Two Kinds of Science
on
Wolframania
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
There are, generally speaking, two kinds of science.
Some sciences are descriptive and others are predictive. Physics is the ultimate in predictive science where temendously precise pridictions about interactions can be calculated in advance. But there's a limit to what we can reasonably calculate. Many problems, like a Newtonian 3-body problem, have no closed solution and require numeric approximations to calculate anything. Other problems exhibit sensitivity to initial conditions and result in chaotic behavior. Precise predictions are no longer possible.
Other sciences are descriptive. They attempt to classify and organize observations into meaningful systems. Cladistics, pre-Darwin, described anatomical similarities between known species. Eventually, the resulting family arrangements were understood as evidence of underlying evolutionary processes whereby closely related species were only recetly divergent and species with greater differences were less closely related.
Wolfram offers us a little of both in A New Kind of Science (which I have bought, browsed, but not yet read in depth). Only time will tell if the systems he's calaloged will pay off in other disciplines. It may very well be that, once we know what to look for, natural analogues of his systems may be all around us waiting to be discovered.
In my mind, accusing the translators of the RSV and NRSV of having a political agenda is at least as much of an accusation of their integrity as one of incompetence.
The reason that the KJV needs to be updated is because (a) more old texts have been found and (b) English itself has changed under the influence of the KJV.
If you're going to read the Bible as a whole, then 'kill' is going to be problematic because 'killing' in a strict sense is not uniformly condemned in the text. If you believe that the authors, at least, intended to present a coherent religious point of view, then a broad word interpretation is not called for.
The difficulty with translating ancient Hebrew is that there is a limited Universe of texts with which to examine the meanings of words. There is even a phrase describing words which appear only once in Scripture the translation of which is necessarially uncertain.
I have respect for the Fox translation because it is heavily footnoted where the original Hebrew is either unclear or where his translation differs markedly from prior attempts. Now, Fox admittedly has a literary goal in mind, he wants to preserve some of the wordplay and parallel in the Hebrew that sometimes gets lost in 'literal' translations as are preferred by Christians. In the verse in Exodus where YHWH tells Moses that his name is "I Am Who Am" is shown in Fox's foortnotes to be a very difficult passage to translate because the name it itself ungramattical in Hebrew. Fox translates it into ungrammatical English to retain this sense of there being something wrong with the actual expression in a limited language. I'll have to consult my copy of Fox this evening and see if the footnotes shed any light on the passage we're discussing.
My second paragraph deals with when we should assume that an alien has a soul -- when it is sentient. I don't know how well we could determine if an alien were sentient or not, though.
I have access a couple of Bible translations and the one that I trust the most, the NRSV, as well as the RSV, which I trust a little less, use 'commit murder' rather than 'kill'. Another source, Fox's translation of the Pentateuch which is a lot closer to the sense of the original Hebrew than any of the Christian translations, uses a similar concept.
I'm not suggesting that the translators were incompetent, but I am suffesting that they are fallible. Translation is not a mechanical process in which words in one language are mapped one-to-one into words from another language. Nuances of meaning will be expressed differently by different translators.
I would be much more surprised to hear about a buffer overflow in libjpeg than I would in a hand coded jpeg routing from w00tb0y embedded in some random RPM somewhere.
WinXP is not comperable becuase its closed source.
If an alien dosn't have a soul, then it's called 'meat' and it's not a sin to kill it if you put it to good purpose. Killing the last of its species is probably very sinful, though.
If the alien is self-aware, then I would presume it does have a soul and that killing it would be wrong unless it were, say, in self-defense. The Ten Commandments talk about murder, wrongfully causing a death, not killing.
And I think it's exceedingly cool. I strongly suspect that there is life in many different places and some of that life is probably intelligent and self-aware.
Do I think that Jesus died for intelligent life on other planets? No, I do not.
If God has plans for these beings, God is going to reveal it to them in a way appropriate to their nature.
Democracies have the right to screw up. No sole, unelected individual has the authority to prevent a government from screwing up.
