What precisely does "verify your residence" mean? My guess is that it means you will have to have a house, or an apartment, or some other solid place to live. People who are living out of a cardboard box need not apply. So although this is lowing the bar, certain people will still be denied access.
...
Anyhow, if people who can't afford the 'net are lined up to use these, that's a good sign to me. What I'd be most afraid of is that these people would simply have no interest in using them, either due to ignorance or because a particular library terminal is part of a gang's turf.
I was a bit shocked to read your post- obviously a humerous post, I thought, nicely done - but it got modded up as interesting, and people seemed to be taking it seriously...
Why, when you think "free email accounts", do you immediately think of gang memebers and homeless people? Like others have said, homeless people probably have more to worry about than catching up on MAKE $$$ FAST FROM HOME!!! mesages, and gang members probably don't care for email. Don't get all your information about the "poor" from COPS and the 6 o'clock news...
When I hear this, I think more of my aunt. She's got a good job, in a call-in service department, even has a manager's position, but isn't paid what she's worth. Unlike many of us, she has to make decisions like "Cable or Internet Access?". She can't use her work email for personal reasons, and was really enjoying the free email account Juno, but was annoyed at the limitations (couldn't follow any web links, for instance).
There are probably lots of people like this, who have friends and family that have computers and email, but that they can't personally afford a computer and dial-up account, or have to decide amoung entertainment options, or even between necessities. What Houston is doing is making the first steps toward a universal system that these folks could use to check their email once a week or so, and learn the joys of the hoax email.
It's also a step toward email addresses linked to a physical address - a marketer's dream. These kinds of services will probably be more profitable than the other "free" email services, and quickly you won't be able to get a free account without giving up an address.
BTW - my aunt was able to upgrade from my hand-me-down computer to a shiny new Dell - her workplace sponsered reduced-cost computers through payroll deductions, along with Internet Access. This is a great move for companies - you get employee loyalty, give them a real benefit, and they train themselves to use computers on their own time. This isn't the first time I've seen a company's self-interest result in an employee getting a personal home computer - maybe companies aren't so evil...
Did you even read my fucking post? Since you talked to me in such a condescending way, let me do the same to you.
Here's what I see happening. I post something that offends the moderators on the site (be it Simms, Taco, or anybody else). They use their infinite moderator points to moderate my initial post to -1 using a combination of offtopic and troll.
Then they go into my comment history and mark EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS as -1, using the same moderation scheme. Let me say that again. EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS. Even posts that I made 2 weeks ago get moderated down to -1.
Fortunately, I avoided the guillotine this time, but I have had this done to me before.
Now, is there anything else you want to say that will further illustrate your ignorance?
Why yes, yes there is.
I went into your comment history. This only gives the last two weeks, so if the "bitchslap" happened before then, I don't have proof. Here's the totals:
5 Old News posted on 08-17-01 09:01 AM CDT (Score:0)
6 Great posted on 08-17-01 08:59 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:4)
7 You just proved my point posted on 08-13-01 11:31 AM CDT (Score:0 Replies:3)
8 Problem is obvious posted on 08-13-01 10:55 AM CDT (Score:1 Replies:13)
9 Correction posted on 08-13-01 10:35 AM CDT (Score:1 Replies:2)
10 Masturbation posted on 08-13-01 09:45 AM CDT (Score:0 Replies:17)
11 Copycats posted on 08-10-01 12:53 PM CDT (Score:0 Replies:9)
12 Political Decision posted on 08-10-01 07:41 AM CDT (Score:1 Replies:4)
13 Generalizations posted on 08-09-01 10:26 AM CDT (Score:1)
14 Then-and-Now posted on 08-09-01 10:22 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:1)
15 This is not new posted on 08-09-01 10:09 AM CDT (Score:5 Replies:7)
16 Jesus... posted on 08-08-01 04:03 PM CDT (Score:2 Replies:8)
17 Fine posted on 08-08-01 03:55 PM CDT (Score:1 Replies:2)
18 In other news... posted on 08-08-01 03:43 PM CDT (Score:1)
19 Ok... posted on 08-08-01 03:37 PM CDT (Score:2 Replies:13)
20 And you're surprised? posted on 08-08-01 10:12 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:11)
21 Sensationalism posted on 08-08-01 08:05 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:6)
That "final" is what the comment had tagged, for instance, "(Score:2, Insightful)", which is what a person would see who was browsing the arguement's comments. I believe it to be the last moderation applied to the comment.
Here's the summary, by final moderation:
Out of 17 comments, 6 were last rated positively, 7 were rated negatively, and 4 were not rated at all.
I see no -1's, and one +5. When did this bitchslap happen? If it happened today, I could see it as the work of a single moderator, applying all his 5 points to your past work. I might be able to see a single "vindictive moderator" in comments 5 through 11, but why would they skip comment 9?
No matter how valid your points, using titles like "Masturbation" isn't good rhetoric. It makes the 14 year-olds in the back clap and shout, but makes those in authority want to slap it down. And those in authority at Slashdot are the everyday moderators, not some "editor with infinite mod points". It took 20 mods to get one comment down to zero, and it had the wrong mod at the end - it should have been "Flamebait" rather than "Troll". Perhaps the culprit is one of the moderators who fought in the war to get a similar comment where it belonged.
Yes, and by demanding that an individual release source, you are taking away that individuals right to use his IP as he sees fit.
I think they are not working at that level, but at a deeper level. The concept of intellectual property is a fairly new one - maybe a few hundred years old, but some would say even more recent.
I'd say it came out of three streams. The first is the idea of acedemic honesty, the second commercial copyright, and the third European property theory.
Academic honesty is most often encountered when it is breached, in cases of plagurism. The idea is simple - people that come up with ideas should be credited, and it is wrong to claim other's ideas as your own. That's why research papers include the authors, why
Newton and Leibniz
fought over who invented the calculus, and why plagurist who get A's get kicked out of college faster than those who honestly get F's. Acedemic honesty is based on giving credit where credit is due, not on ownership of ideas.
Copyright is a business proposition, to allow an author to enter into a contract with a publisher, and have the law enforce that only those the author has contracts with can publish the works. It prevents McPublisher from copying the text and making copies without entering into a contract with the author. It simply recognizes a political fact: authors and artists create works, but others are good at publishing and distrubiting, and the two should be allowed to enter into a mutually benefical contract, and prevent others from nullifing the benefits of that contract. Still, there's no real property changing hands - rights are given, other's rights are defined, and the contract may just happen to include money changing hands, and restrictions for the two parties. It doesn't have to be exclusive or costly - the GNU copyright is an example of one that is not costly, but restrictive, and public domain is neither costly nor restrictive.
Property, in many ways, is a European concept, that justifies the actions of the powerful and allows for some interesting innovations. Property implies ownership and legal facts, which means that the government , by force, will defend those "facts". "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property" means that the government has to recognize that property is a basic right, and can't seize that property without being in the wrong. It only has effect when being are willing to fight for their "right to property".
I agree with all these, in isolation. It's when they come together to make "Intellectual Property" that I start getting a little tense. Ideas aren't really property, in that when I give some away, I have as much as I started with. Even the strict requirements of academic honesty are met simply by acknowledging who came up with the idea. What about copyright? If I "take" an idea, then publish it and make money off of it, I'm clearly in the wrong. But if I simply use it for myself? Is Newton any poorer because I learned the calculus? Is Jefferson any poorer because every American History book has a copy of the Declaration of Independance? Is Metalica any poorer because I have a copy of a song I wouldn't have paid for, anyway?
I don't buy the arguement "code = factories". The manufacturer has real property in factory equipment with a real dollar value, gets a real electric bill at the end of the month, and has to pay real money for employees. I have a similar situation. My computer is real property, with a (rapidly declining) value, I get a real electricity bill at the end of the month, and I donate my "expertise" to operate my computer, as a hobby. At work, they pay me to do a similar thing with their equipment. Code Factory Equipment, Computers = Factory Equipment.
I've rambled for too long, without really making a point. Basically, property is a good thing, but I'm not sure if "Intellectual Property" really fits in the scheme of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness / Property" that I would fight and die for. I think this is a distinction that needs to be made, before my company starts worrying about their "air property" that I'm consuming without compensating them.
