You know, the scene where Marge and Homer are sitting in bed, watching a television program with a porno soundtrack. Marge turns to Homer and says "You know, Fox became a porno channel so gradually, nobody realized what was happening."
I think a lot of it has to do with our ability to represent algorithms as pretty pictures.
I remember clearly, when I was working on a project at AT&T, realizing that what the requirements people had asked for could be answered with a state machine. In that one moment I could hear Mozart in my head as this cute little machine ticked through its states.
I had in my head a picture of a piece of clockwork. That was ten years ago. Today it'd not be all that difficult to put the mental image into a picture everyone can see.
OTOH, I am not an artist. So, IMHO, what's actually happening is that tools are coming available that allow engineers easy expression of the underlying forms they manipulate.
Not art exactly, more an easy way to communicate to non-techies.
1. It'll be appealed. Micro$oft has, what, $36 billion, available to buy the verdict it wants.
2. It'll be bypassed. M$ is getting to the point where all known computers will be individual parts of its one system. At that point, all software will be licensed to you by M$, subject to terms and conditions M$ dictates. Don't like it? Don't compute.
Thank God for Linux, is all I can say. I think billg is running off a Howard Hughes-sized springboard in his desire to own *EVERYTHING*.
Well, there is unlimited human potential. Of course, as I write this I'm considering you, a strong counter-argument.
I don't quite know how we got from voting to the WTO, except perhaps that your possibly deranged, and certainly conspiracy-theory-oriented mind can't keep focused on a particular point for any length of time. Been taking your meds?
My basic point is that universal sufferage and vote-by-internet are bad things because politicians are happy to use their monopoly on power to institute taxpayer-funded vote-buying schemes.
You already admit I own me. Well, I want to own my labor. I want to be able sell myself at the highest price and keep the pay I earn. I want politicans to keep their hands out of my pockets and I want people to pay their own way.
I mean, in your view there's a fixed amount of wealth in the world and it's unevenly distributed by a minority that shapes the laws to maintain the uneven distribution.
The only way have-nots can overcome this is to rise up, murder the haves, and take what they will. Government is instituted to stop this from happening.
I'm afraid that you're starting to pass a lot of the tests for paranoid schizophrenia.
Of course, it may just be my "conditioning" speaking.
Well, thanks for not replying as an Anonymous Coward.
Other than that, well:
- Thanks for ignoring the parts of my reply that didn't suit you.
- Property rights are actually endowed by your Creator. If they weren't, then slavery wouldn't be an issue. (You know, my property rights start with me.) Property rights are usually maintained by force, since the majority of humanity is not smart enough to realize that enlightened self-interest is the basis of a happy life.
- The government's monopoly on force is gradually being used to convert the populace to a majority that enjoys bread and circuses at my expense, and votes for opression in order to remain entertained and fed.
- Of course, less than 100% of taxes are converted to bread and circuses because the government has to keep itself healthy and well-fed.
- I accept your argument that I'm responsible for my own defense. By dint of effort and smarts I have that capability.
It strikes me, in reading your screed, that you believe people should be forced to live the way you deem proper. And you're willing to use government, that monopoly on force, to accomplish your goals.
I leave it to you to review the lessons of the last century. Though, God knows, I don't expect you to do so. Those who worship at the altar of Marx tend to have their eyes firmly focused on the future as their jackbooted feet trample to death the tens of millions who don't share the vision.
Take a look at tax statistics: In the U.S. the top 1% of earners pay something like 30% of income taxes. The bottom 50% of earners pay something like 4%, and actually are tax-takers rather than tax-payers, based on the government programs they use.
In a situation where you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support, and if the income tax situation is any reflection, Paul's being heard loud and clear.
Personally, I'd like to make property ownership a requirement for voting. Or institute a poll tax. I'm sick and tired of being shafted by the Imperial Federal Government so the leisure class at the bottom of the food chain can be provided with sustenance.
I'm not an A.I. researcher, or anything like it, but the field interests me. When I look at it, it strikes me that A.I. is all about searching vast amounts of data in a really optimal way.
There have been a number of approaches to this. There's linear programming and operations research, there's the A* algorithm, etc., etc.
I think it's all valid and useful work, as long as the focus is not so much on the "artifical human" aspect and more on the "searching huge spaces quickly."
(f) membership or sponsorship in organizations which adversely affect the confidence of the
public in the integrity of, or reflecting unfavorably in a public forum on, any ISS Partner,
Partner State or Cooperating Agency.
So, how about membership in the National Rifle Association? Veterans of Foreign Wars? Republican Party? Roman Catholic Church?
If you've ever publicly criticised NASA, you're SOL.
I mean, this single paragraph allows them to deny you for any or no reason at all.
I mean, let's face it: buy a Mac, and you buy from a company with a history of control-freakishness, to the point of pulling the rug out from under erstwhile partners.
