It's frustrating to have to wait for the iTMS to be released down here, knowing that the songs I want to buy are one (illegal) click away. The same goes for TV series and DVDs. There's a whole heap of stuff out there that us non-pirates have to patiently wait for, even though there are perfect digital copies of that same stuff floating around, ready for the picking, for free.
A colleague of mine suggested that I (illegally) download the stuff I want, then send a cheque for the RRP direct to the artist, along with a letter explaining my predicament and suggesting that the developer hands over whatever percentage the publisher would normally take from them. The artist would thereby be compensated for one "stolen" copy of their work, and it would be up to them to decide whether or not to compensate their publisher in turn. I realised that this model could be extended to other kinds of digital content (movies, TV series, music, software), and that a lot of people out there would be happy to pay off their "guilty conscience".
This got me thinking. How about a website (guiltyconscience.com) that accepts anonymous donations (via credit card or paypal or whatever) to allow people to pay-off the guilt they have for illegally downloading music, movies, games and so on? The website would tally up the donations received and make regular "royalty" payments direct to the artist. A user could donate $10 and spread it over 100 songs, if 10 cents a song is enough to offset their guilt. Products could be identified via their Amazon ID or similar, to allow the artist to be easily tracked down. The result would be a perfect marketplace, in that each individual defines how much they're willing to pay for something they want without knowing what others are paying. The website wouldn't promote piracy (i.e. it wouldn't help people locate and download illegal content), but it would help to offset the damage it causes. After all, aren't we constantly being told that piracy is "ripping off the artist"?
Imagine how things would change if a good proportion of those who pirate movies, music and software actually DID pay the artist for what they "stole".
Recently I wanted to purchase a game (Fahrenheit) that was "released" in Australia on Friday the 16th of September. Unfortunately, as of last Friday (the 23rd) it was still not on the shelves. Atari (the publisher) assures me that they're sorry about the delay, and that it'll be in stores "soon". However, it's frustrating to know that I could download it (illegally) right now, even though I'm quite prepared to pay for it.
I'm sure lots of people experience this frustration. The iTMS isn't out in Australia yet, and it's frustrating to know that new songs, not available in stores over here, are one (illegal) click away. The same goes for TV series and DVDs. There's a whole heap of stuff out there that us non-pirates have to patiently wait for, even though there are perfect copies of that same stuff floating around, ready for the picking, for free.
A colleague of mine suggested that I (illegally) download Fahrenheit (the game I want) and send a cheque for the RRP direct to the developer (i.e. the artist), along with a letter explaining my predicament and suggesting that the developer hands over whatever percentage the publisher would normally take from them. The artist would thereby be compensated for one "stolen" copy of their game, and it would be up to them to decide whether or not to compensate its publisher in turn. I realised that this model could be extended to other kinds of digital content (movies, TV series, music, software), and that a lot of people out there would be happy to pay off their "guilty conscience".
This got me thinking. How about a website (guiltyconscience.com) that accepts anonymous donations (via credit card or paypal or whatever) to allow people to pay-off the guilt they have for illegally downloading music, movies, games and so on? The website would tally up the donations received and make regular "royalty" payments direct to the artist. A user could donate $10 and spread it over 100 songs, if 10 cents a song is enough to offset their guilt. Products could be identified via their Amazon ID or similar, to allow the artist to be easily tracked down. The result would be a perfect marketplace, in that each individual defines how much they're willing to pay for something they want without knowing what others are paying. The website wouldn't promote piracy (i.e. it wouldn't help people locate and download illegal content), but it would help to offset the damage it causes. After all, aren't we constantly being told that piracy is "ripping off the artist"?
Imagine how things would change if people who pirated movies, music and software actually DID pay the artist for what they "stole". I'd be prepared to bet that the majority of people would prefer to pay something to offset their guilt if it was easy for them to do so.
Very true. Backwards compatibility helps when you're purpose is to get people to upgrade to the new console. But it is tough to implement, and Microsoft doesn't do backwards compatibility anymore...
Another solution is to release re-compiled versions of XBox games on the 360. So perhaps you'll be able to swap your copy of Halo for a 360 version at launch.
Microsoft don't want folks using their 360 to timeshift TV. Music and video on demand, sure.
Backwards compatibility just ain't worth the trouble. I mean, seriously, what percentage of people playes PS1 games on their PS2? If you upgrade from your existing console, why not keep your old console around? And if you're new to the console, why would you buy old games? Playing PS1 games on a PS2 is a gimmick. Nothing more.
