Hopefully in time we will find enough facts to suggest whether it is the correct theory or not.
.. If indeed it is the correct theory, then "in time we will find enough facts" becomes moot, since time is no longer immutable, and in some parallel universe someone has gone back through time to the "beginning", with this knowledge.
In an effort not to pre-judge - I looked at their whitepapers @ http://www.prescient.net/Solutions_e2Sec.htm
And their paper on this has some merit: http://www.prescient.net/pdf/e2Sec.pdf
But I am not qualified to debate its merits. I don't believe that a public newspaper will have the technological background to satisfy the slashdot folk who like that sort of thing.
Helicopters use propellers, aerodynamic principles that are irrespective of gravity, hence it is used to propel (pardon the pun) boats, aeroplanes, and hydroelectric generators. In the helicopter case it is Newtonian in nature - you push air, air pushes back.
This is not such a clear case with this electrogrativational force, hence I asked.
The literary logical oddity where it is an anti-gravity device by function, such as a helicopter or mag-lev, is not precisely an anti-gravity device insofar as it utilizes forces not pursuant to just opposing gravity.
Does it only work in a direction opposite to gravity? Just curious... if it does only "lift" then it is precisely anti-gravity. If it works perpendicular to gravity, then it is not precisely anti-gravity.
Ignoring the fact that current technology makes this specific example infeasible. (Send 90 minutes of audio data to thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people by email seconds after the recording is completed? No.) That said, this business model is "people will pay to get something immediately rather than getting it for free by waiting a couple of days." On a very limited scale this holds true, but it's not a scalable idea. Hardcore fans who must have recordings as soon as they're available are only a relatively small percentage of record sales.
P2P with key selection (eg. freenet): the scalability problem is solved. The more popular a key is, the more peers have it. Fight scalability with scalability. The age of big pipes is ending. In "their" model big pipes are necessary. "Their" model is not what the article is advocating.
Some of the other points, that you have not mentioned, in the article seem very insightful, in particular the analogy to evolutionary models, and the economic caste metaphor that provides demand: when the poor had candles, the rich had light bulbs, but now it is considered posh to have candles, given that everyone has light bulbs. I cannot reproduce the idea as well as it was written, but I do believe it to have been well thought out, and worthy of publishing.
The idea of the next stage of musical-society presence: liquidity, as well, is an inventive instrument of explanation. It is a speculative article, as you have pointed out, but the weak points of the article are moot in comparison to the overall themes.
And if they used linux, and the same thing happened, the developers shouldn't be responsible......why?
First, it wasn't Linux, it was NT.
Second, NT was a purchased product, so money was exchanged for software architecture, engineering and development. The liability would be different if no monetary exchange was made.
Third, if it was Linux, then the agency would be capable of fixing the problem internally, on the fly. A software systems expert can fix any problem, save hardware, with enough experience or training, on an open system.
Fourth, as I said, that was not a post about NT, it just so happened that the most fruitful examples involved NT, so I used them. There are several excellent posts regarding why developer liability of free & open software is posited onto the user in that the user can fix it, has not entered into a commercial contract, and the user has not just the option but the incentive to fix problems, should they encounter them and will them away.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=space+computer+failu re&hl=en (search: space computer failure)
Gives at least this result: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9806/01/mir.computer/
Which, although neither referencing Windows NT, and on MIR not a shuttle, is an equally valid example of software failures jeapordizing human life in space.
Regarding the failure on the Space Shuttle, I similarly cannot find references for it. I remember it quite clearly (which does not make it an infalliable statement by any stretch, though), but references for it I cannot find at this time.
Recall that an American Destroyer was rendered dead in the water as a result of NT crashes and space shuttle missions rendered write-offs because of NT crashes. Not to pick on NT, but these are cases where lives did depend upon software. Death is just an example of liability.
Indeed. If he can find software for a computer that makes it work the way he expects it to, then he is among the luckiest of computer users alive, and if only the rest of us should be so fortunate.
Quite right. We shall cling to our non-capitalist luddite principles on a subject, and be overtaken by someone who does not.