For those of you who don't know what a bitchslap is, it's when an editor with unlimited moderator points goes through every fucking one of your posts and tosses several "Troll" and "Offtopic" moderations until they're at -1. Then, because of the terrible hit to Karma that comes from it, your IP gets banned and you are basically fucked.
I really don't think it's an editor that does this. This it how I see it happening:
Someone posts an EXTREMELY off-topic response to a popular thread, very early in the game. Any moderator coming along would mod it down, but many who read it respond. Eventually, the original post get to -1 teritory, and everyone who responded to the off-topic post looks like they responded to the original topic. While I think any post that respond to the parent is on topic, others believe that responces to an off-topic post are off-topic as well, and I can't argue with that. For whatever reason, those get modded down as well. It's no bitchslapping editor - it's normal folks with mod points, perhaps acting in a less than ideal way.
Why are you doing this? The only thing I can think of is some game, where you try to go from 50 to -25 as fast as possible (pretty easy with this tactic), then go back the way you came. Hard, but not impossible, especially when you have friends / other accounts with mod points.
So, I think Slashdot is right in banning your IP address. There's a good chance that you are using multiple account to play this game, or have co-conspirators. I think it's a good thing that the Slashdot crew has made it harder for you to play the game - doesn't that make it more challenging?
However, I don't agree with automatic promotion. If a parent gets modded down below my filter, then all responces should be invisible as well. You should have to select -1 comments to see the trolls AND the biters.
So there. Moderators, be aware of this "automatic promotion", click on the Parent links, and do what you think best.
Again, the PETA-like conotation of stealing from the wrongful owners. People that didn't like it could call it 'Peed' software. And some software, like Emacs, was never "not free".
How about "Liberty Software", as in "Liberty and Justice For All"?
Let's say I wanted a message to be available to a wide number of people, hidden with stenography, and encoded as well. I pick a image, such as an X10 ad, that could be easily found from a "legit" source. I encode my message, then hide the encoded message in the least significant bit of the color for each pixel of the image - net effect, the ad looks just about the same, but there is data encoded in it.
If I knew messages were being passed this way, I might be able to get the message. First, I'd have to acquire the source image. Then, I would do my own diffs, and try to find the meaningful data. At that point, it's a decryption problem.
But how do I detect the data hiding in the first place? I would have to detect that a stream of data is very similar to another stream of data, but with minor differences.
Let's say I've solved that problem, and now have some signature, such that all identical data streams have the same signature, and very close streams have very close signatures. Then, I have to catalog data streams as they pass by, assign signatures, count instances of signatures, and call a hit when signatures are significantly close but not the same. A quick visual check can confirm the match.
Back to my original thought - instead of a data stream representing an image, what if the data stream represented the subject line of an e-mail, or the e-mail itself? A central database could manage signatures, automatically reported by e-mail clients that generate the signatures. When I get a new e-mail, I can get the signature for the header, and send it to the database. It could then report "that might be spam", and I could delete it without downloading the whole message. I could also download the message, upload the signature, and the database could say "that's probably spam", and it could be deleted or moved before it shows up in my Inbox. With many people uploading signatures, the database could quickly generate the average signature and the variance of the signatures, with people double-checking "Yes, I consider this to be spam".
A couple of benefits would be that, hopefully, the signature doesn't give much info about the text, so it would be safe to upload signatures for personal email. Also, it may be fairly easy to get enough responses to be statisically certain that email with a particular signature is spam, so that many would benefit from a randomly chosen few who choose to respond that an email is spam.
Of course, it may be impossible to generate that signature, or the signature may be long enough to identify the text of messages. Still, I could see that as a benefit of this kind of research. I'd also like a way to auto-respond "You have been found guilty of forwarding hoax emails. Please stop and desist." to just about everything my family sends me...
Ah, the ol' blind hand of capitalism. "Remove regulation - the consumer will decide the marketplace!" This arguement only works when the consumer has a choice - otherwise, the fittest (baby bells) will just take over, then sit on their haunches and limp along (Sorry - no DSL for you. Don't call us, we'll call you. In the meantime, were you thinking of moving?)
I tried to get DSL, from the local baby bell even, for months. They never came out and told me "you are just too far from the CO". It was always, "we need to send a technician out, to see if there are any problems with your line. You'll need to be at home, in case you need to unplug phones." Finally, I had to go to DSL Reports to get the real scoop - I was borderline, and probably wouldn't like it if I got it.
So, I decided to try cable. The NEXT DAY they were at my house installing it, ignoring their own contract to install it in an inside wall, going through the attic. This was a snow day too, that many decided was too bad to go into work. I've had two outages since then, and I'm a very happy customer. That's Cox Cable of Tulsa, BTW.
I can see what they are doing, though. The Bell is dragging it's feet, while Cox is agressivly upgrading it's equipment, partially with Cable Modem subscriber's money. Soon, they will be the only game in town, and then, if they can do it, they'll offer phone over cable for a similar rate. If it was cheaper, I may have to go that way, or take the plunge, drop my land line altogether, and get a cell phone.
And that's why I'm a suppporter of deregulation - not because I think the slow-as-molassas Bell will suddenly pull themselves into the 21st Century, but because the evil merging cable companies should get a shot at the telephone market in a few years. Now THAT would be some true competition.
Most likely a hinderance in the development of AI itself. Feels almost wrong to base research on the assumption that people are simple and predictable. I reluctantly submit that this approach will most likely be the one that suceeds.
Personally, I think that the most interesting stuff will come from machines that are programmed as intellegent machines, rather than stupid humans. Not that humans are stupid, but that an A.I. has to be pretty good to replace a person, and it will take a very long time to get there.
Instead, I'd like machine intellegence, which responds in intellegent ways to commands, is consistant, and adaptive.
For instance, if my wife asks me to get her a glass of water, then my behaviour is unpredictable. Perhaps I'm paying attention to something else, and I don't hear her. Perhaps I get mad, and want her to say "please" first. Perhaps I get her one with ice, perhaps not. Perhaps I get her a coaster if she needs one, perhaps not. I am imperfect when it comes to simple tasks.
I'd expect a simple house robot to hear the request, and respond that it did, in some way. I expect it to know to use the filtered water coming out of the fridge, that I like it without ice and my wife likes it with. I expect the robot to make note if the filter needs changing, and to be able to get a glass out of the cabinet or the dishwasher.
I don't want it to ask me questions everytime it gets stuck ("Sorry, sir, there's a dog in the way..."), to do something irrational ("There were no cups, so I brought you a vase of water"), or to be, well, human ("Get it your damn self - I have a hangover").
I agree with you, that human intellegence is, in many way, the output of a whole bunch of fuzzy routines and rules that work most of the time. I also agree that it is pretty amazing, and will be hard to duplicate. But I do think it will be possible to duplicate. I just think that we could perhaps do better.
Re:Why Slahdot Readers Sometimes Don't Follow Link
on
Seanbaby.com
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· Score: 3, Funny
Really? Mine says this:
Access to the desired Web page is restricted at this time.
Reason:
* The Websense category "Slashdotted" is restricted.
There is nothing common about it, and, it is based on assumptions and is often wrong.
(And it is amazing how most people do not internally update their 'common sense' module when it proves to be incorrect, adapting as necessary...)
There's an interesting little story in one of Gene Wolfe's books (it's part of the Book of the Long Sun, but I'm not sure which one), where a robot tells a human that he isn't really intellegent. He gives a story as an example:
This particulat robot was a soldier, in a company of other robot soldiers (and some human officers?) They had adopted a particular cat, giving it water and food, and it hung around with them as they marched.
Well, they got involved in a battle, and this particular robot was in a team manning an artillery peice. It was shooting 20-30 rounds per second, but wasn't auto-loaded - a robot would load the round each time. It was getting hot enough in the chamber that they didn't need to fire the round - just shove it in, it would slide to the hottest part of the barrel, then ignite. The shells were auto-ejected, and were making a large pile, cooling off in the air enough to no longer glow.
