Given the tremendous amount of traffic that's
passed, I don't know if I have much of a chance of
making a new contribution. I don't have time to
read every single post to find out. But I love
this topic, so, I'll just say what I have to say,
even if I'm babbling to myself...
I used to think that there was something
circular about the question of why life emerged in
this universe, but the "firing squad" analogy won
me over. The question is definitely worth asking.
The "multiverse" theory is nice in ways,
but for me, it falls flat. The question is how we
define "universe" and "existence." I'll throw out
an idea for consideration:
All that which exists is amenable to some form
of detection.
I believe in this because the contrary seems so
absurd. Suppose someone came to you and claimed
to have discovered some thing. He can't
explain what this thing is, how big it is, or what
it's made of, because, he says, it cannot be
detected in any way. It can't be seen, smelled,
touched, or heard; you can't see it on radar, or
sonar; it emits no electromagnetic energy, it has
no detectable mass, and exerts no forces upon
anything else. And yet, the man claims it exists.
How can we possibly credit such a claim?
(Now, I tend toward atheism, but for the
theists out there, I have no trouble accepting
that God can be detectable by acts of divine
intervention. But I won't get into that.)
Of course, I'm speaking in the broadest
philosophical sense. Advances in technology give
us more ways of examining the universe. I'm not
claiming that radioactivity didn't exist until
someone invented the geiger counter. So, of
course, there may exist
things that we can't detect
yet, with our current technology.
Now, since I've accepted that first claim (not
that I expect everyone else to:-), I make a
second claim:
That which is amenable to some form of
detection, is all that exists.
Again, the converse seems absurd.
Now, I define the "universe" as being the thing
within which everything that exists, is
instantiated. The corollary is that everything
that exists resides within the universe.
This means that if we ever find evidence of
something akin to a "parallel universe," that
universe, by definition, is actually part of our
universe, owing to the fact that we've detected
it. Claiming that there are other universes
completely separate from ours is just like
claiming the existence of an undetectable
thing. Again, I can't credit such a claim.
If someone finds evidence of this so-called
multiverse, then I would say it's a fallacy to
claim that our universe is one of many separate
universes; I would rather say that our (one)
universe is just much stranger than we had
previously thought. And if this is so, maybe we
should withold judgement on the probability of
the emergence of life in our universe.
Yeah, I know. To some extent, I'm just playing
with definitions. Isn't it fun?:-)
It just occurs to me that it might be better to
make it illegal for porn sites (and whatever else
the people deem inappropriate) to provide
content to public schools, rather than attempt to
block them out.
Think about it: porn sites pop up and shut down
all the time, but public school IP addresses would
stay relatively constant, and can be listed
explicitly, and reliably. The list can be made
available.
I haven't really thought about it deeply, so it
may be a stupid idea. There's still nothing that
can be done about foreign sites, for instance.
But it's just my $0.02.
My last post was a very generalist
encouragement for further research in this
field.
I suppose it sounded like I was discouraging
the scientists' efforts; I guess I just wanted to
offset any wild expectations that the media might
be encouraging.
The reputation of the A.I. field suffered
tremendously in the mid 20th century because of
unrealistic expectations, and since then, I think
there's been a habit of downplaying expectations
in that field. I don't work in A.I. any more, but
I guess the habit has rubbed off.:-)
I believe the effort should definitely be made;
it is absolutely worth trying and
investigating.
Sorry if I've come across a bit preachy. I
just love neuroscience.
I may have come off as preachy, too. I just
can't think of a worse fate for a field than
having the media generate ridiculous expectations
that can't possibly be met, and then suffering the
public fallout when you don't deliver.
One of the problems I think techie people
have comprehending organic neuroscience is due to
the loss of the software/hardware duality present
in computing.
When I said "pre-programming," I was talking in
a very general sense. I consider the physical
assembling of the neurons to be part of the
pre-programming. Besides, in my earlier post, I
said "it's all intertwined;" I understand the fact
that software and hardware becomes as one.
