The nice thing about working in mathematical research is that no one has had to put up with this nonsense. If I need someones work, I can either email them and they happily send a copy or I can get a copy via interlibrary loans. There is none of this "I need compensation" IP crap in the field. Compensation comes from citation, which means you want your work in everyones hands.
CRC just screwed up with me, a potential customer. I wont buy their works now, It is to the copy machine with them. And I can, legally, because I have that educators umbrella over copyright law. Too bad for you CRC. Besides, the CRC didnt even think up their work, like physical constants to 9 digits.
Here is how I do it: Get 4 or five friends, and set up a *nix, *bsd, win2k, OS of your choice, go in together and buy a domain. Have the most experienced admin set it all up. This has worked for me for years and there is pretty much zero hassle and 100% reliability. The best thing is even if YOU don't know how to set things up, you can still enjoy the benefits of a private server. Not only that, you can always contact the admin and get plenty of changes made, since he/she is a friend.
Although I have trouble buying this myself, snooping on the populace could have been a major reason why the census was continued over a cheaper and more accurate statistical sample.
Perhaps congress is not so statistically incompetent as they lead us to believe. In any case, you will need this grain of salt.
Sick as it seems, pico does have a good use. The microsoft terminal emulator does pico correctly, but not vim or emacs.
Of course, people ought to upgrade to secure shell or crt or something, better yet MS by the year 1998 should have shipped an OS with working terminal emulation.
Pico is good when you are somewhere with nothing but a win32 box and lab restrictions (aka my current location)
I like how this article addresses the perception that the company not leading the market is only following. With huge high tech firms like AMD and Intel, hundreds of incredibly intelligent people are put to work to solve a complex problem while following a carefully outlined strategy. In reality, corporate warfare is much like a chess game between grandmasters.
IMO, each companies strategy is a strong one, and the winner will be decided by a variety of market forces including which strategy works best for tomorrows software (and who can tell now?). Both companies are planning masterful strategies to the problem of x86 design, and I think that as a so called "learned layman" in the processor business, it is quite a bit of fun to sit back and watch.
...when the Amiga 1000 was simply astounding. The mac hadnt gone that far, I still owned an apple IIc, windows was a joke, and PCs were referred to as IBM-compatible.
My friend's amiga 1000 had games that made my moth drop open. With most people stuck in CGA and EGA world, the graphics on the machine would blow ones mind. Add to that a windowing environment that beat everything up to about Win95 and OS7. Multitasking! On a PC! An OS for which the GUI and CLI made sense together.
Back then, PC operating systems were a joke compared to the amiga. If amiga had business apps back then, the choice would have been clear.
A comeback seems absurd today, but I remember that in grade school the amiga was a miracle. Who knows?
I am sure people said this about imaginary numbers, but how else would people analyse complex circuitry (ask any electronic engineer).
Abstract algebra was an easy target, but see how far a modern chemist will get without their trusty character tables.
This problem sounds like it may have applications in today unknown (or possibly known) areas of analysis and topology. It may be used to prove important future theorems, which will then be used to solve physics problems, and then be integrated into technology. Eventually, they may power several aspects of everyday life, in a manner as mysterious as how character tables from group theory aid chemists in creating the materials we surround ourselves with.
Yes, one of the fears of Mathematicians was that we would eventually drive mathematics into a formal system to which all possible theorems could be solved by blind computation. However, a formal system exhibiting certain characteristics (for lack of better phrasing, can be encapsulated into itself) cannot derive all true theorems from a given set of finite axioms. In other words, there are truths that can only be found by clever reasoning extending outside the bounds of a formal system, and we cannot have simple algorithms mindlessly permuting symbols to solve every mathematical problem.
Practically, if you go out and read most mathematical journals today, every solution (or even partial solution) to any problem usually concludes with several open problems. I would conjecture that there are more known open problems today then ever before and this number is growing exponentially.
Computer technology enables one to look at many examples sans computation, but the truly interesting material is still to lacking in formalization to be tackled by computer systems. In short, I would say that this may be the most exiting time ever to be in mathematics.
Anonymity is something to be guarded
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 1
Obviously, a truly anonymous posting is immune to this sort of litigation. People should be more concerned with the services they use, as these posts cannot be considered anonymous if AOL or Yahoo can trace their point of origination.
These court descisions show that a corporate entity can be forced by the govt to break what anonymity a user thought was secured. A bigger question is will it be made illegal to communicate anonymously?
In order to communicate with true anonimity over the internet, the IP address must not be present at the receiving end, making the protocol ill designed for anonymity. Although expoiting wingates can overcome this, telnetting in and out is clumsy, especially for the web. Perhaps someone could set up a service to forward forms to specific web servers, w/o logging the user IP. This could allow anonymous web postings, but it is questionable whether the govt would allow it to exist.
If you wish to communicate anonymously, you must make sure that the origination point of the message has been properly lost. On the other hand, should it be legal for services to lull people into a false sense of anonymity?
I would like a good answer as to why marijuana is illegal and what scientifically validated harm it does to society or an individual? This harm better be better than all the issues that arise from alcohol, because nearly everyone agrees that should not be illegal.
