Alright folks; I already mailed the sample letter from the EFF to my reps, but some of you said I should write my own letter to express my views in my own words. I have done so, and here it is. I will hand-write this letter neatly and mail it certified mail with signature and return receipt, but first, I'd like some constructive criticism and stuff. If anybody wants to, you can mail this letter or modify it to suit your needs. Thanks...
Dear [],
As a constituent, I am gravely concerned over the draft Hollings/Stevens copyright legislation, "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act" (SSSCA), principally authored by the Walt Disney corporation. Please vote AGAINST SSSCA when introduced.
Entertainment companies are pushing this legislation for their convenience, at the expense of unrelated industry nationwide. Introduced as a copyright bill, SSSCA will force electronics and computer software manufacturers to include copyright enforcement technologies in their products. Essentially, Hollywood will dictate design decisions affecting products that have nothing to do with entertainment.
Many important and necessary technologies will become illegal if SSSCA is passed. Computer programs classified as Open Source are an important example. These programs power vast portions of the Internet and are utilized by companies the likes of IBM, the NYSE and even government agencies from NASA to the NSA. Briefly, Open Source programs allow custom modifications to their inner workings. The possibility of removing copyright enforcement presents a big SSSCA loophole, impossible to solve without outlawing Open Source. For obvious reasons, this cannot and must not take place.
Despite these devastating consequences for legitimate business nationwide, SSSCA will NOT benefit copyright holders. Those who use electronics to infringe on copyrights will continue to do so using older, uncrippled products. The SSSCA punishes legitimate individuals and companies for no reason at all. I strongly urge you to oppose such legislation and vote AGAINST SSSCA when introduced.
Intel today announced its new 1024-bit (1 kilobit) microprocessor architecture technology. Named the Shiitakeum, Intel's new processor core boasts powerful new technologies which will enable content providers to deliver compelling enterprise solutions.
The Shiitakeum incorporates the following new features:
* SingleAtom technology squeezes one thousand transistors into a single atom.
* The processing pipeline has been broken down into 299,792,458 discreet steps, enabling Intel to remove the internal clock altogether and run the processor at the speed of light. One "cycle" represents the absolute cosmic measure unit of time, and all operations occur in one cycle. (Compete with that, AMD! Bwahaahahahaha!!)
* 24,856 new instructions have been added since the previous model, bringing the new total to over 72 trillion instructions. The entire UNIX operating system can be programmed in one instruction!
* RAM has been depreciated. 4 terabytes of internal general-use registers allow software to make more efficient data access, providing a more compelling Internet experience.
* Intel (r) AnswerNow (tm) Technology bends the space-time continuum, allowing the results of branch instructions and mathematical operations to be used before they are computed. The computations take place during idle cycles at some future time.
* Intel (r) CodeSpirit (tm) Technology processes machine code by its spirit, rather than its letter, completely eliminating software bugs and preventing malicious code, such as a virus, from executing.
* Intel (r) AlienCode (tm) Technology, based on CodeSpirit, allows users to execute programs written for any other processor, without previous knowledge of that processor's instruction set. The technology examines and "decyphers" the instructions and data in much the same way that scientists decypher written languages used by past civilizations. Via AnswerNow and CodeSpirit technologies, programs written for other processors actually run faster and better on Intel platforms than on their native processor. As a side effect, the processor now directly executes programs and scripts written in Java or any P-code or text-based language. In fact, even instructions spelled out in English are understood and executed by the processor.
* Intel (r) BrainWaves (tm) Technology allows the processor to read and write information in the user's mind. The processor is given away for free, and based on the user's thoughts, targetted advertisements are inserted directly into the user's mind. The process is painless, and simply feels like a song stuck in your head. A nominal (i.e., expensive) fee can be paid daily to eliminate the advertisements.
Heh heh heh... I like your response. To answer your question, no, I don't think it's cool to be a faggot and have a Honda with a bunch of shit on it that just makes you want to beat the [sensored] out of it with a baseball bat.
Some might wonder why I think rice burners suck. Well, to start off, there are muscle cars (or hot rods, depending on your background). These cars are built for performance. Case in point: they haul ass. Well one day, about 3 or 4 years ago, I was leaving a math class when I heard this luser say, "and then I got bigger exhaust so I beat him, and then he got bigger exhaust so he beat me, so now I'm gonna get bigger exhaust and beat him again." Obviously, a rice boy. Every owner of a fine muscle car knows that exhaust does NOTHING for performance. (Actually, I take that back. The size and shape of your exhaust does make a small difference in performance. Replace manifolds with headers and you'll get a tiny performance improvement, because there will be slightly less back-pressure on the piston during the exhaust stroke (meaning the motor wastes less energy on keeping itself running). Or replacing headers with equal-length headers (they look like they're tied in a knot) is supposed to improve balance between the cylinders. It could be the difference between a 13.0 and a 12.9, for example. (Rice burners, on the other hand, are lucky to run low 17's.) Contrary to clever marketing, however, the difference is minimal. But the idiot rice boys (or girls) think the car is powered by the exhaust (as if the car is propelled by the exhaust leaving the pipe or something). What they don't know is that beyond the minimal improvement gained by the correct exhaust, any changes either do nothing (except cost you money) or actually degrade performance (so I've heard) (but again, this is so minimal it will hardly be noticed). I mean shit, if you really want to improve your exhaust, modifying the valves or cam will make a much larger difference--but again, the wrong change will degrade performance so you better know what you're doing. (And if the exhaust is a bottleneck, you're probably running way too rich, in which case you can gain enormous performance and increase gas mileage by adjusting your distributor, which won't cost you jack shit. (Unless you fsck up your firing order or something impossible like that.)) In short, if you want to go fast, you need to understand a lot of mechanical shit, and then you have to build the car appropriately. For example, drop in a 5.0 and a new trans. Or, if you're into the recent Camaros (those guys aren't too bright either--but I do admit, those cars are quick), you can just pop your hood and replace a computer chip, gaining something like 300 horsepower. (Isn't it amazing what's under the hood of those things? You open the hood and all you see is electronics! The first time I saw one of those, I asked, "Is there actually a motor in there?!") Rice boys are a bunch of dumb asses (much worse than Camaro guys, who at least drive American), so they think spending a shitload of money on shiny chrome will improve performance.) Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, so I think rice burners suck because the stupid shit people put on those cars costs a shitload of money and does nothing for performance. But that's not the real reason. You see, that's just human stupidity. The real reason I hate rice burners is this: five years ago, my girlfriend dumped my ass and went for a rice boy! Fsck that!
(By the way, the Camaro comments are said with a friendly-competition kind of tone. Mustang guys and Camaro guys have always had that "sibling rivalry" behavior towards each other, but we all know the real enemies are the rice boys: because of them, we only get about half as many runs on race day. Besides, you'll see Mustang guys and Camaro guys hanging out together at the bar, but you'll never see a muscle car guy hanging out with a rice boy!)
IIRC, Disney co-authored the proposed SSSCA. Remember the Boycott Adobe site? There is, by chance, a Boycott Disney site, though it makes no mention of the SSSCA. I'll try to contact the owners. Maybe we can get a bunch of information posted there. Once that happens, I'll try to get the word out to all my friends. Everybody should mail letters to their reps, but in addition to that, companies need to know that they will lose MUCH business when they try to pull off schemes like this.
