In the aftermath of the american revolution, the founders of the american republic argued long and hard on how it was to be set up, and how to get it right. It was a vital national debate. How to do it right.
Someone has said that the result was "designed by geniuses to be run by idiots". And I can agree, despite all of the idiots (even those of the current generation), it has done fairly well, considering.
The Internet has not had any such saving grace. While the underpinings have been designed by geniuses, it has all to often presumed a certain amount of maturity and education and responsibility.
This has not worked well.
There has not been the same level of responsibility in the social engineering of the net, and now we have what we have. It has not been designed to be "run by idiots". And it winds up with all kinds of idiocies.
As a famous sig line has said, "Oh my God! It's Full of Spam!"
The Internet Community did alright up until the infamous "September that never ended" - then it was overwhelmed.
The only way to even get attention now would be to have an "Internet Strike" or something similar. A shutdown of all of the routers.
But I do not know that it would do any good, if it would not raise the ire of the luddites who depend on their email as they complain about the corrupting influences of technology. Never mind the calls for an investigation by fedral alphabet agencies, etc. because of the disruption of commerce, and other bothersome details.
Maybe we need another protocol, similar to http, but under a different set of rules, that can be created as a safe haven.
I have heard of several options, but I am not sure of any of them.
"This record is sold by the National Phonograh Co Ltd upon the condition that it may not be sold or offered for use by the original or any subsequent purchaser (except by an authorized
factor to an authorized retail dealer) for less than 1/6 each. Upon any breach of said condition
the license to use and vend this record implied from such sale immediately terminates."
Obviously, it was a mechanism that you could use to make sure you did not resell your copy at a loss. (I wonder how they enforced it as far as private sales go.)
Obviously, this was intended to cover retail shops. But it still makes you wonder....
(side note: Raymond Scott invented the sequencer, and was a teacher of Robert Moog. His novelty tunes were used widely by Carl Stalling for themes in many Warner Bros cartoons.)
Elma High School
360-482-2822
360-482-3121
Fax: 360-482-1200
1235 Elma-Monte Road
Elma, Washington 98541
further info from the website (may be old):
Superintendent Bill Myhr
Business Manager Michele Young
Director of Special Services Lois Parks
Director of Vocational Services Bob Pattee
Director of Athletics Steve Bridge
Maintenance Supervisor J.D. Boling
Payroll and Personnel Officer Kay Rotter
Administrative Assistant Mike Jones
Office Manager Doris Keeton
Well it at least shows some sense and some promise:
The landing site has been chosen for the European spacecraft that will touch down on the surface of Mars in 2003.
Beagle 2, which is being built by UK scientists and engineers, will land on Isidis Planitia, a large flat region that overlies the boundary between the ancient highlands and the northern plains of the Red Planet.
The area appears to be a sedimentary basin where traces of life could have been preserved - if it ever developed on Mars.
"This is the best site given the landing constraints and scientific aims of Beagle 2," said John Bridges, from the Natural History Museum, London, who has been assessing possible landing sites.
Detailed scrutiny of images of the surface suggests that the number of rocks on the surface is not large enough to threaten a safe landing. The altitude of the site is also relatively low, which means the atmosphere should be thick enough to allow parachutes to brake the lander's descent effectively.
I just hope that the Martian Defense Force doesn't take this one out like it did the earlier ones
The days could certainly go to binary segments to whaever degree of resolution you needed.
The only problem is the years, if you insist on calibrating it to the seasons. 256 days plus 109 = 365. I am not sure how you would do this
But if you where in a space craft, then who would care? and you could calibrate the days to whatever length you needed for maximum comfort.
I remember crossing the atlantic from europe to america on a ship. The captain was cool enough to set the ship's clock back one hour late at night (vs during the work day) (you set the clock back one hour for each time zone)
I never felt so well rested and relaxed as after a week of 25 hour days with an extra full hour of sleep every night. it was wonderful.
While VC3 acknowledged that Moulton's port scan did no direct harm, the company argued that the time spent investigating the event was a form of damage. "If somebody does some type of attack, and you are a good service provider, you spend all your time verifying that it did not cause a significant problem," says Hogue. "The time that it takes to do all that searching is the damage that we were claiming."
