Damn! I mean, there's only one OS to commit to. And with the advent of the Athlon, there's only one CPU. And with the GeForce 265, there's only one video card. And only one SB Live!...
Crap!
Now I have to worry about color coordinating my new PC to my suit?
"Honey, which PC goes better with pin-stripes?"
"Oooh, those ribbon cables really bring out the gleam of your FireWire ports."
"Don't you know you're no supposed to wear beige after Labor Day!?"
"Is that a joystick in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
... and my personal favorite...
"That Beowulf cluster would look great crumpled at the foot of my bed. How'sa 'bout it?"
Wow. Now where, oh where are all those web pages going to find lawyers. Especially the/. article at #57... Should I worry? I read it, am I an accomplice?
Let's all make like the Navaho code talkers or the Homeric poets and memorize the source code. Come on everyone, grab a hald dozen lines and a sequence number.
Seriously though, what on Earth will these poor lawyers do about all the over-seas defendants?
Patenting the concept of 'one-click shopping' is ridiculous, granted. But is it ridiculous to patent some novel piece of enabling technology?
Even patenting an algorithm may be acceptable, if the algorithm is specified enough to be recognizable as such, and complex enough as to not be a basic building block in the whole field of thought. For example, Dijkstra's routing algorithm is recognizable regardless of the implementation language. It even bears the man's name ferchrisakes. And there are alternatives applicable to the problem domain - though they have somewhat different characteristics.
But patenting the binary search is dead wrong. It's like seeking a patent on covalent bonding. Not only is there prior art that predates any binary search implementation (since it's an obvious way of zeroing in on an item in a sorted collection of anything), it's also a fundamental building block, with hardly a comparable alternative.
Worst of all is that which has been emerging lately. Umbrella patents on a concept are evil. These seek to corner a broad idea and corral all implementations. Things like 'one-click shopping' are right on the fringe of the umbrella patent trend. And the only reason the trend didn't get squashed on the first lame attempt is because the people granting the patents are not up to date or knowledgable in the computer field. Much like the legal system isn't up to date on the computer industry (witness the DOJ vs M$ sideshow. Melissa, et al). Much like the legislature isn't up to date on the computer industry (crypto restrictions).. Blah, blah, blah.
As you point out though, there is a benefit to patents - even the questionable ones on algorithms. In time, we'll get to see their innards. With 'trade secrets' we do not have this option, until somone brute-forces it. Isn't this the case of Intel, with AMD making a workalike having guessed at the contents of the 'trade secret' black box?
The main differences between open source and commercial software on this matter is cost and claims. Lets look at a few points:
M$ makes claims about the security of NT. They shout from a mountain top that NT is C2 compliant, and that higher security can only be achieved by disabling the networking features. (I worked at a software store when NT first came out. I wish I still had access to some of the 'sales point memos' that we got to help us sell NT.)
M$ charges money for NT, and you presume that you're paying money for that security. After all, these are the advertised features of the product that you're paying for, right? Maybe there's a legal loophole to jump through in there somewhere (EULA?), but it seems pretty common-sense to me.
M$ then fails to deliver on those marketting claims. What's more, M$ tactics 'require' that you buy new versions of software, which sidestep whatever security is in NT to begin with. (Word, Outlook - these products open up security holes you could drive a truck thru).
For the OS bugs, M$ releases 'get-it-yourself' patches, or better still charges more money for the features you thought you paid for in the first place. And, M$ will not support the application induced flaws, because they're not part of the OS service contract.
It's akin to claiming to make an impenetrable door. Selling the customer a version with a doggie-door and plastic hinges instead. Then strong-arming the contractor into installing it with built-in plate-glass Windows. Then charging the customer for shutters, metal hinges and, oh yeah, a lock.
Linux is the alternative. It's free, and everyone knows (and keeps repeating) that it's written by the community. The quality disclaimer is implicit - it's written for fun, in spare time, by people who know (and love) what they're doing. You can look inside the door jambs and see how reinforced it is. You can put in a steel plate if you want - and there's plenty of people willing to tell you, and help you, get it done. For free.
Not only are you able to do this, but you are encouraged to do this. And, if security matters to you, you are given the means to take responsibility for the security of your system. This way, the responsibility is divided. You can check that the developer did his job, and if not, or if your needs differ enough to make it a special case, then you can remedy the situation.
With closed software, you are not given the choice of taking responsibility. Logically then, the full responsibility rests squarely on the shouders of the people who made the product.
If you don't like Linux, you can go out back, drag home one of the reinforced BSD doors, and hoist it into place youself. The cost? Your time.
The cost of securing an OS, be it from a big closed-source shop or from some freak in a Bazaar, is time. In the case of the former it's also money. And you don't get to see why it needs securing in the first place so you end up guessing or taking a priest at his word.
In the case of the latter, you can pore over the code to find the flaw, fix it and take it back to the freak. He won't give you money for your efforts, but he'll give your suggestion to his freaky friends for review - and you might get a free beer out of it.