This in no way reflects my views on capitalism, ludditism, ethics of human cloning, pro-life, or anything else. All I wish to say is: If your morality prevents innovation, and it lies in a gray area (pay attention to gray areas throughout history - mathematics could be considered one of those in the middle ages), those who do invent it will have an "advantage". (ie. the Ottomans.)
You disagree with a lot of people. But you read Terry Pratchett, have a low slashdot number, and a high enough karma to get the +2 bonus - a sign of unlikely intelligence in a place such as this of late, so I'll let you have this one... warranting of a short response.
S'good points, tho. Relevent IPv4 standards in its practiced incarnation encompasses many RFC's and now several STDs (2,3,4,5). Odd reference for a joke (from 1998?), but certainly enough to exemplify the point. My point, that odd numbers of IP are development numbers, was officially wrong in lieu of references, but colloquially pertinent. More than one person has remarked this trend, and in spite of the will of precedent references, come to take it as truth.
What I want to know is why we haven't seen Family Guy on DVD here in the U.S.?
Your local monopolies giving your trouble? I suggest you explore alternatives such as Morpheus, Kazaa, Gnutella, and Freenet. Although not as convenient as consuming pre-fabricated materials, the same material is often provided at the cost of bandwidth.
Although they are without the arbitrary and arcane and draconian restrictions found in the essentially naive government sponsored owners, there is no guarantee that you will be able to find the material you need - however keep in mind that supply will rise to meet demand, in spite of the efforts of the draconians.
We shall see the end to everything that we, the magnificient consumer ant colony, have taken for granted, and we shall erect a new being, less of a colony and more a body, and at its head shall be artificial intelligence in place of colonial queens, and we shall be but cells composing organs in a colossal being.
It doesn't sound all that unreasonable to make something you're talking about.
Indeed, it seems that Logitech has attempted to deal with this by using 2 lasers as in the MouseMan (R) Dual Optical, although I could only speculate at the success of this technique.
There is the genuine issue that your parent message brought up - the sampling rate on optical mice is too low to adequately map the expected motions to interpreted motions, and hence the human user performs operations that the hardware does not interpret as the human expected or anticipated.
The obvious consequence of this is a sharp flick to the right or left which leads to a Quake 3 character staring at the ground for no apparent reason, and subsequent death and loss of the competition. This can be compensated for with extremely, and I mean extremely, high sensitivity, in the order such that 0.5 cm corresponds to your screen resolution in terms of a desktop.
However, that being said, the human user does not have the physical coordination to operate at that level. As such, until optical resolutions are significantly higher, users of track balls and ball mice will have superior granularity and better correspondence between the expected behavior of the hardware and the actual behaviour of the hardware, irregardless of the skill, training, and habits of the users.
The advantage is in the correspondence between expected behaviour and actual behaviour, it being much better with track balls and ball mice (which are optical, but in a different way) than it is with optical mice.
(Just a note - have a look at trackball patterns; it is not a uniform pattern but a miss-mash pattern with form following function)
Having been one of, and knowing some of, the better Unreal Tournament players in my time, the differences, in not playability but infinitisemal advantages that lead to domination over a long enough time period, are well known and examined. Optical mice do not require a very long time period to assert their inferiority.;)
Perhaps the cost of making money is devaluing the existing money. Perhaps the initial cost of creating money is the loss of the bartering system or freedoms associated with a non-monetary system.
Who knows? Interesting thought to entertain, though.
A wishlist? I'd like a decent EJB book. All of the ones I have (that being, probably all of them on the topic) reflect enormous amounts of effort, and all are equally unable to eloquently describe the concepts of EJB's.
I buy PERL books, by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen. And C? Kernighan and Richie. C++? Stroustrup. And algorithms? The MIT white book. Why are these special? They are definitive documents on particular topics, and they are thorough, complete, insightful, and hence valuable. In all but the lattermost case, they are written by the authors, presumably foremost authorities on the topics at hand. The MIT book is also proof that difficult concepts can be formulated in an intelligent manner without a complete knowledge of the topic (as Algorithms will likely never be complete, as a topic). Unfortunately, it arose in an ivory tower, but it is precisely the type of book I find valuable.