(Getting the aforementioned company's shares to fall through the floor is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Yes, I mailed snail-mail--with a stamp (though it's a self-adhesive; I don't know if that makes a difference). If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to do so NOW! It's easy--I mailed the EFF's sample letter because they pretty much summed it all up. It took ten minutes to do the whole thing. (It would have been cool to print out the 11,000 some odd signatures (mine is in there) on the petition and mail that with the letter. But in the words of my intelligent employer, "Oh well.")
I'll try to locate mailing addresses for others who might send letters as well. You might try talking to folks who own small businesses or even mail letters to large companies, telling them about the catastrophic consequences of such legislation. This isn't about music. I suggest you don't even mention music because that causes folks to think you're an MP3 pirate or some geek or something. This is NOT about media or any bullshit like that. This is about policeware on YOUR belongings. This is about your computer making decisions for you. This is about your fair-use rights going down the tubes. This will have an enormous effect on small business owners who make "digital devices" for a living, who will probably be put out of business by defective legislation like this. (Rest assured there will be an ENORMOUS price on certification. Only companies the likes of Sony could afford it. And best of all, this won't benefit the individual artist--it will fill the pockets of beaurocrats and RIAA executives, empowering them to come up with more innovative legal solutions. What, did you actually think the artist would benefit?!)
This is about our rights and our responsibility to protect those rights. It's NOT the responsibility of government to do that, contrary to what most people believe.
Let's talk about the consequences for a moment. Where do you draw the line on what contains policeware? Will industrial automation systems (these are digital devices) contain policeware? (How about the position readout (digital device) for the lathe?) Don't forget the computer in your car--that thing is a full-blown digital device. Or aircraft control systems--I'm sure there's something digital in those. Don't even mention medical devices--on second thought, I think those should be the first to receive this technology. The patient has a song stuck in their head, so the life support systems turn off and kills them. Hey, thinking about a song is a copyright violation! How about business computers? (I'm not talking about a Dell desktop, I'm talking about computers the size of refridgerators.) What about ICs? Like 74F373 (latch/flip-flop)--that's a "digital device." Oh, I know, let's put Microsoft DRM software on every transistor. Will wristwatches (digital devices) need to contain government-mandated digital rights management? Will it be illegal to "traffic in" Swiss watches, which don't contain this compelling enterprise solution? Think this is funny? Think again. This is DEFECTIVE, but someone somewhere will go to PRISON for it if this gets passed. It could be you. I suggest you mail that letter ASAP. Either that, or buy some open airline tickets and have a suitcase packed and ready at all times. Better yet, just move out of the country while you have the chance.
Oh yeah, and let's see... the SSSCA is a sort of "extension" to the DMCA. I wonder what kind of law they'll come up with five years from now? Oh, I have a good idea: How about a law that states you have to mail $100 to the RIAA every time you get a song stuck in your head? Yeah, let me write up a draft and mail it to Congress.
It's time to write a distributed program that will grok all legalese in the world, and use massive seti@home-style processing to figure out every possible way to repeal the DMCA and other defective copyright laws. The distributed program would itself be protected by the DMCA, and any attempts by the MPAA/RIAA to stop the processing would be "circumvention."
I like the part near the end where he said that we now take for granted microprocessors containing tens of millions of transistors. It's the kind of thing that makes you (or at least me) respect everything that goes into these damn computers. Oh yeah, and it gives you some idea of the vast waste in the name of time-to-market and whatnot. Back in the days, computers that didn't have nearly as much power as today performed many functions very quickly and efficiently. Nowadays, computers that are a hundred times faster and better do everything a hundred times slower because many of today's programs don't contain good algorithms, don't contain good data structures, and do contain a shitload of flow control statements that can be eliminated by doing a few math instructions or replaced by a small look up table. This isn't the programmer's fault by the way. There are many clever programmers out there who do amazing things, but unfortunately, the damn suits don't let them do their jobs. And furthermore, they are few and far between when compared to the overflowing numbers of script kiddies who write shit code that unfortunately makes it into "products" because companies care more about their bottom line than the quality of their work. To suits, the most important part of their product (in other words, the technical part, whether it is a 400 pound cast-iron cylinder or a floppy diskette containing program instructions) is nothing but a bunch of pesky details they'd rather didn't exist. Furthermore, they have no respect for the programmer (or any other employee for that matter, but I think programmers are looked down upon by many of these suits). When an engineer says it'll take a year to build a bridge, suits will believe it. When a clever programmer says it'll take a year to build a complicated program, the suits think you're out of your mind for coming up with that (very realistic) number--when they're the ones out of their minds for coming up with the ridiculous idea in the first place. Programmers would rather do interesting things with their knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, suits ask their programmers to make boring shit instead, and then don't even respect the thought and brain-breaking work that goes into it. After all, how hard could it be to bang together some sequences of instructions? Hey, if the suit's 8-year-old kid can put together a stupid website in ten minutes, why can't a complicated software project get completed in two weeks or so? Well, however long it takes, it's unacceptable. So instead of hiring the clever programmer wearing the T-shirt (the one who estimated a very realistic year), we'll hire those script kiddies wearing the suits. Their professional estimate for the work is two business days.
And the worst part is when they (the suits) write their stupid fscking press releases or whatever they are, which contain a proliferation of words like "innovative", "enterprise", "collaboration", etc. They'll market printf() as, for example, a compelling enterprise architecture leveraging innovative platforms and streamlining leading edge technology solutions to content providers. All of which means absolutely nothing. On a glossy brochure.That is what I call taking tens of millions of transistors for granted. It's not the programmers' faults. It's the suits who don't care's faults. (Yeah, there are suits out there who do care. But the ratio of suits who do care to suits who's damns they give (give damns?) only to the bottom line must be like 1:9999999999999999999999999999) It pisses me off just to think about the sorry state of things. I believe the suits caused the dot-bomb crash. The programmers (not the script-kiddies) were just trying to do their jobs. The suits frieked out because the work took more than five minutes to complete. Crash. End of story.
To answer your sig: "That thud you just heard was all the former BeOS users throwing their PC's out the window..."
If you want to talk about efficiency in GUIs, BeOS has an awesome graphical system. (I used R3 through R5.) Too bad the company fscked up so bad. Oh well. We all know the command line is where the real power is. (GUIs are nice on laptops though. It just seems more appropriate to run a GUI.) Sorry for the off-topic post.
I know this is offtopic, but it's a good opportunity to bash the evil empire and their evil inventions, so here goes.
I have a friend who is a below-the-knee doctor. He stores his patient records in a Mafiasoft Access database. That by itself wouldn't be so bad, but he made the mistake of hiring a professional to set up a good system for him. Among other things, the professional wrote custom VBA (or VBS, something with Visual Basic in it) code for Access. This professional put together an elaborate user interface where you can't read any of the words because the background and foreground colors are so similar. To make a long story short, this eyesore looks very unprofessional. And it cost my doctor friend big bucks!
On one occasion, my doctor friend asked me to look at the thing and try to modify the colors and get rid of a few fields he never uses. Having no previous knowledge of Access, I went through all the menus and dialogs, thinking this change couldn't possibly be more difficult than clicking a few check marks. I discovered the Visual Basic noise (I won't even call it code) and spent the whole day trying to understand the unbelievable mess that was written there. Not only is the language syntax sloppy and obfuscated, the code^H^H^H^Hnoise was really horrible.