Sometimes its better if a government is allowed to screw up because it often lets the opposition in to have a chance to do better.
Re:Part of copyright should be the right to not
on
What Is Public Domain?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You can relinquish copyright by executing a legal document. Ironically, in the era of automatic protection of works, you have to explicitly do something if you *don't* want protection.
If you have used a means of publishing as tied up in licensing issues as CSS protected DVDs, (DVDs without CSS can indeed be made and used) then you really can't complain that people can't use it.
You could just as easily have published your work on hollerinth cards and no one would be able to read it either.
What is claimed here is not a reduction in mass but an interference with gravity. The object sontinues to have the same inertial mass, but the gravity between the object and the earth is claimed to be blocked by the superconductor. Neat if it can be shown to work.
But when it comes to key services, a single vulnerability is often found to affect multiple vendor's products. A bind or sendmail vulnability, for example, is going to hit everyone.
indicate that these types of restrictions will be unenforcable. The recent Adobe case indicates that, on its face, the true nature of a transaction involving the purchase of software is that of the purchase of a copy of a copyrighted work. Cases reaching back as far as Scribner v. Straus (1908) indicate that attempting to case a sale as a license will not get around the first sale doctrine.
Under Federal Law, when you purchase a copy of software, you already have the right to install it and use it in the way it was designed to be used. You may remove the software from PC A and install it on PC B. A contract of adhesion which purports to abrogate this right is unlikely to be found enforcable.
Now, I don't agree with those who think that all EULAs are unenforcable. Terms such as limitation of liability and perhaps even forum selection terms require very little notice. Small print on the back of a cruse ship ticket was found to be sufficient notice for a limitation of liability. But the majority of unconscionable terms will never be raised in an actual court case becuase the companies know that they are out on a limb here and will never get them enforced.
Right now, the TiVo hack community is not working on alternate guide data, but if TiVo went under you can bet that there would be options for us TiVo owners to continue to get value out of the box.
Since I got my unit 2 years ago, I've broken even on my lifetime subscription compared to monthly charges. If TiVo goes under, I think I've got my value out of the purchase.
Listen to Independant Radio
on
Homogenized Music
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
College stations, public radio stations, off-beat formats abound on the low end of the FM spectrum. You often get commercial-free stations and an eclectic mix of music.
Here in NYC, I listen to WFUV (Fordham University) and WNYC (public radio). When I'm out on Long Island, I listen to WUSB (SUNY Stony Brook) and Connecticut public radio.
More generally, the court is almost unaccountable for decisions that it makes, since the other portions of the government are constrained from reigning in the court (both practically and legally.) Basically, the senate has to pass an amendment to the constitution to change what the courts can do. This will not happen for a LONG time, if ever, since there is a huge hesitation about the idea of changing the rules that the founding fathers created.
The ability to amend the Constitution *is* a constraint on Judicial power.
Impeachment is another restraint.
FDR threatened to increase the size of the court (the number of justices on the Supreme Court is not specified in the Constitution.) if they didn't stop interfering with his efforts to end the Depression. Over the long run, the power to name justices can and does influence the decisions of SCOTUS. Reagan & Bush has a huge effect on the Court and its direction through the power of nomination.
In another message you asked for a justification in law of the Judiciary's ability to declare a law unconstitutional. That justification is found in the precedent you cite above -- Marbury v. Madison. If Congress and/or the President disagreed with this ruling, they can nominate and confirm justices who don't hold that position or they can pass an Amendment.
The Constitution have been amended 26 times. That this issue hasn't been addressed means that people are comfortable with this power of the Judiciary.
The royalties aren't for the use of the DVD trademark (well, the bulk of them, anyway). They're for the use of patents.
What patents? CSS? Not patented, a trade secret. MPEG? Playback isn't patented, encoding is. Dolby Digital Sound is patented, but they don't have to implement the DDS parts to play DVDs.