But it pays to know that while they lost on this particular point, harrassing someone by multiple ports scans probably is not a good idea.
I bet he is trying to figure out the cheat codes so he can beat George Bush in the next Middle East War.
Seriously, with the import restrictions, the most advanced stuff he has may be the equal to a 486. (on a broad basis) Except for the stuff he smuggles.
so something like PS2 may have superior capability. Looks like he is trying to make a crude cluster of the units:
Two government agencies are investigating the purchases because the PlayStations can be bundled together into a sort of crude super-computer and used for a variety of military applications, say intelligence sources....
What could Iraq do with such a primitive super-computer constructed with Sony PlayStation 2s?...
Applications for this system are potentially frightening," said an intelligence source. "One expert I spoke with estimated that an integrated bundle of 12-15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV -- a pilotless aircraft."
Iraq has been working on development of UAVs for several years as a possible platform for delivering chemical weapons, say intelligence experts.
Bundled PlayStation computers could also be used to calculate ballistic data for long-range missiles, or in the design of nuclear weapons, they add. Iraq has long had difficulty calculating the potential yield of nuclear devices -- a critical requirement in designing such weapons. Networking these computers might provide a method for correcting this deficiency, said one intelligence source.
So, why doesn't Saddam Hussein simply buy computers or workstations from friendly nations or on the black market? While this is a possibility, current United Nations sanctions prohibit the sale or transfer of virtually all types of computer hardware and technology to Iraq. However, computer-based video game systems -- like the PlayStation 2 -- are not included in the ban. Iraq's scientists and engineers have apparently found a convenient loophole in the U.N. sanctions.
Defense experts say it is also relatively easy to smuggle PlayStations into Iraq, since customs inspectors don't view toys as potential military weapons. Jordanian and Turkish inspectors rarely examine "small" shipments under 100 pounds, making it possible to send large numbers of PlayStations into Iraq without arousing suspicion.
maybe we can send him all of those old IBM PS2s filling up our land fills. there has got to be a use for them someplace.
I appreciate having the PDF, but the file sizes are a little large. 9+ meg and 5+ meg.
What about the poor people on dial up?
Seriously though, the papers are lush with detail, and are worth downloading. There are many photos, and other illustrations. Someone took the time to do this right.
too bad there isn't an html version online someplace. I think Acrobat has some options to make that kind of conversion. (?)
In this section, we discuss the Java subset that students will be expected to master to take the AP CS exam. We also mention a number of features that are potentially relevant in a CS1/2 course but that the AP CS exam does not cover.
. . .
Keep in mind that this subset is intended for the AP CS exam. The purpose of the subset is to enable the designers of the AP CS exam to formulate questions relating to the AP CS syllabus. The AP CS subset is not intended as a prescription for a computer science course. We expect courses to cover language features that go well beyond this subset. For example, many instructors will choose to cover applets, graphics or user interfaces. However, none of these topics are tested on the AP CS exam.
To help students with test preparation, the AP CS subset is purposefully kept small.
We omitted language constructs and library features that did not add significant functionality and that can, for the formulation of exam questions, easily be expressed by other mechanisms in the subset.
For example, inner classes or the StringBuffer class are not essential for the formulation of exam questions -- the exam uses mundane alternatives that can be easily understood by students. Of course, these constructs add significant value for programming.
Omission of a feature from the AP CS subset does not imply any judgment that the feature is inferior or not worthwhile.
etc.
worth looking at just to see what they'll be looking for
Most of what follows is NOT limited to a specific topic, but is more related to how to think and how to evaluate data.
Probably, the child prodigy (anyone, actually) should be able to
conduct research in multiple venues (includes non-internet resources)
Learn how to quickly master the essence of a topic (for example, a language) With technology changing and advancing so quickly, this is important
learn how to identify the essential axioms of a subject. This is fundamental to deciding truth or untruth of a topic. Most people are completely rational except for the data that they use to think with. This is the old saw of "Garbage In, Garbage Out"
Learn to be able to spot blind spots and how to handle them. This is related to the above. It is also related to incomplete data on a subject.
Identify factors that lead to blind spots, slow downs in learning, etc. For example, it is harder to remember something that you do not understand thoroughly. But since it take time to understand something thoroughly, most people skip this. Therefore, their understanding is incomplete, they have faulty data to compute with, and they don't remember much.
