How on earth are they supposed to be able to track who you are on a network?
Piece of cake, ducky...
Using a few little tools, you change the MAC address of your card.
And that helps you how? If you dial in, your MAC address is irrelevant, and if you have something like a cable modem, the cable model suddenly stops recognizing your NIC and you are cut off from the net until you change your MAC back.
You can use those freebie introductory access CDs from the front of any magazine to contact almost anywhere. The IP address will never be the same, especially if you use different ISP's to connect all the time.
The IP address may change, but that IP address points to an ISP. That ISP has logs, in particular, logs of which phone number was assigned a certain dynamic IP at which time. So unless you dial in from pay phones (doable, but a huge pain in the ass), it's not a big deal for law enforcement to link your posts/rants/site visits to your home phone number.
Being anonymous on the net is generally hard. Either you have to use a public terminal (Internet cafes, dial-in from payphones, etc.), or you need a hacked machine as a gateway.
Companies like ZKS (Zero Knowledge Systems) may provide a solution. When they finally come out with their system, we'll see how good it actually is.
Kaa
Re:The slashdot moderation system is flawed
on
Moderation Ideas
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· Score: 2
Permit me to disagree. First, nobody is going to spend a moderation point to downgrade a -1 post, or upgrade a +5 post. Second, I don't know how typical I am, but I moderate posts when my opinion of the post disagrees with its rating (as in: this is at least a +3 post and it's only at +1 -- upgrade!). If I like the post, but it is already at what I believe is its proper level, I'll just let it be. Given that, I think that the suggestion to let moderators directly set the rating (on a -1 to +5 scale) has merit.
And, BTW, what is karma's expiration period? Clearly there is one, but how long is it?
I was bothered by both things because they had nothing to do with what I was looking for. And the first one showed up in the top 20 on the search engine.
Again, you are arguing against the search engine technology. In this particular case the search engine had no clue what you actually had in mind. What you asked it to do was to find you web pages which had the word 'Bleys' somewhere in them. The engine did exactly the right thing. It's a rare word, so you basically got all there was. I don't understand what you are complaining about, unless you are really arguing for banishing porn, etc. to a different space, separate from the "normal" net.
Thor et al were never MENTIONED on the page, but were still used as meta-tag keywords.
So? Meta-tag misuse is extremely common. I fail to see what it has to do with ratings. In both cases you are basically saying that the search engines are not intelligent enough and can be misdirected by meta-tag abuse. Agreed. Will ratings help? No.
I understand what free speach means, thankyouverymuch.
Who am I to judge?... but we may understand it differently. From the context of the discussion it seems that you advocate enforced site ratings (voluntary won't help you in the KKK case) so that by default you will not see content offensive to the general population. Well, I think that this will be VERY harmful to free speech and will lead to the disneyisation of the net. This is exactly what the Slashdot people are up in arms about.
Is there, in theory, a connection [between Norse gods and racism]? Sure. Is it a connection any sane adult would make? Probably not.Does it end up being lovely ammunition for the Christian Right? You betcha.
Do you really advocate that the 'net should censor itself because of what the Christian Right might think/do?
Rather than learn to live with people who are different from us, and learn to tolerae their failings, it's better to just turn on the computer, so that the only people you interact with are the ones that are just like you.
I don't see any problems with that. There are many more people than I could ever hope to interact with. I have to make choices as to which people I choose to interact with. You think that my choice should be guided by some random or semi-random (tenants in an apt building) process -- why? I feel neither need nor obligation to learn to live with a women two doors down who thinks that Jerry Springer show is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
People naturally congregate in groups according to their interests and worldview (Slashdot is an example). I don't see that as bad, or, as a matter of fact, avoidable.
We talk alot here about the evils of censorship, but have you ever stopped to think about the evils of the usenet kill file?
There was a big discussion on that subject some time ago on Slashdot. You might want to consider two observations:
(1) Your right to talk does not imply my obligation to listen
(2) Killfile is a personal choice made by me as to whom I am willing to listen to. Censorship is an external choice made by someone else as to what I should be able to hear.
Incident #1: I had forgotten the URL to a particular Amber fan-fic page that I like, and I remember that I had found it in the first place using the keyword "Bleys." I somehow ended up with several porno sites in my search results because the url was "http://www.pornsite.xxx/hotpics/bleys/corwin/teen 1.gif" or some such nonsense. There were three or four of them on the first search results page. *sigh*
And what's so horrible about it? You found out that there was porn on the net? The search engine did the right thing: you searched for keyword "Bleys", you got sites with it. Or you really want to play-pretend that there are no naughty things on the 'net? I can understand this case as a call for better search engines, but you seem to think that this shows the need for ratings. Not IMAO.
Incident #2, which I'm actually much more irritated by: I'm a pagan who follows the Norse gods. It's bad enough that some of the Norse pagan sites have a "racialist" slant, but it's even worse when the KKK has Meta-tags on its web-page that include Odin, Thor, and Freya. Can you imagine the impression that some kid doing a research project on Norse mythology would get if he did a web search for Thor and came up with the KKK home page??
Sigh. I don't think you understand what the expression "freedom of speech" means. You seem to think that your view of the Norse gods is the "correct" one and other views, especially ones which you find objectionable, are the "wrong" ones and so should be eradicated, or at least kept in the ratings' dark closet never to be shown to ordinary folk. I am no big fan of KKK, but why in the world do you think they have no right to their own view of Odin, Thor, etc.??
What would a kid doing research on Norse mythology think? Well, if he is a smart kid, he'll think that the world is a diverse place and there are sure some strange people around.
