But I think that you're missing the point of open source. Open source, as advocated by Sun, IBM, etc., says that you bought the hardware... here's the software that comes with it. The point isn't to profit. No hardware manufacturer makes money off of the software they put on it, so they have no problem with giving the source and all rights to it.
This is the way things were in the beginning, before closed source ever existed, and many feel that this is the future too.
I suppose my point is that, nobody would deny that something written in English, or French, or Spanish would be expressive. The issue at hand is whether C can be considered a legitimate langauge. Unfortuanately, some of the attributes we typically associate with human language don't apply. There is no displacement... that is, there is no way to express in C things that happened in the past or anywhere outside the computer.
Another thing it lacks is two-sidedness. A computer won't respond to anything you say, unless you order it to give a certain preconditioned response. However, it is invaluable as a form of sub-linguistic expression. There are certain things that language can not describe well at all. For these things we typically have maps, diagrams, pictures, etc. There are mathematical algorithms and many other things that can not be easily expressed in language but can be easily expressed in code.
An example:
The first two fibbonacci numbers are both one. Any fibbonacci number after that is the sum of the two fibbonacci numbers preceding it.
int fibbonacci(n) {
if (n == 1 || n == 2)
return 1;
else
return fibbonacci(n-1) + fibbonacci(n - 2);
}
So, whereas nobody would question that a map, chart, diagram, is a viable alternative to language in expressing languages shortcomings, we have code that does the same thing.
I'm assuming you're European. The number of people I know who don't use AIM I can count on one hand. In America, I find think that AIM is the most popular service. Although I like the functionality in ICQ better, I only know one person who uses it as his primary service (he's European).
Anyway, since AOL bought ICQ, newer ICQ clients use OSCAR (the AIM protocol being blocked). I'd imagine the old protocol will be phased out and then the discussion could be relevent to ICQ too.
Nobody speaks of ICQ probably because AOL owns it. The most recent versions of ICQ connect to the servers using a slight variation of OSCAR, the same protocol AOL uses. I'd imagine that the old ICQ protocol will, within time, fade out, and the same issues about OSCAR at hand now will be just as relevent to ICQ.
Plug time, if you want a chat client that you can rely on and that uses the wonderful open source service, Jabber and that will let you access MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Zephyr AND IRC AND Napster AND does this all better because it uses protocol plugins, meaning you can enable and disable support for any protocol on the fly, and it's REALLY easy to add new ones then visit the gaim website.
Ads are not handled by the OSCAR protocol. They are handled by the Windows client seperately. There are other official AIM clients (such as the one for Linux) that use OSCAR and don't have ads. The main reason that they aren't going to update their TOC protocol, is that they've changed their minds and don't want other services to use their networks. There is no reason that Jabber couldn't use TOC, but it is an outdated protocol that doesn't include the nice new features in OSCAR.
BTW, file transfers and buddy chat are both supported by TOC. The main features that OSCAR includes that TOC doesn't are the ability to check someone's away message without sending him a message, buddy icons, direct peer-to-peer connections (and the features that can be used within it.), searching for users, etc.
You say that we don't HAVE to use AIM, and you're right. The problem is that everybody else does. gAIM is a GREAT project. I would love if everyone used Jabber, but AOL has a grip on the market. Just about everybody I know uses AIM. Gaim helps Linux users like myself access this service, whereas AOL leaves us abandoned.
First: My mother (and millions like her) are unable to click, Start, run, and type D:\SETUP on her own.
Do you really expect her to be able to do:./config
make
su
password
make install
And then what's she going to do if it doesn't work (which as you know, it often doesn't) I know that RPMs make installing easier, but this is an example of how little Linux appeals to the common man. Everybody here loves it, because we're all geeks. We understand how to use it. We are the only ones who can understand why Linux is better than Windows... to everyone else it will suck LARGELY!
SECOND: A very high percentage of computers in the world run Windows (duh). Imagine, suddenly, MS disappears. No more tech support for broken OS's, no more new updates for the OS, no more new versions of Windows. Nobody to release a patch for the next Outlook security bug. Can you fathom the effect that this would have on the world? Do you really think that suddenly, every Windows programmer in the world would just start writing for POSIX? Get a grip.
Honestly, I think that the only rational thing to do if MS did go out of business would be for them to release the source code. I wonder what would happen if Windows suddenly became Open Source.
What would we talk about on slashdot?
