Why are they talking about new stuff when old, standardised stuff doesn't even work yet? (I'm looking at you, MS Visual Crap++)
That's one of the most annoying and frustrating things about C++... it isn't implemented properly and effeciently anywhere yet (g++ comes close, but still enough annoyances to be, well, annoying).
And here we have the classic division in AI between the "scruffies" and the "neats":)
Scruffies advocate trying lots of stuff and seeing what works best; a sort of natural selection.
Neats advocate trying to understand the problem on some fundamental level, then implementing a solution
Who will win? Hard to say. Both camps have contributed a lot to AI. Maybe nobody will ever win, and we'll need both "scuffy" and "neat" thinking.
When it comes to "true" AI, I just think that the scruffy approach has taken us far, but now it's hitting a (technological) wall... I think it's time for a dash of "neat"ness now, is all.
One of the overlooked things about these recent advances in chess playing is that it is (often) more about advances in brute-force computational power than "true" AI improvements.
In other words, we really aren't any closer to understanding how a human chess master thinks.
I don't think we will make any significant gains in "true" AI until we sit down and figure out the principles of human intelligence, rather than trying a) mimicry or b) more silicon.
The analogy presented in most AI textbooks (Russel and Norvig, for example) is that of flight: for a long time man wanted to fly, and built machines with bird-like wings that flapped. Mimicry didn't work. Then they tried making wings that flapped a lot, or really hard. More horsepower didn't work. It wasn't until the principles of flight (Bernoulli's principle) were discovered that we were able to make flying machines.
However, the law has a more stringent definition of "contract".
Yeah... that's why the definition I posted has (Law) in front of it, which means "not the informal definition, but rather the jargon of a certain profession".
"I will give you this hamburger on the condition that you don't put cheese on it."
That sounds like a contract to me.
A contract doesn't necessarily need to involve mutual benefit, or an exchange of anything. A contract is simply an agreement undertaken by two or more parties. The GPL is exactly that: an agreement:
Contract \Con"tract\, n. [L. contractus, fr. contrahere: cf. F.
contrat, formerly also contract.]
1. (Law) The agreement of two or more persons, upon a
sufficient consideration or cause, to do, or to abstain
from doing, some act; an agreement in which a party
undertakes to do, or not to do, a particular thing; a
formal bargain; a compact; an interchange of legal rights.
--Wharton.
I guess you've never had a movie ruined by a ringing cell phone. Or a clueless driver cut you off while yakking on the phone. Or just having to listen to people yell into the tiny little mics in the mall.
Don't integerate an email client and web browser, that is really dumb, now when my web browser crashes I lose that email I was about to send.
So, like, use some other e-mail client.
I hope Mozzila can pull itself together, I'd really like to use a work web browser and an open source one at that.
0.8.1 has been very solid for me. It has crashed, yes, but with roughly the same frequency as IE on Win 2000 on my work computer, so, the universe is in balance.
On top of that, both UltimateTV and TiVo charge customers $10 a month to use the device. None of that money goes to the networks or programmers whose material is being re-recorded and saved to the hard disk.
I wonder if Panasonic (maker of my VCR) and the makers of my no-name VCR tapes send cheques to NBC and FOX?
At least with MP3, attempts have been made to collect fees to share with the artists and producers. The issue hasn't even been raised in this video-bootlegging scenario.
Uh... what bootlegging?
Someday, though, all the barriers may be resolved and every TV just might have these capabilities built in. Perhaps that's when someone will notice the looming issue over intellectual property that has been largely ignored until now.
Yeah... the looming issue that has been ignored is that intellectual property is bunk.
In the ancient world, the library of Alexandria was the central repository of the wisdom of generations of mathematicians, philosophers, etc. Being one, central place had its advantages for centuries: if you needed to know something, there was one place to go. Unfortunately, being one, central place proved to be disastrous: when the library was destroyed, some of the knowledge contained therein was not "rediscovered" for 1500 years.
We're setting ourselves up for a similar disaster, but I'm not so worried about old floppies and tape machines. I'm much more worried about being locked in to proprietary formats (such as.doc).
Someday, there will be legislation not un-like the DMCA that will make reverse-engineering.doc illegal. Someday, Microsoft will require you to contact the "mother ship" to ensure your copy of Word is legit, or, Word will be on some central server.
Someday, Microsoft won't be there to validate your key, or serve you the latest Word applet.
The source for Word will be tied up in IP lawsuits and beaurcatic bungling... or worse, your.doc will be encrypted with keys that only Microsoft had at one time and no longer does, in which case even the source is no good.
Then what?
