That would imply that they have a profitable product. Right now they're just a tool of Intel. Notice that Intel is actually offering RDRAM rebates to lower the cost of P4s when they come out.
I'll agree that both have some sleazy business practices, but the embrace, extend, and extinguish model is a far cry from the patent and sue model, which is really a tool of the supporting company, Intel.
I would absolutely love a patch that would go on my shirt or the edge of my pillow that would let me turn on and off lights, dial phone numbers (speakerphone required, of course) browse the web, etc, all from the laziness of my own bed.
Ok, tech companies. You have demand, go make it so we can buy it.
Ummm... does anyone know where I can buy lickable stamps these days? I can only find the adhesive-backed ones now
Ok, back on topic...
Just because a lot of them were born before the transistor, doesn't mean they don't read their e-mail. In many cases their aids will print it out for them, since many are a bit old-fashioned by slashdot standards, but they'll still read it. If they get so many that they don't have time to read them all, that by itself might send a message. Any aid worth his security pass would have the brains to tell his boss that they are coming from different people. Maybe they'd send out snail-mail asking for confirmation, but hey, they do have "franking" priviledges, so if they're suspicious, they could check without terribly hassle. Don't think they'll dismiss this out of hand. Maybe one or two, but there are a lot of them who will listen. Bipartisan sponsorship always helps, too.
Note to those who may participate:
Don't just send their stock letter. Personalize it. Make sure you keep the part that actually mentions the name of the bill, but aside from that, redo it in your own style. The skeptics may be convinced if they get a million DIFFERENT e-mails. Watch out on the RIAA flaming, unless you can find a really polite way of doing it.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20000928/tc/mitnic k_to_it_managers_everybody_is_suspect__1.html is a story about Kevin Mitnick's warning that people are always the weakest link in security. Here we have slashdot admins making a simple password mistake. Just imagine what the average user on a corporate network (with read access to the rest of that network) could do.
I would have made it a link, but either netscape or slashdot kept putting spaces in it because it was so long. Sorry.
This has been around for a few years.
on
3D Printers
·
· Score: 2
The medical community has been experimenting with laser-epoxy 3D printers to make molds for bone plates. They model the needed shape on a computer, and the printer is a plate of epoxy fluid that gets hardened by heat and rises to the surface. They trace along the edges with a laser and the thing rises slowly out of the pool. Then they use that as a mold for the real plate which will be made out of surgical steel or something like that. This is not to say that the skull plate that the average/. troll has as a result of the prerequisite brain-damaging injury is made that way, but it has been in at least limited use outside of laboratories for a little while.
If you check the preferences, you'll notice that you can now unload those DLLs. It takes very little effort to disable those features. You can disable the hotkeys, too. It's extremely configurable. They set it up to do everything, because the inexperienced user won't know how to turn on the cool features their friends tell them about, but if you prefer it to be slimmed down, they make it very easy for you.
I don't think it's been all that quiet. Sure, they haven't exactly advertised it, but you notice when you're connected to one server on port 5190 instead of every other friend you are talking to. I'm referring to ICQ2000, that is.
Personally, I would love to see a system that has the nice features of ICQ, while having the reliability of AIM. I have never had to send a message twice on AIM. On ICQ? Two, three, four times... It's ridiculous.
If they can integrate ICQ with AIM, I don't think there's a regulatory commission in the world that would believe they can't allow outside access, as long as competitors are present at the hearings.
...doesn't mean that you can't aim the thing. Remember, the huge cost of the mirrors in large telescopes comes from the cost of shaping a parabolic mirror. Flat mirrors, on the other hand, are extremely easy to manufacture by comparison. It may seem like a fairly crude way of accomplishing the task, but there might be a comparative advantage to simply placing a large plate mirror over the mercury dish to effectively redirect what it's focusing on.
