And here I thought the Centauri were analogs for Czarist Russia... Well, I guess they were an amalgam of both...Maybe what the Roman Empire would have becone had it not fallen... Cantauri... Centurion.. Nah, too big a stretch.
The Technomages were covered a lot more in Crusade. They were supposed to have been revisited in season 5, but TNT had threatenned to can the show in season 4, so the plot threads were tied off sooner, hence the relatively weak season 5.
Since TNT shafted Crusade as well, the Technomages never did get to fully shine. Too bad, they were yet another brillian facet of the show, along with the Psi-Corps, the fate of Lando and Daniel, the telepath war... Plenty of room to grow into as well, with the Great Burn and so forth.
Oh, I sure hope this is a revival, and that JMS will get enough encouragement and support to consider picking up the B5 pen again. I can dream, can't I?
Babylon 5 was produced on roughly 10% of the budget that ST:TNG had, per episode.
Given this, they had decent acting, great writing, and pretty damn spectacular CGI. B5 had more original (meaning non-recycled between eps) CGI in one episode (I forget which, but I'm sure the Lurker's Guide has the statistics) than a whole season of TNG.
Add to this that the initial CGI work was done on Video Toasters (and later on less then top-noth graphics worstations), and you've got a totally GEEKY show, made great through effort and perseverence, not a big budget. B5 is a work of art, the ST series are a politically correct marketting franshise.
Just found this on the Lurker's guide:
The B5 effects teams, both at Foundation and at NDI, use Lightwave 3D by NewTek and specialized software to design and render the visual effects. For the pilot, the effects were rendered on a network of Amiga computers; later, Foundation used 12 Pentium PCs and 5 DEC Alpha workstations for 3D rendering and design, and 3 Macintoshes for piecing together on-set computer displays.
Considering that, it's pretty damn good... No?
Also, the graphics were not poor, they were realistic, IMHO. Video of Mir and other orbitting craft look pretty cheesy too, due to the harshness of the light outside the atmosphere.
Maybe what you meant to say was that the effects didn't look like those in big budget productions like Star Trek and SW:TPM?
This is probably THE best fan site out there, with plenty of links, back-plot, production info, yadda-yadda... Well worth the click.
For the rec, I'm a HUGE fan of B5. It's a brilliant plot, even though it does tend to lean a bit heavy on Tolken. (Then again, Tolken leans on the Illiad, so NYAH!)
B5 is the only sci-fi show with believable people, alien aliens, characters screwing up because of their faults, the good guys losing, people getting hurt - and staying hurt for several episodes, warm and touching moments, hillarious character banter, deeply developed personalities, teddy bears shoved out of air-locks, and an actual philosopy.
The cheesiest line on B5 beats most of the profound crap on ST:xxx. "Get that cheese to sick-bay" my ass! There is no techno-babble about reversing the polarity if the sub-ionic Heisenberg compensators or any such crap. People hit computers to make them work...
Ah... ramble-ramble... I think I'll go dust of my VCR, to make sure I can get those two episodes I'm missing. Fasten, then zip!!
My favorite ep had to be Signs and Portents. #116 (Though Into the Fire in Season 4 was killer on the gfx)
It was a first season episode that got the major story arc underway... It was the one where the Centauri Emperor dies on B5, and Kosh has that one foreboding line...
I've got the whole series on tape - except for two eps where TNT superceded the show with NBA playoffs (bastards!)
This is the ONE (no hidden B5 reference, really...) show that would make me buy a ReplayTV unit... Having another chance to watch it makes me giddy - it's like a sugar high.
I just hope that Sci-Fi runs the episodes in order. If they're out of sequence, the arcs fall apart - it would be a waste.
Yeah, me too. But what seems to always get lost in a discussion of Freedom, is that it's not 'free' (as in Beer). Freedom is not about having what you want, it's about choice of what you have. People who have no freedom are not those that are monitored 24x7. It's those who have no choice about their situation.
Freedom is about being able to CHANGE your situation. Maybe that the only available choice is for the worse, but if it is out of the control of the oppressor, then it is to freedom. The US was settled by people who understood this. They left a more stable, sophisticated culture and CHOSE to face unknown hardship for the freedom from domination and control by a Monarch.
It's actually very interesting. How repressive England must have been, if the ones who 'escaped' in search of Freedom were Puritans.:)
We can all quit out jobs, and do something else. Is that 'something else' something we want? Well, the acceptability of our alternatives pretty much sets how much we are willing to put up with.
I am free to quit my job, but the resulting hassle of finding another, makes me willing to put up with having my online activities and phone calls logged. I accept that I am using company equipment, and I accept their monitoring.
But waking up on a farm, walking across the house, and telecommuting to a virtual office sounds nice.
Interesting comment. But, more interesting is that your sig suggests a completely opposite view.
You say in the comment that with which most of use agree. That government needs to be heavily scrutinized, lest it flex it's muscles too much and control the lives of the populace. Fair enough, and Nazi Germany is a great example of this. A better one is Stallinist Soviet Union, where the world just didn't KNOW until much later.
