Quoted from the cnn article:
"Schroeder [FBI] says Gorshkov [crook] was using someone else's computer and had no reasonable expectation of privacy. He also maintains that no search warrant was needed because the FBI lacks jurisdiction in Russia."
While there are a number of organizations (notably Bounty Quest) involved in breaking already issued patents are there any watch-dog groups devoted to looking for "trivial" pending patents? Based on what I know about the process it is easier to stop a patent before it is issued than to try to overturn one after it exists. I think such a group could significantly reduce the number of "bogus" patents out there.
All I'm saying is that we really have no proof we're causing anything. I agree the trend is faster than what we have studied from the past, but we've (as a species) also never been alive during one of these temperature cycles.
huh? The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago or so. Homo sapiens evolved about 100,000 years ago. And in anycase, what does it matter. We are seeing a trend that is unprecedented in 800,000 years. Given what we know about CO2 (see below) its pretty safe to assume that man made CO2 is the cause.
There could be other reasons why the temperature is rising so fast besides CO2.
Such as...?
As I said, if we were actually causing the problem, why hasn't a single scientist tried to reproduce this same scenario in a lab? There have been no experiments to prove anything.
Unfortunately, replicating the earth's climate would take a lab the size of the earth and a lot of time. None-the-less there have been many experiments. Its been experimentally shown that CO2 traps heat. There is a strong correlation between the rise of CO2 levels and the rise of temperature since the industrial revolution. These two facts alone strongly sugest CO2 as a causative force behind the modern warming trend.
I'm right:).
Global warming A) doesn't exist and B) what we see is natural. There is actually no scientific proof we are causing the increase in temperature. Just because the trend is larger than any in history does not mean we are causing it. The earth has gone through numerous heating and cooling phases in its life (heard of the ice age?), and this looks to be no different.
Yes, I have heard of the ice age. I studied it rather extensively in college (I'm interested in paleontolgy). As I said in my previous post, no other warming trend that we know of has been this rapid. This trend is 10 to 100 times faster than any in the past, not the historical past, but the past that we can measure through deep core ice sample and the like, out to about 800,000 years ago. The general trend of a glacial/inter-glacial period is to have a rapid cooling followed by a slow warming. What we are seeing now is a rapid warming, the oposite of what the historical record shows.
The POSSIBILITY of damage is there, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate, but it DOES mean we shouldn't do anything about it unless we can prove we're doing something. We're worrying about screwing up the planet, but our solutions (since we have no proof we're causing anything) could be just as dangerous (or more so) than what we think is causing the problems.
All that's being proposed here is to reduce the output of CO2 into the atmosphere by reducing the output from smokestacks. I can conceve of no reason why this would be dangerous. The bacteria are naturally occurring and they are being kept in a controled environment. This is not a proposal to release anything into the atmosphere, merely to reduce the unnatural emissions of smokestacks. Unless you would like to argue that smokestacks are part of some non-man made trend.
If the planet wants to warm, if nature has decreed that global warming shall occur, then who are we to stop it? Sure, we might suffer if the world is a few degrees warmer, but why should we change the direction of an entire biosphere just because of our own preference? As if our own preference were the deciding factor. That's human arrogance.
You are aware that the current Global warming trend is 10 to 100 faster than any previous naturally occurring trend. And that this trend is a result of a large increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere due to human interference. Global warming is *not* a natural event. And even if it were I think that we have a right (and as we caused it a responsibility) to stop it. Don't remember the exact statistic but something like 90% of the populuation of the earth lives with in 50 vertical meters of the sea. We have to stop global warming to avoid displacing all these people (though admitedly sea level rise is only projected at a few meters, but still enough to displace millions). If there were an asteroid heading towards earth would it be "human arrogance" to want to stop it and save the lives of millions? I certainly don't think so.
Besides the obvious point that Zodiac was fiction and this is not don't forget that these are not genetically engenered bacteria as in the book, these are naturally occuring. And the idea is not to "release [them]... into the atmosphere" but keep them in a controled environment inside the smokestack. Even if the did get out, bacteria don't survive well in the atmosphere, they need a warm wet environment.