I've got no problems with voluntary standards as long as they remain truly voluntary rather than coercive
Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. Obviously, no reasonable person would object to people describing their sites in keywords for the ease of finding these sites. The problem is that legislation or industry self-regulation quickly follows.
Once upon a time it was thought that ladies and gentlemen do not use words like 'fuck' and 'cunt'. All voluntary, right? So how come there are seven words that nobody can say on the radio?
I completely agree that Marx and communism have nothing to do with "gift culture" and open source in general. However...
The Internet is STILL a tiny club of culturally-elite, rich (compared to the rest of the world) burgoise representing everything despised by Marx
That's not true. Culturally elite, maybe (although Marx didn't care much about that), bourgeois -- no. What is bourgeoisie, at least in Marx's times? They are the people who own the means of production and thus do not work, but rather live on the profits from their property. I doubt very much that the majority, hell, even 10%, of the Internet population fits this description. A programmer, and an IT worker in general, is often quite close to the idea of proletariat (cf. Dilbert) -- the fact that he works with this brain rather than his muscles doesn't change much.
we represent a tiny fraction of priveleged humanity trodding upon the backs of the repressed masses
Priviledged humanity, yes (although that still doesn't make us bourgeoisie), but what are those repressed masses? Especially in the rapidly gaining information economy? Hey, aren't they those programmers in the cubicles around, hunched over their keyboard, working overtime, rarely seeing the light of day...
Of course you may be talking about the North vs. South split, but then it's hard to make an argument that the West gets its wealth by robbing the poor masses of the Third World.
We distribute our gifts to other members of this elite class of intellectuals
I guess it must be nice to feel oneself a member of the elite class of intellectuals. Unfortunately, I don't think Internet fills the bill. First, intellectual elite tends to mass in arts, literature, humanities, and not around such technical things as computers. Second, go to AOL and look around. 3leet, aren't they?
It more resembles Nepotism, with the talented, rich few giving away to the less-talented rich few -- yet all members of the same, elite club
Nepotism is actually giving out perks (like highly paid do-nothing jobs in a bureacracy) to relatives. It has nothing to do with elite clubs or gift culture. And no, I don't think that the free software culture resembles an elite club. Anyone can join -- the economic price of entry is quite low (in the West, at least). There is an intellectual price of entry which is significant -- it takes good brains in order to play -- but that is something that Marx and others cannot help with...
The ideas of capitalism and communism are rooted in the problem of how to best divvy up scarce resources
Well, no. The idea of capitalism is basically economic freedom -- anyone (whether noble born or the child of a serf) can run a business with the same rights as all the other people. The idea of communism is public ownership of means of production.
There's only so much food, land, oil, etc. to go around. If I have a barrel of oil and I give it away, I've lost something (the use of the oil).
You're describing classic economics which assume scarcity of resources. This approach is applicable to all societies, not only capitalist and communist ones.
Software works in the opposite way. If I give away a piece of software I write and other people use it, I haven't lost anything (I can still use the software myself)
Again, no. This is a standard argument, but it doesn't work because people forget about opportunity cost. Say, today evening I can go to a movie or to a restaurant (but not both). If I go to a movie, not eating out is my opportunity cost of going to the movies. In the same way, if you give your software away, you incur the opportunity cost because you could have sold it, but didn't. And if you couldn't have sold it, one starts to wonder about the value of this software...
In other words, giving away my software is the greedy thing to do.
Tell it to Bill Gates. He must be gnashing his teeth now, thinking about how he missed his chance.
I know, God forbid that the community pressure people into not doing things that community at large disapproves of.....
Well, that depends. The balance of power between an individual and the community is one of those bid socio-politico-philosophical questions that tend to get people all excited. Anarchists occupy the "pro-individual" end of the spectrum, while communists and nazis stand together on the "pro-community/government" end.
Obviously, the community needs to enforce some of its beliefs on individuals (e.g. laws against murder). However things are not so clear with regard to so-called "victimless crimes", that is, actions which the community disapproves of, but which (at least directly) harm no one (e.g. smoking pot, polygamy, etc.).
I personally feel quite strongly that the community has NO right to pressure people to conform to community standards. If 80% of my town are fundamentalist Christians, should they be able to force me to go to church on Sunday? Or if the same 80% are orthodox Jews, should they be able to prevent me from driving on Saturday?
To get back to the original discussion, ratings by themselves are not censorship. However, they invite censorship and enable it.
It's more secure for one reason only--you have to actually physically have the card to order with it.
Ahem. You mean I have to physically generate the stream of bytes that gets send to the serial port or wherever the card reader gets plugged in?
I thing the suggestion that this is just a way for people to have/use long passwords/keys in a convenient fashion. You know why PINs have only four numbers (9999 key space!), right? Because the average Joe Schmoe cannot remember more than four numbers.
The Great Convergence will happen, I hope, by the way of having 29-inch computer monitors and a TV tuner card in my PC. I very much hope that it will NOT happen by the way of WebTV... But in any case, Tivo has nothing to do with it. It's basically a large hard drive with some supporting functions and is very far away from a general-purpose computer. But if I were a VCR-maker, or a TV network executive (think ads filter), I would be afraid. Very afraid.
I didn't assume that peope will be compiling Mozilla. I was replying to a post in which the question was how to compile without unwanted features.
Well, actually the discussion went something like that: somebody (actually, a lot of somebodies) said that Mozilla is in great danger from bloat and feeping creaturism. It aims to be all things to all people and thus is likely to become huge, unwieldy, ustable etc. etc. Somebody else objected to this saying, basically, that Mozilla is modular so you don't have to use what you don't need. From here the question of how to load / not-load modules came up and somebody else again jumped in with a comment that "you have the source! Just compile what you need!". Here my soul became agitated and I posted, saying essentially that compile-time flags are not a good way to include or not-include modules in a program like Mozilla.