The sig, OTOH, says that individuals can not be trusted to play nicely, and so their resources, means and very lives (eating) should be controlled by someone with the 'foresight' to take care of the needs of society as a whole. Sounds despotic and dictatorial.
Now, I realize that the sig is there for humoric effect, and that it's as much a comment on resource responsibility as it is on anything else, but...
There's a very fine line between the rights of the individual and the rights of the society. Nietsche claims, via "will to power", that a person will seek to exert as much control over his surroundings as he possibly can. We're all control freaks, and need to be held in check by a superlative force, such as a government.
Few people have the capacity to be 'enlightened despots', so society as a whole makes rules for all to abide by. Most people don't care enough, and are too wrapped up in their daily lives, to notice that those who have time, have an agenda - until the restrictive laws are made, and it's too late.
Same with the business sector. If everyone was left to their own recognizance, few people would do their job. The rules are there to force compliance - right or wrong.
The corporate rules DO NOT impinge on anyone's freedom, BTW. We're all free to quit and take up farming, or any other profession. Same with the government. In the US, you're free to leave. In some other countries, you have to fight hard to get out - and many of us leave oppressive (politically, economically, religiously) governments to come to the US. Here, Big Brother is just too busy beating up the kid down the street (Yugoslavia, Iraq, whatever) to read our private diaries.
Oh, crap, was that out-loud? Am I NOT WORKING? Again? Oops.
What you're saying is obvious, change is change, and a specific instance has little effect. Maybe.
I seem to recall a Rosa Parks, and a Johannes von(?) Gutternberg, whose singular achevements changes society profoundly.
Now, I don't claim that a single court ruling will revolutionize the world. Not a chance, there's a mointain of history to tunnel through. But, it just might be forcing the issue. It makes (hopefully) people look at the old in terms of the new. This is where all progress comes from. Otherwise revolutionaries would be squelched, and the old system would always prevail. That's not intended to be self-engrandizing, it's an extrapolation of the Linux movement. Linux is a small piece of a bigger change in the world. As with Guttenberg, Linux HELPS (not DOES) bring technology within easier reach of the illiterate masses. Linux does this not by being Linux, but by just being. Some people choose it, others choose Windows or Mac - who make themselves more available to people to compete. But it isn't about Linux.
The computer 'revolution' will be old news to our kids, as you point out. To them, the 'big thing' is likely to be bio-tech. Then maybe space, or AI, or God knows what..
Your point is taken. Change is a constant thing that law has struggled to accomodate before. But my point also holds. Change is something that causes to law to be re-evaluated and re-shaped.
Talking about Linux as the 'next big thing' is just that. It IS the next wave to hit the status quo. It's one of countless other waves, it just happens to be the one we're on.
And we are beautiful snowflakes. All of us. Me, you, our grandfathers, our grandsons...
Now THAT is one awesome advertising campaign. I must go out and buy a Macintosh, right now!!
Damn! Check out those graphics. Stellar!!
Seriously, when I first read the headline, I thought it was a new Mac model. Interesting news anyhow. New England is expecting rain, all weekend. Booo!!
But then again if the fuzzy logic works, we will rapidly see the logical conclusion of other philosophies when it kills itself.
Wow. I can see it now. All 10 billion people of the world (by then) poring over a core dump, trying to figure out what the AI concluded, that we all seem to be missing..
Interesting point really. If Deep Blue can analyze all possible moves in a chess match, and choose the single one that works best; it would be very interesting to set a horde of AIs loose on the world's philosophies, and see where they all lead.
Of course, with the Universe's sense of humor, the only surviving AI would believe in solipsism.
Believe it or not, the whole legal system does not revolve around software. I know this comes as a surprise to those who wonder how people lived before the Intel 80386.
Now THAT is just uncalled for. We all realize that computers are just a small piece of society; there's no need for sarcasm here.
The point of my question was that new technologies force society to re-evaluate some old perceptions and precedents. Source-as-speach is one example of this. Knowledge workers are another... We MAKE nothing, yet are higher paid than most professions.
Another interesting result of modern tech is the government mandate that health insurance can not discriminate or deny coverage to people who have a genetic pre-disposition to certain chronic or terminal disease...
Computers, bio-tech and space exploration, althogh very recent and small in the grand scheme of things, have had a HUGE impact on modern society, culture, and {wait for it}... law.
A truly interesting question. But one that I think boils down to how we define 'AI'.
If we consider the ultimate achievement in AI to be true, free-will, intelligence and compete comprehension, then the machine mind is no different than a person.
While a person is a child, while it is still in 'traning mode', then it's parent or guardian is responsible for it's actions. The parent has the right and responsibility to enforce restrictions onto the child, until such time as the child is seen as capable of making informed, 'intelligent' decisions.
After a child is grown up, it becomes an adult, and is thus responsible for it's own actions. It has rights and legal recourse, and can be punished for it's mis-deeds. Extreme transgressions result in extreme penalties.