Also, dont the major party candidates feel a little hypocritical punishing americans for activities which they took part in and didnt seem to stop them from rising to the top of us politics?
I doubt a 0% growth rate is realistic, 3-5% might be more on the mark. Unfortunately, many shareholders have been betting on continued 15-20%. The reason for the slowdown is that there is a limit to consumer spending power, and the amount of money that can reasonably be spent on computer hardware and software. Consider market capitalization...
In the auto industry GM has a market capitalization around 30 billion, ford maybe 50B before the firestone incedent.
Compare this to the PC industry before the earnings warnings. Intel had around 400 billion, Microsoft well over 300, dell about 140, gateway 20, Compaq over 50, IBM over 200, HP over 120 and so on...
Cars also tend to cost ten times what computers do, and the expanding markets (lower income) will be far more interested in $500 PC's than in a $2500 P4 dell.
These are all companies that will do well in the future, but their current stock prices reflect the best possible future coming true with 100% certainty. This is probably the result of momentum investing, idiotically taking a concept of newtonian physics and applying it to an area where there is certainly no such thing as momentum. I'll buy that stock, it's been doubling for years, its got momentum, it cant go down...
Economically, there is not enough consumer spending power to justify the prices of these companies. However, investors are so intoxicated with the last few years that they fail to see any way things could go wrong. Most people think they are market geniuses because of 70%-80% returns last year, even though they failed to beat the market. How could they be wrong now?
Growth will certainly continue, and the companies will do well in the future. However, I pity the shareholders, as price is a quantitative measure, and just how well is the real question. I dont think anyone is questioning moderate growth, but the exponential growth model is beginning to fail.
Parenting is the right of the government, and it is a shame that we still reproduce sexually.
After all, a gram is better than a damn, and look at what biological parents tend to do: refuse to let their children have their state prescribed ritalin so that the state must step in and force the parents to allow their children to do their patriotic duty.
However, I do believe that violence should be committed only for the good of the state, and so the makers of violent entertainment should be government controlled so that children can learn to kill in order to contribute to the glory of the state, rather than to foment disorder and suffering.
Sex is for pleasure and furthering of the state. It is a shame that parents believe that their children are their own and not of the state. Although I support the government stepping in with new bills requiring state parenting, I think their are better things to do than ban violence for children. For example, we could teach patriotism through having kids destroy illegal aliens in quake.
Although I imagine this article was meant to be a bit tounge in cheek, I doubt that a correlation between violence increases in video games can be causually linked to a decrease in real violence. A correlation certainly exists, and it is a shame our nations future leaders form policy on anedotal evidence versus valid statistical findings.
If anything, games such as quake might reduce violence by high school outcasts, not by satiating violent tendencies online, but by creating virtual communities giving these poor souls some sense of self worth and human interaction with peers.
What these statistics do show, however, is that society has been making up a percieved problem of escalating teenage violence even as the numbers show significant drops, and then creating a scapegoat for an imagined problem. It is very frightening that not only this nations voters are happy to go along with this story, but also those who may occupy the highest government office.
Off Topic, but this is very much like the war on marijuana in my opinion. Lets imprision half a million people and kill thousands over a plant that has no scientifically proven ill effects. Why not do the same with violent video games?
Just assuming this quote was not taken totally out of context, and arrogance notwithstanding, they have a point.
The linux movement, that is, the Wall Street linux movement was very much started by redhat. Unless someone did this before them (apologies for lack of research), they did really begin the corporate push for linux user friendlyness, or better described, not-so-steep learning curve.
Honestly, GNU Software in combo with linux is frighteningly easy to use once you have surpassed the learning curve. However, the majority of the population do not need applications that all have turing-complete scripting capabilities, well thought out hotkey combinations, regexps, and command line interoperability with literally everything else. It takes too much effort to get used to unless you need to complete nonstandard tasks on a regular basis.
Redhat, with their packaging systems, easy installations, etc brings the unix environment closer to the desktop idea of exchanging programmability for a more consumer electronic style interface. As an example, compare filters in outlook to procmail. You loose the ability to shell out and do literally anything with mail, but gain an interface that can be configured to do standard tasks with minimal learning. It is similar to comparing a Stereo or VCR interface to a command interpreter. Abstract functionality is compromised for ease of quick understanding.
In the sense of funding desktop projects, which is what the corps look at, redhat truly has done alot. I certainly believe a admin lacking knowledge and experience would have an easier time setting up a webserver on redhat than a more traditional distro like slackware.
It is in a sense the "new" open source movement is for quick learning (GNOME), but the software it is based around (UNIX) was based more designed for the natural abailty to interopt to complete any imaginable task, given proper knowledge. The newer open source software is slowly turning to a design of ease of quick understanding, like the interface of any piece of consumer electronics. Redhat is on the forefront of funding this endeavor, but is certainly not the only force (VA Linux).
It is a bloated claim, but as from the corporate funding take over the world viewpoint, they did alot.
