Here's a few reasons: No AI algorithm based program ever broke free from simulating bacteria eating each other to send death threads to its creators. No machine has ever been witnessed to portray a purely biological phenomenon(psychosis).
[...] As far as the "once a machine is complex or advanced enough it will be able to do X or it will magically come alive" argument goes its not true when applied to a lot of things. Our most complex machine happens to be the Space Shuttle, yet it has had no need to suddenly come alive and swallow its masters.
What kind of argument is that? Simply because we haven't done it yet, it can't be done? Simply because our most advanced machine (which the Space Shuttle is not, IMHO) is not sentient, its not possible to make computers that simulate human brains? Whatever. There is no magic involved in creating a simulation, and "alive" is a word that means different things depending on who you're talking to. This argument is not valid.
Secondly, it takes a lot of hubris not to accept the limitations of technology and more importantly the limitations of human endeavour.
I find it hard to accept these limitations when they have never been demonstrated or even had evidence for their existence presented. You are postulating limits which may or may not exist, with no evidence for or against them. Until such time as these limitations have been demonstrated or evidence for them becomes available, I will not speculate about where they might be. I will simply look at history, and at current research, and conclude that technology will continue to advance at a tremendous pace, making formerly "impossible" things possible.
Oh phooey. Give me one good reason that a machine can't have a will of its own. Give me one good reason why a sufficiently advanced machine can't do anything that a human can do.
My opinion is that it probably will be possible in the future to build a computer to simulate a human brain. That said, I don't think we are going to have to worry about machines taking over anytime soon. It will be a LONG time before the hardware is advanced enough to simulate a human, and it will probably be an even longer time before the software is advanced enough to do the job.
If CVS isn't that great (and I've heard about several shortcomings it has), then why doesn't someone start a project to create a better open-source source management system? I know there are a few out there but I haven't heard of any strictly GPL, entirely open-source alternatives. Seems like a no-brainer to me...
This case doesn't have anything to do with the price consumers pay to buy a DVD. AOL-Time-Warner can still charge whatever they want for DVDs. This is all about rental- AOL/TW was trying to make it illegal to rent out retail DVDs, so that rental stores would have to buy special "rental" DVDs that of course cost an arm and a leg. Read the article!
And we all know that end users would NEVER violate the EULA, never ever! Especially considering that they read it so thouroghly.
I don't see licenses like this being a problem for WINE. They don't prevent WINE from being distributed, and they don't prevent anyone from using the programs on Linux anyway. The only problem would be businesses who wanted to use WINE, but even most businesses don't read the EULA. MS would have to come up with some sort of BSA for WINE, and if they did it would be so obvious to everyone that they were complete and total jerks that it would be bad PR.
There are technical problems having to do with the interaction between GTK and QT that make it unlikely that KDE will be able to use GStreamer. Besides, KDE already has their own (non-kde-specific) media framework, aRts. Maybe GNOME should look into using aRts, since aRts came before GStreamer. I have a feeling, however, that KDE will continue using aRts and GNOME will continue using GStreamer.
The problem is that a reasonable test can't be made, since the "inventor" won't allow it, as I explained in my previous post. In the absence of a test, all we can do is rely on history and our knowledge of the laws of science. It would definitely be worth looking into if it COULD be looked into (since of course history and/or the laws of science could be wrong). Unfortunately, it can't.
Of course there's perpetual motion in this machine. If there are no moving parts, you could easily create some by adding a motor to the system. The problem of generating energy with no input is equivelant to the perpetual motion problem.
And of course, I'm sure there are many scientists out there who would just *love* to do exactly the test you describe. Will the inventor let them? NO, never in a million years. He'll just give some lame excuse as to why they can't. Even if he did and they found the hoax, he would just say that they had been paid off by the petroleum industry (without providing any evidence). These kind of people can't be reasoned with. That's why you have to be skeptical about these things. If you look at the history of these kind of inventions (and there have been many), I'm sure you'll see a definite trend: they have all turned out to be hoaxes.
Re:Not really an accurate measurement
on
Amazon Makes a Profit
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· Score: 3, Redundant
No, if you read the article instead of applying your pre-formed assumptions, you'll find that the profit was under generally accepted accounting principles. The pro forma profit was even higher. Amazon beat out the expectations of the naysayers.
Well, I guess my post wasn't entirely accurate. The $17 mil wasn't all due to Linux (though Linux was cited as the primary reason) and the savings was for last quarter, not this quarter (although there should be a similar savings for this quarter). It's still a victory for Open Source software though. Go Linux!
And they have Linux to thank for it. According to this article Linux saved them $17 million. Therefore, if it wasn't for Linux, they'd be losing $12 million and they wouldn't have been able to keep their promises to Wall Street.
