Any computer data / file is a number if you choose to interpret it as such. While vaguely amusing, this prime-number-as-DeCSS is no more persuasive than me saying that the contents of my Windows CD is just a big number: something similar in size to two to the 640 millionth power.
Just how persuasive is that? I don't know. Windows is copyrighted; the bigass number is not.
I suspect the final outcome will be some judge saying "too bad" and declaring this number illegal without actually explaining himself.
I know for a fact a lot of people from the U.K. frequent Slashdot. Let's hear from them...
How do you feel about these cameras? Is all this surveillance actually wanted by the citizens, or is it being shoved down your throats by the Evil Empire? Does it effect your daily lives? Any stories of when the surveillance goes wrong, or is used for something especially good?
Furthermore, this artificial being's state is changed if you consider the entire computer system as a part of that being.
Yes, however, the computer may hold all kinds of additional objects, and we can isolate these from each other and the outside, and just leave some specific data connections in place. We have different beings within the computer then.
Just as a human body can contain multiple organisms. Parasitic and symbiotic relationships are common. Nothing in a human body is self aware other than the resident human (sentient intestinal bacteria?), but there is nothing ruling that possibility out in an organic body.
I'll repeat for you a phrase which nearly caused me to flunk a philosophy class, but is pretty much the standard approach for most people:
"I choose to believe in free will because if I'm right, I get the credit, but if I'm wrong, it's not my fault."
This is the alternative form:
"I am predetermined to believe in free will."
I suppose you could honestly disclaim the blame for a crime if you don't believe in free will. But similarly, you would have no right to complain when the authorities arrest you and the judge sentences you. They're just doing what they are destined to do: treat you as a free willed being.
Bottom line, I don't recommend allowing philosophy to effect your day-to-day life.
How odd; I actually got an intelligent response on Slashdot...
Your point that an artificial being can only exist if its host computer takes an interest in it is valid, but it applies to humans also. We cannnot live, and cannot be considered self aware, if our bodies do not support us in some way.
You also make another big leap. You just assume that anything that "can intentionally be killed without outside influence to it, at a specific time, and even without that 'artificial being' being able to notice any difference" is not self aware. Why not? Certainly it is not self aware after bring killed, but then again neither are we.
Furthermore, this artificial being's state is changed if you consider the entire computer system as a part of that being. Similarly, a human can die suddenly without noticing any change in state if that human's body is altered drastically. But we generally consider our bodies as part of our selves. We cannot die so long as both body and brain are functioning, but altering one is a change in state whether we notice or not.
There arise some logical problems if we assume that a human personality also simply is a purely mathematical/logical formula/expression.
And what exactly are those logical problems? It's been my experience that your argument is usually used just because people don't want to face the possibility that free will is an illusion.
From the "Juvenile Justice Bulletin" December, 2000, with cooperation from the U.S. Department of Justice...
Some of their conclusions include:
"Few juveniles were arrested for violent crime"
"Juvenile arrests for violence in 1999 were the lowest in a decade"
"Juvenile arrests for property crimes declined substantially in recent years"
"The juvenile share of the crime problem decreased in 1999"
"After years of relative stability in the number of juvenile Violent Crime Index arrests, the increase in these arrests between 1988 and 1994 focused national attention on the problem of juvenile violence. After peaking in 1994, these arrests dropped each year from 1995 through 1999. The number of juvenile arrests in 1999 was the lowest since 1988 for all Violent Crime Index offenses..."
Their data sources:
Analysis of arrest data from unpublished FBI reports for 1980 through 1997 and from Crime in the United States reports for 1998 and 1999 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999 and 2000, respectively); population data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1980 to 1999 [machine-readable data files available online, released April 11, 2000].
If you're interested, it's a good read. It contradicts a lot of popular sentiment, but provides justification for its conclusions.
Youth violence in the U.S. is not increasing; it is decreasing.
Hardware vendors are not responsible for violence; the people who commit violent acts are. If the offenders are minors, the parents share in the responsibility.
If violent games do cause violent behavior (cite a scientific study, not just a news story), then maybe this is worthwhile.
This is ultimately just a way for bad parents to feel less guilty about being bad parents.
I think this is a Bad Thing (tm). Not because it will limit good games (it won't), or because it's censorship (it isn't), or because it's an obvious PR stunt.