Since I use linux for coding mathematical models using egcs and emacs, that viewpoint matters little to me. I save my thanks for RMS, Torvals, Cox, and all the kernel, cli utils, and compiler developers that have provided me with the OSS that I use every day. Given how easy that is for me now, I would say that the open source movement from the origional prospective is complete. I have my UNIX, and I never have to pay. Was that not the primary point of all of this?
Coke has been following money around for years. As someone put it, "Coke is God's way of telling you that you have too much money." Anywhere that you see millionaires pop up quickly, you can bet that they are doing coke. Granted, coke is generally a dumb thing to do (I still won't try it), but it isnt quite as dumb as the US government plays it out to be. You get the same stimulant (dopamine) high from coke without the depressent effects (GABA) of alcohol. I can understand how the big-ego party culture can easily make the switch from alcohol to coke, spiking the stimulant effect and getting rid of hangovers and the like (excluding withdrawal issues).
I think a more interesting and underground issue is the relationship (if existing) between techies and dope. I have seen tons of very intelligent people spend a few days coding and then getting stoned, only to wake up the next morning and code some more. Anyone see the same effect?
Of course bordercontrol cannot properly resolve the geographical location of a 10.x.x.x or a 192.168.x.x. Those are not real IP numbers, but reserved for private use.
There is NO geographical location for a 10 net or a 192.168 net. You are behind an IP Masquerading box.
Now, if you connected to this TV system, your IP would be converted by the firewall to a real IP address which would then be sent to bordercontrol to find the correct geographical location of your ISP, or wherever the box is translating addresses. Tbeir computers cannot, and will not ever receive connections from the addresses 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x. I imagine that the netherlands is the default (perhaps corresponding to an integer value of zero?)
No, it doesnt meet number 1. There are no regexps. Functionality is impaired for ease of use. Consider the difference between filtering options available on eudora or outlook to procmail. Writing a procmail script is certainly more difficult than setting filters in a graphical email program, but there is more flexibility in procmail. In fact, since you can call out to shell, I believe procmail is turing complete.
I think it obviously stands to reason that an advanced shell with looping, ifs, pipes, and redirection is far more flexible than a set of widgets and wizards. However, this doesnt mean windows is a bad OS, it is quite a good OS, and what it does is transform a computer into a piece of consumer electronics, so that people unwilling to spend years learning fundamentals of permissions, filesystems, bash scripting, perl, compilation, and tcp/ip can still use the internet and perform simple tasks on computers. Windows 2000 is good because it extends this to the server, allowing non-specialists to even set up email and web servers in a reasonably stable and secure fashion. It is a great thing for very small businesses and home offices, where a sysadmin would cost too much, and nobody around knows how to manipulate a good CLI (such as bash or tcsh) or the emacs environment.
I did find this under title 17 sec 115. Is there an exclusion for individuals which nullifies this?
(H)(i) A digital phonorecord delivery of a sound recording is
actionable as an act of infringement under section 501, and is
fully subject to the remedies provided by sections 502 through
506 and section 509, unless -
(I) the digital phonorecord delivery has been authorized by
the copyright owner of the sound recording; and
(II) the owner of the copyright in the sound recording or the
entity making the digital phonorecord delivery has obtained a
compulsory license under this section or has otherwise been
authorized by the copyright owner of the musical work to
distribute or authorize the distribution, by means of a digital
phonorecord delivery, of each musical work embodied in the
sound recording.
It seems like even though the delivery is automated by FTP, the owner of the machine would be digitally delivering a phonorecord to another party. I am not sure if there is some nonprofit or individual exemtion to this. Also, the legal definition of digital phonorecord delivery is not present in sec 101, so I may me misinterpreting the meaning of 'digital phonorecord delivery'
Any ideas? No wonder there are so many lawyers...
This still does not affect napster as napster simply alerts people to other people engaged in legal or illegal 'digital phonorecord delivery', if I am in fact interpreting this term correctly.
: "If you define your terms correctly, black is white and 2+2=5, too.". Now, there is no possible way no matter how you define the terms that 2+2=5, or that total visible light spectrum absorption (black) can be the same as total light reflection (white).
Let +: ( R x R ) -> R be defined
+(x,y) = x (+) y (+) 1 where (+) is standard addition; x,y are in R
As shorthand, we write +(x,y) = x + y
Theorem: + is a binary operation on R
Proof: Let x,y be in R. Then x+y = x (+) y (+) 1 is in R as (+) is a binary operation on R
x + (y + z) = x + (y (+) z (+) 1)
= x (+) (y (+) z (+) 1) (+) 1
= x (+) y (+) 1 (+) z (+) 1
= (x (+) y (+) 1) (+) z (+) 1
= (x + y) + z
Q.E.D.
Theorem: (R,+) is a group.
Proof: Exercise left to another poster.
So in this algebraic structure, 2 + 2 = 2 (+) 2 (+) 1 = 4 (+) 1 = 5
I seroiusly doubt that any of this would make it to debate. Digital copyright issues are so much more abstract than foreign policy, military spending, etc that the american public doesnt pay too much attention. Plus, I doubt either of the major party candidates have seroiusly thought about the issue.
