I hate hype. Pundits, marketeers, and congressfolks, however, have the disturbing ability of extruding bushels and barrels of hype from mere teaspoons of data. Here is a wonderful example. Given a few bits of real information ("you can look up stuff online" and "white middle-class kids are more likely to use the net"), a pundit can create a screaming tirade against the injustice of the system, calling for the immediate execution of the King.
Sometimes I think that there should be a 30 day waiting period on posts by pundits, to force them to think over what they're about to say (heh--myself included).
I just want to offer a few questions to ponder.
Is the Internet helpful in the education of children? How helpful is it in teaching children how to read? How many people do you know who learned arithmetic on a website? Is there any information that exists solely on the web that will teach children how to think critically?
Of course, since a significant number of children who pass through American schools never learn these skills, perhaps the Internet is just as good as traditional schooling.
In my heretical opinion, there is no call for including computers in elementary education. It is far better to teach children how to learn and how to think logically than to teach them how to point and click.
Now, I'm not looking to play the blame game but England and the United States are not ones to speak when it comes to avoiding world-accepted standards (inches vs. meters, driving left vs. driving right, etc).
So, is the world-accepted standard to drive on the left, or to drive on the right, and pray tell how can the UK and the US both violate said standard? Same for metric vs. english units, since the UK switched over a few years back.
Wow. Not only do Rob & Hemos get funding, but also the rest of us will get new Slashdot stories 24 hours a day. This means I'll have a reason to look at/. again after 3:00 PDT every day. Anyway, congratulations, guys. Keep up the good work.
Doesn't it seem strange that the US Government is trying really hard to protect a law that says, in effect, that US software developers are not allowed to compete with international developers in making products that use strong encryption?
This law doesn't protect American interests. It just makes international customers reluctant to buy American software.
> (the first Unix implementation was done in > berkeley I think).
The first Unix implementation (and, in fact, the original definition of the OS) was done by Ken Thompson at AT&T (which is why AT&T owns the trademark on the name "Unix"). Later, Dennis Ritchie wrote a new language, and he convinced Thompson to rewrite Unix in this new language, which Ritchie called "C". Does any of this sound familiar?
Sheesh... kids who haven't heard of Ken Thompson... I must be getting old...
The laws are even MORE stupidly arrogant that that: they make the assumption that only US citizens will have the ability to use a text editor a hand-copy a program from a textbook and then run a compiler on it. (There is no restriction on printed materials--mostly.) In other words, they assume that all non-US citizens have the technical savvy of a congresscritter.
A better question would be "What do you need a TV/VCR/phone/fax/whatever for now?"
Why should I clutter up my home with inflexible, single-purpose electronic doohickeys, when I can get a few PCs to do it all. Who needs a TV when you can put a tuner card in a comptuter, and use it for something useful when you aren't watching the tube. Why get a VCR, when DVDs are available?
A computer is an all-purpose machine. No matter how many special-purpose devices you build, they won't provide all of the possibilities that you have with a fully-functional computer.
Besides, who wants a lobotomized PC, which is basically what all of the NetPC/WebTV devices really amount to.
From "The Top-Secret Microsoft Plan for World Domination (don't tell the DOJ":
23.1.7: Application features
Applications that have a lot of features sell better than ones that have few features. However, there is little or no correspondence between the quality of said features and the profitability of an application. Thus, programmers should concentrate on creating many new features as quickly as possible. If the features don't actually work, customers will simply have to avoid using them.
This article misses one of the most important features of Linux: you can use the software without signing any licensing agreement, or even paying for it. There's been a lot said about the virtues of "free speech" software, and I agree that it is beneficial. However, we shouldn't ignore the fact that "free beer" software is great, and that it's one of the main reasons that so much "free speech" software is available. Idealism is a fine thing, but it's hard to compete with free toys.
