Actually, there are such creatures, exactly as you suggest. The American and allied military and intelligence agencies run a SECRET-level internet called SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router NETwork) and a TOP SECRET-level one called JDISS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System). They're completely separate from the Internet (the publicly accessible one), but they're sprawling, worldwide internets connecting tens of thousands of machines.
Not quite true. Other temperaments were very common before the 19th century. "Well-tempered", for instance, is not the same as "even-tempered" (the common tuning scheme of the last 175 years). In a well-tempered tuning, keys near C are almost pure, while further along the circle of fifths, the tuning is harsher.
Bach's "Well-tempered Clavier" cycle of preludes and fugues was specifically written to take advantage of the different tone colors available on a well-tempered instrument. If you've only ever heard this music on a bland equal-tempered piano, you're missing out.
Hard to believe no one has mentioned Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. While Knuth is a great set of reference bibles, SICP is a perfect textbook. It's funny, well-written, incredibly comprehensive and appropriately mind-expanding. Work through all of the exercises in that book and you've got a solid grasp of programming fundamentals.
We're still out here. The university itself closed its doors at the end of the academic year last July, and the alumni acted to save everything we could from the ashes. We run the aduni.org site, as others have posted on this thread.
All of our content (80 GB worth) is available online -- about 275 hours of lectures, problem sets, exams, notes, and solutions -- with courses like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (the much-loved MIT Scheme intro to CS course), Discrete Math, Algorithms, Theory, AI, Databases, and a couple of courses in Software Engineering (one of which is taught by Greenspun).
But we're a shoestring alumni organization that can't afford the bandwidth to stream the videos very well, unfortunately. So as an alternative we'll ship an 80GB hard drive full of the stuff to anyone who wants one for $220. Everything's available under the Open Content License. E-mail me (chris@aduni.org) for more details.
Don't forget JDISS/JWICS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System / Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System), which is basically the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented version of SIPRNET, with some imagery transfer, battlespace management and videoconferencing software on top.
Using a parallel internet like this for highly classified work really changed the whole nature of the intelligence world -- it became a lot easier to do analysis, because the information produced by different sources and agencies was all on line and available, but it completely destroyed the idea of "need to know". Every intel tidbit within your clearance level is now accessible by your browser, which is a potential security nightmare on its own.
I went to a talk on Kaye's work this evening at Harvard. The fact that Minesweeper boards can be used to make Turing machines is why Minesweeper consistency is an NP problem. One can define logic circuits in Minesweeper that function as complex concatenations of Boolean gates. Since solving the output of such a machine is an NP problem, so is solving the consistency of a Minesweeper board. Minesweeper logic gates are fascinating:
Basically, if you place a mine under either the x or the y spot at one end of the wire, the rules of Minesweeper force a mine to appear under _each_ x or y all along the wire -- in other words, a binary digit propagating along the wire! The paper also describes how to make NOT and AND gates, and from such components computers can be built.
> What experements have been done to try and
> simulate the early conditions of earth
> (based on admittedly limited evidence) seem
> to me to end up supporting the idea that
> life is actually much more likely than even
> the optimists thought.
I think the general consensus is that, given what we know to be true, extraterrestrial life of some sort is likely. Even in our own solar system, there are at least three places where we are tantalized by the possibility of life (I'm thinking of Mars, Europa and Titan... there are other candidates, too).
The thing is, we really don't have enough data to make an accurate assessment of how likely the development of intelligence is, given the existence of life.
The reason that a computer is not considered a home audio recording device is that computers were specifically excluded from the Act that defines them. If this were not the case, every hard drive, Zip disk and CD-R manufacturer would be required by law to kick back a percentage of sales to the RIAA to cover potential copyright infringement losses. When the law was being written, computer manufacturers successfully argued that this was absurd, and so they were excluded.
So.... in 2005, 14 years after Linus laid the foundation for Linux, Microsoft can take the code and incorperate it in their software? And already do that with many of the GNU tools out there? Is that what you are suggesting?
Yes, in 2005, Microsoft should be able, if they wanted, to incorporate the code from Linus's original Linux 0.02 into their products. They would then be fourteen years behind the still-copyrighted kernel 2.4-pre-test-whatever. I think that would be a huge step forward for everyone concerned.
I notice a lot of fearmongering in this thread about the CIA and NSA snooping around the affairs of the American public. One of the hats I wore in my last job was as Intelligence Oversight officer for a unit within one of our intel agencies. As such, it was my responsiblity to make sure that my department conducted itself with complete probity under Executive Order 12333, which absolutely forbids covert intelligence collection activities against "United States persons" (defined in the Order) by any agency except the FBI, and by them only for valid law enforcement reasons, possibly requiring warrants and court orders.
I'm certainly not saying that it never happens, by any agency, at any classification level (no matter how deep you make it into the TS-SCI world, there's always weird stuff going on somewhere above), but it never happened in my department, and never to my knowledge anywhere else.
This reminds me of a story with similar ramifications...
