Re:Random bits that are in Pi somewhere
on
Share The Pi!
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· Score: 2
Can pi appear in pi anywhere? I guess not, since that would mean that pi repeats.
But it does appear. Start at postion 0 - you get 3.14.... for as far as you want to calculate it.
Like others, I doubt e is in pi. That would mean pi = 314...*10^-n +e*10^-(n+1), or something like that.
Here's a possibility: Assume some function that gets the xth digit of a number, such as pi(1) = 3, pi(2) = 1, etc. Find some n where pi(n) is the start of a sequence that matches the digits in e, or pi(n+a) = e(a), for at least a=1. It may be fairly easy to prove that there is always some A where pi(n+A) != e(A).
For instance, if there is an N where there is no A, then pi(N+a)=e(a) for all a. But this would mean that pi = B + e*10^(-N), where B is a finite number, and, substituting again, pi = B + pi(N+a)*10^(-N), so pi repeats, which it doesn't. I may be off by a power of 10 or so, but I think it may be possible to state that if e is in pi, then pi repeats, and since pi doesn't repeat, then e is not in pi.
Then again, IANAM (mathematicain), I'm just an EE pretending to be a programmer.
If owning hardware to freely intercept DirectTV signals is considered privacy, then only pirates will have hardware to freely intercept DirectTV signals.
Well, it's good that we're finally (after decades of research) we get realistic sounding Text to Speech. On the other hand I can't imagine Stephen Hawking speaking in non-metallic voice. Am I weird?
That's an interesting idea. If Stephen Hawking has recorded samples of his voice from when he could talk, they could change his synthizer to use his own voice. Interesting idea, may have actual applications for the disabled.
Now, Stephen Hawking talking like John Wayne - that would be weird...
I would like to see a corelation study of this information against postings to BugTraq. Information can be a two edge sword.
It's true - the best, most original hackers probably read BugTraq religiously, looking for possible avenues to exploit. The best security admins are also looking at it (ex-hackers?). Within a day of posting, the experts know about possible exploits.
In a short while, the expert hackers could use this information to break into vunerable systems. It would be nice to say that all systems vendors are now patching their systems, but it depends on the system...
Within weeks, others are automating the bug detection - either for the purposes of security (detecting it) or intrusion (exploiting it). Scripts and other tools become availible.
Script kiddies get a hold of them, and you see a dramatic rise in the number of attempted exploits - this takes 1 to 2 months (I've seen a graph somewhere). It takes time for an exploit to go from a theoretical exploit on BugTraq to a program-driven exploit that your standard hacker can use.
At this point, the software or systems programmers of certain companies simultanously gear up their patch efforts and PR efforts.
After some time, the patch is availible (hopefully, before the script-kiddie exploit curve reaches the critical point). Good system administrators and users apply the patches. The script-kiddie curve goes down, because they get bored scanning for the few systems that haven't installed the patch.
And then, there's the poor administrator or user that never checks for patches, or simply has to try out patches for a while before applying them across the enterprise. Eventually, the script-kiddie and this guy's system will meet.
That's probably the corelation that will be found - a nice curve showing exponentially rising exploit attempts after a post to BugTraq, reaching critical after a month or two, then a sharp dampning after the patch is released, never declining to zero. If you search, you may even find a similar graph or study.
The answer isn't to restrict information, just be aware of this extra information, and place yourself further up the curve.
Yup, the very same Roberta Williams. A little known fact: she is actually one of the women in the hot tub on the front cover of Softporn Adventure... wish I had a link to the picture now. I think I have it somewhere on my drive...
Any of you remember what Roberta Williams once said, how in the olden days, when computers were more expensive, only the more well-off (and usually more educated) could afford them, which is why adventures, especially the cerebral Infocom kind, were more popular? Nowadays when just about everyone can buy a cheapo PC or worse still, a console;) we have more "mass-market" games.
Roberta Williams of Sierra Online, right? The company that had it's first big hit with SoftPorn, and brought us seven or so episodes of Leisure Suit Larry? Yeah, catering to the smarter computer user...
The bottom line is text-based adventures came first because the graphics were limited. The thing that sets one text-based game over another is how clever it is, how challenging it is. Half-Life, the Infocom game, would have been interesting as well, but nothing like Half-Life, the Valve game.
BTW, Looking Glass may be dead, but it seems Deus Ex II and Thief III are being made, by the same people but in a different company (Ion Storm). Plus, Half-Life (my favorite example) taught that a little story-telling in your 1st person shooter goes a long way - I think we'll see a minority of action games with plots and thought required, and that these will win the end-of-the-year awards. Yes, a minority, but two or three a year is enough for me (and all the time and money I can afford).
Can't say I've seen any of these copy-protected CDs, because I haven't bought any over the last few months (with the notable exception of Ken Burn's Jazz collection, which I recommend to anyone who ever heard jazz and said "sounds cool, but how would I start my collection?").
I wish I could say that I was boycotting record companies for their action against Napster, or for some other big moral reason, but I can't. I simply haven't heard anything new that interests me.
When it was around, I found myself reading every music review I could get my hands on. Occassionaly, I'd read a review from The Onion's AV Club that got me excited about some band I've never heard of. I'd run over to Napster, and get the full album. Other people must have been doing the same thing, because the tracks were fairly rare at first, then became easier and easier to find, and the downloads from my own system increased over a week's time.