Sorry for being dumb. Can someone explain what anti-aliasing is? Reading the article it is obviously something to do with creating higher quality graphics... but how and why?
Thanks!
Re:DSL should go away anyway
on
DSL Woes
·
· Score: 1
The internet wasn't designed with the expectation of every single end user having a 1.5mbit connection.
The internet wasn't designed for anyone other than the military and universities. I'm glad that its been able to change to keep up with events.
In addition, few ISPs actually have the bandwidth necessary to fully support all the bandwidth their customers are paying for.
True. Fortuantely users (the vast majority at least) are not paying to have full access all the time, they are paying to have very quick access perhaps 1% of the time.
Yes, of course libraries are not "free." The books don't magically appear on the shelf. The point is that anyone in your town receves equal access to the books *no matter how much property tax they pay*. So they library is "free" in the sence that it does not discriminate on the basis of income (which is likely directally proportional to property tax), unlike your local bookstore, which certainly does discriminate on the basis of income. Now I am personally against libraries that limit membership like yours does, and as far as I know no major city library in the US has practices like this. But your library still retains the principles of free access to information.
From Juno's website:
"The Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project will make use of patented technology Juno currently employs in connection with its display of advertising to download computational tasks to subscribers' computers for processing offline during time when such subscribers are not using their computers. The results of such offline computations will then be uploaded to Juno's central computers during a subsequent connection, in much the same way that Juno currently collects responses to the advertisements it shows offline. Applications will run as "screen savers" on the computers of participating subscribers when their machines would otherwise be idle, performing calculations when the computer is on but not in use. "
Does this sound to anyone else like they are trying to patent SETI online's technology? Distributed computing using a screensaver to capture idle cycles.
--Chris
Well, at least the tanks for storing hot grits are ok.
Re:What about genetic engenering?
on
Genome
·
· Score: 1
Me:If we do map the genome then we are going to have the ablity to change it, at least in our children. Even now it would be trivial to decide if a child is male or female, has blue eyes or brown.
You:Again, your knowledge is lacking. Mapping the genome has nothing to do with being able to change it. Being able to change it like you're talking about requires knowing what each separate gene does, which is an entirely different thing than knowing (a) the sequence of each gene--what the Human Genome Project gives us or (b) knowing where in the genome the gene is physically located--what mapping gives us, and what we've had for most genes for several years now. Your example of eye color is a perfect one for how wrong you are. We've mapped the region responsible for eye color. We don't have a clue how it works. We're nowhere near the point of being able to produce babies with custom eye colors.
No no no. True, if we want to create a custom eye color (say.. purple) that does not occur in either of the parents then yes, we have to understand what is going on at a deeper level than just mapping. But that's not what I was claiming. If we want to create a child with blue eyes, say, then all we have to do is sort the sperm and eggs given to us for the given trait. We don't even need to know how the genetic code is expressed (what pathway the protiens use), we don't even need to splice in any new DNA, we just need to be able to diferentiate between DNA that has the code and that which dosen't.
This law makes it illegal to distribute anything in violation of copywrite on the internet. Interestingly, this was already illegal. Its been illegal to distribute copywrited material without permission since the copywrite laws went into effect.
Now Mr. Katz (yes, I mentioned his name, nobody freek out) brings up three cases at the end of his article that are examples of how this law is being abused, lets look at them:
The first thing is the case brought against the norwegian for breaking DVD protection. Now there are too issues here. One is that what he did is not actually illegal in Norway (as I understand the issue). This is indeed a nasty abuse of power by big government. Bad big government, no biscut! The other is the more general case, was what breaking DVD protection ok? Well, no not really, its only goal was violating copywrite, it had not productive use.
The second case is RealNetworks which has obtained an injunction against a portion of software created by Streambox. This software was desigened to get around Real's copy protected format for its streaming media. Again, up to no good.