And then there was that wild appearance of billg on that terrible day.
Buy PCs. You'll be working with stuff that's had to evolve in a much more Darwinian environment, and is therefore much more capable for a much lower price.
So there *still* are places where you can expect lifetime employment.
Unfortunately, they're places where people react only to the presence/absence of food, air, and water. And no, that's not a troll. I used to be a U.S. Government employee (USAF commissioned officer, six years).
Reading both of them it becomes obvious that it's better to get something out there, as long as it's not unacceptably bad, and then auger in on perfection.
I can remember when the IBM PC and Apple were going head to head. What it came down to is that you could get your work done on the IBM PC without having to pay the huge sums Apple always demands. People voted with their pocket books. They always do.
Now Gates, et al., have a deathlike grip on the world of popular computing. Apple may have the right thing, but the right think always costs too much and takes too long to arrive.
This reminds me of a paper I came across on the limits of formal methods (http://www.kneuper.de/a-limits.htm).
You can prove philosophically the limits of mathematical methods,. but that doesn't make them useless. A formally-proved system, when put in contact with an informal world, may show itself to have limits, but it'll probably perform better than a system that's not been formally proven, and if it does fail, the reason for the failure will be glaringly obvious.
We build systems of ever-increasing complexity with tools that are constantly playing catchup. Does that mean we ignore the tools? I don't think so. Instead, we reflect and improve.
There's a lot of stuff out there on the web. So much so that the question now is to find exactly the stuff you need. It's almost as if you need an observor monitoring your actions, constructing semantic nets and offering suggestions.
Microsoft is making a stab at this using SmartTags. Of course, the intent there is not to make the web more useful, but more Microsoft.
Then there's the w3 symantic net (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/), and finally there's the grand daddy of them all: Xanadu (http://www.xanadu.net/).
Slashdot Mirror
You know, the scene where Marge and Homer are sitting in bed, watching a television program with a porno soundtrack. Marge turns to Homer and says "You know, Fox became a porno channel so gradually, nobody realized what was happening."
I think a lot of it has to do with our ability to represent algorithms as pretty pictures.
I remember clearly, when I was working on a project at AT&T, realizing that what the requirements people had asked for could be answered with a state machine. In that one moment I could hear Mozart in my head as this cute little machine ticked through its states.
I had in my head a picture of a piece of clockwork. That was ten years ago. Today it'd not be all that difficult to put the mental image into a picture everyone can see.
OTOH, I am not an artist. So, IMHO, what's actually happening is that tools are coming available that allow engineers easy expression of the underlying forms they manipulate.
Not art exactly, more an easy way to communicate to non-techies.
Is that you?
1. It'll be appealed. Micro$oft has, what, $36 billion, available to buy the verdict it wants.
2. It'll be bypassed. M$ is getting to the point where all known computers will be individual parts of its one system. At that point, all software will be licensed to you by M$, subject to terms and conditions M$ dictates. Don't like it? Don't compute.
Thank God for Linux, is all I can say. I think billg is running off a Howard Hughes-sized springboard in his desire to own *EVERYTHING*.
Well, at least they're holing their own. ;^)
Let me see if I've got this straight:
/. story about Microsoft getting legal permission to take over your computer, as part of a EULA.
1.
2. ComputerWorld story that includes a line about how Microsft sees the computer of the future as one giant logical system with many small partitions.
Is anyone else joining the dots like I am?
...air quotations
Well, there is unlimited human potential. Of course, as I write this I'm considering you, a strong counter-argument.
I don't quite know how we got from voting to the WTO, except perhaps that your possibly deranged, and certainly conspiracy-theory-oriented mind can't keep focused on a particular point for any length of time. Been taking your meds?
My basic point is that universal sufferage and vote-by-internet are bad things because politicians are happy to use their monopoly on power to institute taxpayer-funded vote-buying schemes.
You already admit I own me. Well, I want to own my labor. I want to be able sell myself at the highest price and keep the pay I earn. I want politicans to keep their hands out of my pockets and I want people to pay their own way.
You do have a pretty grim view of humanity.
I mean, in your view there's a fixed amount of wealth in the world and it's unevenly distributed by a minority that shapes the laws to maintain the uneven distribution.
The only way have-nots can overcome this is to rise up, murder the haves, and take what they will. Government is instituted to stop this from happening.
I'm afraid that you're starting to pass a lot of the tests for paranoid schizophrenia.
Of course, it may just be my "conditioning" speaking.
Anoymous ad hominem is the first refuge of the jackal.
Well, thanks for not replying as an Anonymous Coward.
Other than that, well:
- Thanks for ignoring the parts of my reply that didn't suit you.
- Property rights are actually endowed by your Creator. If they weren't, then slavery wouldn't be an issue. (You know, my property rights start with me.) Property rights are usually maintained by force, since the majority of humanity is not smart enough to realize that enlightened self-interest is the basis of a happy life.