The cat comes along. It usually watched the procedures, from on top of the pile of rounds, getting in the way like only cats can do. Today, however, it decides to climb on the pile of spent shells to get a better look. It lets out a huge scream, there is the smell of burning cat-flesh, and the cat runs off, not seen for days.
It eventually comes back, in bad shape, but O.K. From then on, however, it always steered clear of shells, walking around them by several feet. It wasn't even the empty shells - it wouldn't get near one its favored perching spots, on top of the stacks of live rounds. Occasionally, someone would even try picking it up and placing it on a pile of rounds or cooled-off shells, and the cat would scream bloody murder and jump off, never learning the difference between "cold rounds" and "glowing hot shells".
This was the robot's point - most people think they are intellegent, but instead, they just are forming a bunch of rules that have no place in reality. The robots used such rules as well, but they were always refining them, looking for exceptions and more fundamental rules. He said humans and other animals were, at most, half intellegent.
Wow, hundreds of words to say what you said in 3 sentences. Get a login, we need more like you...
I think these AI researchers need to talk to a few more sociologists. Human common sense is extremely culturally divergent and goes far beyond the simple, textbook logic cases that certain engineers in this field would probably cite. "Reading between the lines" involves not some native common sense that is wedded to intelligence, but a collectively evolved cultural contextualization. When we read an article in an encyclopedia, a lot of other stuff other than intelligence comes into play: x years of public school education, idiomatic constructs, varying by geographic location, that may or may not enhance or obscure meaning, and, of course, the double meanings and entendres inserted by bored or biased encyclopedia writers.
The scientist's explanation took one paragraph, and even sounded like it had a goal - allow a machine to use an encyclopedia to gain new information in a useful manner. This is an important step to an A.I. that can interact with people - you can then train it on reference materials, and have it "understand" them at a certain level.
This scientist is NOT mistaken - he would have to know that "common sense" does not equal "the human brain's inate ability to make sense of the culture it grows in". If I had to draw a distinction, "common sense", as you are describing, is static, tuned to one culture, while the "common ability" is semi-dynamic, able to learn, but (maybe) unable to unlearn.
You could try to fake common sense, by programming your own cultural assumptions into the program, subjecting it to cultural stimulus, and fine-tuning the program. Or you could attempt to program "common ability", train it on cultural materials for a few years, and try to tune the program to build it's own "common sense" in a way that is more like a human. I think these scientists are trying to do the latter.
I'm not sure what your tangent about post-modernism and 1984 have to do with A.I. - are you just making a rant about scientists who didn't get the memo that we are in post-modern times?
An interesting question is if human intellegence can be removed from the human - does it take eyes to understand the phrase "I've got the blues"? Does it take a parent to understand why many grade school teachers are women and most world leaders men? Does it take walking upright, starting at a tiny height and getting bigger, to understand skyscrapers? Or does that just take a penis?
Now, I'm using the "white-space" sense of understand - to be sympathetic to the person who has the blues, to feel an unexplained shame when the president is caught sleeping with a women not his wife, to feel an exhiliration driving into a new city. Can these be simulated in a computer without a body and a human's lifetime? Can these things be removed, still leaving a "human" intellegence? If we interacted with this intellegence, would we say it passed the Turing test? Would we want to interact with it?
Perhaps that's one level of A.I. above where this guy is aiming. It would be extremely useful just to have an intellence with a little of the human ability. You could train it on, for instance, medical journals. A doctor could then descibe symptoms, research, or an interest, and get summaries or references to the library. Once you trained it in the basics, you could burn it to a CD, send it to a doctor, who could then train it for his specific interests. Think of it as a very limited secretary, who requires some training and aclimation, but is still smarter than a PC.
This is probably the best A.I. can do for a few years - get to the point where you can train an A.I. for a particular subject, then meaningfully interact with those interested in the subject - like a very bad librarian. It's only when the clones come out in force that you can hook a computer up to a fetus, and do some real human A.I. training.
If you actually want to learn linux and its workings (which I advise) then use something which forces you to read a few faq's once in a while... like debian, or even better, slackware.
I have to disagree with drudd - don't go with debian for your first Linux test. It took me 3 tries to get through the installer, a whole weekend to get networking working, and I still haven't made the progress I'd like. It seems to be the linux distro for folks who know what they are doing, because there is very little documentation. It's not discussed in the newsgroups that I could search with Google, very few people have information on webpages, and very few HOWTOs include debian-specific steps.
Perhaps I'm not experienced enough- but that's the point. If you are pretty comfortable in the Windows world, then move to debian, you'll feel somone is playing a trick on you. Like when I was first learning Linux, and I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to delete a file under Linux - "apropos delete" got me nowhere, of course. I knew about building kernels, installing and getting X working, leaf-level networking, and a few other things, but it still took several weeks of my life away to turn a Win95 box into a debian router, and I'm still not sure I got it right.
Go with Mandrake or Red Hat - or, better yet, whatever version comes with the 800-page book you buy to help you learn. Now, that would have been a useful discussion - what's a good book to learn Linux with (I haven't found it).
Re:Linux will be just as bad...discuss....
on
Windows in 2020
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· Score: 1
Would a bigger userbase keep the same level of security and system awareness? Will the guy in 2020 buying the plug-in-and-leave Linux box for his small business's network know when and where to go for the next patch to Sendmail/Apache/Bind?
Probably not.
Very interesting idea - this will probably be the case. The answer appears to be auto-adminstrated machines, which automatically search for updates on a regular basis.
I know many people who auto-administer using apt-get and cron, and there are many people who would complain if Microsoft had a similar auto-update option for it's servers. It's only a matter of time until some dedicated hacker figures out how to subvert apt-get or similar programs for their own purposes. I can't think of any way to prevent a serious attack, but then, others may have thought about this more than me.
I've looked at e-books, and I don't think they are ready for mass use yet. They need some changes first.
With paper books, I can look smart by filling a whole bookshelf with stuff I haven't read. With one trip to the used bookstore, I can cheaply purchase a whole 6 feet of classics from the past, and look like a well rounded person. Ebooks need to include some sort of packaging that fills bookshelf space, like the computer game boxes.
Technical references are too easy to use in a well-implemented electronic format. Why would I want to search text electronically when I could visually scan for it, page by page? There should be three ways to find something - Table of Contents, Index, and post-it-notes. Oh - and you shouldn't be able to click on the index entry to jump to the page, you lazy bastard. Navigate there yourself.
It's also too easy to correct errors in electronic books. I have fond memories of spending the first day in class fixing the errors introduced in the 11th edition. Errata should be sent on paper, by mail, so you can make the changes by hand. Think what the children are missing!
One thing that should be implemented is textbooks that change every year, in such a way that they can't be upgraded. This encourages students to keep their textbooks, since they can't sell them to next year's students. My shelf has many inches taken up with important sounding books like "Elements of Style", "Thermodynamics, 3rd Edition", "Calculus Made Easy", and "Learning Programming (with C)", that protects my shelf from getting dusty.
The best thing about reading the newspaper is the feeling of getting up, throwing on a bathrobe, getting your slippers wet with dew, and retrieving the daily paper from your neighbor's yard. All ebook media should be delivered by throwing it on your lawn, preferably at 5 AM, so that the dogs can tell you the moment it arrives. Or shipped in two weeks, the way Amazon does it. Again, don't forget the packaging - I want evidence that I've been getting the daily paper in my trash.
Size is also important - how will the folks across from me on the bus know whether I'm reading Dostoyevsky, Hacking Exposed, Playboy, or Harry Potter? The e-book should be huge, so that it requires a backpack, and should include, in a bright red LCD display on the back, what you are reading. The back-pocket is an unreasonale design goal. Weight is also a good thing - you need a counterweight when you are taking a dump.
Also, current ebooks are a bit too waterproof, and a bit to easy to backup. If I spill a little liquid on the display, I should see the waterspot five years from now. If I lend it to a friend, I want the electronic equivalent of a marked cover and bent spine. Books are a precious thing, and should be fragile, easily transferable, and should age with an old-book smell. Or, just put mold in a aeresol can, I don't care which way you go.