If I had a nickel for everytime I've heard the arguments "Linux might splinter" and "Linux has no roadmap", my pants would fall off because of all the change in my pockets. These cliches are so tired and worthless, I'm not even going to bother arguing about them. Now I'm going to create my own personal version of Linux and doom you all to hideous consequences. All Linux users will bow before me! Muhahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
(Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that this message contains sarcasm.)
There are certain buzzwords that are sure to make semi-informed technophiles starry-eyed. Mr. Katz invokes two of the most effective of these: AI and supercomputer. As with most articles written for the consumption of the masses that use these buzzwords, this article paints a rosy picture of the future ("When we get to the Emerald City, the Wizard will solve all of our problems, Toto!)
However, reality is more complex than he realizes.
Although I am convinced that artificial intelligence is possible, I am skeptical that it will be such a huge advance over an existing technology known as "intelligence". Humans have possessed intelligence for millenia (at least since H. habilis, and probably earlier, but I'm not a paleontologist), but somehow we're still not living in Utopia. Mr. Katz's bold prediction that AI will solve social problems ignores the fact that attempts to solve society's ills have consumed countless processor-years on the organic supercomputers installed in the human frame, all without much useful result. It would be nice to think that an AI philosopher could discover an idea that would make all of humanity behave decently towards one another, but I don't expect it.
As for the other buzzword: a supercomputer is just a peek at tomorrow's microcomputers. Think of Moore's law, and start counting off powers of two. I find microcomputers much more interesting because they can be owned by ordinary individuals, rather than being the sole property of Big Government, Big Business, and Big Science.
Jon does a good job in describing his perception of the distinctions between reality and virtual reality. However, his usual disclaimer applies: Jon Katz is not a programmer. Despite his brief reference to "deep magic", his appreciation of the 'net is primarily of high-level constructs (weblogs, MUDs, chat rooms, etc.) and their impact on humans. Thus, his view of the 'net is as an alternate world, whose rules are different from those governing the real, "stub-your-toe" reality.
He misses two key facts. First, if you picture the Internet as reality, then programmers really are wizards, since we can not only understand the basic nature of reality by delving into tomes, grimoires, and RFCs; but also change the very fabric of reality. (Granted, changing the definition of an IP packet on your machine might not be such a great idea--but you can do it if you really want to.) Being able to find out exactly what makes your reality operate at the very lowest level is pretty cool--think of it as being able to look at a person and see all of the organs and tissues working and interoperating, the cells growing and dying, the mitochondria metabolizing sugar molecules, the medichloreans interacting with the Force (OK, not really), the protein molecules being built from amino acids, and so on, all the way down to the quantum waveform of each electron.
The other fact he misses is that the Internet isn't really about MUDs, or chat rooms, or 3D interactive worlds. The Internet is purely a means of sending information from one place to another. The reason this is important is that the protocols defining the Internet do not place restrictions on what networked applications can use them for. This means that the emergence of a global, universal computer network isn't simply a revolution, as Mr. Katz styles it. It is also a boundary condition for a nearly infinite number of future revolutions that we can't even imagine yet. Here's another analogy: before the Earth had accreted from the primordial gas cloud, there was no chance for life to develop; soon after the Earth had cooled enough to form a solid crust, primitive forms of life appeared. The primitive forms of Internet life are already widespread (applications, that is). The future of the Internet should be interesting.
What can I say? I think that Sir Alec Guiness saved Episode IV from being a simple shoot-em-up, blow-up-things-in-space movie. Ford was fun, but Guiness made it all seem more meaningful.
> If Intel had illegally obtained secrets from > competitors, don't you think their chips would > be at least as fast as their competitors?
Ah, but who would the NSA have to steal information from? Sun? SGI? HP? Cray? IBM? Do we see a pattern here, like maybe, all of these are U.S.-based companies?
Aside from that, have you ever heard of Kibo (hi Kibo!)? Your friendly neighborhood snoops (hi guys!) certainly have at least as great an ability to scan usenet as Kibo.
Mmmm, yes. Find your Furby. Take you to him I will. Hehehehe.
