And how is it that you find a phone number? By looking up a name. Now if you're looking it up in a tree corpse, yes, you need the number so you can manually enter it. If you've found it electronically on a system which can also dial your phone--and if such systems are ubiquitous--there's no reason the number shouldn't be invisible to the user.
I know it's hard for those who came on-line after the September That Never Ended to understand, but the web is not the net.
Well, I hate to get into a "how long have you been on" argument, but since you brought it up, I've been online since 1989, thank you very much. I use elm to read my email.
Want to contact a specific machine or service? You need an address.
I'm not saying they won't exist. I'm saying they'll be invisible to the user, and only of concern to the computer.
They already are on much of the web. How many addresses are embedded in mailto links without displaying the address on screen? Why wouldn't that work in other applications?
When you go to decode an email which someone has encoded using your PGP public key, do you need to be able to see your private key? Why? Do you type it in by hand every time you use it? Do you even care what it is, as long is it exists and it works and it's secure?
Why, then, do you need to know someone's email address? Wouldn't you rather just type "Sodium Attack" than having to look up the email address? If you know more than one Sodium Attack, then your computer can present you with a list of choices, or otherwise offer you a way of distinguishing one from another.
And if you're trying to contact someone at Coca-Cola, under the current system you still need to go and find the correct address. What's the difference whether you're able to see the address itself, or you find a link allowing you to email Coca-Cola, with the actual address hidden from view?
when I want to telnet somewhere, I need a hostname (or IP address, of course), not a keyword
Your software needs the hostname or IP address. You do not.
We'll be satisfied with the selections presented before us because the big moneyed corporations who bought up all the keywords will always know what we are looking for and what we should be getting.
Well, at least it won't be any worse than the current situation in that regard.
That, of course, is the same thinking that led to the Y2K debacle. "Oh, it won't be around for *that* long."
Except with Y2K, if we're wrong about it not being around for that long, and it is around for that long, it's a major problem.
With.gov and.mil and.edu being restricted to the US, it may offend our sense of fairness, but it's not a technological problem. Systems aren't going to come crashing down because non-US governments aren't allowed to use the.gov TLD.
The way it's looking now, new TLD's are the only solution for this. The whole setup is too damn entrenched in people's minds.
On the contrary. You know how when you see a product advertised, you often see the website advertised with a URL and an AOL keyword (e.g., www.foo.com, AOL Keyword FOO)? Just a few weeks ago I saw a movie trailer (can't remember which one) which had the AOL keyword as usual, but instead of the URL, just said "Internet keyword: Foo". No domain name at all.
I expect that domain names will have gone the way of the dinosaurs within 3-5 years. When you think about it, they're rather kludgy anyway, being a compromise between computers and humans which are ideal for neither. Computers have to convert them to IP numbers anyway, but since humans aren't very good at remembering numbers, domain names are supposed to be more mnemonic, but aren't completely satisfactory in that regard. (Was that URL on the commercial I saw yesterday.org,.com, or.net?)
In the future, navigating will be all keyword based, and everyone will have forgotten what domain names are. Enter "Coca-Cola" and you'll be taken to the Coca-Cola website. (Or more likely, you'll be given a list of choices--official Coca-Cola site, Coca-Cola memorabilia site, Coca-Cola criticism.) Enter "Official Coca-Cola site" and you'll be taken directly there. (Imagine Google's "I feel lucky" button, except the smart browser will know when to offer you a list of choices, and when to take you directly there. Or perhaps you'll be taken directly to the official site even with the more general search, with a list of alternate choices in a different windowpane.)
Anyway, my point is that we shouldn't spend too much time worrying about things like whether the.gov TLD should be shared with other countries, when no one will even use URLs in a few more years.
Our first two rights in the Bill of Rights are constantly attacked from the right and left, respectivly.
Actually, the first amendment is constantly attacked from both the right and the left. Remember Tipper Gore's crusade against dirty lyrics in music? I suspect that at the moment, more censorship attempts come from the right than from the left because the right is currently ascendant.
For lots of examples, I highly recommend Nat Hentoff's book Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other. (Unfortunately out of print--check your favorite library or out-of-print-book-finding service.)
Don't make assumptions. In fact, if Bush and Gore had been the only two candidates, I would have voted for Bush. I find Bush only very slightly less distasteful than Gore, however.
Help? I'll give you help.
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 2
We could use some help from physicists and biologists here.
Well, I have degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, and have taken (and passed) a number of graduate-level molecular biology courses. I hope that's close-enough for you.
As a quasi-biologist, here's my advice on the subject: Don't try to apply biological principles to non-biological systems. It doesn't work.
What if I tried to apply computer science principles to biological systems? Sure, to the person who is familiar with neither computer science nor molecular biology, genetically engineering bacteria to perform a desired function may seem like "programming" the bacteria. But the two are so fundamentally different that I would at best end up wasting my time if I tried to apply comp. sci principles in order to get bacteria to do what I wanted them to do. Similarly, if you try to apply biological principles to information, you end up with junk, which is what this Katz article is.