If it did make it into debate, I believe both Bush and Gore would side with the RIAA and MPAA. The smaller party candidates might be more interesting. Nader is a fierce consumer advocate, so he would most likely side against the MPAA, and maybe the RIAA too (plus he hates corporate interference with govt). Buchanan is a toss up, he might actually side with the people, I am not sure how he feels about this. Brown and the libertarians, strange as it may seem, are likely to side with the MPAA and RIAA, due to their strong idealism concerning property rights. It may seem a bit backwards, but many libertarians believe in strong protection for IP, and have the attitude "No one is forcing you to buy DVDs"
I think a three way debate over this issue between Brown, Nader, and Buchanan would be FAR more interesting than what Bush and Gore would say.
I find it interesting that most people feel that it is genuinely bad to shoplift, steal things from houses, pickpocket, etc. However, when it comes to IP, people are very willing to steal without even a single iota of guilt.
Honestly, stealing IP is not a good thing to do, and the mantra "Information wants to be free" is not a justifiable excuse. IMO, this is not the real reason that people are currently ripping off massive amounts of IP without any remorse.
Most people are not naturally lacking in integrity as to go around stealing other peoples things. The exception to this is when people feel ripped off. Ripping people off is legal and will certianly stay legal, but it does invoke dislike and the feeling that retribution is needed. This is generally considered low class or bad business practice.
I think the reason digital piracy exists is because people do feel very ripped off, especially when it comes to music and software. Music is controlled by 6 (is it 5 now?) mega corporations which admittedly fix prices at an arbitrary high level, and manipulate congress to pass laws removing fair use from the consumer (DCMA), as well as disservicing 95% of their artists. When someone buys a $18 cd and does not like most of the songs on it, after hearing the 2 good songs on the radio, after being told that CD prices would have dropped to tape levels by now, and after the megas disallowed stores to advertise sales, this customer feels cheated. The customer will then feel no remorse for uploading the entire CD to a p2p service and downloading some better music in exchange. Perhaps if CD prices had lowered to a reasonable level ($7-9), and sales down to $4 had been advertised, and the artists made more than $0.52 per CD, people would feel bad about stealing IP. One might feel inclined to purchase the CD out of guilt.
I believe one of the reasons that the corporate IP environment has become so bad is the destruction of the capitalist system by laws passed purely for the protection of profits of select industry groups (5-10 companies). In a fair capitalist system, the government lays down a system of laws ensuring basic civility. This creates an even playing field for consumers, producers, and vendors where darwinian selection determines who will profit. However, when laws such as the DCMA or UTICA are passed for the protection of a handful of companies, the level playing field is corrupted, and specific parties are given a legal advantage by the government.
This creates contempt from upstarts and others who stand to loose due to new legal restrictions. As the government continues to support large corps through new laws, the natural selection dissaates, and the merging of corporations creates a system of quasi-monopolies, which makes consumption in america feel a bit more like a communist system, only with an uneven distribution of wealth.
The bottom line is consumers lost fair use rights, and don't believe congress cares. So they have decided not to follow the laws anymore. Many feel that if information can not be handled in a fair manner, they will just pass it around for free. It may not be right, but people tend to respond negatively after getting ripped off.
Perhaps if Universities offered degrees that combined topics such as formal logic, discrete mathematics, formal languages, data structures, algorithms, and network analysis, they could provide the sort of thinking needed to handle generalized problems, which could then very easily be translated into any specific language or application from firewall strategy to perl scripting or development in c++, java, or scheme. This would be in contrast to a degree specific in C++, Java, and VisualBasic like the ones taught at my university, which reqiure no mathematical analysis past basic calculus.
It is just my opinion (biased, I know), but I believe that training students for mathematical maturity may breed techies better trained to learn specifics on their own, at an accelerated rate. Of course, employers would need to learn to value these skills over simple exams (MCSE et al.)
Having started with *nix in '96, I remember that there were many excuses not to try open source software. I had a friend tell me, here play with this on a 2nd partition or older machine. It's fun. You can learn UNIX for free.
I got slackware 3.0 (I may be off) and played with the command line for a while, just poking at things. I didn't care that the install was hard...it was fun! I was challenged to learn how computing worked at a deeper level. I was specifically told that I would spend many hours wrestling with things, but it would feel good at the end. I remember thinking...hey cool, this comes with a c compiler by default. Then when I got X running it was fun to tweak, and pop xeyes randomly on other peoples screens (causing a few lost shell accounts).
I think people are reluctant to try OSS today because of the way the community presents it. No one says anymore "hey, install this and see if you can learn *nix". Instead it is "This is faster, more reliable, easier to install, better than windows, and totally free." Obviously, this is quite a hefty claim for a win32er to take (true or not true), and so people will quickly become disillusioned at the first couple signs of trouble, and will not wish to work for a few hours learning how to compile soundcard support into a new kernel, or activate IP-Masquerading with additional modules.
If we said instead, "Hey try this on an old P100, it is fun to play with," we could let the OS try and prove itself. Without the hype, people might get turned on quicker. When I started, there was no concept of replacing windows, it was just another OS to accomplish things on. I only went full *nix in '98 when NT4 ate my partition table, and I went back to win98 this year because I missed the games, and Netscape4.0 does have issues.