For example, with many of MS's rather bland tools, they include C/C++ headers to access varous API's and whatnot. If you wanted to give an application a direct connection into say, MySQL or other database, you might take MySQL and compile it with various ADO (MS proprietary database access layer) headers, make a few modifications, and produce a binary. Then you produce an ADO provider for the modified version of MySQL, and that in turns get linked dynamically at runtime with some general data drive app. Sound okay so far? Lets say you did that all and you are programmer for the NSA or FBI or something, right? Let's say you want to give a copy of that app to some other government agency, say the CIA or DOD or someone like that. Does that count as distribution? If so, you have to release the source for the modifications. However, you dont have all the source, since the ADO headers from MS link to compiled binary code. Now you have a bit of a jam, as I see it.
But the term "source" is defined in the GPL. It is the preferred form for making changes to your program. You don't need to distribute the source to any standard libraries that you link to becuase you don't use those sources when making modifications to your program.
Source also includes any files you many need to control the build process, such as makefiles.
So, there is nothing in the GPL preventing you from writing a program which depends upon a propriatary compiler or library. And there is certainly nothing which requires you to deliver the source code for that compiler or library.
The suit is against the United States of America as represented in the office of the Attorney General, not a specific officeholder. Thus, when the Attorney General changes, the name of the case changes (becuase Ashcroft's Justice Department will be arguing it the fall) right up until the final decision when the name becomes final.
Slashdot Mirror
There are, generally speaking, two kinds of science.
Some sciences are descriptive and others are predictive. Physics is the ultimate in predictive science where temendously precise pridictions
about interactions can be calculated in advance. But there's a limit to what we can reasonably calculate. Many problems, like a Newtonian
3-body problem, have no closed solution and require numeric approximations to calculate anything. Other problems exhibit sensitivity to initial conditions and result in chaotic behavior. Precise predictions are no longer possible.
Other sciences are descriptive. They attempt to classify and organize observations into meaningful systems. Cladistics, pre-Darwin, described anatomical similarities between known species. Eventually, the resulting family arrangements were understood as evidence of underlying evolutionary processes whereby closely related species were
only recetly divergent and species with greater differences were less closely related.
Wolfram offers us a little of both in A New Kind of Science (which I have bought, browsed, but not yet read in depth). Only time will tell
if the systems he's calaloged will pay off in other disciplines. It may very well be that, once we know what to look for, natural analogues
of his systems may be all around us waiting to be discovered.
However, the GPL isn't as clear as it could be on asserting that licensees must explicitely license all patents in perpetuity.
Patents only last 17 years. There's no requirement to license patents past that point.
Bringing perpetuities raises a big red flag in courts because they don't like perpetual restrictions. There are no perpetuities here.
That only works if the person who wants to dual-license holds the copyright to the entire work.
SE does not hold a copywrite on the entire kernel they've released so they *can not* dual license it.
They may not even be able to distribute it at all if their patent is an impermissable restriction in violation of the GPL as it appears to be.
We're getting waaaaay off topic here.
In my mind, accusing the translators of the RSV and NRSV of having a political agenda is at least as much of an accusation of their integrity as one of incompetence.
The reason that the KJV needs to be updated is because (a) more old texts have been found and (b) English itself has changed under the influence of the KJV.
If you're going to read the Bible as a whole, then 'kill' is going to be problematic because 'killing' in a strict sense is not uniformly condemned in the text. If you believe that the authors, at least, intended to present a coherent religious point of view, then a broad word interpretation is not called for.
The difficulty with translating ancient Hebrew is that there is a limited Universe of texts with which to examine the meanings of words. There is even a phrase describing words which appear only once in Scripture the translation of which is necessarially uncertain.