Some didn't interest me, so I deleted them (hard drive space is still at a premium.) Others, I listened to all the time. I had a general rule of thumb - if I was still listening after 2 weeks, then I would buy the CD. Not to directly support the artist, who gets a fraction of the sale, but in a way to vote, to say to the record companies that this band, who may be currently obscure, is a good band, should get promoted, and should get more backing for the next album. Sure, the current system may suck, but sometimes this is the only way to ensure another album.
Of course, now that Napster is down, I have a hard time trying out new stuff. I know there are other services, but I haven't had time to try them out. Net result - the record companies aren't getting my money, simply because I'm not willing anymore to buy a CD that I'm not sure is addictive.
c) There are ways to get around it, ie to split the binaries and just show the links to libraries.
I kinda like option c. Here's the chain as I see it:
With the example of this test case, companies use GPL code in seperate, linkable packages.
Mods are made to the linkable GPL code, and the changes make their way back into Linux community. Mods in the Linux community can be made in the "commercial" GPL, and another company sees the indirect benefit of open-source code
If a package gets popular, common modifications to make it more linkable, and it becomes a natural platform for future mods.
Commercial software becomes pretty interfaces on top of GPL code. Hackers take their time, making their own ugly, free interfaces.
No programmer ever has do re-invent the wheel again.
OK - it may be a leap to the last two, but the more people that get paid to work on open-source code, the better. Personally, I think businesses will love linked GPL code, as soon as they see legal barriers like the one in this lawsuit lifted.
Breaking the GPL and then releasing a different similar binary and source code can't be an accepted way to allow people to break the GPL and get away with it.
But it was accepted, by the FSF's lawyer (Eben Moglen). Since FSF is one of the few organizations with the power and resources to sue on behalf of the GPL, and many GPL'd works are copyrighted by the FSF (as recomended), then this is an acceptable solution.
If it went to court, it may have been neccessary to release the source for the original, or the judge could have decided this was the proper solution.
Although I'd love to live in a world where GPL worked like a open-source virus, the truth is we live within a legal system where outcomes like this are totally acceptable. Personally, I think it's a win for the GPL, and it shows one test case of using GPL software in a commercial environment - in a non-virial way.
I have to disagree with this point. I believe you are a better person for using Linux. Yes, you are even better for helping someone out, I agree
A better person for running Linux? Why haven't the religious folks heard about this yet?
While running Linux may make you a better computer user, it won't make you better as a person.
From what I've seen, most Linux users are middle-class folks, obsesed with technology, and have enough of an income to afford a second machine to play with. These are precisely the people who think they are better than their white-bread neighbors because they drive a standard car rather than an SUV, or that they recycle (only generate three bags of trash a week) while their neighbors don't (4 bags a week).
Don't fall into the trap that the things you own make you a better person. Sure, there is the potential to do good things with Linux, such as put together a low-cost system for those who couldn't afford one, and who could benefit from exposure to technology. But it may be more beneficial to expose them to MS Office, so they can get a better job with those skills. Despite the bad guy image, the Gates Foundation has donated thousands of computers to libraries and schools so that disadvantaged people can get that exposure.
Sure, you got mad skillz because you can use Linux and your peers and relatives are stuck on Microsoft and AOL. But in the real world, having a tech job doesn't make you a better person, doesn't give you more political clout, and, in many cases, doesn't make you more important than the next guy.
I may have misrepresented your arguement, but I see a lot of adolescent ego in the Linux community, and I think we would be better off getting rid of it, or marginalizing it so that folks know that they don't speak for us. Religious wars over operating systems are one of those areas that make the business world question if Linux is ready for prime time, the end result being less drivers for cheap hardware.
Hewlett-Packard Company today announced it has been awarded a key patent that could remove a major obstacle to making molecular-scale computing a reality.
I can see RMS exploding with rage right now if he's reading this sentence. How exactly did the patent remove the obstacle? Did they mean "...a key patent on technology that could remove..." or did they really mean what they said? If the latter, then what was the obstacle? Their competition?
Yes, and yes! A major obstacle to building a nano-circuit is that the connections are so delicate that random radiation, a stiff wind, etc., could destroy the effectiveness of the circuit. You would have to wrap it in lead, make it redundant, etc, etc, and, if someone wanted to take it out to examine it, they would destroy it.
So, if they get it working, then the competition can't open it (to try to reverse engineer it) and destroy the chip, because it is protected by a patent. Physical limitation solved. Once the competition buys a license for the tech, they can pop open the shell, and HP doesn't care if it gets detroyed (Pop open all you want, we'll make more...).
So, you see, patents really do contribute to some technological problems, like radiation shielding and sub-standard encryption...
Re:Preview of what's to come...
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Internet2 Update
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· Score: 2
The school's name is Johns Hopkins. Sorry to be so anal, but I'm programmed to respond that way whenever anyone calls it "John" Hopkins...
That's OK - I'm anal as well - I'd even say thank you, if Slashdot allowed us to make spelling corrections to previous posts...
BTW, interesting Sig. I forget the terms from logic, but is the corollary that if someone's sig is intellegent, that they are intellegent?