I understand that one can compile without the unwanted features. But the issue was how to load/unload modules at run-time. Hell, when I boot into Windows, I don't even have a C/C++ compiler there -- I presume that Mozilla will run under Windows, right?
I agree though, it would be nice to have some sort of application "builder" where I can check what I want and just load/download those modules
Well, I think it's not only nice, but essential. Again, we are speaking run-time, not compile-time. And a simple config file will suffice.
One, these are 3rd party projects. That's the power of Open Source.
So? Look at Winamp. It can hot-load third-party analyzer and display modules while it's running and it's not open source.
The second is that Mozilla is primarily for those that have no idea how to use "geeky" things. They are computer experts, and don't want to be. All they want to be able to do is to use one application that does everything they need to do
That's a good argument for MS Office. It's very much debatable whether one-big-app-which-does-it-all is a good thing, even and especially for naive users (aka the unwashed masses). Anyway, the debate is not about this. The question is customizability at run-time and IMAO Mozilla very much needs to have it.
(sigh) To compile in the IRC module, you'll use --enable-extension=irc. Make is your friend. Or, the instructions describe how to just compile the IRC module. At any rate, it will have nothing to do with #defines.
Why do you assume that people will be compiling Mozilla? The great majority will download the precompiled binaries. And that's where the problem arises. Say, I download the binaries from Debian. I'll probably download the kitchen-sink version because I like to check out new stuff -- maybe Mozilla's IRC rocks, maybe it sucks rocks. Let's say I played around with it and decided that news support sucks, but IRC rocks. So what now? Do I have to go back to Debian site and download a precompiled version which has news disabled but IRC enabled? Do I download all the source and recompile myself (sure, doable, but this should not be necessary). What I would like to have is a config file that tells Mozilla which parts of itself to load at startup, and which to not to load (and maybe hot-load later). I don't want to recompile each time I use or not use something.
There are *optional* features. Because of the fact that you have the source code for Mozilla, you can disable these features with little difficulty
Oh-oh. You mean I'll actually have to go into source and #undef stuff, then recompile? That's not good at all. My definiton of 'optional' does not include this way of disabling features. What I want is a config file (with or without a pretty GUI front end) where I can specify what modules to load and what to leave behind. Hot-loading or unloading will be nice as well. But if you really expect people to mess with header files in order to switch off features, that's not going to happen.
All you would have to do is stick one of these devices on every bench. Add a stylus (NOT a screwdriver) and voila, instant access without ever having to leave your bench.
Yes, of course. I thing Boeing did (or is trying to do) exactly this thing. But the problem is that you need hardened hardware for that. You need a pad that will survive drops onto a concrete floor, huge amounts of oil and grime, screwdrivers used in place of styluses, probably also closeness to motors (magnetic fields!) and a myriad of other stuff that I am too lazy to think of right now. Such hardware can be build, but it tends to be expensive, much more so than the $400...
I'm still somewhat unclear about the setup. Let me describe how I see it, and you correct me where I am wrong.
OK, the Freepad is, basically, a full-blown computer, in particular it runs the TCP/IP stack and all the accompaniments to it. The Freepad talks IP (among other things, maybe) to the base station, which is essentially a modem (also among other things). Presumably, the Freepad can tell the base station to dial a certain number and log in to the ISP. After the log-in, the base just shuffles IP packets between the phone wire and the Freepad. Currently the base station can handle POTS and ISDN (haven't you noticed it's dead? must be pretty smelly by now). Real soon now it will also support ethernet and CATV. BTW, does supporting CATV mean that the base can act as a cable modem? Or you need a separate cable modem?
So, what is correct and what I got wrong?
BTW I am still doubtful about the utility of a computer larger than a palmtop without a keyboard. And what't the expected price point? At $100-150 it may work. At, say, $400 and above -- fuggedabutit.
Mechanics, nurses, shipping/receiving folk, and many, many more...
Yep, that's called the vertical market. It's generally served by dedicated hardware/software combos (like the pads you see UPS workers carrying). It's a big market, but quite task-specific and I have seen no signs that the Freepad intends to compete in it.
and certainly can't take the time to log in
In this case you either have a big security problem or you are in need of special-purpose hardware that does automatic authentication based on, say, some kind of a dongle or a hardware ID. Again, not the Freepad stuff.
I am somewhat unsure of the usefullness of such a device. It seems that it needs a normal computer somewhere in the house/office which is actually connected to the net and which feeds the wireless hub that transmits to the pad. So it's not independent like a laptop, and not a PC replacement for the great unwashed. Given that there is already a computer around, and given that the pad is mostly useful for passive web surfing and dealing with small-volume email, I wonder who needs it (besides the buy-the-latest-gadget crowd).
Sure it's cool to sit in a bed/recliner/bathtub, stretch out a hand, pick up the pad, and check some web news. But it's likely to be a bit too expensive for this convenience. I don't think you can do much useful work on this pad, and if I already have a full-blown computer around, I'd rather haul my ass to it to do real thing.
Let's face it: Apple is cool because it has CULTURE.
Bzzz... Sorry, Apple has about as much culture as an average California corporation. What you mean is that Apple has a good MARKETING DEPARTMENT and spends money to hire good ad agencies. That's a little bit different, I believe.
Apple makes a cutlural statement, a leap into the imaginations of its users.
Again, you are judging a company by its advertising. Not a very good way to go about it. If you want to talk about making leaps into imagination, find out which ad agency made the ads that you liked -- they are making these leaps.