I never actually fixed the problem, because I know better than to mess with anything when the noise is so bad. I suppose this proves the theory that you can't make a programmer out of a BASIC luser.
Another friend of mine used Delphi 3 back in the days. I remember playing with it and (with no instruction) putting together a little database program for keeping track of books you have (and their author, etc). Although Delphi uses the Pascal language, the whole system from its user interface to the integration between visual stuff and code is excellent. I clicked together a simple window, wrote about 10 lines of code total, and the program functioned. I think this is what Mafiasoft tried to implement in VBS but they created an unbelievable mess instead. (Or rather, an innovative platform for compelling enterprise-wide virus solutions--remember, everything revolves around marketing, therefore sh*t is actually fertilizer, which will promote the growth and vigor of the enterprise.) To make a long story short, I don't care whether VBS is compiled, bytecode, interpreted or self-deleting. It's a crappy system and it promotes crappy programming.
As a side note, Mafiasoft could license these technologies to the MPAA and RIAA. Every time Mafiasoft Windoze or an application detects that the user is trying to play a copyrighted song, the user will be shot in the head. This will be stated in the license agreement, which every person in the world, upon birth, will be required to accept (Mafiasoft's monopoly will cover the right to breath oxygen by the time this is implemented--if you do not accept the terms of this license agreement, well, let's just say you have to accept the terms of this license agreement).
For innovation's sake and added convenience, Mafiasoft will implement hooks for VBS files to fire the shotgun as well. By leveraging these innovative technologies, virus providers will streamline compelling virus solutions.
(You know what? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if something retarded like this actually got released by that company.)
Now all we need is a new clause in the Mafiasoft Windoze license agreement in addition to some innovative technology. The clause would state that you shall not flip off Mafiasoft Windoze. The technology would be a double-barreled shotgun mounted to a robotic base on top of the computer monitor. This shotgun would be fired by a solenoid controlled by Mafiasoft Windoze. Every time Mafiasoft Windoze detects that it's being flipped off, it will simultaneously perform two innovative actions:
1. It will fire the shotgun at the user's head, roadrage-style.
2. It will reboot and display the following message:
Because Mafiasoft Windoze was not properly engineered, one or more of your hard disks may have errors on it. To avoid seeing this message again, uninstall Mafiasoft Windoze and use a quality alternative to this defective software. Don't call tech-support because they'll just tell you to Retry, Reboot, Reinstall. Do not make illegal copies of this error message.
What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.
Well, for one thing, you can put the damn things next to the moon rocks in the museum. Then, folks and their annoying little brat kids will flock from all over the world to bust a gander, and while they're there, you can shove all sorts of fascinating propoganda in their face.
And then, like others have said, there's the fact that you can't fit an entire laboratory on a mars lander that will likely be built so light, they won't be able to build a model as light as the real thing.
I wonder what kind of processors they'll use on this lander, whether they'll be in-house specialties, military components, or products otherwise available on the market.
The other reason for a mission like this is development of new technologies and sciences. Imagine if 20 years from now, NASA will send up unmanned ships containing robots of various types that will land on the solid planets or moons in our solar system, perform experiments on site, collect materials and come back. When that becomes possible, imagine the effect on technology we use here on Earth. (I mean, Mafiasoft Windoze 2020 will probably take up 84 exabytes of disk space by then, and there won't even be a desktop--all your content will be served by Mafiasoft's servers, after authenticating through DRM-2020 that you're actually allowed to use Windoze, and all operations will be carried out by talking directly to the talking paperclip. If you don't want to talk, body language, hand and face gestures will be recognized by the paperclip, and it will usually perform the wrong operation, such as deleting your dissertation when you actually wanted to get the latest stock quotes or some other typical Mafiasoft result. Anyway... enough about that.)
I personally believe email is the killer app of the Internet. Sure, there's other stuff, like news, chat and, recently, the web, but I think email is what made it all happen. If there never was email, I think the whole Internet thing wouldn't have taken off at all. Yeah, people give credit for the recent take off to the world wide web, but I'm talking about the Internet getting to the stage it was in when the web was invented. Oh well... All I'm saying is, email rocks!
How will industrial factories be affected by this? Will industrial machine control systems be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks always use industrial machines to pirate music.)
How will medical systems be affected by this? Will every computerized medical device contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks always use medical devices to pirate music.)
How will the automotive industry be affected by this? Will emissions control computers be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks always use their distance-speed sensor to pirate music.)
How will NASA be affected by this? Will new satellites be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks have always pirated music through Voyager II.)
How will airlines be affected by this? Will new flight control systems and air traffic control towers be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks use box-cutters to pirate music through airline communication systems.)
How will handheld calculators be affected by this? Will calculators be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Real Geeks have always computed the MPEG encoding manually.)
I have a better solution: Let's just have sensors with satellite-phone transmitters installed directly in our brains. These sensors will contact the gestapo whenever we think about viewing or listening to content without first paying the copyright holder for each instance.
The only detail I'm curious to know about this whole thing is... why the fsck did Netscrape and Mafiasoft put these alleged "features" into their defective browsers in the first place?! A back button should do what it says, namely, go BACK, not open 6.02x10^28 pr0n windows!
Shameless plug: I just use Opera. It costs money, which I gladly paid, because it actually WORKS unlike the previously mentioned excuses for browsers! Version 5.12 is great, as nearly all sites work the same as on the defective browsers--this includes online banking and bill-paying that didn't previously work with version 4.
And even if you don't use Opera... Friends don't let friends use Mafiasoft products!
I think I should add something to my earlier comment. Several folks have given their argument for well-rounded educations, based on the idea that people should be functional in other areas of life besides the details of their career. In a way, I'm arguing for the same result but against the approach currently taken by many schools and professors. (Part of keeping an open mind is knowing that there are often more than two choices.)
The current approach is teaching various subjects to students, whether they like it or not. I believe in a somewhat different approach: There are a small number of subjects that must be a requirement of school, as they are a requirement of modern life. These are reading, writing and math. And, the fourth subject, the subject of learning, as I described (not so well) in my previous post. These provide the foundation on which everything else (history, the arts, the sciences and technical subjects) can be learned. Unless I've forgotten something, everything goes under those categories, including bartending, machine operation, brain surgery, truck driving, web design, manufacturing engineering, money laundering, astronomy and archeology. I would say that nearly all known knowledge is printed in a book somewhere. All the student needs is the foundation, self respect, desire and ability to learn, at runtime, on the fly. A well-rounded education won't give you that but an education--starting in kindergarden, not college--that teaches you how to learn will.
No, I don't think this is what companies want. Companies (at least ones that stay in business long enough to pay their employees) want results, and last I checked, they don't care how you accomplish them, as long as they're delivered on time and on budget.
Isn't it amazing how the education system in this country is so screwed up?! It starts in public education and ends after your first two years of college. This whole "well-rounded" thing is there to hold you back an additional 2 years before you go into the workforce. "Know a little about a lot" and "widen your horizons" are just excuses. It's impossible to teach people everything they need beforehand. School isn't an initialization routine, yet for some reason, this is what schools try to do.