You know, this is the midst of the disillusionment and heartbreak season and,with the recent outbreak of that suicidal strain of despair up in Boston,well, you'd better keep a close watch on your emotions. So remember the seven danger signals of depression; that's a general and lasting feeling of hope-lessness, inability to concentrate, loss of self-esteem, fear of rejection, feelings of guilt, misdirected anger, and extreme dependency on others. At the first sign of these symptoms, friends, follow these simple rules: keep working, drink as much as possible, and... take your television's advice. And y'know more TV's recommend an amazing new psychic breakthrough than any other, and that's... Confidence in the System. Fast, safe, and guaranteed through constant Federal control, Confidence in the System will keep THEM in power longer, longer, longer, and tend to calm and obscure the miseries of disillusionment and despair. In easy-to-swallow Propaganda form or new fast-acting Thought Control, that's Confidence in the System. So have some... today.
You must ALL go out and buy all the Firesign Theater tapes/CD you can find and listen to them now, and you'll never have this problem again!;)
I agree, but they are hard to find. I find many on cassette, in small counter-cuture record stores where they haven't got the message that they are out of print...
There are some on Amazon (maybe that link will work, maybe not...), and a few places where you might find other stuff.
Yeah, I could see "George Tirebiter" being a contrivance. It's about as blaringly screaming "ignore me, I'm a mo-ron" as "Anonymous Coward". But for someone in charge to be doing it...guh.
The only place I know the name "George Tirebiter" from is from the Firesign Theater album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers". Do you know of it being used in some other context? Or were you giving a cold impression of the name? Or, are you being sarcastic, and neglecting to use the <SARCASM> tags?
For those out of the loop, here's a link to the entry for
Tirebiter in the Firesign Theater lexicon.
In RealSpace, he was "the doughty unofficial mascot of USC (Univ. South. Calif.) athletic teams in earlier times, renowned for his devotion to attacking the spinning wheels of large American automobiles...."
In the Firesign Theater world, he's the Everyman protaganist of the comedy album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (which appears to be out of print, although I found a cassette in a local record store). It's high comedy from Firesign Theater, a team that was known for a counter-cultural radio program in the sixties. It's very funny, but requires FULL attention, a strong liberal arts background, and occassionaly several listens, to get a large percentage of the jokes.
Check out the entry for DWARF to get a feel for the humor.
That said, even though I got the reference, I don't think seeing a post under the name George Tirebiter would make me think "Oh - It's the editor!" or "He's just joking!". I would instead think "This guy is a pretty poor satirist - it's like posting under 'Chaucer'".
Control your enthusiasm. While they may have shut off the software, this will almost certainly be a "Do as I say not as I do." result. Consider that most judges who break the speed limit getting into court are probably not revoking their own licenses.
Did you hear the story about the two judges arrested for drunk driving on the same night? They get to talking, and figure out that they could be the judge at each other's trial, and get off a lot easier.
So, on the day of the trial, the first judge takes the bench, the second says he is representing himself, etc., etc.. To speed things up, the defendant pleads guilty, the judge asks, are you sorry for what you did, etc., etc., the defendant shows "due remorse", and the judge decides to let him off with time served.
The two then switch places, even swapping the same black robe there in the court room, each wearing their golfing outfits underneath, and switch places.
The current defendant pleads guilty, and shows "due remorse". The judge looks over the desk, and says, "if memory serves, this is the second DUI in a row that has come before the court. In the past, the court has been lenient on this particular offense, but it looks like we have to send a message to the community. $5000 fine and time served!"
I agree, this probably won't turn into a real court case. All this talk about illegal wiretaps and other nonsense sounds scarier than a nice, simple privacy amendment to the constitution. I wouldn't like my IT department getting a court order to "wiretap" my connection because they think I may be "stealing" excessive bandwidth from the company. Is it a worse crime if you are "stealing" from a government institution?
The solution is clear - either a privacy ammendment, which clearly states the right to privacy and lets future legislation and court cases decide the boundaries (not likely in the near future), or just go to a better company, one that's not as draconian. And you wonder why there is a shortage of tech workers for government jobs?
I think that google's massive (over 10000 units) server farm (all x86) proves that the high end cpu's aren't worth it. Multiple low end CPU's do the same (if not better) job of one high end CPU. I think Google proves this point.
How many fps does Google get?
The article is in the context of buying a PC for personal use, and benchmarks using FPS, ray-tracing, kernel-compiles, etc. The idea is to pay attention to incremental performance (1.33 Mhz to 1.4 Mhz,.07 Mhz) versus incremental cost ($33? $100), and make sure it's worth it. Bottom line, buy cutting edge, get screwed on price.
Pretty much the same here (although no pr0n). Joe Sixpack doesn't care about formats, and he doesn't care about money (really) as almost every home user gets his software illegally. But even if he did have to pay for it: Nowadays you can get MP3-walkmans, photocamera's etc etc. Nothing is there for Ogg Vorbis.
To make OV popular, you'll need to give it an advantage over MP3, that can be understood by Joe. Patents and 'free (as in speech) software' are no such things.
At the moment MP3 has all the advantages, and there's no reason why OV will take over.
I think MP3/OGG is a bit different than Beta vs. VHS. For one thing, availibility isn't limited to what the movie studios and Blockbuster decide to carry - it is as easy to rip a CD to MP3 as it is to OGG, and as easy to download, if both are availible. So, the only thing limiting acceptance is availibility, and hardware support.
Personally, I think stand-alone MP3 players are still a niche market, still in the first generation. The digital audio enthusiasts are buying huge hard drives and ripping their CD collections, 40 gig at a time, and playing them over some computer-to-stereo setup. The consumer electronics are too primitive to not have a computer at the center of your digital audio setup.
As I said, these enthusiasts are ripping their entire CD collections, and, when possible, making them availible on Napster or Napster clones. If you want the "universal jukebox" effect, it's not the 14-yr-old Spears fans who support it, but these enthusiasts, who aren't afraid to admit they bought a dozen albums from eighties hair bands.
If you can convince these folks that you have a better format, one that isn't controlled by record companies or patents, which sounds better on their systems, then they will take the time to re-encode their stuff. It will be availible through the usual suspects, and people will learn that, if you want obscure stuff, go Ogg.
Like the original MP3 revolution, this one won't be led by Joe Six-Pack. This one will be led by the audiophiles and the pioneers.
I'm working for a company that works with hard real-time systems, and I've been pondering testing Linux where we are currently using a propriatary system. While I don't like the idea of supporting a software patent, I'd still consider it if it was cheaper and was truly hard real-time (certain tasks are guarenteed to execute within a certain amount of time).
Anyone have experience with one of these real-time Linux systems? How good are they at hard-real time tasks? I'd especially be interested in simulator applications.
Re:Random bits that are in Pi somewhere
on
Share The Pi!
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· Score: 2
So what's more likely is that inductive proofs are simply not able to show what I have attempted to show. I kind of suspected this, and the post was more of a troll of sorts (similar to the proofs that 1=0 and such).
I agree, there must be some limit to induction when encountering infinite numbers, but I don't remember them mentioning it in my few math classes. Is this an inductive proof?
Hypopthesis: There is no integer P where pi(P+n)=e(n) for all a, where pi(x) is a function that returns the xth digit of pi, and e(x) does likewise.
Assumption: pi has the property of having all sequences of numbers somewhere in there. For instance, for a five-digit sequence S(x), there is a first occurance in Pi, at S0, so that pi(S0)=S(1), pi(S0+1)=S(2), pi(S0+2)=S(3), pi(S0+3)=S(4), and pi(S0+4)=S(5). In other words, I'm naming the integer where you can find the first number in the sequence.
Proof(?):
There is some P1 where pi(P1)=e(1), but pi(P1+1)!=e(2). This is easy to see - you can quickly find the first occurance of 2 that is not followed by 7.
There is some P2 where pi(P2)=e(1) and pi(P2+1)=e(2), but pi(P2+2)!=e(3). Again, there is a first occurance of 27 not followed by 1
If there is a P(N), then there is a P(N+1), since all arbitratry sequences are in there. In other words, if there is a sequence 2,7,1, Not 8, then there is also a sequence 2,7,1,8, not 2.