You must confront Bill Gates. Your father he is.
Look at my source code. Judge it by its size, will you? And well you should not, for my ally is a ninety-ton brontosaurus known as "Free Software". Hehehehe.
Measuring the work done by a programmer by the number of lines of code written is like measuring the quality of a piece of literature by its length. Is Proust's _Remembrance of Things Past_ really thousands of times better than Blake's "The Tiger"? Is it even reasonable to make the comparison?
For some reason, managers tend to think of coding as being akin to shoveling coal or cutting lumber, in that they expect it to be measurable in quantifiable terms. However, quality is the central issue in coding, not quantity.
I recall an old rumor that IBM used to pay programmers by the line of code. For some reason, their software became a *leetle* bit bloated.
The Jargon File and the Tao of Computing stand as the twin pillars of true wisdom in the world of hacking.
I would argue that the Jargon File is ESR's most important contribution to hacker culture. This collection of folklore, humor, and myth is wonderful. Think of it as a mirror, and look into it to see yourself. (OK, maybe the mirror is a little bit curved...)
Besides, it has "The Story of Mel" and GLS's "A Story About 'Magic'" in it.
Slashdot Mirror
> that would be bad for you, you schlemazel.
That's schlemiel to you, bub. Now watch out or I'll spill soup on you.
I hate hype. Pundits, marketeers, and congressfolks, however, have the disturbing ability of extruding bushels and barrels of hype from mere teaspoons of data. Here is a wonderful example. Given a few bits of real information ("you can look up stuff online" and "white middle-class kids are more likely to use the net"), a pundit can create a screaming tirade against the injustice of the system, calling for the immediate execution of the King.
Sometimes I think that there should be a 30 day waiting period on posts by pundits, to force them to think over what they're about to say (heh--myself included).
I just want to offer a few questions to ponder.
Is the Internet helpful in the education of children? How helpful is it in teaching children how to read? How many people do you know who learned arithmetic on a website? Is there any information that exists solely on the web that will teach children how to think critically?
Of course, since a significant number of children who pass through American schools never learn these skills, perhaps the Internet is just as good as traditional schooling.
In my heretical opinion, there is no call for including computers in elementary education. It is far better to teach children how to learn and how to think logically than to teach them how to point and click.
If you want it, there's no whois entry for:
slashslashdotdot.com
amazon.com
nile.com
mississippi.com
yangtze.com
ob.com
danube.com
missouri.com
rhine.com
columbia.com
ganges.com
yalu.com
euphrates.com
tigris.com
congo.com
Now, I'm not looking to play the blame game but England and the United States are not ones to speak when it comes to avoiding world-accepted standards (inches vs. meters, driving left vs. driving right, etc).
So, is the world-accepted standard to drive on the left, or to drive on the right, and pray tell how can the UK and the US both violate said standard? Same for metric vs. english units, since the UK switched over a few years back.
Wow. Not only do Rob & Hemos get funding, but also the rest of us will get new Slashdot stories 24 hours a day. This means I'll have a reason to look at /. again after 3:00 PDT every day. Anyway, congratulations, guys. Keep up the good work.
Doesn't it seem strange that the US Government is trying really hard to protect a law that says, in effect, that US software developers are not allowed to compete with international developers in making products that use strong encryption?
This law doesn't protect American interests. It just makes international customers reluctant to buy American software.
> (the first Unix implementation was done in
> berkeley I think).
The first Unix implementation (and, in fact, the original definition of the OS) was done by Ken Thompson at AT&T (which is why AT&T owns the trademark on the name "Unix"). Later, Dennis Ritchie wrote a new language, and he convinced Thompson to rewrite Unix in this new language, which Ritchie called "C". Does any of this sound familiar?
Sheesh... kids who haven't heard of Ken Thompson... I must be getting old...