I have respect for the Fox translation because it is heavily footnoted where the original Hebrew is either unclear or where his translation differs markedly from prior attempts. Now, Fox admittedly has a literary goal in mind, he wants to preserve some of the wordplay and parallel in the Hebrew that sometimes gets lost in 'literal' translations as are preferred by Christians. In the verse in Exodus where YHWH tells Moses that his name is "I Am Who Am" is shown in Fox's foortnotes to be a very difficult passage to translate because the name it itself ungramattical in Hebrew. Fox translates it into ungrammatical English to retain this sense of there being something wrong with the actual expression in a limited language. I'll have to consult my copy of Fox this evening and see if the footnotes shed any light on the passage we're discussing.
My second paragraph deals with when we should assume that an alien has a soul -- when it is sentient. I don't know how well we could determine if an alien were sentient or not, though.
I have access a couple of Bible translations and the one that I trust the most, the NRSV, as well as the RSV, which I trust a little less, use 'commit murder' rather than 'kill'. Another source, Fox's translation of the Pentateuch which is a lot closer to the sense of the original Hebrew than any of the Christian translations, uses a similar concept.
I'm not suggesting that the translators were incompetent, but I am suffesting that they are fallible. Translation is not a mechanical process in which words in one language are mapped one-to-one into words from another language. Nuances of meaning will be expressed differently by different translators.
I would be much more surprised to hear about a buffer overflow in libjpeg than I would in a hand coded jpeg routing from w00tb0y embedded in some random RPM somewhere.
WinXP is not comperable becuase its closed source.
If an alien dosn't have a soul, then it's called 'meat' and it's not a sin to kill it if you put it to good purpose. Killing the last of its species is probably very sinful, though.
If the alien is self-aware, then I would presume it does have a soul and that killing it would be wrong unless it were, say, in self-defense. The Ten Commandments talk about murder, wrongfully causing a death, not killing.
And I think it's exceedingly cool. I strongly suspect that there is life in many different places and some of that life is probably intelligent and self-aware.
Do I think that Jesus died for intelligent life on other planets? No, I do not.
If God has plans for these beings, God is going to reveal it to them in a way appropriate to their nature.
Your 'baboon' reference is very offensive.
Democracies have the right to screw up. No sole, unelected individual has the authority to prevent a government from screwing up.
Sometimes its better if a government is allowed to screw up because it often lets the opposition in to have a chance to do better.
You can relinquish copyright by executing a legal document. Ironically, in the era of automatic protection of works, you have to explicitly do something if you *don't* want protection.
If you have used a means of publishing as tied up in licensing issues as CSS protected DVDs, (DVDs without CSS can indeed be made and used) then you really can't complain that people can't use it.
You could just as easily have published your work on hollerinth cards and no one would be able to read it either.
Of course! My 6MLoC VS Basic program requires them!
What is claimed here is not a reduction in mass but an interference with gravity. The object sontinues to have the same inertial mass, but the gravity between the object and the earth is claimed to be blocked by the superconductor. Neat if it can be shown to work.
I'd hate to drop a deck of punch cards that size. You'd need a microscope to put them back in order.
But when it comes to key services, a single vulnerability is often found to affect multiple vendor's products. A bind or sendmail vulnability, for example, is going to hit everyone.
indicate that these types of restrictions will be unenforcable. The recent Adobe case indicates that, on its face, the true nature of a transaction involving the purchase of software is that of the purchase of a copy of a copyrighted work. Cases reaching back as far as Scribner v. Straus (1908) indicate that attempting to case a sale as a license will not get around the first sale doctrine.
Under Federal Law, when you purchase a copy of software, you already have the right to install it and use it in the way it was designed to be used. You may remove the software from PC A and install it on PC B. A contract of adhesion which purports to abrogate this right is unlikely to be found enforcable.
Now, I don't agree with those who think that all EULAs are unenforcable. Terms such as limitation of liability and perhaps even forum selection terms require very little notice. Small print on the back of a cruse ship ticket was found to be sufficient notice for a limitation of liability. But the majority of unconscionable terms will never be raised in an actual court case becuase the companies know that they are out on a limb here and will never get them enforced.
Great term - hope it sticks in the popular press.
You mean in the... ummmm... Entertainment Oligolopy?
Directions should be read before;
I swear it takes too long.