An organic neural system ONS) is a learning,
and functioning, machine. One doesn't need to
"program" the CNS of a locust for it to do it's
job- control a locust's behaviour, motor and
sensory function etc. The set of commands to be a
locust aren't somehow coded onto a blank CNS
before birth- they are the locust CNS!
That's fine if your goal is to build a
locust.
However, the proposal was to take leech
neurons, put them together in some way, and then
teach them how to walk with legs. This is a
completely different ball of wax.
It's not obvious to me that you should be able
to put them together any way you want, and they'll
magically start walking. How many neurons? How
to put them together? What kinds of commands to
the legs require to move? What kind of feedback
do the neurons get? How are you going to teach
them?
It seems to me that these are very big
obstacles to overcome.
Cynicism is healthy, but I would have
thought/. readers would have held a bit more hope
for the future.
Oh, I do have hope. I describe myself
as an optimist. I have no doubt that someday, the
obstacles will be overcome; I'm just not certain
when somday will come.
One must be careful that one's hope is not
misplaced.
I've worked with artificial neural networks to
some extent in the past, so I hope that lends my
words a bit of credibility. I don't call myself
an expert, by any means, but I know a bit of what
I'm talking about. (Tho' I'm first to admit that
"a little knowledge is dangerous...")
Anyways.
At some time in the past (I don't know exactly
when, probably in the 50's), a group of computer
scientists, excited by their new technology, tried
throwing together a large number of analog
"neuron" circuits to see if they will exhibit any
kind of self-organization. It's similar as what
these people are proposing to do with living
tissue, except that it was done with
electronics.
I don't know the details of what they tried,
but the conclusion was simple. Nothing happened.
It just sat there and did random stuff, from
beginning to end.
I don't think self-organization in the brain is
possible without having some kind of enforced
organization at birth that gets the process going.
To put it another way, the neurons have to be
"pre-programmed," from the start, to organize
themselves.
In artificial neural networks (simulated with
digital computers), the problem is finding the
right network topology, and the right learning
algorithm to fit your problem. Maybe things have
changed, but the last time I worked with it (about
five years ago), this problem was still a black
art. And not only do you have to get the network
itself correct, you have to encode your problem in
the right way, in order to get the best
results. You have to do a lot of
pre-programming (and maybe even some
post-processing).
It goes to show that "self-organization" is not
a magic bullet. The problem is that the whole
system interacts. The operation of each neuron,
the interactions between them, the format and
encoding of the input data, and the format and
encoding of the expected output data. It's all
intertwined.
Will biological neural programming have the
same problems? Or will the fact that real neurons
are being used reduce the problem? Maybe it will
actually compound the problem by making the whole
pre-programming question heinously complex. After
all, neuron interaction is more than just
synapses: there's hormones, there's chemistry, and
maybe there's stuff we haven't discovered yet.
DeWeerth says, "we might not have to understand
[self-organization] to exploit it." I'm not about
to argue against a person who no doubt knows his
stuff (and I don't for a moment think he's unaware
of the issues), but I must admit to being a little
skeptical. Programming with zero effort has been
a dream in A.I. circles for a long time. I can't
help but feel that it's a pipe dream.
I recommended a book in a previous post, but I
have yet another recommendation.
Lost in the flurry of the massive major
mega-movies "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," was a
Canadian film called "Last Night" by Don McKellar.
(And according to
its
website, which I just visited now, for the
first time, I guess it's going to be playing in
L.A. and New York on November 5th...? I'm not
sure. Check it out for yourself.)
Unlike its monstrous cousins, it is, by
comparison, almost mind-bogglingly low-budget.
The premise is that the world is ending.
Everybody has a week left to live. So, what are
people doing about it? Implicit is the knowledge
that there is no hope; I guess Bruce Willis was
never born in this universe. Interestingly, the
exact catastrophe is never mentioned in the film.
It's not really relevant anyway. All we know is,
there's a clock ticking down to the end, and then
it'll be over for everybody.
Some people are living it up, some people are
sulking. Some are trying to complete their lives
in some way, and others have gotten completely
unhinged. Some are throwing all conventions and
morals to the wind, while others are clinging to
them more strongly than ever.