-- Did anyone notice that the latest security innovation in NT2k is Kerberos security?
A recent show about dogs, on either TLC or Discovery, made the point of saying that all dog breeds, from the chiuhuahua (sp? new breed?) to the Great Dane, to the Timber Wolf, are geneticaly the same. The argument given was that all breeds are descended from wolves, with controlled interbreeding to bring out certain traits (size, hair length and color) while removing others (temper?). The difference is in appearance only.
The implied parallel to humans is ethnicity, skin, hair and eye color.
Now, no one but the most radical racist would dare claim that Jews and Blacks and Nordic Blondes are different species, or that mulato children are inter-species hybrids that (oddly) are not sterile.
Human breeds, dog breeds and cat breeds are genetically equivalent. This being limited to the domestic cat and dog, but...
As per the dog show, since domesticated dogs are just wolves bred to present specific traits; then how are domestic cats NOT wild cats bred to bring out their particular traits?
And if they are just that, then, genetically, they are equivalent, and so inter-breedable.
Now, it's interesting that frozen embryos were used, and that the common house cat might be used as an incubator for some African breed (BREED not species) that's teetering on the brink of extinction. But so what? If they're the same species then take an African kitty, and a gender appropriate ferral domestic (since a house cat would end up dead), play some soft music and just let nature take it's course.
Sure, size matters, we can't inter-breed an occelot with a siamese, just as we can't breed the aforementioned TacoBell chiuwawa (new breed for sure!) and Marmaduke; but there's room for natural accomodation.
What's lab got to do with it? (Sorry, listening to Tina:)
This is a truly amazing, fascinating topic. The scope of reactions across the/. population is astounding. That one person can say, in the middle of this crowd, that 'man may make the vessel, but the soul of God's work', without rabid retribution from the rest - who've been born and raised on stories of aliens and AI... Wow!
Sure. If, IF, there is an omnipotent God, then {s}he can just create the world all over again. And maybe in that release, the Covet They Neighbours Ass clause will be replaced with Thou Shalt Not Immitate Thy Maker.
Who says God can't learn from His mistakes?
There is a parable in the Bible, about a landlord who gave three servants an equal amount of wealth before going away. The first servant spent the money, the second burried it to keep it safe, and the third invested it and made more in the process.
The lesson is about investing one's gifts and talents for the greater glory of God. IMHO, (as humble as I can be - just in case) god is probably pretty damn proud of how we're doing with these neat little minds of ours.
Now, if we can just have enough self-restraint to not turn our creations on each other one more time... I'm sure God doesn't like it when his children fight. I hope we will use this to help one another. I hope we use this as another stepping stone out of the crib. Let's go terraform Mars.
Before one of our all-too-few trips to the moon, a NASA engineer sneezed into a camera box. The camera went on a little trip, and stayed on the moon for several months. It was later brought back, and the damn little creepy-crawlies in the camera case came back to life.
Yeah, you're right, a zealot with a lab can work wonders. 12 Monkeys was all too creepy, but it made a strong point.
As some conspiracy fans have pointed out too often, AIDS just might be... Well, hush! Eschelon and all.. But as you suggest, it may not be that hard. No genetic level engineering, just some splicing (cut&paste). Take one part common cold, one part AIDS and one part Ebola... Shake well and spray in a fine mist at O'Hare. That's a six month incubation period of rampant but unseen contagion, a two week immune system shut down, followed by a bleed-out in a 24 hour window.
After a year, the 'offending' group is gone. Then guess what? It's gone wild. A few oportunistic mutations, and it goes after the next broadest gene base. We're all toast.
Well, all of us except some slime inside an old camera case.:)
JBuilder also does this. And, though I've not tried them, I believe that Cafe, Visual Age and the free and open NetBeans does too... That, the visual UI developer, and you don't have to succumb to the dark side...
You are what you eat, and on mars, waste would all you'd have.
The technologies we would need to develop to go to Mars, and more importantly to live there, would definitely apply back here on Earth.
Think of the hydroponic gardens, self-contained and genetically engineered to provide for proper nutrition. Encased in a small greenhouse, cheap and adequate for human use in no time at all. There's no where here that something like that would be of use. Not in the remote-most reaches of Cyclone ravaged India. Not in Kosovar refugee camps, nowhere.
The medical technology necessary to diagnose and monitor human health, and to make the necessary adjustments to physiology - when the nearest hospital is millions of miles away... What a waste!
Light, strong and durable building materials, air scrubbers and anti-radiation shielding. Useless.
Heh! It's starting to sound like a Visa ad: Interplanetary rocket technology: $200billion. Self-contained geosphere environment: $100billion. Superconduction: $50billion.
The peace of mind in knowing that when the doomsday rock hits Earth, you have somewhere to go: PRICELESS!
What's going on in Seattle is fascinating. Beirut you say? Hmmm...
Beirut I can understand. Kosovo as well. This? No. Here? Never!
