All this talk about how Mozilla is too big, too bloated, has too many features, etc., is a load of shit, IMHO. Unless you're trying to run Mozilla on a freaking Pentium 100 with 64 megs of RAM or something else antiquated like that, performance is fine.
A big memory footprint (read "bloat") is precisely the reason that I do not use Mozilla everyday (aside from JavaScript debugging, for which Venkman is invaluable). Mozilla is an excellent browser, and fast once open. I only have 128mb of ram, and it's 30+ second startup time and 21mb of ram just to start up is just crazy. It is memory-efficient when you open new tabs/Venkman, but it doesn't release all it's memory when you've stopped using things. I got it quickly up to 26mb of ram, and the sucker wouldn't go down again. This is unacceptable.
(Granted I'm still using 1.1, but I stopped caring at that point.)
Phoenix, although I've not used it yet--will download right now!, seems like just what I need. Small footprint, fast, and pluggable interface.
When you type in a url for a web page, that url (1) was previously registred with some centralized entity, (2) is verified to exist, (3) is mapped to its actual IP address, and finally (4) you are sent the data from that web page.
If it happens with web pages, then why not with email addreses? Require all email addresses to be centrally registered, and set up some legal reporting structure that designates some of these addresses to a "spam blacklist".
Then SMTP servers could verify that all incoming from address (1) actually exist and (2) are not on the official "spam blacklist". Discard anything that fails the test.
Walah!
(Not to mention this is realistically implementable *today*.:' )
Just got back from the meetup. There were three of us, two of which RSVP'd only a half hour before it started. I was the only one who RSVP'd days before and actually showed up. We were surprised that even the host didn't show up.
It was nice. One Java programmer (me), a neuroscience grad student and an undergrad electrical engineer. In my head, everyone who reads slashdot is a computer programmer:' )
It was originally at an expensive restaurant, so after waiting about twenty minutes we walked to a good gourmet pizza place (Lombardi's on 18th, just north of Rittenhouse Square, best in the city) and talked for an hour or so.
I'm going again next month. It should be at Lombardi's. Cheap and good food.
I was at the first MuppetFest in December 2001. One of the best weekends of my life. I saw this technology in action for about a half hour. It was one of the highlights of the festival.
Dave Goelz (Gonzo) and Steve Whitmire (Kermit) were on the right side of the stage, standing in front of these really-big-college-refrigerator-sized boxes, each containing a computer, and topped off with a control system and video monitor. The control system was basically the metal exoskeleton of a puppet head. They also had access to a keyboard and some other control, but they weren't highlighted.
They were just improving with Kemit and Gonzo for a half hour straight, on this big screen. These guys are freaking hysterical with their characters. We were blessed with about six hours of live improvisation during the whole festival...the puppeteers sitting on the stage, with their characters in their lap, just talking with each other and with us. Watching them in video form was no less magical. As I said, it was one of the highlights of the festival.
As far I could see, and as we were told...
The control system, to the puppeteer, feels exactly the same as when they use a normal puppet. Probably 80% freedom of movement, compared to an actual puppet. Of course, it is ultimately attached to the computer, but it was designed from the beginning to be as expressive and comfortable as possible.
To move a character around in its environment requires extra programming. During the demonstration, you only saw Gonzo and Kermit standing side by side. Extra programming is also required to do more complicated things, like moving individual fingers in a realistic fashion.
(Steve Whitmire was showing how he could move Kermit's finger, flexing his pointer finger back and forth for, like, fifteen seconds. Everyone quickly realized that the finger was right over his crotch, and started laughing. Steve was quite embarrassed:' )
Even cooler still: This system can be hooked up to a piece of software (to control virtual muppets, as I described) or to an animtronic device. This was also demonstrated.
They brought out the cat from the movie Cats and Dogs. The cat was sitting on a table, with five (!) people underneath it, each controlling an appendage (everything but the head and neck). The actual puppeteer's performance was recorded. The main computer/control mechanism was not to be seen. The cat performed a song, which I guess was in the movie (but since I refuse to see the movie, I can't know this for sure).
