Not only that, but get this: in the radio interview I heard with this man, he indicated that he had tried to get rid of some of it using the herbicide RoundUp (also made by Monsanto, coincidence?), but the Canola was resistent to it.
He was very upset (and rightly so), because this herbicide-resistent Canola is now going to interfere with his crop rotation schedules (done by farmers to allow the land to recover for subsequent years production). Therefore, this affects not only his Canola production, but the overall production of everything he grows on the affected land.
Of course they must "release" the source code. But with respect to the NSA and the GPL a few things come to mind regarding your statement in particular, and the article in general.
First off, in the article, we read:
There's no way to hide a trap door in code that all can comment upon and analyze.
This is a true statement, in a vacuum. However, the when combined with the preceding statement:
The distribution.tgz file contains no secret Trojan horse that reads the data on your hard disk and then sends it all back to Fort Meade.
Let's ignore the fact that it's virtually impossible to verify that a distribution has no trojan horses in it. The very fact that this is a distribution implies it probably consists of not just source code, but also binaries. One only needs to be reminded of Ken Thompson's brilliant back door in early versions of UNIX to wonder if you can ever trust any binary that comes from a tainted distribution. "But I've got the source!" How many people go to the exercise of starting with a "trusted" distribution and then iteratively move source from the "untrusted" distribution to make a "trusted" version of the new distribution? As Open-Source OS's become more mainstream a larger and larger proportion of the user community won't bother.
Which brings me to your statement again:
No, they've got to release source code.
Does anyone out there know (I certainly don't) what would happen if indeed it was found that the NSA was building such a brilliant monstrosity into their secure Linux distribution? In which case, they clearly didn't release the source code that accurately represented the binaries distributed. We usually think about legal enforcement of the GPL with respect to the corporations of the world. However, what do readers think would happen if this were shown to be the case? How would the GPL hold up against claims of "in the interest of National Security"?
Fine, so we create non-smoking and smoking sections, and
if the restaurant is set up properly and ventilated right, the smoke shouldn't get over to the
other side.
You said "shouldn't get over to the other side", and therein lies the problem. It does, in my experience. I have yet to go to a restaurant that had adequate ventilation to properly separate smoking and non-smoking.
It's gonna take a heck of a lot of ventilation to get rid of the smoke to the point that it's like there was no smoking section.
As a smoker, I make a conscious effort to keep my smoke away from those who choose not to smoke. This means that when I am in the presence of a non-smoker I will excuse myself and go outside to smoke.
And I thank you. You're obviously very conscientious, and that is greatly appreciated by us non-smokers. I have colleagues who do the same.
I eat out alot. I go to alot of restaurants, because they do have non-smoking restaurants. I do not go to nightclubs and such, because I haven't found any non-smoking ones. However, to be honest, I haven't been in a single restaurant that had a smoking section that I didn't find bothersome. Yes, no one is sitting near me smoking. Yes, there is significant ventilation. However, in my experience, there is never enough ventilation.
As well, being a smoker, you are likely to not understand the unlikely places that smoke occurs and affects a non-smokers life. This morning, I woke up to the smell of the neighbours in my apartment building two doors down and across the hall having a good smoke in their apartment. It does affect people, often in places you don't expect.
I have no problem with people smoking, as long as it doesn't cause others to breathe in their toxins. If people want to use those smoking bubbles and encase their head within a balloon in order to have a smoke, I say great! You're welcome to smoke beside me in that case. I just don't want the fumes interfering with natural, relatively clean, air.
Included are not only current (as of 1996) techniques for wiping a drive as well as your RAM(!?!?!).
Now, if that was current in 1996 (for the mainstream at least), what did organizations like the NSA have then. And, better yet, what do they have now?
Re:For how many year will XML be the Next Big Thin
on
Inside XML
·
· Score: 1
At work, we've used DOM-like trees with SGML for years. They make a very nice and flexible data structure, with their logical organization. For us, XML has been seen more as a simplification of what we already do, rather than a revolution. As a result, perhaps some of the revolution is happening far below the surface of what people normally see.
Maybe it will force them to make the upgrade process simpler. (Probably wishful thinking...)
It may be unpleasant for administrative types, but depending on how they do it, the whole concept could be very nice for occasional users: "Hmmmm, I'm unhappy with my job, let's reactivate my word processor this month, upgrade my resume, then let the license expire." Granted, they could make this very unpleasant, but if done correctly, could be nice to use.
