...apes, mastering primitive tools for the first time. Cut to 2001.
A space station orbits the earth.
Not entirely relevent, but the first image from 2001 that wasn't
prehistoric, was actually a "space bomb", not a space ship or a
space station as is often thought. Cinematically, this makes more
sense as it links prehistoric man to futuristic man with the
concept of violence.
I haven't seen any Enterprise so I can't offer a direct
criticism, but as for DS9 and Voyager, I gave up on them years
ago; as soon as I realised that I was watching the "Bold and the
Beautiful" in space. So, "less internal conflict" is a winning
idea for me.
This may seem like a really dumb question but does anyone know if
the Tunney Act allows/welcomes commentry from non-US citizens?
While I'm here: how does any legal solution rendered in America
affect Microsoft's offshore activity?
The reason I'm asking is, as a British Subject(sic), I'm becoming
increasingly concerned that if thwarted in it's march across
America, Microsoft will increase it's corporate presence in
Britain. Blair and Gates are already pretty chummy so the idea of
Microsoft seeking political exile is a distict possiblity IMO.
There's an article in the Nov 2001 edition of the Fortean Times
that reports on the latest theory that the Tunguska Event was
caused by a "volcanic blowout".
IMO, this will never be fully resolved as it was literally years
before any investigative team went anywere near the place.
Although it is a fascinating idea, I seriously doubt you could
use a similar method for encrypting traffic on the present day
Internet.
The biggest show stopper will be the lack of reliable source
routing. Unless you can reliably specify the route the packet
takes (or alternatively, predict the route), the whole schema is
unworkable. IP/4 simply does not support source routing to any
usable degree. IP/6 does IIRC, but even then, I suspect the ping
times will not be consistant enough.
Secondly, a serious change will have to be made to the TCP stacks
as the time interval between the arrival of packets will be an
important factor in this system. Again, I don't see how you can
rely on the transit time given the infrastruture of the Internet.
Don't forget that this infrastructure is what gives the Internet
it's power.
Finally, in the Internet scenario (as opposed to the SONAR
version) this is as about as secure as private key encryption.
Unless my machine is multi-homed, there's likely to be at least
one router that sees every packet my machine sees. This is
fundamentally different to the SONAR version, where you have to
be a precise physical location to be be able to "hear" the
transmission.
You're an American citizen and thus have the right of free
speech. Cox is not an American and therefore, is not granted that
privelage. Bearing in mind that the FBI have arrested people from
foreign lands on numerous occasions for violating American law;
that Cox is being coy is understandable.
The article posted on binaryfreedom is both fascinating and
disturbing but also, I think, misleading, as it suggests that
only the educational misfits are ignorant of computer history.
This is emphatically untrue
I've recently "graduated" from a University in England and I'm
ashamed. I would estimate that 90% of my class are ignorant of
not only computer history but also of trans-Windows computing in
general. Their goal in life seems to be to make as much money as
possible and the computer industry is the vehicle for that
"success".
I wish systemtoolbox all the best in their endeavour but I fear
that the only people who will read these articles will be people
who are interested (and hence already familiar) with this
material already.
The Colossus was built to solve a completely different cipher
than Enigma (Lorenz IIRC) and had nothing to do with Turing, who
had long since left England to live in the USA.
Cracking the Enigma (quickly) was made possible with a far
simpler machine known as the "Bomb", which was designed and built
by Turing but doesn't really qualify as a computer as it is not
programmable.
Tommy Flowers was indeed involved with Collosus, but the
significance of his involvement is often overlooked. Flowers
actually designed and built the Collosus almost single handedly
(in order to match the requirements presented to him by Max
Newman.)
It is worth repeating, Turing had nothing to do with Collosus or
the cracking of the Lorenz cipher.
Adams' statement that he doesn't like text adventures, "he finds
them boring", is I think, a result of him not playing modern text
adventures - or Interactive Fiction as the afficianados refer to
them:-)
As the host of the event says, "recent text adventures are of the
quality of the short story". I couldn't agree more. Photopia by
Adam Cadre is I think, the pinnacle, so far, of story telling in
the computer game medium. It's not puzzle based, as you might
expect, but a surprising story delicately told.