Know how what you know applies to the real world
Encourage curiosity, including a broad range on interests, including culture and arts from around the planet.
Be able to use what you know to a level of competancy. A Professional attitude is encouraged
I remember the promise of the old Amigas, and it is a shame that they never took hold of the market like some other products.
I understand that there is a substantial differance between the latest incarnations and the earlier machines. This is understandable because of the dramatic differance in the performance of todays machines vs those of a few years back.
I have mixed feelings about "Yet Another Unix Clone", and so I am happy to see the traditional line being advanced.
Yet I wonder if they could develop this to take advantage of hardware advances.
Amiga on an Imac, for example? or is this truly laffable?
I first heard of these a couple years ago on late night radio. Typically you could get them from places like the C. Crane company.
Of course, these were very popular among certain folks who were stocking up for the Y2K crisis last year. (Everyone who remembers the end of Western Civilization, raise your hands).
Actually not a bad technology, but a little pricey if you do not have a real need for it.
C. Crane company has some cool things, although they are more oriented towards the radio geeks
I remember these things having been around for a while. That certainly doesn't diminish the potential of the technique.
the main idea is that intelligence is something that *emerges* from the combination of the various behaviors. There is certainly some truth to that. But I am not altogether convinced that this is the full picture.
I recall some articles about the potential data density of the brain. For example, the brain has an extraordinary high level of magnetite (?) in the cells. This makes the nuerons sensitive the magnetic fields. Since there is a high level of electic activity in the brain, this raises all kinds of subtle questions about the influence to nuerons of magnetism.
there are a number of similar questions in the field of nuerology, but I do not have them at my finger tips
I have way too much heavy reading to catch up on. This part was interesting, and something I have agreed with for awhile.
MOGLEN: If you want to gain knowledge, you need to know these things. If you want to convey knowledge, if you want to help other people learn, you have to help them to know these things. If you want to be living in contact with the real issues, you're going to have to know enough about the technology to see where the real issues are. If we wrote down on a list the eight or the ten most important political issues in this society at the moment, my guess is that three or four of them would be issues that you can't understand, let alone have a good opinion about, unless you know a good deal about technology. If we wrote down the issues that we feel most nervous about, of those ten we'd probably find that three or four are places where we think that people are getting rushed out of the question already, because the guys who know are racing to lock it up beforeeverybody else figures out what's going on.
Now, in an environment where both of those things that I have just said are true, civic duty is to learn what you need to learn in order to make the decisions in a democratic society in a grown-up way. That's the same civic duty that Thomas Jefferson or George Washington believed in. The people who think that we need to have a democratic society are always people who are worried about whether the voters who control the society know enough, and it's not a question of taking power away from them, it's a question of helping them to become knowledgeable and engaged. We've got a duty to try and explain this stuff clearly. We've got a duty to learn these technologies so that we can ourselves participate, and most importantly we have a duty to look at the educational system to find out whether it teaches people who grow up in the society what they need to know.
given the quality of the leadership we have these days (check out your local politicians) we have a long way to go.
I think the root of the problem is that we tend to organize ourselves into tribes. Then people in the tribe are our friends, and people outside are our
enemies. I think it happens like this: Someone uses Perl, and likes it, and then they use it some more. But then something strange happens. They
start to identify themselves with Perl, as if Perl were part of their body, or vice versa. They're part of the Big Perl Tribe. They want other people to join the Tribe. If they meet someone who doesn't like Perl, it's an insult to the Tribe and a personal affront to them.
I think that explains the reaction of the folks who wrote to me to complain about my unfairness to Pascal. I think maybe they took it personally, and felt that I was being unfair to them.
Getting yourself confused with a programming language isn't a sane thing to do, but a lot of people do it, including people from our community.
I'm not the only person who suspects this. This section's title, ``Drink the Kool-Aid,'' comes from a great talk by Nat Torkington from last year's YAPC. The title of Nat's talk was ``Be an advocate, not an asshole.'' Nat's talk has a slide on why people do advocacy. People he asked gave a few different answers, which he mentions. But then he says: ``My secret suspicion is that a lot of third-party advocacy is just: Perl is the way and the light, man, so drink the Kool-Aid and ascend to programmer heaven.'' I wouldn't have put it that way, but I have the same suspicion.