Thus, for any N, there is a PN where pi(N)=e(1), and pi(N+1)=e(N+1), all the way until pi(N+N)=e(N+N+1), but pi(N+N+1)!=e(N+N+2)
So, no matter how many digits you look at, there will always be some N where the two don't line up.
Of course, my inductive arguements are pretty weak, even weaker than my choice of symbols...
Re:Random bits that are in Pi somewhere
on
Share The Pi!
·
· Score: 2
Hypothesis: e is in Pi
Base case: the first digit of e is in pi. 3.141592... 2 is in pi.
Inductive case: If the first n digits of e are in pi, then the first n+1 digits of e are in pi. We know that all strings of the same length appear with the same frequency in pi. We also know that at least one string of length n+1 digits appears in pi. Therefore at least n+1 digits of e are in pi.
Thus, having shown the inductive case, we have proven the hypothesis, that all digits of e are in pi (consecutively). Therefore e is in pi! QED.
OK, so e is in pi, and by a similar arguement, I can say pi is in e. (I'll leave that up to the student or awk, whichever can do the regexp substituion first).
So, pi becomes some rational number P plus e times some power of 10, such as:
pi = P + e*10^-N
and, likewise, e becomes:
e = E + pi*10^-M
substituting, we get:
pi = P + (E + pi*10^-M)*10^-N
pi = P + E*10^-N + pi*10^-(M+N)
pi - pi*10^-(M+N) = P + E*10^-N
pi(1-10^-(M+N) = P + E*10^-N
pi = (P + E*10^-N)/(1-10^-(M+N))
But P, E, N, and M are all rational numbers, so that bit on the right side is a rational number as well, so pi is the ratio of two rational numbers, which is also a rational number.
So, if your reasoning and my reasoning are correct, then pi is a rational number, but someone smarter than me proved that it isn't a rational number.
Slashdot Mirror
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Anyhow, if people who can't afford the 'net are lined up to use these, that's a good sign to me. What I'd be most afraid of is that these people would simply have no interest in using them, either due to ignorance or because a particular library terminal is part of a gang's turf.
I was a bit shocked to read your post- obviously a humerous post, I thought, nicely done - but it got modded up as interesting, and people seemed to be taking it seriously...
Why, when you think "free email accounts", do you immediately think of gang memebers and homeless people? Like others have said, homeless people probably have more to worry about than catching up on MAKE $$$ FAST FROM HOME!!! mesages, and gang members probably don't care for email. Don't get all your information about the "poor" from COPS and the 6 o'clock news...
When I hear this, I think more of my aunt. She's got a good job, in a call-in service department, even has a manager's position, but isn't paid what she's worth. Unlike many of us, she has to make decisions like "Cable or Internet Access?". She can't use her work email for personal reasons, and was really enjoying the free email account Juno, but was annoyed at the limitations (couldn't follow any web links, for instance).
There are probably lots of people like this, who have friends and family that have computers and email, but that they can't personally afford a computer and dial-up account, or have to decide amoung entertainment options, or even between necessities. What Houston is doing is making the first steps toward a universal system that these folks could use to check their email once a week or so, and learn the joys of the hoax email.
It's also a step toward email addresses linked to a physical address - a marketer's dream. These kinds of services will probably be more profitable than the other "free" email services, and quickly you won't be able to get a free account without giving up an address.
BTW - my aunt was able to upgrade from my hand-me-down computer to a shiny new Dell - her workplace sponsered reduced-cost computers through payroll deductions, along with Internet Access. This is a great move for companies - you get employee loyalty, give them a real benefit, and they train themselves to use computers on their own time. This isn't the first time I've seen a company's self-interest result in an employee getting a personal home computer - maybe companies aren't so evil...
Did you even read my fucking post? Since you talked to me in such a condescending way, let me do the same to you.
Here's what I see happening. I post something that offends the moderators on the site (be it Simms, Taco, or anybody else). They use their infinite moderator points to moderate my initial post to -1 using a combination of offtopic and troll.
Then they go into my comment history and mark EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS as -1, using the same moderation scheme. Let me say that again. EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS. Even posts that I made 2 weeks ago get moderated down to -1.
Fortunately, I avoided the guillotine this time, but I have had this done to me before.
Now, is there anything else you want to say that will further illustrate your ignorance?
Why yes, yes there is.
I went into your comment history. This only gives the last two weeks, so if the "bitchslap" happened before then, I don't have proof. Here's the totals:
5 Old News posted on 08-17-01 09:01 AM CDT (Score:0)
6 Great posted on 08-17-01 08:59 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:4)
7 You just proved my point posted on 08-13-01 11:31 AM CDT (Score:0 Replies:3)
8 Problem is obvious posted on 08-13-01 10:55 AM CDT (Score:1 Replies:13)
9 Correction posted on 08-13-01 10:35 AM CDT (Score:1 Replies:2)
10 Masturbation posted on 08-13-01 09:45 AM CDT (Score:0 Replies:17)
11 Copycats posted on 08-10-01 12:53 PM CDT (Score:0 Replies:9)
12 Political Decision posted on 08-10-01 07:41 AM CDT (Score:1 Replies:4)
13 Generalizations posted on 08-09-01 10:26 AM CDT (Score:1)
14 Then-and-Now posted on 08-09-01 10:22 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:1)
15 This is not new posted on 08-09-01 10:09 AM CDT (Score:5 Replies:7)
16 Jesus... posted on 08-08-01 04:03 PM CDT (Score:2 Replies:8)
17 Fine posted on 08-08-01 03:55 PM CDT (Score:1 Replies:2)
18 In other news... posted on 08-08-01 03:43 PM CDT (Score:1)
19 Ok... posted on 08-08-01 03:37 PM CDT (Score:2 Replies:13)
20 And you're surprised? posted on 08-08-01 10:12 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:11)
21 Sensationalism posted on 08-08-01 08:05 AM CDT (Score:2 Replies:6)
Digging deeper, here's the moderation:
5 Moderation Totals:Troll=1, Total=1. Final Mod: Troll
6 Moderation Totals:Troll=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=3.: Final: Troll
7 Moderation Totals:Troll=1, Total=1. Final: Troll
8 Moderation Totals:Redundant=1, Insightful=3, Overrated=2, Total=6. Final: Redundant
9 No Moderation.
10 Moderation Totals:Flamebait=3, Troll=4, Insightful=8, Interesting=2, Overrated=3, Total=20. Final: Troll
11 Moderation Totals:Redundant=1, Insightful=1, Overrated=2, Underrated=1, Total=5. Final: Redundant
12 Moderation Total Not given. Final: Insightful
13 No Moderation.
14 Moderation Totals:Interesting=1, Total=1. Final: Insightful
15 Moderation Totals:Insightful=5, Total=5. Final: Insightful
16 Moderation Totals:Flamebait=1, Interesting=2, Total=3. Final: Flamebait
17 No Moderation
18 No Moderation
19 Moderation Totals:Insightful=5, Overrated=4, Total=9. Final: Insightful
20 Moderation Totals:Interesting=2, Overrated=1, Total=3. Final: Interesting
21 Moderation Totals:Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Informative=1, Overrated=3, Total=7. Final: Interesting
That "final" is what the comment had tagged, for instance, "(Score:2, Insightful)", which is what a person would see who was browsing the arguement's comments. I believe it to be the last moderation applied to the comment.
Here's the summary, by final moderation:
Out of 17 comments, 6 were last rated positively, 7 were rated negatively, and 4 were not rated at all.
I see no -1's, and one +5. When did this bitchslap happen? If it happened today, I could see it as the work of a single moderator, applying all his 5 points to your past work. I might be able to see a single "vindictive moderator" in comments 5 through 11, but why would they skip comment 9?
No matter how valid your points, using titles like "Masturbation" isn't good rhetoric. It makes the 14 year-olds in the back clap and shout, but makes those in authority want to slap it down. And those in authority at Slashdot are the everyday moderators, not some "editor with infinite mod points". It took 20 mods to get one comment down to zero, and it had the wrong mod at the end - it should have been "Flamebait" rather than "Troll". Perhaps the culprit is one of the moderators who fought in the war to get a similar comment where it belonged.
But again, I'm just an idiot.
I think they are not working at that level, but at a deeper level. The concept of intellectual property is a fairly new one - maybe a few hundred years old, but some would say even more recent.