I grew up in Warsaw and came to the US at the ripe old age of 10 (in '83). By that age, I knew what tear gas smelled like. It's not something 10 year olds should know. But, I can honestly say, I knew if for good reason. I was there when the fuse was lit, on the bomb called Solidarity. That bomb blew up the Berlin Wall and the USSR.
Being from Poland, I imagine that I have a little more insight into the ageless ethnic tensions that made the former Yugoslavia into the blood-bath that it was. A little more insight than the average US citizen, since here people tend to hate each other for color, creed, idealism and other easily observable traits. There, people are more tolerant of such extreme differences, and hate over the history of a neighbor's bloodline. But I digress... (these are my opinions BTW, flame on!)
Seattle is on the other coast, and while I can see it on the screen, I keep expecting Orson Wells to come out of the shadows and laugh into the camera.
I can only ask myself 'why?'... What do those rioting people rage against? Tyrants? Taxes? The killing of priests? Or is it just the imposition of a more global economy, that would bring the American standard of living (which I very much enjoy BTW) out of the stratosphere and onto the more level plane of globalisation?
Would these people still be there if they knew that the alternative to what the WTO stands for is (for example) a 200% increase in the cost of gasoline? Do they really want to HAVE TO grow their own vegetables, pluck their own chickens and ride a bike for transportation rather than cheeseburger-burning exercise?
And will I have to pay more at Starbucks in the morning?
You know, when science starts sounding like Star Trek, it's time to re-evaluate your assumptions.
I'm all for science in sci-fi, but this sounds like too much fi in the sci... Only Star Trek resorts to the time-travel deus ex machina to make for an interesting show.
Yes, we live in a wonderous and amazing Universe. Yes, technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. But trying to explain a speculative theory with an even more speculative theory is unscientific in the extreme.
Transmeta using alien tech makes for a great joke. Matter traveling backwards thru time?? Please!
The problem with trying to over-generalize any sort of profile is that it becomes extremely vague and all-encompassing. This is true in absolutely all cases.:)
According to a recent article on CNN [sorry, can't find link], only 25% of families or so are 'traditional'. The rest are divorced, single-parent, on-welfare, both-parents-working, insert-your-favorite-dysfunction-here type of family. This makes the probability of coming from a 'dysfunctional' family pretty large, and throws the whole definition of 'average' and 'normal' out the window.
Lumping things such as Satanism in with violent video games leads to trouble. Quake is great. But, since the FBI mentions it in the same breath as devil worship, it must be related, right?
The profile fits almost all teenagers. Those it excludes are the abnormal ones.
Trouble with authority? Isn't that what being a teen is all about? Questioning authority and establishing yourself as being competent enough to take charge of your own life? The alternative is a world of sheeple. Kids are encouraged to 'assert their individuality', 'express themselves', 'think independently'... But only within the predefined constraints set by authority figures... Sure road to frustration.
Unstable self-esteem? Ummm... "I'm the coolest person ever, but I have a zit!!! The world is over!" Again, nothing more 'teen' than being overly self-conscious.
Predominantly male? Aggressive tendencies? Well, who else would tend to be a discipline problem, if not a person flooded with testosterone for the first time in 15 years?
Above average intellect? A person capable of independent thought at a young age? "Not in MY classroom, Mister!" Last thing that authority wantes (academics especially) is to have their hypocricy and lazy tenured-mentality exposed in front of kids. I've had plenty of teachers (HS and U) who would mark perfectly good answers as wrong, if they differed with their perspective. The message? "If you don't see the world MY WAY, you're wrong!"
While a consuming fascination with weapons and death can't possibly be healthy (IMHO), weapons are pretty interesting. No other thing in history has utilized as much thought. We, as a race, have put more effort into finding new ways of killing each other than into anything else - except maybe religion. Being overly religious is sure to get you profiled as well, but at least then the ACLU will back you up. But, as long as we're profiling people based on their interest in weapons and killing - we should lock up the whole of the DoD. After all, if someone in there cracks... "Mein Furher! I can valk!"
It's only right that a ripening mind would question and take interest in such a social paradox. In fact, bringing this state of affaris into focus is the very point of most civics courses. Questioning that which is wrong in the world is an obligation of all people who are 'coming of age'. We MUST question and contemplate things such as weapons of mass destruction, the abomination of the Holocaust, genocide in general, hate, prejudice and violence; and what these things mean in our world. We MUST encourage the youth to consider these things, lest they experience them first-hand, and not on the pages of a history book.
To label someone as a deviant because they try to figure things out... The Original Sin comes to mind.
We also have to stop and consider the source of the profile. The FBI. The self-appointed shepherds of American society. The directors of the FBI became professionals - and had their world-view solidified - in the years of the 'red scare'. They've taken on the responsibility for the American way of life (tm) and are determined to see everyone live behind a white picket fence. If we don't want to, we're obviously deviants. We need to have our trash rooted through in search of incriminating evidence. It's for our own good. After all, we're in the same demographic profile as Tim McVeigh and Geoffrey Dahmer.
Interesting as the Dream Machine invention sounds....
How about actually raising your own kids instead of placing that responsibility on the anonymous world, and than placing blame on it for failing to do it well?