I suspect the carnivore system might be smart enough to ignore the last few lines of your emails, to get around deliberate tagging. The obvious solution is to build into mozilla something that adds html comments to html e-mail, so it doesn't bother the reader on the other end (if they have an html mail reader) which have complete sentences that sound really subversive and hit the right keywords. That way the comments can be hidden throughout the message, so the scanner doesn't see them clumped and ignores them. You'd have to be careful about the sentence generator, and make sure it uses some fictional noun in each sentence, so it's obvious it's only a joke. Now, I think that's a system that would be pretty powerful for clogging them up.
Yes, but the whole point of his question is that different people call it different things. Apple has a Trademark on FireWire. Hence sony calling it the i.Link, and a bunch of video camera manufacturers calling it DV-link. V-link could very well be another alias of IEEE 1394
I used to T.A. for my High School CS teacher's Pascal class. These were kids who wanted to learn. They were really, truly interested. The problem is, they just didn't have the talent. (Otherwise they would have been in the AP class, doing C++). The point is, some people don't have the talent. There are people in this world who are destined to be the ones who fix our cars and serve our food. THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE. Many of them are highly motivated for self-improvement, but just because a system seems intuitive to you and I, doesn't mean the same is true for everyone else.
It's very true that there are many people who don't learn because they are lazy, but there's also a huge population that simply doesn't think the same way.
For the Olympics, NBC has a deal with hundreds of American ISPs where they transmit the streams to the ISPs, whose customers are located only within the U.S. Perhaps JumpTV would have better success if they tried something like that, though I suspect they don't have the same clout that NBC does to get something like that implemented.
Now we get to see what two different implementations of an AI network, with the same set of data, will do. Something of this scale has never been done before. We will get to see where each excels, and where each fails miserably, and hopefully some benefit will be gained by figuring out what parts of the different structural algorithms are best suited to AI. We may end up with one system that's orders of magnitude better at finding matches to loosely described data, but at a severe disadvantage on the turing test due to inability to mimic human emotions. Maybe one system will get the best of both worlds. Hopefully, each system will have at least a few advantages over the other, so something can be learned. After all, these systems are too complex to simulate or estimate mathematically. We can estimate the efficiency of an mp3 encoding algorithm, but neural nets are so vastly more complex, that beyond a certain point, you need trial and error. This case will give us trial and comparison, which is even better.
You just described the BSD license. The GPL is designed to encourage developers to GPL their code, so they can take advantage of other pre-existing GPL code. It's like a virus. That's one of the reasons some people fear it so much. The GPL is written to keep the code as free as possible. This does not mean the developer is free. The code itself is what's protected.
Compression ratios like that make me very happy. Any guesses to what ogg video will look like? I'm anxiously awaiting ogg vorbis (audio format) myself. I hope this project catches on, because I would like to see a suite of fully-opena and free multimedia formats. Vorbis promises to be very flexible, and it would be nice if we could get the same kind of compression in MPEG-4 into a free package, and this looks like it could be the outlet for it, with the right modifications.
In my observation, such tactics generally work for the better part of a decade before Governments start cracking down. Hopefully we can accelerate that schedule.
Targetted advertising stops being good when your girlfriend uses your comp to check her e-mail and keeps wondering why all these porn ads keep coming up.
When I heard about the curfew, I knew they weren't going to enforce it completely, I knew it would be selective, but the issue is the criteria. I hadn't heard any good statistics, just by word of mouth. I assume by your involvement in the lawsuit involving Daniel and company (yes, I know him, too. small world, err... city) that you have better facts than I. It would appear that my fears have been realized.
On a side note, I actually know Max and Will and some of the people I saw references to on your page. I've heard a lot about you. Funny the people you meet on Slashdot.
I live in Charlottesville. I've been out at all hours. I've even said hello to cops at 3:00 a.m. As long as you're not being loud, walking like you're drunk, or doing anything else terribly rude, they don't do anything. I don't think anyone has ever been brought in on it, either, though they've given a few warnings.