It was really cool. The cat's head and neck was controlled by the "recorded" performance, and he was belting it out like a real broadway singer.
Then the curtain pulled even farther out, and you saw that the performer was there. Singing and puppeteering. During the whole last verse of the song you saw both him and the cat. One moment in particular, the performer was really into his singing, and was leaning back and squinting his face, and you saw the cat having the exact same expression. So amazing.
(Kermit and Gonzo looked just fine, as we were watching them live on screen. But we we told that the performance can be recorded (SAVED, right?) and then the images can be rendered to look even more realistic. I personally was surprised, cause they looked perfectly acceptable to my eyes. Not to mention the backgrounds and clothing that can be added... One other thing this system makes possible: Puppeteers could be spread across the country, but perform their characters on the same screen, in all/just one of those locations. Wow.)
To see a few pictures, go to MuppetCentral. Here's the specific page (get there by clicking on "Articles" in the left-hand toolbar and then "MuppetFest" towards the top right).
Click on "MuppetFest Photo Gallery", which pops up a new window. Choose "Day Two" from the drop down, and then go about fifteen pictures forward. The first picture of note is the cat on the table. The next four or five pictures show the animitronic cat and then the virtual Kermit and Gonzo.
I saw 6th Day, and I really enjoyed it. But much more than the action or plot, I enjoyed the philisophical questions it raises about cloning, and the implications on our (potential) future. I composed some observations and morality/philisophical questions I thought of as I watched the movie for the second time.
(spoiler warning!).
Note: The movie assumes--I do too--that you can clone a human in two hours, and they'll have exactly the same memories/thoughts/soul/physical characteristics of the original, as well as be exactly the same age. At least no more than two hours younger:' )...
- - - - -
If your child had a terminal illness--three weeks to live, say, and you could choose to clone them with everything except the illness, would you? Would you kill the original today, or let them die naturally?
What if it were terminal, but they had five years to live? What if they were generally healthy, but had their arms and legs chopped off in an industrial accident? What if only one of their arms were taken off, but they were a concert pianist? What if they had one of their fingers mildly disfigured, but enough to affect their piano playing career?
What are the boundaries (ethically and legally) declaring when a child should live as is, and when the original can be killed, and then cloned?
If things such as this are supposed to be determined "in the interest of the child", can it ever be decided to kill and then duplicate that child?
- - - - -
Imagine coming home, and someone has duplicated your child, so now there are ten of them watching Pokemon, when you arrive home from work.
What if you could not tell the difference between real and clones? Would you randomly choose one of them and have the rest killed/adopted/relocated to Mars/whatever?
What if you could tell the difference between real and clone?
Either way, if your child's "soul" truly exists in all ten children, how would you deal with the hurt of those other nine, when choosing only one?
- - - - -
If, as at Re-Pet (get a copy of your pet, three hours after it dies), they can "tailor the fur color to your furniture or wallpaper", or even "soften the teeth". This implies, in humans, that they could make "stronger muscles" or even "tougher skin", and effectively make a superhuman, and duplicate it into a super-army.
This seems like it could be the biggest military threat the world has ever seen. Wouldn't other countries get trigger-twitchy about it?
- - - - -
Homosexuals--the non-closeted kind, at least--know they are homosexual. But they, many would argue, certainly did not choose to be so. We all know homosexuals are prejudiced against, and are a long way from being considered legally equal to heterosexuals.
On the other hand, clones (most likely) did not choose to be a clone, and in many cases will never even know that they are one! Despite this, it seems very probable for a whole new prejudice to happen. At least on the lines of black slavery, jews in the holocaust and homosexuality. Perhaps even unprecedented.
...and please. That stupid dot-in-the-bottom-of-the-left-eyelid would never happen. If clone's creator wants them to assimilate among the general population, the last thing they need is a definitive marker, saying "kick me!".
- - - - -
Cloning has parallels with Time Travel, and even rivals the god-like power implied by traveling back in time.
Let's say a bad guy had the power to clone at will. In the movie, Dr. Whatevershisname refuses to clone any longer. His wife was a five-year clone, and died a horrible death, which turned his thinking around. Because of this, he tells his boss, Druker, that he quits.