So, I read them afterwards instead
To see where I went wrong.
Right now, the TiVo hack community is not working on alternate guide data, but if TiVo went under you can bet that there would be options for us TiVo owners to continue to get value out of the box.
Since I got my unit 2 years ago, I've broken even on my lifetime subscription compared to monthly charges. If TiVo goes under, I think I've got my value out of the purchase.
College stations, public radio stations, off-beat formats abound on the low end of the FM spectrum. You often get commercial-free stations and an eclectic mix of music.
Here in NYC, I listen to WFUV (Fordham University) and WNYC (public radio). When I'm out on Long Island, I listen to WUSB (SUNY Stony Brook) and Connecticut public radio.
Cultivate your ear.
More generally, the court is almost unaccountable for decisions that it makes, since the other portions of the government are constrained from reigning in the court (both practically and legally.) Basically, the senate has to pass an amendment to the constitution to change what the courts can do. This will not happen for a LONG time, if ever, since there is a huge hesitation about the idea of changing the rules that the founding fathers created.
The ability to amend the Constitution *is* a constraint on Judicial power.
Impeachment is another restraint.
FDR threatened to increase the size of the court (the number of justices on the Supreme Court is not specified in the Constitution.) if they didn't stop interfering with his efforts to end the Depression. Over the long run, the power to name justices can and does influence the decisions of SCOTUS. Reagan & Bush has a huge effect on the Court and its direction through the power of nomination.
In another message you asked for a justification in law of the Judiciary's ability to declare a law unconstitutional. That justification is found in the precedent you cite above -- Marbury v. Madison. If Congress and/or the President disagreed with this ruling, they can nominate and confirm justices who don't hold that position or they can pass an Amendment.
The Constitution have been amended 26 times. That this issue hasn't been addressed means that people are comfortable with this power of the Judiciary.
/me waves a hand mysteriously.
You remember Jar Jar and Amidala in Episode 3.
I remember Jar Jar and Amidala in Episode 3.
You cried when you were 10 and you saw Jar Jar die.
I cried when I was 10 and I saw Jar Jar die.
You love Jar Jar and will buy merchandise.
I love Jar Jar and will buy merchandise.
The royalties aren't for the use of the DVD trademark (well, the bulk of them, anyway). They're for the use of patents.
What patents? CSS? Not patented, a trade secret. MPEG? Playback isn't patented, encoding is. Dolby Digital Sound is patented, but they don't have to implement the DDS parts to play DVDs.
I'm going out, I may be some time.
Ohhh! A reference to the Scott Expedition to the South Pole. Who said that, Oates?
For example, with many of MS's rather bland tools, they include C/C++ headers to access varous API's and whatnot. If you wanted to give an application a direct connection into say, MySQL or other database, you might take MySQL and compile it with various ADO (MS proprietary database access layer) headers, make a few modifications, and produce a binary. Then you produce an ADO provider for the modified version of MySQL, and that in turns get linked dynamically at runtime with some general data drive app. Sound okay so far? Lets say you did that all and you are programmer for the NSA or FBI or something, right? Let's say you want to give a copy of that app to some other government agency, say the CIA or DOD or someone like that. Does that count as distribution? If so, you have to release the source for the modifications. However, you dont have all the source, since the ADO headers from MS link to compiled binary code. Now you have a bit of a jam, as I see it.
But the term "source" is defined in the GPL. It is the preferred form for making changes to your program. You don't need to distribute the source to any standard libraries that you link to becuase you don't use those sources when making modifications to your program.
Source also includes any files you many need to control the build process, such as makefiles.
So, there is nothing in the GPL preventing you from writing a program which depends upon a propriatary compiler or library. And there is certainly nothing which requires you to deliver the source code for that compiler or library.
The suit is against the United States of America as represented in the office of the Attorney General, not a specific officeholder. Thus, when the Attorney General changes, the name of the case changes (becuase Ashcroft's Justice Department will be arguing it the fall) right up until the final decision when the name becomes final.