WAN period and although he could be a pain in the ass sometimes during the organisation meetings, he had a tremendous amount of energy and original input. For what it's worth, this tragic event has brought friends together (in a sad situation nevertheless), whom have not seen eachother for a long time. Thanks Hans, for everything you did.
And the Escape, while your at it.
I'm sorry, but right now you're really hurting my vi feelings... It is unthinkable to even consider removing the escape key from keyboards in the next 50 years or so, how else will hackers code?!
What I would like to work on is fixing some of the 'standards' Microsoft proclaims to abide. It would allow other products to interoperate with MS software and allow fair competition. But hey, somehow I think that MS won't feel happy for these contributions.
I've heard of people making copies of them by placing them under a xerox. Maybe it works with a scanner too!
I was actually a bit disappointed by the article. First of all: it is very hard to search in distributed knowledge networks, if not impossible. Some structures, which are a necessity to make explainable in an onthology are possible to describe, but not possible to make deductions on (some of the queries cannot be proved to finish at all). An example are meta-classes (a Chardonai wine can be an instance of the class Wines, in which case a specific bottle of wine can be an instance of Chardonai as well as a normal wine).
Second of all, the article fails to mention anything about the Ontology Web Language (OWL, see this site on W3), which has become an official specificion of W3C since May this year. This language, based on RDF is much more expressive than RDF is, it also contains several 'language levels' based on the amount of complexity and decidability involved.
Last, but not least: the article is still very vague on privacy and thrustworthyness. I would think that public-private key cryptography would not do in these areas: far too many single points of failures when, for example registering. Only one user with a hacked account can derail the whole system!
I'm really interested, by the way, to speak with some people who are deep (at least above their knees) in OWL and RDF. Planning on making a study at intelligent databases and datamining.
Hmmm, I feel that the parent of this post should actually be rated "Insightful", whereas the parents, parent should have the rating "Funny" or "Hilarious" instead.
I really would like to stress here that innovation does not come without research. Most people think that innovation is just 'something different'. Well, quite the opposite can be true. Sometimes, after research, it appears that a widely adopted solution is, indeed, the best option for that particular problem.
Considering KDE and GNOME: my opinion is yes: although they are very well designed in the core (particulary KDE), the end-user interface is not thought of well. Many of the bad design issues of Microsoft are copied blatently. If I had some more time, I would be really happy to contribute to some of the designs, but please people: THINK! What can be made better? When you look at an existing product, look at its positive and negative points. Write them down, see if some of them are related. Try not to be technologically brilliant, but user-brilliant. I am sure that opensource programmers today will be the mainstream programmers of tomorrow.
A procedural texture is nothing more than a function with a 2-vector as input (x and y coordinates), and a scalar as output. The scalar is then used for example as a rgb-color value, the specular (how much the material shines), for normal calculation (to create bumpy surfaces) etc. etc. Sometimes recursive functions are used to create things like fractal patterns. The possibilities are endless.
Moreover, one can also generate a scene in a procedural manner. Same trick.
I see alot of fellow slashdot posters slamming on "Why only WMP?". Well, the outcome of this sanction is wider than WMP alone, much wider. It will leverage future sanctions on other software bundled with Windows in speed and decision power. By taking this case as an example, it will become much easier to make sanctions against other monopoly misuse. That is what the real power of this decision is all about.
I always wondered why all those people want to have the latest versions of WordPerfect or Word. I mean, most of them don't even know how to use styles, page numbers, different fonts or other features anyways. In that way, nothing has changed in the past 15 years. WYSIWYG isn't anything either, since what I see as the average markup in a standard letter sent by Joe Average User is just as ugly on screen as it is on hardcopy.
Most, if not all, of these features existed long before .net came (at least enums, generics and foreach loops do for sure). The problem with these features is that they actually make a sort of syntactic sugar which will make the language harder to implement and test. Moreover, foreach loops do require a specific class library (just like exceptions do), therefor coupling the Java library to Java syntax and introducing alot of complexity and removing elegance.
Its just a matter of aesthetics. It's not hard to implement these features (actually, we've made a language called "taaltje" that could run on the JVM and had stuff like enums and a "sort of" boxing). It wouldn't be hard at all to implement a foreach statement (just typecheck the argument and place it in a boilerplate JVM intructionlist).
When I was reading through these posts it appeared to me that most people would like to use better quality software, but don't know either how to install it, or do not want to go through the hassle of setting all this up (and go to tens of sites).
There is a simple solution!
Make one program, (Open Source ofcourse), which will list alternatives for stuff like IE, MS Media Player, Notepad, compression ultilities, office applications, etc. etc. Then allow software developers to register their application to it (similar to apt-get), and allow users to rate the different software packages provided and allow them to sort the results on popularity, vitality and rating (just like Freshmeat does). Then, to allow for ease of use, let maintainers make a good selection of the best media players, compression utilities, office applications and allow users to install these selections in a couple of clicks. When registration is necessary for certain programs, make a standard XML interface to these websites so people can do everything in one program.
Eventually, it is sort of a combination of Freshmeat and Debians apt-get system with the ease of use of a standard installer.
I'm certain that if users will get this ease of use and see the added benefit, they'll have a much more compelling reason to use these alternative programs. They'll start telling eachother about the software which will raise it's popularity.
The problem of rewrites does absolutely not lie in the current codebase, but in what has happened before that. There are a couple of reasons why rewrites become necessary:
1. The system was not well specified or designed in the first place (eg. no modularization, no frameworks or reusability, no clear documents for the specification or design, client changes mind during development process)
2. Updates on the software were made ad-hoc on the code base and not to the specification, leading to out of sync specs vs. code base.