From everything I've seen, Jobs is an evil bastard, even more so than Gates
Hear, hear!
But he's a bastard in the right way. He really beleives that by giving people 'insanely great' technology, he can change the world.
I wouldn't state so confidently my opinions about Job's beliefs. In any case, you are probably thinking of the time long past, time when the computers were only starting to appear and things like Macs were really new and exciting. Now (and for many years already) Apple is just another corporation out to make a buck and Jobs is a CEO with a flair for public relations. I doubt very much that he is thinking a lot about changing the world with Apple technology. Besides, what technology is that? I haven't seen anything radical (except for colors, that is) come out of Apple for a looooong time.
...we'll do what Jobs envisioned: change the world.
Err... thank you very much, but I don't think I like the idea of changing the world according to Job's ideals (I am pretty sure they include a lobotomy for all non-Apple users like me, among other unpleasant things). And since you are so enthusiastic about changing the world, can you please be a bit more exact about how you will change it and what Apple has to do with it?
In my own field, the distribution of stock market returns is often taken to be distributed log-normal
You can also start with log returns (instead of "normal" returns). This will give you an approximation to a Gaussian (as opposed to a lognormal distribution), plus they are summable across time. I work almost exclusively with log returns -- they are a pain when you need to calculate portfolios, but nice otherwise.
A new distribution that gives increased weight to rare events would be very useful
There are several (e.g. Cauchy), but the problem is that they are much harder to deal with (analytically) than the Gaussian. And if you don't like any, you can always work with the empirical distribution -- no need to pollute the facts with assumptions about what they should be. However, not much of statistics will be useful to you -- the Bayesians offer some good tools.
Getting back to the original point, I wonder if these guys heard of Hurst and Hurst processes. A persistent Hurst process (sometimes called black noise) will generate something like what they found, and Hurst himself developed his theory on the basis of natural phenomena (he started with the frequency of floods on the Nile which occurred, surprise, more often than should have been expected). Skim through Peters "Fractal market analysis" for more information.
Comes with useful source code. Is not afraid of equations, but is mostly practical (in this case that stuff works better than the other one).
I have run programs based on code from this book and they worked (didn't help me much 'cause the whole thing is too computationally expensive for my purposes, but that's another story entirely...)
The guy that runs Antionline often talks about how he tracks various crackers and turns the info over to the authorities.
Yep. I am sure that he is compiling a database of IP addresses from which attacks are being launched. Given his past behavior, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was the whole point of the exercise.
Didn't Antionline (John Vranesevich) behave in a very unpleasant manner recently (PacketStorm -- Harvard)? I thought that he was relegated to the "don't touch with a 10-foot pole" category.
The thing is without proof of convergence, the solution you find using GA may very likely be something you hadn't thought of, and even be a better one at that too, but not the optimal one!
One, I think that there is proof of convergence -- albeit in infinite time:(
Two, for non-trivial problems you cannot guarantee the global optimum without exhaustive search which is infeasible most of the time. The great majority of problems will settle for something reasonably close to the global optimum, "reasonably" being defined by the specific problem you are trying to solve.
I'd rather use a more expensive, but garanteed, method instead. But those are hard to come by too.
There are no guaranteed global optimizations (in the general case) with the exception of exhaustive search. If you can afford an exhaustive search, by all means run it and get your precise global optimum. Unfortunately, for most real-life problem the exhaustive search is so far out of the realm of feasability, it's not even funny. How about finding me a global minimum of a nonlinear function of, say, 15 real-valued variables? You use GAs in situations where you don't have much choice -- you either do a local search with all its disadvantages, or pick an imprecise and "semi-random" solution (GA or, say, simulated annealing). Sometimes the local search is the right way to go, sometimes not.
The point was that they are developing chips that will allow the GA to have access to more analog info.
And the point of this being..? So far they've only managed to make their solution very fragile.
Besides, it's not like you couldn't simulate analog conditions in software.
GA's are not all that well understood. They have been relatively widelly applied, but on a theoretical level we don't have much more aparatus than the schema theorem (Holland) at our disposal.
Well, we are probably talking about different things here. You are talking about understading in terms of proving theorems about. I am talking understanding in a more practical way -- having an idea what usually works, what never works, and what has never been tried yet. Compared to 4-5 years ago we understand much more about GAs, their uses and limitations.
Neural networks have received quite a lot of hype and are generally poorly understood by people who proclaim their utility.
It has been my personal experience that people who proclaim NNs as a general solution to all problems do not understand them at all.
However we are just scratching the surface of what can be done with Genetic algorithms and genetic programming.
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, they are still nothing more than a general-purpose global optimization technique, not a magic wand. Granted, reasonable global optimizers are very hard to come by, but it's still nothing but search in parameter space.
Genetic algorithms by now is old (heh) and a decently understood techology. Essentially this is nothing but a general-purpose global optimization method. So the guy applied that optimization technique to FPGAs and got something. Big deal. People have done much more interesting things with genetic algorithms.
Besides, it is just me, or the whole genetic algorithm thing is getting blown all out of proportion by the media, somewhat similar to what happened to neural nets several years ago?
And the article is quite clueless. It implies that software is too limiting (only 0s and 1s, after all), so playing with FPGAs will open wider horizons. And the researcher speaks of not understanding what's going on like it is a good thing...
Slashdot Mirror
How on earth are they supposed to be able to track who you are on a network?
Piece of cake, ducky...
Using a few little tools, you change the MAC address of your card.