And the reason the 360 doesn't function as a PVR is that there's no way to make money from it. Sure, you sell another 360, but you're probably losing money on that in the first place. Instead, Gates will announce a video-on-demand service at E3, you mark my words. Steal Jobs' thunder AND one-up Sony in one fell move.
Microsoft need one more big announcement to trump Sony at E3. They can't have revealed their hand yet. Likewise, Sony need to out-do Microsoft. And what do they have? Seriously, it feels that Microsoft might win this one.
Of course, Apple and Sony could band together. Jobs could announce video-on-demand for the iTMS (which is widely predicted) and Sony could announce that PS3 will be able to access the iTMS. Furthermore, Apple could license iPod production to Sony, so they can get out of that market as it plateaus to focus on turning iTMS into their primary revenue stream.
"Based on the share number of galaxies and stars within each galaxy, mathematics would dictate that there are close to infinte numbger of earth like planets."
Ummm... no it wouldn't. If you multiply two very large numbers together, no matter how big they are, infinity is still much, much bigger.
Turing introduced the concept of a child machine in the seventh section of the paper that introduced the Turing Test. In 2001 I joined an Israeli company on a quest to create Turing's child machine. Find information about the project, along with a traditional chatterbot called Alan (probably the best "conversation simulator" out there) and some interesting public discussions about AI, the universe and everything at our web site.
Intelligence is subjective, hence Turing's behavioural test for its presence: intelligence is that which an intelligent observer deems to be intelligent. No more, no less.
Paul Ford (http://www.ftrain.com/) suggests "[a]n imperfect alternative to fighting spam which no one will implement, but which would be more satisfying than existing proposals". Basically the idea is for the Spam Filter to reply to each and every spam with a randomly generated fake reply. The full article is at http://ftrain.com/spam_quick_idea.html.
This is exactly the sort of blinkered attitude that prompts news sources to feed local news to the populace, bugger the rest of the world. The result is a total lack of knowledge about anything outside of your own backyard (like, for example, the rough population of a country on the other side of the world).
I worked for Ai (the Israel company) as its Chief Scientist, and I still take great interest in its activites and progess. Ai didn't go bankrupt. It has frozen its operations by choice, simply because today's climate isn't conducive to the kind of work we were doing.
I personally proposed the "Machine Learning Challenge" when I first joined Ai, in mid-2000. Our intentions in running the contest were noble. We really were interested in finding out how well competing machine learning techniques fared in head-to-head battles.
Unlike Google, our entry criteria was "by entering the challenge you transfer to us no rights apart from the right to evaluate your program by running the round-robin tournament". We offered a prize of $2,000 and a round trip for the creators of the top three entries to our research facilities for a research workshop. We also offered an additional prize of $25,000 to any entrant whom we entered into an agreement with (e.g. by buying their technology).
The Machine Learning Challenge went ahead, thanks to Dror Kessler volunteering his time to run it. The winners were recently announced, and the workshop is scheduled to happen soon. See
Ai's home page
for more information.
As the Chief Scientist at Ai, I can confirm that the news is true. However, we're not closing our operations, we're freezing them. In the short-term future we would need investment to continue. This doesn't seem likely in the current climate, so it was decided to go into hibernation. We will still honour the Learning Machine Challenge, our website will still remain online, and our Open Lab will still operate.
You seem to assume that a "network" of some sort is being used to create Ai's baby machine. You're wrong. You also seem to assume that hard-wiring an ontology is the secret. But such things can and should be learned conversationally. You're correct in assuming that the private sector tends to market the fruits of their research, but this doesn't immediately invalidate it.
Sorry, I meant that since GCC compiles to VM
code, the binaries it produces are platform-
independent.
Thanks with the name-calling, by the way. It
really helped me to see the error of my ways.
That's fortunate, because I'm impervious to
well thought out, logical arguments.
Well, I own the Amiga SDK and so I can honestly
say that I've seen it doing some really cool
things running on top of X on top of Debian which
I haven't seen plain ol' X on top of Debian doing
before. I suggest you look at the IBM articles
for some information. Google "Amiga SDK IBM" and
feel lucky.
A fast Java VM is only one thing that AmigaOS
adds. Another is the ability to abandon Java
in favour of cross-platform Assembler or using
the Gnu C++ compiler to produce cross-platform
binaries.
