"So, his great insight is "there's no such thing as any distinct point in space or time because if there were, then everything would be frozen." I understand he has no mathematics to back this up, and that's not why I'm condemning it. I'm condemning his work simply because his reasoning is completely circular."
Axiomatic. His reasoning is axiomatic. Just like the reasoning that says that you can define a specific point in space or time. Which is, as has been pointed out, somewhat contrary to the uncertainty principle. I read this paper some time back and my conclusion at the time was not that this is bunk, but that it wasn't substantially new and only really contradicted some notion of popular high school physics.
Possibly the only real leap here is the conclusion. That since we can't ever describe a particular location/event with precision below a certain threshold, that there does not in fact exist a physically definable point in space-time. Turn around the question, sure you can just go ahead and define a discrete point as mathematical convenience, but are you truly describing a physically discrete thing?
Like choosing a spouse, having choice is very important at first.
But then once you've made a choice, then it is the commitment to your spouse which is important. Since once you've made your choice, then you will likely start making children that will not likely be compatible in another relationship unless of course you use some sort of emulation. You might also buy a home, which is where you will spend most of your time with your new spouse. If you decide to have a relationship on the side, then you will not be able to spend as much time in your home with your spouse and thus will not be able to get to know your new spouse fully and take full advantage of your Spouse's features. But if you feel like your spouse is just sucking you dry and not providing you with the rich benefits and features that you were promised it is very important that other choices remain available to you.
"If you look at the technical issues, the only way to really do this is with digital TV. Considering the $5 or so / TV cost of the stupid box (plus even more for a remote in many places) that raises prices for households with a bunch of TV's."
Comcast is moving towards this now anyway. DirectTV and DishNetwork already do this. Analog cable is being phased out.
"DNS is a global system that is important the better part of the world. It clearly falls under the purview of global government."
Ever hear of the story of the eggs and the basket? If you thought ICANN was a poorly managed and undemocratic beaurocracy, try the UN.
Besides DNS isn't a mandated or an official system. I could set up my own naming system at any point and translate yourdomainname into some other real address. AOL has done just exactly that with their AOL keywords. If I wanted I could hack mozilla to only use my name registry and distribute that instead.
If DNS becomes a political basketball, then we should take our game elsewhere.
IP address assignment on the other hand has become so central and standard to international telecommunications that it seems that it should rightly be given over to the ITU
"If someone is giving you money (employer or client) and they demand that you give them Office files (.doc,.xls,.mdb), you have to be able to provide them."
As long as they are giving you more than $200, which is around the cost of MS Office. Otherwise you are losing money on the deal.
" The important thing is, this book is written by a scientist, not a scientific correspondent."
science writers usually have a fairly good grasp on the topics they cover and talk to many scientists to get a good feel for various theories. As long as science writers are not espousing their own theories without a good scientific basis, then you shouldn't hold any bias against their work.
"Does anyone else hate popularisations of science?"
Sort of, which is why I treated this article somewhat flippantly. I hate popularizations of science that are misleading and get it wrong. To be fair though, whenever you summarize something innevitably you will leave out some important details. But even "real" scientific papers have summaries and abstracts, so popular articles and books have their place as long as they document their sources. The beauty of science is that ultimately anyone can verify the truth by looking for themselves.
I am not a spammer, but I am trying to keep a small company going, which has multiple domains running on one server. Many of these proposed solutions are very poorly documented and seem to just raise the bar for the little guy and do nothing to reduce spam.
Solutions that expect so called "legitamite" companies to have IT departments and multiple servers and multiple T1s will just end up raising the barriers to entry for small business. Spammers, these days, don't follow the rules.
All I want is a VCR like, standalone, personal video recorder with no monthly fee that costs under $250.
I don't really care about all the fancy features, just give me play, stop, fast forward, and the ability to transfer recorded video files off the machine.
Is there such a thing out there with assembly not required? I just can't stand the idea of paying a monthly fee for a relatively simple device masquerading as a service.
I'll be the first to criticize the unauditability of purely e-voting machines, but this story is not about that.
"If the problem had occurred with their electronic ballots or with the tabulation software (that sits on the county server) they would have been hard pressed to reconstruct their election," she said. "Or they might not have ever known there was a problem at all. If they were doing the manual count on the electronic ballots there would be no record to look at to determine what the accurate vote count should be."