And that helps you how? If you dial in, your MAC address is irrelevant, and if you have something like a cable modem, the cable model suddenly stops recognizing your NIC and you are cut off from the net until you change your MAC back.
You can use those freebie introductory access CDs from the front of any magazine to contact almost anywhere. The IP address will never be the same, especially if you use different ISP's to connect all the time.
The IP address may change, but that IP address points to an ISP. That ISP has logs, in particular, logs of which phone number was assigned a certain dynamic IP at which time. So unless you dial in from pay phones (doable, but a huge pain in the ass), it's not a big deal for law enforcement to link your posts/rants/site visits to your home phone number.
Being anonymous on the net is generally hard. Either you have to use a public terminal (Internet cafes, dial-in from payphones, etc.), or you need a hacked machine as a gateway.
Companies like ZKS (Zero Knowledge Systems) may provide a solution. When they finally come out with their system, we'll see how good it actually is.
Kaa
Permit me to disagree. First, nobody is going to spend a moderation point to downgrade a -1 post, or upgrade a +5 post. Second, I don't know how typical I am, but I moderate posts when my opinion of the post disagrees with its rating (as in: this is at least a +3 post and it's only at +1 -- upgrade!). If I like the post, but it is already at what I believe is its proper level, I'll just let it be. Given that, I think that the suggestion to let moderators directly set the rating (on a -1 to +5 scale) has merit.
And, BTW, what is karma's expiration period? Clearly there is one, but how long is it?
Kaa
I was bothered by both things because they had nothing to do with what I was looking for. And the first one showed up in the top 20 on the search engine.
Again, you are arguing against the search engine technology. In this particular case the search engine had no clue what you actually had in mind. What you asked it to do was to find you web pages which had the word 'Bleys' somewhere in them. The engine did exactly the right thing. It's a rare word, so you basically got all there was. I don't understand what you are complaining about, unless you are really arguing for banishing porn, etc. to a different space, separate from the "normal" net.
Thor et al were never MENTIONED on the page, but were still used as meta-tag keywords.
So? Meta-tag misuse is extremely common. I fail to see what it has to do with ratings. In both cases you are basically saying that the search engines are not intelligent enough and can be misdirected by meta-tag abuse. Agreed. Will ratings help? No.
I understand what free speach means, thankyouverymuch.
Who am I to judge?... but we may understand it differently. From the context of the discussion it seems that you advocate enforced site ratings (voluntary won't help you in the KKK case) so that by default you will not see content offensive to the general population. Well, I think that this will be VERY harmful to free speech and will lead to the disneyisation of the net. This is exactly what the Slashdot people are up in arms about.
Is there, in theory, a connection [between Norse gods and racism]? Sure. Is it a connection any sane adult would make? Probably not.Does it end up being lovely ammunition for the Christian Right? You betcha.
Do you really advocate that the 'net should censor itself because of what the Christian Right might think/do?
Kaa
Rather than learn to live with people who are different from us, and learn to tolerae their failings, it's better to just turn on the computer, so that the only people you interact with are the ones that are just like you.
I don't see any problems with that. There are many more people than I could ever hope to interact with. I have to make choices as to which people I choose to interact with. You think that my choice should be guided by some random or semi-random (tenants in an apt building) process -- why? I feel neither need nor obligation to learn to live with a women two doors down who thinks that Jerry Springer show is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
People naturally congregate in groups according to their interests and worldview (Slashdot is an example). I don't see that as bad, or, as a matter of fact, avoidable.
We talk alot here about the evils of censorship, but have you ever stopped to think about the evils of the usenet kill file?
There was a big discussion on that subject some time ago on Slashdot. You might want to consider two observations:
(1) Your right to talk does not imply my obligation to listen
(2) Killfile is a personal choice made by me as to whom I am willing to listen to. Censorship is an external choice made by someone else as to what I should be able to hear.
Do you read all Usenet every day?
Kaa
Incident #1: I had forgotten the URL to a particular Amber fan-fic page that I like, and I remember that I had found it in the first place using the keyword "Bleys." I somehow ended up with several porno sites in my search results because the url was "http://www.pornsite.xxx/hotpics/bleys/corwin/teen 1.gif" or some such nonsense. There were three or four of them on the first search results page. *sigh*
And what's so horrible about it? You found out that there was porn on the net? The search engine did the right thing: you searched for keyword "Bleys", you got sites with it. Or you really want to play-pretend that there are no naughty things on the 'net? I can understand this case as a call for better search engines, but you seem to think that this shows the need for ratings. Not IMAO.
Incident #2, which I'm actually much more irritated by: I'm a pagan who follows the Norse gods. It's bad enough that some of the Norse pagan sites have a "racialist" slant, but it's even worse when the KKK has Meta-tags on its web-page that include Odin, Thor, and Freya. Can you imagine the impression that some kid doing a research project on Norse mythology would get if he did a web search for Thor and came up with the KKK home page??
Sigh. I don't think you understand what the expression "freedom of speech" means. You seem to think that your view of the Norse gods is the "correct" one and other views, especially ones which you find objectionable, are the "wrong" ones and so should be eradicated, or at least kept in the ratings' dark closet never to be shown to ordinary folk. I am no big fan of KKK, but why in the world do you think they have no right to their own view of Odin, Thor, etc.??
What would a kid doing research on Norse mythology think? Well, if he is a smart kid, he'll think that the world is a diverse place and there are sure some strange people around.
I've got no problems with voluntary standards as long as they remain truly voluntary rather than coercive
Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. Obviously, no reasonable person would object to people describing their sites in keywords for the ease of finding these sites. The problem is that legislation or industry self-regulation quickly follows.