It's a fascinating take on the genre. I
highly, highly, recommend it.
Unless one (or more) of the other things
happens first, I believe #16 ("Robots take over")
will definitely occur. And I'm firmly on the side
of "next stage in evolution" rather than "end of
humanity."
Ray Kurzweil has written a book called
The
Age of Spiritual Machines. In it, he
basically predicts that human kind will be
supplanted by its own creations. This will not be
a takeover of the kind depicted in
Terminator or The Matrix, but a slow
merging of the two "species" and an eventual
complete transformation of the very definition of
"human" and "life."
This is happening already. Consider the term
"brain-dead." When it was still novel, people
distinguished "brain-dead" from "dead," but I'm
pretty sure there are many people now who
basically equate the two (maybe not doctors, for
whom it's probably a clinical term). At one time,
a beating heart indicated life, and a lack
thereof, death. Now, the death of the brain is
the "real" death. This is a subtle modern shift
in what it means to be "alive." I suspect that as
the function of parts of the brain get figured out
by scientists, a new term-- "mind-death"-- will
appear.
I don't know if I agree with all of Kurzweil's
reasoning, but I fully believe in the conclusion.
In fact, I cannot see how it could possibly end
otherwise. However, I don't see it as a hostile
takeover, but an enhancement of everything that
makes us who we are: an expanding of our
abilities. It won't limit us, or de-humanize us,
or destroy any part of us--it will allow us to
be what we want to be, more than ever
before.
Okay, I sound like I'm evangelizing now, and
I'm drifting off-topic. I recommend the book.
It's got some very interesting ideas.
A few weeks ago, I started a little personal
programming project that involved taking an
assertive English sentence and converting it into
a "why" question (a cool problem, BTW).
I originally started it in Perl. Text
processing, right? The fit is ideal. Right tool
for the right job, and all that jazz.
Problem was, I wanted to have some fun with it,
and Perl made the whole thing just a little
too easy. I very quickly lost my
motivation, because I realized that I was
avoiding all the fun problems that arise during
programming. Perl was, in fact, too good a fit
for my purposes.
So, I did it in C. It was more work, but it
was so much more fun. That was just because it
was a personal project, of course. If it had been
work, it would have been Perl all the way.
I recently inherited an ancient 386 from my
father, and I threw myself into the task of
installing Linux on it and slapping it into some
kind of decent shape. The software side was
pretty much no problem, but the machine was housed
in a monstrous 286 case which is so big and heavy
that I'm convinced it contains lead weights.
So, the last phase of the whole makeover was to
drop all the guts into a new case. I was greatly
dismayed to discover how difficult it is to find
old AT-style cases, especially if you have
something specific in mind (I wanted a very small
mini-tower).
I don't appreciate yet another change. Is it
not possible to design a case that is versatile
enough to accommodate advances in technology?
I mean, look at the ridiculous mileage that the
industry has milked out of the whole x86
architecture. If chipmakers can do that, can't
they do the same with the case? The ATX case, by
comparison, had a pretty darned short life.
Jesus...and all this time I thought it meant
"root mean squared".
It does. It refers to a person who is at the
root of a cause, and isn't afraid to be mean to
the Nth degree.
In fact, Richard Stallman hijacked the term,
and popularized the use of it to refer to him,
just because his initials happened to match the
TLA. What a guy.
(emmett said:) That's right, because if
someone you hired doesn't have proper
documentation skills, it's all Linux's
fault.
Well, heck! No point in posting any comments
now!
Actually, I just have one small comment.
The biggest benefit from the freedom to modify
source code, to me, has never been the fact that I
can tweak it to do what I want. Typically, if the
software doesn't do what I want, I'll just keep
hunting for something that does.
No, I usually find the benefit of open-source
(or free software, whatever) is that you can take
a peek, and see exactly what a piece of
software does. In this regard, sometimes, the
source code is worth more than all the
documentation in the world.
I know most of this has probably all been said
before, but I guess I'm feeling very vocal, and I
just have to get this off my chest. Will
this reduce my karma? I dunno. I don't care.
Here goes.