Druker says "I can't let you do that. First I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to clone you, with a synchording (complete picture of the contents of the brain) taken two months ago, before you were ever against cloning. Everything will continue like this conversation never happened."
As soon as someone has a thought you don't like, you kill them, and reproduce them from a week-old synchording, effectively erasing that "bad" thought. Amazing, god-like power.
- - - - -
Just a mistake I noticed in the movie: When Arnold was originally cloned (and awoke in the taxi, at the mall), he also had a copy of his keys! They cloned the keys, too?!:' )
- - - - -
Killing your clone is legal. What if a clone, thinking they are the real, kills the (actually) real one?
I agree with you, regarding this should be officially considered a tool to facilitate "file sharing (some of which may be illegal)", and not explicitely "illegal file sharing".
However, the official help documentation that comes with Wrapster has this paragraph in it. He/She probably made a mistake in writing this paragraph...opening themselves up to a lot of criticism, and such.
Here is an example of how Wrapster can be used to share ANY files you choose on the Napster network: Let's say a friend of yours has a copy of Win2K still zipped up from when (s)he first downloaded it from an IRC server. It's probably about 44 files in total, each of them being about 5 megs in size. Your friend simply runs Wrapster and creates a new archive with it. Then (s)he adds the 40-something or so files to the Wrapster archive and places it in their shared MP3 folder. You connect to the Napster network and search for either "Win2K" or the special bitrate that Wrapster uses to "encode" its files and low and behold it will appear in your search window. All you have to do now to get your copy of Win2K is download it just like any other legitimate MP3 file and when it's finally saved to your harddrive, just load up a copy of Wrapster and extract that operating system goodness.
Heck if the creator of the program anticipates that a primary use for this program will be to get Windows 2000... He's pretty much the apitome of the user population, those that will use this type of technology primarily for illegal stuff.
Now, this does not say that I won't use it for illegal stuff (:' ), but as far as protecting the technology from lawsuits (as far as possible, anyway), this probably doesn't help much...
Slashdot Mirror
All this talk about how Mozilla is too big, too bloated, has too many features, etc., is a load of shit, IMHO. Unless you're trying to run Mozilla on a freaking Pentium 100 with 64 megs of RAM or something else antiquated like that, performance is fine.
A big memory footprint (read "bloat") is precisely the reason that I do not use Mozilla everyday (aside from JavaScript debugging, for which Venkman is invaluable). Mozilla is an excellent browser, and fast once open. I only have 128mb of ram, and it's 30+ second startup time and 21mb of ram just to start up is just crazy. It is memory-efficient when you open new tabs/Venkman, but it doesn't release all it's memory when you've stopped using things. I got it quickly up to 26mb of ram, and the sucker wouldn't go down again. This is unacceptable.
(Granted I'm still using 1.1, but I stopped caring at that point.)
Phoenix, although I've not used it yet--will download right now!, seems like just what I need. Small footprint, fast, and pluggable interface.
Good luck to the Mozilla team! :' )
IANANP (I am not a network person), but
:' )
When you type in a url for a web page, that url (1) was previously registred with some centralized entity, (2) is verified to exist, (3) is mapped to its actual IP address, and finally (4) you are sent the data from that web page.
If it happens with web pages, then why not with email addreses? Require all email addresses to be centrally registered, and set up some legal reporting structure that designates some of these addresses to a "spam blacklist".
Then SMTP servers could verify that all incoming from address (1) actually exist and (2) are not on the official "spam blacklist". Discard anything that fails the test.
Walah!
(Not to mention this is realistically implementable *today*.
That skanky guy from Minority Report. :' )
Just got back from the meetup. There were three of us, two of which RSVP'd only a half hour before it started. I was the only one who RSVP'd days before and actually showed up. We were surprised that even the host didn't show up.
:' )
It was nice. One Java programmer (me), a neuroscience grad student and an undergrad electrical engineer. In my head, everyone who reads slashdot is a computer programmer
It was originally at an expensive restaurant, so after waiting about twenty minutes we walked to a good gourmet pizza place (Lombardi's on 18th, just north of Rittenhouse Square, best in the city) and talked for an hour or so.
