It's kind of nice that the reason they don't spend money on manned exploration is that it does not provide any commmercial or scientific benefits. Look at how much money the USA wasted on the space station mainly for political reasons.
Many people who post here have picked one of those options and stuck with it. Unfortunately, they picked different ones:)
I think it is good strategy for MS to give away their products for free, or cheaply. Even piracy probably helps them in the long run. It is more than dumping though; by getting more users they increase the utility of the product.
I didn't state that what they do is evil. It would be hard to characterize anything they do as evil; for all I know, without them, we wouldn't have cheap and fast PCs today to run our software on.
Even if MS didn't charge the university at all, and gave every student free copies of all those products, the college and its students would still pay a price in giving away their mindshare to a peddler of proprietary, canned-solution development tools. Especially at an elite university like CMU, this is particularly worrisome.
I don't find that definition to be too clear. On one hand, "cybernetics" by itself may refer both to biological and non-biological systems. However, when used as an adverb in "cybernetic organism," it implies explicit electromechanical augmentation.
Interesting point. It seems that, indeed, people have this need for some idealized personality that they can look up to. That need is fulfilled today in the West by various celebrities, like movie stars, princess Diana, etc., who don't really have much governing power. Similarly, the real rulers, such as various industrialists, CEOs, bankers, and politicians don't enjoy much fame. (Have you seen Henry Kissinger speak? Puts you to sleep faster than watching grass grow.) In other words, government has been decoupled from celebrity.
In the past, with monarchial societies, celebrities just happened to coincide with the actual ruler(s) of the realm. Or, perhaps more than coincide-- the rulers took advantage of the populace's need for heroes to stay in power.
Scene: fade in to camera shot from behind the judge's shoulder, with a view of the courtroom.
Justice: Tell me again about the e-book cracking software.
Sklyarov: It breaks down like this, okay? It's legal to buy it; it's legal to own it; and if you're the proprietor of an Internet cafe, it's legal to sell it; but, but, that doesn't matter, because get a load of this: if you get stopped by a cop in Moscow, it's illegal for them to search you. I mean, that's a right the cops in Moscow don't have.
Justice: I'm there man, that's all there is to it, I'm fsckin' going.
Sklyarov: Yeah, baby, you'd dig it the most.
Follows a short silent moment.
Sklyarov: But you know what the funniest thing about Russia is?
Justice: What?
Sklyarov: The little differences.
Justice: Example?
Sklyarov: Well you can walk around the streets in Moscow, and get a pirated copy of MS Office for a dollar. And in St. Petersburg, you can buy pirated software in a computer store; and I don't mean no under-the-counter deal, I'm talking about a box on the shelf. And you know what font they use to type Unix commands in Russia?
Justice: What?
Sklyarov: The Cyrillic!
Justice: Eek!
Sklyarov: I've seen them do it, man, they fsckin' type like it's latin.
I saw the following on my favorite MUD, Tsunami, thanks to Sitavan:
There was a fire today that destroyed the datacenter at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, housing a SurfNet (the academic and research network over there) POP amongst many other things.
A friend sent me these syslog entries which I found interesting... The first one is from a router in Enschede that was destroyed, and the second one is from the router in Amsterdam that it connected to:
0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net 3613: Nov 20 7:20:50.927 UTC:
%ENV_MON-2-TEMP: Hotpoint temp sensor(slot 18) temperature has
reached WARNING level at 61(C)
lo0.cr2.amsterdam2.surf.net 1146: Nov 20 07:20:56.458 UTC:
%CLNS-5-ADJCHANGE: ISIS: Adjacency to ar5.enschede1 (POS2/0) Down,
interface deleted(non-iih)
Sounds like they thought of embedding a VNC client with an 802.11 card into an LCD display. It's a nifty idea, really; the concept of decoupling the user interface from devices is interesting. For example, assuming VNC was the standard remote display protocol, imagine the following scenario:
1. The display (LCD monitor with a VNC client) broadcasts discovery beacons
2. Devices in range respond. Your stereo, fridge, computer, laptop, handheld, watch, all equipped with VNC servers, announce themselves.
3. The LCD monitor shows a list of discovered devices. You pick one to interact with, say the stereo.
4. The user interface designed by the manufacturer of the stereo pops up on the LCD monitor.
Now repeat the above with a similarly capable TV, or head-mounted display. Very cool. (Security is not really a problem, all this can be end-to-end encrypted and authenticated).
