Not any more than, say, a baseball game is, hence the joke on The Simpsons:
"See that boat over there? They're rebroadcasting Major League Baseball games with IMPLIED ORAL consent, not EXPRESS WRITTEN consent.
Or so the legend goes..."
The point is that the material broadcast on TV networks is the property of the company who produced said content. The cable operators, networks, etc, which distribute this content must get broadcast rights from the owners of the property before they can use it. So, unless you get distribution rights to release the latest Simpsons episode on the 'net, it is in fact illegal for you to do so.
No, this is why a badly written cleanup worm is bad. Had the original author designed the worm differently (for example, making it reactive rather than proactive), it wouldn't be causing these problems now. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't have the understanding or the forethought to realize this.
'course, I still feel there are real *ethical* considerations to be made, but from a purely technical standpoint, IMHO, it *is* possible to create a safe cleanup worm.
The other question I have is whether or not the W32/Nachi worm cleans up itself it it can not find a host to spread to. The "cure" may turn out to be no better then msblaster if it generates massive network traffic looking for new hosts.
You know, a really cool way to get around this is have the worm only trigger an infection when a Slammer infection attempt is detected. This way, you'll only hit infected machines. Then, coupled with an expiry time, this thing could be relatively benign (well, other than the whole "break into computers and install software without permission" thing).
Nor is it really "little", I would posit. Such characterization is divisive and does not contribute to orderly discussion.
It's most definitely "little". Your argument was that the availability of fetal tissue, coupled with it's sale, would induce more woman to abort due to monetary gain, or even create a "fetal-tissue market" where woman deliberately get pregnant, abort the fetus, and sell the tissue. However, if there is no monetary gain, this wouldn't happen.
So, since your problem is easily solved (just make fetal tissue sale illegal), I would argue that your moral dilemma is, in fact, "little".
As for bypassing legality, the same can be said for any tissue donation system. Just look at the black market organ trade. Would you prefer we not allow organ transplants in order to reduce the frequency of people being murdered for their kidneys?
Ugh, just ban this. Or ban the sale of fetal tissue (ie, only allow "non-profit" donations). It's as simple as that. This is a NON-ISSUE! Why is this such a difficult logical leap? Hell, here in Canada, it's illegal to sell *any* tissue, be it blood, sperm, eggs, or anything else.
You do realize there's nothing stopping the government from banning the payment of woman for fetal stem cells, right? Hell, here in Canada, it's illegal to be paid for *any* tissue sample (blood, sperm, eggs, etc). It seems like that would solve your little moral dilemma (which isn't really a dilemma at all).
However, you don't know the role of malaria in the food chain. Did it ever occur to you that by removing all diseases we could wipe out all life? They are bacteria & viruses, which are living (arguably) organisms as well. They are a part of our "fragile ecosystem" (which isn't reallyvery fragile at all).
Err, who said anything about "removing all diseases"? Last I checked, 1) disease isn't something unique to human beings, so there'll be plenty of bacteria/virii to go around, 2) just because we have cures for diseases, doesn't mean we've wiped them out (with certain notable exceptions, like polio or smallpox), and 3) there are a ton of regular ol' ailments that we will, likely, never develop a cure for (ie, the common cold, chicken pox, etc), hence their continued existance.
Incidentally, you're absolutely right, bacteria/virii have a key role in nature, just not for humanity. Diseases helps curb populations from overgrowing (much like predators keeping a population check on their prey)... however, this is no longer the case for humanity. So, I would contend that, even if we did completely wipe out all human disease, it'd probably affect the rest of the world relatively little.
Now, this is in contrast to, say, mosquitoes. These creatures are eaten by: birds, bats, spiders, frogs... the list goes on. Hence, I suspect wiping out mosquitoes might have just a *slight* effect on the planetary ecosystem, don't you think? And yes, before you mention it, I realize that mosquitoes are not the sole food source for these creatures, but they are an important one... hence, the lack of merit in your attempt to trivialize the issue of environmental impact.
Yeah, great plan! Kill the mosquitoes (and dump our planet full of chemicals in the process) rather than do the obvious (and harder) thing and cure the disease. Forget environmental impacts (effects of DDT on life (including ourselves), the fact that mosquitoes have a rather important role in the food chain, etc, etc)! Friggin' brilliant! You should run for President!
or to inflict suffering and death upon innocent children with unproven science?