As much as it sucks that they can theoretically do this, there really is nothing in the constitution that says they can't. They ordinance has been very carefully constructed so that basically anyone who knows how to say the words "first amendment" can go merrily about their way without harassment. I know this was not the case with the original incarnation of the ordinance proposed, but it is true of the version finally passed.
Basically, it's an enforcement tool. It lets the cops get known troublemakers off the streets at night. The danger here is selective enforcement. It is possible (though difficult) to have such a thing as fair selective enforcement. Kids on probation, for example. Without this ordinance in place, they wouldn't have the right to stop you to determine your identity.
In general, I don't think curfews are really necessary in a place like Charlottesville, but the people in some of the rougher neighborhoods think otherwise. It seems to agree with the constitution pretty well, and to cap it off, the cops haven't been giving people much trouble about it, either.
What if the influx of programmers increases the total employment base of programmers, thus allowing companies to employ more programmers, at lower salaries, so that individual employees do not have to work such disgusting hours. Then the older programmers could stay in the field and still maintain a family lifestyle. Given the current economic boom, I think the salaries of programmers is somewhat inelastic, meaning that an increase in supply will not affect the salary in a direct proportion. Total salary across the industry rises, and college students see opportunities in an industry that has become a stable working environment. True, some people like the 80-hour work weeks in companies that pay little but offer stock options that could be worth nothing or millions, depending on the luck of the draw, but I suspect that as programming becomes a more mainstream profession, and loses some of its mystique as the public becomes more computer literate, that we might actually get an increased interest in the field by "normal" people who don't want to risk their house and their marriage on their career.
As with most economic theories, the timing is everything, so this could fail miserably, but I think there is some chance of this having a positive long-term effect. I just hope the experts looked at the details, instead of just bowing in to short-term demands from companies with a strong lobbying influence.
Slashdot Mirror
>RAMBUS is the Microsoft of the RAM industry
That would imply that they have a profitable product. Right now they're just a tool of Intel. Notice that Intel is actually offering RDRAM rebates to lower the cost of P4s when they come out.
I'll agree that both have some sleazy business practices, but the embrace, extend, and extinguish model is a far cry from the patent and sue model, which is really a tool of the supporting company, Intel.
I would absolutely love a patch that would go on my shirt or the edge of my pillow that would let me turn on and off lights, dial phone numbers (speakerphone required, of course) browse the web, etc, all from the laziness of my own bed.
Ok, tech companies. You have demand, go make it so we can buy it.
Ummm... does anyone know where I can buy lickable stamps these days? I can only find the adhesive-backed ones now
Ok, back on topic...
Just because a lot of them were born before the transistor, doesn't mean they don't read their e-mail. In many cases their aids will print it out for them, since many are a bit old-fashioned by slashdot standards, but they'll still read it. If they get so many that they don't have time to read them all, that by itself might send a message. Any aid worth his security pass would have the brains to tell his boss that they are coming from different people. Maybe they'd send out snail-mail asking for confirmation, but hey, they do have "franking" priviledges, so if they're suspicious, they could check without terribly hassle. Don't think they'll dismiss this out of hand. Maybe one or two, but there are a lot of them who will listen. Bipartisan sponsorship always helps, too.
Note to those who may participate:
Don't just send their stock letter. Personalize it. Make sure you keep the part that actually mentions the name of the bill, but aside from that, redo it in your own style. The skeptics may be convinced if they get a million DIFFERENT e-mails. Watch out on the RIAA flaming, unless you can find a really polite way of doing it.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20000928/tc/mitnic k_to_it_managers_everybody_is_suspect__1 .html is a story about Kevin Mitnick's warning that people are always the weakest link in security. Here we have slashdot admins making a simple password mistake. Just imagine what the average user on a corporate network (with read access to the rest of that network) could do.
I would have made it a link, but either netscape or slashdot kept putting spaces in it because it was so long. Sorry.