Yet, on the topic of EJB's, the best EJB reference I have seen is the 572 odd page EJB Specification itself. And that is meant and geared towards developers of actual EJB application servers.
New Brunswick, Canada, has a phone company, nbtel (www.nbtel.nb.ca) that has offered digital cable television over twisted copper pair for a couple years now. (They call it Vibe Vision, an extension of Vibe, their DSL service) The biggest drawback to the deployment of this technology in Canada is the retroactive laws and regulations of the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) which is, to say the least, behind the times. Nevertheless, this is as much news from a technological perspective as USB, unless you're confined to an American analysis.
Another target is transgaming.com and WineX where you can subscribe to their service and vote for the next issue that they address. In this way you can vote with your money, influence the future of Linux gaming in a non-technical way, and provide sure support for gaming in Linux through, in the least, emulation of the de facto standard, Windows.
It is an interesting experiment, be it feasable or no.
We, the "wise", and "in the know" of the world, quickly punish the "stupid" and "ignorant" media corporations and people that let this travesty of fact slip through. And yet, we will never reward, few ever even considering, those in the mass media who instantly saw and dismissed this as the rubbish it is. More media will dismiss this than acknowledge it, precisely because they can see it is clearly not something of merit.
Yet, in this system, where intelligence in the form of denial is never rewarded, how can we ever expect the mass media to churn out the truth, in any extravagant form? Look at how we, on this forum, are lashing out at the media that fell for this dup (presuming, of course, that it, in all likelihood, is), yet we will turn around one day and ask "Why does every reputable media corporation cover the exact same material?"
Every media entity that has published this will get attention; I have noticed some magazines mentioned that I would never otherwise have known existed. They are being rewarded with advertisement for their folly. And yet, the media that sensed this folly and avoided it, are relatively punished.
Slashdot Mirror
.. If indeed it is the correct theory, then "in time we will find enough facts" becomes moot, since time is no longer immutable, and in some parallel universe someone has gone back through time to the "beginning", with this knowledge.
In an effort not to pre-judge - I looked at their whitepapers @ http://www.prescient.net/Solutions_e2Sec.htm
And their paper on this has some merit:
http://www.prescient.net/pdf/e2Sec.pdf
But I am not qualified to debate its merits. I don't believe that a public newspaper will have the technological background to satisfy the slashdot folk who like that sort of thing.
umm
;)
It also has useful applications in pruning the SAT search space.
Helicopters use propellers, aerodynamic principles that are irrespective of gravity, hence it is used to propel (pardon the pun) boats, aeroplanes, and hydroelectric generators. In the helicopter case it is Newtonian in nature - you push air, air pushes back.
This is not such a clear case with this electrogrativational force, hence I asked.
The literary logical oddity where it is an anti-gravity device by function, such as a helicopter or mag-lev, is not precisely an anti-gravity device insofar as it utilizes forces not pursuant to just opposing gravity.
Does it only work in a direction opposite to gravity? Just curious ... if it does only "lift" then it is precisely anti-gravity. If it works perpendicular to gravity, then it is not precisely anti-gravity.
Brian
Ignoring the fact that current technology makes this specific example infeasible. (Send 90 minutes of audio data to thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people by email seconds after the recording is completed? No.) That said, this business model is "people will pay to get something immediately rather than getting it for free by waiting a couple of days." On a very limited scale this holds true, but it's not a scalable idea. Hardcore fans who must have recordings as soon as they're available are only a relatively small percentage of record sales.
P2P with key selection (eg. freenet): the scalability problem is solved. The more popular a key is, the more peers have it. Fight scalability with scalability. The age of big pipes is ending. In "their" model big pipes are necessary. "Their" model is not what the article is advocating.
Some of the other points, that you have not mentioned, in the article seem very insightful, in particular the analogy to evolutionary models, and the economic caste metaphor that provides demand: when the poor had candles, the rich had light bulbs, but now it is considered posh to have candles, given that everyone has light bulbs. I cannot reproduce the idea as well as it was written, but I do believe it to have been well thought out, and worthy of publishing.
The idea of the next stage of musical-society presence: liquidity, as well, is an inventive instrument of explanation. It is a speculative article, as you have pointed out, but the weak points of the article are moot in comparison to the overall themes.
And if they used linux, and the same thing happened, the developers shouldn't be responsible......why?
First, it wasn't Linux, it was NT.
Second, NT was a purchased product, so money was exchanged for software architecture, engineering and development. The liability would be different if no monetary exchange was made.
Third, if it was Linux, then the agency would be capable of fixing the problem internally, on the fly. A software systems expert can fix any problem, save hardware, with enough experience or training, on an open system.
Fourth, as I said, that was not a post about NT, it just so happened that the most fruitful examples involved NT, so I used them. There are several excellent posts regarding why developer liability of free & open software is posited onto the user in that the user can fix it, has not entered into a commercial contract, and the user has not just the option but the incentive to fix problems, should they encounter them and will them away.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=space+computer+failu re&hl=en
r /
(search: space computer failure)
Gives at least this result: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9806/01/mir.compute
Which, although neither referencing Windows NT, and on MIR not a shuttle, is an equally valid example of software failures jeapordizing human life in space.
Regarding the failure on the Space Shuttle, I similarly cannot find references for it. I remember it quite clearly (which does not make it an infalliable statement by any stretch, though), but references for it I cannot find at this time.
Hope that helps.
Recall that an American Destroyer was rendered dead in the water as a result of NT crashes and space shuttle missions rendered write-offs because of NT crashes. Not to pick on NT, but these are cases where lives did depend upon software. Death is just an example of liability.
Yes, google knows about:
CCITA
ISO/IEC 15408
NSA Rainbow
Which might be of note.
Indeed. If he can find software for a computer that makes it work the way he expects it to, then he is among the luckiest of computer users alive, and if only the rest of us should be so fortunate.
Quite right. We shall cling to our non-capitalist luddite principles on a subject, and be overtaken by someone who does not.
This in no way reflects my views on capitalism, ludditism, ethics of human cloning, pro-life, or anything else. All I wish to say is: If your morality prevents innovation, and it lies in a gray area (pay attention to gray areas throughout history - mathematics could be considered one of those in the middle ages), those who do invent it will have an "advantage". (ie. the Ottomans.)
-B
You disagree with a lot of people. But you read Terry Pratchett, have a low slashdot number, and a high enough karma to get the +2 bonus - a sign of unlikely intelligence in a place such as this of late, so I'll let you have this one ... warranting of a short response.
S'good points, tho. Relevent IPv4 standards in its practiced incarnation encompasses many RFC's and now several STDs (2,3,4,5). Odd reference for a joke (from 1998?), but certainly enough to exemplify the point. My point, that odd numbers of IP are development numbers, was officially wrong in lieu of references, but colloquially pertinent. More than one person has remarked this trend, and in spite of the will of precedent references, come to take it as truth.
IPV7 (or IPV8 if they make a habit of skipping odd numbers)
Odd numbers are development numbers. Same thing with the minor version of the kernel. (2.1, 2.3,2.5 are dev versions).
Your local monopolies giving your trouble? I suggest you explore alternatives such as Morpheus, Kazaa, Gnutella, and Freenet. Although not as convenient as consuming pre-fabricated materials, the same material is often provided at the cost of bandwidth.
Although they are without the arbitrary and arcane and draconian restrictions found in the essentially naive government sponsored owners, there is no guarantee that you will be able to find the material you need - however keep in mind that supply will rise to meet demand, in spite of the efforts of the draconians.
We shall see the end to everything that we, the magnificient consumer ant colony, have taken for granted, and we shall erect a new being, less of a colony and more a body, and at its head shall be artificial intelligence in place of colonial queens, and we shall be but cells composing organs in a colossal being.
Prior to that, let us hope for many a good beer.
Indeed, it seems that Logitech has attempted to deal with this by using 2 lasers as in the MouseMan (R) Dual Optical, although I could only speculate at the success of this technique.
There is the genuine issue that your parent message brought up - the sampling rate on optical mice is too low to adequately map the expected motions to interpreted motions, and hence the human user performs operations that the hardware does not interpret as the human expected or anticipated.