If we achieve the Holy Grail of AI, and make a machine capable of making decisions as a person would, AND after that machine is deemed mature and let loose on the world, then the machine should be held responsible for it's own actions.
If the Littleton killers were adults, their parents would never enter the picture, would they? I'm sure Hitler's mother felt just terrible about her son's legacy, but was she responsible for it?
True AI opens up a world of possibilities. What would transgressions by an AI be? Bad calculations? Stealing storage space from another, lesser AI? Mooching power from the coffee machine in another department? Procreation - as in the sale of it's copy to a foreign power? Would a super-intelligent AI be able to outsmart human prosecutors? Would it be better at finding legal loophole precedents? Could it beat us at our own legal games?
Without True AI, the issue is simpler. If the AI depends on a human for it's intellectual functioning, then the human, through intent or neglect, is accountable. If a child kills another with an unsecured gun, the parent gets punished. A non-True AI would effectively be a perpetual child, and this may be the best way to maintain control over AI - child-like intelligence, or Idiot-Savant performance, if you will.
I know this is OT, but I've got a nagging question.
Considering the recent (yesterday?) ruling about source code being a form of speach - and therefore priviliged to the same protections... what does this mean for MIDI files, and maybe by extension, MP3??
MIDI is after all just the code for the piece of music. It requires 'compilation' before it can be heard. It's an algorithm, so it should be viewable as 'source'... How do musicians feel about the MIDIs they crank out? Same as programmers about their source code?
MP3 is a different animal. It's a recording, but an encoded one. To play it back, it has to be processed in a very specific way. Almost as specific as building a parse tree and lookup tables for the decompression and playback process.. The file doesn't contain instructions for the process of decompression, but it stores instructions to the playback 'processor' that then 'runs' the file.
Does being in accordance or violation of the law really depend on what "is" is?
Aw man, I'm sorry.. Nothing personal, and all that.
I agree, QA folks keep the rest of us honest, and force a double-take on the ego. That's granted.
But you CAN be the sorriest bunch of nit-picking anal-retentives when you want to.:) I mean, sheesh!! So my margins are not PRECISELY 0.825"... What are ya gonna do??;)
Code as speach is better than speach. It's DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
How else can ump-teen lines of code tell the MPAA that we're on to their little scheme of world domination? "Oh and BTW: you can drive a truck through this hole in your encoding."
Code is ACTIVE speach, it's crystaline ideas, not just a bunch of phonemes strung together and shouted from a mountain.
Why, it's, it's almost FORMAL, as in 'mathematical'. E=mc^2 is so succinct, it's immortal.
Everyone here is well aware that the success of the computer industry is as great as it is because geeks question old standards, and synthesize new ways of doing things.
Ye Olde Englishe Handbooke was probably written using vi (Vee? Vee-Eye? SIX??) on a couple eunuchs boxes (or is that boxen). Fsck that! You goak?
We make up words daily, to convey the mutant ideas we peddle. Waxing pedantic on this forum will get ears boxed, and maybe a few Karma points from academic groupies.
Virii, viri, viruses... Whatever! If you get the meme (aha! there's a mutant! Kill it, before it breeds!) then just move on with the brain work.
aggressivepedestrian makes a good point though. A device which performs a function is a product of it's 'source code', specifically a blueprint or design specification.
A spec then is a form of speach, and should be afforded the same level of protection. Interestingly though, a spec or print is, technically, a document. Where I work, specs are 'published'. Copyright rears it's ugly head.:)
Does this suddenly make AutoCAD files the same as paperback novels and the Linux kernel?
If it takes source code (or pseudo code, but that's another battle) to convey an idea, then it can be said that it takes a print or spec to communicate an intention w.r.t. hardware. The compilation of the spec (creation of the physical widget) is no different from making a binary.
I didn't have to pay for a DVD player for Win32. It came with the drive.
Yeah, and Win98 is FREE because it comes with the computer??
the price of my DVD-ROM drive is slightly increased due to licensing fees
Yeah. You're paying more than you have to, slightly more, but more than you must. This doesn't bother you at all?
Ok, fine. Consider what that licensing fee pays for. Add to this cost the fact that you're paying for the DVD cartel's ability to regionalize the product you BUY. Next time you go over-seas and find a great film, you can't play it at home. Maybe you don't travel much, but what if others do? Besides, why should people in Bangladesh be the only ones who can buy DVD discs cheap? Why should Europeans and Americans pay a premium, just because they can afford it?
CSS regionalization is extensible and licenses expire. This means that next year's DVD-ROMs may be manufactured to be INCOMPATIBLE with your current drive. Will you again pay 'slightly more' for a new drive?
How about self-terminating ROMs that become useless after X number of plays? CSS is a step in that direction.
Do you believe that proprietary software now has no right to be on Linux?