By placing all our eggs in one collective basket/format, and having that basket be controlled by a closed-source corporation, we are heading towards an information meltdown not seen since the destruction of the library of Alexandria.
"History does not repeat itself", Mark Twain once said. "It rhymes".
In other engineering disciplines (ie civil, mechanical, etc), there are people to blame if a bridge collapses or a building falls over.
In the "software engineering" realm (and I use that term loosely), who gets blamed? Are individual coders going to start taking the fall for software that blows up (literally)? Where might this lead?
All of a sudden, I'm glad I'm one of the good coders...:)
I am the only one who yearns for the days when web sites were driven by information and not style? The days when you could use any damn browser to access content over HTTP? The days when the SNR was several orders of magnitude higher than it is now?
Perhaps I'm some kind of techo-Luddite, but really, I yearn for those days, when substance won over style.
Slashdot Mirror
That's one of the most annoying and frustrating things about C++... it isn't implemented properly and effeciently anywhere yet (g++ comes close, but still enough annoyances to be, well, annoying).
Ryan T. Sammartino
Scruffies advocate trying lots of stuff and seeing what works best; a sort of natural selection.
Neats advocate trying to understand the problem on some fundamental level, then implementing a solution
Who will win? Hard to say. Both camps have contributed a lot to AI. Maybe nobody will ever win, and we'll need both "scuffy" and "neat" thinking.
When it comes to "true" AI, I just think that the scruffy approach has taken us far, but now it's hitting a (technological) wall... I think it's time for a dash of "neat"ness now, is all.
Ryan T. Sammartino
In other words, we really aren't any closer to understanding how a human chess master thinks.
I don't think we will make any significant gains in "true" AI until we sit down and figure out the principles of human intelligence, rather than trying a) mimicry or b) more silicon.
The analogy presented in most AI textbooks (Russel and Norvig, for example) is that of flight: for a long time man wanted to fly, and built machines with bird-like wings that flapped. Mimicry didn't work. Then they tried making wings that flapped a lot, or really hard. More horsepower didn't work. It wasn't until the principles of flight (Bernoulli's principle) were discovered that we were able to make flying machines.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Those are about all the non-corporate websites or non-corporate-sponsored websites I visit.
Maybe you should visit these and other sites and just ask... "Hey... how do you afford all this?" Never hurts to ask.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Yeah... that's why the definition I posted has (Law) in front of it, which means "not the informal definition, but rather the jargon of a certain profession".
Ryan T. Sammartino
That doesn't change the fact that it is a contract.
Ryan T. Sammartino
That sounds like a contract to me.
A contract doesn't necessarily need to involve mutual benefit, or an exchange of anything. A contract is simply an agreement undertaken by two or more parties. The GPL is exactly that: an agreement:
Ryan T. Sammartino
License == Contract ... it is the terms under which you can use/copy/modify GPLed software.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Beats me... I'll give 3 guesses which OS I use, and the first 2 don't count :)
Ryan T. Sammartino
Sorry, too addicted to TuxRacer.
TuxRacer has all the elements of a classic video game... penguins and herring. Anything more is just featurebloat. :)
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
Long live the pay phone!
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
Am I the only one who pictured....
never mind.
(Hint: "comes" huhuhuhu)
Ryan T. Sammartino
Uh... if that's what you call helping, remind me not to ask you for help :)
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
We're setting ourselves up for a similar disaster, but I'm not so worried about old floppies and tape machines. I'm much more worried about being locked in to proprietary formats (such as .doc).
Someday, there will be legislation not un-like the DMCA that will make reverse-engineering .doc illegal. Someday, Microsoft will require you to contact the "mother ship" to ensure your copy of Word is legit, or, Word will be on some central server.
Someday, Microsoft won't be there to validate your key, or serve you the latest Word applet. The source for Word will be tied up in IP lawsuits and beaurcatic bungling... or worse, your .doc will be encrypted with keys that only Microsoft had at one time and no longer does, in which case even the source is no good.
Then what?
By placing all our eggs in one collective basket/format, and having that basket be controlled by a closed-source corporation, we are heading towards an information meltdown not seen since the destruction of the library of Alexandria.
"History does not repeat itself", Mark Twain once said. "It rhymes".
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
In the "software engineering" realm (and I use that term loosely), who gets blamed? Are individual coders going to start taking the fall for software that blows up (literally)? Where might this lead?
All of a sudden, I'm glad I'm one of the good coders... :)
Ryan T. Sammartino
Perhaps I'm some kind of techo-Luddite, but really, I yearn for those days, when substance won over style.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Corporate Office: 800-326-5294
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sales@ariston.com
Ryan T. Sammartino
http://www.physlink.com/ae169.cfm
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino