Lets just hope that such a gene is not patented by an evil company trying to get every last dollar out of their discovery. This could be a huge brakethrough for all mankind, if they (the government) would only let us do the proper research.
I dont know if this is because I live in Europen, but I dont think i ever downloaded a singel kernel (or patch) directly from kernel.org. For me, that site is always quite slow, 30K/sek top or so (The cable across the atlantic is a real bottleneck). I always use a good mirror, usually hosted by a university in Sweden, Finland or Germany, where I get higher download speeds (usually around 5-600KB/sek)
I've been using Linux since 1998, and my favorite mirrors are often faster than I am in finding out there's a new Kernel available.
I do have to agree though, that I rarely download patches. I have a reason for this though, I like to keep the old kernel tree for a while, if the new kernel is broken in some way that facilitates changing back to the old one. I value that, so I value full tarballs.
Another safe bet for a lawsuit would be iMySQL:)
A penguin is quite "Aqua" after all, are they not ?;)
Next generation of glasses ? :)
on
Bionic Eyes
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Looks to me like a brilliant joint venture between biology and technology. This first step is to see if we can provide some vision to blind people, or to enhance the vision of almost-blind people.
If we can get such things to work, we could be close to getting good night-vision enhancements for people with normal sight as well.
And the best thing... I dont really see how this technology could be abused. Many other implants and biotech research projects are accused of being too much sci-fi (stem cell research, organ transplants, organ growth etc). Some communities are having a hard time accepting those, because they see the risks that follows (ethical questions about life). But this seems to be more like improved glasses, and even the Pope are using those =)
Such problems have existed for quite a while. Hackings, Crackings, internet sniffing etc.
The real issue is not if you can.. but if you actually do use the information. Regardless of if it is available or not, it IS ILLEGAL. (Carding does give rather long prison times as well)
People had the chance to steel from other people for as long as mankind existed. This is just another form... perhaps a bit simpler though...
Well, perhaps it's just me but i tend to look at the version number of a program when i install it. Any opensource project with a 1.* (or higher) version number immediately gets my attention since they actually dared to go "stable". As long as they are developing the software, keep that visible in the version numbers. When they consider it stable and want a "release", make that visible in the version number as well.
Can it really be illegal to link to such stuff ? I mean.. what happens if someone searches on the Allmighty google and finds a terrorst link. Will the US shut down Google ?
Ofcourse they can demand the links are removed, but just turning the power switch seems a bit too drastic imho.
I just wonder how you'll convince the 13 year old kid to enable censorship on the cool movie he just rented. Are they going to tag this up with all DVD-players requiring social security number to verify your age ?
Well well, i guess it may be useful in some cases atleast, and it sounds like its quite simple to implement, just tag each "scene" in the movie with a "recommendated age tag" and skip those which are improper.
Try be inovative instead of just replicate ?
on
Linux on the Desktop
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This topic seems to come back over and over on slashdot. Continously, people try to say that "Linux is desktop ready". (Or in some cases they say its not ready, and thus treated like a flaimbait:-)
I dont really think this is the interresting issue to discuss. Whether Linux will be a good desktop environment/replacement for Windows2000 wont really rely on "Linux", but on all the apps that will run on linux. What i'm saying is simply that the Linux kernel has been "desktop ready" for a long time, its just the easy task of networking, supporting some common hardware, and not crash.
What IS the issue is what programs are available. Why do people choose to use Windows 2000 on the desktop ? Because they want to run the Windows OS ?.. Dont think so. People are looking for the programs that runs on Windows, like MS Office, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, Borland tools [add a long list here]. They simply look for a good platform to run their favorite software on.
The Open Source community has a little dilemma here, first they try to say "We can replace windows 2000" by providing products that can communicate with [major software company] products. Then they try to offer software that works just like those products they are trying to replace.. Why should someone want to use the copy when there's the original ? Of course you cannot provide an Office Suit for Linux that will always be 100 % compatible with MS Office, simply because even Microsoft cant:-).
The core issue is, dont try to walk your way to the desktop by making [almost as good] replicas of existing desktop software. Instead, offer something better! Something like a uniform word processor that uses the XML standard. Maybe use the same XML for spreadsheats, email programs, etc etc etc.
As long as we try to copy/replicate leading software we will always be one step behind. Why dont we take the lead and provide new things instead ?:-)
Mozilla is turning out to be a really good browser nowdays. I missed a few features in 0.9.3 though, mostly that it tends to crash while at java-intense pages, as well as encryption.
Hopefully these things have gotten better, it is quite annoying when the browser crashes:-(
If Mozilla is going to be able to compete with the major browsers, it (IMHO) has to be a lot more stable. I can cope with a page being rendered badly, but not with a browser crash. IE is still a lot more stable. Or.. perhaps it is just bad Java Runtime integration ?
Thanks anyway Mozilla team, i'm off to the download zone:-)
It is not really that strange (or at least I dont think so). What is the main reason things went down ?.. The lack of money... There's always lack of money, and I bet even NSA has to cut it's budget sometimes. So, if they leak some information about this to the public, they maybe hope to casue a public demand for more money to the NSA ?
If noone knows what they do, it's quite hard to motivate those huge sums of money sent into the organization. If people on the other hand knows what they are doing (fighting terrorism and other horrible crimes), then perhaps we could live with a few more taxdollars for the NSA. If they catch a bomber before he blows up a bunch of innocent people, thats worth quite a lot to me.
So... this is a bit like the big brother syndrome, NSA is reading my email. Well I dont really mind. I concider myself a normal citizen, i study computer science (MSc), pay my taxes and enjoy the society. If I send a mail to my friend Mr John Doe, and NSA has some AA (probably a neural net) scanning my mail for "bomb", "saddam" or "stalin", well fine. Dont think they actually have people reading all your private loveletters:-)
What I'm trying to say is, they probably leaked this to make people understand what they are doing, why they are doing it, and that they need more money.
Correct me if i'm wrong.
How does this affect the recent discussions about Moore's law ? There were doubts it would not hold for much longer. Are these nanotubes in the calculations ?
Well... this surely looks like another great step towards high performance computing!
That's quite an interresting thought... when you come to the video shop.. of course you can run out through the door without paying for the casette. Do you do that ?
People tend to be willing to pay for things they like, but also because they dont want to be criminals. They dont like paying overprices, and they dont like paying to small either (thats only annoying). But a dollar or three to be able to leave the evil polluting car in the garage and sit back and relax to a good video.
And.. ofcourse DVD is a lot better, but compared to VHS, a 500MB divx (or other high compression format) is a fair competitor. I cant count the nr of times I rent a VHS with annoyingly bad quality, flickering picture etc...
One of the things you often hear when talking about open-source software is "dont reinvent the wheel", ie dont do anything which is already done. Late research has found these stem cells, and if we can use them to manipulate the human body, why try to build some nanorobot in metal ? It is already there, we just have to find out exactly how it works.
The possibilities, if we just can figure them out, are enormous. You can create any kind of human cell out of those, the genetic code is all in there.
Bio-informatics is probably just in the very beginning of something huge. Once we gain full understanding of the human body we have the code to life itself. It sure is a thrilling thought:-)
I read through the abstract description of the MCAfee Patent. I find this a bit interresting...
... the user directs the Internet browser to a Internet clinical services provider web site computer and logs in to the site using an identifier and a secure password...
Does this mean... that if i dont go there with an internet browser, i "worked around" the patent ? Lets take Microsoft and their.NET software... If I'm not totally wrong here, the idea there is to provide these types of services. You run programs of the servers, and maybe pay per use. So, Microsoft just integrates a.NET browser, (instead of an internet browser), a client software that can search the MS.NET for.NET applications out there.
Or the open-source approach ? Use a peer2peer-style software. You start GnAppliTella, enter search for "word processor", and voila, you have a bunch of servers providing you with an online word processor. And.. since the patent seems to require some password authentication, what if you provide these online software services for free ?
What I'm trying to point out, is that this patent is only useful if you use an "internet browser". I dont really think the online future lies within the restrictions of a web browser of todays style. They are big, sometimes filled with advertisements, they crash, they have security flaws, etc etc etc. Perhaps this patent seems like a big deal right now, but my guess is that tomorrow will tell different.
The thing with testing things live is that the programmers are biased, they know what weaknesses there are, and they know what "is" working. This makes them a bad group to test.
This goes for every good software development team, external testing is VITAL in order to maintain quality. Try to make a good product, let the actual users test the product, help them submit improvement proposals/bug reports, and prepare to recode the whole thing:-)
... a 300 Mhz CPU clock, up to 192 4.8 GFLOPS CPUs or 1229 1.2 GFLOPS CPUs, and up to a terabyte of memory...
That's a lot of GFLOPS:-), and a LOT of Ram.
Im not an expert in CPU's but i've picked up a few things that maybe helps you.
There are several ways of doing a CPU fast. You can (the very popular way) increase the clock frequency, thus doing more operations per second. One hertz equals one "cpu instruction" (sometimes they takes more then one, depending on what kind they are). This is the popular way to make a CPU sellable, unexperienced PC buyers sometimes simply focuses on "How many MHZ does this harddrive has ?":-)
The second way is closely connected to this, simply make more then one instruction per each clock frequency. This is working in parallell, a more complicated solution that helps in some types of operations, but not others. Some problems are not good for parallelizing.
A CPU has something called a branch, [some have more then one, ie parallell processing] you can compare it to an assembly line in a modern factory. More pipes = parallell computing. For some reason, a short pipe [fewer operations until done] gives faster execution but lower clock frequencys, maybe because of heat or something. Could anyone fill me in here ? Anyhow, a cpu like the G4 [motorola/apple] has a rather short pipe, 4 or 5 steps. The P4 [intel] has a rather long one, 20 or so. This is why a P4 doesnt reach the same MHZ as the P4, but still can compete in raw computing power.
You can also increase performance in a CPU by making special instruction sets the programmer can call, and then optimize those instruction sets. The Pentium++ for example, is a rather simple processor wrapped among a huge amount of addon instruction sets, like MMX, SSE, SSE2 (and many many more) etc. The wrapper hardware-compiles these advanced CPU-calls into the basic instructions the core CPU actually can understand.
Hope I clearified somethings, and if I missed something or got something wrong, please correct me:-)
Hasn't this genre been played out yet?
Where's the innovation?
I fully agree with you. Quake [1] was a totally revolutionary game, that set a whole new standard, freelooks, gaming with mouse, network games to the large masses. Quake 2 followed up the success with a more advanced 3d engine, and some new features. Perhaps the ability to write mods (actionquake, ctf, tf) was what made Quake 2 great...
But Quake 3 ?.. what's that but just Quake2 in 32bit color with jumppads instead of ladders ? Dont get me wrong here, i admire what johnc does, and no game has executed so many bogomips on my cpu's as Quake2. I just hope Quake4 brings something more then just a bunch of new colors. I really would like Quake to be my first game of choice again:-)
I dont think there's any real need to worry about this yet. The Internet is a very new fenomena compared to many other media we have, say newspapers, books, tv etc. Things does get better with age, and the Internet will probably selfadjust to a suitable level.
What I mean is.. there's no need to panic because some things are not they way they should just now. Criticism on the internet often referes to bad/unsuitable things published to the masses.
As an example, today in a large swedish online newspaper, a reporter found a huge "scoop". He found out that one of the Universities of sweden was providing computer resources to swedish nazists. After a bit of research, it came out that the university was running an Irc-server (dalnet) where the nazis held "online-meetings".
Noone would consider it a scoop that a bunch of criminals phoned each other over the telephone network, or that they sent snailmail.
The Internet will get integrated into our everyday routines, and its use will get balanced to what it's good for.
And where's the problem with china being firewalled, isn't that all up to them ? I bet there are firewalls protecting western world internet resources against china as well...
Its quite a shame if they quit tribes. I really liked the new challenges that game offered, outdoor shoot-em-up in large teams with cool teamplay features.
Hope someone else picks up the thread, i'd like more of those "RTS-battlefield-simulator-FPS"-games:-), Especially for linux. Maybe something for Loke ?
Every game that is possible has been played before.
Chess is a finite game...
What's this ? Ever played a game of chess? Sure it is true that there's a finite number of squares, and for SOME of the pieces, there's a limited amount of games to play, like the peasants.