This is crappy because it will be yet another way to control children without actually parenting them. We rely on technology rather than responsibility, gimicky hardware rather than supervision. This technology will not solve any problems; it will be used so parents can use a TV as a babysitter with slightly less guilt.
Some parents will use this responsibily; as for the rest... Five years from now, we will be reading about a renewed uproar over violent video games, saying all console makers should be as responsible as Microsoft and stop letting kids see adult games. Never mind that it's the parents job, not Nintendo's or Sony's.
So it's time to buy a better monitor and video card. Pump up the resolution and maybe increase the font size in your browser. Problem solved. Unless you're using a text-only browser, in which case there's no problem to begin with.
Resolutions increase over time anyway. Once we hit 600 dpi, we'll be calling those monster-sized banners "icons".
I'd take the story more seriously if it hadn't appeared directly underneath a standard-sized banner.
I get funny looks when I complain about the DMCA. People assume I'm just serving my own interests to get free goodies. But the Law.com article illustrates one of my big concerns quite nicely:
Powell... in a lucky turn received a tip from an informant who knew the site's administrative password, allowing Powell to download the e-mail addresses of all the registered users.
In other words, he hacked/cracked the site. No court order, no permission for the site owner. We know exactly how illegal that is, don't we?
I guess I can go crack some sites that I think are illegal and get away with it, too. Like microsoft.com, which advances an illegal monopoly/
For a young student, this was a creative and intelligent thing to do. But as a scientific investigation, it bites. The "experiment" was just not well designed.
If a student selected one white kid and one black kid and concluded that blacks were more violent because that one black kid had been suspended for fighting, would that be OK too?
Or concluded that all geeks are homocidal maniacs because one chosen at random met all the published warning signs?
I'm not saying that taking the exhibit down was the best choice; it would have been better to use it as a way to discuss better scientific thinking. But really, this kid is offending and insulting lots of people with data that is essentially meaningless. Why bother?
You don't find many "programmer" jobs at the really competitive companies anymore. It's all "software engnineer" or some such. By the time you actually write any code, you've gone through an explicit process and you basically just have to convert UML or other design documents into source code.
The art is intentionally being taken out of the process for programmers. Kind of sad, but it does seem to result in a better product.
Unless these PDAs happen to use x86-compatible processors, or any of the other instruction sets supported by gcc and its ilk, there will be no automatic advantage for programming. Compilers have to target a specific machine language.
The article only mentions Java support. Java's nice and all, but there's a lot of work to be done if you want C, C++, or even BASIC programs to work.
Who wants to port gcc to a (I assume) proprietary machine language?
They will completely undermine the assumptions that went into this simulation. These people obviously just don't get it.
You're forgetting the real reason these games are held: so the pentagon can justify spending upteen gajillion dollars on the technology whose usefullness is "proven" by bad simulations.
By submitting your DNA without protest, you silently advocate that a criminal's DNA be on file, when he first COMMITS a crime (which is when it is needed)... not after he gets caught.
So I should just set a good example so the (future) criminal will do as I did?
If setting a good example works on criminals, then why not just set the good example of obeying the law?
Criminals don't follow society's rules and expectations -- that's why they are criminals.
I'll gladly give a DNA sample if asked, if it means getting criminals off the streets.
If your DNA were needed to get criminals off the street, then you must be a criminal. Personally, I am not one. My DNA is of no use for crime prevention, and I resent the implication that it is needed.
Slashdot Mirror
Just how persuasive is that? I don't know. Windows is copyrighted; the bigass number is not.
I suspect the final outcome will be some judge saying "too bad" and declaring this number illegal without actually explaining himself.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
How do you feel about these cameras? Is all this surveillance actually wanted by the citizens, or is it being shoved down your throats by the Evil Empire? Does it effect your daily lives? Any stories of when the surveillance goes wrong, or is used for something especially good?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Just as a human body can contain multiple organisms. Parasitic and symbiotic relationships are common. Nothing in a human body is self aware other than the resident human (sentient intestinal bacteria?), but there is nothing ruling that possibility out in an organic body.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
"I choose to believe in free will because if I'm right, I get the credit, but if I'm wrong, it's not my fault."
This is the alternative form:
"I am predetermined to believe in free will."