Not only can you beat up a towering fifty-foot
cow, but you can, say, pick up an ordinary cow
out of the field in which it is grazing and
throw it at a whole bunch of cows so that they
all go flying through the air. After that you
could set them on fire and then drown them in
the ocean. What fun!
The real reason, as far as I know, is that two
versions of the game would mean a weaker position
in the gaming charts. The solution is a single
DVD case with a reversible sleeve: black on one
side and white on t'other.
I'm currently learning Vietnamese using Rosetta
Stone, and find it to be absolutely first rate.
It's implemented in Flash, I think, so getting
it running under Linux might be possible. The
system teaches you language behaviouristically:
there's no grammar lessons or suchlike. You just
get thrown right in at the deep end. You fire up
the program and straight away you hear someone
say something in the language you're trying to
learn. You then have to click on the picture
which corresponds to what they've said. After
no time at all you'll realise you're learning
words and grammar without knowing how you're
doing it. Brilliant! And some lessons involve
speech recognition: the system compares your
intonation with an ideal sample and gives you
a rating.
There's a Flash demo of the system online at
http://www.trstone.com/
which allows you to
select French or several other languages (lots
of them, actually, including Swahili, Japanese,
Arabic, Welsh, Hebrew, Latin, French, German and
Italian). Trying the demo in your native language
(such as US English) is fun!
I'm not sure whether it's possible to get the
online demo running under Linux. I'm convinced,
however, that a Linux version would be feasible,
and that the immersive learning system is the
best way to learn a second language. Sometimes
(quite often, actually) the simplest ideas are
the best.
Oh, I should say that one drawback with the
software is that it's expensive. But no more
expensive than a year of lessons would be, and
more effective in my opinion.
I suppose www.jamie_mccarthy_suck.com couldn't
be confused with the author of this article,
but I'm sure he wouldn't like it. And it's not as if this case is setting a precedent or anything. It's been happening in the real world for ages (product names, for example). I'm sure a brewery couldn't make a stout named "Guinness Sucks" either.
Slashdot Mirror
It's frustrating to have to wait for the iTMS to be released down here, knowing that the songs I want to buy are one (illegal) click away. The same goes for TV series and DVDs. There's a whole heap of stuff out there that us non-pirates have to patiently wait for, even though there are perfect digital copies of that same stuff floating around, ready for the picking, for free.
A colleague of mine suggested that I (illegally) download the stuff I want, then send a cheque for the RRP direct to the artist, along with a letter explaining my predicament and suggesting that the developer hands over whatever percentage the publisher would normally take from them. The artist would thereby be compensated for one "stolen" copy of their work, and it would be up to them to decide whether or not to compensate their publisher in turn. I realised that this model could be extended to other kinds of digital content (movies, TV series, music, software), and that a lot of people out there would be happy to pay off their "guilty conscience".
This got me thinking. How about a website (guiltyconscience.com) that accepts anonymous donations (via credit card or paypal or whatever) to allow people to pay-off the guilt they have for illegally downloading music, movies, games and so on? The website would tally up the donations received and make regular "royalty" payments direct to the artist. A user could donate $10 and spread it over 100 songs, if 10 cents a song is enough to offset their guilt. Products could be identified via their Amazon ID or similar, to allow the artist to be easily tracked down. The result would be a perfect marketplace, in that each individual defines how much they're willing to pay for something they want without knowing what others are paying. The website wouldn't promote piracy (i.e. it wouldn't help people locate and download illegal content), but it would help to offset the damage it causes. After all, aren't we constantly being told that piracy is "ripping off the artist"?
Imagine how things would change if a good proportion of those who pirate movies, music and software actually DID pay the artist for what they "stole".
Recently I wanted to purchase a game (Fahrenheit) that was "released" in Australia on Friday the 16th of September. Unfortunately, as of last Friday (the 23rd) it was still not on the shelves. Atari (the publisher) assures me that they're sorry about the delay, and that it'll be in stores "soon". However, it's frustrating to know that I could download it (illegally) right now, even though I'm quite prepared to pay for it.
I'm sure lots of people experience this frustration. The iTMS isn't out in Australia yet, and it's frustrating to know that new songs, not available in stores over here, are one (illegal) click away. The same goes for TV series and DVDs. There's a whole heap of stuff out there that us non-pirates have to patiently wait for, even though there are perfect copies of that same stuff floating around, ready for the picking, for free.