Finally there is the case against Napster, brought by the RIAA. Now this is rather interesting based on this piece of informa tion. Down the page a bit you will find: "Under last yearís Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's hard to sue Web sites for any illegal activities committed by users. At the request of several companies in the portal industry, for example, the act generally shields sites that are classified as so-called information location tools from liability unless they directly participated in the illegal activity." Inother words, RIAA has to prove that Napster Inc was involved in the illegal abuse of copywrite inorder to hurt them. The fact that the napster application was used for bad things is not at issue, but whether or not Napster Ince conciously allowed such use. According to a lawyer (same article): "If Napster just has music generally listed and doesn't track it and doesn't know about copyright violations, then there's probably no liability," says Levi. "But if the way the site is constructed or the index is built indicates that they know the stuff is not legitimate, then the probably do. That's probably what this case will turn on: what they know."
Just to close, let me say something about the difference between civil disobediance and just disobedience. There are not of anti copywrite people who get angry when copywrite laws get enforced. If you belive that copywrite laws are unfair and that there should be no intelectual property that is fine, but the solution is to write to your elected officials, march, chant, speak whatever. If you break the law then you are just a criminal. Trying to get the laws changed on the other hand is a laudible goal. Wow, I'm gonna get flamed for that last one.
What about genetic engenering?
on
Genome
·
· Score: 2
This chapter raises the most elemental question when it comes to the genome, one the world has and will continue to debate: do we truly have free will, or is our behavior and fate genetically pre-determined?
If this is really the Major question addressed by the book(tm), then I'm a little concerned. The answer is no, we've known that the "nurture" has a pretty big effect, probably as much as "nature" since the 60s when studies of twins were done.
Also, at least based on the review this book doesn't seem to cover what the most important issue is relating to genetics these days is (at least as I see it): the morality of these choices we are giong to be facing. If we do map the genome then we are going to have the ablity to change it, at least in our children. Even now it would be trivial to decide if a child is male or female, has blue eyes or brown. What happens when this becomes cheap (its comming soon) and the masses get ahold of this. Just think about what would happen if China (for instance) decided that its citizens had the right to choose whether their children could be male or female. Considering how valued male children are now, what choice would most Chinese citizens make. Would this be a good thing? I don't know, but we've got to start asking these questions.
... has the Playstation 2 as their cover story this week (I bet the Dreamcast people are pissed). Check it out here. Not a bad article, not very technical (unsurprisingly) but decent interviews with the people who made it.
I say give it to some organization devoted to defending the rights of open source developers. The GPL will be tested one day and its very important it win that test.
BTW, what about the authors' résumé? If I were trying to learn about game software team management, I would try to get a book written by someone managing one of the big game companies: Id, Sierra, Accolade, Lucas, etc.
His background is actually OS, but his book is written towards any sort of large computer project. I can't seem to find the book at the moment, but his back ground as I remember is 20 years with IBM and the like. Started out as a programer and moved on to manage software projects.
The bit about Team Building and Management seems especially interesting. Based on what I've seen, about half the games out there come out with significant delays, release dates keep getting pushed back (also note that acording to some(vaugely remembered) statistics from Ed Yordan (ug) more than 80% of all software projects are in some way late.) This seems a rather valuable part of the book. Also, all programers should be required to read "The Mythical Man Month" (Frederick P. Brooks Jr, 1995), a great book about how not to be late.
Its the governments job to enforce the law fairly. Not to make sure that different types of businesses have an equal shot. If physical stores have some advantages over e-stores that's fine, but e-stores don't deserve a tax break over it. As you say in the second half of you letter, the invisible hand will take care of things: Businesses with good customer service have nothing to fear from the internet. Businesses that hire high-school dropouts that can barely run a cash register are the ones in danger. Similarly, e-businesses that can't deal with the tax will go bankrupt, those that can deal with it will continue to thrive. It doesn't matter who has the advantage (and it could be argued that the fact you can run your business off your home computer is a pretty big one) its not the goernements job to make everyone come out equal, merely to make sure everyone starts equal. Not with the unfair advantage of not having to pay taxes.