Once upon a time it was thought that ladies and gentlemen do not use words like 'fuck' and 'cunt'. All voluntary, right? So how come there are seven words that nobody can say on the radio?
Kaa
I completely agree that Marx and communism have nothing to do with "gift culture" and open source in general. However...
The Internet is STILL a tiny club of culturally-elite, rich (compared to the rest of the world) burgoise representing everything despised by Marx
That's not true. Culturally elite, maybe (although Marx didn't care much about that), bourgeois -- no. What is bourgeoisie, at least in Marx's times? They are the people who own the means of production and thus do not work, but rather live on the profits from their property. I doubt very much that the majority, hell, even 10%, of the Internet population fits this description. A programmer, and an IT worker in general, is often quite close to the idea of proletariat (cf. Dilbert) -- the fact that he works with this brain rather than his muscles doesn't change much.
we represent a tiny fraction of priveleged humanity trodding upon the backs of the repressed masses
Priviledged humanity, yes (although that still doesn't make us bourgeoisie), but what are those repressed masses? Especially in the rapidly gaining information economy? Hey, aren't they those programmers in the cubicles around, hunched over their keyboard, working overtime, rarely seeing the light of day...
Of course you may be talking about the North vs. South split, but then it's hard to make an argument that the West gets its wealth by robbing the poor masses of the Third World.
We distribute our gifts to other members of this elite class of intellectuals
I guess it must be nice to feel oneself a member of the elite class of intellectuals. Unfortunately, I don't think Internet fills the bill. First, intellectual elite tends to mass in arts, literature, humanities, and not around such technical things as computers. Second, go to AOL and look around. 3leet, aren't they?
It more resembles Nepotism, with the talented, rich few giving away to the less-talented rich few -- yet all members of the same, elite club
Nepotism is actually giving out perks (like highly paid do-nothing jobs in a bureacracy) to relatives. It has nothing to do with elite clubs or gift culture. And no, I don't think that the free software culture resembles an elite club. Anyone can join -- the economic price of entry is quite low (in the West, at least). There is an intellectual price of entry which is significant -- it takes good brains in order to play -- but that is something that Marx and others cannot help with...
Kaa
The ideas of capitalism and communism are rooted in the problem of how to best divvy up scarce resources
Well, no. The idea of capitalism is basically economic freedom -- anyone (whether noble born or the child of a serf) can run a business with the same rights as all the other people. The idea of communism is public ownership of means of production.
There's only so much food, land, oil, etc. to go around. If I have a barrel of oil and I give it away, I've lost something (the use of the oil).
You're describing classic economics which assume scarcity of resources. This approach is applicable to all societies, not only capitalist and communist ones.
Software works in the opposite way. If I give away a piece of software I write and other people use it, I haven't lost anything (I can still use the software myself)
Again, no. This is a standard argument, but it doesn't work because people forget about opportunity cost. Say, today evening I can go to a movie or to a restaurant (but not both). If I go to a movie, not eating out is my opportunity cost of going to the movies. In the same way, if you give your software away, you incur the opportunity cost because you could have sold it, but didn't. And if you couldn't have sold it, one starts to wonder about the value of this software...
In other words, giving away my software is the greedy thing to do.
Tell it to Bill Gates. He must be gnashing his teeth now, thinking about how he missed his chance.
Kaa
I know, God forbid that the community pressure people into not doing things that community at large disapproves of.....
Well, that depends. The balance of power between an individual and the community is one of those bid socio-politico-philosophical questions that tend to get people all excited. Anarchists occupy the "pro-individual" end of the spectrum, while communists and nazis stand together on the "pro-community/government" end.
Obviously, the community needs to enforce some of its beliefs on individuals (e.g. laws against murder). However things are not so clear with regard to so-called "victimless crimes", that is, actions which the community disapproves of, but which (at least directly) harm no one (e.g. smoking pot, polygamy, etc.).
I personally feel quite strongly that the community has NO right to pressure people to conform to community standards. If 80% of my town are fundamentalist Christians, should they be able to force me to go to church on Sunday? Or if the same 80% are orthodox Jews, should they be able to prevent me from driving on Saturday?
To get back to the original discussion, ratings by themselves are not censorship. However, they invite censorship and enable it.
Kaa
It's more secure for one reason only--you have to actually physically have the card to order with it.
Ahem. You mean I have to physically generate the stream of bytes that gets send to the serial port or wherever the card reader gets plugged in?
I thing the suggestion that this is just a way for people to have/use long passwords/keys in a convenient fashion. You know why PINs have only four numbers (9999 key space!), right? Because the average Joe Schmoe cannot remember more than four numbers.
Kaa
The Great Convergence will happen, I hope, by the way of having 29-inch computer monitors and a TV tuner card in my PC. I very much hope that it will NOT happen by the way of WebTV... But in any case, Tivo has nothing to do with it. It's basically a large hard drive with some supporting functions and is very far away from a general-purpose computer. But if I were a VCR-maker, or a TV network executive (think ads filter), I would be afraid. Very afraid.
Kaa
I didn't assume that peope will be compiling Mozilla. I was replying to a post in which the question was how to compile without unwanted features.
Well, actually the discussion went something like that: somebody (actually, a lot of somebodies) said that Mozilla is in great danger from bloat and feeping creaturism. It aims to be all things to all people and thus is likely to become huge, unwieldy, ustable etc. etc. Somebody else objected to this saying, basically, that Mozilla is modular so you don't have to use what you don't need. From here the question of how to load / not-load modules came up and somebody else again jumped in with a comment that "you have the source! Just compile what you need!". Here my soul became agitated and I posted, saying essentially that compile-time flags are not a good way to include or not-include modules in a program like Mozilla.