Admittedly, the mechanism is conceptually similar to HTML-based user interfaces. Howeveer, the difference is that the VNC-based system is less restricted in what the servers can display; with HTML, the servers are restricted to using browsers and the kind of interaction they induce. Also, the HTML system, due to requiring a browser, is more heavy-weight.
Yes, but your 30+ mile wireless link does not have a stearable antenna that automatically follows you around as you move; not to mention that it allows only one endpoint.
Seriously, the phased array approach mentioned in the article sounds damn cool.
We've been trying to make the metric system switch for more than 20 years and we're still only inches off the starting line.
No further questions, your Honor:)
Re:One thing I really liked....
on
Lessig @ OSCON
·
· Score: 1
What's wrong with cable? The bandwidth they provide is quite decent-- for a fraction of the cost of a real connection like a T1.
And what is wrong with cable being a monopoly? Are there supposed to be multiple broadband providers competing in the same area? Oh, wait, I can already get either cable or DSL. However, the problem is that they keep lowering prices and decreasing the quality of their services until they all go out of business-- I submit it makes sense for them to be regulated monopolies. Ditto for telcos-- the deregulation just created a big mess. Ditto for wireless carriers-- compare the multitude of incompatible networks in the US to the GSM infrastructure in Europe, oh my.
That whole movie sounds like what this story is about. At the end, the main character gets a job in construction. Breathing fresh air, making bucks, getting exercise. Fuckin' A:)
Slashdot Mirror
If they unify the object model, the shell will have access to gui based programs just like javascript code has access to objects in the browser.
First, excellent post! I think you hit the nail on the head, if you will pardon the pun.
:)
power drill for driving a nail into a piece of wood. Hammers do that much better,
I think a combination of power drill and wood screws is superior to ordinary nails and a hammer.
Then get on with some more interesting business, which is what computers are meant to allow us to do anyway
I.e. use said GUI to read Slashdot
It's kind of nice that the reason they don't spend money on manned exploration is that it does not provide any commmercial or scientific benefits. Look at how much money the USA wasted on the space station mainly for political reasons.
*drool*
Many people who post here have picked one of those options and stuck with it. Unfortunately, they picked different ones :)
I think it is good strategy for MS to give away their products for free, or cheaply. Even piracy probably helps them in the long run. It is more than dumping though; by getting more users they increase the utility of the product.
I didn't state that what they do is evil. It would be hard to characterize anything they do as evil; for all I know, without them, we wouldn't have cheap and fast PCs today to run our software on.
Even if MS didn't charge the university at all, and gave every student free copies of all those products, the college and its students would still pay a price in giving away their mindshare to a peddler of proprietary, canned-solution development tools. Especially at an elite university like CMU, this is particularly worrisome.
3 easy steps:
1. Switch them to StarOffice, still on Windows,
2. Switch them from Windows to Linux,
3. Profit!
I don't find that definition to be too clear. On one hand, "cybernetics" by itself may refer both to biological and non-biological systems. However, when used as an adverb in "cybernetic organism," it implies explicit electromechanical augmentation.
I found this sentence particularly interesting:
"The human hearing is an extremely finely co-ordinated cybernetic system...
Gee, we are cyborgs!
Interesting point. It seems that, indeed, people have this need for some idealized personality that they can look up to. That need is fulfilled today in the West by various celebrities, like movie stars, princess Diana, etc., who don't really have much governing power. Similarly, the real rulers, such as various industrialists, CEOs, bankers, and politicians don't enjoy much fame. (Have you seen Henry Kissinger speak? Puts you to sleep faster than watching grass grow.) In other words, government has been decoupled from celebrity.
In the past, with monarchial societies, celebrities just happened to coincide with the actual ruler(s) of the realm. Or, perhaps more than coincide-- the rulers took advantage of the populace's need for heroes to stay in power.
Scene: fade in to camera shot from behind the judge's shoulder, with a view of the courtroom.
Justice: Tell me again about the e-book cracking software.
Sklyarov: It breaks down like this, okay? It's legal to buy it; it's legal to own it; and if you're the proprietor of an Internet cafe, it's legal to sell it; but, but, that doesn't matter, because get a load of this: if you get stopped by a cop in Moscow, it's illegal for them to search you. I mean, that's a right the cops in Moscow don't have.
Justice: I'm there man, that's all there is to it, I'm fsckin' going.
Sklyarov: Yeah, baby, you'd dig it the most.