Stars had a huge amount of possibilities, and the new version (where the link points) looks even better:
Choose Primary race types (Energy beings, stargate masters, etc)
Choose Secondary race attributes (excel at remote mining robots but have poorer engines, etc)
Choose Environmental Conditions (optimal gravity, temperature and radiation)
Choose how productive your race is at building and mining
Choose how prolific your race is
Choose how good your race is at researching each broad category of science
Tons of options and configuration possibilities....Everything is done on points, and
each race characteristic (good or bad) gives or takes points, with the only restriction being your race points must be positive (you can't have taken too many good traits, without balancing with some poor ones)....fun fun fun
Or, before even replacing them there is always the squeaky/humming/buzzing fan problem. Now, you'll have 8-10 squeaky/humming/buzzing fans, each sounding different.
Yeah, that's the scary part of this IMHO. Get some machine with self-replicate orders, release it into the wild, and viola. In very short order, exponential growth causes the entire planet to get wiped out.
This is perhaps fine in a typical article or writing. However, there is another concern that John obviously has when writing an article for Slashdot: the first paragraph of the article becomes the posting that people see when they read Slashdot.
His first paragraph must strike a balance between hooking the reader (by standing alone) and appearing like a part of a cohesive whole.
Page 14 seems to list dominant components of our atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. However, under atmosphere they list O2 and Ar and CO2, but they don't list N2 - Nitrogen....
These numbers seem way out of whack. Kind of implies that the world is relatively densely populated. I really don't think that is the case.
Consider the following interesting trivia question:
If you gave every person on the earth a cubicle two meters by two meters square, what percentage of the Earth's population would fit on Vancouver island?
Vancouver island is 31,284 square km. For each square km, we can fit 500 x 500 = 250,000 people. With 250,000 people per sq km x 31284 sq km = 7.8 billion people!!!
Therefore, the surprising answer is over 100%. That is, every person on earth could fit with room left over.
Given that, it seems to me that the chances of a satellite hitting someone would be exceedingly small...and certainly a lot smaller than 1 in 250!
The answer to your third question is that the machine might or might not be intelligent,
but the test you suggest proves nothing either way.
Therein lies the heart of our disagreement. This is precisely the Turing test. I think it is a very simple yet powerful rationale for describing when something is intelligent.
If you have an alternative, I would genuinely love to hear it.
A look-up table can't be considered as intelligent because it is a look-up table, not for any
other reason.
So if it were implemented using another technique, you might consider it intelligent? Dismissing a program that appears to be intelligent because of it's implementation does not seem right to me.
I'm arguing that it can never come up with an intelligent response, because
none of its responses are meaningful, because they do not have the correct "word/world
link"
Then I must be misunderstanding what you are saying. As soon as you say "none of it's responses are meaningful", I read it as "none of it's responses are intelligent". The difference seems to be hinging here, and perhaps I do not understand your argument as a result.
Because it is a look-up table and therefore there are no necessary connections between the
words in its responses and their referents.
Let me understand what you're saying. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Are you saying that because encoding context in such a table mechanism is difficult it can't be intelligent?
Let's go back to the beginning, and start very simply. A person sits down at a machine, using what appears to be something like the UNIX talk program. That person begins to have a conversation, which proceeds as long as they want. Let us assume that after they walk away from that computer, they are convinced they were talking to a real human being. If that person were wrong, and they were conversing with
a machine, is the machine intelligent?
Personally, I would say yes. If you disagree, please state, as simply as possible, why.
Remebering is simply an ability to store information. If you call that intelligence, then a
card index is intelligent.
Once again, you miss the most point by taking things out of context. The word remember was being used to describe the ability to adapt and derive an intelligent response to a given situation. I will avoid the obvious derision that could be made here.
As for your duck example, what if I were to then demonstrate that it was NOT a duck? Would it still be a duck?
Obviously not. It has failed the test for "duckiness".
Would it just cease to be a duck?
No, it never was a duck. There may have been a perception that it was a duck, however, your theoretical test, if correct and validated, would show that it never was a duck.
Or would it just prove that it
was never a duck in the first place?
The point is that ordered pairs in a look-up table have no necessary connection to one
another, so they cannot be taken as referring to one another. Therefore, the computer's
replies in this case have no reference, therefore no content, therefore no meaning.
I in no way believe that your table-method is a feasible mechanism for creating an intelligence.
However, if it was implemented, and was completely 100% indistinguishable using any and all conversational techniques from a real intelligent person, then it should be deemed intelligent.
But, like I said, I am almost 100% sure that your proposed method for producing such intelligence is
fundamentally flawed and impossible.
Responses which do not mean anything are not evidence of intelligence.
Understand that what your describing does not satisfy the conditions of the Turing test. You are arguing that because it cannot always come up with an intelligent response, it is not intelligent. Turing would completely agree with you, as would I. So far this is completely valid according to the Turing test.