Not at all. What I believe is that when I buy a product, I should have complete control over it. I should not be 'licensing the right to use' it. The software 'license' is principally there to provide legal recourse against copying - I have no problem with that. But if you read your EULAs, you'll find that the company reserves the right to terminate your license at any time... After you've already paid for it even. And you have no recourse.
What this means for DVDs is that if the MPAA chooses to do so, they'll change CSS and make the current installed base defunct. Cha-ching!
If DVD technology, and software in general, was sold as a product, with no implied or expressed 'terms of use', there would be no problem.
unable to see that this is making Linux much more attractive
To whom? Not the hacker that wants to 'roll his own' player. It's fun to write your own stuff. It's easy to do, if you're not beating your head against a legal document.
What's more, while this may make Linux more attractive to the non-hacker, it also makes Linux more controlled, and more closed; more dependent on the 'good graces' of the corporate world. This goes 180 degrees against the principles of Linux. Linux is about having a choice, having introspection into the how and why of the system.
Making Linux 'more attractive' on terms dictated by corporate interests, is not good for Linux. Windows is already plenty 'attractive' on those terms. Linux is supposed to offer an alternative way of doing things, not the same way on a different OS.
It's really a philosophical issue, and no amount of flamage will resolve it. The 'Linux alternative' as I see it, is about choice and openness, not just about the API and UI being different.
And you criticize this application?
I would like to. I would like to be able to look at it's code, see where it's done well and where it's held together with spit and wire. I'd LIKE to criticise it. As it stands, there is no way for me to review it on technical merits.
[rant]
I'd like to do my own tune-ups too. I resent having to pay my mechanic for the fact that he made the investment in a proprietary device that will read the codes off of my car's computer, just to tell me that I need new spark-plugs. The cost of that device, if it were a commodity, would be irrelevant - a tank of gas maybe. As it stands, I pay for an hour of work (for the chip scoping) and gain nothing but the knowledge that I could have already had with the device being built-in.
[/rant]
Point being, proprietary technologies are a way for companies to get the consumer by the ya-ya's; open technologies (and hardware specs) give the consumer choices. Implementations may be proprietary, that's fine, but the interfaces should be open.
The release of an "MPAA blessed" DVD player for Linux is a bad thing. Here's why:
Most folks don't realize the underhanded tactics of regionalization and pay-for-CSS licensing. They only realize convenience and the 'poor hackers' inability to watch "The Matrix" on their Linux PCs.
The release of an 'official' DVD player for Linux makes it as convenient to watch DVD movies on Linux as it is on Win32. The 'poor hackes' should be satisfied by that - in the public eye.
The fact that regionalization and licensing of the ability to watch your (owned) movies is still there is not a convenience issue, so most people don't care. If the 'poor hackers' keep complaining about 'consumer rights', the MPAA cronies like CNN will just label us 'anarchists', mention kiddie-porn and bomb-making info that is to be found on-line....
Those 'nasty pervert hackers', always causing trouble...
This is not a step in the right direction. This is an MPAA maneuver to remove the one argument that speaks to the general public. What's needed is a FREE alternative on Win32, to show the masses that they do not have to pay to play DVDs.
What you say is completely on-target, technically. But technical details have nothing to do with the choice of cache size.
The 'new' Celeron, with another cache level is being introduced to add confusion to the market. It will be marginally cheaper than the larger cache version, so cost of production is not the issue.
In fact, this Celeron will probably start life as the larger-cached version, and have half it's cache disabled (intentionally destroyed) to offer the customer an ILLUSION of having more choices.
Intel has done this before:
386SX was a 16 bit 386DX. Valid difference. 486SX was a 486DX, with a non-functioning floating point unit. The DX chips that burned out their FPU during testing were relabeled as SX and sold at a discount. This way, Intel sold that which it would have otherwise thrown away.
How is this different? This is intentional. Intel knows that they can't beat AMD on performance, so they will flood the market with variations of the same chip. Intel is betting on the fact that Joe Q. Average will see how many 'different' processors Intel produces, and conclude that Intel is a better investment.
The performance penalty that Joe Q. Average will suffer by running a chip with a cache that is half the size for which most code is optimized is not really an issue for Intel.
Does anyone think that Intel bean-counters really care about the OPTIMALITY of the product? No, they care about it's PROFITABILITY. The stock-holders are the company's first priority.
As for the technical details.. CAVEAT EMPTOR, as always.
Slashdot Mirror
And here I thought the Centauri were analogs for Czarist Russia... Well, I guess they were an amalgam of both.. .Maybe what the Roman Empire would have becone had it not fallen... Cantauri... Centurion.. Nah, too big a stretch.
The Technomages were covered a lot more in Crusade. They were supposed to have been revisited in season 5, but TNT had threatenned to can the show in season 4, so the plot threads were tied off sooner, hence the relatively weak season 5.
Since TNT shafted Crusade as well, the Technomages never did get to fully shine. Too bad, they were yet another brillian facet of the show, along with the Psi-Corps, the fate of Lando and Daniel, the telepath war... Plenty of room to grow into as well, with the Great Burn and so forth.