But think a bit more... all those pieces that can move forth and back again. They OBVIOUSLY creates an INFINITE amount of games, since they can move around and around and around.
It is a rather strange thought that the human mind can create something which is superior to itself.. sounds a bit like a paradox. Of course a computer can do more "raw calculations" than the human mind, but the brain is still superior in many ways.
One of those things are creativity. A human can very easilly come up with new ideas that has not yet been thought of. The brain can link things together in a way that a computer still (and probably never will be able to) cant do.
Anotherone is the ability to learn and adapt to unknown situations. A few days ago on/. there was a thread on writing an AI that should be able to cope with a very simple, yet unknown game. I bet most humans will be able the kick the crap out of those AI's, simply because the human brain is designed to adapt to new situations.
Regardless of how I see it, I see the human as the winner. Either we successfully create an ally that can help us, or we are still smarter. Just see the computer as an extention to the brain, and we are all winners:-)
The CD companies has been complaining for years about how.mp3 ruins their profits. Poor them. They just have to raise CD prices in order to retake the lost revenue that napster stole from them. I find it rather strange that even though there are alteast a few large record companies, all CD's cost about the same. A new "full-prize" cd is cost almost the same regardless of where I buy it, regardless of what record company released it.
Looks much alike the petrol industry, same products, same price. That's not good for the customers.
The online CD shops are often a little cheaper, but then you have to pay for the freight anyway. Nothing won there unless you buy a huge amount of CD's.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets just hope that such a gene is not patented by an evil company trying to get every last dollar out of their discovery. This could be a huge brakethrough for all mankind, if they (the government) would only let us do the proper research.
I dont know if this is because I live in Europen, but I dont think i ever downloaded a singel kernel (or patch) directly from kernel.org. For me, that site is always quite slow, 30K/sek top or so (The cable across the atlantic is a real bottleneck). I always use a good mirror, usually hosted by a university in Sweden, Finland or Germany, where I get higher download speeds (usually around 5-600KB/sek)
I've been using Linux since 1998, and my favorite mirrors are often faster than I am in finding out there's a new Kernel available.
I do have to agree though, that I rarely download patches. I have a reason for this though, I like to keep the old kernel tree for a while, if the new kernel is broken in some way that facilitates changing back to the old one. I value that, so I value full tarballs.
Another safe bet for a lawsuit would be iMySQL :)
;)
A penguin is quite "Aqua" after all, are they not ?
Looks to me like a brilliant joint venture between biology and technology. This first step is to see if we can provide some vision to blind people, or to enhance the vision of almost-blind people.
If we can get such things to work, we could be close to getting good night-vision enhancements for people with normal sight as well.
And the best thing... I dont really see how this technology could be abused. Many other implants and biotech research projects are accused of being too much sci-fi (stem cell research, organ transplants, organ growth etc). Some communities are having a hard time accepting those, because they see the risks that follows (ethical questions about life). But this seems to be more like improved glasses, and even the Pope are using those =)
Such problems have existed for quite a while. Hackings, Crackings, internet sniffing etc.
...
The real issue is not if you can.. but if you actually do use the information. Regardless of if it is available or not, it IS ILLEGAL. (Carding does give rather long prison times as well)
People had the chance to steel from other people for as long as mankind existed. This is just another form... perhaps a bit simpler though
Was jumping from 0.12.x to 1.0 such a good idea?
Well, perhaps it's just me but i tend to look at the version number of a program when i install it. Any opensource project with a 1.* (or higher) version number immediately gets my attention since they actually dared to go "stable". As long as they are developing the software, keep that visible in the version numbers. When they consider it stable and want a "release", make that visible in the version number as well.
If its "stable", its 1.0 imho =)
Can it really be illegal to link to such stuff ? I mean.. what happens if someone searches on the Allmighty google and finds a terrorst link. Will the US shut down Google ?
Ofcourse they can demand the links are removed, but just turning the power switch seems a bit too drastic imho.
A girlfriend of course, all geeks want those !
Well well, i guess it may be useful in some cases atleast, and it sounds like its quite simple to implement, just tag each "scene" in the movie with a "recommendated age tag" and skip those which are improper.
