1) Low-power == low-temp == smaller box 2) If the "appliance" is supposed to be portable (or "wireless"), then low-power == longer uptime. 3) A good internet appliance is "always on"--so low-power == lower cost 4) Low-power == tree-hugger happiness -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Sure ... They create it, they own rights to replication.
So which is it? Do I own the it or do they? Personally, I have an opinion. But I think you agree that this is the crux of the matter--it's not about "how do we pay artists". -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
All homes are "Internet-Ready". All you need is a phone line. Internal cabling is "networkable" or something.
Which reminds me of one of the dumbest things I've ever seen: I saw a, swear to God, Interet-ready power strip at OfficeMax about a year ago. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort."
FALSE! I cannot stress this enough: FALSE FALSE FALSE.
The members of Metallica are not our employees who have had their insurance premiums raised and so need a little extra something in their paychecks. We have no moral OR legal obligation to provide money (let alone profit) to Metallica.
Clearly that's an issue for the musicians, but it is not the issue. The issue is about freedom. All economic arguments are secondary to that.
The issue is: When I buy something, do I own it? And if I own it, can I copy it? And do I own the copy? And can I resell/give away the copy?
I'm not saying that Metallica should be barred from making a profit--only that it's up to them how to do so. It is absolutely wrong to reduce public freedoms for the sake of an individual's profit. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I see a lot of posts about "you can't patent farting!"--and no one is. They are TRADEMARKING a scent. Totally different legal concept. Read, understand, post. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Can anyone use the IA-64 Compile Farm, or does it have to be an open source project? I'm interested because I'm supposed to port to Itanium, but my boss hasn't given me a machine yet. I'm sure he'll dig one up...one week before we ship. I'd like to be ready before then. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I thought Jon Johansson (sp?) came up with DeCSS. Who is "Derek Fawcus"? Or is that the cascading style sheet" thing? -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Napster hurts sales" != "People are engaging in wholesale piracy"
Let's assume for the moment that the stated conclusion is correct: People who use Napster (and similar programs) are less likely to buy CDs. Let's further assume this is causation, not correlation. It still doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Example 1: I download 1 track from Aerosmith's new album. It sucks. So I delete the track and don't buy the album. This is a lost sale, but only temporary (and very slight) piracy. Of course the RIAA hates this because they'd rather you buy a pig in a poke with a no-return policy. But I'd argue that this is no different than in-store, pre-sales listening and should be protected by law.
Example 2: I download some music by a "free musician". I like that musician so much, I stop buying albums from some other band. Here there is no illegal Napster/MP3 use AT ALL, but it STILL affects CD sales. Clearly the RIAA hates this as well.
I know for a fact that both of these are operating since I've experienced them both. For instance, I heard some good things about "Fountains of Wayne" so I dl'd some songs. Some of the songs were awesome but some were duds. I listed these by album and found that I probably wanted to buy album A but not album B. Without the "fair use" information I got from Napster I would have artificially inflated the sales figures with a purchase I didn't want. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"...the only machine any such problem will run in poly time on is a non-deterministic machine, which to the best of my knowledge we don't have any of."
Hey, what do you know! You've recreated MY POINT.
No, we don't have any of. But we might have any of in the future. Quantum computer (or something stranger still) may come along and blow all us TMers away. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
At the moment you submit your query, the universe splits into multiple different tracks. In each track the engine chooses a random URL to return to you. At lest one version of you in one universe will get exactly the URL you want. You indicate this to the web search engine ("Was this item helpful to you?"). Then the engine collapses wavefunction so that you and your universe are once again the only ones.
Which brings up the real reason they aren't using this in public: People doing web-queries might experience disturbing side-effects like spontaneously self-unshuffling cards and having their dogs turn into talking penguins. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
But I'm talking about the mathematical problem, not the real world issues. Encryption doesn't just depend on P!=NP. They also rely on NP being hard. If this stops being the case, all hell breaks loose.
By the Church-Turing thesis NP for all Turing Machines equivalents and nothing's more powerful than a TM. But CT is not a rigorous proof, just a semi-soft conjecture. So if we ever found anything more powerful than a Turing Machine, problems that are non-polynomial on TMs might turn out to be polynomial somewhere else. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Goldbach's Conjecture: All even numbers greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes.