Wow, how's that for a straw-man? Some rational argument. Seriously, if fetuses are already being aborted, and are, in fact, already dead when the stem cells are extracted, how is stem cell research "[inflicting] suffering and death upon innocent children"? They are simply making use of material that would otherwise go to waste...
Umm... according to their press release, they had backups which they used to restore most of their files. However, stuff added after early 2003 could have been compromised in their backups (since the attack was in March), hence their call for missing files. Dumbass.
Forget invitro. The increasing use of fertility drugs in the past 15-20 years has caused a massive increase in multiple births, and likely increased the number of Chimeras as well.
*snicker* Do your immerse yourself in the politics of every nation on the planet? Because, unless you do, you have no clue what other governments in other countries are doing, and thus have no right to claim one way or another if this issue is a "global" problem (counter-example, where I live, while there has been some attempt to pass "anti-terrorism" legislation, nothing has come of it). Yes, it's definitely an American problem (just look at all the anti-terrorism legislation being passed), but I'd love for you to demonstrate, with hard evidence, how this encroachment on personal freedoms is happening on a global scale.
Frankly, the fact that you assume that "clueless people facilitate the advance of the government into restricting peoples rights and freedoms" just points out that you're a paranoid libertarian. Now, that's your perogative, but I certainly don't subscribe to that view. I, personally, don't feel compelled to assume that the government is evil and out to get me.
What I find hilarious is that you assume that what's happening in the US (ie, "the power-grab taking place by the government") is happening in other countries. "Global problem" my ass... it's an American problem, and it's not a new one either (ever heard of the Red Scare?).
AFAIK, yes, the plan is to make things like Thunderbird functional as both a standalone application and as a Firebird extension. Thus, you can build the monolithic app of your dreams, or keep things nice and separate, if that's your thing.
Of course, presumably, they'd also release a monolithic distribution so people who don't want to download all the extra components can just get them pre-packaged.
First, if you like integration, wait a bit. The plan, according to the Mozilla roadmap, is to make things like Thunderbird functional as both a standalone as well as browser-integrated component in the form of an extension. However, it should be noted that intercommunication between standalone components *should* be doable, due to the existance of XPCOM (just expose certain Tbird functionality which Firebird can then call remotely). As such, I'd expect to see that feature eventually.
As for the resource issue, again, just wait a bit. Once the GRE is implemented and in common use, all these components will be able to share the same runtime. As a result, the various mozilla libraries will only get loaded into memory once and then shared by all the components just like any other shared libary.
So, no, splitting up the programs was definitely *not* a step backwards. The issues you list will be dealt with, and the result will be a far more flexible, customizable, and maintainable system. At least, IMHO.;)
If you give me every possible combination of statements and its translation then you can get 100% perfect translation from me just by me using a simple lookup algothrim.
is the same as this:
The computer uses this information to tune the parameters of a statistical model of the translation process. During the translation of new text, the system tries to find the English sentence that is the most likely translation of the foreign input sentence, based on these statistical models.
Please, tell me, how are these the same? The former is nothing more than a dictionary lookup (sort of). The latter is more akin to a neural net... taking a system and training it based on an input dataset. Yes, I *suppose* you could view the statistical model as a fancy lookup algorithm, but it's FAR more complex and interesting than that, hence my claim that there are real, interesting scientific advancements here.
Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a *hard* problem. Research, by researchers at non-commercial institutions, in the area of text translation has been going on for *years*. Heck, its one of the many areas investigated by researchers interested in AI (well, specifically, language specialists), which has been a rather hot topic in the past. Hence, it's not as if this is untrodden territory. Which brings me back to my comment:
"If this problem was so friggin' easy, why are these researchers the first to demonstrate a working system using this technique"
Why? Because it's hard, and they've made breakthroughs. Yeah, sure, it might have gone faster if commercial interests could have gotten involved (although I would question that logic... privatization doesn't not guarantee quicker results), but that doesn't change the fact that this is a hard problem, and certainly not one that could be solved in a month by some amateur who happens to know a little about the Rosetta stone.
If they offered me the same money (and one of those Linux NetworX clusters) I could have a superior system in a month, although (as stated above) it would require more than one known language.