Obviously the RIAA knows that Napster doesn't hurt them... and they just like Napster see the financial prospects of the service. I think that all the law suits and everything were just the RIAA's attempts at getting themselves a nice piece of Napster for themselves. Now, they're trying to get total control over what songs can be distributed. Sounds plausible.
Personally, I think it's becoming a bit too similar to mp3.com.
Computer Science is not just programming, as some people are having us believe. Computer Scientists do some amazing things with hardware. I am a CS freshman right now, and I'm taking a class on logic design... gates/flip-flops/etc... at the end of the class, we will have built a real computer capable of doing such exciting tasks as adding and subtracting.
Anyway, the whole point of Computer Science is to give you an idea of how computers work. Sure, you learn how to program, but the purpose of it is to teach you how computers work. This is from the basic hardware of it, down to complex programming theory.
Computer engineering is more oriented towards using computers. It takes the approach, "look what all these computer scientists have done for us to make these wonderful machines. Now lets do things with them. Of course, a knowledge of what the computer does is necessary, but I think it is not the focus as it is with CS.
I suggest you read what I wrote before replying to it. I don't think that 'Anything that's Anti-Microsoft is good.' I said that anything that lets the general public know that there are alternatives to Microsoft products is good.
I personally don't think that Linux is anti-Microsoft. The goal of Linux is to provide a choice in operating systems.
From the majestic Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Clearly Canadian Heavy Water is the finest spring water you'll ever taste.
Whether you're replenishing yourself after a tough jog, detecting neutrinos with Chernkov radiation, or just quenching your thirst, you will not be dissapointed with Clearly Canadian Heavy.
Just compare the neutron count in Clearly Canadian Heavy with other spring waters, and you'll see what makes us the best. Our water is 10% heavier than other waters.
(Avaliable at your local retailer for about $300 million (cnd).)
The problem with advertising on the web is not the size of the ads.
With magazines and newspapers, we have print ads... print media - print ads
With radio we have audio ads... audio media - audio ads.
With television we have video ads... video media - video ads.
With the Internet, we have print ads... interactive media - print ads.
Surely, animated GIFs and Flash animations do make a difference, but for the most part the Internet is filled with print ads. Until advertisors think of some innovative way of advertising on the web, their advertisements will be ignored.
What could be interesting? Why not advertise WITH the media as opposed to just in it? What's wrong with HTML ads? Nice moderately lenghted texts with links to relevent sites explaining why product X is good.
Sure, Napster has not negatively affected the record industry as the RIAA has claimed. But, they see the opportunity to profit out of this.
It is their legal property which is being freely distributed, and so they want a say in it. I doubt this whole mess will be over until the RIAA is just as involved in the corporate workings of Napster as anyone else
Of course you have to consider a social life when choosing your carreer. After all, a job is only something that helps support a social life.
As to "confusing liquor laws," I doubt that's the main problem. I am unfamiliar with the laws in question, but I'm sure it's not impossible to get a drink.
Salt Lake City just has a reputation of being nothing but Mormon. I know I wouldn't want to live there.
My apologies to any Mormons or people from Salt Lake City.
I think it would be beneficial to robotics to combine BEAM technologies such as this with more conventional AI genereated at a fixed computer.
It seems to me that one of the biggest problems with robotics is that the size needed for power supplies, computers, etc., makes robots too big and cumbersome to be moblie. There are few mobile, intelligent robots.
Perhaps if we combine these two technologies, things will be different. We can have a vacuum robot whose thinking is done at my PC. The PC has a map of my house and gets the data from the robot's sensors. It tells the robot what to do--say, "go into that room and vacuum with attachment number 2". The robot makes sure it's not too low on power, and goes to recharge if it is. The robot makes split second decisions on it's surroundings... "That's a dog... I should avoid it."
Does anyone know of any projects like this?
Power button on top to prevent accidental power offs
clever indeed, but with my power button on front box, I've never had such a problem... has anyone? I like to pile things on top of my case... I'd imagine that would result in more power-offs for me.
Completely rounded edges for safety
In related news, today, an unidentified man was mutilated beyond recognition when he suffered a horrible accident with the edges of his PC case. The accident could have been avoided, officials say, if the edges had been rounded.
But, who says we shouldn't expect dolphins to understand our linguistic nature? How will we know if we don't try? Recent studies have shown that a bit of "music" is in all mammals... and our human languages (as diverse as they may all be) are nothing but ideas expressed via sound.