To be fair, there is the rare professor who teaches something beyond the subject matter. Most teachers basically program us with case statements, by drilling information into our heads and then testing us on it. This is nothing more than memorization. How many of you have crammed for a mid-term or final only to completely forget all the information one week later? This is because you didn't actually learn anything, and that's why the education system sucks.
What do I suggest? I mentioned the rare professor in the previous paragraph. This kind of prof teaches you how to teach yourself. Let's say I'm coding a tight loop and I need to learn some detail of switching theory or something. What do I do, cram for a test and get certification? No! I open the book on the subject, read about it, and then do what the book says. It never fails. You can learn almost anything better on your own (and by doing) than in school. Just like literature... I hated that class because they made us read some boring stuff, but nowadays, I routinely pick up a good classic and get all sorts of neat knowledge out of it, because it's something I want, not an assignment that's taking away from my Saturday night.
So how do you teach how to learn? You make the students think in directions they didn't know existed before. Why is a hammer built the way it is? What was Paul Revere's occupation (and consequently, what was he doing at midnight, before his ride?) Why does the website of Le Grand Louvre depict certain pieces of art? (Why those pieces instead of others?) Who is the source of the news we read and see and hear? (Who is that source's source? Where is the root of all sources?) These things aren't "just there"--people made decisions and took certain actions, but most folks don't think in these terms. That's because most folks were taught to think in tunnel vision mode. It's very difficult to get out of that mode once you're in it--try teaching a BASIC programmer C and you'll understand what I mean.
The problem with our education system is that we're taught to expect the teacher to know the answer, and we memorize case statements--we're essentially being programmed like computers that have web browsers built into the CPU. (Hey, it's a well-rounded operating system.) We should be taught how to actually use our brains and teach ourselves whatever we need to know on the fly. Like I said, school isn't an initialization routine.
Here's an idea... there's User Mode Linux, a Linux kernel designed to run within another Linux kernel, rather than directly on the hardware. This permits all sort of debugging, security and other wonderful things.
From the 'uses' page:This is more a potential use, since UML only runs on Linux right now. But once it's ported to another OS, it is a completely authentic Linux environment - it will run any Linux executable. This would be an interesting shortcut for an OS vendor looking for Linux binary compatibility. See the projects page for more information on porting UML to other operating systems.
Following that idea, it would be cool to port UML to MacOS X. (Would that automatically work on FreeBSD?) This way, you can run MacOS X, Linux (UML), MacOS 9.x inside that and DOS inside that. Why anybody would want to do that is beyond me, but it seems like a cool idea. Hey, with UML, it might be possible to have a "native" Linux system running on just about any operating system.
Here's a scary thought: If Linux runs under Windows, what happens when Windows crashes? On second thought, maybe it's better to run Linux as the native OS and emulate or virtualize the junk under that.
I think LCDs could be improved a little bit in the dark color range. Unlike a CRT, which is a black surface on which color is added, LCDs are a white surface on which color is subtracted by blocking the light.
IMO, the image on LCDs already looks a lot better than that of CRTs, and doesn't fatigue me as much. In fact, no matter what refresh rate I was using with my CRT, I could always see the flicker for some reason. My eyes actually hurt after looking at the monitor for a few hours. This problem got worse proportionally with larger displays, so graphical work was always very tiring. The LCD fixed that. Yes, there is a refresh rate, but it works differently than that of a CRT, so I cannot see the LCD refresh.
I think the advantages of LCDs outweigh the disadvantage of slower animation. Most work I do is either textual (writing or coding) or graphical. There is rarely any fast action going on. (I occasionally play Quake II, the only game I ever bought, but with a CRT. I just don't play for very long. Why should I? There's so much to life that if I'm not working, I prefer to do things unrelated to computers.)
As for television (and this is a weak argument as I rarely watch TV), I think LCDs already accomodate that format quite well. The colors look great. Yeah, fast action isn't as good, but oh well.:-)
Like I said before, the only thing I would improve about the LCD is its reproduction of really dark colors--that is, better blocking of the light.
From the article: "Once surveillance tools receive legitimization, who can guarantee that they'll always be used in enlightened ways by an administration in, oh, how about the year 2084?"
This is a good point. I'm glad someone finally pays attention to what's going on. Each standalone piece of legislation eventually gets combined into something larger when newer legislation is added. Rarely if ever is any legislation removed. The end result is that the government can only increase its power, decreasing that of its people. We can talk all we want about passing laws, like encryption backdoors, national ID cards, etc. The problem is that most people understand how these laws affect their lives now, but they don't extrapolate and try to picture the future. Furthermore...
From the article: "The competitive angle: If U.S. companies are forced to play by the these rules, rest assured there are foreign companies aplenty that will get around the Americans' export ban."
... You can't say that the encryption won't be cracked. Where there's a will, there's a way, and the backdoors will eventually be cracked. It's only a matter of time. Crackers (and foreign companies) will continue to use unencumbered encryption, while accessing our communications through the backdoors. The whole scheme sounds great from our law enforcement's point of view, but will actually make us much less secure. Imagine financial, legal and medical information getting into the wrong hands. (Besides, you don't honestly believe the government will use the same weak encryption as we will, do you?)
To make a long story short, as with any technology and knowledge, encryption can be used for good or evil. Chances are, most everything is used mostly for good. We shouldn't punish our entire country because some jerk-off from Wastelandistan may have used encryption.
"Also, so much is said about the problems of space debris. GPS recievers can be small, small enough to attach to debris. Yes, placing it on every little thing could suck, but on the larger things that pose a real hazard."
Several months ago, I listened to a radio show where they talked about space debris from all sorts of previous missions. As it turns out, they currently track objects that are quite large, as well as objects the size of a soda can. IIRC that's the smallest they can track. All space debris, even smaller than what they can track, poses a serious hazard to satellites and more so to larger vehicles. Imagine something the size of a golf ball hitting the space shuttle at the speed of a bullet and you've got an idea of the danger. Chances are, the shuttle is designed to get hit by all sorts of stuff, but it can still cause serious damage.
Destroying the space trash isn't the answer either, as it would simply smash larger pieces into smaller pieces, and that's an even bigger mess.
For some reason, I don't think a GPS receiver can be placed on all but the largest pieces of trash. It's like mice who wanted to place a bell around the cat's neck for advance warning. They all cheered about the great idea until an old, wise mouse came along and asked, "And who will put the bell on the cat?" Besides, to attach a receiver to a piece of space debris, you'd have to intercept the debris with a vehicle. If you're going to go through all that trouble, you may as well send a garbage truck^H^H^H^H^Hshuttle and collect all the pieces.
I hate when that happens: when the word is on the tip of my tongue but I don't remember what it is... and the harder I try to remember, the more it escapes me. I think it'd be cool if there was a reverse-dictionary: one where you look up the definition and get the word. A thesaurus wouldn't really work, because all the words of the English language are in it except the one you need. No... maybe a computerized version of a reverse-dictionary will be possible in a few years. Just type in a bunch of words that mean something similar and the computer will search for a word like that. Actually, it's probably not possible.:-( Oh well.