LOL! If this problem was so friggin' easy, why are these researchers the first to demonstrate a working system using this technique (which blows away all existing systems, BTW)? Hell, if it's as easy as you say, this whole "translating text" thing must be a breeze. I wonder why so much money is spent every year on R&D in this area? Hell, why didn't they just hire you to whip up a system in a month?
Why? Because it ain't that easy and you have no idea what you're talking about. Given these are world-class researchers, I'm sure they've considered the multiple-translation route, and subsequently rejected it for very good reasons (likely far more complex than your simplistic "it's easier" excuse). Moreover, the really hard work in this area is the statistical modelling necessary to generate a working system, something which would, I suspect, be far more complex if a multiple-translation route were taken. But, hey, that's just some number crunching, right? What's so hard about that?
And that's not what's being done, which is why there is interesting science going on here, hence the poster not understanding what the press release is actually about.
You need an already translated text for his system to work.
Well, you need a pool of already matched texts. Once you have this for a given language pair, you can immediately start translating (presumably). So, it is "universal" in that, once the system is primed, it can immediately begin translating (ie, you don't have to build grammar rules, dictionaries, etc, etc).
Heh, given this is a not-uncommon phrase in the English language, it very well may be in their English-to-target-language corpus, meaning it could end up being a straight lookup-and-translate operation. Which is, of course, one of the advantages of a system like this (you can translation common idioms without having to analyze the text itself).
I'm not sure this is really applicable to translating literary works. These kinds of translations require an understanding of the native culture of both the source and target languages, as well as the intent of the writer, in order to generate an understandable translation that the target group can appreciate. A computer translation system like this one is incapable of performing these sorts of analysis.
What this is really good for is on-the-fly translation of material where the reader simply wants to comprehend what was written (think the old babelfish engine). This has obvious applications on the web, as well as many other areas (on-the-fly server-side translation for IM systems, etc, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
Not any more than, say, a baseball game is, hence the joke on The Simpsons:
"See that boat over there? They're rebroadcasting Major League Baseball games with IMPLIED ORAL consent, not EXPRESS WRITTEN consent.
Or so the legend goes..."
The point is that the material broadcast on TV networks is the property of the company who produced said content. The cable operators, networks, etc, which distribute this content must get broadcast rights from the owners of the property before they can use it. So, unless you get distribution rights to release the latest Simpsons episode on the 'net, it is in fact illegal for you to do so.
No, this is why a badly written cleanup worm is bad. Had the original author designed the worm differently (for example, making it reactive rather than proactive), it wouldn't be causing these problems now. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't have the understanding or the forethought to realize this.
'course, I still feel there are real *ethical* considerations to be made, but from a purely technical standpoint, IMHO, it *is* possible to create a safe cleanup worm.
The other question I have is whether or not the W32/Nachi worm cleans up itself it it can not find a host to spread to. The "cure" may turn out to be no better then msblaster if it generates massive network traffic looking for new hosts.
You know, a really cool way to get around this is have the worm only trigger an infection when a Slammer infection attempt is detected. This way, you'll only hit infected machines. Then, coupled with an expiry time, this thing could be relatively benign (well, other than the whole "break into computers and install software without permission" thing).
Nor is it really "little", I would posit. Such characterization is divisive and does not contribute to orderly discussion.
It's most definitely "little". Your argument was that the availability of fetal tissue, coupled with it's sale, would induce more woman to abort due to monetary gain, or even create a "fetal-tissue market" where woman deliberately get pregnant, abort the fetus, and sell the tissue. However, if there is no monetary gain, this wouldn't happen.
So, since your problem is easily solved (just make fetal tissue sale illegal), I would argue that your moral dilemma is, in fact, "little".
As for bypassing legality, the same can be said for any tissue donation system. Just look at the black market organ trade. Would you prefer we not allow organ transplants in order to reduce the frequency of people being murdered for their kidneys?
Today people do sell other tissues
Ugh, just ban this. Or ban the sale of fetal tissue (ie, only allow "non-profit" donations). It's as simple as that. This is a NON-ISSUE! Why is this such a difficult logical leap? Hell, here in Canada, it's illegal to sell *any* tissue, be it blood, sperm, eggs, or anything else.