A colleague of mine went to an interview in conjunction with obtaining a top secret security clearance. Once there, he was confronted with and asked to explain a ten-year-old photo of himself, age 12, walking into the Polish embassy. He had apparently arranged to meet someone there while gathering data for a middle school geography report.
Someone in our intelligence apparatus was lurking outside the embassy, taking pictures of random kids, identifying them, and holding on to the photos so that they could surface a decade later during an NCIS investigation.
Yes, we can assume that applications coded for the native Transmeta processor would function better, but to allow that would destroy the single greatest advantage that code morphing provides.
Transmeta's code-morpher-plus-VLIW-chip design frees the hardware engineers from having to support backward compatibility! They can retool and upgrade their chip design almost at will, and the _only_ application they need to worry about supporting is the code morpher. This gives them unbelievable flexibility to take advantage of the latest processor technology.
If they were to start permitting applications to be developed natively for one of their chips, they would lose this ability.
One common way to identify chemical compositions of extraterrestrial bodies is to use spectrophotometry. Each chemical substance absorbs and reflects certain wavelengths of light, and so we can measure the color spectra of the light reflecting off a planet to figure out what it's made of.
> In the medical community, doctors have never > stood up as a group against HMO abuses, drug > company abuses, etc.... If you are a > professional (engineer, doctor, etc) > the "ethical" way to go about things is to > keep your mouth shut.
Interestingly, the reason professionals don't stand up as a group for anything is that they are prohibited from doing so by anti-trust regulations. Collective action is reserved for labor; professionals doing the same thing is perceived as the formation of an anticompetitive cartel.
If I recall correctly, a recent effort by California doctors to have more say in establishing acceptible standards of care for HMO patients was quashed in the courts because of that.
I'm not sure whether musicians fall under the category of "professionals," though. I tend to think not.
Chris
Re:Checkers has been solved, chess is interesting
on
Solving Chess?
·
· Score: 1
I've never come across the solution to checkers, but I'm interested in reading about it. Does anyone have any links? And which player wins a perfect game of checkers?
I'm confused. I agree that comments posted here in a public forum can be quoted. But I thought the whole login vs. AC dichotomy that Slashdot enforces was designed specifically so that people who wished to have their privacy protected could make it so. If someone has something to say that requires anonymity, then she posts as an AC, and her words aren't attributable. But for the rest of us, we post under our logins because we wish our thoughts to be attributed to us. Quotes from identifiable Slashdot members deserve attribution by login name. Otherwise it feels like stealing. Chris
I had assumed (incorrectly, it seems) that the Librarian of Congress would be someone who "got it," as I was encouraged by how much effort he seemed to be going towards gathering public input in his role as "interpreter of the fair use provisions of the DMCA."
If he's this clueless about technology issues, though, I wouldn't bet on it. Feh.
If I recall correctly, it is illegal to telemarket cell phones, for the same reason that unsolicited faxes are illegal: the recipient has to pay for connect time/paper/toner. Most states, however, haven't come to the conclusion that using the recipients' bandwidth and server space without authorization amounts to the same thing (let alone put a value on your _time_ during the dinner hour).
Of course the posted story is crackpot nonsense. But in showing us why, the physicists of this group have talked a lot about the state of the art in gravity theory. I, for one, have found it fascinating. Just because something's ridiculous and untrue doesn't mean it's not provocative and worth talking about, and that's what Slashdot's all about.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, let's see. We can use a Honda Accord, since it's an "average" car...
3 Accords/1 quarter * 3358 lbs/1 Accord * 1 quarter/462.24 mm^2 * 1 ton/2000 lbs * 1 Eiffel Tower/7000 tons * 1 cm^2/100 mm^2 * 1 in^2/6.45 cm^2 * 1 cubit^2/324 in^2 * 1000000 millicubit^2/1 cubit^2 = 0.000007449 Eiffel Towers/square millicubit.
Chris
Actually, there are such creatures, exactly as you suggest. The American and allied military and intelligence agencies run a SECRET-level internet called SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router NETwork) and a TOP SECRET-level one called JDISS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System). They're completely separate from the Internet (the publicly accessible one), but they're sprawling, worldwide internets connecting tens of thousands of machines.
Chris
Not quite true. Other temperaments were very common before the 19th century. "Well-tempered", for instance, is not the same as "even-tempered" (the common tuning scheme of the last 175 years). In a well-tempered tuning, keys near C are almost pure, while further along the circle of fifths, the tuning is harsher.
Bach's "Well-tempered Clavier" cycle of preludes and fugues was specifically written to take advantage of the different tone colors available on a well-tempered instrument. If you've only ever heard this music on a bland equal-tempered piano, you're missing out.
Chris
Hard to believe no one has mentioned Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. While Knuth is a great set of reference bibles, SICP is a perfect textbook. It's funny, well-written, incredibly comprehensive and appropriately mind-expanding. Work through all of the exercises in that book and you've got a solid grasp of programming fundamentals.