In this case they could audit the results because there was a direct physical record of the vote, if this were a story about e-voting, then the author would only be speculating that votes weren't counted because there would be no record of the votes anyplace. This is a story which affirms that having a paper trail is a good thing.
Vote Libertarian. Otherwise just talking about this is a waste of time.
If it wasn't clear in years past, then it should be clear now. Those of you who vote for the Publicrats should be ashamed of yourselves.
If you think that voting for John Kerry will get you back any Civil Liberty... just listen to what he says he will do. Once in power he will sign the laws that the Republicans hand to him... sure maybe he will grumble and complain about some provision or another, but he won't stand for rights when they start lining up at the pork barrel.
So, maybe there are no good Libertarian Candidates, but at least show up and don't vote for the bad guys. None of the above = No Confidence.
"However, I submit that expecting perfect decision-making 100% of the time from leaders is akin to expecting coders to write non-trivial code that works perfectly on first execution."
If people are writing code that has similar effects to laws, ie people go to jail or get executed, get money taken from them by force in the form of fines, or otherwise effect people's lives in a nonvoluntary way, then they better damn well get it right on first execution after its release.
"The human species has survived 2 million years without going the way of the dinosaur."
2 million years? Human history spans about the last 10,000 years. And only the last 1000 - 3000 is documented with any regularity. I would say that Human Civilization has been good for people, but has not nearly the track record you suggest. More often we have seen that human civilizations have been fairly vulnerable to environmental disruptions.
I am fairly libertarian, so I see a limited purpose for government, but defending civilization certainly includes defending us from our most deadly enemy, mother nature and time, in all there insidious guises.
"As you said, not using the proximity of IP addresses would require you to keep track of which node is where, but you would need to also if you weren't using IP."
True, in a mobile ad-hoc network it makes no theoretical difference what the unique identifier is. The identifier just needs to be globally unique so it very well could be an IP address. But a system where randomly any two addresses, 24.133.144.54 and 24.133.144.55, could theoretically be on different sides of the planet would be incompatible with the current system of IP routing. Unless of course you just designated a range of IP addresses (probably only IPv6 has a large enough block) as ad-hoc address, which seems to be the best way to go, then any router that got one of these special addresses could just send the packets to the nearest ad-hoc router to handle the dynamic routing requirements of an ad hoc network.
As I said before an ad-hoc router would probably have to have a large and dynamic routing table. So, it is really more a matter of practicality, than theoretical compatibility. You wouldn't want the fixed network to suffer increased latency because of the additional overhead that larger routing tables would necessitate.
I'll take a look for the paper I wrote, I may have lost what copies I had.
"I don't see how IP is less suitable for that than for static networks."
IP addresses are used not only as unique identifiers, but also indicate a relative topological location. They act very much like postal addresses where the number tells you which house, the street name tells you which street and the city and state gets the letter to the right area. In the case of an IP address each part of the address get's the packet closer and closer to the destination, without having to make every router have a list of every address. Just as you can't move without changing your address, you can't change a computers location independently of the networks location. Sure, You can forward packets from the original location to the new one, just as easily as you can forward mail from one location to the next. But this gets you into the situation where you could be sending packets across the country that are ending up next door. It adds latency.
This brings me to the problem. Self Organized, ie ad-hoc, networks don't work without a lot of additional packet overhead and storage capacity. Fundamentally computers on a mobile ad-hoc network have to announce their current location( or relative location) at either some regular interval or when they move. And routing nodes need to keep a list of addresses to match a list of locations. Essentially an address is no longer an address, but a unique identifier.
Okay, enough writing. I wrote a paper on ad-hoc networks back in 99, this brings back those memories. I've come to the conclusion that both IP and Ad Hoc networks have mutually exclusive benefits. Trying to combine the two into one type of network, sounds like a recipe for mediocrity.
Slashdot Mirror
"So, his great insight is "there's no such thing as any distinct point in space or time because if there were, then everything would be frozen." I understand he has no mathematics to back this up, and that's not why I'm condemning it. I'm condemning his work simply because his reasoning is completely circular."