So now, exclusively consider if you can't tell the difference. No more "It's not feasible", or "You would be able to tell the difference" statement. If to all the tests you apply and that can be applied, it appears to be intelligent, is it? If not, why?
Then you should probably avoid cheap Chinese restaurants.
Invalid argument. I said "cannot be distinguished", and I suspect a simple analysis (DNA or other chemical analysis) would determine what I was eating. Therefore, I would be able to distinguish your "unknown" thing
from a duck unless it was a duck.
Slashdot Mirror
He was very upset (and rightly so), because this herbicide-resistent Canola is now going to interfere with his crop rotation schedules (done by farmers to allow the land to recover for subsequent years production). Therefore, this affects not only his Canola production, but the overall production of everything he grows on the affected land.
Well, I haven't been getting enough sleep lately...
"You want me to what? Okay sure. But then can I sleep?"
My map of Europe must be out of date, because I don't remember that nation...
Must be in the Balkans...
Of course they must "release" the source code. But with respect to the NSA and the GPL a few things come to mind regarding your statement in particular, and the article in general.
First off, in the article, we read:
This is a true statement, in a vacuum. However, the when combined with the preceding statement: Let's ignore the fact that it's virtually impossible to verify that a distribution has no trojan horses in it. The very fact that this is a distribution implies it probably consists of not just source code, but also binaries. One only needs to be reminded of Ken Thompson's brilliant back door in early versions of UNIX to wonder if you can ever trust any binary that comes from a tainted distribution. "But I've got the source!" How many people go to the exercise of starting with a "trusted" distribution and then iteratively move source from the "untrusted" distribution to make a "trusted" version of the new distribution? As Open-Source OS's become more mainstream a larger and larger proportion of the user community won't bother.Which brings me to your statement again:
Does anyone out there know (I certainly don't) what would happen if indeed it was found that the NSA was building such a brilliant monstrosity into their secure Linux distribution? In which case, they clearly didn't release the source code that accurately represented the binaries distributed. We usually think about legal enforcement of the GPL with respect to the corporations of the world. However, what do readers think would happen if this were shown to be the case? How would the GPL hold up against claims of "in the interest of National Security"?I don't know about that. Maybe they're just running Windows....
You said "shouldn't get over to the other side", and therein lies the problem. It does, in my experience. I have yet to go to a restaurant that had adequate ventilation to properly separate smoking and non-smoking.
It's gonna take a heck of a lot of ventilation to get rid of the smoke to the point that it's like there was no smoking section.
And I thank you. You're obviously very conscientious, and that is greatly appreciated by us non-smokers. I have colleagues who do the same.
I eat out alot. I go to alot of restaurants, because they do have non-smoking restaurants. I do not go to nightclubs and such, because I haven't found any non-smoking ones. However, to be honest, I haven't been in a single restaurant that had a smoking section that I didn't find bothersome. Yes, no one is sitting near me smoking. Yes, there is significant ventilation. However, in my experience, there is never enough ventilation.
As well, being a smoker, you are likely to not understand the unlikely places that smoke occurs and affects a non-smokers life. This morning, I woke up to the smell of the neighbours in my apartment building two doors down and across the hall having a good smoke in their apartment . It does affect people, often in places you don't expect.
I have no problem with people smoking, as long as it doesn't cause others to breathe in their toxins. If people want to use those smoking bubbles and encase their head within a balloon in order to have a smoke, I say great! You're welcome to smoke beside me in that case. I just don't want the fumes interfering with natural, relatively clean, air.
Any time I've been there, I was always really pleased to go into a restaurant and not be bothered by second-hand smoke.
And, YES, this does significantly impact my social life...
- Chains of beads
- Vibrating pads
- Knots
- "gels and rubber"
Damn, I think I need help.There is a paper from a 1996 USENIX Security Symposium that might be of interest. The paper is titled Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory. It's chock-full of interesting tidbits...
Included are not only current (as of 1996) techniques for wiping a drive as well as your RAM(!?!?!).
Now, if that was current in 1996 (for the mainstream at least), what did organizations like the NSA have then. And, better yet, what do they have now?
At work, we've used DOM-like trees with SGML for years. They make a very nice and flexible data structure, with their logical organization. For us, XML has been seen more as a simplification of what we already do, rather than a revolution. As a result, perhaps some of the revolution is happening far below the surface of what people normally see.
It may be unpleasant for administrative types, but depending on how they do it, the whole concept could be very nice for occasional users: "Hmmmm, I'm unhappy with my job, let's reactivate my word processor this month, upgrade my resume, then let the license expire." Granted, they could make this very unpleasant, but if done correctly, could be nice to use.