What you've proved: All primes sum to an even number.
What you've left out: There may be some even numbers that don't "get hit" by summing any two primes. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Let n1, n2, n3...nx be all known prime numbers. Construct M = n1 * n2 * n3 *... * nx + 1. Is M a compound number (i.e. non-prime?)? Well, it isn't factorable by any known primes (it would always leave a remainder of 1). So we have two cases:
Case 1: M is prime. But it must be a previously unknown prime and it is clearly larger than any previously unknown prime. Therefore there exists another largest prime.
Case 2: M is not prime, but isn't factorable by any known prime. Therefore it is factorable by some unknown prime larger than all known primes.
Since this process can be repeated indefinitely, there must be an infinitude of primes. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
...but I also remembered (right or wrong) that I read it in GEB, so I thought it might have been fictional. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Method 1: Follow story link. Cut random text and past to/.. Method 2: Create post such that title = "Why this is good for Linux" and body contains random text. Method 3: Create post such that body contains "I am post anonymously because (insert random reason here)." Method 4: Post something critical of Jon Katz (only works temporarily, karma rapidly falls off after 5 minutes). -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I have a vague recollection that someone proved that "Aleph1 = C" couldn't be proved or disproved. Or was that fiction? Or am I even more confused than I think I am?
As I recall, Aleph0 = the set of all integers. C is the set of all reals. But (at one time, anyway), the question of whether C was the same as Aleph1 existed.
As for the other problems, the only one I'm familiar with (or even heard of) is P=NP--but I guess that's what I get for being a "specialized mathematician" (i.e. computer scientist). -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality."
Right. And the rest of the taskbar is isomorphic to that "other" menu on MacOS (on the right side, I don't know what it's called). Furthermore, does anyone remember Dashboard (?) for Windows? It provided a "taskbar" and virtual desktops (much like many Linux window managers do today) for Windows 3.x back in the early 90's. The extent to which Win95 is revolutionary it is useless and the extent to which it is useful it is conventional.
Microsoft's UI research team must consist of:
1) A guy named Joe who reminisces about UIs he used to use. 2) A woman named Kathy who periodically downloads/buys other operating systems, has her son install them, and then picks three random features from each. 3) A lawyer (no name) 4) A program to generate marketing text: "Revolutionarily easy to use!", "Next Generation Innovation", "As easy as a prom date!" -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
This has been hashed and rehashed so many times it makes me physically ill.
1) Who's going to buy MyWindows from Joe Schmoe down the street instead of getting it from Microsoft? 2) Who's going to want to go through all the code in Windows and make it work right? 3) Remember that an OS can't succeed on it's own--it needs apps. So all these new Windows companies have provide backwards compat--so the company with the biggest piece of the pie STILL controls the direction Windows takes. Guess who that would be? 4) Linux is not "in the public domain". Various pieces are copyrighted by various people and they all released those pieces under the GPL license. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
But I wouldn't put IE in it's own company. I'd give IE to the Office group--equal with Word and Excel.
My choice for 3 companies would be: Office (with IE), Server and Consumer.
This gives the added benefit of encouraging standards compliance on the desktop AND in the server room. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"If I invent something and I don't patent it, then some else "invents" it later and patents it, I lose."
You can't get a patent if "prior art" can be shown. So when that "some else" applies for the patent, you just pop up and say "nuh-uh, I did it a year ago". -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I have no obseesion with falling tech stocks. Quite the opposite, I too felt it wasn't a very interesting/. story.
Same here: Censoship in China is a political issue. If the story had been about a a poster rather than a website would it have shown up here? No. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"...I've never had anyone say 'well, no, I can't talk about the government, because they'll come and kill my children.'"
You know why you've never heard that? Because if they said it, the government would come kill their children. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Normally, I make no comment on apparently irrelevant stories, but this is just too blatant.
Other than the fact that this article said the magic word "website", what makes this "News for Nerds"? I ask because you didn't want to post the story about tech stocks falling even though IT contained the magic word "tech". -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Slashdot Mirror
1) Low-power == low-temp == smaller box
2) If the "appliance" is supposed to be portable (or "wireless"), then low-power == longer uptime.
3) A good internet appliance is "always on"--so low-power == lower cost
4) Low-power == tree-hugger happiness
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
When I buy something, do I own it?