Things like VNC deserve to be on the list. As do some other truly innovative tools. PGP comes to mind. That single-chip WWW server that we slashdotted about two months back.
A port of Linux to a Rolex would be nice too. Linux on anything analog..
We really should extend our definition of 'hack' to beyond the computer realm, at least for a top-ten list.
While not hacks in the computer sense, the practical jokes that go on at MIT also deserve mention. I mean, turning buildings into giant VU meters for a concert... That's just plain COOL.
Mars Pathfinder (and Apollo 13 while out there).
The Blair Witch Project was a great hack. Both in the 'crude' sense of the word (badly made movie) and in the 'tweak' sense of the word, since the marketting was so subversive as to make many people BELIEVE it was a documentary.
Absolutely. Not only hammers and crowbars, but guns, knives, ICBMs and even landmines.
Tools are tools, they're made for a specific purpose. Their misuse, wether intentional or accidental, must not result in the manufacturer being liable.
Furthermore, it is the intent that counts. Consider manslaughter vs vehicular homicide. In either case, a car is the machine used to kill a person, but the intent of doing so makes a difference.
Intentional misuse is what points the finger of blame. If a chemical in a can of hair spray causes harm when used according to design, the manufacturer is to blame. If it is intentionally concentrated and then inhlaed, resulting in Little Johnny becoming a vegetable, it's the kids (or parents?) fault.
Now, in the case of intentional non-disclosure of harmful potential.... Ah, let's just avoid discussing Microsoft's security issues, shall we?
If (and that's a huge IF) M$ code was to be opened, it would suffer from the same maladies that plague Mozilla... Only more so.
Namely, the pre-release size of it. NT2k is gauged at what? 40 million lines of source? How many Linux hackers would be willing to drop their passion and actively work on poring over that much code?? Once their curiosity was satisfied, most would just smile, nod, and go back to coding for Linux.
Sure, some would persist, a small enclave would make the betterment of the WinAPI and WinOS into a crusade, but for the most part, it's not happening. How many people would be willing to scale a poorly designed, but built sky-scraper in an attempt to fix the bugs?
Add to that the very M$ condition of there being a lot of licensed code (which would not be part of the disclosure) without which the rest is useless, and the release of Windows source to the public is a non-possibility.
My first job experience was to help port some old Fortran code, from a mainframe to a workstation, and from Fortran-77 to Fortran-90. There were revisions and comments dating back to 1983 (this was in 96-97)... (Aside: There's an age/revision level past which code should NOT be maintained, it should be rewritten)
All in all it was a great learning experience. I've developed an aversion to spaghetti since then.
Imagine if you will, a 2000+ line subroutine containing many a multi-level if-else/for-do construct, from the depths of which conditional computed GOTO statements jumped into the middle of another multi-level for-do/if-else loop. Intercal was never more fun.
The true kick of the experience was that it was to be a code port. Not a rewrite. Not even a little. A straight port, so the original developers wouldn't have to figure out any new logic. Feh!
Interesting. My quick search also turned up nothing... Then again, I doubt that too many people would be eager to admit a tactic like that. I've heard the same story though, except in the version I got, we dropped extra-large condoms, labelled as small, on the outlying islands of Japan.
The intention was demoralizing the potential 'human-shield' of stick-wielding peasants, who would need to be slaughtered if we committed to a conventional invasion. Due to their strong allegiance to the emperor, it was feared that peasants would be out on beaches, throwing rocks at the landing U.S. troops.
I think (grind-grind-grind - reaching WAY back) that the story came from a Political Science class, and stemmed from a lecture on the agruments for using nuclear weapons against Japan. Japanese civilian casualties were a major factor, and their patriarchial society was believed to be intimidatable (new word!!) by the 'giant American penis'.
Nothing! They wait for speculations to converge, and then work towards realising that goal. It is quite brilliant. They're letting the industrys wildest dreams and fantasies define their product line.
This way, when they deliver what everyone has, in effect, suggested to them, they'll be hailed as visionaries and innovators of the greatest caliber.
It's like Microsoft's focus-group driven market research, only in the open-source way... They didn't solicit. Whatever we thought was useful, we gladly contributed to creating....
Just today, our work network suffered an 'IP event'. Packets were getting dropped on the floor left and right for about a quarter of the workstations on the segment. Can't ping off-site, can't ping on-site, can only ping loopback, can't read slashdot!!! Turns out the hub went goofy and the higher number ports were squirly.
IT decides that this would be a great time to switch from the old I-forgot-the-brand hub to the newer and better one from Fore. After the switch, NOBODY could even log in. 200+ engineers standing around drinking coffee - this time with a good excuse. So we went back to the old hub, and all was well for the rest of the day.
Today I lost faith in anything that comes out of Fore Systems, hardware, comments, anything.
Areas are now being color coded. It's on purpose, and it should be consistent within a topic.
I suspect that Rob/Andover is trying to increase ad revenue by increasing membership. Making slashdot contain more eyecandy, thereby attracting AOL users like moths to a lamp.