Its true that win2000 and linux are closing in on each others turf, and this is going to cause sparks, but the attitude that should be fostered is to know BOTH win2000 and *nix inside and out, and take some pride in being knowledgeable in both spheres. Granted, everyone has a preferred environment, but discussion should focus more on getting things done, not "come to our side."
The more hype escalates, the more win32 users will loathe *nix. (also, win2k hype will make *nixers hate the win32 community, works both ways). People will find excuses, especially with the "conversion" attitude. The community needs to go back to "grab that old 486 from the closet and come play". As easy as setup and install is getting, excuses will go away when win32ers stop feeling threatened.
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CRC just screwed up with me, a potential customer. I wont buy their works now, It is to the copy machine with them. And I can, legally, because I have that educators umbrella over copyright law. Too bad for you CRC. Besides, the CRC didnt even think up their work, like physical constants to 9 digits.
Here is how I do it: Get 4 or five friends, and set up a *nix, *bsd, win2k, OS of your choice, go in together and buy a domain. Have the most experienced admin set it all up. This has worked for me for years and there is pretty much zero hassle and 100% reliability. The best thing is even if YOU don't know how to set things up, you can still enjoy the benefits of a private server. Not only that, you can always contact the admin and get plenty of changes made, since he/she is a friend.
Perhaps congress is not so statistically incompetent as they lead us to believe. In any case, you will need this grain of salt.
Of course, people ought to upgrade to secure shell or crt or something, better yet MS by the year 1998 should have shipped an OS with working terminal emulation.
Pico is good when you are somewhere with nothing but a win32 box and lab restrictions (aka my current location)
I like how this article addresses the perception that the company not leading the market is only following. With huge high tech firms like AMD and Intel, hundreds of incredibly intelligent people are put to work to solve a complex problem while following a carefully outlined strategy. In reality, corporate warfare is much like a chess game between grandmasters. IMO, each companies strategy is a strong one, and the winner will be decided by a variety of market forces including which strategy works best for tomorrows software (and who can tell now?). Both companies are planning masterful strategies to the problem of x86 design, and I think that as a so called "learned layman" in the processor business, it is quite a bit of fun to sit back and watch.
My friend's amiga 1000 had games that made my moth drop open. With most people stuck in CGA and EGA world, the graphics on the machine would blow ones mind. Add to that a windowing environment that beat everything up to about Win95 and OS7. Multitasking! On a PC! An OS for which the GUI and CLI made sense together.
Back then, PC operating systems were a joke compared to the amiga. If amiga had business apps back then, the choice would have been clear.
A comeback seems absurd today, but I remember that in grade school the amiga was a miracle. Who knows?
I am sure people said this about imaginary numbers, but how else would people analyse complex circuitry (ask any electronic engineer).
Abstract algebra was an easy target, but see how far a modern chemist will get without their trusty character tables.
This problem sounds like it may have applications in today unknown (or possibly known) areas of analysis and topology. It may be used to prove important future theorems, which will then be used to solve physics problems, and then be integrated into technology. Eventually, they may power several aspects of everyday life, in a manner as mysterious as how character tables from group theory aid chemists in creating the materials we surround ourselves with.
Yes, one of the fears of Mathematicians was that we would eventually drive mathematics into a formal system to which all possible theorems could be solved by blind computation. However, a formal system exhibiting certain characteristics (for lack of better phrasing, can be encapsulated into itself) cannot derive all true theorems from a given set of finite axioms. In other words, there are truths that can only be found by clever reasoning extending outside the bounds of a formal system, and we cannot have simple algorithms mindlessly permuting symbols to solve every mathematical problem.
Practically, if you go out and read most mathematical journals today, every solution (or even partial solution) to any problem usually concludes with several open problems. I would conjecture that there are more known open problems today then ever before and this number is growing exponentially.
Computer technology enables one to look at many examples sans computation, but the truly interesting material is still to lacking in formalization to be tackled by computer systems. In short, I would say that this may be the most exiting time ever to be in mathematics.
Obviously, a truly anonymous posting is immune to this sort of litigation. People should be more concerned with the services they use, as these posts cannot be considered anonymous if AOL or Yahoo can trace their point of origination.
These court descisions show that a corporate entity can be forced by the govt to break what anonymity a user thought was secured. A bigger question is will it be made illegal to communicate anonymously?
In order to communicate with true anonimity over the internet, the IP address must not be present at the receiving end, making the protocol ill designed for anonymity. Although expoiting wingates can overcome this, telnetting in and out is clumsy, especially for the web. Perhaps someone could set up a service to forward forms to specific web servers, w/o logging the user IP. This could allow anonymous web postings, but it is questionable whether the govt would allow it to exist.
If you wish to communicate anonymously, you must make sure that the origination point of the message has been properly lost. On the other hand, should it be legal for services to lull people into a false sense of anonymity?
Also, dont the major party candidates feel a little hypocritical punishing americans for activities which they took part in and didnt seem to stop them from rising to the top of us politics?