Axiomatic. His reasoning is axiomatic. Just like the reasoning that says that you can define a specific point in space or time. Which is, as has been pointed out, somewhat contrary to the uncertainty principle. I read this paper some time back and my conclusion at the time was not that this is bunk, but that it wasn't substantially new and only really contradicted some notion of popular high school physics.
Possibly the only real leap here is the conclusion. That since we can't ever describe a particular location/event with precision below a certain threshold, that there does not in fact exist a physically definable point in space-time. Turn around the question, sure you can just go ahead and define a discrete point as mathematical convenience, but are you truly describing a physically discrete thing?
Like choosing a spouse, having choice is very important at first.
But then once you've made a choice, then it is the commitment to your spouse which is important. Since once you've made your choice, then you will likely start making children that will not likely be compatible in another relationship unless of course you use some sort of emulation. You might also buy a home, which is where you will spend most of your time with your new spouse. If you decide to have a relationship on the side, then you will not be able to spend as much time in your home with your spouse and thus will not be able to get to know your new spouse fully and take full advantage of your Spouse's features. But if you feel like your spouse is just sucking you dry and not providing you with the rich benefits and features that you were promised it is very important that other choices remain available to you.
"If you look at the technical issues, the only way to really do this is with digital TV. Considering the $5 or so / TV cost of the stupid box (plus even more for a remote in many places) that raises prices for households with a bunch of TV's."
Comcast is moving towards this now anyway. DirectTV and DishNetwork already do this. Analog cable is being phased out.
"DNS is a global system that is important the better part of the world. It clearly falls under the purview of global government."
Ever hear of the story of the eggs and the basket? If you thought ICANN was a poorly managed and undemocratic beaurocracy, try the UN.
Besides DNS isn't a mandated or an official system. I could set up my own naming system at any point and translate yourdomainname into some other real address. AOL has done just exactly that with their AOL keywords. If I wanted I could hack mozilla to only use my name registry and distribute that instead.
If DNS becomes a political basketball, then we should take our game elsewhere.
IP address assignment on the other hand has become so central and standard to international telecommunications that it seems that it should rightly be given over to the ITU
"everyone must follow the same set of rules"
Agreed, everyone must follow my rules.
"If someone is giving you money (employer or client) and they demand that you give them Office files (.doc, .xls, .mdb), you have to be able to provide them."
As long as they are giving you more than $200, which is around the cost of MS Office. Otherwise you are losing money on the deal.
ack sorry, should have clicked no karma bonus when responding.
" The important thing is, this book is written by a scientist, not a scientific correspondent."
science writers usually have a fairly good grasp on the topics they cover and talk to many scientists to get a good feel for various theories. As long as science writers are not espousing their own theories without a good scientific basis, then you shouldn't hold any bias against their work.
" if you don't shut up i will fucking hunt you down and shit in your heartvalves."
That would be a rather unpleasant example of cause and effect.
"Does anyone else hate popularisations of science?"
Sort of, which is why I treated this article somewhat flippantly. I hate popularizations of science that are misleading and get it wrong. To be fair though, whenever you summarize something innevitably you will leave out some important details. But even "real" scientific papers have summaries and abstracts, so popular articles and books have their place as long as they document their sources. The beauty of science is that ultimately anyone can verify the truth by looking for themselves.
see?
effect
cause
duh
I am not a spammer, but I am trying to keep a small company going, which has multiple domains running on one server. Many of these proposed solutions are very poorly documented and seem to just raise the bar for the little guy and do nothing to reduce spam.
Solutions that expect so called "legitamite" companies to have IT departments and multiple servers and multiple T1s will just end up raising the barriers to entry for small business. Spammers, these days, don't follow the rules.
Thanks for the info.
All I want is a VCR like, standalone, personal video recorder with no monthly fee that costs under $250.
I don't really care about all the fancy features, just give me play, stop, fast forward, and the ability to transfer recorded video files off the machine.
Is there such a thing out there with assembly not required? I just can't stand the idea of paying a monthly fee for a relatively simple device masquerading as a service.
"So we're to vote leaving no auditable physical ballot behind, or not?"
leave behind yes. take with you, no.
"I don't understand why there is so much resistance to voting machines that print receipts for each voter."
'Show me your receipt or else your daughter loses a finger, you better have voted for the guy we told you to vote for'
Understand now?