Oh, I sure hope this is a revival, and that JMS will get enough encouragement and support to consider picking up the B5 pen again. I can dream, can't I?
Babylon 5 was produced on roughly 10% of the budget that ST:TNG had, per episode.
Given this, they had decent acting, great writing, and pretty damn spectacular CGI. B5 had more original (meaning non-recycled between eps) CGI in one episode (I forget which, but I'm sure the Lurker's Guide has the statistics) than a whole season of TNG.
Add to this that the initial CGI work was done on Video Toasters (and later on less then top-noth graphics worstations), and you've got a totally GEEKY show, made great through effort and perseverence, not a big budget. B5 is a work of art, the ST series are a politically correct marketting franshise.
Just found this on the Lurker's guide:
The B5 effects teams, both at Foundation and at NDI, use Lightwave 3D by NewTek and specialized software to design and render the visual effects. For the pilot, the effects were rendered on a network of Amiga computers; later, Foundation used 12 Pentium PCs and 5 DEC Alpha workstations for 3D rendering and design, and 3 Macintoshes for piecing together on-set computer displays.
Considering that, it's pretty damn good... No?
Also, the graphics were not poor, they were realistic, IMHO. Video of Mir and other orbitting craft look pretty cheesy too, due to the harshness of the light outside the atmosphere.
Maybe what you meant to say was that the effects didn't look like those in big budget productions like Star Trek and SW:TPM?
For all new to B5, those who want a plot archive and insider/behind the scenes tid-bits, visit:
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5
This is probably THE best fan site out there, with plenty of links, back-plot, production info, yadda-yadda... Well worth the click.
For the rec, I'm a HUGE fan of B5. It's a brilliant plot, even though it does tend to lean a bit heavy on Tolken. (Then again, Tolken leans on the Illiad, so NYAH!)
B5 is the only sci-fi show with believable people, alien aliens, characters screwing up because of their faults, the good guys losing, people getting hurt - and staying hurt for several episodes, warm and touching moments, hillarious character banter, deeply developed personalities, teddy bears shoved out of air-locks, and an actual philosopy.
The cheesiest line on B5 beats most of the profound crap on ST:xxx. "Get that cheese to sick-bay" my ass! There is no techno-babble about reversing the polarity if the sub-ionic Heisenberg compensators or any such crap. People hit computers to make them work...
Ah... ramble-ramble... I think I'll go dust of my VCR, to make sure I can get those two episodes I'm missing. Fasten, then zip!!
My favorite ep had to be Signs and Portents. #116 (Though Into the Fire in Season 4 was killer on the gfx)
It was a first season episode that got the major story arc underway... It was the one where the Centauri Emperor dies on B5, and Kosh has that one foreboding line...
I've got the whole series on tape - except for two eps where TNT superceded the show with NBA playoffs (bastards!)
This is the ONE (no hidden B5 reference, really...) show that would make me buy a ReplayTV unit... Having another chance to watch it makes me giddy - it's like a sugar high.
I just hope that Sci-Fi runs the episodes in order. If they're out of sequence, the arcs fall apart - it would be a waste.
I don't think that was LinuxCare. Wasn't it LinuxOne that was shady and pumping hype?
Goes to show, too many LinuxSomething.com's out there...
I'd really like one of those free farms.
:)
Yeah, me too. But what seems to always get lost in a discussion of Freedom, is that it's not 'free' (as in Beer). Freedom is not about having what you want, it's about choice of what you have. People who have no freedom are not those that are monitored 24x7. It's those who have no choice about their situation.
Freedom is about being able to CHANGE your situation. Maybe that the only available choice is for the worse, but if it is out of the control of the oppressor, then it is to freedom. The US was settled by people who understood this. They left a more stable, sophisticated culture and CHOSE to face unknown hardship for the freedom from domination and control by a Monarch.
It's actually very interesting. How repressive England must have been, if the ones who 'escaped' in search of Freedom were Puritans.
We can all quit out jobs, and do something else. Is that 'something else' something we want? Well, the acceptability of our alternatives pretty much sets how much we are willing to put up with.
I am free to quit my job, but the resulting hassle of finding another, makes me willing to put up with having my online activities and phone calls logged. I accept that I am using company equipment, and I accept their monitoring.
But waking up on a farm, walking across the house, and telecommuting to a virtual office sounds nice.
Interesting comment. But, more interesting is that your sig suggests a completely opposite view.
You say in the comment that with which most of use agree. That government needs to be heavily scrutinized, lest it flex it's muscles too much and control the lives of the populace. Fair enough, and Nazi Germany is a great example of this. A better one is Stallinist Soviet Union, where the world just didn't KNOW until much later.
The sig, OTOH, says that individuals can not be trusted to play nicely, and so their resources, means and very lives (eating) should be controlled by someone with the 'foresight' to take care of the needs of society as a whole. Sounds despotic and dictatorial.
Now, I realize that the sig is there for humoric effect, and that it's as much a comment on resource responsibility as it is on anything else, but...