I just hope that it's actually a bug-light.:)
Just ignore them. The colors should fade in 8 to 12 hours... Have a nice trip.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn! I mean, there's only one OS to commit to. And with the advent of the Athlon, there's only one CPU. And with the GeForce 265, there's only one video card. And only one SB Live!...
...
Crap!
Now I have to worry about color coordinating my new PC to my suit?
"Honey, which PC goes better with pin-stripes?"
"Oooh, those ribbon cables really bring out the gleam of your FireWire ports."
"Don't you know you're no supposed to wear beige after Labor Day!?"
"Is that a joystick in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
... and my personal favorite
"That Beowulf cluster would look great crumpled at the foot of my bed. How'sa 'bout it?"
Wow. Now where, oh where are all those web pages going to find lawyers. Especially the /. article at #57... Should I worry? I read it, am I an accomplice?
Let's all make like the Navaho code talkers or the Homeric poets and memorize the source code. Come on everyone, grab a hald dozen lines and a sequence number.
Seriously though, what on Earth will these poor lawyers do about all the over-seas defendants?
Patenting the concept of 'one-click shopping' is ridiculous, granted. But is it ridiculous to patent some novel piece of enabling technology?
Even patenting an algorithm may be acceptable, if the algorithm is specified enough to be recognizable as such, and complex enough as to not be a basic building block in the whole field of thought. For example, Dijkstra's routing algorithm is recognizable regardless of the implementation language. It even bears the man's name ferchrisakes. And there are alternatives applicable to the problem domain - though they have somewhat different characteristics.
But patenting the binary search is dead wrong. It's like seeking a patent on covalent bonding. Not only is there prior art that predates any binary search implementation (since it's an obvious way of zeroing in on an item in a sorted collection of anything), it's also a fundamental building block, with hardly a comparable alternative.
Worst of all is that which has been emerging lately. Umbrella patents on a concept are evil. These seek to corner a broad idea and corral all implementations. Things like 'one-click shopping' are right on the fringe of the umbrella patent trend. And the only reason the trend didn't get squashed on the first lame attempt is because the people granting the patents are not up to date or knowledgable in the computer field. Much like the legal system isn't up to date on the computer industry (witness the DOJ vs M$ sideshow. Melissa, et al). Much like the legislature isn't up to date on the computer industry (crypto restrictions).. Blah, blah, blah.
As you point out though, there is a benefit to patents - even the questionable ones on algorithms. In time, we'll get to see their innards. With 'trade secrets' we do not have this option, until somone brute-forces it. Isn't this the case of Intel, with AMD making a workalike having guessed at the contents of the 'trade secret' black box?
The main differences between open source and commercial software on this matter is cost and claims. Lets look at a few points:
It's akin to claiming to make an impenetrable door. Selling the customer a version with a doggie-door and plastic hinges instead. Then strong-arming the contractor into installing it with built-in plate-glass Windows. Then charging the customer for shutters, metal hinges and, oh yeah, a lock.
Linux is the alternative. It's free, and everyone knows (and keeps repeating) that it's written by the community. The quality disclaimer is implicit - it's written for fun, in spare time, by people who know (and love) what they're doing. You can look inside the door jambs and see how reinforced it is. You can put in a steel plate if you want - and there's plenty of people willing to tell you, and help you, get it done. For free.
Not only are you able to do this, but you are encouraged to do this. And, if security matters to you, you are given the means to take responsibility for the security of your system. This way, the responsibility is divided. You can check that the developer did his job, and if not, or if your needs differ enough to make it a special case, then you can remedy the situation.
With closed software, you are not given the choice of taking responsibility. Logically then, the full responsibility rests squarely on the shouders of the people who made the product.
If you don't like Linux, you can go out back, drag home one of the reinforced BSD doors, and hoist it into place youself. The cost? Your time.
The cost of securing an OS, be it from a big closed-source shop or from some freak in a Bazaar, is time. In the case of the former it's also money. And you don't get to see why it needs securing in the first place so you end up guessing or taking a priest at his word.
In the case of the latter, you can pore over the code to find the flaw, fix it and take it back to the freak. He won't give you money for your efforts, but he'll give your suggestion to his freaky friends for review - and you might get a free beer out of it.
-- Did anyone notice that the latest security innovation in NT2k is Kerberos security?
A recent show about dogs, on either TLC or Discovery, made the point of saying that all dog breeds, from the chiuhuahua (sp? new breed?) to the Great Dane, to the Timber Wolf, are geneticaly the same. The argument given was that all breeds are descended from wolves, with controlled interbreeding to bring out certain traits (size, hair length and color) while removing others (temper?). The difference is in appearance only.
:)
The implied parallel to humans is ethnicity, skin, hair and eye color.
Now, no one but the most radical racist would dare claim that Jews and Blacks and Nordic Blondes are different species, or that mulato children are inter-species hybrids that (oddly) are not sterile.
Human breeds, dog breeds and cat breeds are genetically equivalent. This being limited to the domestic cat and dog, but...