I don't understand people that don't undertand.
I'll be the first to criticize the unauditability of purely e-voting machines, but this story is not about that.
"If the problem had occurred with their electronic ballots or with the tabulation software (that sits on the county server) they would have been hard pressed to reconstruct their election," she said. "Or they might not have ever known there was a problem at all. If they were doing the manual count on the electronic ballots there would be no record to look at to determine what the accurate vote count should be."
In this case they could audit the results because there was a direct physical record of the vote, if this were a story about e-voting, then the author would only be speculating that votes weren't counted because there would be no record of the votes anyplace. This is a story which affirms that having a paper trail is a good thing.
Vote Libertarian. Otherwise just talking about this is a waste of time.
If it wasn't clear in years past, then it should be clear now. Those of you who vote for the Publicrats should be ashamed of yourselves.
If you think that voting for John Kerry will get you back any Civil Liberty... just listen to what he says he will do. Once in power he will sign the laws that the Republicans hand to him... sure maybe he will grumble and complain about some provision or another, but he won't stand for rights when they start lining up at the pork barrel.
So, maybe there are no good Libertarian Candidates, but at least show up and don't vote for the bad guys. None of the above = No Confidence.
"However, I submit that expecting perfect decision-making 100% of the time from leaders is akin to expecting coders to write non-trivial code that works perfectly on first execution."
If people are writing code that has similar effects to laws, ie people go to jail or get executed, get money taken from them by force in the form of fines, or otherwise effect people's lives in a nonvoluntary way, then they better damn well get it right on first execution after its release.
"The human species has survived 2 million years without going the way of the dinosaur."
2 million years? Human history spans about the last 10,000 years. And only the last 1000 - 3000 is documented with any regularity. I would say that Human Civilization has been good for people, but has not nearly the track record you suggest. More often we have seen that human civilizations have been fairly vulnerable to environmental disruptions.
I am fairly libertarian, so I see a limited purpose for government, but defending civilization certainly includes defending us from our most deadly enemy, mother nature and time, in all there insidious guises.
"As you said, not using the proximity of IP addresses would require you to keep track of which node is where, but you would need to also if you weren't using IP."
True, in a mobile ad-hoc network it makes no theoretical difference what the unique identifier is. The identifier just needs to be globally unique so it very well could be an IP address. But a system where randomly any two addresses, 24.133.144.54 and 24.133.144.55, could theoretically be on different sides of the planet would be incompatible with the current system of IP routing. Unless of course you just designated a range of IP addresses (probably only IPv6 has a large enough block) as ad-hoc address, which seems to be the best way to go, then any router that got one of these special addresses could just send the packets to the nearest ad-hoc router to handle the dynamic routing requirements of an ad hoc network.
As I said before an ad-hoc router would probably have to have a large and dynamic routing table. So, it is really more a matter of practicality, than theoretical compatibility. You wouldn't want the fixed network to suffer increased latency because of the additional overhead that larger routing tables would necessitate.
I'll take a look for the paper I wrote, I may have lost what copies I had.
"I don't see how IP is less suitable for that than for static networks."
IP addresses are used not only as unique identifiers, but also indicate a relative topological location. They act very much like postal addresses where the number tells you which house, the street name tells you which street and the city and state gets the letter to the right area. In the case of an IP address each part of the address get's the packet closer and closer to the destination, without having to make every router have a list of every address. Just as you can't move without changing your address, you can't change a computers location independently of the networks location. Sure, You can forward packets from the original location to the new one, just as easily as you can forward mail from one location to the next. But this gets you into the situation where you could be sending packets across the country that are ending up next door. It adds latency.
This brings me to the problem. Self Organized, ie ad-hoc, networks don't work without a lot of additional packet overhead and storage capacity. Fundamentally computers on a mobile ad-hoc network have to announce their current location( or relative location) at either some regular interval or when they move. And routing nodes need to keep a list of addresses to match a list of locations. Essentially an address is no longer an address, but a unique identifier.
Okay, enough writing. I wrote a paper on ad-hoc networks back in 99, this brings back those memories. I've come to the conclusion that both IP and Ad Hoc networks have mutually exclusive benefits. Trying to combine the two into one type of network, sounds like a recipe for mediocrity.