I'd say it came out of three streams. The first is the idea of acedemic honesty, the second commercial copyright, and the third European property theory.
Academic honesty is most often encountered when it is breached, in cases of plagurism. The idea is simple - people that come up with ideas should be credited, and it is wrong to claim other's ideas as your own. That's why research papers include the authors, why Newton and Leibniz fought over who invented the calculus, and why plagurist who get A's get kicked out of college faster than those who honestly get F's. Acedemic honesty is based on giving credit where credit is due, not on ownership of ideas.
Copyright is a business proposition, to allow an author to enter into a contract with a publisher, and have the law enforce that only those the author has contracts with can publish the works. It prevents McPublisher from copying the text and making copies without entering into a contract with the author. It simply recognizes a political fact: authors and artists create works, but others are good at publishing and distrubiting, and the two should be allowed to enter into a mutually benefical contract, and prevent others from nullifing the benefits of that contract. Still, there's no real property changing hands - rights are given, other's rights are defined, and the contract may just happen to include money changing hands, and restrictions for the two parties. It doesn't have to be exclusive or costly - the GNU copyright is an example of one that is not costly, but restrictive, and public domain is neither costly nor restrictive.
Property, in many ways, is a European concept, that justifies the actions of the powerful and allows for some interesting innovations. Property implies ownership and legal facts, which means that the government , by force, will defend those "facts". "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property" means that the government has to recognize that property is a basic right, and can't seize that property without being in the wrong. It only has effect when being are willing to fight for their "right to property".
I agree with all these, in isolation. It's when they come together to make "Intellectual Property" that I start getting a little tense. Ideas aren't really property, in that when I give some away, I have as much as I started with. Even the strict requirements of academic honesty are met simply by acknowledging who came up with the idea. What about copyright? If I "take" an idea, then publish it and make money off of it, I'm clearly in the wrong. But if I simply use it for myself? Is Newton any poorer because I learned the calculus? Is Jefferson any poorer because every American History book has a copy of the Declaration of Independance? Is Metalica any poorer because I have a copy of a song I wouldn't have paid for, anyway?
I don't buy the arguement "code = factories". The manufacturer has real property in factory equipment with a real dollar value, gets a real electric bill at the end of the month, and has to pay real money for employees. I have a similar situation. My computer is real property, with a (rapidly declining) value, I get a real electricity bill at the end of the month, and I donate my "expertise" to operate my computer, as a hobby. At work, they pay me to do a similar thing with their equipment. Code Factory Equipment, Computers = Factory Equipment.
I've rambled for too long, without really making a point. Basically, property is a good thing, but I'm not sure if "Intellectual Property" really fits in the scheme of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness / Property" that I would fight and die for. I think this is a distinction that needs to be made, before my company starts worrying about their "air property" that I'm consuming without compensating them.
I really don't think it's an editor that does this. This it how I see it happening:
Someone posts an EXTREMELY off-topic response to a popular thread, very early in the game. Any moderator coming along would mod it down, but many who read it respond. Eventually, the original post get to -1 teritory, and everyone who responded to the off-topic post looks like they responded to the original topic. While I think any post that respond to the parent is on topic, others believe that responces to an off-topic post are off-topic as well, and I can't argue with that. For whatever reason, those get modded down as well. It's no bitchslapping editor - it's normal folks with mod points, perhaps acting in a less than ideal way.
Why are you doing this? The only thing I can think of is some game, where you try to go from 50 to -25 as fast as possible (pretty easy with this tactic), then go back the way you came. Hard, but not impossible, especially when you have friends / other accounts with mod points.
So, I think Slashdot is right in banning your IP address. There's a good chance that you are using multiple account to play this game, or have co-conspirators. I think it's a good thing that the Slashdot crew has made it harder for you to play the game - doesn't that make it more challenging?
However, I don't agree with automatic promotion. If a parent gets modded down below my filter, then all responces should be invisible as well. You should have to select -1 comments to see the trolls AND the biters.
So there. Moderators, be aware of this "automatic promotion", click on the Parent links, and do what you think best.
Again, the PETA-like conotation of stealing from the wrongful owners. People that didn't like it could call it 'Peed' software. And some software, like Emacs, was never "not free".
How about "Liberty Software", as in "Liberty and Justice For All"?
Sure, I can change my local copy to remove the annoying continuous italics, but I can't really share my improvements with others...
Let's say I wanted a message to be available to a wide number of people, hidden with stenography, and encoded as well. I pick a image, such as an X10 ad, that could be easily found from a "legit" source. I encode my message, then hide the encoded message in the least significant bit of the color for each pixel of the image - net effect, the ad looks just about the same, but there is data encoded in it.
If I knew messages were being passed this way, I might be able to get the message. First, I'd have to acquire the source image. Then, I would do my own diffs, and try to find the meaningful data. At that point, it's a decryption problem.
But how do I detect the data hiding in the first place? I would have to detect that a stream of data is very similar to another stream of data, but with minor differences.
Let's say I've solved that problem, and now have some signature, such that all identical data streams have the same signature, and very close streams have very close signatures. Then, I have to catalog data streams as they pass by, assign signatures, count instances of signatures, and call a hit when signatures are significantly close but not the same. A quick visual check can confirm the match.
Back to my original thought - instead of a data stream representing an image, what if the data stream represented the subject line of an e-mail, or the e-mail itself? A central database could manage signatures, automatically reported by e-mail clients that generate the signatures. When I get a new e-mail, I can get the signature for the header, and send it to the database. It could then report "that might be spam", and I could delete it without downloading the whole message. I could also download the message, upload the signature, and the database could say "that's probably spam", and it could be deleted or moved before it shows up in my Inbox. With many people uploading signatures, the database could quickly generate the average signature and the variance of the signatures, with people double-checking "Yes, I consider this to be spam".
A couple of benefits would be that, hopefully, the signature doesn't give much info about the text, so it would be safe to upload signatures for personal email. Also, it may be fairly easy to get enough responses to be statisically certain that email with a particular signature is spam, so that many would benefit from a randomly chosen few who choose to respond that an email is spam.
Of course, it may be impossible to generate that signature, or the signature may be long enough to identify the text of messages. Still, I could see that as a benefit of this kind of research. I'd also like a way to auto-respond "You have been found guilty of forwarding hoax emails. Please stop and desist." to just about everything my family sends me...
I tried to get DSL, from the local baby bell even, for months. They never came out and told me "you are just too far from the CO". It was always, "we need to send a technician out, to see if there are any problems with your line. You'll need to be at home, in case you need to unplug phones." Finally, I had to go to DSL Reports to get the real scoop - I was borderline, and probably wouldn't like it if I got it.
So, I decided to try cable. The NEXT DAY they were at my house installing it, ignoring their own contract to install it in an inside wall, going through the attic. This was a snow day too, that many decided was too bad to go into work. I've had two outages since then, and I'm a very happy customer. That's Cox Cable of Tulsa, BTW.
I can see what they are doing, though. The Bell is dragging it's feet, while Cox is agressivly upgrading it's equipment, partially with Cable Modem subscriber's money. Soon, they will be the only game in town, and then, if they can do it, they'll offer phone over cable for a similar rate. If it was cheaper, I may have to go that way, or take the plunge, drop my land line altogether, and get a cell phone.
And that's why I'm a suppporter of deregulation - not because I think the slow-as-molassas Bell will suddenly pull themselves into the 21st Century, but because the evil merging cable companies should get a shot at the telephone market in a few years. Now THAT would be some true competition.
Personally, I think that the most interesting stuff will come from machines that are programmed as intellegent machines, rather than stupid humans. Not that humans are stupid, but that an A.I. has to be pretty good to replace a person, and it will take a very long time to get there.
Instead, I'd like machine intellegence, which responds in intellegent ways to commands, is consistant, and adaptive.
For instance, if my wife asks me to get her a glass of water, then my behaviour is unpredictable. Perhaps I'm paying attention to something else, and I don't hear her. Perhaps I get mad, and want her to say "please" first. Perhaps I get her one with ice, perhaps not. Perhaps I get her a coaster if she needs one, perhaps not. I am imperfect when it comes to simple tasks.