I doubt a 0% growth rate is realistic, 3-5% might be more on the mark. Unfortunately, many shareholders have been betting on continued 15-20%. The reason for the slowdown is that there is a limit to consumer spending power, and the amount of money that can reasonably be spent on computer hardware and software. Consider market capitalization...
In the auto industry GM has a market capitalization around 30 billion, ford maybe 50B before the firestone incedent.
Compare this to the PC industry before the earnings warnings. Intel had around 400 billion, Microsoft well over 300, dell about 140, gateway 20, Compaq over 50, IBM over 200, HP over 120 and so on...
Cars also tend to cost ten times what computers do, and the expanding markets (lower income) will be far more interested in $500 PC's than in a $2500 P4 dell.
These are all companies that will do well in the future, but their current stock prices reflect the best possible future coming true with 100% certainty. This is probably the result of momentum investing, idiotically taking a concept of newtonian physics and applying it to an area where there is certainly no such thing as momentum. I'll buy that stock, it's been doubling for years, its got momentum, it cant go down...
Economically, there is not enough consumer spending power to justify the prices of these companies. However, investors are so intoxicated with the last few years that they fail to see any way things could go wrong. Most people think they are market geniuses because of 70%-80% returns last year, even though they failed to beat the market. How could they be wrong now?
Growth will certainly continue, and the companies will do well in the future. However, I pity the shareholders, as price is a quantitative measure, and just how well is the real question. I dont think anyone is questioning moderate growth, but the exponential growth model is beginning to fail.
After all, a gram is better than a damn, and look at what biological parents tend to do: refuse to let their children have their state prescribed ritalin so that the state must step in and force the parents to allow their children to do their patriotic duty.
However, I do believe that violence should be committed only for the good of the state, and so the makers of violent entertainment should be government controlled so that children can learn to kill in order to contribute to the glory of the state, rather than to foment disorder and suffering.
Sex is for pleasure and furthering of the state. It is a shame that parents believe that their children are their own and not of the state. Although I support the government stepping in with new bills requiring state parenting, I think their are better things to do than ban violence for children. For example, we could teach patriotism through having kids destroy illegal aliens in quake.
If anything, games such as quake might reduce violence by high school outcasts, not by satiating violent tendencies online, but by creating virtual communities giving these poor souls some sense of self worth and human interaction with peers.
What these statistics do show, however, is that society has been making up a percieved problem of escalating teenage violence even as the numbers show significant drops, and then creating a scapegoat for an imagined problem. It is very frightening that not only this nations voters are happy to go along with this story, but also those who may occupy the highest government office.
Off Topic, but this is very much like the war on marijuana in my opinion. Lets imprision half a million people and kill thousands over a plant that has no scientifically proven ill effects. Why not do the same with violent video games?
The linux movement, that is, the Wall Street linux movement was very much started by redhat. Unless someone did this before them (apologies for lack of research), they did really begin the corporate push for linux user friendlyness, or better described, not-so-steep learning curve.
Honestly, GNU Software in combo with linux is frighteningly easy to use once you have surpassed the learning curve. However, the majority of the population do not need applications that all have turing-complete scripting capabilities, well thought out hotkey combinations, regexps, and command line interoperability with literally everything else. It takes too much effort to get used to unless you need to complete nonstandard tasks on a regular basis.
Redhat, with their packaging systems, easy installations, etc brings the unix environment closer to the desktop idea of exchanging programmability for a more consumer electronic style interface. As an example, compare filters in outlook to procmail. You loose the ability to shell out and do literally anything with mail, but gain an interface that can be configured to do standard tasks with minimal learning. It is similar to comparing a Stereo or VCR interface to a command interpreter. Abstract functionality is compromised for ease of quick understanding.
In the sense of funding desktop projects, which is what the corps look at, redhat truly has done alot. I certainly believe a admin lacking knowledge and experience would have an easier time setting up a webserver on redhat than a more traditional distro like slackware.
It is in a sense the "new" open source movement is for quick learning (GNOME), but the software it is based around (UNIX) was based more designed for the natural abailty to interopt to complete any imaginable task, given proper knowledge. The newer open source software is slowly turning to a design of ease of quick understanding, like the interface of any piece of consumer electronics. Redhat is on the forefront of funding this endeavor, but is certainly not the only force (VA Linux).
It is a bloated claim, but as from the corporate funding take over the world viewpoint, they did alot.
Since I use linux for coding mathematical models using egcs and emacs, that viewpoint matters little to me. I save my thanks for RMS, Torvals, Cox, and all the kernel, cli utils, and compiler developers that have provided me with the OSS that I use every day. Given how easy that is for me now, I would say that the open source movement from the origional prospective is complete. I have my UNIX, and I never have to pay. Was that not the primary point of all of this?
Looks like our author is still just living in a fantasy.
Coke has been following money around for years. As someone put it, "Coke is God's way of telling you that you have too much money." Anywhere that you see millionaires pop up quickly, you can bet that they are doing coke. Granted, coke is generally a dumb thing to do (I still won't try it), but it isnt quite as dumb as the US government plays it out to be. You get the same stimulant (dopamine) high from coke without the depressent effects (GABA) of alcohol. I can understand how the big-ego party culture can easily make the switch from alcohol to coke, spiking the stimulant effect and getting rid of hangovers and the like (excluding withdrawal issues).