Interested readers can find it at the interactive fiction
depository, (I can't connect at the moment for some reason so I
can't offer the complete URI)
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive
On a related note: my Scott Adams interpreter is based on a
program written by Alan Cox (Scott-Free). Does anyone know if
this is THE Alan Cox?
To say that a planet orbits the Sun, or that a satellite orbits a
planet is misleading. It is more correct to say that the two
bodies orbit a common centre of gravity.
In the case of the Earth/Moon system, the centre of gravity is
some miles below the Earth's surface. So the moon appears to
orbit the centre of the Earth. Therefore satisfying point 2.
In the Pluto/Charon system however, Charon is sufficiently large
enough, for the centre of gravity to be above the surface
of Pluto. How does this affect Pluto's classification? It truth,
it is two "planets" visibly orbiting each other. Is Charon any
less of a planet simply because it is the smaller than Pluto?
Unless the situation has changed since I heard this, Cray is the
only company where you can buy supercomputers commercially - that
is, "off the shelf".
Customer: I want the big red one on page 42
Cray Salesperson: Cool choice! We'll start delivering it next
week at noon...
Other machines may be faster, but they're as rare as
hens teeth.
Re:Chris Morris is a total genius... More on him..
on
Roasting Sacred Cows
·
· Score: 1
His most enjoyable work I believe, is Blue Jam.
It's nothing short of brilliant.
You are absolutely correct in your reasoning, however, when I
said "I never understood the wisdom of using Pascal for
teaching", I was referring to modern day practice. Where in my
experience, Pascal is exclusively the language of choice for a
first language (in Colleges and Universities).
Pascal was never used with any real success outside
teaching
I've never understood the wisdom of using Pascal for teaching.
I've nothing against Pascal, but in the face of languages such as
Modula-2 and Oberon, both designed by the same guy (Wirth) and
with the same philosophies, you have to wonder why Pascal is
favoured over the more recent languages.
GPL "protects" implementations, not ideas. If TCP/IP was
originally coded and released under the GPL then it would be true
to say that you couldn't then use that code in your OS without
releasing changes under the GPL yourself.
However, there would be nothing stopping you from reimplimenting
the TCP/IP code. For Gates' to say suggest that this isn't the
case indicates to me that he either doesn't understand the point
of the GPL, or he is intentionally spreading FUD.
The problem I've found with high end hi-fi equipment is finding
the software that puts it to good use.
It's all very well buying £2000+ speakers, but if your favourite
music isn't mastered to the quality that is demanded by such
hardware, then you'll suceed only in highlighting the flaws in
the recording. MP3s are particularly good at this (sounding crap
I mean.) They sound "good enough" through low end hi-fi
equipment, but really are a tortuous experience through an
expensive set up.
You are right when you say that the Atari 800 and Amiga where
designed by the same man, Jay Miner. Unfortunately, Jay is no
longer with us.
The only connection I can find between the commodore 8 bit
machine and the Amiga is that the C128 was engineered by Dave
Haynie who also designed the 2000, 3000, 4000 and the ZorroIII
bus.
Just because we can't think of any "legal" examples of P2P
technology there should be no reason why P2P should be outlawed.
There's a very real threat here that an entire class of software
development could be made illegal.
Take for example virus technology. There is no reason why a
benevolent virus could not be written, but here in England and
Wales (not sure about Scotland) it is *illegal* for me to write a
program that has any virulent properties, regardless of whether
it has a destructive payload or not. Even if I wrote the virus
for my own personal curiosity, and never released it into the
wild makes no difference (I suppose they would get me on a
conspiracy charge in that case:-(
Not that I'm a virus writer but I find it hard to stomach that as
a programmer, there is a possibility of being imprisoned whilst
in the pursuit of my craft. I just hope that P2P is not tarred
with the same brush as the computer virus. You never know, we may
come up with a "valid" use for P2P one day and find we are
legally prevented from doing anything about it.
You really need to expose yourself to more up to date news.
Future development of the OS has been roadmapped up to version 5.
Any references you may have heard about the OS being dropped has
since been superseded.
Slashdot Mirror
...or linux.
...apes, mastering primitive tools for the first time. Cut to 2001.
A space station orbits the earth.