...
Sure
They create it, they own rights to replication.
So which is it? Do I own the it or do they? Personally, I have an opinion. But I think you agree that this is the crux of the matter--it's not about "how do we pay artists".
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
All homes are "Internet-Ready". All you need is a phone line. Internal cabling is "networkable" or something.
Which reminds me of one of the dumbest things I've ever seen: I saw a, swear to God, Interet-ready power strip at OfficeMax about a year ago.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort."
FALSE! I cannot stress this enough: FALSE FALSE FALSE.
The members of Metallica are not our employees who have had their insurance premiums raised and so need a little extra something in their paychecks. We have no moral OR legal obligation to provide money (let alone profit) to Metallica.
Clearly that's an issue for the musicians, but it is not the issue. The issue is about freedom. All economic arguments are secondary to that.
The issue is: When I buy something, do I own it? And if I own it, can I copy it? And do I own the copy? And can I resell/give away the copy?
I'm not saying that Metallica should be barred from making a profit--only that it's up to them how to do so. It is absolutely wrong to reduce public freedoms for the sake of an individual's profit.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Patents != Trademarks != Copyrights
I see a lot of posts about "you can't patent farting!"--and no one is. They are TRADEMARKING a scent. Totally different legal concept. Read, understand, post.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
When I cut my lawn I have to post a sign "Smell Trademarked SenatorInPocket, Inc"?
What happens if my body odor is similar to a trademarked scent? I have my wages garnished to pay licensing fees?
Am I going to have to learn to fart a "TM" symbol?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Can anyone use the IA-64 Compile Farm, or does it have to be an open source project? I'm interested because I'm supposed to port to Itanium, but my boss hasn't given me a machine yet. I'm sure he'll dig one up...one week before we ship. I'd like to be ready before then.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I thought Jon Johansson (sp?) came up with DeCSS. Who is "Derek Fawcus"? Or is that the cascading style sheet" thing?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
The interspersed Dialogues have a LOT of fictional math history in them.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Napster hurts sales" != "People are engaging in wholesale piracy"
Let's assume for the moment that the stated conclusion is correct: People who use Napster (and similar programs) are less likely to buy CDs. Let's further assume this is causation, not correlation. It still doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Example 1: I download 1 track from Aerosmith's new album. It sucks. So I delete the track and don't buy the album. This is a lost sale, but only temporary (and very slight) piracy. Of course the RIAA hates this because they'd rather you buy a pig in a poke with a no-return policy. But I'd argue that this is no different than in-store, pre-sales listening and should be protected by law.
Example 2: I download some music by a "free musician". I like that musician so much, I stop buying albums from some other band. Here there is no illegal Napster/MP3 use AT ALL, but it STILL affects CD sales. Clearly the RIAA hates this as well.
I know for a fact that both of these are operating since I've experienced them both. For instance, I heard some good things about "Fountains of Wayne" so I dl'd some songs. Some of the songs were awesome but some were duds. I listed these by album and found that I probably wanted to buy album A but not album B. Without the "fair use" information I got from Napster I would have artificially inflated the sales figures with a purchase I didn't want.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"...the only machine any such problem will run in poly time on is a non-deterministic machine, which to the best of my knowledge we don't have any of."
Hey, what do you know! You've recreated MY POINT.
No, we don't have any of. But we might have any of in the future. Quantum computer (or something stranger still) may come along and blow all us TMers away.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
At the moment you submit your query, the universe splits into multiple different tracks. In each track the engine chooses a random URL to return to you. At lest one version of you in one universe will get exactly the URL you want. You indicate this to the web search engine ("Was this item helpful to you?"). Then the engine collapses wavefunction so that you and your universe are once again the only ones.
Which brings up the real reason they aren't using this in public: People doing web-queries might experience disturbing side-effects like spontaneously self-unshuffling cards and having their dogs turn into talking penguins.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
False, IMHO.
But I'm talking about the mathematical problem, not the real world issues. Encryption doesn't just depend on P!=NP. They also rely on NP being hard. If this stops being the case, all hell breaks loose.
By the Church-Turing thesis NP for all Turing Machines equivalents and nothing's more powerful than a TM. But CT is not a rigorous proof, just a semi-soft conjecture. So if we ever found anything more powerful than a Turing Machine, problems that are non-polynomial on TMs might turn out to be polynomial somewhere else.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Goldbach's Conjecture: All even numbers greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes.