Chris
We're still out here. The university itself closed its doors at the end of the academic year last July, and the alumni acted to save everything we could from the ashes. We run the aduni.org site, as others have posted on this thread.
All of our content (80 GB worth) is available online -- about 275 hours of lectures, problem sets, exams, notes, and solutions -- with courses like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (the much-loved MIT Scheme intro to CS course), Discrete Math, Algorithms, Theory, AI, Databases, and a couple of courses in Software Engineering (one of which is taught by Greenspun).
But we're a shoestring alumni organization that can't afford the bandwidth to stream the videos very well, unfortunately. So as an alternative we'll ship an 80GB hard drive full of the stuff to anyone who wants one for $220. Everything's available under the Open Content License. E-mail me (chris@aduni.org) for more details.
Thanks.
Chris
Don't forget JDISS/JWICS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System / Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System), which is basically the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented version of SIPRNET, with some imagery transfer, battlespace management and videoconferencing software on top.
Using a parallel internet like this for highly classified work really changed the whole nature of the intelligence world -- it became a lot easier to do analysis, because the information produced by different sources and agencies was all on line and available, but it completely destroyed the idea of "need to know". Every intel tidbit within your clearance level is now accessible by your browser, which is a potential security nightmare on its own.
Chris
Here's a representation of a wire in Minesweeper:
. . . 111111111111111111111 . . . . .
. . . xy1xy1xy1xy1xy1xy1xy1 . .
. . . 111111111111111111111 . .
Basically, if you place a mine under either the x or the y spot at one end of the wire, the rules of Minesweeper force a mine to appear under _each_ x or y all along the wire -- in other words, a binary digit propagating along the wire! The paper also describes how to make NOT and AND gates, and from such components computers can be built.
Chris
> simulate the early conditions of earth
> (based on admittedly limited evidence) seem
> to me to end up supporting the idea that
> life is actually much more likely than even
> the optimists thought.
I think the general consensus is that, given what we know to be true, extraterrestrial life of some sort is likely. Even in our own solar system, there are at least three places where we are tantalized by the possibility of life (I'm thinking of Mars, Europa and Titan... there are other candidates, too).
The thing is, we really don't have enough data to make an accurate assessment of how likely the development of intelligence is, given the existence of life.
Chris
Chris
Chris
Yes, in 2005, Microsoft should be able, if they wanted, to incorporate the code from Linus's original Linux 0.02 into their products. They would then be fourteen years behind the still-copyrighted kernel 2.4-pre-test-whatever. I think that would be a huge step forward for everyone concerned.
Chris
I'm certainly not saying that it never happens, by any agency, at any classification level (no matter how deep you make it into the TS-SCI world, there's always weird stuff going on somewhere above), but it never happened in my department, and never to my knowledge anywhere else.
Chris
A colleague of mine went to an interview in conjunction with obtaining a top secret security clearance. Once there, he was confronted with and asked to explain a ten-year-old photo of himself, age 12, walking into the Polish embassy. He had apparently arranged to meet someone there while gathering data for a middle school geography report.
Someone in our intelligence apparatus was lurking outside the embassy, taking pictures of random kids, identifying them, and holding on to the photos so that they could surface a decade later during an NCIS investigation.
Creepy.
Chris
Check out home.t-online.de/home/jodda/camedia. htm, for example.
Chris
nethack-palm.sourceforge.net
Chris
Chris
Transmeta's code-morpher-plus-VLIW-chip design frees the hardware engineers from having to support backward compatibility! They can retool and upgrade their chip design almost at will, and the _only_ application they need to worry about supporting is the code morpher. This gives them unbelievable flexibility to take advantage of the latest processor technology.
If they were to start permitting applications to be developed natively for one of their chips, they would lose this ability.
Chris
Chris
> stood up as a group against HMO abuses, drug
> company abuses, etc.
> professional (engineer, doctor, etc)
> the "ethical" way to go about things is to
> keep your mouth shut.
Interestingly, the reason professionals don't stand up as a group for anything is that they are prohibited from doing so by anti-trust regulations. Collective action is reserved for labor; professionals doing the same thing is perceived as the formation of an anticompetitive cartel.
If I recall correctly, a recent effort by California doctors to have more say in establishing acceptible standards of care for HMO patients was quashed in the courts because of that.
I'm not sure whether musicians fall under the category of "professionals," though. I tend to think not.
Chris
Chris
Chris
I'm confused. I agree that comments posted here in a public forum can be quoted. But I thought the whole login vs. AC dichotomy that Slashdot enforces was designed specifically so that people who wished to have their privacy protected could make it so. If someone has something to say that requires anonymity, then she posts as an AC, and her words aren't attributable. But for the rest of us, we post under our logins because we wish our thoughts to be attributed to us. Quotes from identifiable Slashdot members deserve attribution by login name. Otherwise it feels like stealing. Chris
If he's this clueless about technology issues, though, I wouldn't bet on it. Feh.
Chris
Chris
Chris