I understand that one can compile without the unwanted features. But the issue was how to load/unload modules at run-time. Hell, when I boot into Windows, I don't even have a C/C++ compiler there -- I presume that Mozilla will run under Windows, right?
I agree though, it would be nice to have some sort of application "builder" where I can check what I want and just load/download those modules
Well, I think it's not only nice, but essential. Again, we are speaking run-time, not compile-time. And a simple config file will suffice.
One, these are 3rd party projects. That's the power of Open Source.
So? Look at Winamp. It can hot-load third-party analyzer and display modules while it's running and it's not open source.
The second is that Mozilla is primarily for those that have no idea how to use "geeky" things. They are computer experts, and don't want to be. All they want to be able to do is to use one application that does everything they need to do
That's a good argument for MS Office. It's very much debatable whether one-big-app-which-does-it-all is a good thing, even and especially for naive users (aka the unwashed masses). Anyway, the debate is not about this. The question is customizability at run-time and IMAO Mozilla very much needs to have it.
Kaa
(sigh) To compile in the IRC module, you'll use --enable-extension=irc. Make is your friend. Or, the instructions describe how to just compile the IRC module. At any rate, it will have nothing to do with #defines.
Why do you assume that people will be compiling Mozilla? The great majority will download the precompiled binaries. And that's where the problem arises. Say, I download the binaries from Debian. I'll probably download the kitchen-sink version because I like to check out new stuff -- maybe Mozilla's IRC rocks, maybe it sucks rocks. Let's say I played around with it and decided that news support sucks, but IRC rocks. So what now? Do I have to go back to Debian site and download a precompiled version which has news disabled but IRC enabled? Do I download all the source and recompile myself (sure, doable, but this should not be necessary). What I would like to have is a config file that tells Mozilla which parts of itself to load at startup, and which to not to load (and maybe hot-load later). I don't want to recompile each time I use or not use something.
Kaa
There are *optional* features. Because of the fact that you have the source code for Mozilla, you can disable these features with little difficulty
Oh-oh. You mean I'll actually have to go into source and #undef stuff, then recompile? That's not good at all. My definiton of 'optional' does not include this way of disabling features. What I want is a config file (with or without a pretty GUI front end) where I can specify what modules to load and what to leave behind. Hot-loading or unloading will be nice as well. But if you really expect people to mess with header files in order to switch off features, that's not going to happen.
Kaa
All you would have to do is stick one of these devices on every bench. Add a stylus (NOT a screwdriver) and voila, instant access without ever having to leave your bench.
Yes, of course. I thing Boeing did (or is trying to do) exactly this thing. But the problem is that you need hardened hardware for that. You need a pad that will survive drops onto a concrete floor, huge amounts of oil and grime, screwdrivers used in place of styluses, probably also closeness to motors (magnetic fields!) and a myriad of other stuff that I am too lazy to think of right now. Such hardware can be build, but it tends to be expensive, much more so than the $400...
Kaa
I'm still somewhat unclear about the setup. Let me describe how I see it, and you correct me where I am wrong.
OK, the Freepad is, basically, a full-blown computer, in particular it runs the TCP/IP stack and all the accompaniments to it. The Freepad talks IP (among other things, maybe) to the base station, which is essentially a modem (also among other things). Presumably, the Freepad can tell the base station to dial a certain number and log in to the ISP. After the log-in, the base just shuffles IP packets between the phone wire and the Freepad. Currently the base station can handle POTS and ISDN (haven't you noticed it's dead? must be pretty smelly by now). Real soon now it will also support ethernet and CATV. BTW, does supporting CATV mean that the base can act as a cable modem? Or you need a separate cable modem?
So, what is correct and what I got wrong?
BTW I am still doubtful about the utility of a computer larger than a palmtop without a keyboard. And what't the expected price point? At $100-150 it may work. At, say, $400 and above -- fuggedabutit.
Kaa
Mechanics, nurses, shipping/receiving folk, and many, many more...
Yep, that's called the vertical market. It's generally served by dedicated hardware/software combos (like the pads you see UPS workers carrying). It's a big market, but quite task-specific and I have seen no signs that the Freepad intends to compete in it.
and certainly can't take the time to log in
In this case you either have a big security problem or you are in need of special-purpose hardware that does automatic authentication based on, say, some kind of a dongle or a hardware ID. Again, not the Freepad stuff.
Kaa
I am somewhat unsure of the usefullness of such a device. It seems that it needs a normal computer somewhere in the house/office which is actually connected to the net and which feeds the wireless hub that transmits to the pad. So it's not independent like a laptop, and not a PC replacement for the great unwashed. Given that there is already a computer around, and given that the pad is mostly useful for passive web surfing and dealing with small-volume email, I wonder who needs it (besides the buy-the-latest-gadget crowd).
Sure it's cool to sit in a bed/recliner/bathtub, stretch out a hand, pick up the pad, and check some web news. But it's likely to be a bit too expensive for this convenience. I don't think you can do much useful work on this pad, and if I already have a full-blown computer around, I'd rather haul my ass to it to do real thing.
Of course, this is all IMHO and YMMV.
Kaa
Let's face it: Apple is cool because it has CULTURE.
...we'll do what Jobs envisioned: change the world.
Bzzz... Sorry, Apple has about as much culture as an average California corporation. What you mean is that Apple has a good MARKETING DEPARTMENT and spends money to hire good ad agencies. That's a little bit different, I believe.
Apple makes a cutlural statement, a leap into the imaginations of its users.
Again, you are judging a company by its advertising. Not a very good way to go about it. If you want to talk about making leaps into imagination, find out which ad agency made the ads that you liked -- they are making these leaps.