A colleague of mine suggested that I (illegally) download Fahrenheit (the game I want) and send a cheque for the RRP direct to the developer (i.e. the artist), along with a letter explaining my predicament and suggesting that the developer hands over whatever percentage the publisher would normally take from them. The artist would thereby be compensated for one "stolen" copy of their game, and it would be up to them to decide whether or not to compensate its publisher in turn. I realised that this model could be extended to other kinds of digital content (movies, TV series, music, software), and that a lot of people out there would be happy to pay off their "guilty conscience".
This got me thinking. How about a website (guiltyconscience.com) that accepts anonymous donations (via credit card or paypal or whatever) to allow people to pay-off the guilt they have for illegally downloading music, movies, games and so on? The website would tally up the donations received and make regular "royalty" payments direct to the artist. A user could donate $10 and spread it over 100 songs, if 10 cents a song is enough to offset their guilt. Products could be identified via their Amazon ID or similar, to allow the artist to be easily tracked down. The result would be a perfect marketplace, in that each individual defines how much they're willing to pay for something they want without knowing what others are paying. The website wouldn't promote piracy (i.e. it wouldn't help people locate and download illegal content), but it would help to offset the damage it causes. After all, aren't we constantly being told that piracy is "ripping off the artist"?
Imagine how things would change if people who pirated movies, music and software actually DID pay the artist for what they "stole". I'd be prepared to bet that the majority of people would prefer to pay something to offset their guilt if it was easy for them to do so.
> violence is alright while sexual intercourse sparks a massive outrage
The very definition of "fucked up America".
Very true. Backwards compatibility helps when you're purpose is to get people to upgrade to the new console. But it is tough to implement, and Microsoft doesn't do backwards compatibility anymore...
Another solution is to release re-compiled versions of XBox games on the 360. So perhaps you'll be able to swap your copy of Halo for a 360 version at launch.
Microsoft don't want folks using their 360 to timeshift TV. Music and video on demand, sure.
Backwards compatibility just ain't worth the trouble. I mean, seriously, what percentage of people playes PS1 games on their PS2? If you upgrade from your existing console, why not keep your old console around? And if you're new to the console, why would you buy old games? Playing PS1 games on a PS2 is a gimmick. Nothing more.
And the reason the 360 doesn't function as a PVR is that there's no way to make money from it. Sure, you sell another 360, but you're probably losing money on that in the first place. Instead, Gates will announce a video-on-demand service at E3, you mark my words. Steal Jobs' thunder AND one-up Sony in one fell move.
Microsoft need one more big announcement to trump Sony at E3. They can't have revealed their hand yet. Likewise, Sony need to out-do Microsoft. And what do they have? Seriously, it feels that Microsoft might win this one.
Of course, Apple and Sony could band together. Jobs could announce video-on-demand for the iTMS (which is widely predicted) and Sony could announce that PS3 will be able to access the iTMS. Furthermore, Apple could license iPod production to Sony, so they can get out of that market as it plateaus to focus on turning iTMS into their primary revenue stream.
Idle speculation, nothing more.
Unfortunately the bloke you replied to was trying to make a joke, revealing his ignorance of anywhere not in the good ol' US-of-A in the process.
"Based on the share number of galaxies and stars within each galaxy, mathematics would dictate that there are close to infinte numbger of earth like planets."
Ummm... no it wouldn't. If you multiply two very large numbers together, no matter how big they are, infinity is still much, much bigger.
The Google toolbar allows you to vote for the page you're currently viewing.
- jas.
Turing introduced the concept of a child machine in the seventh section of the paper that introduced the Turing Test. In 2001 I joined an Israeli company on a quest to create Turing's child machine. Find information about the project, along with a traditional chatterbot called Alan (probably the best "conversation simulator" out there) and some interesting public discussions about AI, the universe and everything at our web site.
- Jason Hutchens.
Intelligence is subjective, hence Turing's behavioural test for its presence: intelligence is that which an intelligent observer deems to be intelligent. No more, no less.
- Jason Hutchens.
Paul Ford (http://www.ftrain.com/) suggests "[a]n imperfect alternative to fighting spam which no one will implement, but which would be more satisfying than existing proposals". Basically the idea is for the Spam Filter to reply to each and every spam with a randomly generated fake reply. The full article is at http://ftrain.com/spam_quick_idea.html.
The premise behind this competition is similar to Ai's Learning Machine Challenge. See www.a-i.com for more.
This is exactly the sort of blinkered attitude that prompts news sources to feed local news to the populace, bugger the rest of the world. The result is a total lack of knowledge about anything outside of your own backyard (like, for example, the rough population of a country on the other side of the world).