;)
The obvious consequence of this is a sharp flick to the right or left which leads to a Quake 3 character staring at the ground for no apparent reason, and subsequent death and loss of the competition. This can be compensated for with extremely, and I mean extremely, high sensitivity, in the order such that 0.5 cm corresponds to your screen resolution in terms of a desktop.
However, that being said, the human user does not have the physical coordination to operate at that level. As such, until optical resolutions are significantly higher, users of track balls and ball mice will have superior granularity and better correspondence between the expected behavior of the hardware and the actual behaviour of the hardware, irregardless of the skill, training, and habits of the users.
The advantage is in the correspondence between expected behaviour and actual behaviour, it being much better with track balls and ball mice (which are optical, but in a different way) than it is with optical mice.
(Just a note - have a look at trackball patterns; it is not a uniform pattern but a miss-mash pattern with form following function)
Having been one of, and knowing some of, the better Unreal Tournament players in my time, the differences, in not playability but infinitisemal advantages that lead to domination over a long enough time period, are well known and examined. Optical mice do not require a very long time period to assert their inferiority.
Perhaps the cost of making money is devaluing the existing money. Perhaps the initial cost of creating money is the loss of the bartering system or freedoms associated with a non-monetary system.
Who knows? Interesting thought to entertain, though.
A wishlist? I'd like a decent EJB book. All of the ones I have (that being, probably all of them on the topic) reflect enormous amounts of effort, and all are equally unable to eloquently describe the concepts of EJB's.
I buy PERL books, by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen. And C? Kernighan and Richie. C++? Stroustrup. And algorithms? The MIT white book. Why are these special? They are definitive documents on particular topics, and they are thorough, complete, insightful, and hence valuable. In all but the lattermost case, they are written by the authors, presumably foremost authorities on the topics at hand. The MIT book is also proof that difficult concepts can be formulated in an intelligent manner without a complete knowledge of the topic (as Algorithms will likely never be complete, as a topic). Unfortunately, it arose in an ivory tower, but it is precisely the type of book I find valuable.
Yet, on the topic of EJB's, the best EJB reference I have seen is the 572 odd page EJB Specification itself. And that is meant and geared towards developers of actual EJB application servers.
New Brunswick, Canada, has a phone company, nbtel (www.nbtel.nb.ca) that has offered digital cable television over twisted copper pair for a couple years now. (They call it Vibe Vision, an extension of Vibe, their DSL service) The biggest drawback to the deployment of this technology in Canada is the retroactive laws and regulations of the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) which is, to say the least, behind the times. Nevertheless, this is as much news from a technological perspective as USB, unless you're confined to an American analysis.
(Not to sound inflammitory, but 'tis true.)
Another target is transgaming.com and WineX where you can subscribe to their service and vote for the next issue that they address. In this way you can vote with your money, influence the future of Linux gaming in a non-technical way, and provide sure support for gaming in Linux through, in the least, emulation of the de facto standard, Windows.
It is an interesting experiment, be it feasable or no.
We, the "wise", and "in the know" of the world, quickly punish the "stupid" and "ignorant" media corporations and people that let this travesty of fact slip through. And yet, we will never reward, few ever even considering, those in the mass media who instantly saw and dismissed this as the rubbish it is. More media will dismiss this than acknowledge it, precisely because they can see it is clearly not something of merit.
:)
Yet, in this system, where intelligence in the form of denial is never rewarded, how can we ever expect the mass media to churn out the truth, in any extravagant form? Look at how we, on this forum, are lashing out at the media that fell for this dup (presuming, of course, that it, in all likelihood, is), yet we will turn around one day and ask "Why does every reputable media corporation cover the exact same material?"
Every media entity that has published this will get attention; I have noticed some magazines mentioned that I would never otherwise have known existed. They are being rewarded with advertisement for their folly. And yet, the media that sensed this folly and avoided it, are relatively punished.
Or so goes my rant.
Cuecat was pretty trivial, too, remember?
The complexity of the object does not seem to mitigate the draconian principle being applied to it.