You do realize there's nothing stopping the government from banning the payment of woman for fetal stem cells, right? Hell, here in Canada, it's illegal to be paid for *any* tissue sample (blood, sperm, eggs, etc). It seems like that would solve your little moral dilemma (which isn't really a dilemma at all).
However, you don't know the role of malaria in the food chain. Did it ever occur to you that by removing all diseases we could wipe out all life? They are bacteria & viruses, which are living (arguably) organisms as well. They are a part of our "fragile ecosystem" (which isn't reallyvery fragile at all).
Err, who said anything about "removing all diseases"? Last I checked, 1) disease isn't something unique to human beings, so there'll be plenty of bacteria/virii to go around, 2) just because we have cures for diseases, doesn't mean we've wiped them out (with certain notable exceptions, like polio or smallpox), and 3) there are a ton of regular ol' ailments that we will, likely, never develop a cure for (ie, the common cold, chicken pox, etc), hence their continued existance.
Incidentally, you're absolutely right, bacteria/virii have a key role in nature, just not for humanity. Diseases helps curb populations from overgrowing (much like predators keeping a population check on their prey)... however, this is no longer the case for humanity. So, I would contend that, even if we did completely wipe out all human disease, it'd probably affect the rest of the world relatively little.
Now, this is in contrast to, say, mosquitoes. These creatures are eaten by: birds, bats, spiders, frogs... the list goes on. Hence, I suspect wiping out mosquitoes might have just a *slight* effect on the planetary ecosystem, don't you think? And yes, before you mention it, I realize that mosquitoes are not the sole food source for these creatures, but they are an important one... hence, the lack of merit in your attempt to trivialize the issue of environmental impact.
have always had 112-bit floating point since the days of the first x87s
Hmm... I thought it was more like 64-bits (the size of an IEEE double) externally, but 80-bits internally.
Doh! Thanks, I think you're right. If you'll excuse me, I must find something to remove the foot from my mouth now... :)
Yeah, great plan! Kill the mosquitoes (and dump our planet full of chemicals in the process) rather than do the obvious (and harder) thing and cure the disease. Forget environmental impacts (effects of DDT on life (including ourselves), the fact that mosquitoes have a rather important role in the food chain, etc, etc)! Friggin' brilliant! You should run for President!
or to inflict suffering and death upon innocent children with unproven science?
Wow, how's that for a straw-man? Some rational argument. Seriously, if fetuses are already being aborted, and are, in fact, already dead when the stem cells are extracted, how is stem cell research "[inflicting] suffering and death upon innocent children"? They are simply making use of material that would otherwise go to waste...
Umm... according to their press release, they had backups which they used to restore most of their files. However, stuff added after early 2003 could have been compromised in their backups (since the attack was in March), hence their call for missing files. Dumbass.
Forget invitro. The increasing use of fertility drugs in the past 15-20 years has caused a massive increase in multiple births, and likely increased the number of Chimeras as well.
*snicker* Do your immerse yourself in the politics of every nation on the planet? Because, unless you do, you have no clue what other governments in other countries are doing, and thus have no right to claim one way or another if this issue is a "global" problem (counter-example, where I live, while there has been some attempt to pass "anti-terrorism" legislation, nothing has come of it). Yes, it's definitely an American problem (just look at all the anti-terrorism legislation being passed), but I'd love for you to demonstrate, with hard evidence, how this encroachment on personal freedoms is happening on a global scale .
Frankly, the fact that you assume that "clueless people facilitate the advance of the government into restricting peoples rights and freedoms" just points out that you're a paranoid libertarian. Now, that's your perogative, but I certainly don't subscribe to that view. I, personally, don't feel compelled to assume that the government is evil and out to get me.
What I find hilarious is that you assume that what's happening in the US (ie, "the power-grab taking place by the government") is happening in other countries. "Global problem" my ass... it's an American problem, and it's not a new one either (ever heard of the Red Scare?).
LOL! Man, nice one. :)
AFAIK, yes, the plan is to make things like Thunderbird functional as both a standalone application and as a Firebird extension. Thus, you can build the monolithic app of your dreams, or keep things nice and separate, if that's your thing.