US residents that don't work in law enforcement are now 2nd class citizens.
... which makes cops 1st class citizens being paid at 3rd class citizen rates...
Seriously, cops get paid low enough that you have to want to be a civil servant to take the job. It's repetative, dangerous, and leaves you wide open to any person who has the money to sue you and/or your department. On top of that, most of these folks aren't philosophers, thinking deeply about the role of government and the enforcement of possibly unjust laws. These guys mostly operate on the level of good and evil (sing along - "bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you?"), and if they thought on a more abstract level, they would quit their jobs rather than face the daily ambiguity.
I think the cops deserve a little more respect, and the lawmakers should respect them by passing enforceable laws that don't make criminals out of most people.
That being said, I think that folks should be able to passively film their own interactions with the police - maybe set the camera up (like the cops do with the windsheild-mounted camera), or have a passenger film the encounter. That, or get a CD copy of the cop's video tape ("My arrest, 7/14/2001").
Almost all the benefit (including the workability of QOS) comes from the fact that they have limited who has access to the network and thus have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio. It's the internet culture of the late nineteen eighties, running on the hardware of the early two thousand naughts.
But they also have the lessons learned over the last 15 years or so of the commercial internet...
The folks that turned the web over to the world probably had no idea what would happen. Who would have thought that pretty pictures and design would be more important than content? That marketers would plague the web with spam, banner ads, and pop-ups? Who would have guessed that it would eventually have to carry live video? Who would have predicted the backlash against blinking text?
They can watch the original Internet, and plan a little to make sure they encourage good uses and discourage bad ones. For instance, they are optimizing it so "important" things get transfered more reliably than "unimportant" things, and are trying to make it work before the world gets it's hands on it.
Just a few of the possible areas for improvement:
Smarter IP addressing, both for increased number space and to help out routers (geographically based top-level numbers?)
Basic Protocols that are written assuming hacking attempts rather than optimized for sharing information
Priority transmission for time-critical applications (such as surgery).
Low-level broadcast protocols.
Micro- or Macro-payment support.
Better business models by design.
Your favorite extension here
I, for one, think it's a good thing - develop the next generation, in a real prototype state, get it 95% there, then unleash the world on it. When that's done, start on the next next-generation Internet.
We need reasons to buy more expensive hardware, anyway...
Re:Oh crap -- data with priority flags
on
Internet2 Update
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· Score: 1
It doesn't matter what criteria are used to decide what's high-priority, spammers will find a way to abuse it. All of their email will suddenly become "absolutely the highest priority ever," squashing yours, and if some rules like "real-time video takes priority over email" are tried, well, now you have television commercials squashing out oeverything else.
I would think the priorities would be channel-assigned. For instance, if I head over to Slashdot, a channel is opened, with the ad being highest priority (to make sure I see it), the text being next highest, and finally the images. Other, graphics intensive sights could make the graphics a higher priority.
But, I could assign the whole Slashdot channel a lower priority than the email channel.
But you are right - I'm thinking as a programmer, trying to come up with solutions rather than deal with the underlying problem, which is that, as you said,
There isn't a single useful thing that we in the CS community can come up with that some cocksucking marketer can't abuse.
I think the researchers realize this, and simply want to put into the protocols some way that the tele-conference surgery gets higher priority than the pron or the spam. Good luck.
Re:Preview of what's to come...
on
Internet2 Update
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· Score: 5
Don't forget the FPS and MMORPG's......
I can see it now...
QUAKE 6: TELE-SURGERY ANNOUNCED
John Carmack took some time off from crusing the Autobahn for a Intenet2 Virtual Conference to announce Quake 6 (subtitled Tele-Surgery), for release in Q1, 2010.
Hallmarked as the first collaboration between a game company and a medical university, the game promises to fully realize the potential of the new Internet2 to both allow long-distance research as well as teenager-oriented ultra-violence.
For their part, John Hopkins will benefit from the improved human models introduced in Quake 5, with their fully realized internal organ structure. They will also benefit from the thousands-strong mod community, which constantly updates the Quake models for better representation of the human body. These improved representations will allow medical students to practice their craft on virtual humans, rather than cadavers or live patients.
Said one student, "I know it's extracurricular, but I'm looking forward to disecting the Jar-Jar Binks model."
For their part, ID software will get live updates from actual surgeries, to help make gibs look even better in real-time. They will also get access to the unused cadavers, for "modeling, modification, and shot-reaction research", as one programmer stated. When asked about zombie-research, the programmer stated "No Comment."
Columbine parents stated they would proactively sue the game company for future school shooting incidents by current pre-adolescents. ID lawyers stated they will not settle, but instead take it to court. "By the time this suit gets through appeals, the children in question will be in medical school, inspired into a career in medicine by an early exposure to the human body. Time will prove us correct."
At the end of the press conference, Carmack added "No, it won't run on your system."
It really does look like Internet2 is to the present Internet like the present Internet was to DARPANet (or the equivalent).
Just look - Internet2 is restricted to academics and researchers, just like the old Internet was restricted to universities and government researchers. It's being used for collaboration and "what-if" scenarios, and most that are currently involved have a good idea who the others are. They are even practicing high culture, trying out live colaborative opera.
