> The implications of what we can reasonably assume we'll be able to do within a few decades are mind blowing. Surely there must be someone who can bring it to life, to put us there and make it feel real, without wimping out and turning it into just a big joke.
In that case I'd recommend Greg Egan.
http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/
As can be seen from his web site, he's a geek too:)
Pretty much any of his books rock, but I especially like Diaspora and Axiomatic. He puts
a lot of his short stories online so you can even try before you buy.
Of course, as with anything like this, it's up to personal taste, so YMMV.
I realised I wasn't watching TV much any more. I paid a little more attention and realised that when the ads came on, I'd get up to go and do something else, and rarely remembered to come back. I think that's when the ad/program ratio crossed my magic point.
And, I haven't really missed it.
Sure, I still watch some shows, (Buffy, Time Team, etc) but it takes a conscious effort to remember to come back in time to catch the next bit of program.
I guess I must be fairly unique in this, since if everyone did it, the TV stations would have to start actually showing *content* again.
I'm in NZ, and the ads still take up less time than in other places - I've occasionally had a tape sent over to me from the US, and found it completely unwatcheable from all the channel promos, ads, screwing around with episodes, etc. I have trouble understanding why the Americans are so addicted to TV as a nation - perhaps it's similar to the cocaine addict who doesn't realise he's getting 95% talcum powder nowadays, just that he needs to buy more and more for it to work.
I'd be really pissed off at the amount of screwing around with programs that the TV companies do. I mean, you spend days assembling your film so the story reads just right, the pacing is perfect, and it all hangs together and *feels* right.
Then some idiot comes along and starts chopping bits out all over the place. If the program would have worked 30 seconds faster, it would have been *made* 30 seconds faster, and had an extra few scenes. Surely?
One of the main reasons I play computer games is to get away from this crap world where those who start rich get everything and the poor have to struggle to survive.
Why would I play a game that was just the same?
I'm happy to pay to play online games, but I really don't see how a game where the amount of money you have IRL directly affects your status in play could possibly be fun.
> Now the world at large at least takes free software seriously, and Stallman has become as useful as a fire hydrant in the middle of a bike trail.
I must disagree with you here. Stallman, or at least his strong views on the purity of free software are needed more than ever.
Now people are recognising some of the benefits of available source code, they're not seeing the important difference between open source and free software (in GNU terms). And it's all being confused. People are going around thinking that just because it's publically developed, it's free.
We need the FSF as much as we always have, as a voice pointing out why the "viral" clause in the GPL is so important, and why the BSD license gives developers more freedom but doesn't necessarily transfer it to the end users.
I think the load average isn't a hugelt useful measure for whether your setup is fast "enough". In your case, a load of 1.0 on an SMP machine suggests that it could handle about twice as much (YMMV) work before it started to get slower for the users. Which is a handy thing to know.
A more interesting measure is how well it copes under a heavy load, rather than an average one. For example, what are your peaks like? Do the users notice?
What's the load like when everyone arrives in the office in the morning and checks their mail? How much of an increase in load would it take to make it unuseable for everyone?
I think that kind of measure is more relevant. If your number of users increased by 10%, would everything fall over? (likely to happen eventually if the average load goes above 1.0 per CPU because it can never catch up with its workload)
> IANAL, however, surely the next step is for Prof. Felten to release his work, wait to get sued, then re-instate his action against the RIAA?
The way I see it is that the have *already* threatened him.
And they won't threaten *him* again, he's too high
profile. It's the next person who'll suffer if Felten
doesn't get this case through. And the next person
may not have a good lawyer or the resources to defend
themselves.
Well, I tried to use their demo thingy to see how it worked, but it seems to require Eudora at the moment, so that wasn't really an option.
It certainly sounds interesting, especially since the public key is so short. It also makes key revocation hard - you'd have to change email address. But that's probably less confusing than many other types of key management.
I had a quick look at the details, but can't really get my head around this level of crypto stuff.