I'm going again next month. It should be at Lombardi's. Cheap and good food.
Thumbs up.
I was at the first MuppetFest in December 2001. One of the best weekends of my life. I saw this technology in action for about a half hour. It was one of the highlights of the festival.
Dave Goelz (Gonzo) and Steve Whitmire (Kermit) were on the right side of the stage, standing in front of these really-big-college-refrigerator-sized boxes, each containing a computer, and topped off with a control system and video monitor. The control system was basically the metal exoskeleton of a puppet head. They also had access to a keyboard and some other control, but they weren't highlighted.
They were just improving with Kemit and Gonzo for a half hour straight, on this big screen. These guys are freaking hysterical with their characters. We were blessed with about six hours of live improvisation during the whole festival...the puppeteers sitting on the stage, with their characters in their lap, just talking with each other and with us. Watching them in video form was no less magical. As I said, it was one of the highlights of the festival.
As far I could see, and as we were told...
The control system, to the puppeteer, feels exactly the same as when they use a normal puppet. Probably 80% freedom of movement, compared to an actual puppet. Of course, it is ultimately attached to the computer, but it was designed from the beginning to be as expressive and comfortable as possible.
To move a character around in its environment requires extra programming. During the demonstration, you only saw Gonzo and Kermit standing side by side. Extra programming is also required to do more complicated things, like moving individual fingers in a realistic fashion.
(Steve Whitmire was showing how he could move Kermit's finger, flexing his pointer finger back and forth for, like, fifteen seconds. Everyone quickly realized that the finger was right over his crotch, and started laughing. Steve was quite embarrassed :' )
Even cooler still: This system can be hooked up to a piece of software (to control virtual muppets, as I described) or to an animtronic device. This was also demonstrated.
They brought out the cat from the movie Cats and Dogs. The cat was sitting on a table, with five (!) people underneath it, each controlling an appendage (everything but the head and neck). The actual puppeteer's performance was recorded. The main computer/control mechanism was not to be seen. The cat performed a song, which I guess was in the movie (but since I refuse to see the movie, I can't know this for sure).
It was really cool. The cat's head and neck was controlled by the "recorded" performance, and he was belting it out like a real broadway singer.
Then the curtain pulled even farther out, and you saw that the performer was there. Singing and puppeteering. During the whole last verse of the song you saw both him and the cat. One moment in particular, the performer was really into his singing, and was leaning back and squinting his face, and you saw the cat having the exact same expression. So amazing.
(Kermit and Gonzo looked just fine, as we were watching them live on screen. But we we told that the performance can be recorded (SAVED, right?) and then the images can be rendered to look even more realistic. I personally was surprised, cause they looked perfectly acceptable to my eyes. Not to mention the backgrounds and clothing that can be added... One other thing this system makes possible: Puppeteers could be spread across the country, but perform their characters on the same screen, in all/just one of those locations. Wow.)
To see a few pictures, go to MuppetCentral. Here's the specific page (get there by clicking on "Articles" in the left-hand toolbar and then "MuppetFest" towards the top right).
Click on "MuppetFest Photo Gallery", which pops up a new window. Choose "Day Two" from the drop down, and then go about fifteen pictures forward. The first picture of note is the cat on the table. The next four or five pictures show the animitronic cat and then the virtual Kermit and Gonzo.
Here's a search on Google that shows a bit more information: http://www.google.com/search?q=henson+virtual+pupp eteering&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0.
We are so sorry for your loss. Your father was a truly wonderful and inspirational person to us all. He will be sorely missed.
Please feel free to send us every photo you and your family have ever taken, and we will gladly (for free) eliminate your father's image from each.
We only hope that this small token will help you make it through these difficult times.
Sincerely,
Your Caring Friends at Kodak (c 2002-2003)
Note: The movie assumes--I do too--that you can clone a human in two hours, and they'll have exactly the same memories/thoughts/soul/physical characteristics of the original, as well as be exactly the same age. At least no more than two hours younger :' )...
- - - - -
If your child had a terminal illness--three weeks to live, say, and you could choose to clone them with everything except the illness, would you? Would you kill the original today, or let them die naturally?