Firstly, the whole idea of using BugTraq stats
to measure OS security is wrong-headed. A simple
count of vulnerabilities is an extremely poor
measurement of security, mainly because it ignores
the severity of each vulnerability. The BugTraq
web page says this.
Even if a simple count were a valid measure of
security, BugTraq is first to admit that its
statistics are nowhere near complete. Whether a
vulnerability appears on BugTraq or not can depend
on many factors, and the web page says this
also.
Even if BugTraq were complete and
authoritative, Mr. Moody made the mind-bogglingly
stupid mistake of misinterpreting the information,
and adding two figures that overlapped, arriving
at an incorrect number. He apparently didn't take
the time to read the explanations that would have
told him what the numbers mean. This is also on
the very same web page.
Finally, even if we
ignore all the above, Mr. Moody has the audacity
to claim that the numbers lead to an "inescapable
conclusion." Such a statement, if it is to be
believed, reflects more on Mr. Moody's reasoning
ability than on the OSes in question. Of the
vulnerabilities that get reported in BugTraq,
which ones actually get exploited the most, is a
far more complex question than I care to
contemplate.
Mr. Moody's argument is a tower of cards, based
on misconceptions, oversights, and outright
errors. His article displays a level of
incompetence that is truly astounding.
Now, I notice that the ABC web page contains a
correction, stating the actual number of Linux
vulnerabilities in 1999 (as counted by BugTraq) to
be 84, not 122. Well, I'm glad he can admit it
when he makes a gross error.
But Mr. Moody acknowledges his mistake with the
note: "Upon further research, I realized that my
original numbers were a bit off." Further
research!! What that means, of course, is
that he went back and read the parts of the web
page that he evidently skipped the first time
around! I see that he hasn't changed his claim
that the "conclusion is inescapable." I still
wonder if he's read the whole thing.
I should say that I love Linux, but I'm no
zealot. Linux has its place. It's not the
ultimate OS. It's not the best in all cases, and
certainly will never be the best in all
cases. But that's not what I'm ranting about
here.
I'm ranting about journalistic integrity. I
know that cynics will laugh at me, but I'm not
afraid to say that I'm a bit of an idealist and
I'm proud of it.
Similar things happen to me on occasion. I know I'm not burned out or anything-- that happens, too, and in those cases, I need time off. But sometimes I let myself get overwhelmed by the task, and I feel totally deer-in-headlights.
I find that what I need to do is help myself concentrate. Remove distractions, clear my schedule. I try to close up other tasks as much as possible, or at least make myself comfortable with the certainty that I'll be able to address them effectively later.
Once that's done, I start to feel a little more relaxed, and that by itself is sometimes enough to help get past the hump. I usually work to music, but sometimes I'll turn that off, if that is also becoming a distraction. I'll grab myself a coffee. A small amount of coffee will actually calm me down; too much will make my mind fly in all directions at once, compounding the problem.
Then, it's a matter of "mind over mind:" I force myself to concentrate on the task. I usually prefer to take a bottom-up approach, which I find requires a little less brainwork. Bottom-up also helps in simplifying the overall problem (at least, that's what it should do; if it doesn't, then you're doing bottom-up incorrectly).
I also try to get something written. Anything, so that I have something concrete to work with. Sometimes, I find it useful to use a scripting language like Perl that will allow me to do some very quick prototyping.
That's all pretty much off-the-cuff, but those are probably my best suggestions.
I can't claim to be the originator of this idea, I heard it on the radio. I wish I could remember the name of the fellow who said it, so I could give proper credit, but I can't recall. The instant I heard it, it struck me as patently obvious. I want to know what others think.
The idea is simple. Put one main computer in the classroom. Each student may or may not have small terminals, perhaps built into their desks. The main screen for the computer, however, is wall-sized and wall-mounted at the front of the class. The teacher has access to the main console, meaning (s)he has ultimate control over what goes up on the screen.
The guy on the radio made the analogy with the old slates, which used to be in the hands of every student. The huge paradigm shift occurred when the students' slates were eliminated, and a single, large slate was fixed to the wall, making the device we now call a blackboard. This changed the whole learning environment.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that the single computer paradigm is the way to go. What do others think?