Now there is much more to it, but this gets to the nut of the problem very well.
But then, we would have to be rational. We would have to be able to see the other guys point of view without going into spasms of mental constipation. No more knee jerk reactions.
even those guys over there, who we call the spawn of Satan, they might have a point. Yes, THOSE guys.
After five weeks of legal noise (aka the US election mess, now this... (OUCH!)
All that aside, it looks like the justices of the supreme court are going to have to try to be impartial and come up with a way to resolve the contradictions.
I haven't had enough coffee yet to comment intelligently on the matter this morning, but I am reminded of the old Vorlon saying: Understanding is a three edged sword. (This was explained as My view, My Opponents view, and the Truth).
Unfortunately, I do not think we will get all of the details of the various vested interests in this anytime real soon.
The crystal is blurry, and there are too many shadows.
Given the demonstrated preferance of Microsoft to enhance their marketing at the expense of quality technology, you can see where all of this is going.
But seriously, they may come up with something useful.
I just do not know if I can wait for version 5 of the product for it to be any good. (This based on the old saw of never buy version 1.0 of any product)
Also, regardless of the marketing spin, software rentals over the net are NOT my idea of a desirable product. I can imagine the tech support lines now:
"Sorry, but there is a problem with your account."
I can remember when Apple first came out with a computer that had some sort of speech capability built into it. I can remember this couple looking like children who had candy taken from them when they were told that "it was not ready for Star Trek" yet.
Bottomline, when it reaches some sort of Uber Utopian Ideal(tm), where there is no learning curve, when there is no effort needed to use it, when it does it all for you and anticipates your every need (including *those* needs too), then maybe software will not suck.
this sortof goes against the main premise of what it means to be a geeks or something.
It is a road to laziness and slavery of the mind due to incredible mental limpness. (We will do all of your thinking for you, etc.)
But it seem that this is something that certain Large Software Companies(tm) are aiming for.
The estimate up to 12,000 people we effected by the suit.
So before legal fees, this comes to just over 8 thousand dollars, each.
Now after the legal fees.... maybe two cents?
Never mind the ability to cash in on the stock options before MS stock price went into trip digits for a while.
There is a VERY interesting story here at the Register about how MS makes money off the microserfs via the stock options. To quote a small section:
Microsoft's game plan for making money from stock options is quite
simple. First, print some share certificates. Second, give out handfuls of stock options from time to time to keep the employees slaving away for at least 4.5 years until the shares vest. Third, Microsoft claims a tax rebate from the IRS when the employee takes up the shares and pays tax on them.
Microsoft gained $5.5 billion in "stock option income tax benefits" in fiscal 2000, meaning that it had a tax benefit against share options
that had been exercised (up nearly 80 per cent over the previous year). With corporate tax levels around 35 per cent, Microsoft effectively received an untaxed benefit of $16 billion. In practice,
Microsoft has no choice but to pay employees substantially in shares if it is to keep its present level of staffing, since if it had used cash in fiscal 2000 instead of shares, this would have increased the salary bill by $16 billion - more than Microsoft's net income, and thus
resulted in Microsoft making a loss of $7 billion.
The beauty of this system for Microsoft is that it did not have to spend anything to grant the options, but gained $2.25 billion (shown
as "common stock issued" in the cash flow) from what the employees have to pay to exercise the options. A line that should appear in Microsoft's accounts - but doesn't - is how much it saves
as a result of stock option dealing. The total can be worked out by adding three things together: $0.5 billion from put warrants; $5.5 billion from the income tax that employees had to pay to acquire the stock; and $2.25 billion that employees had to pay Microsoft for the stock, making a total of $8.25 billion or 88 per cent of Microsoft's net income of $9.5 billion in fiscal 2000.
Microsoft only made $5.8 billion on Windows, $4.9 billion on applications, and lost $1.5 billion on its consumer and other activities. Of course, Microsoft does not have to account for stock
option dealing in this way under the present accounting rules, but the benefit that Microsoft gets is clearly of very great importance - and
more than that received by any competitor. The provision for income tax in Microsoft's accounts was $4.9 billion, implying it would carry
forward a tax credit of $680 million. There appears to be no direct way of identifying the rebate (in effect a subsidy on non-US sales)
that Microsoft gets from the now-illegal foreign sales corporation scheme, but it must be considerable.