The way I see it, Alan doesn't want to work for a gigantic media conglomerate that supports the DMCA and such. It goes against his principles. His decision probably has nothing to do with how Linux or RedHat itself will be affected by an AOL buyout of RedHat. So all you people are getting the wrong idea here.
Re:Your own reference seems to contradict you
on
Black Holes Disputed
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· Score: 2
Yes they would, they would just lose altitude like crazy as long as they were upside-down.
It always amazes me that people continue to lament flaws in many current P2P architectures when Freenet has incorporated solutions to those problems almost from its inception.
There is one reason, and one reason only, why this occurs: There is no Freenetster. No P2P file-sharing app that allows you to easily search for and download music/movies/etc. As soon as there is one, Freenet will explode (assuming it really is as scaleable and such as it is made out to be). You want Freenet to be popular? There's only one thing you have to do...
Sometimes you look at studies like this and say, "DUH!" But you can't just dismiss the value of the study just like that. It is not always the case that studies such as this find the expected result.
Also, say you were (for example) designing a P2P music sharing service. You might say, "We could put in a way for people who share lots of music to punish freeloaders." But someone else might say "if you let people punish others, the whole network will be overrun by people who punish for no good reason and everyone will hate it." This study would provide evidence to support adding the punishment feature. This study might even give you the idea to implement such a feature if you hadn't thought of it before.
You've always been able to exclude story authors, its been in the preferences for a long time. Making timothy your foe won't do much since it seems to be an unwritten rule that Slashdot editors post comments on the site no more often than once every six months or something...
Well then, you're all set! You can stay in, get drunk, have fun, and get laid! What more can you ask for?
Re:EEK! A COMPUTER! HIDE! RUN!
on
Gadgets of 2002
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· Score: 2
"Legend of Zelda" might be complicated (though it only requires 2 buttons and a D-pad), but it is consistent. Through the whole game you do the same thing: control the little guy on the screen. It is way easier to design an interface for any one game than to design a generic interface that works for internet browsing, using digital cameras, playing MP3s, and the million other things computers can do, because each one of these tasks is fundamentally different and has different usage patterns.
Also, I'd like to note that the rewards of a task have no effect on the difficulty of the task. I do agree that a focus on asthetics is ruining quite a few interfaces these days.
BTW, thanks for the pointer to Trillian, it looks neat. I just hope that the skinned interface is useful and not just eye-candy.
Re:EEK! A COMPUTER! HIDE! RUN!
on
Gadgets of 2002
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· Score: 2
You can't write a letter on your CD player, and you can't browse the Internet on your gameboy. You can't watch videos, use Instant Messenger, or do any of a million other things with those appliances. It's not "bigoted ignorance" or anything holding back computers, it's the fact that it is genuinely HARD to come up with an interface sufficiently generic to do all these things, yet still be comprehensible.
What I think is that there should be an "open-source design" project that functions in the traditional open-source manner, but produces a design instead of code. Then another project could be started to implement this design. How's that for solving the problem of starting a project in the Bazaar style? Does anyone else want to take part in a project to design a new interface for computers?
No, they ARE ignoring the court order, it's just that their lawyer has had to make up a reason for them to be doing it, so he made this up. They are looking for any excuse they can to stay open and this is just an excuse.
Another interesting URL, and one that should definitely be included with these type of posts, is the open job list. Many of the jobs require no programming experience or capabilities, so don't let that stop you (though developers are always welcome too:-). If you like KDE, help make it better!
Slashdot Mirror
What kind of argument is that? Simply because we haven't done it yet, it can't be done? Simply because our most advanced machine (which the Space Shuttle is not, IMHO) is not sentient, its not possible to make computers that simulate human brains? Whatever. There is no magic involved in creating a simulation, and "alive" is a word that means different things depending on who you're talking to. This argument is not valid.
Secondly, it takes a lot of hubris not to accept the limitations of technology and more importantly the limitations of human endeavour.
I find it hard to accept these limitations when they have never been demonstrated or even had evidence for their existence presented. You are postulating limits which may or may not exist, with no evidence for or against them. Until such time as these limitations have been demonstrated or evidence for them becomes available, I will not speculate about where they might be. I will simply look at history, and at current research, and conclude that technology will continue to advance at a tremendous pace, making formerly "impossible" things possible.
My opinion is that it probably will be possible in the future to build a computer to simulate a human brain. That said, I don't think we are going to have to worry about machines taking over anytime soon. It will be a LONG time before the hardware is advanced enough to simulate a human, and it will probably be an even longer time before the software is advanced enough to do the job.
You haven't bought any Legos lately, have you? ;-)
Ah, there we go. That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the link!
If CVS isn't that great (and I've heard about several shortcomings it has), then why doesn't someone start a project to create a better open-source source management system? I know there are a few out there but I haven't heard of any strictly GPL, entirely open-source alternatives. Seems like a no-brainer to me...