The laws are even MORE stupidly arrogant that that: they make the assumption that only US citizens will have the ability to use a text editor a hand-copy a program from a textbook and then run a compiler on it. (There is no restriction on printed materials--mostly.) In other words, they assume that all non-US citizens have the technical savvy of a congresscritter.
I'm not sure that the Catholic Church would approve of some of the rituals I've seen:
1. Sacrificing AOL disks to the god of Packet Storms
2. Chanting the names of great hackers to ensure that code will compile without errors.
3. Building a shrine to the god of Greater Bandwidth entirely out of MSN CD-ROMs.
4. Imploring the High Priestess of IT for a larger disk quota.
5. Daemon processes. 'Nuff said.
> What do you need a PC for now?
A better question would be "What do you need a TV/VCR/phone/fax/whatever for now?"
Why should I clutter up my home with inflexible, single-purpose electronic doohickeys, when I can get a few PCs to do it all. Who needs a TV when you can put a tuner card in a comptuter, and use it for something useful when you aren't watching the tube. Why get a VCR, when DVDs are available?
A computer is an all-purpose machine. No matter how many special-purpose devices you build, they won't provide all of the possibilities that you have with a fully-functional computer.
Besides, who wants a lobotomized PC, which is basically what all of the NetPC/WebTV devices really amount to.
From "The Top-Secret Microsoft Plan for World Domination (don't tell the DOJ":
23.1.7: Application features
Applications that have a lot of features sell better than ones that have few features. However, there is little or no correspondence between the quality of said features and the profitability of an application. Thus, programmers should concentrate on creating many new features as quickly as possible. If the features don't actually work, customers will simply have to avoid using them.
This article misses one of the most important features of Linux: you can use the software without signing any licensing agreement, or even paying for it. There's been a lot said about the virtues of "free speech" software, and I agree that it is beneficial. However, we shouldn't ignore the fact that "free beer" software is great, and that it's one of the main reasons that so much "free speech" software is available. Idealism is a fine thing, but it's hard to compete with free toys.
If I had a nickel for everytime I've heard the arguments "Linux might splinter" and "Linux has no roadmap", my pants would fall off because of all the change in my pockets. These cliches are so tired and worthless, I'm not even going to bother arguing about them. Now I'm going to create my own personal version of Linux and doom you all to hideous consequences. All Linux users will bow before me! Muhahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
(Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that this message contains sarcasm.)
There are certain buzzwords that are sure to make semi-informed technophiles starry-eyed. Mr. Katz invokes two of the most effective of these: AI and supercomputer. As with most articles written for the consumption of the masses that use these buzzwords, this article paints a rosy picture of the future ("When we get to the Emerald City, the Wizard will solve all of our problems, Toto!)
However, reality is more complex than he realizes.
Although I am convinced that artificial intelligence is possible, I am skeptical that it will be such a huge advance over an existing technology known as "intelligence". Humans have possessed intelligence for millenia (at least since H. habilis, and probably earlier, but I'm not a paleontologist), but somehow we're still not living in Utopia. Mr. Katz's bold prediction that AI will solve social problems ignores the fact that attempts to solve society's ills have consumed countless processor-years on the organic supercomputers installed in the human frame, all without much useful result. It would be nice to think that an AI philosopher could discover an idea that would make all of humanity behave decently towards one another, but I don't expect it.
As for the other buzzword: a supercomputer is just a peek at tomorrow's microcomputers. Think of Moore's law, and start counting off powers of two. I find microcomputers much more interesting because they can be owned by ordinary individuals, rather than being the sole property of Big Government, Big Business, and Big Science.
Jon does a good job in describing his perception of the distinctions
between reality and virtual reality. However, his usual disclaimer applies:
Jon Katz is not a programmer. Despite his brief reference to "deep magic",
his appreciation of the 'net is primarily of high-level constructs (weblogs,
MUDs, chat rooms, etc.) and their impact on humans. Thus, his view of the
'net is as an alternate world, whose rules are different from those
governing the real, "stub-your-toe" reality.