Slashdot Mirror
Given the tremendous amount of traffic that's passed, I don't know if I have much of a chance of making a new contribution. I don't have time to read every single post to find out. But I love this topic, so, I'll just say what I have to say, even if I'm babbling to myself...
I used to think that there was something circular about the question of why life emerged in this universe, but the "firing squad" analogy won me over. The question is definitely worth asking. The "multiverse" theory is nice in ways, but for me, it falls flat. The question is how we define "universe" and "existence." I'll throw out an idea for consideration:
I believe in this because the contrary seems so absurd. Suppose someone came to you and claimed to have discovered some thing. He can't explain what this thing is, how big it is, or what it's made of, because, he says, it cannot be detected in any way. It can't be seen, smelled, touched, or heard; you can't see it on radar, or sonar; it emits no electromagnetic energy, it has no detectable mass, and exerts no forces upon anything else. And yet, the man claims it exists. How can we possibly credit such a claim?
(Now, I tend toward atheism, but for the theists out there, I have no trouble accepting that God can be detectable by acts of divine intervention. But I won't get into that.)
Of course, I'm speaking in the broadest philosophical sense. Advances in technology give us more ways of examining the universe. I'm not claiming that radioactivity didn't exist until someone invented the geiger counter. So, of course, there may exist things that we can't detect yet, with our current technology.
Now, since I've accepted that first claim (not that I expect everyone else to :-), I make a
second claim:
Again, the converse seems absurd.
Now, I define the "universe" as being the thing within which everything that exists, is instantiated. The corollary is that everything that exists resides within the universe.
This means that if we ever find evidence of something akin to a "parallel universe," that universe, by definition, is actually part of our universe, owing to the fact that we've detected it. Claiming that there are other universes completely separate from ours is just like claiming the existence of an undetectable thing. Again, I can't credit such a claim.
If someone finds evidence of this so-called multiverse, then I would say it's a fallacy to claim that our universe is one of many separate universes; I would rather say that our (one) universe is just much stranger than we had previously thought. And if this is so, maybe we should withold judgement on the probability of the emergence of life in our universe.
Yeah, I know. To some extent, I'm just playing with definitions. Isn't it fun? :-)
Just a random thought...
It just occurs to me that it might be better to make it illegal for porn sites (and whatever else the people deem inappropriate) to provide content to public schools, rather than attempt to block them out.
Think about it: porn sites pop up and shut down all the time, but public school IP addresses would stay relatively constant, and can be listed explicitly, and reliably. The list can be made available.
I haven't really thought about it deeply, so it may be a stupid idea. There's still nothing that can be done about foreign sites, for instance. But it's just my $0.02.
My last post was a very generalist encouragement for further research in this field.
I suppose it sounded like I was discouraging the scientists' efforts; I guess I just wanted to offset any wild expectations that the media might be encouraging.
The reputation of the A.I. field suffered tremendously in the mid 20th century because of unrealistic expectations, and since then, I think there's been a habit of downplaying expectations in that field. I don't work in A.I. any more, but I guess the habit has rubbed off. :-)
I believe the effort should definitely be made; it is absolutely worth trying and investigating.
Sorry if I've come across a bit preachy. I just love neuroscience.
I may have come off as preachy, too. I just can't think of a worse fate for a field than having the media generate ridiculous expectations that can't possibly be met, and then suffering the public fallout when you don't deliver.
One of the problems I think techie people have comprehending organic neuroscience is due to the loss of the software/hardware duality present in computing.
When I said "pre-programming," I was talking in a very general sense. I consider the physical assembling of the neurons to be part of the pre-programming. Besides, in my earlier post, I said "it's all intertwined;" I understand the fact that software and hardware becomes as one.
An organic neural system ONS) is a learning, and functioning, machine. One doesn't need to "program" the CNS of a locust for it to do it's job- control a locust's behaviour, motor and sensory function etc. The set of commands to be a locust aren't somehow coded onto a blank CNS before birth- they are the locust CNS!
That's fine if your goal is to build a locust.