I dont really think this is the interresting issue to discuss. Whether Linux will be a good desktop environment/replacement for Windows2000 wont really rely on "Linux", but on all the apps that will run on linux.
What i'm saying is simply that the Linux kernel has been "desktop ready" for a long time, its just the easy task of networking, supporting some common hardware, and not crash.
What IS the issue is what programs are available. Why do people choose to use Windows 2000 on the desktop ? Because they want to run the Windows OS ?.. Dont think so. People are looking for the programs that runs on Windows, like MS Office, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, Borland tools [add a long list here]. They simply look for a good platform to run their favorite software on.
The Open Source community has a little dilemma here, first they try to say "We can replace windows 2000" by providing products that can communicate with [major software company] products. Then they try to offer software that works just like those products they are trying to replace.. Why should someone want to use the copy when there's the original ? Of course you cannot provide an Office Suit for Linux that will always be 100 % compatible with MS Office, simply because even Microsoft cant
The core issue is, dont try to walk your way to the desktop by making [almost as good] replicas of existing desktop software. Instead, offer something better! Something like a uniform word processor that uses the XML standard. Maybe use the same XML for spreadsheats, email programs, etc etc etc.
As long as we try to copy/replicate leading software we will always be one step behind. Why dont we take the lead and provide new things instead ?
Hopefully these things have gotten better, it is quite annoying when the browser crashes
If Mozilla is going to be able to compete with the major browsers, it (IMHO) has to be a lot more stable. I can cope with a page being rendered badly, but not with a browser crash. IE is still a lot more stable. Or.. perhaps it is just bad Java Runtime integration ?
Thanks anyway Mozilla team, i'm off to the download zone
If noone knows what they do, it's quite hard to motivate those huge sums of money sent into the organization. If people on the other hand knows what they are doing (fighting terrorism and other horrible crimes), then perhaps we could live with a few more taxdollars for the NSA. If they catch a bomber before he blows up a bunch of innocent people, thats worth quite a lot to me.
So
What I'm trying to say is, they probably leaked this to make people understand what they are doing, why they are doing it, and that they need more money.
Correct me if i'm wrong.
Well... this surely looks like another great step towards high performance computing!
That's quite an interresting thought... when you come to the video shop.. of course you can run out through the door without paying for the casette. Do you do that ?
People tend to be willing to pay for things they like, but also because they dont want to be criminals. They dont like paying overprices, and they dont like paying to small either (thats only annoying). But a dollar or three to be able to leave the evil polluting car in the garage and sit back and relax to a good video.
And.. ofcourse DVD is a lot better, but compared to VHS, a 500MB divx (or other high compression format) is a fair competitor. I cant count the nr of times I rent a VHS with annoyingly bad quality, flickering picture etc...
The possibilities, if we just can figure them out, are enormous. You can create any kind of human cell out of those, the genetic code is all in there.
Bio-informatics is probably just in the very beginning of something huge. Once we gain full understanding of the human body we have the code to life itself. It sure is a thrilling thought
Does this mean... that if i dont go there with an internet browser, i "worked around" the patent ? Lets take Microsoft and their .NET software... If I'm not totally wrong here, the idea there is to provide these types of services. You run programs of the servers, and maybe pay per use. So, Microsoft just integrates a .NET browser, (instead of an internet browser), a client software that can search the MS.NET for .NET applications out there.
Or the open-source approach ? Use a peer2peer-style software. You start GnAppliTella, enter search for "word processor", and voila, you have a bunch of servers providing you with an online word processor. And.. since the patent seems to require some password authentication, what if you provide these online software services for free ?
What I'm trying to point out, is that this patent is only useful if you use an "internet browser". I dont really think the online future lies within the restrictions of a web browser of todays style. They are big, sometimes filled with advertisements, they crash, they have security flaws, etc etc etc. Perhaps this patent seems like a big deal right now, but my guess is that tomorrow will tell different.
This goes for every good software development team, external testing is VITAL in order to maintain quality. Try to make a good product, let the actual users test the product, help them submit improvement proposals/bug reports, and prepare to recode the whole thing :-)
That's a lot of GFLOPS :-), and a LOT of Ram.
Im not an expert in CPU's but i've picked up a few things that maybe helps you.