You see this with Books, where old editions of books loose their copyright after a certain year. This also happens in Music.
Problem is that the publishing companies have successfully lobbied time and again to extend copyrights well past the point of the original authors or their heirs profiting from them.
There are huge quantities of out of print books, some of which are very good, that should make it into the Gutenburg project, or something similar. But the original publishers hold on to the rights, and would rather that the old editions rot away to dust rather than have them become freely available online.
This is very similar to obsolete software, but applies to the broader cultural heritage.
If it has some possibility of commercial value, they will not give it away, ever.
And if it dis-appears, then it obviously had no commercial value.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone has said that the result was "designed by geniuses to be run by idiots". And I can agree, despite all of the idiots (even those of the current generation), it has done fairly well, considering.
The Internet has not had any such saving grace. While the underpinings have been designed by geniuses, it has all to often presumed a certain amount of maturity and education and responsibility.
This has not worked well.
There has not been the same level of responsibility in the social engineering of the net, and now we have what we have. It has not been designed to be "run by idiots". And it winds up with all kinds of idiocies.
As a famous sig line has said, "Oh my God! It's Full of Spam!"
The Internet Community did alright up until the infamous "September that never ended" - then it was overwhelmed.
The only way to even get attention now would be to have an "Internet Strike" or something similar. A shutdown of all of the routers.
But I do not know that it would do any good, if it would not raise the ire of the luddites who depend on their email as they complain about the corrupting influences of technology. Never mind the calls for an investigation by fedral alphabet agencies, etc. because of the disruption of commerce, and other bothersome details.
Maybe we need another protocol, similar to http, but under a different set of rules, that can be created as a safe haven.
I have heard of several options, but I am not sure of any of them.
Maybe we need another revolution?
Obviously, it was a mechanism that you could use to make sure you did not resell your copy at a loss. (I wonder how they enforced it as far as private sales go.)
Obviously, this was intended to cover retail shops. But it still makes you wonder....
The only probblem would be setting up for road shows. but for studio work, it would be great.
Maybe I can build me a wall of sound like Raymond Scott did.
(side note: Raymond Scott invented the sequencer, and was a teacher of Robert Moog. His novelty tunes were used widely by Carl Stalling for themes in many Warner Bros cartoons.)
http://www.eagles.edu/
Elma High School
360-482-2822
360-482-3121
Fax: 360-482-1200
1235 Elma-Monte Road
Elma, Washington 98541
further info from the website (may be old):
Superintendent Bill Myhr
Business Manager Michele Young
Director of Special Services Lois Parks
Director of Vocational Services Bob Pattee
Director of Athletics Steve Bridge
Maintenance Supervisor J.D. Boling
Payroll and Personnel Officer Kay Rotter
Administrative Assistant Mike Jones
Office Manager Doris Keeton
REMEMBER!
Use this Information for *good*, not evil!
;-)
;-)
The only problem is the years, if you insist on calibrating it to the seasons. 256 days plus 109 = 365. I am not sure how you would do this
But if you where in a space craft, then who would care? and you could calibrate the days to whatever length you needed for maximum comfort.
I remember crossing the atlantic from europe to america on a ship. The captain was cool enough to set the ship's clock back one hour late at night (vs during the work day) (you set the clock back one hour for each time zone)
I never felt so well rested and relaxed as after a week of 25 hour days with an extra full hour of sleep every night. it was wonderful.
Seriously, with the import restrictions, the most advanced stuff he has may be the equal to a 486. (on a broad basis) Except for the stuff he smuggles.
so something like PS2 may have superior capability. Looks like he is trying to make a crude cluster of the units:
maybe we can send him all of those old IBM PS2s filling up our land fills. there has got to be a use for them someplace.
What about the poor people on dial up?
Seriously though, the papers are lush with detail, and are worth downloading. There are many photos, and other illustrations. Someone took the time to do this right.
too bad there isn't an html version online someplace. I think Acrobat has some options to make that kind of conversion. (?)
to help clarify:
etc.worth looking at just to see what they'll be looking for
Probably, the child prodigy (anyone, actually) should be able to
I remember the promise of the old Amigas, and it is a shame that they never took hold of the market like some other products.