However, the proposal was to take leech neurons, put them together in some way, and then teach them how to walk with legs. This is a completely different ball of wax.
It's not obvious to me that you should be able to put them together any way you want, and they'll magically start walking. How many neurons? How to put them together? What kinds of commands to the legs require to move? What kind of feedback do the neurons get? How are you going to teach them?
It seems to me that these are very big obstacles to overcome.
Cynicism is healthy, but I would have thought /. readers would have held a bit more hope
for the future.
Oh, I do have hope. I describe myself as an optimist. I have no doubt that someday, the obstacles will be overcome; I'm just not certain when somday will come.
One must be careful that one's hope is not misplaced.
I've worked with artificial neural networks to some extent in the past, so I hope that lends my words a bit of credibility. I don't call myself an expert, by any means, but I know a bit of what I'm talking about. (Tho' I'm first to admit that "a little knowledge is dangerous...") Anyways.
At some time in the past (I don't know exactly when, probably in the 50's), a group of computer scientists, excited by their new technology, tried throwing together a large number of analog "neuron" circuits to see if they will exhibit any kind of self-organization. It's similar as what these people are proposing to do with living tissue, except that it was done with electronics.
I don't know the details of what they tried, but the conclusion was simple. Nothing happened. It just sat there and did random stuff, from beginning to end.
I don't think self-organization in the brain is possible without having some kind of enforced organization at birth that gets the process going. To put it another way, the neurons have to be "pre-programmed," from the start, to organize themselves.
In artificial neural networks (simulated with digital computers), the problem is finding the right network topology, and the right learning algorithm to fit your problem. Maybe things have changed, but the last time I worked with it (about five years ago), this problem was still a black art. And not only do you have to get the network itself correct, you have to encode your problem in the right way, in order to get the best results. You have to do a lot of pre-programming (and maybe even some post-processing).
It goes to show that "self-organization" is not a magic bullet. The problem is that the whole system interacts. The operation of each neuron, the interactions between them, the format and encoding of the input data, and the format and encoding of the expected output data. It's all intertwined.
Will biological neural programming have the same problems? Or will the fact that real neurons are being used reduce the problem? Maybe it will actually compound the problem by making the whole pre-programming question heinously complex. After all, neuron interaction is more than just synapses: there's hormones, there's chemistry, and maybe there's stuff we haven't discovered yet.
DeWeerth says, "we might not have to understand [self-organization] to exploit it." I'm not about to argue against a person who no doubt knows his stuff (and I don't for a moment think he's unaware of the issues), but I must admit to being a little skeptical. Programming with zero effort has been a dream in A.I. circles for a long time. I can't help but feel that it's a pipe dream.
I recommended a book in a previous post, but I have yet another recommendation.
Lost in the flurry of the massive major mega-movies "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," was a Canadian film called "Last Night" by Don McKellar. (And according to its website, which I just visited now, for the first time, I guess it's going to be playing in L.A. and New York on November 5th...? I'm not sure. Check it out for yourself.)
Unlike its monstrous cousins, it is, by comparison, almost mind-bogglingly low-budget. The premise is that the world is ending. Everybody has a week left to live. So, what are people doing about it? Implicit is the knowledge that there is no hope; I guess Bruce Willis was never born in this universe. Interestingly, the exact catastrophe is never mentioned in the film. It's not really relevant anyway. All we know is, there's a clock ticking down to the end, and then it'll be over for everybody.
Some people are living it up, some people are sulking. Some are trying to complete their lives in some way, and others have gotten completely unhinged. Some are throwing all conventions and morals to the wind, while others are clinging to them more strongly than ever.
It's a fascinating take on the genre. I highly, highly, recommend it.
Unless one (or more) of the other things happens first, I believe #16 ("Robots take over") will definitely occur. And I'm firmly on the side of "next stage in evolution" rather than "end of humanity."
Ray Kurzweil has written a book called The Age of Spiritual Machines. In it, he basically predicts that human kind will be supplanted by its own creations. This will not be a takeover of the kind depicted in Terminator or The Matrix, but a slow merging of the two "species" and an eventual complete transformation of the very definition of "human" and "life."
