H.264 is a free standard in most of the world. That's the point: why should the rest of us suffer from USAs bad laws?
Because the idea behind open standards is that they must be equally available to everyone, without exceptions. Personally, I find this notion of openness worth pursuing, and will gladly sacrifice some convenience for the benefit of the folks across the ocean.
It's been done many times, not just in simulation but in real robots. See, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZf8fR1SmNY . Learning basic movement, or learning to navigate in a maze, without knowing what your available effectors do, but being guided by some kind of reward signal, are problems commonly solved by "reinforcement learning" techniques. The "Q-learning" instance demonstrated in the above video may seem brute force at first, as it begins with random exploration, but as it progresses, it focuses on "good" actions and hopefully converges towards an "optimal policy".
It certainly looks from the excerpt that you are right. I stand corrected.
But I would like to add that it is up to the copyright owners to decide whether to pursue an infringement. So unless the x264 authors have a problem with others distributing their software when it is otherwise forbidden by patent law, this shouldn't be a problem in practice.
Of course, since the redistributors are forbidden to do so by patent law, they are additionally liable to the patent holders, who don't necessarily have good intentions.
I don't believe this is the case. Doesn't the GPL say that so long as *you* own patents covering GPL software, and if you are *also* distributing said software, then you must not assert these patents against anyone you distribute it to, otherwise you lose the license?
By your logic you wouldn't be able to distribute any GPL software in the US, because any program is very likely covered by at least one software patent that's not owned by you.
If a counterfeit chip is used in a piece of location reference equipment and then fails because it doesn't meet the original's rated specs, then this could lead to an accident if used, for example, on a boat. There is nobody who would seriously want to use counterfeit chips, but you might not even know you're using them, which is different from smoking, where you have all the information about the risk and make a conscious decision (or maybe not, if you're addicted).
I remember from when I used to play Eurofighter 2000, that plotting a route at a higher altitude saved fuel, probably thanks to lesser air density. I always assumed that this is the reason. Also, higher is safer, because you have more potential energy that you can spend to reach an emergency destination in case something goes wrong. But I'm only guessing here, and know nothing of any legal or procedural reasons.
You have come to the conclusion that killing isn't productive based on biased evidence. So far, resources here on Earth have been practically unlimited for us humans, such as living space, food, and energy sources. I think you will agree with me that once there are not enough resources to go around, killing becomes *very* productive. I think what Hawking is trying to point out, is that aliens wouldn't be travelling across space pointlessly. If they spend a lot of time and energy to actually travel to our parts, a likely reason for doing so might be that they want to find resources they need for survival. If they need something that only planets such as Earth can provide, then they wouldn't hesitate to reap what they can, even if it means doing so at the expense of the human race. If the aliens so advanced, they will probably not find great value in yet another species of intelligent monkeys that happen to live there.
My 15.1" thinkpad T61 has a 1680x1050 screen, which is around 130dpi. I've fallen in love with it and don't want to go back. I do a lot of programming and the smooth fonts look absolutely beautiful.
You do know that the "fetch more comments" feature of slashdot uses javascript?
I for one have been made painfully aware that it uses javascript when I followed a link and pressed the 'back' button, only to find all the comments gone. Hello javascript, goodbye plain-old-HTML usability.
I may have thoughtlessly reused the term from the poster who introduced it. I was trying to explain that his comment did actually make some sense to me and how I understood it. But I think the point remains that in academia scientists like to stick with "safe" research that will predictably give them results and an opportunity to publish more papers. This is why they might be described as a little closed-minded. Maybe if there were more serious scientists studying exotic and difficult topics (which might include some that are "crazy" or "paranormal"), we could make interesting discoveries, or at least become more certain that some phenomena don't exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent left
H.264 is a free standard in most of the world. That's the point: why should the rest of us suffer from USAs bad laws?
Because the idea behind open standards is that they must be equally available to everyone, without exceptions. Personally, I find this notion of openness worth pursuing, and will gladly sacrifice some convenience for the benefit of the folks across the ocean.
It's been done many times, not just in simulation but in real robots. See, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZf8fR1SmNY . Learning basic movement, or learning to navigate in a maze, without knowing what your available effectors do, but being guided by some kind of reward signal, are problems commonly solved by "reinforcement learning" techniques. The "Q-learning" instance demonstrated in the above video may seem brute force at first, as it begins with random exploration, but as it progresses, it focuses on "good" actions and hopefully converges towards an "optimal policy".