Depending on how this is implemented it is by no means unenforceble. If the tax is paid to the state where the company is based then the government only has to watch over large entities (the companies) not lots of little ones (the users). I agree that if a state creates a law saying that anyone buying goods while in our state must pay tax (ie I'm in MA,/.merchendice.com is in CA. I have to pay MA taxes).... well that is completely unenforceble. People will just claim to be in low tax states. The states will be pestering companise outside their jurisdiction for tax money. A big mess. But if implemented in a halfway reasonable way this is very enforceble.
It doesn't make sence for this to be done fedrally as the states are the ones traditionally involved in sales taxes. As long as they continue to do what they have been doing, collecting taxes from companies based on their sales, this will work out fine.
Slashdot Mirror
"Schroeder [FBI] says Gorshkov [crook] was using someone else's computer and had no reasonable expectation of privacy. He also maintains that no search warrant was needed because the FBI lacks jurisdiction in Russia."
Does this arguement make sence to anyone else?
While there are a number of organizations (notably Bounty Quest) involved in breaking already issued patents are there any watch-dog groups devoted to looking for "trivial" pending patents? Based on what I know about the process it is easier to stop a patent before it is issued than to try to overturn one after it exists. I think such a group could significantly reduce the number of "bogus" patents out there.
huh? The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago or so. Homo sapiens evolved about 100,000 years ago. And in anycase, what does it matter. We are seeing a trend that is unprecedented in 800,000 years. Given what we know about CO2 (see below) its pretty safe to assume that man made CO2 is the cause.
There could be other reasons why the temperature is rising so fast besides CO2.
Such as...?
As I said, if we were actually causing the problem, why hasn't a single scientist tried to reproduce this same scenario in a lab? There have been no experiments to prove anything.
Unfortunately, replicating the earth's climate would take a lab the size of the earth and a lot of time. None-the-less there have been many experiments. Its been experimentally shown that CO2 traps heat. There is a strong correlation between the rise of CO2 levels and the rise of temperature since the industrial revolution. These two facts alone strongly sugest CO2 as a causative force behind the modern warming trend.
I'm right :).
Global warming A) doesn't exist and B) what we see is natural. There is actually no scientific proof we are causing the increase in temperature. Just because the trend is larger than any in history does not mean we are causing it. The earth has gone through numerous heating and cooling phases in its life (heard of the ice age?), and this looks to be no different.
Yes, I have heard of the ice age. I studied it rather extensively in college (I'm interested in paleontolgy). As I said in my previous post, no other warming trend that we know of has been this rapid. This trend is 10 to 100 times faster than any in the past, not the historical past, but the past that we can measure through deep core ice sample and the like, out to about 800,000 years ago. The general trend of a glacial/inter-glacial period is to have a rapid cooling followed by a slow warming. What we are seeing now is a rapid warming, the oposite of what the historical record shows.
The POSSIBILITY of damage is there, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate, but it DOES mean we shouldn't do anything about it unless we can prove we're doing something. We're worrying about screwing up the planet, but our solutions (since we have no proof we're causing anything) could be just as dangerous (or more so) than what we think is causing the problems.
All that's being proposed here is to reduce the output of CO2 into the atmosphere by reducing the output from smokestacks. I can conceve of no reason why this would be dangerous. The bacteria are naturally occurring and they are being kept in a controled environment. This is not a proposal to release anything into the atmosphere, merely to reduce the unnatural emissions of smokestacks. Unless you would like to argue that smokestacks are part of some non-man made trend.
That's true... that's why they are using sunlight to power the CO2 -> O2 reaction.
You are aware that the current Global warming trend is 10 to 100 faster than any previous naturally occurring trend. And that this trend is a result of a large increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere due to human interference. Global warming is *not* a natural event. And even if it were I think that we have a right (and as we caused it a responsibility) to stop it. Don't remember the exact statistic but something like 90% of the populuation of the earth lives with in 50 vertical meters of the sea. We have to stop global warming to avoid displacing all these people (though admitedly sea level rise is only projected at a few meters, but still enough to displace millions). If there were an asteroid heading towards earth would it be "human arrogance" to want to stop it and save the lives of millions? I certainly don't think so.