And in a few years, it will be opened up to the public. It will become 3-D Porn, obnoxious teenagers who can't spell, bad music being traded all around, pop-up adds with full symphonic sound, and all the original users will complain about all the newbies...
When one side can cheat, that side almost always wins. That's why we have a ref, even if he does occasionally resemble Darth Vader...
The difference is that in most sporting events the "ref" does things straight away.
It's not the greatest analogy, but I don't check my analogies too closely when responding to ACs.
I was pretty impressed over the last Olympics, where they banned the gymnist who took some sort of cough medicine, then went through the appeals process the next day. I didn't neccesarialy agree with the verdict, but there was a ruling on anti-competative practices that was done in a timely enough manner to benefit the competition!
On my "penalty box" punishment - it's a little toungue-in-cheeek, but I wasn't trying to stop Microsoft from developing or selling products at all. I just wanted a full year with no new products. Continue to sell what you've got, continue releasing Service Packs for existing stuff, just don't release Windows XP 2 in a year or so.
It's not a perfect solution, but maybe it would help current Windows users (some effort would be spent on making current products work, rather than adding features to release X+1 to crush the competition), and it would give competitors a chance to get some market share on new ideas before the Microsoft machine runs them over.
For this to work, though, the period would have to be greater than 1 year - maybe even 5 years (gasp!) Imagine buying a new machine, 3 times the clock speed of the old, and having the latest version of Windows run FASTER than the old version on the old machine! Incredible!
(I'm a little bitter. On the last business trip I took, we took along a 133 Mhz Laptop running Windows 95/98, and a 700/600 Mhz Laptop running Win2K. The Win98 machine beat the Win2K machine on starting up, opening applications, browsing the web, etc., etc.)
..That's exactly how tiles.ice.org runs. Artists see a ~15 pixel sliver of adjoining tiles, and make their artwork blend off that. And yes, there are quilts that are totally visible, and allow for selection and knowledge of the surrounding tiles.
Ah - thanks for the info - I still couldn't get into the site at the time of writing. If my program makes interesting tiles, I may try to submit one...
We don't need the Darth Vader hand of government to get involved with this matter. The free market will take care of it just fine. Microsoft is a pitiful also-ran in mobile computing, and boneheaded moves like this will only put them further back in the race.
Why do I love biting at trolls?
The law sets the boundaries that companies work within. Sure, this limits the freedom of "free markets", but it does make sense. You don't want "Al Capone, Inc." to start killing off the competetors...
If a court of law has determined that Microsoft has broken the law (see the appeals court's affirmation of the findings of fact), then they need to stop breaking the law. It is the only fair thing to do so that the other free-market, law-abiding players have the same advantages.
When one side can cheat, that side almost always wins. That's why we have a ref, even if he does occasionally resemble Darth Vader...
A modest proposal - prevent Microsoft from releasing any new products for one year. Let the competition catch up, and maybe let Microsoft work at making the products they have work rather than jumping into new areas. Call it "1 year in the penalty box".
The main problem is that it's the spammer's computer that decides ( theoretically based on MX records ) which mail server to connect to. The only way to make this happen is to use multiple hostnames for users, eg. x@open.domain.net vs. x@orbs.domain.net, instead of vanilla x@domain.net. You'd need the servers configured with lists of users they should accept mail for, and some way for users to maintain that list.
Ah - I see. Then it would work pretty much the way I usually use my mail, giving out one (free) address for online stuff, another for friends and family, etc., and filtering on which account it came from.
I have to admit, spam isn't a huge problem for me (almost all my mail is stuff I expect, and I don't mind downloading junk on my cable modem), but I can't understand how I ever survived without some kind of program to sort through the mail.
I think a more aesthetically rewarding project would be one in which each artist could only see the work of the neighboring tiles. Obviously not all of those neighboring tiles would be complete. This would be best performed in a fashion that would allow one to build an infinite pattern.
Fo example, I propose starting the "quilt" at one corner and creating a potentially infinite quilt of diagonal shape, ordered in the following fashion, starting with tile 1, then tile 2, etc. (similar to the proof that the rational numbers are countable:)
The result would then be a quilt that _progresses_ across the middle as each tile has something in common with its neighbors. New ideas/designs would be more likely to appear on the edges where each new tile has fewer neighbors, whereas the bulk of similarity and progression would fall across the top-left to bottom-right diagonal.
I like your idea. Your patern would be fairly interesting, and may even have artistic merit, depending on if the artists took it seriously.
It may also be interesting to show only a thin portion of the neighbors (scaled for my 5x9 Font):
There could be a requirement that your portion blend the edges together. Even the non-artistic may be able to contribute something interesting, and a program may even be able to contribute, or add "interesting" portions when the neighbors become boring. It may make for interesting wallpaper.
One final idea is to take a space filling fractal, and create the n+1 mosiac from the n mosiac. For instance, start with an image of Tux, divide it in 9, then have 9 artists create a new image, based on the edges of the other images. If the first image was divided like this:
, then artist #1 would get a seed that looks like this:
97777777778
3.........2
3.........2
3.........2
3.........2
3.........2
64444444445 , where I've wrapped around the edges so that the artist gets 4 sides. In other words, the artist replaces his tile, without knowing what the other artist will replace their tiles with.