Sorry, there is no other explanation! Did you look at the date recently?
I say great that people saved $51B thanks to unauthorised copies. Imagine what they can spend it on instead!
Wow, that's useful. I normally do: f"ldt" (find", l: move one right, delete 'till ")
Truly, if there is life on Mars I think that will cause us to go there and rape it even sooner than otherwise.
Please, tell me you meant raze.
Please, tell me you meant raise.
I always compared airline passengers to cattle, but your analogy is better.
What's wrong with OpenJDK? Isn't it 95% the same code as Sun's Java?
Can you give us a diff between the two paragraphs so we don't have to play spot the differences? Thanks.
Don't you mean legal fiber? Morals being relative, sharing ordinarily encouraged, and all that.
It certainly looks from the excerpt that you are right. I stand corrected.
But I would like to add that it is up to the copyright owners to decide whether to pursue an infringement. So unless the x264 authors have a problem with others distributing their software when it is otherwise forbidden by patent law, this shouldn't be a problem in practice.
Of course, since the redistributors are forbidden to do so by patent law, they are additionally liable to the patent holders, who don't necessarily have good intentions.
Hey, that's unfair! You're meant to leave Grammar Nazi comments to other people!
I don't believe this is the case. Doesn't the GPL say that so long as *you* own patents covering GPL software, and if you are *also* distributing said software, then you must not assert these patents against anyone you distribute it to, otherwise you lose the license? By your logic you wouldn't be able to distribute any GPL software in the US, because any program is very likely covered by at least one software patent that's not owned by you.
If a counterfeit chip is used in a piece of location reference equipment and then fails because it doesn't meet the original's rated specs, then this could lead to an accident if used, for example, on a boat. There is nobody who would seriously want to use counterfeit chips, but you might not even know you're using them, which is different from smoking, where you have all the information about the risk and make a conscious decision (or maybe not, if you're addicted).
Or use youtube-dl.
*insert bland comment about
ah fuck it
I remember from when I used to play Eurofighter 2000, that plotting a route at a higher altitude saved fuel, probably thanks to lesser air density. I always assumed that this is the reason. Also, higher is safer, because you have more potential energy that you can spend to reach an emergency destination in case something goes wrong. But I'm only guessing here, and know nothing of any legal or procedural reasons.
You have come to the conclusion that killing isn't productive based on biased evidence. So far, resources here on Earth have been practically unlimited for us humans, such as living space, food, and energy sources. I think you will agree with me that once there are not enough resources to go around, killing becomes *very* productive. I think what Hawking is trying to point out, is that aliens wouldn't be travelling across space pointlessly. If they spend a lot of time and energy to actually travel to our parts, a likely reason for doing so might be that they want to find resources they need for survival. If they need something that only planets such as Earth can provide, then they wouldn't hesitate to reap what they can, even if it means doing so at the expense of the human race. If the aliens so advanced, they will probably not find great value in yet another species of intelligent monkeys that happen to live there.
Berkeley Software Distribution Masochism?
My 15.1" thinkpad T61 has a 1680x1050 screen, which is around 130dpi. I've fallen in love with it and don't want to go back. I do a lot of programming and the smooth fonts look absolutely beautiful.
It wasn't a bad movie, but the last scene took away a lot of the enjoyment for me. They didn't have to make it THAT obvious.
You do know that the "fetch more comments" feature of slashdot uses javascript?
I for one have been made painfully aware that it uses javascript when I followed a link and pressed the 'back' button, only to find all the comments gone. Hello javascript, goodbye plain-old-HTML usability.
Yeah, the scream like hell and then proceed to carpet bomb your freshly washed car... EVIL!
I may have thoughtlessly reused the term from the poster who introduced it. I was trying to explain that his comment did actually make some sense to me and how I understood it. But I think the point remains that in academia scientists like to stick with "safe" research that will predictably give them results and an opportunity to publish more papers. This is why they might be described as a little closed-minded. Maybe if there were more serious scientists studying exotic and difficult topics (which might include some that are "crazy" or "paranormal"), we could make interesting discoveries, or at least become more certain that some phenomena don't exist.