And Bruce Willis clearly agrees with me :)
That's exactally the idea! This is a plan to reduce emissions from smokestacks. This is not a plan to release evil bacteria into the atmosphere!
Thanks!
The internet wasn't designed for anyone other than the military and universities. I'm glad that its been able to change to keep up with events.
In addition, few ISPs actually have the bandwidth necessary to fully support all the bandwidth their customers are paying for.
True. Fortuantely users (the vast majority at least) are not paying to have full access all the time, they are paying to have very quick access perhaps 1% of the time.
Yes, of course libraries are not "free." The books don't magically appear on the shelf. The point is that anyone in your town receves equal access to the books *no matter how much property tax they pay*. So they library is "free" in the sence that it does not discriminate on the basis of income (which is likely directally proportional to property tax), unlike your local bookstore, which certainly does discriminate on the basis of income. Now I am personally against libraries that limit membership like yours does, and as far as I know no major city library in the US has practices like this. But your library still retains the principles of free access to information.
From Juno's website: "The Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project will make use of patented technology Juno currently employs in connection with its display of advertising to download computational tasks to subscribers' computers for processing offline during time when such subscribers are not using their computers. The results of such offline computations will then be uploaded to Juno's central computers during a subsequent connection, in much the same way that Juno currently collects responses to the advertisements it shows offline. Applications will run as "screen savers" on the computers of participating subscribers when their machines would otherwise be idle, performing calculations when the computer is on but not in use. " Does this sound to anyone else like they are trying to patent SETI online's technology? Distributed computing using a screensaver to capture idle cycles. --Chris
Well, at least the tanks for storing hot grits are ok.
You:Again, your knowledge is lacking. Mapping the genome has nothing to do with being able to change it. Being able to change it like you're talking about requires knowing what each separate gene does, which is an entirely different thing than knowing (a) the sequence of each gene--what the Human Genome Project gives us or (b) knowing where in the genome the gene is physically located--what mapping gives us, and what we've had for most genes for several years now. Your example of eye color is a perfect one for how wrong you are. We've mapped the region responsible for eye color. We don't have a clue how it works. We're nowhere near the point of being able to produce babies with custom eye colors.
No no no. True, if we want to create a custom eye color (say.. purple) that does not occur in either of the parents then yes, we have to understand what is going on at a deeper level than just mapping. But that's not what I was claiming. If we want to create a child with blue eyes, say, then all we have to do is sort the sperm and eggs given to us for the given trait. We don't even need to know how the genetic code is expressed (what pathway the protiens use), we don't even need to splice in any new DNA, we just need to be able to diferentiate between DNA that has the code and that which dosen't.
Now Mr. Katz (yes, I mentioned his name, nobody freek out) brings up three cases at the end of his article that are examples of how this law is being abused, lets look at them:
The first thing is the case brought against the norwegian for breaking DVD protection. Now there are too issues here. One is that what he did is not actually illegal in Norway (as I understand the issue). This is indeed a nasty abuse of power by big government. Bad big government, no biscut! The other is the more general case, was what breaking DVD protection ok? Well, no not really, its only goal was violating copywrite, it had not productive use.
The second case is RealNetworks which has obtained an injunction against a portion of software created by Streambox. This software was desigened to get around Real's copy protected format for its streaming media. Again, up to no good.