Yes, and we all know that U.S. Government agencies never break any laws...
Choose Primary race types (Energy beings, stargate masters, etc)
Choose Secondary race attributes (excel at remote mining robots but have poorer engines, etc)
Choose Environmental Conditions (optimal gravity, temperature and radiation)
Choose how productive your race is at building and mining
Choose how prolific your race is
Choose how good your race is at researching each broad category of science
Tons of options and configuration possibilities....Everything is done on points, and each race characteristic (good or bad) gives or takes points, with the only restriction being your race points must be positive (you can't have taken too many good traits, without balancing with some poor ones)....fun fun fun
The designers of Stars! are making a new one. Stars! Supernova Genesis sounds even better.
I won't buy MOO. I'll wait for Stars!
I can sense my brain exploding already.
This whole concept frightens me.
His first paragraph must strike a balance between hooking the reader (by standing alone) and appearing like a part of a cohesive whole.
Now pardon me as I get moderated down...
I find this very curious...
These numbers seem way out of whack. Kind of implies that the world is relatively densely populated. I really don't think that is the case. Consider the following interesting trivia question:
If you gave every person on the earth a cubicle two meters by two meters square, what percentage of the Earth's population would fit on Vancouver island?
Vancouver island is 31,284 square km. For each square km, we can fit 500 x 500 = 250,000 people. With 250,000 people per sq km x 31284 sq km = 7.8 billion people!!!
Therefore, the surprising answer is over 100%. That is, every person on earth could fit with room left over.
Given that, it seems to me that the chances of a satellite hitting someone would be exceedingly small...and certainly a lot smaller than 1 in 250!
Therein lies the heart of our disagreement. This is precisely the Turing test. I think it is a very simple yet powerful rationale for describing when something is intelligent.
If you have an alternative, I would genuinely love to hear it.
A look-up table can't be considered as intelligent because it is a look-up table, not for any other reason.So if it were implemented using another technique, you might consider it intelligent? Dismissing a program that appears to be intelligent because of it's implementation does not seem right to me.
Then I must be misunderstanding what you are saying. As soon as you say "none of it's responses are meaningful", I read it as "none of it's responses are intelligent". The difference seems to be hinging here, and perhaps I do not understand your argument as a result.
Because it is a look-up table and therefore there are no necessary connections between the words in its responses and their referents.Let me understand what you're saying. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Are you saying that because encoding context in such a table mechanism is difficult it can't be intelligent?
Let's go back to the beginning, and start very simply. A person sits down at a machine, using what appears to be something like the UNIX talk program. That person begins to have a conversation, which proceeds as long as they want. Let us assume that after they walk away from that computer, they are convinced they were talking to a real human being. If that person were wrong, and they were conversing with a machine, is the machine intelligent?
Personally, I would say yes. If you disagree, please state, as simply as possible, why.
Once again, you miss the most point by taking things out of context. The word remember was being used to describe the ability to adapt and derive an intelligent response to a given situation. I will avoid the obvious derision that could be made here.
As for your duck example, what if I were to then demonstrate that it was NOT a duck? Would it still be a duck?Obviously not. It has failed the test for "duckiness".
Would it just cease to be a duck?No, it never was a duck. There may have been a perception that it was a duck, however, your theoretical test, if correct and validated, would show that it never was a duck.
Or would it just prove that it was never a duck in the first place?Precisely.
I don't understand your point.
I said nothing about being human.
Philosophical questions regarding what it is to be human are irrelevent. The question is, ONLY how to determine if something is intelligent.
Do not equate being human and intelligence. I didn't.
I in no way believe that your table-method is a feasible mechanism for creating an intelligence. However, if it was implemented, and was completely 100% indistinguishable using any and all conversational techniques from a real intelligent person, then it should be deemed intelligent.
But, like I said, I am almost 100% sure that your proposed method for producing such intelligence is fundamentally flawed and impossible.
Responses which do not mean anything are not evidence of intelligence.Understand that what your describing does not satisfy the conditions of the Turing test. You are arguing that because it cannot always come up with an intelligent response, it is not intelligent. Turing would completely agree with you, as would I. So far this is completely valid according to the Turing test.
So now, exclusively consider if you can't tell the difference. No more "It's not feasible", or "You would be able to tell the difference" statement. If to all the tests you apply and that can be applied, it appears to be intelligent, is it? If not, why?
Then you should probably avoid cheap Chinese restaurants.Invalid argument. I said "cannot be distinguished", and I suspect a simple analysis (DNA or other chemical analysis) would determine what I was eating. Therefore, I would be able to distinguish your "unknown" thing from a duck unless it was a duck.