There's a very fine line between the rights of the individual and the rights of the society. Nietsche claims, via "will to power", that a person will seek to exert as much control over his surroundings as he possibly can. We're all control freaks, and need to be held in check by a superlative force, such as a government.
Few people have the capacity to be 'enlightened despots', so society as a whole makes rules for all to abide by. Most people don't care enough, and are too wrapped up in their daily lives, to notice that those who have time, have an agenda - until the restrictive laws are made, and it's too late.
Same with the business sector. If everyone was left to their own recognizance, few people would do their job. The rules are there to force compliance - right or wrong.
The corporate rules DO NOT impinge on anyone's freedom, BTW. We're all free to quit and take up farming, or any other profession. Same with the government. In the US, you're free to leave. In some other countries, you have to fight hard to get out - and many of us leave oppressive (politically, economically, religiously) governments to come to the US. Here, Big Brother is just too busy beating up the kid down the street (Yugoslavia, Iraq, whatever) to read our private diaries.
Oh, crap, was that out-loud? Am I NOT WORKING? Again? Oops.
Sounds a lot like An Evening with Berferd.
Sorry for the hyperlinked version, there's a PS file out there that makes for better reading IMHO.
What you're saying is obvious, change is change, and a specific instance has little effect. Maybe.
I seem to recall a Rosa Parks, and a Johannes von(?) Gutternberg, whose singular achevements changes society profoundly.
Now, I don't claim that a single court ruling will revolutionize the world. Not a chance, there's a mointain of history to tunnel through. But, it just might be forcing the issue. It makes (hopefully) people look at the old in terms of the new. This is where all progress comes from.
Otherwise revolutionaries would be squelched, and the old system would always prevail. That's not intended to be self-engrandizing, it's an extrapolation of the Linux movement. Linux is a small piece of a bigger change in the world. As with Guttenberg, Linux HELPS (not DOES) bring technology within easier reach of the illiterate masses. Linux does this not by being Linux, but by just being. Some people choose it, others choose Windows or Mac - who make themselves more available to people to compete. But it isn't about Linux.
The computer 'revolution' will be old news to our kids, as you point out. To them, the 'big thing' is likely to be bio-tech. Then maybe space, or AI, or God knows what..
Your point is taken. Change is a constant thing that law has struggled to accomodate before. But my point also holds. Change is something that causes to law to be re-evaluated and re-shaped.
Talking about Linux as the 'next big thing' is just that. It IS the next wave to hit the status quo. It's one of countless other waves, it just happens to be the one we're on.
And we are beautiful snowflakes. All of us. Me, you, our grandfathers, our grandsons...
Now THAT is one awesome advertising campaign.
I must go out and buy a Macintosh, right now!!
Damn! Check out those graphics. Stellar!!
Seriously, when I first read the headline, I thought it was a new Mac model. Interesting news anyhow. New England is expecting rain, all weekend. Booo!!
But then again if the fuzzy logic works, we will rapidly see the logical conclusion of other philosophies when it kills itself.
Wow. I can see it now. All 10 billion people of the world (by then) poring over a core dump, trying to figure out what the AI concluded, that we all seem to be missing..
Interesting point really. If Deep Blue can analyze all possible moves in a chess match, and choose the single one that works best; it would be very interesting to set a horde of AIs loose on the world's philosophies, and see where they all lead.
Of course, with the Universe's sense of humor, the only surviving AI would believe in solipsism.
Believe it or not, the whole legal system does not revolve around software. I know this comes as a surprise to those who wonder how people lived before the Intel 80386.
Now THAT is just uncalled for. We all realize that computers are just a small piece of society; there's no need for sarcasm here.
The point of my question was that new technologies force society to re-evaluate some old perceptions and precedents. Source-as-speach is one example of this. Knowledge workers are another... We MAKE nothing, yet are higher paid than most professions.
Another interesting result of modern tech is the government mandate that health insurance can not discriminate or deny coverage to people who have a genetic pre-disposition to certain chronic or terminal disease...
Computers, bio-tech and space exploration, althogh very recent and small in the grand scheme of things, have had a HUGE impact on modern society, culture, and {wait for it}... law.
A truly interesting question. But one that I think boils down to how we define 'AI'.
If we consider the ultimate achievement in AI to be true, free-will, intelligence and compete comprehension, then the machine mind is no different than a person.
While a person is a child, while it is still in 'traning mode', then it's parent or guardian is responsible for it's actions. The parent has the right and responsibility to enforce restrictions onto the child, until such time as the child is seen as capable of making informed, 'intelligent' decisions.
After a child is grown up, it becomes an adult, and is thus responsible for it's own actions. It has rights and legal recourse, and can be punished for it's mis-deeds. Extreme transgressions result in extreme penalties.
If we achieve the Holy Grail of AI, and make a machine capable of making decisions as a person would, AND after that machine is deemed mature and let loose on the world, then the machine should be held responsible for it's own actions.