Ok, we can try to communicate with each other via music. I have no problem with that. If it's something inherent in all mammals, we can probably somehow touch ground with each other using it. But, you've just admitted that human linguistics isn't the best approach. Music is not human language. It's the same approach we take with SETI. We don't try to communicate with aliens in human languages; we use prime numbers and other fundamentals of math.
So let us take a similar approach with dolphins. But in the meantime, let them try to communicate with dolphins in human-like language.
User A requests song.mp3 from User B... request is sent first to the server.
Server looks through its databases to see how much User A is paying them. It also checks the random decryption key User A received when registering his accound. It uses these to calculate an appropriate encryption key.
Server passes this request on to user B who complies
User A now contains a song compressed and encrypted.
User A's software has the appropriate key to play song.mp3. Any other player does not recognize the format. Any other installation of Napster (because it has a different decryption key) does not recognize it either.
Will software be developed that can decode these without knowing the clients decryption key? From what I understand about DeCSS, it was important to know decryption keys for various playeres to figure out the algorithm and all. Plus, this would have to deal with additional data describing what the user is allowed to do with this. Perhaps someone who knows more about encryption could provide some insight.
I just find it ironic that the company telling us how good it is to share music is enslaving our music to their software.
I think that most likely, this scheme involves the use of a new non-standard format (undoubtedly called MP3) that will be playable by Napster software, but just garbage to other players. It probably will never get converted back to MP3 for playback.
Yes, it will be read and decompressed into raw data sent out to the speakers, but on this level, it's unavoidable.
What I was referring to was the actual undoing of the protection needed to re-protect with different permissions, not the decompression into usable audio.
Slashdot Mirror
But I think that you're missing the point of open source. Open source, as advocated by Sun, IBM, etc., says that you bought the hardware... here's the software that comes with it. The point isn't to profit. No hardware manufacturer makes money off of the software they put on it, so they have no problem with giving the source and all rights to it.
This is the way things were in the beginning, before closed source ever existed, and many feel that this is the future too.
This wasn't caught during windows2000test!? I don't believe it!
the_question = (to_be || !to_be);A GE OUS_FORTUNE | ARROWS_OF_OUTRAGEOUS_FORTUNE)) > (take_arms(sea_of_troubles) && end_them(by_opposing)));
whether(noble_in_the_mind(suffer(SLINGS_OF_OUTR
I suppose my point is that, nobody would deny that something written in English, or French, or Spanish would be expressive. The issue at hand is whether C can be considered a legitimate langauge. Unfortuanately, some of the attributes we typically associate with human language don't apply. There is no displacement... that is, there is no way to express in C things that happened in the past or anywhere outside the computer.
Another thing it lacks is two-sidedness. A computer won't respond to anything you say, unless you order it to give a certain preconditioned response. However, it is invaluable as a form of sub-linguistic expression. There are certain things that language can not describe well at all. For these things we typically have maps, diagrams, pictures, etc. There are mathematical algorithms and many other things that can not be easily expressed in language but can be easily expressed in code.
An example:
The first two fibbonacci numbers are both one. Any fibbonacci number after that is the sum of the two fibbonacci numbers preceding it.
int fibbonacci(n) {
if (n == 1 || n == 2)
return 1;
else
return fibbonacci(n-1) + fibbonacci(n - 2);
}
So, whereas nobody would question that a map, chart, diagram, is a viable alternative to language in expressing languages shortcomings, we have code that does the same thing.
I'm assuming you're European. The number of people I know who don't use AIM I can count on one hand. In America, I find think that AIM is the most popular service. Although I like the functionality in ICQ better, I only know one person who uses it as his primary service (he's European).
Anyway, since AOL bought ICQ, newer ICQ clients use OSCAR (the AIM protocol being blocked). I'd imagine the old protocol will be phased out and then the discussion could be relevent to ICQ too.
Nobody speaks of ICQ probably because AOL owns it. The most recent versions of ICQ connect to the servers using a slight variation of OSCAR, the same protocol AOL uses. I'd imagine that the old ICQ protocol will, within time, fade out, and the same issues about OSCAR at hand now will be just as relevent to ICQ.
Plug time, if you want a chat client that you can rely on and that uses the wonderful open source service, Jabber and that will let you access MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Zephyr AND IRC AND Napster AND does this all better because it uses protocol plugins, meaning you can enable and disable support for any protocol on the fly, and it's REALLY easy to add new ones then visit the gaim website.