- The government's monopoly on force is gradually being used to convert the populace to a majority that enjoys bread and circuses at my expense, and votes for opression in order to remain entertained and fed.
- Of course, less than 100% of taxes are converted to bread and circuses because the government has to keep itself healthy and well-fed.
- I accept your argument that I'm responsible for my own defense. By dint of effort and smarts I have that capability.
Aren't you an angry little person!
It strikes me, in reading your screed, that you believe people should be forced to live the way you deem proper. And you're willing to use government, that monopoly on force, to accomplish your goals.
I leave it to you to review the lessons of the last century. Though, God knows, I don't expect you to do so. Those who worship at the altar of Marx tend to have their eyes firmly focused on the future as their jackbooted feet trample to death the tens of millions who don't share the vision.
Man! Where are you living and where is your head?
Take a look at tax statistics: In the U.S. the top 1% of earners pay something like 30% of income taxes. The bottom 50% of earners pay something like 4%, and actually are tax-takers rather than tax-payers, based on the government programs they use.
In a situation where you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support, and if the income tax situation is any reflection, Paul's being heard loud and clear.
Personally, I'd like to make property ownership a requirement for voting. Or institute a poll tax. I'm sick and tired of being shafted by the Imperial Federal Government so the leisure class at the bottom of the food chain can be provided with sustenance.
Ta!
will be a NEC MobilePro 880
I'm not an A.I. researcher, or anything like it, but the field interests me. When I look at it, it strikes me that A.I. is all about searching vast amounts of data in a really optimal way.
There have been a number of approaches to this. There's linear programming and operations research, there's the A* algorithm, etc., etc.
I think it's all valid and useful work, as long as the focus is not so much on the "artifical human" aspect and more on the "searching huge spaces quickly."
So, how about membership in the National Rifle Association? Veterans of Foreign Wars? Republican Party? Roman Catholic Church?
If you've ever publicly criticised NASA, you're SOL.
I mean, this single paragraph allows them to deny you for any or no reason at all.
Sorry dude, the term "Personal Computer" was in use, in print and on peoples' lips, before Apple ever shipped its first order.
Besides, the other point stands. Apple dropped the ball a long time ago. They're now just a fanatic fringe footnote.
Apple invented the personal computer? What kind of history rewrite is this?!?!?!?!!!!
I mean, the 4004, 8008, 8080 were out there way before the 6502 (if that's where you're going).
In any case, even were I to accept your proposition, Apple dropepd the ball long ago.
I caught this:
"As another cost-cutting measure, Citylink uses a generic computer..."
Generic? I'm guessing they mean a WinTel box, with the "Win" bit replaced.
If Microsoft hadn't decided to go into the OS commodity business, we wouldn't today have a commodity hardware business.
Eat your heart out, Apple.
I mean, let's face it: buy a Mac, and you buy from a company with a history of control-freakishness, to the point of pulling the rug out from under erstwhile partners.
And then there was that wild appearance of billg on that terrible day.
Buy PCs. You'll be working with stuff that's had to evolve in a much more Darwinian environment, and is therefore much more capable for a much lower price.
So there *still* are places where you can expect lifetime employment.
Unfortunately, they're places where people react only to the presence/absence of food, air, and water. And no, that's not a troll. I used to be a U.S. Government employee (USAF commissioned officer, six years).
Reading both of them it becomes obvious that it's better to get something out there, as long as it's not unacceptably bad, and then auger in on perfection.
I can remember when the IBM PC and Apple were going head to head. What it came down to is that you could get your work done on the IBM PC without having to pay the huge sums Apple always demands. People voted with their pocket books. They always do.
Now Gates, et al., have a deathlike grip on the world of popular computing. Apple may have the right thing, but the right think always costs too much and takes too long to arrive.
This reminds me of a paper I came across on the limits of formal methods (http://www.kneuper.de/a-limits.htm).
You can prove philosophically the limits of mathematical methods,. but that doesn't make them useless. A formally-proved system, when put in contact with an informal world, may show itself to have limits, but it'll probably perform better than a system that's not been formally proven, and if it does fail, the reason for the failure will be glaringly obvious.
We build systems of ever-increasing complexity with tools that are constantly playing catchup. Does that mean we ignore the tools? I don't think so. Instead, we reflect and improve.
There's a lot of stuff out there on the web. So much so that the question now is to find exactly the stuff you need. It's almost as if you need an observor monitoring your actions, constructing semantic nets and offering suggestions.
Microsoft is making a stab at this using SmartTags. Of course, the intent there is not to make the web more useful, but more Microsoft.
Then there's the w3 symantic net (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/), and finally there's the grand daddy of them all: Xanadu (http://www.xanadu.net/).
No real thoughts here, just an observation.