I'd expect a simple house robot to hear the request, and respond that it did, in some way. I expect it to know to use the filtered water coming out of the fridge, that I like it without ice and my wife likes it with. I expect the robot to make note if the filter needs changing, and to be able to get a glass out of the cabinet or the dishwasher.
I don't want it to ask me questions everytime it gets stuck ("Sorry, sir, there's a dog in the way..."), to do something irrational ("There were no cups, so I brought you a vase of water"), or to be, well, human ("Get it your damn self - I have a hangover").
I agree with you, that human intellegence is, in many way, the output of a whole bunch of fuzzy routines and rules that work most of the time. I also agree that it is pretty amazing, and will be hard to duplicate. But I do think it will be possible to duplicate. I just think that we could perhaps do better.
There is nothing common about it, and, it is based on assumptions and is often wrong.
(And it is amazing how most people do not internally update their 'common sense' module when it proves to be incorrect, adapting as necessary...)
There's an interesting little story in one of Gene Wolfe's books (it's part of the Book of the Long Sun, but I'm not sure which one), where a robot tells a human that he isn't really intellegent. He gives a story as an example:
This particulat robot was a soldier, in a company of other robot soldiers (and some human officers?) They had adopted a particular cat, giving it water and food, and it hung around with them as they marched.
Well, they got involved in a battle, and this particular robot was in a team manning an artillery peice. It was shooting 20-30 rounds per second, but wasn't auto-loaded - a robot would load the round each time. It was getting hot enough in the chamber that they didn't need to fire the round - just shove it in, it would slide to the hottest part of the barrel, then ignite. The shells were auto-ejected, and were making a large pile, cooling off in the air enough to no longer glow.
The cat comes along. It usually watched the procedures, from on top of the pile of rounds, getting in the way like only cats can do. Today, however, it decides to climb on the pile of spent shells to get a better look. It lets out a huge scream, there is the smell of burning cat-flesh, and the cat runs off, not seen for days.
It eventually comes back, in bad shape, but O.K. From then on, however, it always steered clear of shells, walking around them by several feet. It wasn't even the empty shells - it wouldn't get near one its favored perching spots, on top of the stacks of live rounds. Occasionally, someone would even try picking it up and placing it on a pile of rounds or cooled-off shells, and the cat would scream bloody murder and jump off, never learning the difference between "cold rounds" and "glowing hot shells".
This was the robot's point - most people think they are intellegent, but instead, they just are forming a bunch of rules that have no place in reality. The robots used such rules as well, but they were always refining them, looking for exceptions and more fundamental rules. He said humans and other animals were, at most, half intellegent.
Wow, hundreds of words to say what you said in 3 sentences. Get a login, we need more like you...
The scientist's explanation took one paragraph, and even sounded like it had a goal - allow a machine to use an encyclopedia to gain new information in a useful manner. This is an important step to an A.I. that can interact with people - you can then train it on reference materials, and have it "understand" them at a certain level.
This scientist is NOT mistaken - he would have to know that "common sense" does not equal "the human brain's inate ability to make sense of the culture it grows in". If I had to draw a distinction, "common sense", as you are describing, is static, tuned to one culture, while the "common ability" is semi-dynamic, able to learn, but (maybe) unable to unlearn.
You could try to fake common sense, by programming your own cultural assumptions into the program, subjecting it to cultural stimulus, and fine-tuning the program. Or you could attempt to program "common ability", train it on cultural materials for a few years, and try to tune the program to build it's own "common sense" in a way that is more like a human. I think these scientists are trying to do the latter.
I'm not sure what your tangent about post-modernism and 1984 have to do with A.I. - are you just making a rant about scientists who didn't get the memo that we are in post-modern times?
An interesting question is if human intellegence can be removed from the human - does it take eyes to understand the phrase "I've got the blues"? Does it take a parent to understand why many grade school teachers are women and most world leaders men? Does it take walking upright, starting at a tiny height and getting bigger, to understand skyscrapers? Or does that just take a penis?
Now, I'm using the "white-space" sense of understand - to be sympathetic to the person who has the blues, to feel an unexplained shame when the president is caught sleeping with a women not his wife, to feel an exhiliration driving into a new city. Can these be simulated in a computer without a body and a human's lifetime? Can these things be removed, still leaving a "human" intellegence? If we interacted with this intellegence, would we say it passed the Turing test? Would we want to interact with it?
Perhaps that's one level of A.I. above where this guy is aiming. It would be extremely useful just to have an intellence with a little of the human ability. You could train it on, for instance, medical journals. A doctor could then descibe symptoms, research, or an interest, and get summaries or references to the library. Once you trained it in the basics, you could burn it to a CD, send it to a doctor, who could then train it for his specific interests. Think of it as a very limited secretary, who requires some training and aclimation, but is still smarter than a PC.
This is probably the best A.I. can do for a few years - get to the point where you can train an A.I. for a particular subject, then meaningfully interact with those interested in the subject - like a very bad librarian. It's only when the clones come out in force that you can hook a computer up to a fetus, and do some real human A.I. training.
I have to disagree with drudd - don't go with debian for your first Linux test. It took me 3 tries to get through the installer, a whole weekend to get networking working, and I still haven't made the progress I'd like. It seems to be the linux distro for folks who know what they are doing, because there is very little documentation. It's not discussed in the newsgroups that I could search with Google, very few people have information on webpages, and very few HOWTOs include debian-specific steps.
Perhaps I'm not experienced enough- but that's the point. If you are pretty comfortable in the Windows world, then move to debian, you'll feel somone is playing a trick on you. Like when I was first learning Linux, and I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to delete a file under Linux - "apropos delete" got me nowhere, of course. I knew about building kernels, installing and getting X working, leaf-level networking, and a few other things, but it still took several weeks of my life away to turn a Win95 box into a debian router, and I'm still not sure I got it right.
Go with Mandrake or Red Hat - or, better yet, whatever version comes with the 800-page book you buy to help you learn. Now, that would have been a useful discussion - what's a good book to learn Linux with (I haven't found it).
Probably not.
Very interesting idea - this will probably be the case. The answer appears to be auto-adminstrated machines, which automatically search for updates on a regular basis.
I know many people who auto-administer using apt-get and cron, and there are many people who would complain if Microsoft had a similar auto-update option for it's servers. It's only a matter of time until some dedicated hacker figures out how to subvert apt-get or similar programs for their own purposes. I can't think of any way to prevent a serious attack, but then, others may have thought about this more than me.
With paper books, I can look smart by filling a whole bookshelf with stuff I haven't read. With one trip to the used bookstore, I can cheaply purchase a whole 6 feet of classics from the past, and look like a well rounded person. Ebooks need to include some sort of packaging that fills bookshelf space, like the computer game boxes.
Technical references are too easy to use in a well-implemented electronic format. Why would I want to search text electronically when I could visually scan for it, page by page? There should be three ways to find something - Table of Contents, Index, and post-it-notes. Oh - and you shouldn't be able to click on the index entry to jump to the page, you lazy bastard. Navigate there yourself.
It's also too easy to correct errors in electronic books. I have fond memories of spending the first day in class fixing the errors introduced in the 11th edition. Errata should be sent on paper, by mail, so you can make the changes by hand. Think what the children are missing!
One thing that should be implemented is textbooks that change every year, in such a way that they can't be upgraded. This encourages students to keep their textbooks, since they can't sell them to next year's students. My shelf has many inches taken up with important sounding books like "Elements of Style", "Thermodynamics, 3rd Edition", "Calculus Made Easy", and "Learning Programming (with C)", that protects my shelf from getting dusty.
The best thing about reading the newspaper is the feeling of getting up, throwing on a bathrobe, getting your slippers wet with dew, and retrieving the daily paper from your neighbor's yard. All ebook media should be delivered by throwing it on your lawn, preferably at 5 AM, so that the dogs can tell you the moment it arrives. Or shipped in two weeks, the way Amazon does it. Again, don't forget the packaging - I want evidence that I've been getting the daily paper in my trash.