Once the first iteration is done, the image would be divided 9x9=81 times, and farmed out to 81 artists. This keeps going as long as you want. It would be interesting to see what Tux (or whatever seed image you used) would look like after a few iterations.
Damn - I have real work to do, but I now want to go create a program to do something like this. I also have a suspicion it will devolve into the JPEG encryption algorithm...
1. The recipients typically can't block mail from open relays. Doing that requires rulesets in the mail server that process based on the IP address the incoming SMTP connection is coming from. That requires root access to the ISP's mail servers. Few ISPs give that access to ordinary users, and gods help the ones that do. And it'd require a mailserver for each user. The best you can do is have the ISP use services like MAPS and ORBS and add headers to the message that users can use to reject mail, and that depends on the users being able to set up procmail or something similar, which isn't feasible for Windows-based users.
Since I'm an engineer by education and attitude, I immediately think of solutions to problems... Is there a way for an ISP to selectively choose mailservers for users? For instance, I could choose that my mail goes through the MarkSpamORBS mail server, which adds "SPAM:" to the subject line of email that has a match in the ORBS server. Others could choose BlockSpamORBS, and never get the messages. If the ISP desires, it could set BlockSpamORBS by default, or AllowAll by default (for those that prefer opt-out). A single ISP could then handle email for those that never want to see spam, those who can set up their mail client to do special things to spam, and those who want to see everything. It would clear up some free-speech problems, but (possibly) put an extra load on the ISP.
Buy yourself a target air rifle, not a cheap one, but a good one with a nice scope. You can easily find angles to hit the camera without being easily seen by the camera. Shoot said camera out. When they fix it, shoot it out again, later. Enough people doing that will make them go away.
Slashdot Mirror
But it does appear. Start at postion 0 - you get 3.14.... for as far as you want to calculate it.
Like others, I doubt e is in pi. That would mean pi = 314...*10^-n +e*10^-(n+1), or something like that.
Here's a possibility: Assume some function that gets the xth digit of a number, such as pi(1) = 3, pi(2) = 1, etc. Find some n where pi(n) is the start of a sequence that matches the digits in e, or pi(n+a) = e(a), for at least a=1. It may be fairly easy to prove that there is always some A where pi(n+A) != e(A).
For instance, if there is an N where there is no A, then pi(N+a)=e(a) for all a. But this would mean that pi = B + e*10^(-N), where B is a finite number, and, substituting again, pi = B + pi(N+a)*10^(-N), so pi repeats, which it doesn't. I may be off by a power of 10 or so, but I think it may be possible to state that if e is in pi, then pi repeats, and since pi doesn't repeat, then e is not in pi.
Then again, IANAM (mathematicain), I'm just an EE pretending to be a programmer.
If owning hardware to freely intercept DirectTV signals is considered privacy, then only pirates will have hardware to freely intercept DirectTV signals.
That's an interesting idea. If Stephen Hawking has recorded samples of his voice from when he could talk, they could change his synthizer to use his own voice. Interesting idea, may have actual applications for the disabled.
Now, Stephen Hawking talking like John Wayne - that would be weird...
It's true - the best, most original hackers probably read BugTraq religiously, looking for possible avenues to exploit. The best security admins are also looking at it (ex-hackers?). Within a day of posting, the experts know about possible exploits.
In a short while, the expert hackers could use this information to break into vunerable systems. It would be nice to say that all systems vendors are now patching their systems, but it depends on the system...
Within weeks, others are automating the bug detection - either for the purposes of security (detecting it) or intrusion (exploiting it). Scripts and other tools become availible.
Script kiddies get a hold of them, and you see a dramatic rise in the number of attempted exploits - this takes 1 to 2 months (I've seen a graph somewhere). It takes time for an exploit to go from a theoretical exploit on BugTraq to a program-driven exploit that your standard hacker can use.
At this point, the software or systems programmers of certain companies simultanously gear up their patch efforts and PR efforts.
After some time, the patch is availible (hopefully, before the script-kiddie exploit curve reaches the critical point). Good system administrators and users apply the patches. The script-kiddie curve goes down, because they get bored scanning for the few systems that haven't installed the patch.
And then, there's the poor administrator or user that never checks for patches, or simply has to try out patches for a while before applying them across the enterprise. Eventually, the script-kiddie and this guy's system will meet.
That's probably the corelation that will be found - a nice curve showing exponentially rising exploit attempts after a post to BugTraq, reaching critical after a month or two, then a sharp dampning after the patch is released, never declining to zero. If you search, you may even find a similar graph or study.
The answer isn't to restrict information, just be aware of this extra information, and place yourself further up the curve.
There's a .jpeg of the box cover for Softporn at this website.
Al Lowe confirms that Roberta Williams is one of the women in the hot tub, in Chapter 2 of the The Official Book of Leisure Suit Larry.
I didn't.
Roberta Williams of Sierra Online, right? The company that had it's first big hit with SoftPorn, and brought us seven or so episodes of Leisure Suit Larry? Yeah, catering to the smarter computer user...
The bottom line is text-based adventures came first because the graphics were limited. The thing that sets one text-based game over another is how clever it is, how challenging it is. Half-Life, the Infocom game, would have been interesting as well, but nothing like Half-Life, the Valve game.