There are several ways of doing a CPU fast. You can (the very popular way) increase the clock frequency, thus doing more operations per second. One hertz equals one "cpu instruction" (sometimes they takes more then one, depending on what kind they are). This is the popular way to make a CPU sellable, unexperienced PC buyers sometimes simply focuses on "How many MHZ does this harddrive has ?" :-)
The second way is closely connected to this, simply make more then one instruction per each clock frequency. This is working in parallell, a more complicated solution that helps in some types of operations, but not others. Some problems are not good for parallelizing.
A CPU has something called a branch, [some have more then one, ie parallell processing] you can compare it to an assembly line in a modern factory. More pipes = parallell computing. For some reason, a short pipe [fewer operations until done] gives faster execution but lower clock frequencys, maybe because of heat or something. Could anyone fill me in here ? Anyhow, a cpu like the G4 [motorola/apple] has a rather short pipe, 4 or 5 steps. The P4 [intel] has a rather long one, 20 or so. This is why a P4 doesnt reach the same MHZ as the P4, but still can compete in raw computing power.
You can also increase performance in a CPU by making special instruction sets the programmer can call, and then optimize those instruction sets. The Pentium++ for example, is a rather simple processor wrapped among a huge amount of addon instruction sets, like MMX, SSE, SSE2 (and many many more) etc. The wrapper hardware-compiles these advanced CPU-calls into the basic instructions the core CPU actually can understand.
Hope I clearified somethings, and if I missed something or got something wrong, please correct me :-)
I fully agree with you. Quake [1] was a totally revolutionary game, that set a whole new standard, freelooks, gaming with mouse, network games to the large masses. Quake 2 followed up the success with a more advanced 3d engine, and some new features. Perhaps the ability to write mods (actionquake, ctf, tf) was what made Quake 2 great...
But Quake 3 ?.. what's that but just Quake2 in 32bit color with jumppads instead of ladders ? :-)
Dont get me wrong here, i admire what johnc does, and no game has executed so many bogomips on my cpu's as Quake2. I just hope Quake4 brings something more then just a bunch of new colors. I really would like Quake to be my first game of choice again
What I mean is.. there's no need to panic because some things are not they way they should just now. Criticism on the internet often referes to bad/unsuitable things published to the masses.
As an example, today in a large swedish online newspaper, a reporter found a huge "scoop". He found out that one of the Universities of sweden was providing computer resources to swedish nazists. After a bit of research, it came out that the university was running an Irc-server (dalnet) where the nazis held "online-meetings".
Noone would consider it a scoop that a bunch of criminals phoned each other over the telephone network, or that they sent snailmail.
The Internet will get integrated into our everyday routines, and its use will get balanced to what it's good for.
And where's the problem with china being firewalled, isn't that all up to them ? I bet there are firewalls protecting western world internet resources against china as well...
Its quite a shame if they quit tribes. I really liked the new challenges that game offered, outdoor shoot-em-up in large teams with cool teamplay features. :-), Especially for linux. Maybe something for Loke ?
Hope someone else picks up the thread, i'd like more of those "RTS-battlefield-simulator-FPS"-games
Chess is a finite game...
What's this ? Ever played a game of chess? Sure it is true that there's a finite number of squares, and for SOME of the pieces, there's a limited amount of games to play, like the peasants.
But think a bit more... all those pieces that can move forth and back again. They OBVIOUSLY creates an INFINITE amount of games, since they can move around and around and around.
One of those things are creativity. A human can very easilly come up with new ideas that has not yet been thought of. The brain can link things together in a way that a computer still (and probably never will be able to) cant do.
Anotherone is the ability to learn and adapt to unknown situations. A few days ago on
Regardless of how I see it, I see the human as the winner. Either we successfully create an ally that can help us, or we are still smarter. Just see the computer as an extention to the brain, and we are all winners :-)
I find it rather strange that even though there are alteast a few large record companies, all CD's cost about the same. A new "full-prize" cd is cost almost the same regardless of where I buy it, regardless of what record company released it.
Looks much alike the petrol industry, same products, same price. That's not good for the customers.
The online CD shops are often a little cheaper, but then you have to pay for the freight anyway. Nothing won there unless you buy a huge amount of CD's.
http://www.robocup.org/