How long is the private key length, for example? And doesn't the short public key leave brute force attacks a possibility (since surely there can only be a valid number of private keys corresponding to the bit length of the possible public keys?)
I often have half a dozen (or more) things going on at once, switching between screens, applications,
and even computers regularly.
Why?
Because I'm *waiting* for things to happen. Waiting for that 3 minute web page to load,
waiting for that 10 minute compile, waiting for a reply to an ICQ, or whatever.
If I couldn't multitask, I'd be sitting dumbly staring at the screen waiting for whatever task I'm doing to
become ready for my input again.
Sure, a lot of time/energy goes in the context switch. But it's time that's wasted *anyway*.
IBM seem to be making a genuine effort to improve
Linux and make it more useful for everyone.
Are there things that someone like IBM cannot
do on this front? Obviously IBM, large as it is,
does not exist in a bubble. Are there some features you'd love Linux to have (to make it more sellable),
but which your corporate parent for some reason
cannot manage itself, which you must rely on
others for?
>> "As someone living under reasonable privacy laws, I find it somewhat alien that so much personal information (the street address of my home!) is published for the world to see. "
>Get a P.O. Box then. You don't have to use your home address. P.O. Boxes are cheap too. That way, there's not much anyone can do except snail mail bomb you, which is just too expensive to be worth normally.
Good plan, in fact I'm probably going to do that.
However, the fact that it's even a problem in the first place is what seems strange. It's almost like when a US company discovers their software being freely copied, distributed, and sold in China because the copyright laws are different there.
The same as me (in NZ) discovering that lots of my personal information is being freely copied, distributed, and sold in the US because the privacy laws are different there.
Not a massive problem, it's just the way international things work out, but I certainly find the default view that personal information isn't owned by the person it's about to be weird.
>For those people who will scream about privacy and the need to restrict the WHOIS db, tough. Certain things and certain activities are public record, always have been and always will.
That doesn't make them *right*. And the "always have, always will" maybe applies in *your* country. Not mine!
As someone living under reasonable privacy laws, I find it somewhat alien that so much personal information (the street address of my home!) is published for the world to see.
From my perspective, the question is "why is all this private information being bought and sold against the wishes of the owner of that information?"
the income from ads will be used to reduce
the price to the consumer...
yeah.
sure.
It's kinda hard to know what to do about this -
with TV when the ads become too annoying I just turn the TV off and go read a book or something.
But a computer game - where I've already paid for it...
I find this idea as offensive as the compulsory
(no fast forward) advertising they put in DVDs.
The only place I'd find it acceptable is in real-world simulations. Racing games, maybe flight sims, possibly some of the FPS's. Other games I play to *escape* the shit that's in RL, not immerse myself in more of it.
> Now IANAL, but I doubt the GPL nor most web sites' terms of use would hold up in court. You can not be bound to what you do not have to read.
That's where the GPL is quite clever. You see, it doesn't take any rights away from you - it only gives you more rights than you had. The right to copy, under certain rules.
If you deny you're bound by the GPL because you didn't read it, then even if you win, you end up bound by normal copyright law and aren't allowed to be copying the code *anyway*.
> I have to admit, this just doesn't make sense.
> All this hard work I just can't see it going anywhere, its like dumping all the work (good or bad) and essentially starting over.
Just like Linus did by writing the Linux kernel instead of trying to improve the Minix kernel, you mean?
> I just cannot see how this can be done without huge backing from someone like Sun, Microsoft, or Apple.
I have difficulty seeing how this *could* be done with backing from a huge corporation.
A bunch of good programmers working together on something they think is cool can produce much better work than a bunch of programmers being continually ordered around by a marketting department.
GNU + Linux isn't the be all and end all of operating system design. None of the systems we have today are. We need people to continually try new ideas and come up with unfamiliar things.
>With eye tracking, software can notice that the user is looking all over the screen, probably trying to find the right menu item or command. This is a signal to pop up help or (on Windows machines) advertise instruction manuals for sale at Amazon.