According to www.aol.com/aim, they have 84 million registered users.
Ads are not handled by the OSCAR protocol. They are handled by the Windows client seperately. There are other official AIM clients (such as the one for Linux) that use OSCAR and don't have ads. The main reason that they aren't going to update their TOC protocol, is that they've changed their minds and don't want other services to use their networks. There is no reason that Jabber couldn't use TOC, but it is an outdated protocol that doesn't include the nice new features in OSCAR.
BTW, file transfers and buddy chat are both supported by TOC. The main features that OSCAR includes that TOC doesn't are the ability to check someone's away message without sending him a message, buddy icons, direct peer-to-peer connections (and the features that can be used within it.), searching for users, etc.
You say that we don't HAVE to use AIM, and you're right. The problem is that everybody else does. gAIM is a GREAT project. I would love if everyone used Jabber, but AOL has a grip on the market. Just about everybody I know uses AIM. Gaim helps Linux users like myself access this service, whereas AOL leaves us abandoned.
First: My mother (and millions like her) are unable to click, Start, run, and type D:\SETUP on her own. Do you really expect her to be able to do: ./config
make
su
password
make install
And then what's she going to do if it doesn't work (which as you know, it often doesn't) I know that RPMs make installing easier, but this is an example of how little Linux appeals to the common man. Everybody here loves it, because we're all geeks. We understand how to use it. We are the only ones who can understand why Linux is better than Windows... to everyone else it will suck LARGELY!
SECOND: A very high percentage of computers in the world run Windows (duh). Imagine, suddenly, MS disappears. No more tech support for broken OS's, no more new updates for the OS, no more new versions of Windows. Nobody to release a patch for the next Outlook security bug. Can you fathom the effect that this would have on the world? Do you really think that suddenly, every Windows programmer in the world would just start writing for POSIX? Get a grip.
Honestly, I think that the only rational thing to do if MS did go out of business would be for them to release the source code. I wonder what would happen if Windows suddenly became Open Source.
What would we talk about on slashdot?
What if I wanted to e-mail some Linux kernel source to a friend using a Hotmail account. Can Microsoft then claim ownership to the kernel?
The more stories like this I read on Slashdot, the more I think OSDN would benefit from a ProBonoLawForge.org
Obviously the RIAA knows that Napster doesn't hurt them... and they just like Napster see the financial prospects of the service. I think that all the law suits and everything were just the RIAA's attempts at getting themselves a nice piece of Napster for themselves. Now, they're trying to get total control over what songs can be distributed. Sounds plausible. Personally, I think it's becoming a bit too similar to mp3.com.
Computer Science is not just programming, as some people are having us believe. Computer Scientists do some amazing things with hardware. I am a CS freshman right now, and I'm taking a class on logic design... gates/flip-flops/etc... at the end of the class, we will have built a real computer capable of doing such exciting tasks as adding and subtracting.
Anyway, the whole point of Computer Science is to give you an idea of how computers work. Sure, you learn how to program, but the purpose of it is to teach you how computers work. This is from the basic hardware of it, down to complex programming theory.
Computer engineering is more oriented towards using computers. It takes the approach, "look what all these computer scientists have done for us to make these wonderful machines. Now lets do things with them. Of course, a knowledge of what the computer does is necessary, but I think it is not the focus as it is with CS.
I suggest you read what I wrote before replying to it. I don't think that 'Anything that's Anti-Microsoft is good.' I said that anything that lets the general public know that there are alternatives to Microsoft products is good. I personally don't think that Linux is anti-Microsoft. The goal of Linux is to provide a choice in operating systems.
Anything that makes people more aware of OS's other than Windows is good. Maybe people will start with Corel and then move on to RedHat or Debian.
As an open-source community, we shouldn't betray Corel if they want to develop Linux.
They've slept with the enemy, been thrown out to the curb, and now is coming back to us.
From the majestic Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Clearly Canadian Heavy Water is the finest spring water you'll ever taste.
Whether you're replenishing yourself after a tough jog, detecting neutrinos with Chernkov radiation, or just quenching your thirst, you will not be dissapointed with Clearly Canadian Heavy.
Just compare the neutron count in Clearly Canadian Heavy with other spring waters, and you'll see what makes us the best. Our water is 10% heavier than other waters.
(Avaliable at your local retailer for about $300 million (cnd).)