Of course, presumably, they'd also release a monolithic distribution so people who don't want to download all the extra components can just get them pre-packaged.
First, if you like integration, wait a bit. The plan, according to the Mozilla roadmap, is to make things like Thunderbird functional as both a standalone as well as browser-integrated component in the form of an extension. However, it should be noted that intercommunication between standalone components *should* be doable, due to the existance of XPCOM (just expose certain Tbird functionality which Firebird can then call remotely). As such, I'd expect to see that feature eventually.
;)
As for the resource issue, again, just wait a bit. Once the GRE is implemented and in common use, all these components will be able to share the same runtime. As a result, the various mozilla libraries will only get loaded into memory once and then shared by all the components just like any other shared libary.
So, no, splitting up the programs was definitely *not* a step backwards. The issues you list will be dealt with, and the result will be a far more flexible, customizable, and maintainable system. At least, IMHO.
You're telling me this:
If you give me every possible combination of statements and its translation then you can get 100% perfect translation from me just by me using a simple lookup algothrim.
is the same as this:
The computer uses this information to tune the parameters of a statistical model of the translation process. During the translation of new text, the system tries to find the English sentence that is the most likely translation of the foreign input sentence, based on these statistical models.
Please, tell me, how are these the same? The former is nothing more than a dictionary lookup (sort of). The latter is more akin to a neural net... taking a system and training it based on an input dataset. Yes, I *suppose* you could view the statistical model as a fancy lookup algorithm, but it's FAR more complex and interesting than that, hence my claim that there are real, interesting scientific advancements here.
Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a *hard* problem. Research, by researchers at non-commercial institutions, in the area of text translation has been going on for *years*. Heck, its one of the many areas investigated by researchers interested in AI (well, specifically, language specialists), which has been a rather hot topic in the past. Hence, it's not as if this is untrodden territory. Which brings me back to my comment:
"If this problem was so friggin' easy, why are these researchers the first to demonstrate a working system using this technique"
Why? Because it's hard, and they've made breakthroughs. Yeah, sure, it might have gone faster if commercial interests could have gotten involved (although I would question that logic... privatization doesn't not guarantee quicker results), but that doesn't change the fact that this is a hard problem, and certainly not one that could be solved in a month by some amateur who happens to know a little about the Rosetta stone.
If they offered me the same money (and one of those Linux NetworX clusters) I could have a superior system in a month, although (as stated above) it would require more than one known language.
LOL! If this problem was so friggin' easy, why are these researchers the first to demonstrate a working system using this technique (which blows away all existing systems, BTW)? Hell, if it's as easy as you say, this whole "translating text" thing must be a breeze. I wonder why so much money is spent every year on R&D in this area? Hell, why didn't they just hire you to whip up a system in a month?
Why? Because it ain't that easy and you have no idea what you're talking about. Given these are world-class researchers, I'm sure they've considered the multiple-translation route, and subsequently rejected it for very good reasons (likely far more complex than your simplistic "it's easier" excuse). Moreover, the really hard work in this area is the statistical modelling necessary to generate a working system, something which would, I suspect, be far more complex if a multiple-translation route were taken. But, hey, that's just some number crunching, right? What's so hard about that?
And that's not what's being done, which is why there is interesting science going on here, hence the poster not understanding what the press release is actually about.
You need an already translated text for his system to work.
Well, you need a pool of already matched texts. Once you have this for a given language pair, you can immediately start translating (presumably). So, it is "universal" in that, once the system is primed, it can immediately begin translating (ie, you don't have to build grammar rules, dictionaries, etc, etc).
Heh, given this is a not-uncommon phrase in the English language, it very well may be in their English-to-target-language corpus, meaning it could end up being a straight lookup-and-translate operation. Which is, of course, one of the advantages of a system like this (you can translation common idioms without having to analyze the text itself).
I'm not sure this is really applicable to translating literary works. These kinds of translations require an understanding of the native culture of both the source and target languages, as well as the intent of the writer, in order to generate an understandable translation that the target group can appreciate. A computer translation system like this one is incapable of performing these sorts of analysis.
What this is really good for is on-the-fly translation of material where the reader simply wants to comprehend what was written (think the old babelfish engine). This has obvious applications on the web, as well as many other areas (on-the-fly server-side translation for IM systems, etc, etc).