3. Pieces of code were used for things they shouldn't be used for (eg. using wrong types)
4. (very important) Changes in technology or changes in demand (eg. nowadays communication mostly goes with RPC using XML, whereas in earlier times each communication channel would use another structure and syntax. Another example: users are more demanding to receive mail spamfiltering with specialized bayasian filtering rules instead of simple keyword rules)
Ok, how to solve these very difficult problems (they are indeed difficult)?
First of all, design your system for change in mind from step 1. Build a prototype which has the capability to be extended and throw it away, so you can see how extendability can best be implemented on your specific project.
Second of all, use specifications and design documents, if necessary use UML diagrams so you can still understand the design after 4 years.
Third of all, design and build every part of your system as if you expect it to be reused, even if it is not going to be reused in your current application. Design with modularization in mind. Make sure that the design you made and the piece of code you wrote is only going to be used for what it is intended for (but use generalisation to give it a broad intended range of uses).
Fourth and most important, try to explain to your manager or client that in the long term quick hacks are going to cost alot more than work than solving the problem the right way.
This advice may be a bit oriented toward businesses instead of open source development, but opensource has one big pre: not as much time pressure.
What is te problem with the technique to erase memory? The workings of our brain! We do not reserve a seperate space of memory for every seperate thing we do, but spread it over alot of neurons (unlike longterm computer storage). This happens in two stages, just as our cache and secondary storage works in our PC. The 'cache' can actually be erased (some say it will happen each night during our dreams), but the longterm storage cannot, unless we also remove other memories.
Maybe this can best be compared with taking a large bag of stones and putting the stones one after another in alot of similar buckets. Each stone represents a memory and strengtens percepts with actions and other percepts. Percepts that are very particular (such as your first kiss, first working day, your own wedding day, etc. etc.), are stored connected with these events, and that makes them easy to recall. Percepts that are not particular (a random kiss, a random working day, a weddding day of yet another family member), are stored connected with each other, and are harder to recall. If you want to remove all events with a particular company for example, you would also have to remove (or damage) parts of other working days with other companies. Imagine your sexual attraction with one of your co-workers. Removing all of these thoughts would most likely damage other romantic thouhgts as well.
Another way to think of it is like a hologram. In a hologram, every part of the material 'more or less' represents every part of the image. The only way to delete the image (or part of it) is by imprinting another image over it, or destroying the material.
Hope this clears stuff up. In short, neural nets work by storing information seperated over all neurons, removing one thought will remove similars as well. Time is not so important here, percepts are.
Hmmm, you read the article *and* wrote this comment in 1 minute (according to the post times, 20:14 vs. 20:13)? I find that highly unlikely, even with an article so full of non-saying half-thruths.
Oh yes, I am not against P2P file sharing at all! All I'm trying to say is that most 'real musicians' (which is totaly an oppinion), do not have the resources to get their music to the people *and* making a living.
Please understand that it takes a long time and alot of manhours to produce an album(especially if it is filled with original music, not like the stuff you usually hear on MTV). Most not commercially oriented musicians only do this because they enjoy the artform of it. Now come to understand that it is from the same musicians that new styles and genres are born.
"Musicians look so poor when I see them on television"
As an amateur musician I'm sad to read that. Actually most musicians have a hard time getting the ends together. Unfortunately, the 'selection' process of the record companies doesn't really help that problem, since they select more on sex appeal and neutralness than on musical abilities or originality.
For those musicians who are original and are making what I like to call "real music", it would be nice to have a little extra money to get their music out to the public.
Oh wait, we should call everything by its function then: Ford and Porsche must then be called eg. "NormalCar" and "FastCar". Is that what you intended?
This outfit looks like the soldier outfit of the Doom bad guys if you'd ask me!
Consider the fact that China is the largest country in the world.
Now try to see that internet is the big antidote against propoganda.
Internet in China is unstoppable, and we will probably see a revolution in less than 10 years there. If such a large country starts participating in the industry with opensource software, it could tupple the balance for Microsoft. The Empire isn't stupid, they just can't make software.
Parent is overrated, mod down
Is this a pathetic joke? They are both modeled after Windows. Replace the "K" icon and the foot icon with a "Start" icon and you have Windows GUI. But, it's not even as coherent as Windows. Not all X applications use the same widget set.
Please check out your sources better. The "Toolbar" in KDE has been around for a long while. Ideas of representing running applications with icons or buttons have been around long before Windows was even thought of.
No, not all applications under X use the same toolkit, right now there is Motif, GTK, LessTif, Qt, Xt and some others. And no, that is not intuitive. On the other hand: does windows have the same toolkit for everything? Old applications written for Windows 3.x still have the same white background. Applications written for 95 don't have the same UI style as those written for XP. Many applications under Windows use their own 'personalised' toolkit (example: SoundBlaster software).
Then turn your face towards the Qt/KDE toolkit. Not only do these toolkits allow much better window design, it also is consistent, skinable, more userfriendly, easier to code, better integration etc. etc. (this list is endless).
About the piping ASCII text from one program to another, this idea is based on flexibility. Allowing experienced users to filter data between programs is still a much better way to handle data than to supply a userinterface for each thinkable relation between two or more data providers/processors.
Oh yes, there are without doubt options to handle these cases much better. IMHO, this is not on how Microsoft did things. There have been many developments in computer science in the past decades, overshadowing the design principles of UNIX. But don't forget that UNIX is a system which has been tested, used and developed by litterally millions of people. IMHO, Plan 9 is a very good new alternative to those who would like to work with a well designed system.
Your answer please?