The problem with advertising on the web is not the size of the ads.
With magazines and newspapers, we have print ads... print media - print ads
With radio we have audio ads... audio media - audio ads.
With television we have video ads... video media - video ads.
With the Internet, we have print ads... interactive media - print ads.
Surely, animated GIFs and Flash animations do make a difference, but for the most part the Internet is filled with print ads. Until advertisors think of some innovative way of advertising on the web, their advertisements will be ignored.
What could be interesting? Why not advertise WITH the media as opposed to just in it? What's wrong with HTML ads? Nice moderately lenghted texts with links to relevent sites explaining why product X is good.
It all amounts to greed.
Sure, Napster has not negatively affected the record industry as the RIAA has claimed. But, they see the opportunity to profit out of this.
It is their legal property which is being freely distributed, and so they want a say in it. I doubt this whole mess will be over until the RIAA is just as involved in the corporate workings of Napster as anyone else
Of course don't forget that the RIAA gets a share of all profits made from selling blank CDs and blank tapes!
Go buy a Rio or something... besides, they're really cool.
Of course you have to consider a social life when choosing your carreer. After all, a job is only something that helps support a social life.
As to "confusing liquor laws," I doubt that's the main problem. I am unfamiliar with the laws in question, but I'm sure it's not impossible to get a drink.
Salt Lake City just has a reputation of being nothing but Mormon. I know I wouldn't want to live there.
My apologies to any Mormons or people from Salt Lake City.
I think it would be beneficial to robotics to combine BEAM technologies such as this with more conventional AI genereated at a fixed computer. It seems to me that one of the biggest problems with robotics is that the size needed for power supplies, computers, etc., makes robots too big and cumbersome to be moblie. There are few mobile, intelligent robots. Perhaps if we combine these two technologies, things will be different. We can have a vacuum robot whose thinking is done at my PC. The PC has a map of my house and gets the data from the robot's sensors. It tells the robot what to do--say, "go into that room and vacuum with attachment number 2". The robot makes sure it's not too low on power, and goes to recharge if it is. The robot makes split second decisions on it's surroundings... "That's a dog... I should avoid it." Does anyone know of any projects like this?
Some of the features:
Power button on top to prevent accidental power offs
clever indeed, but with my power button on front box, I've never had such a problem... has anyone? I like to pile things on top of my case... I'd imagine that would result in more power-offs for me.
Completely rounded edges for safety
In related news, today, an unidentified man was mutilated beyond recognition when he suffered a horrible accident with the edges of his PC case. The accident could have been avoided, officials say, if the edges had been rounded.
But, who says we shouldn't expect dolphins to understand our linguistic nature? How will we know if we don't try? Recent studies have shown that a bit of "music" is in all mammals... and our human languages (as diverse as they may all be) are nothing but ideas expressed via sound.
Ok, we can try to communicate with each other via music. I have no problem with that. If it's something inherent in all mammals, we can probably somehow touch ground with each other using it. But, you've just admitted that human linguistics isn't the best approach. Music is not human language. It's the same approach we take with SETI. We don't try to communicate with aliens in human languages; we use prime numbers and other fundamentals of math. So let us take a similar approach with dolphins. But in the meantime, let them try to communicate with dolphins in human-like language.
- User A requests song.mp3 from User B... request is sent first to the server.
- Server looks through its databases to see how much User A is paying them. It also checks the random decryption key User A received when registering his accound. It uses these to calculate an appropriate encryption key.
- Server passes this request on to user B who complies
- User A now contains a song compressed and encrypted.
User A's software has the appropriate key to play song.mp3. Any other player does not recognize the format. Any other installation of Napster (because it has a different decryption key) does not recognize it either. Will software be developed that can decode these without knowing the clients decryption key? From what I understand about DeCSS, it was important to know decryption keys for various playeres to figure out the algorithm and all. Plus, this would have to deal with additional data describing what the user is allowed to do with this. Perhaps someone who knows more about encryption could provide some insight. I just find it ironic that the company telling us how good it is to share music is enslaving our music to their software.I think that most likely, this scheme involves the use of a new non-standard format (undoubtedly called MP3) that will be playable by Napster software, but just garbage to other players. It probably will never get converted back to MP3 for playback. Yes, it will be read and decompressed into raw data sent out to the speakers, but on this level, it's unavoidable. What I was referring to was the actual undoing of the protection needed to re-protect with different permissions, not the decompression into usable audio.