BTW, Looking Glass may be dead, but it seems Deus Ex II and Thief III are being made, by the same people but in a different company (Ion Storm). Plus, Half-Life (my favorite example) taught that a little story-telling in your 1st person shooter goes a long way - I think we'll see a minority of action games with plots and thought required, and that these will win the end-of-the-year awards. Yes, a minority, but two or three a year is enough for me (and all the time and money I can afford).
I wish I could say that I was boycotting record companies for their action against Napster, or for some other big moral reason, but I can't. I simply haven't heard anything new that interests me.
When it was around, I found myself reading every music review I could get my hands on. Occassionaly, I'd read a review from The Onion's AV Club that got me excited about some band I've never heard of. I'd run over to Napster, and get the full album. Other people must have been doing the same thing, because the tracks were fairly rare at first, then became easier and easier to find, and the downloads from my own system increased over a week's time.
Some didn't interest me, so I deleted them (hard drive space is still at a premium.) Others, I listened to all the time. I had a general rule of thumb - if I was still listening after 2 weeks, then I would buy the CD. Not to directly support the artist, who gets a fraction of the sale, but in a way to vote, to say to the record companies that this band, who may be currently obscure, is a good band, should get promoted, and should get more backing for the next album. Sure, the current system may suck, but sometimes this is the only way to ensure another album.
Of course, now that Napster is down, I have a hard time trying out new stuff. I know there are other services, but I haven't had time to try them out. Net result - the record companies aren't getting my money, simply because I'm not willing anymore to buy a CD that I'm not sure is addictive.
I kinda like option c. Here's the chain as I see it:
With the example of this test case, companies use GPL code in seperate, linkable packages.
Mods are made to the linkable GPL code, and the changes make their way back into Linux community. Mods in the Linux community can be made in the "commercial" GPL, and another company sees the indirect benefit of open-source code
If a package gets popular, common modifications to make it more linkable, and it becomes a natural platform for future mods.
Commercial software becomes pretty interfaces on top of GPL code. Hackers take their time, making their own ugly, free interfaces.
No programmer ever has do re-invent the wheel again.
OK - it may be a leap to the last two, but the more people that get paid to work on open-source code, the better. Personally, I think businesses will love linked GPL code, as soon as they see legal barriers like the one in this lawsuit lifted.
But it was accepted, by the FSF's lawyer (Eben Moglen). Since FSF is one of the few organizations with the power and resources to sue on behalf of the GPL, and many GPL'd works are copyrighted by the FSF (as recomended), then this is an acceptable solution.
If it went to court, it may have been neccessary to release the source for the original, or the judge could have decided this was the proper solution.
Although I'd love to live in a world where GPL worked like a open-source virus, the truth is we live within a legal system where outcomes like this are totally acceptable. Personally, I think it's a win for the GPL, and it shows one test case of using GPL software in a commercial environment - in a non-virial way.
A better person for running Linux? Why haven't the religious folks heard about this yet?
While running Linux may make you a better computer user, it won't make you better as a person.
From what I've seen, most Linux users are middle-class folks, obsesed with technology, and have enough of an income to afford a second machine to play with. These are precisely the people who think they are better than their white-bread neighbors because they drive a standard car rather than an SUV, or that they recycle (only generate three bags of trash a week) while their neighbors don't (4 bags a week).
Don't fall into the trap that the things you own make you a better person. Sure, there is the potential to do good things with Linux, such as put together a low-cost system for those who couldn't afford one, and who could benefit from exposure to technology. But it may be more beneficial to expose them to MS Office, so they can get a better job with those skills. Despite the bad guy image, the Gates Foundation has donated thousands of computers to libraries and schools so that disadvantaged people can get that exposure.
Sure, you got mad skillz because you can use Linux and your peers and relatives are stuck on Microsoft and AOL. But in the real world, having a tech job doesn't make you a better person, doesn't give you more political clout, and, in many cases, doesn't make you more important than the next guy.
I may have misrepresented your arguement, but I see a lot of adolescent ego in the Linux community, and I think we would be better off getting rid of it, or marginalizing it so that folks know that they don't speak for us. Religious wars over operating systems are one of those areas that make the business world question if Linux is ready for prime time, the end result being less drivers for cheap hardware.
I can see RMS exploding with rage right now if he's reading this sentence. How exactly did the patent remove the obstacle? Did they mean "...a key patent on technology that could remove..." or did they really mean what they said? If the latter, then what was the obstacle? Their competition?
Yes, and yes! A major obstacle to building a nano-circuit is that the connections are so delicate that random radiation, a stiff wind, etc., could destroy the effectiveness of the circuit. You would have to wrap it in lead, make it redundant, etc, etc, and, if someone wanted to take it out to examine it, they would destroy it.
So, if they get it working, then the competition can't open it (to try to reverse engineer it) and destroy the chip, because it is protected by a patent. Physical limitation solved. Once the competition buys a license for the tech, they can pop open the shell, and HP doesn't care if it gets detroyed (Pop open all you want, we'll make more...).
So, you see, patents really do contribute to some technological problems, like radiation shielding and sub-standard encryption...