The medical community has been experimenting with laser-epoxy 3D printers to make molds for bone plates. They model the needed shape on a computer, and the printer is a plate of epoxy fluid that gets hardened by heat and rises to the surface. They trace along the edges with a laser and the thing rises slowly out of the pool. Then they use that as a mold for the real plate which will be made out of surgical steel or something like that. This is not to say that the skull plate that the average /. troll has as a result of the prerequisite brain-damaging injury is made that way, but it has been in at least limited use outside of laboratories for a little while.
If you check the preferences, you'll notice that you can now unload those DLLs. It takes very little effort to disable those features. You can disable the hotkeys, too. It's extremely configurable. They set it up to do everything, because the inexperienced user won't know how to turn on the cool features their friends tell them about, but if you prefer it to be slimmed down, they make it very easy for you.
I don't think it's been all that quiet. Sure, they haven't exactly advertised it, but you notice when you're connected to one server on port 5190 instead of every other friend you are talking to. I'm referring to ICQ2000, that is.
Personally, I would love to see a system that has the nice features of ICQ, while having the reliability of AIM. I have never had to send a message twice on AIM. On ICQ? Two, three, four times... It's ridiculous.
If they can integrate ICQ with AIM, I don't think there's a regulatory commission in the world that would believe they can't allow outside access, as long as competitors are present at the hearings.
...doesn't mean that you can't aim the thing. Remember, the huge cost of the mirrors in large telescopes comes from the cost of shaping a parabolic mirror. Flat mirrors, on the other hand, are extremely easy to manufacture by comparison. It may seem like a fairly crude way of accomplishing the task, but there might be a comparative advantage to simply placing a large plate mirror over the mercury dish to effectively redirect what it's focusing on.
I suspect the carnivore system might be smart enough to ignore the last few lines of your emails, to get around deliberate tagging. The obvious solution is to build into mozilla something that adds html comments to html e-mail, so it doesn't bother the reader on the other end (if they have an html mail reader) which have complete sentences that sound really subversive and hit the right keywords. That way the comments can be hidden throughout the message, so the scanner doesn't see them clumped and ignores them. You'd have to be careful about the sentence generator, and make sure it uses some fictional noun in each sentence, so it's obvious it's only a joke. Now, I think that's a system that would be pretty powerful for clogging them up.
What is this W Windows of which they speak?
Yes, but the whole point of his question is that different people call it different things. Apple has a Trademark on FireWire. Hence sony calling it the i.Link, and a bunch of video camera manufacturers calling it DV-link. V-link could very well be another alias of IEEE 1394
I can't get to it. Maybe the IOC already sued them for copyright infringement and got their site pulled.
When I opened the document in wordpad, everything was in strike-through font. I bet they have their fingers crossed, too!
I used to T.A. for my High School CS teacher's Pascal class. These were kids who wanted to learn. They were really, truly interested. The problem is, they just didn't have the talent. (Otherwise they would have been in the AP class, doing C++). The point is, some people don't have the talent. There are people in this world who are destined to be the ones who fix our cars and serve our food. THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE. Many of them are highly motivated for self-improvement, but just because a system seems intuitive to you and I, doesn't mean the same is true for everyone else.
It's very true that there are many people who don't learn because they are lazy, but there's also a huge population that simply doesn't think the same way.
For the Olympics, NBC has a deal with hundreds of American ISPs where they transmit the streams to the ISPs, whose customers are located only within the U.S. Perhaps JumpTV would have better success if they tried something like that, though I suspect they don't have the same clout that NBC does to get something like that implemented.
Now we get to see what two different implementations of an AI network, with the same set of data, will do. Something of this scale has never been done before. We will get to see where each excels, and where each fails miserably, and hopefully some benefit will be gained by figuring out what parts of the different structural algorithms are best suited to AI. We may end up with one system that's orders of magnitude better at finding matches to loosely described data, but at a severe disadvantage on the turing test due to inability to mimic human emotions. Maybe one system will get the best of both worlds. Hopefully, each system will have at least a few advantages over the other, so something can be learned. After all, these systems are too complex to simulate or estimate mathematically. We can estimate the efficiency of an mp3 encoding algorithm, but neural nets are so vastly more complex, that beyond a certain point, you need trial and error. This case will give us trial and comparison, which is even better.