If the Littleton killers were adults, their parents would never enter the picture, would they? I'm sure Hitler's mother felt just terrible about her son's legacy, but was she responsible for it?
True AI opens up a world of possibilities. What would transgressions by an AI be? Bad calculations? Stealing storage space from another, lesser AI? Mooching power from the coffee machine in another department? Procreation - as in the sale of it's copy to a foreign power? Would a super-intelligent AI be able to outsmart human prosecutors? Would it be better at finding legal loophole precedents? Could it beat us at our own legal games?
Without True AI, the issue is simpler. If the AI depends on a human for it's intellectual functioning, then the human, through intent or neglect, is accountable. If a child kills another with an unsecured gun, the parent gets punished. A non-True AI would effectively be a perpetual child, and this may be the best way to maintain control over AI - child-like intelligence, or Idiot-Savant performance, if you will.
Maybe /. here ought to voluntarily (this time) become unavailable for a day or so.
This would be a great show of commeraderie to our IRC bretheren. It would give us all a first hand sense of Denial Of Service.
Hey! I would have a chance to catch up on some work...
I bet Andover would never go for it though. All those lost ADVERTISING dollars.
I know this is OT, but I've got a nagging question.
Considering the recent (yesterday?) ruling about source code being a form of speach - and therefore priviliged to the same protections... what does this mean for MIDI files, and maybe by extension, MP3??
MIDI is after all just the code for the piece of music. It requires 'compilation' before it can be heard. It's an algorithm, so it should be viewable as 'source'... How do musicians feel about the MIDIs they crank out? Same as programmers about their source code?
MP3 is a different animal. It's a recording, but an encoded one. To play it back, it has to be processed in a very specific way. Almost as specific as building a parse tree and lookup tables for the decompression and playback process.. The file doesn't contain instructions for the process of decompression, but it stores instructions to the playback 'processor' that then 'runs' the file.
Does being in accordance or violation of the law really depend on what "is" is?
Aw man, I'm sorry.. Nothing personal, and all that.
:) I mean, sheesh!! So my margins are not PRECISELY 0.825"... What are ya gonna do?? ;)
I agree, QA folks keep the rest of us honest, and force a double-take on the ego. That's granted.
But you CAN be the sorriest bunch of nit-picking anal-retentives when you want to.
Thank you for putting it so finely.
Code as speach is better than speach. It's DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
How else can ump-teen lines of code tell the MPAA that we're on to their little scheme of world domination? "Oh and BTW: you can drive a truck through this hole in your encoding."
Code is ACTIVE speach, it's crystaline ideas, not just a bunch of phonemes strung together and shouted from a mountain.
Why, it's, it's almost FORMAL, as in 'mathematical'. E=mc^2 is so succinct, it's immortal.
Pseudo-intellectual? :)
Everyone here is well aware that the success of the computer industry is as great as it is because geeks question old standards, and synthesize new ways of doing things.
Ye Olde Englishe Handbooke was probably written using vi (Vee? Vee-Eye? SIX??) on a couple eunuchs boxes (or is that boxen). Fsck that! You goak?
We make up words daily, to convey the mutant ideas we peddle. Waxing pedantic on this forum will get ears boxed, and maybe a few Karma points from academic groupies.
Virii, viri, viruses... Whatever! If you get the meme (aha! there's a mutant! Kill it, before it breeds!) then just move on with the brain work.
Or get a job in QA.
But hey! Thanks for the history lesson.
aggressivepedestrian makes a good point though. A device which performs a function is a product of it's 'source code', specifically a blueprint or design specification.
:)
A spec then is a form of speach, and should be afforded the same level of protection. Interestingly though, a spec or print is, technically, a document. Where I work, specs are 'published'. Copyright rears it's ugly head.
Does this suddenly make AutoCAD files the same as paperback novels and the Linux kernel?
If it takes source code (or pseudo code, but that's another battle) to convey an idea, then it can be said that it takes a print or spec to communicate an intention w.r.t. hardware. The compilation of the spec (creation of the physical widget) is no different from making a binary.
The decrypted plaintext message contained copyrighted intellectual property.
All participants are officially under arrest.
Please proceed to your nearest police station to turn yourselves in, and nobody gets hurt.
Forget the kiddie-porn...
Encrypt DeCSS.
Steganographically embed the resulting cipher in a pretty picture of Tux.
Copyright (copyleft) the image.
Distribute freely.
All of us 'criminals' will probably go un-noticed. After all, it's impossible to prosecute the whole internet (right MPAA?).
But should the government, or a highly visible entity such as the MPAA get the code, see the code, complain about the code...
I didn't have to pay for a DVD player for Win32. It came with the drive.
Yeah, and Win98 is FREE because it comes with the computer??
the price of my DVD-ROM drive is slightly increased due to licensing fees
Yeah. You're paying more than you have to, slightly more, but more than you must. This doesn't bother you at all?