I suppose you could honestly disclaim the blame for a crime if you don't believe in free will. But similarly, you would have no right to complain when the authorities arrest you and the judge sentences you. They're just doing what they are destined to do: treat you as a free willed being.
Bottom line, I don't recommend allowing philosophy to effect your day-to-day life.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Your point that an artificial being can only exist if its host computer takes an interest in it is valid, but it applies to humans also. We cannnot live, and cannot be considered self aware, if our bodies do not support us in some way.
You also make another big leap. You just assume that anything that "can intentionally be killed without outside influence to it, at a specific time, and even without that 'artificial being' being able to notice any difference" is not self aware. Why not? Certainly it is not self aware after bring killed, but then again neither are we.
Furthermore, this artificial being's state is changed if you consider the entire computer system as a part of that being. Similarly, a human can die suddenly without noticing any change in state if that human's body is altered drastically. But we generally consider our bodies as part of our selves. We cannot die so long as both body and brain are functioning, but altering one is a change in state whether we notice or not.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
And what exactly are those logical problems? It's been my experience that your argument is usually used just because people don't want to face the possibility that free will is an illusion.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
But we have no problems with this person posting other people' logs, which are incredibly easy to fake?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Some of their conclusions include:
Their data sources:
If you're interested, it's a good read. It contradicts a lot of popular sentiment, but provides justification for its conclusions.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Hardware vendors are not responsible for violence; the people who commit violent acts are. If the offenders are minors, the parents share in the responsibility.
If violent games do cause violent behavior (cite a scientific study, not just a news story), then maybe this is worthwhile.
This is ultimately just a way for bad parents to feel less guilty about being bad parents.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
This is crappy because it will be yet another way to control children without actually parenting them. We rely on technology rather than responsibility, gimicky hardware rather than supervision. This technology will not solve any problems; it will be used so parents can use a TV as a babysitter with slightly less guilt.
Some parents will use this responsibily; as for the rest... Five years from now, we will be reading about a renewed uproar over violent video games, saying all console makers should be as responsible as Microsoft and stop letting kids see adult games. Never mind that it's the parents job, not Nintendo's or Sony's.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Resolutions increase over time anyway. Once we hit 600 dpi, we'll be calling those monster-sized banners "icons".
I'd take the story more seriously if it hadn't appeared directly underneath a standard-sized banner.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
(blatant plug) And of course Sweaty Bullets is the worst of all because I draw it.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
In other words, he hacked/cracked the site. No court order, no permission for the site owner. We know exactly how illegal that is, don't we?
I guess I can go crack some sites that I think are illegal and get away with it, too. Like microsoft.com, which advances an illegal monopoly/
My mom is not a Karma whore!
They don't. It isn't.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
If a student selected one white kid and one black kid and concluded that blacks were more violent because that one black kid had been suspended for fighting, would that be OK too?
Or concluded that all geeks are homocidal maniacs because one chosen at random met all the published warning signs?
I'm not saying that taking the exhibit down was the best choice; it would have been better to use it as a way to discuss better scientific thinking. But really, this kid is offending and insulting lots of people with data that is essentially meaningless. Why bother?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
The art is intentionally being taken out of the process for programmers. Kind of sad, but it does seem to result in a better product.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
The article only mentions Java support. Java's nice and all, but there's a lot of work to be done if you want C, C++, or even BASIC programs to work.
Who wants to port gcc to a (I assume) proprietary machine language?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Yeah, enforcing the law. What bastards.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Check out the site. No banners, no popups, nothing for sale.
No profit.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
The sad thing is, if someone actually built this thing it would be just as legal as software EULAs.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Let's quit bitching and moaning about it and figure out how to fix it.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
You're forgetting the real reason these games are held: so the pentagon can justify spending upteen gajillion dollars on the technology whose usefullness is "proven" by bad simulations.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
If nothing else, emulators could just be tweaked for the version of linux that will inevitably be ported to the X-box.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
So I should just set a good example so the (future) criminal will do as I did?
If setting a good example works on criminals, then why not just set the good example of obeying the law?
Criminals don't follow society's rules and expectations -- that's why they are criminals.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
If your DNA were needed to get criminals off the street, then you must be a criminal. Personally, I am not one. My DNA is of no use for crime prevention, and I resent the implication that it is needed.
My mom is not a Karma whore!