Without seeing the patent appplication itself...and US patent applications aren't currently published (although they will start to be published later this year; and although foreign countries do publish applications, and anything big like this wouldn't be filed only in the US)...it's impossible to know what's actually claimed in the patent application as novel, and thus whether it's genuinely deserving of a patent or not.
Press releases and slashdot articles are notoriously inaccurate in describing patents and patent applications.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry, the nachos probably had a number of carcinogens. Gotta keep that cancer risk up!
And how is it that you find a phone number? By looking up a name. Now if you're looking it up in a tree corpse, yes, you need the number so you can manually enter it. If you've found it electronically on a system which can also dial your phone--and if such systems are ubiquitous--there's no reason the number shouldn't be invisible to the user.
Well, I hate to get into a "how long have you been on" argument, but since you brought it up, I've been online since 1989, thank you very much. I use elm to read my email.
Want to contact a specific machine or service? You need an address.
I'm not saying they won't exist. I'm saying they'll be invisible to the user, and only of concern to the computer.
They already are on much of the web. How many addresses are embedded in mailto links without displaying the address on screen? Why wouldn't that work in other applications?
When you go to decode an email which someone has encoded using your PGP public key, do you need to be able to see your private key? Why? Do you type it in by hand every time you use it? Do you even care what it is, as long is it exists and it works and it's secure?
Why, then, do you need to know someone's email address? Wouldn't you rather just type "Sodium Attack" than having to look up the email address? If you know more than one Sodium Attack, then your computer can present you with a list of choices, or otherwise offer you a way of distinguishing one from another.
And if you're trying to contact someone at Coca-Cola, under the current system you still need to go and find the correct address. What's the difference whether you're able to see the address itself, or you find a link allowing you to email Coca-Cola, with the actual address hidden from view?
when I want to telnet somewhere, I need a hostname (or IP address, of course), not a keyword
Your software needs the hostname or IP address. You do not.
Well, at least it won't be any worse than the current situation in that regard.
Except with Y2K, if we're wrong about it not being around for that long, and it is around for that long, it's a major problem.
With .gov and .mil and .edu being restricted to the US, it may offend our sense of fairness, but it's not a technological problem. Systems aren't going to come crashing down because non-US governments aren't allowed to use the .gov TLD.
The way it's looking now, new TLD's are the only solution for this. The whole setup is too damn entrenched in people's minds.
On the contrary. You know how when you see a product advertised, you often see the website advertised with a URL and an AOL keyword (e.g., www.foo.com, AOL Keyword FOO)? Just a few weeks ago I saw a movie trailer (can't remember which one) which had the AOL keyword as usual, but instead of the URL, just said "Internet keyword: Foo". No domain name at all.
In the future, navigating will be all keyword based, and everyone will have forgotten what domain names are. Enter "Coca-Cola" and you'll be taken to the Coca-Cola website. (Or more likely, you'll be given a list of choices--official Coca-Cola site, Coca-Cola memorabilia site, Coca-Cola criticism.) Enter "Official Coca-Cola site" and you'll be taken directly there. (Imagine Google's "I feel lucky" button, except the smart browser will know when to offer you a list of choices, and when to take you directly there. Or perhaps you'll be taken directly to the official site even with the more general search, with a list of alternate choices in a different windowpane.)
Anyway, my point is that we shouldn't spend too much time worrying about things like whether the .gov TLD should be shared with other countries, when no one will even use URLs in a few more years.
Actually, the first amendment is constantly attacked from both the right and the left. Remember Tipper Gore's crusade against dirty lyrics in music? I suspect that at the moment, more censorship attempts come from the right than from the left because the right is currently ascendant.
For lots of examples, I highly recommend Nat Hentoff's book Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other. (Unfortunately out of print--check your favorite library or out-of-print-book-finding service.)
Don't make assumptions. In fact, if Bush and Gore had been the only two candidates, I would have voted for Bush. I find Bush only very slightly less distasteful than Gore, however.
Well, I have degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, and have taken (and passed) a number of graduate-level molecular biology courses. I hope that's close-enough for you.
As a quasi-biologist, here's my advice on the subject: Don't try to apply biological principles to non-biological systems. It doesn't work.
What if I tried to apply computer science principles to biological systems? Sure, to the person who is familiar with neither computer science nor molecular biology, genetically engineering bacteria to perform a desired function may seem like "programming" the bacteria. But the two are so fundamentally different that I would at best end up wasting my time if I tried to apply comp. sci principles in order to get bacteria to do what I wanted them to do. Similarly, if you try to apply biological principles to information, you end up with junk, which is what this Katz article is.
Press releases and slashdot articles are notoriously inaccurate in describing patents and patent applications.