What you've proved: All primes sum to an even number.
What you've left out: There may be some even numbers that don't "get hit" by summing any two primes.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Isn't there a "largest" known prime number?
... * nx + 1. Is M a compound number (i.e. non-prime?)? Well, it isn't factorable by any known primes (it would always leave a remainder of 1). So we have two cases:
"Known", yes. Just plain largest, no. Proof:
Let n1, n2, n3...nx be all known prime numbers. Construct M = n1 * n2 * n3 *
Case 1: M is prime. But it must be a previously unknown prime and it is clearly larger than any previously unknown prime. Therefore there exists another largest prime.
Case 2: M is not prime, but isn't factorable by any known prime. Therefore it is factorable by some unknown prime larger than all known primes.
Since this process can be repeated indefinitely, there must be an infinitude of primes.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
...but I also remembered (right or wrong) that I read it in GEB, so I thought it might have been fictional.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
More than once, in fact.
/..
Method 1: Follow story link. Cut random text and past to
Method 2: Create post such that title = "Why this is good for Linux" and body contains random text.
Method 3: Create post such that body contains "I am post anonymously because (insert random reason here)."
Method 4: Post something critical of Jon Katz (only works temporarily, karma rapidly falls off after 5 minutes).
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I have a vague recollection that someone proved that "Aleph1 = C" couldn't be proved or disproved. Or was that fiction? Or am I even more confused than I think I am?
As I recall, Aleph0 = the set of all integers. C is the set of all reals. But (at one time, anyway), the question of whether C was the same as Aleph1 existed.
As for the other problems, the only one I'm familiar with (or even heard of) is P=NP--but I guess that's what I get for being a "specialized mathematician" (i.e. computer scientist).
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality."
Right. And the rest of the taskbar is isomorphic to that "other" menu on MacOS (on the right side, I don't know what it's called). Furthermore, does anyone remember Dashboard (?) for Windows? It provided a "taskbar" and virtual desktops (much like many Linux window managers do today) for Windows 3.x back in the early 90's. The extent to which Win95 is revolutionary it is useless and the extent to which it is useful it is conventional.
Microsoft's UI research team must consist of:
1) A guy named Joe who reminisces about UIs he used to use.
2) A woman named Kathy who periodically downloads/buys other operating systems, has her son install them, and then picks three random features from each.
3) A lawyer (no name)
4) A program to generate marketing text: "Revolutionarily easy to use!", "Next Generation Innovation", "As easy as a prom date!"
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
This has been hashed and rehashed so many times it makes me physically ill.
1) Who's going to buy MyWindows from Joe Schmoe down the street instead of getting it from Microsoft?
2) Who's going to want to go through all the code in Windows and make it work right?
3) Remember that an OS can't succeed on it's own--it needs apps. So all these new Windows companies have provide backwards compat--so the company with the biggest piece of the pie STILL controls the direction Windows takes. Guess who that would be?
4) Linux is not "in the public domain". Various pieces are copyrighted by various people and they all released those pieces under the GPL license.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
But I wouldn't put IE in it's own company. I'd give IE to the Office group--equal with Word and Excel.
My choice for 3 companies would be: Office (with IE), Server and Consumer.
This gives the added benefit of encouraging standards compliance on the desktop AND in the server room.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"If I invent something and I don't patent it, then some else "invents" it later and patents it, I lose."
You can't get a patent if "prior art" can be shown. So when that "some else" applies for the patent, you just pop up and say "nuh-uh, I did it a year ago".
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I have no obseesion with falling tech stocks. Quite the opposite, I too felt it wasn't a very interesting /. story.
Same here: Censoship in China is a political issue. If the story had been about a a poster rather than a website would it have shown up here? No.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"...I've never had anyone say 'well, no, I can't talk about the government, because they'll come and kill my children.'"
You know why you've never heard that? Because if they said it, the government would come kill their children.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Normally, I make no comment on apparently irrelevant stories, but this is just too blatant.
Other than the fact that this article said the magic word "website", what makes this "News for Nerds"? I ask because you didn't want to post the story about tech stocks falling even though IT contained the magic word "tech".
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?