Not entirely relevent, but the first image from 2001 that wasn't
prehistoric, was actually a "space bomb", not a space ship or a
space station as is often thought. Cinematically, this makes more
sense as it links prehistoric man to futuristic man with the
concept of violence.
"One ring to rule them all..."
I'm a big Elvis fan, and he never had a song
with those lyrics.
Less internal conflict
I haven't seen any Enterprise so I can't offer a direct criticism, but as for DS9 and Voyager, I gave up on them years ago; as soon as I realised that I was watching the "Bold and the Beautiful" in space. So, "less internal conflict" is a winning idea for me.
This may seem like a really dumb question but does anyone know if
the Tunney Act allows/welcomes commentry from non-US citizens?
While I'm here: how does any legal solution rendered in America
affect Microsoft's offshore activity?
The reason I'm asking is, as a British Subject(sic), I'm becoming
increasingly concerned that if thwarted in it's march across
America, Microsoft will increase it's corporate presence in
Britain. Blair and Gates are already pretty chummy so the idea of
Microsoft seeking political exile is a distict possiblity IMO.
There's an article in the Nov 2001 edition of the Fortean Times
that reports on the latest theory that the Tunguska Event was
caused by a "volcanic blowout".
IMO, this will never be fully resolved as it was literally years
before any investigative team went anywere near the place.
One thing that really irks me is that
people always refer to MS-DOS as just DOS.
There is/was a vast array of DOS like
OSs, MS-DOS was just one.
Although it is a fascinating idea, I seriously doubt you could
use a similar method for encrypting traffic on the present day
Internet.
The biggest show stopper will be the lack of reliable source
routing. Unless you can reliably specify the route the packet
takes (or alternatively, predict the route), the whole schema is
unworkable. IP/4 simply does not support source routing to any
usable degree. IP/6 does IIRC, but even then, I suspect the ping
times will not be consistant enough.
Secondly, a serious change will have to be made to the TCP stacks
as the time interval between the arrival of packets will be an
important factor in this system. Again, I don't see how you can
rely on the transit time given the infrastruture of the Internet.
Don't forget that this infrastructure is what gives the Internet
it's power.
Finally, in the Internet scenario (as opposed to the SONAR
version) this is as about as secure as private key encryption.
Unless my machine is multi-homed, there's likely to be at least
one router that sees every packet my machine sees. This is
fundamentally different to the SONAR version, where you have to
be a precise physical location to be be able to "hear" the
transmission.
Cute idea, but not feasible.
You're an American citizen and thus have the right of free
speech. Cox is not an American and therefore, is not granted that
privelage. Bearing in mind that the FBI have arrested people from
foreign lands on numerous occasions for violating American law;
that Cox is being coy is understandable.
The article posted on binaryfreedom is both fascinating and
disturbing but also, I think, misleading, as it suggests that
only the educational misfits are ignorant of computer history.
This is emphatically untrue
I've recently "graduated" from a University in England and I'm
ashamed. I would estimate that 90% of my class are ignorant of
not only computer history but also of trans-Windows computing in
general. Their goal in life seems to be to make as much money as
possible and the computer industry is the vehicle for that
"success".
I wish systemtoolbox all the best in their endeavour but I fear
that the only people who will read these articles will be people
who are interested (and hence already familiar) with this
material already.
The Colossus was built to solve a completely different cipher
than Enigma (Lorenz IIRC) and had nothing to do with Turing, who
had long since left England to live in the USA.
Cracking the Enigma (quickly) was made possible with a far
simpler machine known as the "Bomb", which was designed and built
by Turing but doesn't really qualify as a computer as it is not
programmable.
Tommy Flowers was indeed involved with Collosus, but the
significance of his involvement is often overlooked. Flowers
actually designed and built the Collosus almost single handedly
(in order to match the requirements presented to him by Max
Newman.)
It is worth repeating, Turing had nothing to do with Collosus or
the cracking of the Lorenz cipher.
Adams' statement that he doesn't like text adventures, "he finds :-)
them boring", is I think, a result of him not playing modern text
adventures - or Interactive Fiction as the afficianados refer to
them
As the host of the event says, "recent text adventures are of the
quality of the short story". I couldn't agree more. Photopia by
Adam Cadre is I think, the pinnacle, so far, of story telling in
the computer game medium. It's not puzzle based, as you might
expect, but a surprising story delicately told.