Ok, fine. Consider what that licensing fee pays for. Add to this cost the fact that you're paying for the DVD cartel's ability to regionalize the product you BUY. Next time you go over-seas and find a great film, you can't play it at home. Maybe you don't travel much, but what if others do? Besides, why should people in Bangladesh be the only ones who can buy DVD discs cheap? Why should Europeans and Americans pay a premium, just because they can afford it?
CSS regionalization is extensible and licenses expire. This means that next year's DVD-ROMs may be manufactured to be INCOMPATIBLE with your current drive. Will you again pay 'slightly more' for a new drive?
How about self-terminating ROMs that become useless after X number of plays? CSS is a step in that direction.
Do you believe that proprietary software now has no right to be on Linux?
Not at all. What I believe is that when I buy a product, I should have complete control over it. I should not be 'licensing the right to use' it. The software 'license' is principally there to provide legal recourse against copying - I have no problem with that. But if you read your EULAs, you'll find that the company reserves the right to terminate your license at any time... After you've already paid for it even. And you have no recourse.
What this means for DVDs is that if the MPAA chooses to do so, they'll change CSS and make the current installed base defunct. Cha-ching!
If DVD technology, and software in general, was sold as a product, with no implied or expressed 'terms of use', there would be no problem.
unable to see that this is making Linux much more attractive
To whom? Not the hacker that wants to 'roll his own' player. It's fun to write your own stuff. It's easy to do, if you're not beating your head against a legal document.
What's more, while this may make Linux more attractive to the non-hacker, it also makes Linux more controlled, and more closed; more dependent on the 'good graces' of the corporate world. This goes 180 degrees against the principles of Linux. Linux is about having a choice, having introspection into the how and why of the system.
Making Linux 'more attractive' on terms dictated by corporate interests, is not good for Linux. Windows is already plenty 'attractive' on those terms. Linux is supposed to offer an alternative way of doing things, not the same way on a different OS.
It's really a philosophical issue, and no amount of flamage will resolve it. The 'Linux alternative' as I see it, is about choice and openness, not just about the API and UI being different.
And you criticize this application?
I would like to. I would like to be able to look at it's code, see where it's done well and where it's held together with spit and wire. I'd LIKE to criticise it. As it stands, there is no way for me to review it on technical merits.
[rant]
I'd like to do my own tune-ups too. I resent having to pay my mechanic for the fact that he made the investment in a proprietary device that will read the codes off of my car's computer, just to tell me that I need new spark-plugs. The cost of that device, if it were a commodity, would be irrelevant - a tank of gas maybe. As it stands, I pay for an hour of work (for the chip scoping) and gain nothing but the knowledge that I could have already had with the device being built-in.
[/rant]
Point being, proprietary technologies are a way for companies to get the consumer by the ya-ya's; open technologies (and hardware specs) give the consumer choices. Implementations may be proprietary, that's fine, but the interfaces should be open.
The release of an "MPAA blessed" DVD player for Linux is a bad thing. Here's why:
Most folks don't realize the underhanded tactics of regionalization and pay-for-CSS licensing. They only realize convenience and the 'poor hackers' inability to watch "The Matrix" on their Linux PCs.
The release of an 'official' DVD player for Linux makes it as convenient to watch DVD movies on Linux as it is on Win32. The 'poor hackes' should be satisfied by that - in the public eye.
The fact that regionalization and licensing of the ability to watch your (owned) movies is still there is not a convenience issue, so most people don't care. If the 'poor hackers' keep complaining about 'consumer rights', the MPAA cronies like CNN will just label us 'anarchists', mention kiddie-porn and bomb-making info that is to be found on-line....
Those 'nasty pervert hackers', always causing trouble...
This is not a step in the right direction. This is an MPAA maneuver to remove the one argument that speaks to the general public. What's needed is a FREE alternative on Win32, to show the masses that they do not have to pay to play DVDs.
What you say is completely on-target, technically. But technical details have nothing to do with the choice of cache size.
The 'new' Celeron, with another cache level is being introduced to add confusion to the market. It will be marginally cheaper than the larger cache version, so cost of production is not the issue.
In fact, this Celeron will probably start life as the larger-cached version, and have half it's cache disabled (intentionally destroyed) to offer the customer an ILLUSION of having more choices.
Intel has done this before:
386SX was a 16 bit 386DX. Valid difference.
486SX was a 486DX, with a non-functioning floating point unit. The DX chips that burned out their FPU during testing were relabeled as SX and sold at a discount. This way, Intel sold that which it would have otherwise thrown away.
How is this different? This is intentional. Intel knows that they can't beat AMD on performance, so they will flood the market with variations of the same chip. Intel is betting on the fact that Joe Q. Average will see how many 'different' processors Intel produces, and conclude that Intel is a better investment.
The performance penalty that Joe Q. Average will suffer by running a chip with a cache that is half the size for which most code is optimized is not really an issue for Intel.
Does anyone think that Intel bean-counters really care about the OPTIMALITY of the product? No, they care about it's PROFITABILITY. The stock-holders are the company's first priority.
As for the technical details.. CAVEAT EMPTOR, as always.