This is happening already. Consider the term "brain-dead." When it was still novel, people distinguished "brain-dead" from "dead," but I'm pretty sure there are many people now who basically equate the two (maybe not doctors, for whom it's probably a clinical term). At one time, a beating heart indicated life, and a lack thereof, death. Now, the death of the brain is the "real" death. This is a subtle modern shift in what it means to be "alive." I suspect that as the function of parts of the brain get figured out by scientists, a new term-- "mind-death"-- will appear.
I don't know if I agree with all of Kurzweil's reasoning, but I fully believe in the conclusion. In fact, I cannot see how it could possibly end otherwise. However, I don't see it as a hostile takeover, but an enhancement of everything that makes us who we are: an expanding of our abilities. It won't limit us, or de-humanize us, or destroy any part of us--it will allow us to be what we want to be, more than ever before.
Okay, I sound like I'm evangelizing now, and I'm drifting off-topic. I recommend the book. It's got some very interesting ideas.
Someone will probably install Linux on him and then hook him up to a sewing machine for slave labor.
Worse yet, some sadist will install Windows on him just to see him writhe in agony, and perish with a hideous blue scream of death.
Well, if you think we're having trouble with nomenclature now, just think...
If there can be so-called "planets" this big, can there ever be a case of a star-like object orbiting a planet-like object?
Hmm... starlets?
(Remember, you heard it here first! :-)
Just a tiny anecdote to add to the discussion...
A few weeks ago, I started a little personal programming project that involved taking an assertive English sentence and converting it into a "why" question (a cool problem, BTW).
I originally started it in Perl. Text processing, right? The fit is ideal. Right tool for the right job, and all that jazz.
Problem was, I wanted to have some fun with it, and Perl made the whole thing just a little too easy. I very quickly lost my motivation, because I realized that I was avoiding all the fun problems that arise during programming. Perl was, in fact, too good a fit for my purposes.
So, I did it in C. It was more work, but it was so much more fun. That was just because it was a personal project, of course. If it had been work, it would have been Perl all the way.
I recently inherited an ancient 386 from my father, and I threw myself into the task of installing Linux on it and slapping it into some kind of decent shape. The software side was pretty much no problem, but the machine was housed in a monstrous 286 case which is so big and heavy that I'm convinced it contains lead weights.
So, the last phase of the whole makeover was to drop all the guts into a new case. I was greatly dismayed to discover how difficult it is to find old AT-style cases, especially if you have something specific in mind (I wanted a very small mini-tower).
I don't appreciate yet another change. Is it not possible to design a case that is versatile enough to accommodate advances in technology?
I mean, look at the ridiculous mileage that the industry has milked out of the whole x86 architecture. If chipmakers can do that, can't they do the same with the case? The ATX case, by comparison, had a pretty darned short life.
Neither Stable Nor Unstable: A Midrange Debian?
As a nod to the famous secret agent, I think the headline for this post should have been (in Sean Connery's voice):
HAHAHA! I kill myself.
Sorry about the irrelevant post. I just had to say it.
Jesus...and all this time I thought it meant "root mean squared".
It does. It refers to a person who is at the root of a cause, and isn't afraid to be mean to the Nth degree.
In fact, Richard Stallman hijacked the term, and popularized the use of it to refer to him, just because his initials happened to match the TLA. What a guy.
(emmett said:) That's right, because if someone you hired doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.
Well, heck! No point in posting any comments now!
Actually, I just have one small comment.
The biggest benefit from the freedom to modify source code, to me, has never been the fact that I can tweak it to do what I want. Typically, if the software doesn't do what I want, I'll just keep hunting for something that does.
No, I usually find the benefit of open-source (or free software, whatever) is that you can take a peek, and see exactly what a piece of software does. In this regard, sometimes, the source code is worth more than all the documentation in the world.
I know most of this has probably all been said before, but I guess I'm feeling very vocal, and I just have to get this off my chest. Will this reduce my karma? I dunno. I don't care. Here goes.