Interested readers can find it at the interactive fiction
depository, (I can't connect at the moment for some reason so I
can't offer the complete URI)
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive
On a related note: my Scott Adams interpreter is based on a
program written by Alan Cox (Scott-Free). Does anyone know if
this is THE Alan Cox?
2. It should not be orbiting another planet
To say that a planet orbits the Sun, or that a satellite orbits a
planet is misleading. It is more correct to say that the two
bodies orbit a common centre of gravity.
In the case of the Earth/Moon system, the centre of gravity is
some miles below the Earth's surface. So the moon appears to
orbit the centre of the Earth. Therefore satisfying point 2.
In the Pluto/Charon system however, Charon is sufficiently large
enough, for the centre of gravity to be above the surface
of Pluto. How does this affect Pluto's classification? It truth,
it is two "planets" visibly orbiting each other. Is Charon any
less of a planet simply because it is the smaller than Pluto?
Unless the situation has changed since I heard this, Cray is the only company where you can buy supercomputers commercially - that is, "off the shelf".
Customer: I want the big red one on page 42
Cray Salesperson: Cool choice! We'll start delivering it next week at noon...
Other machines may be faster, but they're as rare as hens teeth.
His most enjoyable work I believe, is Blue Jam. It's nothing short of brilliant.
Available from Cookd and Bombd
You are absolutely correct in your reasoning, however, when I said "I never understood the wisdom of using Pascal for teaching", I was referring to modern day practice. Where in my experience, Pascal is exclusively the language of choice for a first language (in Colleges and Universities).
Pascal was never used with any real success outside teaching
I've never understood the wisdom of using Pascal for teaching. I've nothing against Pascal, but in the face of languages such as Modula-2 and Oberon, both designed by the same guy (Wirth) and with the same philosophies, you have to wonder why Pascal is favoured over the more recent languages.
Pascal predates C by decades
Close. Pascal was invented in 1970 and C in 1972.
My worry is that it'll become too tempting for the law enformcement agencies to streamline their search for the usual suspects.
The whipping boy is a feature of law police work now, but this makes it so much more efficient.
GPL "protects" implementations, not ideas. If TCP/IP was originally coded and released under the GPL then it would be true to say that you couldn't then use that code in your OS without releasing changes under the GPL yourself.
However, there would be nothing stopping you from reimplimenting the TCP/IP code. For Gates' to say suggest that this isn't the case indicates to me that he either doesn't understand the point of the GPL, or he is intentionally spreading FUD.
That's assuming that the students actually used the "publically funded hardware". In all my years at Uni, I *never* used such hardware.
The problem I've found with high end hi-fi equipment is finding the software that puts it to good use.
It's all very well buying £2000+ speakers, but if your favourite music isn't mastered to the quality that is demanded by such hardware, then you'll suceed only in highlighting the flaws in the recording. MP3s are particularly good at this (sounding crap I mean.) They sound "good enough" through low end hi-fi equipment, but really are a tortuous experience through an expensive set up.
You are right when you say that the Atari 800 and Amiga where designed by the same man, Jay Miner. Unfortunately, Jay is no longer with us.
The only connection I can find between the commodore 8 bit machine and the Amiga is that the C128 was engineered by Dave Haynie who also designed the 2000, 3000, 4000 and the ZorroIII bus.
Just because we can't think of any "legal" examples of P2P technology there should be no reason why P2P should be outlawed. There's a very real threat here that an entire class of software development could be made illegal.
:-(
Take for example virus technology. There is no reason why a benevolent virus could not be written, but here in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland) it is *illegal* for me to write a program that has any virulent properties, regardless of whether it has a destructive payload or not. Even if I wrote the virus for my own personal curiosity, and never released it into the wild makes no difference (I suppose they would get me on a conspiracy charge in that case
Not that I'm a virus writer but I find it hard to stomach that as a programmer, there is a possibility of being imprisoned whilst in the pursuit of my craft. I just hope that P2P is not tarred with the same brush as the computer virus. You never know, we may come up with a "valid" use for P2P one day and find we are legally prevented from doing anything about it.
You really need to expose yourself to more up to date news. Future development of the OS has been roadmapped up to version 5. Any references you may have heard about the OS being dropped has since been superseded.