Follows a short silent moment.
Sklyarov: But you know what the funniest thing about Russia is?
Justice: What?
Sklyarov: The little differences.
Justice: Example?
Sklyarov: Well you can walk around the streets in Moscow, and get a pirated copy of MS Office for a dollar. And in St. Petersburg, you can buy pirated software in a computer store; and I don't mean no under-the-counter deal, I'm talking about a box on the shelf. And you know what font they use to type Unix commands in Russia?
Justice: What?
Sklyarov: The Cyrillic!
Justice: Eek!
Sklyarov: I've seen them do it, man, they fsckin' type like it's latin.
Justice: Ack!
Scene fades out...
Nooooooo! I didn't want to know that ents are going to walk, you heartless mob! You spoiled the whole movie for me!
I saw the following on my favorite MUD, Tsunami, thanks to Sitavan:
There was a fire today that destroyed the datacenter at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, housing a SurfNet (the academic and research network over there) POP amongst many other things.
A friend sent me these syslog entries which I found interesting... The first one is from a router in Enschede that was destroyed, and the second one is from the router in Amsterdam that it connected to:
0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net 3613: Nov 20 7:20:50.927 UTC:
%ENV_MON-2-TEMP: Hotpoint temp sensor(slot 18) temperature has
reached WARNING level at 61(C)
lo0.cr2.amsterdam2.surf.net 1146: Nov 20 07:20:56.458 UTC:
%CLNS-5-ADJCHANGE: ISIS: Adjacency to ar5.enschede1 (POS2/0) Down,
interface deleted(non-iih)
Links to movies on Slashdot's main page?
Duck and cover!
*server explodes*
Sounds like they thought of embedding a VNC client with an 802.11 card into an LCD display. It's a nifty idea, really; the concept of decoupling the user interface from devices is interesting. For example, assuming VNC was the standard remote display protocol, imagine the following scenario:
1. The display (LCD monitor with a VNC client) broadcasts discovery beacons
2. Devices in range respond. Your stereo, fridge, computer, laptop, handheld, watch, all equipped with VNC servers, announce themselves.
3. The LCD monitor shows a list of discovered devices. You pick one to interact with, say the stereo.
4. The user interface designed by the manufacturer of the stereo pops up on the LCD monitor.
Now repeat the above with a similarly capable TV, or head-mounted display. Very cool. (Security is not really a problem, all this can be end-to-end encrypted and authenticated).
Admittedly, the mechanism is conceptually similar to HTML-based user interfaces. Howeveer, the difference is that the VNC-based system is less restricted in what the servers can display; with HTML, the servers are restricted to using browsers and the kind of interaction they induce. Also, the HTML system, due to requiring a browser, is more heavy-weight.
Yes, but your 30+ mile wireless link does not have a stearable antenna that automatically follows you around as you move; not to mention that it allows only one endpoint.
Seriously, the phased array approach mentioned in the article sounds damn cool.
A lost battle, perhaps-- but we haven't lost the war yet. Don't give up, fellow opposers of the most useless key!
machine:~> xmodmap -
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
remove Control = Control_L
keysym Control_L = Control_L
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add Lock = Caps_Lock
add Control = Control_L
^D
machine:~>
What Win9x kernel?
Speaking of which, whatever happened to Jon Katz?
"Yet there is another setting, where the operating system seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human."
"Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this mysterious setting?"
The master dropped the Windows machine to the ground and smashed it with a baseball bat. And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
I would mod you up, but you already have 5 points :)
No further questions, your Honor
What's wrong with cable? The bandwidth they provide is quite decent-- for a fraction of the cost of a real connection like a T1.
:)
And what is wrong with cable being a monopoly? Are there supposed to be multiple broadband providers competing in the same area? Oh, wait, I can already get either cable or DSL. However, the problem is that they keep lowering prices and decreasing the quality of their services until they all go out of business-- I submit it makes sense for them to be regulated monopolies. Ditto for telcos-- the deregulation just created a big mess. Ditto for wireless carriers-- compare the multitude of incompatible networks in the US to the GSM infrastructure in Europe, oh my.
Not that any of this is related to copyright
Good one!
:)
That whole movie sounds like what this story is about. At the end, the main character gets a job in construction. Breathing fresh air, making bucks, getting exercise. Fuckin' A
Well, by that definition you didn't break the function. You passed a valid number to it, upon which the function returned a valid number right back. :)