Oh my god, no matter where you look... Clippy pops up!
If tried in different states/countries, it seems really quite unlikely that they'll all be found guilty! If what they're being accused of is even a crime in some places...
Unless there would be some special aspect that would allow people with this type of gene to have a higher survival rate to their childbearing years(all that matters to pass your genes forward). There really wouldn't be much of a case for this causing natural selection to cause this to be prevalent in all people.
I disagree, we're already living well beyond the end of our childbearing years, and not just in the last few hundred years. Being able to stay alive and pass on cultural wisdom is a very strong survival trait.
And if it's just one gene being activated or not, with no other penalties, I think it's unlikely that it wouldn't have happened already. Sure it's random, but there have been an awful lot of people born in human history.
I actually think the person who mentioned that being able to stock up on and store calories when food was available is probably a stronger trait than living longer to pass on knowledge.
- Muggins
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but I just couldn't bring myself to provide personal information to be able to access information about online privacy!
Jeeeez.
- MugginsM
That Java applets don't?
I'm serious. I've yet to see a flash site do
something that couldn't be done using Java applets.
And while Java is hardly the most open of platforms,
Flash isn't either, and at least it seems to run on most platforms.
- MugginsM
>The problem with this system is that often space is wasted.
>You can have hundreds of copies of the same library in all the installation directories.
This sounds like a job for Perl, MD5Sum, and ln.
- MugginsM
> The implications of what we can reasonably assume we'll be able to do within a few decades are mind blowing. Surely there must be someone who can bring it to life, to put us there and make it feel real, without wimping out and turning it into just a big joke.
:)
In that case I'd recommend Greg Egan.
http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/
As can be seen from his web site, he's a geek too
Pretty much any of his books rock, but I especially like Diaspora and Axiomatic. He puts
a lot of his short stories online so you can even try before you buy.
Of course, as with anything like this, it's up to personal taste, so YMMV.
- Muggins the Mad
I realised I wasn't watching TV much any more. I paid a little more attention and realised that when the ads came on, I'd get up to go and do something else, and rarely remembered to come back. I think that's when the ad/program ratio crossed my magic point.
And, I haven't really missed it.
Sure, I still watch some shows, (Buffy, Time Team, etc) but it takes a conscious effort to remember to come back in time to catch the next bit of program.
I guess I must be fairly unique in this, since if everyone did it, the TV stations would have to start actually showing *content* again.
I'm in NZ, and the ads still take up less time than in other places - I've occasionally had a tape sent over to me from the US, and found it completely unwatcheable from all the channel promos, ads, screwing around with episodes, etc. I have trouble understanding why the Americans are so addicted to TV as a nation - perhaps it's similar to the cocaine addict who doesn't realise he's getting 95% talcum powder nowadays, just that he needs to buy more and more for it to work.
- MugginsM
I'd be really pissed off at the amount of screwing around with programs that the TV companies do. I mean, you spend days assembling your film so the story reads just right, the pacing is perfect, and it all hangs together and *feels* right.
Then some idiot comes along and starts chopping bits out all over the place. If the program would have worked 30 seconds faster, it would have been *made* 30 seconds faster, and had an extra few scenes. Surely?
- MugginsM
> If you are so unhappy with your station in life why not stop whining and go to a trade school to learn some professional skill?
You assume that because someone doesn't like the way things work that they must be one of the people on the losing end of it?
- Muggins
One of the main reasons I play computer games is to get away from this crap world where those who start rich get everything and the poor have to struggle to survive.
Why would I play a game that was just the same?
I'm happy to pay to play online games, but I really don't see how a game where the amount of money you have IRL directly affects your status in play could possibly be fun.
- Muggins the Mad
> Now the world at large at least takes free software seriously, and Stallman has become as useful as a fire hydrant in the middle of a bike trail.
I must disagree with you here. Stallman, or at least his strong views on the purity of free software are needed more than ever.