Slashdot Mirror
Alright folks; I already mailed the sample letter from the EFF to my reps, but some of you said I should write my own letter to express my views in my own words. I have done so, and here it is. I will hand-write this letter neatly and mail it certified mail with signature and return receipt, but first, I'd like some constructive criticism and stuff. If anybody wants to, you can mail this letter or modify it to suit your needs. Thanks...
Dear [],
As a constituent, I am gravely concerned over the draft Hollings/Stevens copyright legislation, "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act" (SSSCA), principally authored by the Walt Disney corporation. Please vote AGAINST SSSCA when introduced.
Entertainment companies are pushing this legislation for their convenience, at the expense of unrelated industry nationwide. Introduced as a copyright bill, SSSCA will force electronics and computer software manufacturers to include copyright enforcement technologies in their products. Essentially, Hollywood will dictate design decisions affecting products that have nothing to do with entertainment.
Many important and necessary technologies will become illegal if SSSCA is passed. Computer programs classified as Open Source are an important example. These programs power vast portions of the Internet and are utilized by companies the likes of IBM, the NYSE and even government agencies from NASA to the NSA. Briefly, Open Source programs allow custom modifications to their inner workings. The possibility of removing copyright enforcement presents a big SSSCA loophole, impossible to solve without outlawing Open Source. For obvious reasons, this cannot and must not take place.
Despite these devastating consequences for legitimate business nationwide, SSSCA will NOT benefit copyright holders. Those who use electronics to infringe on copyrights will continue to do so using older, uncrippled products. The SSSCA punishes legitimate individuals and companies for no reason at all. I strongly urge you to oppose such legislation and vote AGAINST SSSCA when introduced.
Sincerely,
[Your name & address]
Intel today announced its new 1024-bit (1 kilobit) microprocessor architecture technology. Named the Shiitakeum, Intel's new processor core boasts powerful new technologies which will enable content providers to deliver compelling enterprise solutions.
The Shiitakeum incorporates the following new features:
* SingleAtom technology squeezes one thousand transistors into a single atom.
* The processing pipeline has been broken down into 299,792,458 discreet steps, enabling Intel to remove the internal clock altogether and run the processor at the speed of light. One "cycle" represents the absolute cosmic measure unit of time, and all operations occur in one cycle. (Compete with that, AMD! Bwahaahahahaha!!)
* 24,856 new instructions have been added since the previous model, bringing the new total to over 72 trillion instructions. The entire UNIX operating system can be programmed in one instruction!
* RAM has been depreciated. 4 terabytes of internal general-use registers allow software to make more efficient data access, providing a more compelling Internet experience.
* Intel (r) AnswerNow (tm) Technology bends the space-time continuum, allowing the results of branch instructions and mathematical operations to be used before they are computed. The computations take place during idle cycles at some future time.
* Intel (r) CodeSpirit (tm) Technology processes machine code by its spirit, rather than its letter, completely eliminating software bugs and preventing malicious code, such as a virus, from executing.
* Intel (r) AlienCode (tm) Technology, based on CodeSpirit, allows users to execute programs written for any other processor, without previous knowledge of that processor's instruction set. The technology examines and "decyphers" the instructions and data in much the same way that scientists decypher written languages used by past civilizations. Via AnswerNow and CodeSpirit technologies, programs written for other processors actually run faster and better on Intel platforms than on their native processor. As a side effect, the processor now directly executes programs and scripts written in Java or any P-code or text-based language. In fact, even instructions spelled out in English are understood and executed by the processor.
* Intel (r) BrainWaves (tm) Technology allows the processor to read and write information in the user's mind. The processor is given away for free, and based on the user's thoughts, targetted advertisements are inserted directly into the user's mind. The process is painless, and simply feels like a song stuck in your head. A nominal (i.e., expensive) fee can be paid daily to eliminate the advertisements.
The Intel Shiitakeum Processor. Mushrooms Inside.
Heh heh heh... I like your response. To answer your question, no, I don't think it's cool to be a faggot and have a Honda with a bunch of shit on it that just makes you want to beat the [sensored] out of it with a baseball bat.
Some might wonder why I think rice burners suck. Well, to start off, there are muscle cars (or hot rods, depending on your background). These cars are built for performance. Case in point: they haul ass. Well one day, about 3 or 4 years ago, I was leaving a math class when I heard this luser say, "and then I got bigger exhaust so I beat him, and then he got bigger exhaust so he beat me, so now I'm gonna get bigger exhaust and beat him again." Obviously, a rice boy. Every owner of a fine muscle car knows that exhaust does NOTHING for performance. (Actually, I take that back. The size and shape of your exhaust does make a small difference in performance. Replace manifolds with headers and you'll get a tiny performance improvement, because there will be slightly less back-pressure on the piston during the exhaust stroke (meaning the motor wastes less energy on keeping itself running). Or replacing headers with equal-length headers (they look like they're tied in a knot) is supposed to improve balance between the cylinders. It could be the difference between a 13.0 and a 12.9, for example. (Rice burners, on the other hand, are lucky to run low 17's.) Contrary to clever marketing, however, the difference is minimal. But the idiot rice boys (or girls) think the car is powered by the exhaust (as if the car is propelled by the exhaust leaving the pipe or something). What they don't know is that beyond the minimal improvement gained by the correct exhaust, any changes either do nothing (except cost you money) or actually degrade performance (so I've heard) (but again, this is so minimal it will hardly be noticed). I mean shit, if you really want to improve your exhaust, modifying the valves or cam will make a much larger difference--but again, the wrong change will degrade performance so you better know what you're doing. (And if the exhaust is a bottleneck, you're probably running way too rich, in which case you can gain enormous performance and increase gas mileage by adjusting your distributor, which won't cost you jack shit. (Unless you fsck up your firing order or something impossible like that.)) In short, if you want to go fast, you need to understand a lot of mechanical shit, and then you have to build the car appropriately. For example, drop in a 5.0 and a new trans. Or, if you're into the recent Camaros (those guys aren't too bright either--but I do admit, those cars are quick), you can just pop your hood and replace a computer chip, gaining something like 300 horsepower. (Isn't it amazing what's under the hood of those things? You open the hood and all you see is electronics! The first time I saw one of those, I asked, "Is there actually a motor in there?!") Rice boys are a bunch of dumb asses (much worse than Camaro guys, who at least drive American), so they think spending a shitload of money on shiny chrome will improve performance.) Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, so I think rice burners suck because the stupid shit people put on those cars costs a shitload of money and does nothing for performance. But that's not the real reason. You see, that's just human stupidity. The real reason I hate rice burners is this: five years ago, my girlfriend dumped my ass and went for a rice boy! Fsck that!
(By the way, the Camaro comments are said with a friendly-competition kind of tone. Mustang guys and Camaro guys have always had that "sibling rivalry" behavior towards each other, but we all know the real enemies are the rice boys: because of them, we only get about half as many runs on race day. Besides, you'll see Mustang guys and Camaro guys hanging out together at the bar, but you'll never see a muscle car guy hanging out with a rice boy!)
IIRC, Disney co-authored the proposed SSSCA. Remember the Boycott Adobe site? There is, by chance, a Boycott Disney site, though it makes no mention of the SSSCA. I'll try to contact the owners. Maybe we can get a bunch of information posted there. Once that happens, I'll try to get the word out to all my friends. Everybody should mail letters to their reps, but in addition to that, companies need to know that they will lose MUCH business when they try to pull off schemes like this.
(Getting the aforementioned company's shares to fall through the floor is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Yes, I mailed snail-mail--with a stamp (though it's a self-adhesive; I don't know if that makes a difference). If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to do so NOW! It's easy--I mailed the EFF's sample letter because they pretty much summed it all up. It took ten minutes to do the whole thing. (It would have been cool to print out the 11,000 some odd signatures (mine is in there) on the petition and mail that with the letter. But in the words of my intelligent employer, "Oh well.")
I'll try to locate mailing addresses for others who might send letters as well. You might try talking to folks who own small businesses or even mail letters to large companies, telling them about the catastrophic consequences of such legislation. This isn't about music. I suggest you don't even mention music because that causes folks to think you're an MP3 pirate or some geek or something. This is NOT about media or any bullshit like that. This is about policeware on YOUR belongings. This is about your computer making decisions for you. This is about your fair-use rights going down the tubes. This will have an enormous effect on small business owners who make "digital devices" for a living, who will probably be put out of business by defective legislation like this. (Rest assured there will be an ENORMOUS price on certification. Only companies the likes of Sony could afford it. And best of all, this won't benefit the individual artist--it will fill the pockets of beaurocrats and RIAA executives, empowering them to come up with more innovative legal solutions. What, did you actually think the artist would benefit?!)
This is about our rights and our responsibility to protect those rights. It's NOT the responsibility of government to do that, contrary to what most people believe.
Let's talk about the consequences for a moment. Where do you draw the line on what contains policeware? Will industrial automation systems (these are digital devices) contain policeware? (How about the position readout (digital device) for the lathe?) Don't forget the computer in your car--that thing is a full-blown digital device. Or aircraft control systems--I'm sure there's something digital in those. Don't even mention medical devices--on second thought, I think those should be the first to receive this technology. The patient has a song stuck in their head, so the life support systems turn off and kills them. Hey, thinking about a song is a copyright violation! How about business computers? (I'm not talking about a Dell desktop, I'm talking about computers the size of refridgerators.) What about ICs? Like 74F373 (latch/flip-flop)--that's a "digital device." Oh, I know, let's put Microsoft DRM software on every transistor. Will wristwatches (digital devices) need to contain government-mandated digital rights management? Will it be illegal to "traffic in" Swiss watches, which don't contain this compelling enterprise solution? Think this is funny? Think again. This is DEFECTIVE, but someone somewhere will go to PRISON for it if this gets passed. It could be you. I suggest you mail that letter ASAP. Either that, or buy some open airline tickets and have a suitcase packed and ready at all times. Better yet, just move out of the country while you have the chance.
Oh yeah, and let's see... the SSSCA is a sort of "extension" to the DMCA. I wonder what kind of law they'll come up with five years from now? Oh, I have a good idea: How about a law that states you have to mail $100 to the RIAA every time you get a song stuck in your head? Yeah, let me write up a draft and mail it to Congress.
It's time to write a distributed program that will grok all legalese in the world, and use massive seti@home-style processing to figure out every possible way to repeal the DMCA and other defective copyright laws. The distributed program would itself be protected by the DMCA, and any attempts by the MPAA/RIAA to stop the processing would be "circumvention."
Well it's a big relief that I didn't recognize it before. Thanks. :-)
It's a good article.
I like the part near the end where he said that we now take for granted microprocessors containing tens of millions of transistors. It's the kind of thing that makes you (or at least me) respect everything that goes into these damn computers. Oh yeah, and it gives you some idea of the vast waste in the name of time-to-market and whatnot. Back in the days, computers that didn't have nearly as much power as today performed many functions very quickly and efficiently. Nowadays, computers that are a hundred times faster and better do everything a hundred times slower because many of today's programs don't contain good algorithms, don't contain good data structures, and do contain a shitload of flow control statements that can be eliminated by doing a few math instructions or replaced by a small look up table. This isn't the programmer's fault by the way. There are many clever programmers out there who do amazing things, but unfortunately, the damn suits don't let them do their jobs. And furthermore, they are few and far between when compared to the overflowing numbers of script kiddies who write shit code that unfortunately makes it into "products" because companies care more about their bottom line than the quality of their work. To suits, the most important part of their product (in other words, the technical part, whether it is a 400 pound cast-iron cylinder or a floppy diskette containing program instructions) is nothing but a bunch of pesky details they'd rather didn't exist. Furthermore, they have no respect for the programmer (or any other employee for that matter, but I think programmers are looked down upon by many of these suits). When an engineer says it'll take a year to build a bridge, suits will believe it. When a clever programmer says it'll take a year to build a complicated program, the suits think you're out of your mind for coming up with that (very realistic) number--when they're the ones out of their minds for coming up with the ridiculous idea in the first place. Programmers would rather do interesting things with their knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, suits ask their programmers to make boring shit instead, and then don't even respect the thought and brain-breaking work that goes into it. After all, how hard could it be to bang together some sequences of instructions? Hey, if the suit's 8-year-old kid can put together a stupid website in ten minutes, why can't a complicated software project get completed in two weeks or so? Well, however long it takes, it's unacceptable. So instead of hiring the clever programmer wearing the T-shirt (the one who estimated a very realistic year), we'll hire those script kiddies wearing the suits. Their professional estimate for the work is two business days.
And the worst part is when they (the suits) write their stupid fscking press releases or whatever they are, which contain a proliferation of words like "innovative", "enterprise", "collaboration", etc. They'll market printf() as, for example, a compelling enterprise architecture leveraging innovative platforms and streamlining leading edge technology solutions to content providers. All of which means absolutely nothing. On a glossy brochure. That is what I call taking tens of millions of transistors for granted. It's not the programmers' faults. It's the suits who don't care's faults. (Yeah, there are suits out there who do care. But the ratio of suits who do care to suits who's damns they give (give damns?) only to the bottom line must be like 1:9999999999999999999999999999) It pisses me off just to think about the sorry state of things. I believe the suits caused the dot-bomb crash. The programmers (not the script-kiddies) were just trying to do their jobs. The suits frieked out because the work took more than five minutes to complete. Crash. End of story.
P.S., this was not intended as a troll.
"Yahoo!" should change their name to "Oh well..."
What does B8 00 4C CD 21 mean?
To answer your sig: "That thud you just heard was all the former BeOS users throwing their PC's out the window..."
If you want to talk about efficiency in GUIs, BeOS has an awesome graphical system. (I used R3 through R5.) Too bad the company fscked up so bad. Oh well. We all know the command line is where the real power is. (GUIs are nice on laptops though. It just seems more appropriate to run a GUI.) Sorry for the off-topic post.
I know this is offtopic, but it's a good opportunity to bash the evil empire and their evil inventions, so here goes.
I have a friend who is a below-the-knee doctor. He stores his patient records in a Mafiasoft Access database. That by itself wouldn't be so bad, but he made the mistake of hiring a professional to set up a good system for him. Among other things, the professional wrote custom VBA (or VBS, something with Visual Basic in it) code for Access. This professional put together an elaborate user interface where you can't read any of the words because the background and foreground colors are so similar. To make a long story short, this eyesore looks very unprofessional. And it cost my doctor friend big bucks!