More importantly, it even comes with vi!
You just described the BSD license. The GPL is designed to encourage developers to GPL their code, so they can take advantage of other pre-existing GPL code. It's like a virus. That's one of the reasons some people fear it so much. The GPL is written to keep the code as free as possible. This does not mean the developer is free. The code itself is what's protected.
Compression ratios like that make me very happy. Any guesses to what ogg video will look like? I'm anxiously awaiting ogg vorbis (audio format) myself. I hope this project catches on, because I would like to see a suite of fully-opena and free multimedia formats. Vorbis promises to be very flexible, and it would be nice if we could get the same kind of compression in MPEG-4 into a free package, and this looks like it could be the outlet for it, with the right modifications.
In my observation, such tactics generally work for the better part of a decade before Governments start cracking down. Hopefully we can accelerate that schedule.
Targetted advertising stops being good when your girlfriend uses your comp to check her e-mail and keeps wondering why all these porn ads keep coming up.
When I heard about the curfew, I knew they weren't going to enforce it completely, I knew it would be selective, but the issue is the criteria. I hadn't heard any good statistics, just by word of mouth. I assume by your involvement in the lawsuit involving Daniel and company (yes, I know him, too. small world, err... city) that you have better facts than I. It would appear that my fears have been realized.
On a side note, I actually know Max and Will and some of the people I saw references to on your page. I've heard a lot about you. Funny the people you meet on Slashdot.
I don't think AMD is the major chip-maker that marks up their 850 MHz chips for competition purposes!
I live in Charlottesville. I've been out at all hours. I've even said hello to cops at 3:00 a.m. As long as you're not being loud, walking like you're drunk, or doing anything else terribly rude, they don't do anything. I don't think anyone has ever been brought in on it, either, though they've given a few warnings.
As much as it sucks that they can theoretically do this, there really is nothing in the constitution that says they can't. They ordinance has been very carefully constructed so that basically anyone who knows how to say the words "first amendment" can go merrily about their way without harassment. I know this was not the case with the original incarnation of the ordinance proposed, but it is true of the version finally passed.
Basically, it's an enforcement tool. It lets the cops get known troublemakers off the streets at night. The danger here is selective enforcement. It is possible (though difficult) to have such a thing as fair selective enforcement. Kids on probation, for example. Without this ordinance in place, they wouldn't have the right to stop you to determine your identity.
In general, I don't think curfews are really necessary in a place like Charlottesville, but the people in some of the rougher neighborhoods think otherwise. It seems to agree with the constitution pretty well, and to cap it off, the cops haven't been giving people much trouble about it, either.
I had a thought:
What if the influx of programmers increases the total employment base of programmers, thus allowing companies to employ more programmers, at lower salaries, so that individual employees do not have to work such disgusting hours. Then the older programmers could stay in the field and still maintain a family lifestyle. Given the current economic boom, I think the salaries of programmers is somewhat inelastic, meaning that an increase in supply will not affect the salary in a direct proportion. Total salary across the industry rises, and college students see opportunities in an industry that has become a stable working environment. True, some people like the 80-hour work weeks in companies that pay little but offer stock options that could be worth nothing or millions, depending on the luck of the draw, but I suspect that as programming becomes a more mainstream profession, and loses some of its mystique as the public becomes more computer literate, that we might actually get an increased interest in the field by "normal" people who don't want to risk their house and their marriage on their career.
As with most economic theories, the timing is everything, so this could fail miserably, but I think there is some chance of this having a positive long-term effect. I just hope the experts looked at the details, instead of just bowing in to short-term demands from companies with a strong lobbying influence.