Firstly, the whole idea of using BugTraq stats to measure OS security is wrong-headed. A simple count of vulnerabilities is an extremely poor measurement of security, mainly because it ignores the severity of each vulnerability. The BugTraq web page says this.
Even if a simple count were a valid measure of security, BugTraq is first to admit that its statistics are nowhere near complete. Whether a vulnerability appears on BugTraq or not can depend on many factors, and the web page says this also.
Even if BugTraq were complete and authoritative, Mr. Moody made the mind-bogglingly stupid mistake of misinterpreting the information, and adding two figures that overlapped, arriving at an incorrect number. He apparently didn't take the time to read the explanations that would have told him what the numbers mean. This is also on the very same web page.
Finally, even if we ignore all the above, Mr. Moody has the audacity to claim that the numbers lead to an "inescapable conclusion." Such a statement, if it is to be believed, reflects more on Mr. Moody's reasoning ability than on the OSes in question. Of the vulnerabilities that get reported in BugTraq, which ones actually get exploited the most, is a far more complex question than I care to contemplate.
Mr. Moody's argument is a tower of cards, based on misconceptions, oversights, and outright errors. His article displays a level of incompetence that is truly astounding.
Now, I notice that the ABC web page contains a correction, stating the actual number of Linux vulnerabilities in 1999 (as counted by BugTraq) to be 84, not 122. Well, I'm glad he can admit it when he makes a gross error.
But Mr. Moody acknowledges his mistake with the note: "Upon further research, I realized that my original numbers were a bit off." Further research!! What that means, of course, is that he went back and read the parts of the web page that he evidently skipped the first time around! I see that he hasn't changed his claim that the "conclusion is inescapable." I still wonder if he's read the whole thing.
I should say that I love Linux, but I'm no zealot. Linux has its place. It's not the ultimate OS. It's not the best in all cases, and certainly will never be the best in all cases. But that's not what I'm ranting about here.
I'm ranting about journalistic integrity. I know that cynics will laugh at me, but I'm not afraid to say that I'm a bit of an idealist and I'm proud of it.
Okay, I've ranted altogether too much now.
Similar things happen to me on occasion. I know I'm not burned out or anything-- that happens, too, and in those cases, I need time off. But sometimes I let myself get overwhelmed by the task, and I feel totally deer-in-headlights.
I find that what I need to do is help myself concentrate. Remove distractions, clear my schedule. I try to close up other tasks as much as possible, or at least make myself comfortable with the certainty that I'll be able to address them effectively later.
Once that's done, I start to feel a little more relaxed, and that by itself is sometimes enough to help get past the hump. I usually work to music, but sometimes I'll turn that off, if that is also becoming a distraction. I'll grab myself a coffee. A small amount of coffee will actually calm me down; too much will make my mind fly in all directions at once, compounding the problem.
Then, it's a matter of "mind over mind:" I force myself to concentrate on the task. I usually prefer to take a bottom-up approach, which I find requires a little less brainwork. Bottom-up also helps in simplifying the overall problem (at least, that's what it should do; if it doesn't, then you're doing bottom-up incorrectly).
I also try to get something written. Anything, so that I have something concrete to work with. Sometimes, I find it useful to use a scripting language like Perl that will allow me to do some very quick prototyping.
That's all pretty much off-the-cuff, but those are probably my best suggestions.
Best of luck.
I can't claim to be the originator of this idea, I heard it on the radio. I wish I could remember the name of the fellow who said it, so I could give proper credit, but I can't recall. The instant I heard it, it struck me as patently obvious. I want to know what others think.
The idea is simple. Put one main computer in the classroom. Each student may or may not have small terminals, perhaps built into their desks. The main screen for the computer, however, is wall-sized and wall-mounted at the front of the class. The teacher has access to the main console, meaning (s)he has ultimate control over what goes up on the screen.
The guy on the radio made the analogy with the old slates, which used to be in the hands of every student. The huge paradigm shift occurred when the students' slates were eliminated, and a single, large slate was fixed to the wall, making the device we now call a blackboard. This changed the whole learning environment.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that the single computer paradigm is the way to go. What do others think?