Now people are recognising some of the benefits of available source code, they're not seeing the important difference between open source and free software (in GNU terms). And it's all being confused. People are going around thinking that just because it's publically developed, it's free.
We need the FSF as much as we always have, as a voice pointing out why the "viral" clause in the GPL is so important, and why the BSD license gives developers more freedom but doesn't necessarily transfer it to the end users.
- MugginsM
I think the load average isn't a hugelt useful measure for whether your setup is fast "enough". In your case, a load of 1.0 on an SMP machine suggests that it could handle about twice as much (YMMV) work before it started to get slower for the users. Which is a handy thing to know.
A more interesting measure is how well it copes under a heavy load, rather than an average one. For example, what are your peaks like? Do the users notice?
What's the load like when everyone arrives in the office in the morning and checks their mail? How much of an increase in load would it take to make it unuseable for everyone?
I think that kind of measure is more relevant. If your number of users increased by 10%, would everything fall over? (likely to happen eventually if the average load goes above 1.0 per CPU because it can never catch up with its workload)
- MugginsM
> IANAL, however, surely the next step is for Prof. Felten to release his work, wait to get sued, then re-instate his action against the RIAA?
The way I see it is that the have *already* threatened him.
And they won't threaten *him* again, he's too high
profile. It's the next person who'll suffer if Felten
doesn't get this case through. And the next person
may not have a good lawyer or the resources to defend
themselves.
- MugginsM
> None of the people who check it are actually Jedi,
:)
> whether they say they are or not :
True, however many people profess to be christians/moslems/whateverists without showing any
real evidence of actually *believing*.
I find religious belief options on census reports to
be a good way of measuring the overall mental health of a country.
- MugginsM
>
:)
> [Tribes 2]
>
> It was the first time in a while that I >stopped and said "This is why people aren't
>buying linux games."
I bought Tribes 2 for windows a little while back, unaware that the Linux version was available.
I've *still* been unable to get it working on
Windows. Lots and lots of patches from Sierra
later it still crashes 4 or 5 minutes into the game.
I suspect T2 is a poor example
I've stopped buying Sierra games as a result anyway. I'm
undecided if this includes Loki or not.
- MugginsM
Well, I tried to use their demo thingy to see how it worked, but it seems to require Eudora at the moment, so that wasn't really an option.
It certainly sounds interesting, especially since the public key is so short. It also makes key revocation hard - you'd have to change email address. But that's probably less confusing than many other types of key management.
I had a quick look at the details, but can't really get my head around this level of crypto stuff.
How long is the private key length, for example? And doesn't the short public key leave brute force attacks a possibility (since surely there can only be a valid number of private keys corresponding to the bit length of the possible public keys?)
- Muggins
Interesting how the author of the article seems to think that making people keep up with the latest antivirus software is somehow a bad thing.
Me, I'm in possession of "hacking tools". Buffer overflow exploits. Encryption breakers. Port scanners, packet sniffers, password crackers, the lot.
I wonder if my employer (a university) will object if I can no longer do valid security research legally any more.
Probably not.
*sigh*
- MugginsM
I often have half a dozen (or more) things going on at once, switching between screens, applications,
and even computers regularly.
Why?
Because I'm *waiting* for things to happen. Waiting for that 3 minute web page to load,
waiting for that 10 minute compile, waiting for a reply to an ICQ, or whatever.
If I couldn't multitask, I'd be sitting dumbly staring at the screen waiting for whatever task I'm doing to
become ready for my input again.
Sure, a lot of time/energy goes in the context switch. But it's time that's wasted *anyway*.
- Muggins
IBM seem to be making a genuine effort to improve
Linux and make it more useful for everyone.
Are there things that someone like IBM cannot
do on this front? Obviously IBM, large as it is,
does not exist in a bubble. Are there some features you'd love Linux to have (to make it more sellable),
but which your corporate parent for some reason
cannot manage itself, which you must rely on
others for?