It's funny because it's true!
This case doesn't have anything to do with the price consumers pay to buy a DVD. AOL-Time-Warner can still charge whatever they want for DVDs. This is all about rental- AOL/TW was trying to make it illegal to rent out retail DVDs, so that rental stores would have to buy special "rental" DVDs that of course cost an arm and a leg. Read the article!
I don't see licenses like this being a problem for WINE. They don't prevent WINE from being distributed, and they don't prevent anyone from using the programs on Linux anyway. The only problem would be businesses who wanted to use WINE, but even most businesses don't read the EULA. MS would have to come up with some sort of BSA for WINE, and if they did it would be so obvious to everyone that they were complete and total jerks that it would be bad PR.
There are technical problems having to do with the interaction between GTK and QT that make it unlikely that KDE will be able to use GStreamer. Besides, KDE already has their own (non-kde-specific) media framework, aRts. Maybe GNOME should look into using aRts, since aRts came before GStreamer. I have a feeling, however, that KDE will continue using aRts and GNOME will continue using GStreamer.
The problem is that a reasonable test can't be made, since the "inventor" won't allow it, as I explained in my previous post. In the absence of a test, all we can do is rely on history and our knowledge of the laws of science. It would definitely be worth looking into if it COULD be looked into (since of course history and/or the laws of science could be wrong). Unfortunately, it can't.
And of course, I'm sure there are many scientists out there who would just *love* to do exactly the test you describe. Will the inventor let them? NO, never in a million years. He'll just give some lame excuse as to why they can't. Even if he did and they found the hoax, he would just say that they had been paid off by the petroleum industry (without providing any evidence). These kind of people can't be reasoned with. That's why you have to be skeptical about these things. If you look at the history of these kind of inventions (and there have been many), I'm sure you'll see a definite trend: they have all turned out to be hoaxes.
No, if you read the article instead of applying your pre-formed assumptions, you'll find that the profit was under generally accepted accounting principles. The pro forma profit was even higher. Amazon beat out the expectations of the naysayers.
Well, I guess my post wasn't entirely accurate. The $17 mil wasn't all due to Linux (though Linux was cited as the primary reason) and the savings was for last quarter, not this quarter (although there should be a similar savings for this quarter). It's still a victory for Open Source software though. Go Linux!
And they have Linux to thank for it. According to this article Linux saved them $17 million. Therefore, if it wasn't for Linux, they'd be losing $12 million and they wouldn't have been able to keep their promises to Wall Street.
The way I see it, Alan doesn't want to work for a gigantic media conglomerate that supports the DMCA and such. It goes against his principles. His decision probably has nothing to do with how Linux or RedHat itself will be affected by an AOL buyout of RedHat. So all you people are getting the wrong idea here.
Yes they would, they would just lose altitude like crazy as long as they were upside-down.
There is one reason, and one reason only, why this occurs: There is no Freenetster. No P2P file-sharing app that allows you to easily search for and download music/movies/etc. As soon as there is one, Freenet will explode (assuming it really is as scaleable and such as it is made out to be). You want Freenet to be popular? There's only one thing you have to do...
Also, say you were (for example) designing a P2P music sharing service. You might say, "We could put in a way for people who share lots of music to punish freeloaders." But someone else might say "if you let people punish others, the whole network will be overrun by people who punish for no good reason and everyone will hate it." This study would provide evidence to support adding the punishment feature. This study might even give you the idea to implement such a feature if you hadn't thought of it before.
You've always been able to exclude story authors, its been in the preferences for a long time. Making timothy your foe won't do much since it seems to be an unwritten rule that Slashdot editors post comments on the site no more often than once every six months or something...
Well then, you're all set! You can stay in, get drunk, have fun, and get laid! What more can you ask for?
Also, I'd like to note that the rewards of a task have no effect on the difficulty of the task. I do agree that a focus on asthetics is ruining quite a few interfaces these days. BTW, thanks for the pointer to Trillian, it looks neat. I just hope that the skinned interface is useful and not just eye-candy.
What I think is that there should be an "open-source design" project that functions in the traditional open-source manner, but produces a design instead of code. Then another project could be started to implement this design. How's that for solving the problem of starting a project in the Bazaar style? Does anyone else want to take part in a project to design a new interface for computers?
Why the heck is bandwidth so expensive? I thought there was dark fiber coming out the ears of tech companies...
No, they ARE ignoring the court order, it's just that their lawyer has had to make up a reason for them to be doing it, so he made this up. They are looking for any excuse they can to stay open and this is just an excuse.
Another interesting URL, and one that should definitely be included with these type of posts, is the open job list. Many of the jobs require no programming experience or capabilities, so don't let that stop you (though developers are always welcome too :-). If you like KDE, help make it better!