As per the dog show, since domesticated dogs are just wolves bred to present specific traits; then how are domestic cats NOT wild cats bred to bring out their particular traits?
And if they are just that, then, genetically, they are equivalent, and so inter-breedable.
Now, it's interesting that frozen embryos were used, and that the common house cat might be used as an incubator for some African breed (BREED not species) that's teetering on the brink of extinction. But so what? If they're the same species then take an African kitty, and a gender appropriate ferral domestic (since a house cat would end up dead), play some soft music and just let nature take it's course.
Sure, size matters, we can't inter-breed an occelot with a siamese, just as we can't breed the aforementioned TacoBell chiuwawa (new breed for sure!) and Marmaduke; but there's room for natural accomodation.
What's lab got to do with it? (Sorry, listening to Tina
Just one week?
/. population is astounding. That one person can say, in the middle of this crowd, that 'man may make the vessel, but the soul of God's work', without rabid retribution from the rest - who've been born and raised on stories of aliens and AI... Wow!
Seven days?
Interesting. Did he rest on the seventh?
This is a truly amazing, fascinating topic. The scope of reactions across the
Maybe we are ready for this after all.
Sure. If, IF, there is an omnipotent God, then {s}he can just create the world all over again. And maybe in that release, the Covet They Neighbours Ass clause will be replaced with Thou Shalt Not Immitate Thy Maker.
Who says God can't learn from His mistakes?
There is a parable in the Bible, about a landlord who gave three servants an equal amount of wealth before going away. The first servant spent the money, the second burried it to keep it safe, and the third invested it and made more in the process.
The lesson is about investing one's gifts and talents for the greater glory of God. IMHO, (as humble as I can be - just in case) god is probably pretty damn proud of how we're doing with these neat little minds of ours.
Now, if we can just have enough self-restraint to not turn our creations on each other one more time... I'm sure God doesn't like it when his children fight. I hope we will use this to help one another. I hope we use this as another stepping stone out of the crib. Let's go terraform Mars.
Before one of our all-too-few trips to the moon, a NASA engineer sneezed into a camera box. The camera went on a little trip, and stayed on the moon for several months. It was later brought back, and the damn little creepy-crawlies in the camera case came back to life.
:)
Yeah, you're right, a zealot with a lab can work wonders. 12 Monkeys was all too creepy, but it made a strong point.
As some conspiracy fans have pointed out too often, AIDS just might be... Well, hush! Eschelon and all.. But as you suggest, it may not be that hard. No genetic level engineering, just some splicing (cut&paste). Take one part common cold, one part AIDS and one part Ebola... Shake well and spray in a fine mist at O'Hare. That's a six month incubation period of rampant but unseen contagion, a two week immune system shut down, followed by a bleed-out in a 24 hour window.
After a year, the 'offending' group is gone. Then guess what? It's gone wild. A few oportunistic mutations, and it goes after the next broadest gene base. We're all toast.
Well, all of us except some slime inside an old camera case.
JBuilder also does this.
And, though I've not tried them, I believe that Cafe, Visual Age and the free and open NetBeans does too... That, the visual UI developer, and you don't have to succumb to the dark side...
You are what you eat, and on mars, waste would all you'd have.
The technologies we would need to develop to go to Mars, and more importantly to live there, would definitely apply back here on Earth.
Think of the hydroponic gardens, self-contained and genetically engineered to provide for proper nutrition. Encased in a small greenhouse, cheap and adequate for human use in no time at all. There's no where here that something like that would be of use. Not in the remote-most reaches of Cyclone ravaged India. Not in Kosovar refugee camps, nowhere.
The medical technology necessary to diagnose and monitor human health, and to make the necessary adjustments to physiology - when the nearest hospital is millions of miles away... What a waste!
Light, strong and durable building materials, air scrubbers and anti-radiation shielding. Useless.
Heh! It's starting to sound like a Visa ad:
Interplanetary rocket technology: $200billion.
Self-contained geosphere environment: $100billion.
Superconduction: $50billion.
The peace of mind in knowing that when the doomsday rock hits Earth, you have somewhere to go: PRICELESS!
What's going on in Seattle is fascinating. Beirut you say? Hmmm...
Beirut I can understand. Kosovo as well. This? No. Here? Never!
I grew up in Warsaw and came to the US at the ripe old age of 10 (in '83). By that age, I knew what tear gas smelled like. It's not something 10 year olds should know. But, I can honestly say, I knew if for good reason. I was there when the fuse was lit, on the bomb called Solidarity. That bomb blew up the Berlin Wall and the USSR.
Being from Poland, I imagine that I have a little more insight into the ageless ethnic tensions that made the former Yugoslavia into the blood-bath that it was. A little more insight than the average US citizen, since here people tend to hate each other for color, creed, idealism and other easily observable traits. There, people are more tolerant of such extreme differences, and hate over the history of a neighbor's bloodline. But I digress... (these are my opinions BTW, flame on!)