On one occasion, my doctor friend asked me to look at the thing and try to modify the colors and get rid of a few fields he never uses. Having no previous knowledge of Access, I went through all the menus and dialogs, thinking this change couldn't possibly be more difficult than clicking a few check marks. I discovered the Visual Basic noise (I won't even call it code) and spent the whole day trying to understand the unbelievable mess that was written there. Not only is the language syntax sloppy and obfuscated, the code^H^H^H^Hnoise was really horrible.
I never actually fixed the problem, because I know better than to mess with anything when the noise is so bad. I suppose this proves the theory that you can't make a programmer out of a BASIC luser.
Another friend of mine used Delphi 3 back in the days. I remember playing with it and (with no instruction) putting together a little database program for keeping track of books you have (and their author, etc). Although Delphi uses the Pascal language, the whole system from its user interface to the integration between visual stuff and code is excellent. I clicked together a simple window, wrote about 10 lines of code total, and the program functioned. I think this is what Mafiasoft tried to implement in VBS but they created an unbelievable mess instead. (Or rather, an innovative platform for compelling enterprise-wide virus solutions--remember, everything revolves around marketing, therefore sh*t is actually fertilizer, which will promote the growth and vigor of the enterprise.) To make a long story short, I don't care whether VBS is compiled, bytecode, interpreted or self-deleting. It's a crappy system and it promotes crappy programming.
As a side note, Mafiasoft could license these technologies to the MPAA and RIAA. Every time Mafiasoft Windoze or an application detects that the user is trying to play a copyrighted song, the user will be shot in the head. This will be stated in the license agreement, which every person in the world, upon birth, will be required to accept (Mafiasoft's monopoly will cover the right to breath oxygen by the time this is implemented--if you do not accept the terms of this license agreement, well, let's just say you have to accept the terms of this license agreement).
For innovation's sake and added convenience, Mafiasoft will implement hooks for VBS files to fire the shotgun as well. By leveraging these innovative technologies, virus providers will streamline compelling virus solutions.
(You know what? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if something retarded like this actually got released by that company.)
Mafiasoft: Where do you want to pay today?
Now all we need is a new clause in the Mafiasoft Windoze license agreement in addition to some innovative technology. The clause would state that you shall not flip off Mafiasoft Windoze. The technology would be a double-barreled shotgun mounted to a robotic base on top of the computer monitor. This shotgun would be fired by a solenoid controlled by Mafiasoft Windoze. Every time Mafiasoft Windoze detects that it's being flipped off, it will simultaneously perform two innovative actions:
1. It will fire the shotgun at the user's head, roadrage-style.
2. It will reboot and display the following message:
Mafiasoft: Where do you want to pay today?
What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.
Well, for one thing, you can put the damn things next to the moon rocks in the museum. Then, folks and their annoying little brat kids will flock from all over the world to bust a gander, and while they're there, you can shove all sorts of fascinating propoganda in their face.
And then, like others have said, there's the fact that you can't fit an entire laboratory on a mars lander that will likely be built so light, they won't be able to build a model as light as the real thing.
I wonder what kind of processors they'll use on this lander, whether they'll be in-house specialties, military components, or products otherwise available on the market.
The other reason for a mission like this is development of new technologies and sciences. Imagine if 20 years from now, NASA will send up unmanned ships containing robots of various types that will land on the solid planets or moons in our solar system, perform experiments on site, collect materials and come back. When that becomes possible, imagine the effect on technology we use here on Earth. (I mean, Mafiasoft Windoze 2020 will probably take up 84 exabytes of disk space by then, and there won't even be a desktop--all your content will be served by Mafiasoft's servers, after authenticating through DRM-2020 that you're actually allowed to use Windoze, and all operations will be carried out by talking directly to the talking paperclip. If you don't want to talk, body language, hand and face gestures will be recognized by the paperclip, and it will usually perform the wrong operation, such as deleting your dissertation when you actually wanted to get the latest stock quotes or some other typical Mafiasoft result. Anyway... enough about that.)
I personally believe email is the killer app of the Internet. Sure, there's other stuff, like news, chat and, recently, the web, but I think email is what made it all happen. If there never was email, I think the whole Internet thing wouldn't have taken off at all. Yeah, people give credit for the recent take off to the world wide web, but I'm talking about the Internet getting to the stage it was in when the web was invented. Oh well... All I'm saying is, email rocks!
How will industrial factories be affected by this? Will industrial machine control systems be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks always use industrial machines to pirate music.)
How will medical systems be affected by this? Will every computerized medical device contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks always use medical devices to pirate music.)
How will the automotive industry be affected by this? Will emissions control computers be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks always use their distance-speed sensor to pirate music.)
How will NASA be affected by this? Will new satellites be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks have always pirated music through Voyager II.)
How will airlines be affected by this? Will new flight control systems and air traffic control towers be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Geeks use box-cutters to pirate music through airline communication systems.)
How will handheld calculators be affected by this? Will calculators be required to contain MPAA/RIAA-approved hardware and software? (Yes; Real Geeks have always computed the MPEG encoding manually.)
I have a better solution: Let's just have sensors with satellite-phone transmitters installed directly in our brains. These sensors will contact the gestapo whenever we think about viewing or listening to content without first paying the copyright holder for each instance.
CONGRESS.SYS corrupt. Reboot Washington DC? (Y/n)
The only detail I'm curious to know about this whole thing is... why the fsck did Netscrape and Mafiasoft put these alleged "features" into their defective browsers in the first place?! A back button should do what it says, namely, go BACK, not open 6.02x10^28 pr0n windows!
Shameless plug: I just use Opera. It costs money, which I gladly paid, because it actually WORKS unlike the previously mentioned excuses for browsers! Version 5.12 is great, as nearly all sites work the same as on the defective browsers--this includes online banking and bill-paying that didn't previously work with version 4.
And even if you don't use Opera... Friends don't let friends use Mafiasoft products!
I think I should add something to my earlier comment. Several folks have given their argument for well-rounded educations, based on the idea that people should be functional in other areas of life besides the details of their career. In a way, I'm arguing for the same result but against the approach currently taken by many schools and professors. (Part of keeping an open mind is knowing that there are often more than two choices.)
The current approach is teaching various subjects to students, whether they like it or not. I believe in a somewhat different approach: There are a small number of subjects that must be a requirement of school, as they are a requirement of modern life. These are reading, writing and math. And, the fourth subject, the subject of learning, as I described (not so well) in my previous post. These provide the foundation on which everything else (history, the arts, the sciences and technical subjects) can be learned. Unless I've forgotten something, everything goes under those categories, including bartending, machine operation, brain surgery, truck driving, web design, manufacturing engineering, money laundering, astronomy and archeology. I would say that nearly all known knowledge is printed in a book somewhere. All the student needs is the foundation, self respect, desire and ability to learn, at runtime, on the fly. A well-rounded education won't give you that but an education--starting in kindergarden, not college--that teaches you how to learn will.
No, I don't think this is what companies want. Companies (at least ones that stay in business long enough to pay their employees) want results, and last I checked, they don't care how you accomplish them, as long as they're delivered on time and on budget.
Isn't it amazing how the education system in this country is so screwed up?! It starts in public education and ends after your first two years of college. This whole "well-rounded" thing is there to hold you back an additional 2 years before you go into the workforce. "Know a little about a lot" and "widen your horizons" are just excuses. It's impossible to teach people everything they need beforehand. School isn't an initialization routine, yet for some reason, this is what schools try to do.