Finally there is the case against Napster, brought by the RIAA. Now this is rather interesting based on this piece of informa tion. Down the page a bit you will find: "Under last yearís Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's hard to sue Web sites for any illegal activities committed by users. At the request of several companies in the portal industry, for example, the act generally shields sites that are classified as so-called information location tools from liability unless they directly participated in the illegal activity." Inother words, RIAA has to prove that Napster Inc was involved in the illegal abuse of copywrite inorder to hurt them. The fact that the napster application was used for bad things is not at issue, but whether or not Napster Ince conciously allowed such use. According to a lawyer (same article): "If Napster just has music generally listed and doesn't track it and doesn't know about copyright violations, then there's probably no liability," says Levi. "But if the way the site is constructed or the index is built indicates that they know the stuff is not legitimate, then the probably do. That's probably what this case will turn on: what they know."
Just to close, let me say something about the difference between civil disobediance and just disobedience. There are not of anti copywrite people who get angry when copywrite laws get enforced. If you belive that copywrite laws are unfair and that there should be no intelectual property that is fine, but the solution is to write to your elected officials, march, chant, speak whatever. If you break the law then you are just a criminal. Trying to get the laws changed on the other hand is a laudible goal. Wow, I'm gonna get flamed for that last one.
If this is really the Major question addressed by the book(tm), then I'm a little concerned. The answer is no, we've known that the "nurture" has a pretty big effect, probably as much as "nature" since the 60s when studies of twins were done.
Also, at least based on the review this book doesn't seem to cover what the most important issue is relating to genetics these days is (at least as I see it): the morality of these choices we are giong to be facing. If we do map the genome then we are going to have the ablity to change it, at least in our children. Even now it would be trivial to decide if a child is male or female, has blue eyes or brown. What happens when this becomes cheap (its comming soon) and the masses get ahold of this. Just think about what would happen if China (for instance) decided that its citizens had the right to choose whether their children could be male or female. Considering how valued male children are now, what choice would most Chinese citizens make. Would this be a good thing? I don't know, but we've got to start asking these questions.
Soon at Toys rrrrrr Us, the "E" class model rocket engine. Equivelant to 50,000,000,000 "D" engines!
... has the Playstation 2 as their cover story this week (I bet the Dreamcast people are pissed). Check it out here. Not a bad article, not very technical (unsurprisingly) but decent interviews with the people who made it.
I say give it to some organization devoted to defending the rights of open source developers. The GPL will be tested one day and its very important it win that test.
Sure, you can introduce DNA through a cell membrane.. but you can't get it into the nucleus where it will do any good (at least in eukaryotes)
Even if you could get it into the nucleaus, unless the DNA is spliced into existing DNA nothing is going to be done to it.
Virus's do both these things for you.
His background is actually OS, but his book is written towards any sort of large computer project. I can't seem to find the book at the moment, but his back ground as I remember is 20 years with IBM and the like. Started out as a programer and moved on to manage software projects.
The bit about Team Building and Management seems especially interesting. Based on what I've seen, about half the games out there come out with significant delays, release dates keep getting pushed back (also note that acording to some(vaugely remembered) statistics from Ed Yordan (ug) more than 80% of all software projects are in some way late.) This seems a rather valuable part of the book. Also, all programers should be required to read "The Mythical Man Month" (Frederick P. Brooks Jr, 1995), a great book about how not to be late.
Its the governments job to enforce the law fairly. Not to make sure that different types of businesses have an equal shot. If physical stores have some advantages over e-stores that's fine, but e-stores don't deserve a tax break over it. As you say in the second half of you letter, the invisible hand will take care of things: Businesses with good customer service have nothing to fear from the internet. Businesses that hire high-school dropouts that can barely run a cash register are the ones in danger. Similarly, e-businesses that can't deal with the tax will go bankrupt, those that can deal with it will continue to thrive. It doesn't matter who has the advantage (and it could be argued that the fact you can run your business off your home computer is a pretty big one) its not the goernements job to make everyone come out equal, merely to make sure everyone starts equal. Not with the unfair advantage of not having to pay taxes.
It doesn't make sence for this to be done fedrally as the states are the ones traditionally involved in sales taxes. As long as they continue to do what they have been doing, collecting taxes from companies based on their sales, this will work out fine.
If you don't want to read posts about movies, turn off the movie topic in your preferences. Geeks watch movies, I apreciated the review.