From everything I've seen, Jobs is an evil bastard, even more so than Gates
Hear, hear!
But he's a bastard in the right way. He really beleives that by giving people 'insanely great' technology, he can change the world.
I wouldn't state so confidently my opinions about Job's beliefs. In any case, you are probably thinking of the time long past, time when the computers were only starting to appear and things like Macs were really new and exciting. Now (and for many years already) Apple is just another corporation out to make a buck and Jobs is a CEO with a flair for public relations. I doubt very much that he is thinking a lot about changing the world with Apple technology. Besides, what technology is that? I haven't seen anything radical (except for colors, that is) come out of Apple for a looooong time.
Err... thank you very much, but I don't think I like the idea of changing the world according to Job's ideals (I am pretty sure they include a lobotomy for all non-Apple users like me, among other unpleasant things). And since you are so enthusiastic about changing the world, can you please be a bit more exact about how you will change it and what Apple has to do with it?
Kaa
In my own field, the distribution of stock market returns is often taken to be distributed log-normal
You can also start with log returns (instead of "normal" returns). This will give you an approximation to a Gaussian (as opposed to a lognormal distribution), plus they are summable across time. I work almost exclusively with log returns -- they are a pain when you need to calculate portfolios, but nice otherwise.
A new distribution that gives increased weight to rare events would be very useful
There are several (e.g. Cauchy), but the problem is that they are much harder to deal with (analytically) than the Gaussian. And if you don't like any, you can always work with the empirical distribution -- no need to pollute the facts with assumptions about what they should be. However, not much of statistics will be useful to you -- the Bayesians offer some good tools.
Getting back to the original point, I wonder if these guys heard of Hurst and Hurst processes. A persistent Hurst process (sometimes called black noise) will generate something like what they found, and Hurst himself developed his theory on the basis of natural phenomena (he started with the frequency of floods on the Nile which occurred, surprise, more often than should have been expected). Skim through Peters "Fractal market analysis" for more information.
I bet these guys rediscovered Hurst processes.
Kaa
Zbignew Michalewicz
Genetic Algorithms + Data Structures = Evolution Programs.
2nd ed., Springer-Verlag, 1994
Comes with useful source code. Is not afraid of equations, but is mostly practical (in this case that stuff works better than the other one).
I have run programs based on code from this book and they worked (didn't help me much 'cause the whole thing is too computationally expensive for my purposes, but that's another story entirely...)
Kaa
The guy that runs Antionline often talks about how he tracks various crackers and turns the info over to the authorities.
Yep. I am sure that he is compiling a database of IP addresses from which attacks are being launched. Given his past behavior, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was the whole point of the exercise.
Kaa
Didn't Antionline (John Vranesevich) behave in a very unpleasant manner recently (PacketStorm -- Harvard)? I thought that he was relegated to the "don't touch with a 10-foot pole" category.
Kaa
The thing is without proof of convergence, the solution you find using GA may very likely be something you hadn't thought of, and even be a better one at that too, but not the optimal one!
:(
One, I think that there is proof of convergence -- albeit in infinite time
Two, for non-trivial problems you cannot guarantee the global optimum without exhaustive search which is infeasible most of the time. The great majority of problems will settle for something reasonably close to the global optimum, "reasonably" being defined by the specific problem you are trying to solve.
I'd rather use a more expensive, but garanteed, method instead. But those are hard to come by too.
There are no guaranteed global optimizations (in the general case) with the exception of exhaustive search. If you can afford an exhaustive search, by all means run it and get your precise global optimum. Unfortunately, for most real-life problem the exhaustive search is so far out of the realm of feasability, it's not even funny. How about finding me a global minimum of a nonlinear function of, say, 15 real-valued variables? You use GAs in situations where you don't have much choice -- you either do a local search with all its disadvantages, or pick an imprecise and "semi-random" solution (GA or, say, simulated annealing). Sometimes the local search is the right way to go, sometimes not.
Kaa
The point was that they are developing chips that will allow the GA to have access to more analog info.
And the point of this being..? So far they've only managed to make their solution very fragile.
Besides, it's not like you couldn't simulate analog conditions in software.
GA's are not all that well understood. They have been relatively widelly applied, but on a theoretical level we don't have much more aparatus than the schema theorem (Holland) at our disposal.
Well, we are probably talking about different things here. You are talking about understading in terms of proving theorems about. I am talking understanding in a more practical way -- having an idea what usually works, what never works, and what has never been tried yet. Compared to 4-5 years ago we understand much more about GAs, their uses and limitations.
Neural networks have received quite a lot of hype and are generally poorly understood by people who proclaim their utility.
It has been my personal experience that people who proclaim NNs as a general solution to all problems do not understand them at all.
However we are just scratching the surface of what can be done with Genetic algorithms and genetic programming.
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, they are still nothing more than a general-purpose global optimization technique, not a magic wand. Granted, reasonable global optimizers are very hard to come by, but it's still nothing but search in parameter space.
Kaa
Genetic algorithms by now is old (heh) and a decently understood techology. Essentially this is nothing but a general-purpose global optimization method. So the guy applied that optimization technique to FPGAs and got something. Big deal. People have done much more interesting things with genetic algorithms.
Besides, it is just me, or the whole genetic algorithm thing is getting blown all out of proportion by the media, somewhat similar to what happened to neural nets several years ago?
And the article is quite clueless. It implies that software is too limiting (only 0s and 1s, after all), so playing with FPGAs will open wider horizons. And the researcher speaks of not understanding what's going on like it is a good thing...
Kaa