What if it were terminal, but they had five years to live? What if they were generally healthy, but had their arms and legs chopped off in an industrial accident? What if only one of their arms were taken off, but they were a concert pianist? What if they had one of their fingers mildly disfigured, but enough to affect their piano playing career?
What are the boundaries (ethically and legally) declaring when a child should live as is, and when the original can be killed, and then cloned?
If things such as this are supposed to be determined "in the interest of the child", can it ever be decided to kill and then duplicate that child?
- - - - -
Imagine coming home, and someone has duplicated your child, so now there are ten of them watching Pokemon, when you arrive home from work.
What if you could not tell the difference between real and clones? Would you randomly choose one of them and have the rest killed/adopted/relocated to Mars/whatever?
What if you could tell the difference between real and clone?
Either way, if your child's "soul" truly exists in all ten children, how would you deal with the hurt of those other nine, when choosing only one?
- - - - -
If, as at Re-Pet (get a copy of your pet, three hours after it dies), they can "tailor the fur color to your furniture or wallpaper", or even "soften the teeth". This implies, in humans, that they could make "stronger muscles" or even "tougher skin", and effectively make a superhuman, and duplicate it into a super-army.
This seems like it could be the biggest military threat the world has ever seen. Wouldn't other countries get trigger-twitchy about it?
- - - - -
Homosexuals--the non-closeted kind, at least--know they are homosexual. But they, many would argue, certainly did not choose to be so. We all know homosexuals are prejudiced against, and are a long way from being considered legally equal to heterosexuals.
On the other hand, clones (most likely) did not choose to be a clone, and in many cases will never even know that they are one! Despite this, it seems very probable for a whole new prejudice to happen. At least on the lines of black slavery, jews in the holocaust and homosexuality. Perhaps even unprecedented.
- - - - -
Cloning has parallels with Time Travel, and even rivals the god-like power implied by traveling back in time.
Let's say a bad guy had the power to clone at will. In the movie, Dr. Whatevershisname refuses to clone any longer. His wife was a five-year clone, and died a horrible death, which turned his thinking around. Because of this, he tells his boss, Druker, that he quits.
Druker says "I can't let you do that. First I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to clone you, with a synchording (complete picture of the contents of the brain) taken two months ago, before you were ever against cloning. Everything will continue like this conversation never happened."
As soon as someone has a thought you don't like, you kill them, and reproduce them from a week-old synchording, effectively erasing that "bad" thought. Amazing, god-like power.
- - - - -
Just a mistake I noticed in the movie: When Arnold was originally cloned (and awoke in the taxi, at the mall), he also had a copy of his keys! They cloned the keys, too?! :' )
- - - - -
Killing your clone is legal. What if a clone, thinking they are the real, kills the (actually) real one?
- - - - -
Here are some links of interest:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Biology/Genetics/Clon ing/Human_Cloning/
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=cloning
However, the official help documentation that comes with Wrapster has this paragraph in it. He/She probably made a mistake in writing this paragraph...opening themselves up to a lot of criticism, and such.
Here is an example of how Wrapster can be used to share ANY files you choose on the Napster network: Let's say a friend of yours has a copy of Win2K still zipped up from when (s)he first downloaded it from an IRC server. It's probably about 44 files in total, each of them being about 5 megs in size. Your friend simply runs Wrapster and creates a new archive with it. Then (s)he adds the 40-something or so files to the Wrapster archive and places it in their shared MP3 folder. You connect to the Napster network and search for either "Win2K" or the special bitrate that Wrapster uses to "encode" its files and low and behold it will appear in your search window. All you have to do now to get your copy of Win2K is download it just like any other legitimate MP3 file and when it's finally saved to your harddrive, just load up a copy of Wrapster and extract that operating system goodness.
Heck if the creator of the program anticipates that a primary use for this program will be to get Windows 2000... He's pretty much the apitome of the user population, those that will use this type of technology primarily for illegal stuff.
Now, this does not say that I won't use it for illegal stuff ( :' ), but as far as protecting the technology from lawsuits (as far as possible, anyway), this probably doesn't help much...