To be fair, there is the rare professor who teaches something beyond the subject matter. Most teachers basically program us with case statements, by drilling information into our heads and then testing us on it. This is nothing more than memorization. How many of you have crammed for a mid-term or final only to completely forget all the information one week later? This is because you didn't actually learn anything, and that's why the education system sucks.
What do I suggest? I mentioned the rare professor in the previous paragraph. This kind of prof teaches you how to teach yourself. Let's say I'm coding a tight loop and I need to learn some detail of switching theory or something. What do I do, cram for a test and get certification? No! I open the book on the subject, read about it, and then do what the book says. It never fails. You can learn almost anything better on your own (and by doing) than in school. Just like literature... I hated that class because they made us read some boring stuff, but nowadays, I routinely pick up a good classic and get all sorts of neat knowledge out of it, because it's something I want, not an assignment that's taking away from my Saturday night.
So how do you teach how to learn? You make the students think in directions they didn't know existed before. Why is a hammer built the way it is? What was Paul Revere's occupation (and consequently, what was he doing at midnight, before his ride?) Why does the website of Le Grand Louvre depict certain pieces of art? (Why those pieces instead of others?) Who is the source of the news we read and see and hear? (Who is that source's source? Where is the root of all sources?) These things aren't "just there"--people made decisions and took certain actions, but most folks don't think in these terms. That's because most folks were taught to think in tunnel vision mode. It's very difficult to get out of that mode once you're in it--try teaching a BASIC programmer C and you'll understand what I mean.
The problem with our education system is that we're taught to expect the teacher to know the answer, and we memorize case statements--we're essentially being programmed like computers that have web browsers built into the CPU. (Hey, it's a well-rounded operating system.) We should be taught how to actually use our brains and teach ourselves whatever we need to know on the fly. Like I said, school isn't an initialization routine.
Here's an idea... there's User Mode Linux, a Linux kernel designed to run within another Linux kernel, rather than directly on the hardware. This permits all sort of debugging, security and other wonderful things.
From the 'uses' page: This is more a potential use, since UML only runs on Linux right now. But once it's ported to another OS, it is a completely authentic Linux environment - it will run any Linux executable. This would be an interesting shortcut for an OS vendor looking for Linux binary compatibility. See the projects page for more information on porting UML to other operating systems.
Following that idea, it would be cool to port UML to MacOS X. (Would that automatically work on FreeBSD?) This way, you can run MacOS X, Linux (UML), MacOS 9.x inside that and DOS inside that. Why anybody would want to do that is beyond me, but it seems like a cool idea. Hey, with UML, it might be possible to have a "native" Linux system running on just about any operating system.
Here's a scary thought: If Linux runs under Windows, what happens when Windows crashes? On second thought, maybe it's better to run Linux as the native OS and emulate or virtualize the junk under that.
I think LCDs could be improved a little bit in the dark color range. Unlike a CRT, which is a black surface on which color is added, LCDs are a white surface on which color is subtracted by blocking the light.
IMO, the image on LCDs already looks a lot better than that of CRTs, and doesn't fatigue me as much. In fact, no matter what refresh rate I was using with my CRT, I could always see the flicker for some reason. My eyes actually hurt after looking at the monitor for a few hours. This problem got worse proportionally with larger displays, so graphical work was always very tiring. The LCD fixed that. Yes, there is a refresh rate, but it works differently than that of a CRT, so I cannot see the LCD refresh.
I think the advantages of LCDs outweigh the disadvantage of slower animation. Most work I do is either textual (writing or coding) or graphical. There is rarely any fast action going on. (I occasionally play Quake II, the only game I ever bought, but with a CRT. I just don't play for very long. Why should I? There's so much to life that if I'm not working, I prefer to do things unrelated to computers.)
As for television (and this is a weak argument as I rarely watch TV), I think LCDs already accomodate that format quite well. The colors look great. Yeah, fast action isn't as good, but oh well. :-)
Like I said before, the only thing I would improve about the LCD is its reproduction of really dark colors--that is, better blocking of the light.
From the article: "Once surveillance tools receive legitimization, who can guarantee that they'll always be used in enlightened ways by an administration in, oh, how about the year 2084?"
This is a good point. I'm glad someone finally pays attention to what's going on. Each standalone piece of legislation eventually gets combined into something larger when newer legislation is added. Rarely if ever is any legislation removed. The end result is that the government can only increase its power, decreasing that of its people. We can talk all we want about passing laws, like encryption backdoors, national ID cards, etc. The problem is that most people understand how these laws affect their lives now, but they don't extrapolate and try to picture the future. Furthermore...
From the article: "The competitive angle: If U.S. companies are forced to play by the these rules, rest assured there are foreign companies aplenty that will get around the Americans' export ban."
... You can't say that the encryption won't be cracked. Where there's a will, there's a way, and the backdoors will eventually be cracked. It's only a matter of time. Crackers (and foreign companies) will continue to use unencumbered encryption, while accessing our communications through the backdoors. The whole scheme sounds great from our law enforcement's point of view, but will actually make us much less secure. Imagine financial, legal and medical information getting into the wrong hands. (Besides, you don't honestly believe the government will use the same weak encryption as we will, do you?)
To make a long story short, as with any technology and knowledge, encryption can be used for good or evil. Chances are, most everything is used mostly for good. We shouldn't punish our entire country because some jerk-off from Wastelandistan may have used encryption.
"Also, so much is said about the problems of space debris. GPS recievers can be small, small enough to attach to debris. Yes, placing it on every little thing could suck, but on the larger things that pose a real hazard."
Several months ago, I listened to a radio show where they talked about space debris from all sorts of previous missions. As it turns out, they currently track objects that are quite large, as well as objects the size of a soda can. IIRC that's the smallest they can track. All space debris, even smaller than what they can track, poses a serious hazard to satellites and more so to larger vehicles. Imagine something the size of a golf ball hitting the space shuttle at the speed of a bullet and you've got an idea of the danger. Chances are, the shuttle is designed to get hit by all sorts of stuff, but it can still cause serious damage.
Destroying the space trash isn't the answer either, as it would simply smash larger pieces into smaller pieces, and that's an even bigger mess.
For some reason, I don't think a GPS receiver can be placed on all but the largest pieces of trash. It's like mice who wanted to place a bell around the cat's neck for advance warning. They all cheered about the great idea until an old, wise mouse came along and asked, "And who will put the bell on the cat?" Besides, to attach a receiver to a piece of space debris, you'd have to intercept the debris with a vehicle. If you're going to go through all that trouble, you may as well send a garbage truck^H^H^H^H^Hshuttle and collect all the pieces.
Yes! That's it: intuitive! Thanks!
I hate when that happens: when the word is on the tip of my tongue but I don't remember what it is... and the harder I try to remember, the more it escapes me. I think it'd be cool if there was a reverse-dictionary: one where you look up the definition and get the word. A thesaurus wouldn't really work, because all the words of the English language are in it except the one you need. No... maybe a computerized version of a reverse-dictionary will be possible in a few years. Just type in a bunch of words that mean something similar and the computer will search for a word like that. Actually, it's probably not possible. :-( Oh well.