>> "As someone living under reasonable privacy laws, I find it somewhat alien that so much personal information (the street address of my home!) is published for the world to see. "
>Get a P.O. Box then. You don't have to use your home address. P.O. Boxes are cheap too. That way, there's not much anyone can do except snail mail bomb you, which is just too expensive to be worth normally.
Good plan, in fact I'm probably going to do that.
However, the fact that it's even a problem in the first place is what seems strange. It's almost like when a US company discovers their software being freely copied, distributed, and sold in China because the copyright laws are different there.
The same as me (in NZ) discovering that lots of my personal information is being freely copied, distributed, and sold in the US because the privacy laws are different there.
Not a massive problem, it's just the way international things work out, but I certainly find the default view that personal information isn't owned by the person it's about to be weird.
- Muggins
>For those people who will scream about privacy and the need to restrict the WHOIS db, tough. Certain things and certain activities are public record, always have been and always will.
That doesn't make them *right*. And the "always have, always will" maybe applies in *your* country. Not mine!
As someone living under reasonable privacy laws, I find it somewhat alien that so much personal information (the street address of my home!) is published for the world to see.
From my perspective, the question is "why is all this private information being bought and sold against the wishes of the owner of that information?"
the income from ads will be used to reduce
the price to the consumer...
yeah.
sure.
It's kinda hard to know what to do about this -
with TV when the ads become too annoying I just turn the TV off and go read a book or something.
But a computer game - where I've already paid for it...
I find this idea as offensive as the compulsory
(no fast forward) advertising they put in DVDs.
The only place I'd find it acceptable is in real-world simulations. Racing games, maybe flight sims, possibly some of the FPS's. Other games I play to *escape* the shit that's in RL, not immerse myself in more of it.
- Muggins
> Now IANAL, but I doubt the GPL nor most web sites' terms of use would hold up in court. You can not be bound to what you do not have to read.
That's where the GPL is quite clever. You see, it doesn't take any rights away from you - it only gives you more rights than you had. The right to copy, under certain rules.
If you deny you're bound by the GPL because you didn't read it, then even if you win, you end up bound by normal copyright law and aren't allowed to be copying the code *anyway*.
- Muggins the Mad
> I have to admit, this just doesn't make sense.
> All this hard work I just can't see it going anywhere, its like dumping all the work (good or bad) and essentially starting over.
Just like Linus did by writing the Linux kernel instead of trying to improve the Minix kernel, you mean?
> I just cannot see how this can be done without huge backing from someone like Sun, Microsoft, or Apple.
I have difficulty seeing how this *could* be done with backing from a huge corporation.
A bunch of good programmers working together on something they think is cool can produce much better work than a bunch of programmers being continually ordered around by a marketting department.
GNU + Linux isn't the be all and end all of operating system design. None of the systems we have today are. We need people to continually try new ideas and come up with unfamiliar things.
- Muggins
>With eye tracking, software can notice that the user is looking all over the screen, probably trying to find the right menu item or command. This is a signal to pop up help or (on Windows machines) advertise instruction manuals for sale at Amazon.
Oh my god, no matter where you look... Clippy pops up!
- Muggins the Mad
If tried in different states/countries, it seems really quite unlikely that they'll all be found guilty! If what they're being accused of is even a crime in some places...
- Muggins The Mad
Unless there would be some special aspect that would allow people with this type of gene to have a higher survival rate to their childbearing years(all that matters to pass your genes forward). There really wouldn't be much of a case for this causing natural selection to cause this to be prevalent in all people.
I disagree, we're already living well beyond the end of our childbearing years, and not just in the last few hundred years. Being able to stay alive and pass on cultural wisdom is a very strong survival trait. And if it's just one gene being activated or not, with no other penalties, I think it's unlikely that it wouldn't have happened already. Sure it's random, but there have been an awful lot of people born in human history. I actually think the person who mentioned that being able to stock up on and store calories when food was available is probably a stronger trait than living longer to pass on knowledge. - Muggins