Seattle is on the other coast, and while I can see it on the screen, I keep expecting Orson Wells to come out of the shadows and laugh into the camera.
I can only ask myself 'why?'...
What do those rioting people rage against? Tyrants? Taxes? The killing of priests? Or is it just the imposition of a more global economy, that would bring the American standard of living (which I very much enjoy BTW) out of the stratosphere and onto the more level plane of globalisation?
Would these people still be there if they knew that the alternative to what the WTO stands for is (for example) a 200% increase in the cost of gasoline? Do they really want to HAVE TO grow their own vegetables, pluck their own chickens and ride a bike for transportation rather than cheeseburger-burning exercise?
And will I have to pay more at Starbucks in the morning?
You know, when science starts sounding like Star Trek, it's time to re-evaluate your assumptions.
I'm all for science in sci-fi, but this sounds like too much fi in the sci... Only Star Trek resorts to the time-travel deus ex machina to make for an interesting show.
Yes, we live in a wonderous and amazing Universe. Yes, technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. But trying to explain a speculative theory with an even more speculative theory is unscientific in the extreme.
Transmeta using alien tech makes for a great joke. Matter traveling backwards thru time?? Please!
The problem with trying to over-generalize any sort of profile is that it becomes extremely vague and all-encompassing. This is true in absolutely all cases. :)
According to a recent article on CNN [sorry, can't find link], only 25% of families or so are 'traditional'. The rest are divorced, single-parent, on-welfare, both-parents-working, insert-your-favorite-dysfunction-here type of family. This makes the probability of coming from a 'dysfunctional' family pretty large, and throws the whole definition of 'average' and 'normal' out the window.
Lumping things such as Satanism in with violent video games leads to trouble. Quake is great. But, since the FBI mentions it in the same breath as devil worship, it must be related, right?
The profile fits almost all teenagers. Those it excludes are the abnormal ones.
Trouble with authority?
Isn't that what being a teen is all about? Questioning authority and establishing yourself as being competent enough to take charge of your own life? The alternative is a world of sheeple. Kids are encouraged to 'assert their individuality', 'express themselves', 'think independently'... But only within the predefined constraints set by authority figures... Sure road to frustration.
Unstable self-esteem?
Ummm... "I'm the coolest person ever, but I have a zit!!! The world is over!" Again, nothing more 'teen' than being overly self-conscious.
Predominantly male? Aggressive tendencies?
Well, who else would tend to be a discipline problem, if not a person flooded with testosterone for the first time in 15 years?
Above average intellect?
A person capable of independent thought at a young age? "Not in MY classroom, Mister!" Last thing that authority wantes (academics especially) is to have their hypocricy and lazy tenured-mentality exposed in front of kids. I've had plenty of teachers (HS and U) who would mark perfectly good answers as wrong, if they differed with their perspective. The message? "If you don't see the world MY WAY, you're wrong!"
While a consuming fascination with weapons and death can't possibly be healthy (IMHO), weapons are pretty interesting. No other thing in history has utilized as much thought. We, as a race, have put more effort into finding new ways of killing each other than into anything else - except maybe religion. Being overly religious is sure to get you profiled as well, but at least then the ACLU will back you up. But, as long as we're profiling people based on their interest in weapons and killing - we should lock up the whole of the DoD. After all, if someone in there cracks... "Mein Furher! I can valk!"
It's only right that a ripening mind would question and take interest in such a social paradox. In fact, bringing this state of affaris into focus is the very point of most civics courses. Questioning that which is wrong in the world is an obligation of all people who are 'coming of age'. We MUST question and contemplate things such as weapons of mass destruction, the abomination of the Holocaust, genocide in general, hate, prejudice and violence; and what these things mean in our world. We MUST encourage the youth to consider these things, lest they experience them first-hand, and not on the pages of a history book.
To label someone as a deviant because they try to figure things out... The Original Sin comes to mind.
We also have to stop and consider the source of the profile. The FBI. The self-appointed shepherds of American society. The directors of the FBI became professionals - and had their world-view solidified - in the years of the 'red scare'. They've taken on the responsibility for the American way of life (tm) and are determined to see everyone live behind a white picket fence. If we don't want to, we're obviously deviants. We need to have our trash rooted through in search of incriminating evidence. It's for our own good. After all, we're in the same demographic profile as Tim McVeigh and Geoffrey Dahmer.
Think. Vote.
Interesting as the Dream Machine invention sounds....
How about actually raising your own kids instead of placing that responsibility on the anonymous world, and than placing blame on it for failing to do it well?
Things like VNC deserve to be on the list. As do some other truly innovative tools. PGP comes to mind. That single-chip WWW server that we slashdotted about two months back.
A port of Linux to a Rolex would be nice too. Linux on anything analog..
We really should extend our definition of 'hack' to beyond the computer realm, at least for a top-ten list.
While not hacks in the computer sense, the practical jokes that go on at MIT also deserve mention. I mean, turning buildings into giant VU meters for a concert... That's just plain COOL.
Mars Pathfinder (and Apollo 13 while out there).