He misses two key facts. First, if you picture the Internet as reality, then
programmers really are wizards, since we can not only understand the basic
nature of reality by delving into tomes, grimoires, and RFCs; but also change
the very fabric of reality. (Granted, changing the definition of an IP
packet on your machine might not be such a great idea--but you can do it if
you really want to.) Being able to find out exactly what makes your reality
operate at the very lowest level is pretty cool--think of it as being able
to look at a person and see all of the organs and tissues working and
interoperating, the cells growing and dying, the mitochondria metabolizing
sugar molecules, the medichloreans interacting with the Force (OK, not really),
the protein molecules being built from amino acids, and so on, all the way
down to the quantum waveform of each electron.
The other fact he misses is that the Internet isn't really about MUDs, or
chat rooms, or 3D interactive worlds. The Internet is purely a means of
sending information from one place to another. The reason this is important
is that the protocols defining the Internet do not place restrictions on
what networked applications can use them for. This means that the emergence
of a global, universal computer network isn't simply a revolution, as Mr. Katz
styles it. It is also a boundary condition for a nearly infinite number
of future revolutions that we can't even imagine yet. Here's another
analogy: before the Earth had accreted from the primordial gas cloud,
there was no chance for life to develop; soon after the Earth had cooled
enough to form a solid crust, primitive forms of life appeared. The primitive
forms of Internet life are already widespread (applications, that is). The
future of the Internet should be interesting.
What can I say? I think that Sir Alec Guiness saved Episode IV from being a simple shoot-em-up, blow-up-things-in-space movie. Ford was fun, but Guiness made it all seem more meaningful.
> If Intel had illegally obtained secrets from
> competitors, don't you think their chips would
> be at least as fast as their competitors?
Ah, but who would the NSA have to steal information from? Sun? SGI? HP? Cray? IBM? Do we see a pattern here, like maybe, all of these are U.S.-based companies?
Aside from that, have you ever heard of Kibo (hi Kibo!)? Your friendly neighborhood snoops (hi guys!) certainly have at least as great an ability to scan usenet as Kibo.
No list of computer heroes could be complete without:
John McCarthy: creator of Lisp, the first programming language that didn't suck.
Ken Thompson: creator of the first operating system that didn't suck.
Dennis Ritchie: creator of a programming language that's good enough for most purposes. Not perfect, not great, but good enough.
Mmmm, yes. Find your Furby. Take you to him I will. Hehehehe.
You must confront Bill Gates. Your father he is.
Look at my source code. Judge it by its size, will you? And well you should not, for my ally is a ninety-ton brontosaurus known as "Free Software". Hehehehe.
Toys not make one great.
Measuring the work done by a programmer by the number of lines of code written is like measuring the quality of a piece of literature by its length. Is Proust's _Remembrance of Things Past_ really thousands of times better than Blake's "The Tiger"? Is it even reasonable to make the comparison?
For some reason, managers tend to think of coding as being akin to shoveling coal or cutting lumber, in that they expect it to be measurable in quantifiable terms. However, quality is the central issue in coding, not quantity.
I recall an old rumor that IBM used to pay programmers by the line of code. For some reason, their software became a *leetle* bit bloated.
Actually, I think he's talking about MS's most feared competitors -- CP/M, MULTICS, and VMS (oh my!)
"Mindshare" is marketspeak. Its meaning is something like "the number of suckers who will agree with anything we say".
The Jargon File and the Tao of Computing stand
as the twin pillars of true wisdom in the
world of hacking.
I would argue that the Jargon File is ESR's
most important contribution to hacker culture.
This collection of folklore, humor, and myth is
wonderful. Think of it as a mirror, and look into
it to see yourself. (OK, maybe the mirror is a
little bit curved...)
Besides, it has "The Story of Mel" and GLS's
"A Story About 'Magic'" in it.
I thought he was the spokesmodel/poster boy
for (Open(TM) Source(TM) Software(TM))(R).