- Jason Hutchens.
Perhaps that makes up for 2001 not winning?
I worked for Ai (the Israel company) as its Chief Scientist, and I still take great interest in its activites and progess. Ai didn't go bankrupt. It has frozen its operations by choice, simply because today's climate isn't conducive to the kind of work we were doing.
I personally proposed the "Machine Learning Challenge" when I first joined Ai, in mid-2000. Our intentions in running the contest were noble. We really were interested in finding out how well competing machine learning techniques fared in head-to-head battles.
Unlike Google, our entry criteria was "by entering the challenge you transfer to us no rights apart from the right to evaluate your program by running the round-robin tournament". We offered a prize of $2,000 and a round trip for the creators of the top three entries to our research facilities for a research workshop. We also offered an additional prize of $25,000 to any entrant whom we entered into an agreement with (e.g. by buying their technology).
The Machine Learning Challenge went ahead, thanks to Dror Kessler volunteering his time to run it. The winners were recently announced, and the workshop is scheduled to happen soon. See Ai's home page for more information.
There's no flagship title yet-- it's missing a Metal Gear Solid 2...
Well, the PS2 is still without MGS2, and the hardware has been available for how long? Don't expect killer-apps at launch.
As the Chief Scientist at Ai, I can confirm that the news is true. However, we're not closing our operations, we're freezing them. In the short-term future we would need investment to continue. This doesn't seem likely in the current climate, so it was decided to go into hibernation. We will still honour the Learning Machine Challenge, our website will still remain online, and our Open Lab will still operate.
You seem to assume that a "network" of some sort is being used to create Ai's baby machine. You're wrong. You also seem to assume that hard-wiring an ontology is the secret. But such things can and should be learned conversationally. You're correct in assuming that the private sector tends to market the fruits of their research, but this doesn't immediately invalidate it.
- jas.
Sorry, I meant that since GCC compiles to VM code, the binaries it produces are platform- independent. Thanks with the name-calling, by the way. It really helped me to see the error of my ways. That's fortunate, because I'm impervious to well thought out, logical arguments.
Well, I own the Amiga SDK and so I can honestly say that I've seen it doing some really cool things running on top of X on top of Debian which I haven't seen plain ol' X on top of Debian doing before. I suggest you look at the IBM articles for some information. Google "Amiga SDK IBM" and feel lucky.
A fast Java VM is only one thing that AmigaOS adds. Another is the ability to abandon Java in favour of cross-platform Assembler or using the Gnu C++ compiler to produce cross-platform binaries.
Not only can you beat up a towering fifty-foot
cow, but you can, say, pick up an ordinary cow
out of the field in which it is grazing and
throw it at a whole bunch of cows so that they
all go flying through the air. After that you
could set them on fire and then drown them in
the ocean. What fun!
The real reason, as far as I know, is that two
versions of the game would mean a weaker position
in the gaming charts. The solution is a single
DVD case with a reversible sleeve: black on one
side and white on t'other.
I'm currently learning Vietnamese using Rosetta Stone, and find it to be absolutely first rate. It's implemented in Flash, I think, so getting it running under Linux might be possible. The system teaches you language behaviouristically: there's no grammar lessons or suchlike. You just get thrown right in at the deep end. You fire up the program and straight away you hear someone say something in the language you're trying to learn. You then have to click on the picture which corresponds to what they've said. After no time at all you'll realise you're learning words and grammar without knowing how you're doing it. Brilliant! And some lessons involve speech recognition: the system compares your intonation with an ideal sample and gives you a rating.
There's a Flash demo of the system online at http://www.trstone.com/ which allows you to select French or several other languages (lots of them, actually, including Swahili, Japanese, Arabic, Welsh, Hebrew, Latin, French, German and Italian). Trying the demo in your native language (such as US English) is fun!
I'm not sure whether it's possible to get the online demo running under Linux. I'm convinced, however, that a Linux version would be feasible, and that the immersive learning system is the best way to learn a second language. Sometimes (quite often, actually) the simplest ideas are the best.
Oh, I should say that one drawback with the software is that it's expensive. But no more expensive than a year of lessons would be, and more effective in my opinion.
Hmmmm...
I suppose www.jamie_mccarthy_suck.com couldn't be confused with the author of this article, but I'm sure he wouldn't like it. And it's not as if this case is setting a precedent or anything. It's been happening in the real world for ages (product names, for example). I'm sure a brewery couldn't make a stout named "Guinness Sucks" either.
- Jas.