I understand that there is a substantial differance between the latest incarnations and the earlier machines. This is understandable because of the dramatic differance in the performance of todays machines vs those of a few years back.
I have mixed feelings about "Yet Another Unix Clone", and so I am happy to see the traditional line being advanced.
Yet I wonder if they could develop this to take advantage of hardware advances.
Amiga on an Imac, for example? or is this truly laffable?
Of course, these were very popular among certain folks who were stocking up for the Y2K crisis last year. (Everyone who remembers the end of Western Civilization, raise your hands).
Actually not a bad technology, but a little pricey if you do not have a real need for it.
C. Crane company has some cool things, although they are more oriented towards the radio geeks
the main idea is that intelligence is something that *emerges* from the combination of the various behaviors. There is certainly some truth to that. But I am not altogether convinced that this is the full picture.
I recall some articles about the potential data density of the brain. For example, the brain has an extraordinary high level of magnetite (?) in the cells. This makes the nuerons sensitive the magnetic fields. Since there is a high level of electic activity in the brain, this raises all kinds of subtle questions about the influence to nuerons of magnetism.
there are a number of similar questions in the field of nuerology, but I do not have them at my finger tips
But what are you going to do otherwise?
Possible loss of monetary funds approaching!
Warning! Warning!
Warning! Warning!
Extreme loss of monetary funds likely!
Warning! Warning!
[Shall we take evasive manuevers sir?]
[Negative, it's too late!]
[Prepare for a Crash Landing!]
Warning! Warning!
{Dub-in: Assorted sounds of screaming wrenching metal}
even those guys over there, who we call the spawn of Satan, they might have a point. Yes, THOSE guys.
eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhh ......
I can see the thought police now.... patrolling the trains, the house for violations of their copyright.
I got to send this to jay leno right now!
All that aside, it looks like the justices of the supreme court are going to have to try to be impartial and come up with a way to resolve the contradictions.
I haven't had enough coffee yet to comment intelligently on the matter this morning, but I am reminded of the old Vorlon saying: Understanding is a three edged sword. (This was explained as My view, My Opponents view, and the Truth).
Unfortunately, I do not think we will get all of the details of the various vested interests in this anytime real soon.
The crystal is blurry, and there are too many shadows.
But seriously, they may come up with something useful.
I just do not know if I can wait for version 5 of the product for it to be any good. (This based on the old saw of never buy version 1.0 of any product)
Also, regardless of the marketing spin, software rentals over the net are NOT my idea of a desirable product. I can imagine the tech support lines now:
"Sorry, but there is a problem with your account."
Fill in the blank as to what happened.
Bottomline, when it reaches some sort of Uber Utopian Ideal(tm), where there is no learning curve, when there is no effort needed to use it, when it does it all for you and anticipates your every need (including *those* needs too), then maybe software will not suck.
this sortof goes against the main premise of what it means to be a geeks or something.
It is a road to laziness and slavery of the mind due to incredible mental limpness. (We will do all of your thinking for you, etc.)
But it seem that this is something that certain Large Software Companies(tm) are aiming for.
So before legal fees, this comes to just over 8 thousand dollars, each.
Now after the legal fees .... maybe two cents?
Never mind the ability to cash in on the stock options before MS stock price went into trip digits for a while.
There is a VERY interesting story here at the Register about how MS makes money off the microserfs via the stock options. To quote a small section:
Something to think aboutProblem is that the publishing companies have successfully lobbied time and again to extend copyrights well past the point of the original authors or their heirs profiting from them.
There are huge quantities of out of print books, some of which are very good, that should make it into the Gutenburg project, or something similar. But the original publishers hold on to the rights, and would rather that the old editions rot away to dust rather than have them become freely available online.
This is very similar to obsolete software, but applies to the broader cultural heritage.
If it has some possibility of commercial value, they will not give it away, ever.
And if it dis-appears, then it obviously had no commercial value.
[snort]
Will this be hackable like the Furby?
Young Jedi Geeks want to know!
(the initial looksee seems to be YES!)