I think a more interesting and underground issue is the relationship (if existing) between techies and dope. I have seen tons of very intelligent people spend a few days coding and then getting stoned, only to wake up the next morning and code some more. Anyone see the same effect?
You need to read RFC 1918.
Of course bordercontrol cannot properly resolve the geographical location of a 10.x.x.x or a 192.168.x.x. Those are not real IP numbers, but reserved for private use.
There is NO geographical location for a 10 net or a 192.168 net. You are behind an IP Masquerading box.
Now, if you connected to this TV system, your IP would be converted by the firewall to a real IP address which would then be sent to bordercontrol to find the correct geographical location of your ISP, or wherever the box is translating addresses. Tbeir computers cannot, and will not ever receive connections from the addresses 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x. I imagine that the netherlands is the default (perhaps corresponding to an integer value of zero?)
Microsoft Windows meets all of these and more.
No, it doesnt meet number 1. There are no regexps. Functionality is impaired for ease of use. Consider the difference between filtering options available on eudora or outlook to procmail. Writing a procmail script is certainly more difficult than setting filters in a graphical email program, but there is more flexibility in procmail. In fact, since you can call out to shell, I believe procmail is turing complete.
I think it obviously stands to reason that an advanced shell with looping, ifs, pipes, and redirection is far more flexible than a set of widgets and wizards. However, this doesnt mean windows is a bad OS, it is quite a good OS, and what it does is transform a computer into a piece of consumer electronics, so that people unwilling to spend years learning fundamentals of permissions, filesystems, bash scripting, perl, compilation, and tcp/ip can still use the internet and perform simple tasks on computers. Windows 2000 is good because it extends this to the server, allowing non-specialists to even set up email and web servers in a reasonably stable and secure fashion. It is a great thing for very small businesses and home offices, where a sysadmin would cost too much, and nobody around knows how to manipulate a good CLI (such as bash or tcsh) or the emacs environment.
I did find this under title 17 sec 115. Is there an exclusion for individuals which nullifies this?
(H)(i) A digital phonorecord delivery of a sound recording is actionable as an act of infringement under section 501, and is fully subject to the remedies provided by sections 502 through 506 and section 509, unless -
(I) the digital phonorecord delivery has been authorized by the copyright owner of the sound recording; and
(II) the owner of the copyright in the sound recording or the entity making the digital phonorecord delivery has obtained a compulsory license under this section or has otherwise been authorized by the copyright owner of the musical work to distribute or authorize the distribution, by means of a digital phonorecord delivery, of each musical work embodied in the sound recording.
It seems like even though the delivery is automated by FTP, the owner of the machine would be digitally delivering a phonorecord to another party. I am not sure if there is some nonprofit or individual exemtion to this. Also, the legal definition of digital phonorecord delivery is not present in sec 101, so I may me misinterpreting the meaning of 'digital phonorecord delivery'
Any ideas? No wonder there are so many lawyers...
This still does not affect napster as napster simply alerts people to other people engaged in legal or illegal 'digital phonorecord delivery', if I am in fact interpreting this term correctly.
Errr... overall good post...however...
: "If you define your terms correctly, black is white and 2+2=5, too.". Now, there is no possible way no matter how you define the terms that 2+2=5, or that total visible light spectrum absorption (black) can be the same as total light reflection (white).
Let +: ( R x R ) -> R be defined
+(x,y) = x (+) y (+) 1 where (+) is standard addition; x,y are in R
As shorthand, we write +(x,y) = x + y
Theorem: + is a binary operation on R
Proof: Let x,y be in R. Then x+y = x (+) y (+) 1 is in R as (+) is a binary operation on R
x + (y + z) = x + (y (+) z (+) 1) = x (+) (y (+) z (+) 1) (+) 1 = x (+) y (+) 1 (+) z (+) 1 = (x (+) y (+) 1) (+) z (+) 1 = (x + y) + z
Q.E.D.
Theorem: (R,+) is a group.
Proof: Exercise left to another poster.
So in this algebraic structure, 2 + 2 = 2 (+) 2 (+) 1 = 4 (+) 1 = 5
I seroiusly doubt that any of this would make it to debate. Digital copyright issues are so much more abstract than foreign policy, military spending, etc that the american public doesnt pay too much attention. Plus, I doubt either of the major party candidates have seroiusly thought about the issue.
If it did make it into debate, I believe both Bush and Gore would side with the RIAA and MPAA. The smaller party candidates might be more interesting. Nader is a fierce consumer advocate, so he would most likely side against the MPAA, and maybe the RIAA too (plus he hates corporate interference with govt). Buchanan is a toss up, he might actually side with the people, I am not sure how he feels about this. Brown and the libertarians, strange as it may seem, are likely to side with the MPAA and RIAA, due to their strong idealism concerning property rights. It may seem a bit backwards, but many libertarians believe in strong protection for IP, and have the attitude "No one is forcing you to buy DVDs"
I think a three way debate over this issue between Brown, Nader, and Buchanan would be FAR more interesting than what Bush and Gore would say.