That's OK - I'm anal as well - I'd even say thank you, if Slashdot allowed us to make spelling corrections to previous posts...
BTW, interesting Sig. I forget the terms from logic, but is the corollary that if someone's sig is intellegent, that they are intellegent?
Seriously, cops get paid low enough that you have to want to be a civil servant to take the job. It's repetative, dangerous, and leaves you wide open to any person who has the money to sue you and/or your department. On top of that, most of these folks aren't philosophers, thinking deeply about the role of government and the enforcement of possibly unjust laws. These guys mostly operate on the level of good and evil (sing along - "bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you?"), and if they thought on a more abstract level, they would quit their jobs rather than face the daily ambiguity.
I think the cops deserve a little more respect, and the lawmakers should respect them by passing enforceable laws that don't make criminals out of most people.
That being said, I think that folks should be able to passively film their own interactions with the police - maybe set the camera up (like the cops do with the windsheild-mounted camera), or have a passenger film the encounter. That, or get a CD copy of the cop's video tape ("My arrest, 7/14/2001").
But they also have the lessons learned over the last 15 years or so of the commercial internet...
The folks that turned the web over to the world probably had no idea what would happen. Who would have thought that pretty pictures and design would be more important than content? That marketers would plague the web with spam, banner ads, and pop-ups? Who would have guessed that it would eventually have to carry live video? Who would have predicted the backlash against blinking text?
They can watch the original Internet, and plan a little to make sure they encourage good uses and discourage bad ones. For instance, they are optimizing it so "important" things get transfered more reliably than "unimportant" things, and are trying to make it work before the world gets it's hands on it.
Just a few of the possible areas for improvement:
Smarter IP addressing, both for increased number space and to help out routers (geographically based top-level numbers?)
Basic Protocols that are written assuming hacking attempts rather than optimized for sharing information
Priority transmission for time-critical applications (such as surgery).
Low-level broadcast protocols.
Micro- or Macro-payment support.
Better business models by design.
Your favorite extension here
I, for one, think it's a good thing - develop the next generation, in a real prototype state, get it 95% there, then unleash the world on it. When that's done, start on the next next-generation Internet.
We need reasons to buy more expensive hardware, anyway...
I would think the priorities would be channel-assigned. For instance, if I head over to Slashdot, a channel is opened, with the ad being highest priority (to make sure I see it), the text being next highest, and finally the images. Other, graphics intensive sights could make the graphics a higher priority.
But, I could assign the whole Slashdot channel a lower priority than the email channel.
But you are right - I'm thinking as a programmer, trying to come up with solutions rather than deal with the underlying problem, which is that, as you said,
I think the researchers realize this, and simply want to put into the protocols some way that the tele-conference surgery gets higher priority than the pron or the spam. Good luck.I can see it now...
QUAKE 6: TELE-SURGERY ANNOUNCED
John Carmack took some time off from crusing the Autobahn for a Intenet2 Virtual Conference to announce Quake 6 (subtitled Tele-Surgery), for release in Q1, 2010.
Hallmarked as the first collaboration between a game company and a medical university, the game promises to fully realize the potential of the new Internet2 to both allow long-distance research as well as teenager-oriented ultra-violence.
For their part, John Hopkins will benefit from the improved human models introduced in Quake 5, with their fully realized internal organ structure. They will also benefit from the thousands-strong mod community, which constantly updates the Quake models for better representation of the human body. These improved representations will allow medical students to practice their craft on virtual humans, rather than cadavers or live patients.
Said one student, "I know it's extracurricular, but I'm looking forward to disecting the Jar-Jar Binks model."
For their part, ID software will get live updates from actual surgeries, to help make gibs look even better in real-time. They will also get access to the unused cadavers, for "modeling, modification, and shot-reaction research", as one programmer stated. When asked about zombie-research, the programmer stated "No Comment."
Columbine parents stated they would proactively sue the game company for future school shooting incidents by current pre-adolescents. ID lawyers stated they will not settle, but instead take it to court. "By the time this suit gets through appeals, the children in question will be in medical school, inspired into a career in medicine by an early exposure to the human body. Time will prove us correct."
At the end of the press conference, Carmack added "No, it won't run on your system."
Just look - Internet2 is restricted to academics and researchers, just like the old Internet was restricted to universities and government researchers. It's being used for collaboration and "what-if" scenarios, and most that are currently involved have a good idea who the others are. They are even practicing high culture, trying out live colaborative opera.
And in a few years, it will be opened up to the public. It will become 3-D Porn, obnoxious teenagers who can't spell, bad music being traded all around, pop-up adds with full symphonic sound, and all the original users will complain about all the newbies...
The difference is that in most sporting events the "ref" does things straight away.
It's not the greatest analogy, but I don't check my analogies too closely when responding to ACs.
I was pretty impressed over the last Olympics, where they banned the gymnist who took some sort of cough medicine, then went through the appeals process the next day. I didn't neccesarialy agree with the verdict, but there was a ruling on anti-competative practices that was done in a timely enough manner to benefit the competition!
On my "penalty box" punishment - it's a little toungue-in-cheeek, but I wasn't trying to stop Microsoft from developing or selling products at all. I just wanted a full year with no new products. Continue to sell what you've got, continue releasing Service Packs for existing stuff, just don't release Windows XP 2 in a year or so.