The Blair Witch Project was a great hack. Both in the 'crude' sense of the word (badly made movie) and in the 'tweak' sense of the word, since the marketting was so subversive as to make many people BELIEVE it was a documentary.
Absolutely. Not only hammers and crowbars, but guns, knives, ICBMs and even landmines.
Tools are tools, they're made for a specific purpose. Their misuse, wether intentional or accidental, must not result in the manufacturer being liable.
Furthermore, it is the intent that counts. Consider manslaughter vs vehicular homicide. In either case, a car is the machine used to kill a person, but the intent of doing so makes a difference.
Intentional misuse is what points the finger of blame. If a chemical in a can of hair spray causes harm when used according to design, the manufacturer is to blame. If it is intentionally concentrated and then inhlaed, resulting in Little Johnny becoming a vegetable, it's the kids (or parents?) fault.
Now, in the case of intentional non-disclosure of harmful potential.... Ah, let's just avoid discussing Microsoft's security issues, shall we?
If (and that's a huge IF) M$ code was to be opened, it would suffer from the same maladies that plague Mozilla... Only more so.
Namely, the pre-release size of it. NT2k is gauged at what? 40 million lines of source? How many Linux hackers would be willing to drop their passion and actively work on poring over that much code?? Once their curiosity was satisfied, most would just smile, nod, and go back to coding for Linux.
Sure, some would persist, a small enclave would make the betterment of the WinAPI and WinOS into a crusade, but for the most part, it's not happening. How many people would be willing to scale a poorly designed, but built sky-scraper in an attempt to fix the bugs?
Add to that the very M$ condition of there being a lot of licensed code (which would not be part of the disclosure) without which the rest is useless, and the release of Windows source to the public is a non-possibility.
My first job experience was to help port some old Fortran code, from a mainframe to a workstation, and from Fortran-77 to Fortran-90. There were revisions and comments dating back to 1983 (this was in 96-97)... (Aside: There's an age/revision level past which code should NOT be maintained, it should be rewritten)
All in all it was a great learning experience. I've developed an aversion to spaghetti since then.
Imagine if you will, a 2000+ line subroutine containing many a multi-level if-else/for-do construct, from the depths of which conditional computed GOTO statements jumped into the middle of another multi-level for-do/if-else loop. Intercal was never more fun.
The true kick of the experience was that it was to be a code port. Not a rewrite. Not even a little. A straight port, so the original developers wouldn't have to figure out any new logic. Feh!
Interesting. My quick search also turned up nothing... Then again, I doubt that too many people would be eager to admit a tactic like that. I've heard the same story though, except in the version I got, we dropped extra-large condoms, labelled as small, on the outlying islands of Japan.
The intention was demoralizing the potential 'human-shield' of stick-wielding peasants, who would need to be slaughtered if we committed to a conventional invasion. Due to their strong allegiance to the emperor, it was feared that peasants would be out on beaches, throwing rocks at the landing U.S. troops.
I think (grind-grind-grind - reaching WAY back) that the story came from a Political Science class, and stemmed from a lecture on the agruments for using nuclear weapons against Japan. Japanese civilian casualties were a major factor, and their patriarchial society was believed to be intimidatable (new word!!) by the 'giant American penis'.
No! But it will run code for all OS flavors you can muster.
Oh, I see what they're doing....
Nothing! They wait for speculations to converge, and then work towards realising that goal. It is quite brilliant. They're letting the industrys wildest dreams and fantasies define their product line.
This way, when they deliver what everyone has, in effect, suggested to them, they'll be hailed as visionaries and innovators of the greatest caliber.
It's like Microsoft's focus-group driven market research, only in the open-source way... They didn't solicit. Whatever we thought was useful, we gladly contributed to creating....
Or maybe they're just openning up a penguin farm.
Quite probable.
As they say 'not my yob'.. I'm just a luser on the company network.
Pretty embarassing though - I should know that we're running. I'll have to get educated in the morning...
Just today, our work network suffered an 'IP event'. Packets were getting dropped on the floor left and right for about a quarter of the workstations on the segment. Can't ping off-site, can't ping on-site, can only ping loopback, can't read slashdot!!! Turns out the hub went goofy and the higher number ports were squirly.
IT decides that this would be a great time to switch from the old I-forgot-the-brand hub to the newer and better one from Fore. After the switch, NOBODY could even log in. 200+ engineers standing around drinking coffee - this time with a good excuse. So we went back to the old hub, and all was well for the rest of the day.
Today I lost faith in anything that comes out of Fore Systems, hardware, comments, anything.
The things that people have said..
Ummm, anyone bite the wax tadpole lately?
Areas are now being color coded. It's on purpose, and it should be consistent within a topic.
:)
I suspect that Rob/Andover is trying to increase ad revenue by increasing membership. Making slashdot contain more eyecandy, thereby attracting AOL users like moths to a lamp.
I just hope that it's actually a bug-light.
Just ignore them. The colors should fade in 8 to 12 hours... Have a nice trip.