Size is also important - how will the folks across from me on the bus know whether I'm reading Dostoyevsky, Hacking Exposed, Playboy, or Harry Potter? The e-book should be huge, so that it requires a backpack, and should include, in a bright red LCD display on the back, what you are reading. The back-pocket is an unreasonale design goal. Weight is also a good thing - you need a counterweight when you are taking a dump.
Also, current ebooks are a bit too waterproof, and a bit to easy to backup. If I spill a little liquid on the display, I should see the waterspot five years from now. If I lend it to a friend, I want the electronic equivalent of a marked cover and bent spine. Books are a precious thing, and should be fragile, easily transferable, and should age with an old-book smell. Or, just put mold in a aeresol can, I don't care which way you go.
Are any design engineers listening?
I agree, but they are hard to find. I find many on cassette, in small counter-cuture record stores where they haven't got the message that they are out of print...
There are some on Amazon (maybe that link will work, maybe not...), and a few places where you might find other stuff.
Of course, if all else fails, a few people have made some albums availible by alternative means
The only place I know the name "George Tirebiter" from is from the Firesign Theater album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers". Do you know of it being used in some other context? Or were you giving a cold impression of the name? Or, are you being sarcastic, and neglecting to use the <SARCASM> tags?
I'm not being facetious - I really want to know.
In RealSpace, he was "the doughty unofficial mascot of USC (Univ. South. Calif.) athletic teams in earlier times, renowned for his devotion to attacking the spinning wheels of large American automobiles...."
In the Firesign Theater world, he's the Everyman protaganist of the comedy album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (which appears to be out of print, although I found a cassette in a local record store). It's high comedy from Firesign Theater, a team that was known for a counter-cultural radio program in the sixties. It's very funny, but requires FULL attention, a strong liberal arts background, and occassionaly several listens, to get a large percentage of the jokes.
Check out the entry for DWARF to get a feel for the humor.
That said, even though I got the reference, I don't think seeing a post under the name George Tirebiter would make me think "Oh - It's the editor!" or "He's just joking!". I would instead think "This guy is a pretty poor satirist - it's like posting under 'Chaucer'".
Did you hear the story about the two judges arrested for drunk driving on the same night? They get to talking, and figure out that they could be the judge at each other's trial, and get off a lot easier.
So, on the day of the trial, the first judge takes the bench, the second says he is representing himself, etc., etc.. To speed things up, the defendant pleads guilty, the judge asks, are you sorry for what you did, etc., etc., the defendant shows "due remorse", and the judge decides to let him off with time served.
The two then switch places, even swapping the same black robe there in the court room, each wearing their golfing outfits underneath, and switch places.
The current defendant pleads guilty, and shows "due remorse". The judge looks over the desk, and says, "if memory serves, this is the second DUI in a row that has come before the court. In the past, the court has been lenient on this particular offense, but it looks like we have to send a message to the community. $5000 fine and time served!"
I agree, this probably won't turn into a real court case. All this talk about illegal wiretaps and other nonsense sounds scarier than a nice, simple privacy amendment to the constitution. I wouldn't like my IT department getting a court order to "wiretap" my connection because they think I may be "stealing" excessive bandwidth from the company. Is it a worse crime if you are "stealing" from a government institution?
The solution is clear - either a privacy ammendment, which clearly states the right to privacy and lets future legislation and court cases decide the boundaries (not likely in the near future), or just go to a better company, one that's not as draconian. And you wonder why there is a shortage of tech workers for government jobs?
How many fps does Google get?
The article is in the context of buying a PC for personal use, and benchmarks using FPS, ray-tracing, kernel-compiles, etc. The idea is to pay attention to incremental performance (1.33 Mhz to 1.4 Mhz, .07 Mhz) versus incremental cost ($33? $100), and make sure it's worth it. Bottom line, buy cutting edge, get screwed on price.
To make OV popular, you'll need to give it an advantage over MP3, that can be understood by Joe. Patents and 'free (as in speech) software' are no such things.
At the moment MP3 has all the advantages, and there's no reason why OV will take over.
I think MP3/OGG is a bit different than Beta vs. VHS. For one thing, availibility isn't limited to what the movie studios and Blockbuster decide to carry - it is as easy to rip a CD to MP3 as it is to OGG, and as easy to download, if both are availible. So, the only thing limiting acceptance is availibility, and hardware support.
Personally, I think stand-alone MP3 players are still a niche market, still in the first generation. The digital audio enthusiasts are buying huge hard drives and ripping their CD collections, 40 gig at a time, and playing them over some computer-to-stereo setup. The consumer electronics are too primitive to not have a computer at the center of your digital audio setup.
As I said, these enthusiasts are ripping their entire CD collections, and, when possible, making them availible on Napster or Napster clones. If you want the "universal jukebox" effect, it's not the 14-yr-old Spears fans who support it, but these enthusiasts, who aren't afraid to admit they bought a dozen albums from eighties hair bands.
If you can convince these folks that you have a better format, one that isn't controlled by record companies or patents, which sounds better on their systems, then they will take the time to re-encode their stuff. It will be availible through the usual suspects, and people will learn that, if you want obscure stuff, go Ogg.
Like the original MP3 revolution, this one won't be led by Joe Six-Pack. This one will be led by the audiophiles and the pioneers.
Anyone have experience with one of these real-time Linux systems? How good are they at hard-real time tasks? I'd especially be interested in simulator applications.
I agree, there must be some limit to induction when encountering infinite numbers, but I don't remember them mentioning it in my few math classes. Is this an inductive proof?
Hypopthesis: There is no integer P where pi(P+n)=e(n) for all a, where pi(x) is a function that returns the xth digit of pi, and e(x) does likewise.
Assumption: pi has the property of having all sequences of numbers somewhere in there. For instance, for a five-digit sequence S(x), there is a first occurance in Pi, at S0, so that pi(S0)=S(1), pi(S0+1)=S(2), pi(S0+2)=S(3), pi(S0+3)=S(4), and pi(S0+4)=S(5). In other words, I'm naming the integer where you can find the first number in the sequence. Proof(?):
There is some P1 where pi(P1)=e(1), but pi(P1+1)!=e(2). This is easy to see - you can quickly find the first occurance of 2 that is not followed by 7.
There is some P2 where pi(P2)=e(1) and pi(P2+1)=e(2), but pi(P2+2)!=e(3). Again, there is a first occurance of 27 not followed by 1
If there is a P(N), then there is a P(N+1), since all arbitratry sequences are in there. In other words, if there is a sequence 2,7,1, Not 8, then there is also a sequence 2,7,1,8, not 2.
Thus, for any N, there is a PN where pi(N)=e(1), and pi(N+1)=e(N+1), all the way until pi(N+N)=e(N+N+1), but pi(N+N+1)!=e(N+N+2)
So, no matter how many digits you look at, there will always be some N where the two don't line up.
Of course, my inductive arguements are pretty weak, even weaker than my choice of symbols...
Base case: the first digit of e is in pi. 3.141592... 2 is in pi.
Inductive case: If the first n digits of e are in pi, then the first n+1 digits of e are in pi. We know that all strings of the same length appear with the same frequency in pi. We also know that at least one string of length n+1 digits appears in pi. Therefore at least n+1 digits of e are in pi.
Thus, having shown the inductive case, we have proven the hypothesis, that all digits of e are in pi (consecutively). Therefore e is in pi! QED.
OK, so e is in pi, and by a similar arguement, I can say pi is in e. (I'll leave that up to the student or awk, whichever can do the regexp substituion first).
So, pi becomes some rational number P plus e times some power of 10, such as:
pi = P + e*10^-N
and, likewise, e becomes:
e = E + pi*10^-M
substituting, we get: pi = P + (E + pi*10^-M)*10^-N
pi = P + E*10^-N + pi*10^-(M+N)
pi - pi*10^-(M+N) = P + E*10^-N
pi(1-10^-(M+N) = P + E*10^-N
pi = (P + E*10^-N)/(1-10^-(M+N))
But P, E, N, and M are all rational numbers, so that bit on the right side is a rational number as well, so pi is the ratio of two rational numbers, which is also a rational number.
So, if your reasoning and my reasoning are correct, then pi is a rational number, but someone smarter than me proved that it isn't a rational number.
So, are you wrong, or am I wrong?