It's not a perfect solution, but maybe it would help current Windows users (some effort would be spent on making current products work, rather than adding features to release X+1 to crush the competition), and it would give competitors a chance to get some market share on new ideas before the Microsoft machine runs them over.
For this to work, though, the period would have to be greater than 1 year - maybe even 5 years (gasp!) Imagine buying a new machine, 3 times the clock speed of the old, and having the latest version of Windows run FASTER than the old version on the old machine! Incredible!
(I'm a little bitter. On the last business trip I took, we took along a 133 Mhz Laptop running Windows 95/98, and a 700/600 Mhz Laptop running Win2K. The Win98 machine beat the Win2K machine on starting up, opening applications, browsing the web, etc., etc.)
Ah - thanks for the info - I still couldn't get into the site at the time of writing. If my program makes interesting tiles, I may try to submit one...
Why do I love biting at trolls?
The law sets the boundaries that companies work within. Sure, this limits the freedom of "free markets", but it does make sense. You don't want "Al Capone, Inc." to start killing off the competetors...
If a court of law has determined that Microsoft has broken the law (see the appeals court's affirmation of the findings of fact), then they need to stop breaking the law. It is the only fair thing to do so that the other free-market, law-abiding players have the same advantages.
When one side can cheat, that side almost always wins. That's why we have a ref, even if he does occasionally resemble Darth Vader...
A modest proposal - prevent Microsoft from releasing any new products for one year. Let the competition catch up, and maybe let Microsoft work at making the products they have work rather than jumping into new areas. Call it "1 year in the penalty box".
Ah - I see. Then it would work pretty much the way I usually use my mail, giving out one (free) address for online stuff, another for friends and family, etc., and filtering on which account it came from.
I have to admit, spam isn't a huge problem for me (almost all my mail is stuff I expect, and I don't mind downloading junk on my cable modem), but I can't understand how I ever survived without some kind of program to sort through the mail.
Fo example, I propose starting the "quilt" at one corner and creating a potentially infinite quilt of diagonal shape, ordered in the following fashion, starting with tile 1, then tile 2, etc. (similar to the proof that the rational numbers are countable :)
1 2 6 7 15 16 . . .
3 5 8 14 17
4 9 13 18
10 12 19
11 20
21 23
22
The result would then be a quilt that _progresses_ across the middle as each tile has something in common with its neighbors. New ideas/designs would be more likely to appear on the edges where each new tile has fewer neighbors, whereas the bulk of similarity and progression would fall across the top-left to bottom-right diagonal.
I like your idea. Your patern would be fairly interesting, and may even have artistic merit, depending on if the artists took it seriously.
It may also be interesting to show only a thin portion of the neighbors (scaled for my 5x9 Font):
WW.........EE
WW.........EE
WW.........EE
WW.........EE
WW.........EE
There could be a requirement that your portion blend the edges together. Even the non-artistic may be able to contribute something interesting, and a program may even be able to contribute, or add "interesting" portions when the neighbors become boring. It may make for interesting wallpaper.
Also, you could use simple space filling fractals, such as the http://ecademy.agnesscott.edu/~lriddle/ifs/carpet/ carpet.htm> Sierpinski Carpet to assign new nodes, since there are infinite subdivisions to a fractal.
One final idea is to take a space filling fractal, and create the n+1 mosiac from the n mosiac. For instance, start with an image of Tux, divide it in 9, then have 9 artists create a new image, based on the edges of the other images. If the first image was divided like this:
111111111222222222333333333
111111111222222222333333333
111111111222222222333333333
111111111222222222333333333
111111111222222222333333333
444444444555555555666666666
444444444555555555666666666
444444444555555555666666666
444444444555555555666666666
444444444555555555666666666
777777777888888888999999999
777777777888888888999999999
777777777888888888999999999
777777777888888888999999999
777777777888888888999999999
, then artist #1 would get a seed that looks like this:
97777777778
3.........2
3.........2
3.........2
3.........2
3.........2
64444444445
, where I've wrapped around the edges so that the artist gets 4 sides. In other words, the artist replaces his tile, without knowing what the other artist will replace their tiles with.
Once the first iteration is done, the image would be divided 9x9=81 times, and farmed out to 81 artists. This keeps going as long as you want. It would be interesting to see what Tux (or whatever seed image you used) would look like after a few iterations.
Damn - I have real work to do, but I now want to go create a program to do something like this. I also have a suspicion it will devolve into the JPEG encryption algorithm...
Since I'm an engineer by education and attitude, I immediately think of solutions to problems... Is there a way for an ISP to selectively choose mailservers for users? For instance, I could choose that my mail goes through the MarkSpamORBS mail server, which adds "SPAM:" to the subject line of email that has a match in the ORBS server. Others could choose BlockSpamORBS, and never get the messages. If the ISP desires, it could set BlockSpamORBS by default, or AllowAll by default (for those that prefer opt-out). A single ISP could then handle email for those that never want to see spam, those who can set up their mail client to do special things to spam, and those who want to see everything. It would clear up some free-speech problems, but (possibly) put an extra load on the ISP.
Ah - The System Shock method...