Well, if it does happen in 50 years or so, I will be more concerned with improvements in denture technology.
Honestly, stealing IP is not a good thing to do, and the mantra "Information wants to be free" is not a justifiable excuse. IMO, this is not the real reason that people are currently ripping off massive amounts of IP without any remorse.
Most people are not naturally lacking in integrity as to go around stealing other peoples things. The exception to this is when people feel ripped off. Ripping people off is legal and will certianly stay legal, but it does invoke dislike and the feeling that retribution is needed. This is generally considered low class or bad business practice.
I think the reason digital piracy exists is because people do feel very ripped off, especially when it comes to music and software. Music is controlled by 6 (is it 5 now?) mega corporations which admittedly fix prices at an arbitrary high level, and manipulate congress to pass laws removing fair use from the consumer (DCMA), as well as disservicing 95% of their artists. When someone buys a $18 cd and does not like most of the songs on it, after hearing the 2 good songs on the radio, after being told that CD prices would have dropped to tape levels by now, and after the megas disallowed stores to advertise sales, this customer feels cheated. The customer will then feel no remorse for uploading the entire CD to a p2p service and downloading some better music in exchange. Perhaps if CD prices had lowered to a reasonable level ($7-9), and sales down to $4 had been advertised, and the artists made more than $0.52 per CD, people would feel bad about stealing IP. One might feel inclined to purchase the CD out of guilt.
I believe one of the reasons that the corporate IP environment has become so bad is the destruction of the capitalist system by laws passed purely for the protection of profits of select industry groups (5-10 companies). In a fair capitalist system, the government lays down a system of laws ensuring basic civility. This creates an even playing field for consumers, producers, and vendors where darwinian selection determines who will profit. However, when laws such as the DCMA or UTICA are passed for the protection of a handful of companies, the level playing field is corrupted, and specific parties are given a legal advantage by the government.
This creates contempt from upstarts and others who stand to loose due to new legal restrictions. As the government continues to support large corps through new laws, the natural selection dissaates, and the merging of corporations creates a system of quasi-monopolies, which makes consumption in america feel a bit more like a communist system, only with an uneven distribution of wealth.
The bottom line is consumers lost fair use rights, and don't believe congress cares. So they have decided not to follow the laws anymore. Many feel that if information can not be handled in a fair manner, they will just pass it around for free. It may not be right, but people tend to respond negatively after getting ripped off.
Perhaps if Universities offered degrees that combined topics such as formal logic, discrete mathematics, formal languages, data structures, algorithms, and network analysis, they could provide the sort of thinking needed to handle generalized problems, which could then very easily be translated into any specific language or application from firewall strategy to perl scripting or development in c++, java, or scheme. This would be in contrast to a degree specific in C++, Java, and VisualBasic like the ones taught at my university, which reqiure no mathematical analysis past basic calculus.
It is just my opinion (biased, I know), but I believe that training students for mathematical maturity may breed techies better trained to learn specifics on their own, at an accelerated rate. Of course, employers would need to learn to value these skills over simple exams (MCSE et al.)
Having started with *nix in '96, I remember that there were many excuses not to try open source software. I had a friend tell me, here play with this on a 2nd partition or older machine. It's fun. You can learn UNIX for free.
I got slackware 3.0 (I may be off) and played with the command line for a while, just poking at things. I didn't care that the install was hard...it was fun! I was challenged to learn how computing worked at a deeper level. I was specifically told that I would spend many hours wrestling with things, but it would feel good at the end. I remember thinking...hey cool, this comes with a c compiler by default. Then when I got X running it was fun to tweak, and pop xeyes randomly on other peoples screens (causing a few lost shell accounts).
I think people are reluctant to try OSS today because of the way the community presents it. No one says anymore "hey, install this and see if you can learn *nix". Instead it is "This is faster, more reliable, easier to install, better than windows, and totally free." Obviously, this is quite a hefty claim for a win32er to take (true or not true), and so people will quickly become disillusioned at the first couple signs of trouble, and will not wish to work for a few hours learning how to compile soundcard support into a new kernel, or activate IP-Masquerading with additional modules.
If we said instead, "Hey try this on an old P100, it is fun to play with," we could let the OS try and prove itself. Without the hype, people might get turned on quicker. When I started, there was no concept of replacing windows, it was just another OS to accomplish things on. I only went full *nix in '98 when NT4 ate my partition table, and I went back to win98 this year because I missed the games, and Netscape4.0 does have issues.
Its true that win2000 and linux are closing in on each others turf, and this is going to cause sparks, but the attitude that should be fostered is to know BOTH win2000 and *nix inside and out, and take some pride in being knowledgeable in both spheres. Granted, everyone has a preferred environment, but discussion should focus more on getting things done, not "come to our side."
The more hype escalates, the more win32 users will loathe *nix. (also, win2k hype will make *nixers hate the win32 community, works both ways). People will find excuses, especially with the "conversion" attitude. The community needs to go back to "grab that old 486 from the closet and come play". As easy as setup and install is getting, excuses will go away when win32ers stop feeling threatened.