What they are afraid of is that billions may be made using the new distribution method, but that it will be made by someone other than themselves.
These maneuvers are stall tactics more than anything, until they can position themselves into a place where they will control any new methods of distribution.
It's a mistake to assume they're stupid and missing the point. They've made billions, they're not dumb.
This is positive proof that parts of the military are no longer responsive to government. (I wonder what happens when all of it is unresponsive?)
Look at the later history of Rome. There, the Emperors were soon given leadership only with the tacit approval of the military. Those that annoyed the army were soon deposed or assassinated - paraphrasing Thomas Cahill, it soon became rare for an emperor to die of old age.
A metal is not sexy unless you get sexually stimulated by looking at the periodic table. Neither are computers, programs or cars unless you feel urges to do horribly biological things to them.
Are intelligent machines transforming life as we know it? Or is A.I. yet another overhyped, self-serving fantasy by deluded scientists and technocrats talking mostly to one another, foisting their ill-conceived, poorly-engineered creations on an unsuspecting public?
Jon, have you ever heard of the term false dichotomy? I submit that your articles would be far more interesting (and rational) if you read up on it.
The discussion has rarely been better framed..
I beg to differ. See the above link for details as to why this premise is.. flawed.
I have some sympathy for people like this. Not the patronizing, smug kind, but the real kind. The reason is, I myself could be diagnosed as 'electrically sensitive'. It has nothing to do with EM fields permeating the air and giving me skin rashes. What it has to do with is noise. My computer's hard drives spinning away, fans whining and whirring away, the monitor emitting a high-pitched tone just on the edge of my hearing, the TV doing the same thing, the simple hum of the electricity through the walls, and on and on. Ever been hit with a sense of relief when the power goes out and all those noises that you don't hear consciously are quiet? Me too.
It's the NOISE, caused by electrical devices. It's measurable, annoying, and after a while it wears on you, like somebody rubbing you with sandpaper all day.
For problems like that, I tend to work with languages that have good support for multiple programming paradigms, or, to use fewer buzzwords, languages that let me easily abstract the problem in various ways. Some ways of abstraction will map more easily onto certain parts of large problems - logic programming, functional programming, OOP, straight old procedural thought, or concurrent programming might be the best fit for a section of a problem.
Trying to stick a large, multifaceted problem into (for example) the OOP mode of thought is an exercise in pain.
Languages such as those in the Lisp family (Common Lisp, Scheme, Dylan..) or my current project, Oz, all easily support various means of abstraction.
The phrase 'easily support' is important though. It's *possible* to do functional programming in Java, but I sure as hell don't want to.
in the beginning it often did seem to be a simple "the mad Queen must be stopped", but always there were multiple layers of truth and reality that had to be peeled away to reveal the true motivation of the game.
In the case of Final Fantasy games however, those layers of, ah, truth tend to work like this:
1) The mad queen must be stopped!
2) No wait, the mad queen is just a pawn of her advisor, the creepy one in black!
3) Oh no! The advisor is actually your brother! *gasp*
4) Oh no! Your brother is being controlled by an ancient alien evil from the moon!
Having multiple layers can be great - when the layers are good. In FF's case though, it's more like unlocking a box and finding a ball of mud.
..we are able to add some incredibly creative enemies like the zombies, zombie knights, and x-creatures
Also in the game are these other highly creative enemies: knights, dogs, zombie dogs, zombie x-creatures, zombie knights (with red arm band), and the truly innovative SS Officer Who Turns Into A Zombie Before Your Very Eyes.
Re:Napster to Start New Service (patent pending)
on
Napster Going Legit
·
· Score: 1
Users get off their asses and drive their cars to the retail center
When someone equates getting off one's ass with driving a car, there is real trouble a-brewing.:)
George Lucas makes lavish use of computer- generated characters and scenes, but they never overwhelm the intriguing characters at the center of the saga. He uses animation to imagine worlds, not replace story-telling and acting.
Step 1: Realize that there is much more to a game than programming.
Step 2: Memorize the Nintendo mantra: games must be fun. In other words, games are not programming demos, they are interactive entertainment.
Step 3: Get into the gaming industry and be great at what you do so you get noticed. How? That's just an implementation detail.:)
Well, they weren't kidding when they said the've been optimizing. Playing.oggs via xmms this morning took up about 15% of my cpu time. I upgraded to the new plugin and now I haven't seen cpu usage go above 0.9% for the same songs. Top seemed to be taking up more, for reference.
I don't know if it's an xmms thing or an ogg thing, but it sure is nice.
I think someone went to Blockbuster rented "Rising Sun" last night.:P
Re:Get out of the petri dish or die in the waste
on
On Asteroid Mining
·
· Score: 1
This reminds me of one of those "tips" stories on The Onion, Helping Your Kids Succeed in School.
...
6) Develop a working model for a reformed educational system that addresses the needs of every child at a reasonable taxpayer cost. Then become powerful and implement that system.
My own thoughts on this little issue tend to revolve around Ockham's Razor. When you go back further and further in time, you either come to a point where you say
(1) Okay, the universe poofed into existence at this point
or
(2) The universe has just always existed. It just is.
At (2), you're pretty much done. At (1), you can say 'it just happened', or you can say "Jehovah did it" (or Allah, Cthulhu, or whomever)
My problem with saying some god did it is this - you either have (a) an incredibly complex universe whose origin you can just take for granted, or (b) An incredibly complex universe that exists because an incredibly (infinitely?) complex being created it, and then you're back to the start again where you wonder who created this god, and you can say "well he always just existed.." or "he was born from the milk of the giant space mother" and on and on..
In either case, you come to a stopping point (or an infinite loop), where something just IS. I don't see any reason or evidence to support the extra layer required by a god.
Those who say the universe IS this whole god concept.. well hey. There's a line of argument about intelligent life being made of the exact same stuff as rocks and shit just in different patterns.. and thus we are merely smaller manifestations of the universe, trying to comprehend itself. That's a pretty fun one.:)
So, I was at the Ottawa Linux Symposium this morning, and who was doing the opening keynote, but Miguel de Icaza of Gnome fame. He mentioned the GPL-ing of StarOffice, and the project underway since *April* to port it GTK and Bonobo (the Gnome component system), which Helix Code was assisting in. He changed the subject quickly after that, mentioning an NDA but.. very interesting nonetheless. Oh yes, the new name is OpenOffice. Check it out at http://www.openoffice.org
A relevant (and funny) section from The Hitchiker's Guide:
"Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we?" [...] "That's right," shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
Well, the first thing you should go, is travel to Ottawa (Canada). Then go downtown, to the Byward Market, and look for a bar called Zaphod Beeblebrox. Then go up to the bar and beg the bartender for the recipe.
I propose a new gender-neutral pronoun, which will solve all of these problems. It combines 'she', 'he', and even 'it', in a paradigm-shifting and wholly accurate pronoun:
Slashdot Mirror
QBASIC For Dummies?
Yes. Yes it is.
What they are afraid of is that billions may be made using the new distribution method, but that it will be made by someone other than themselves.
These maneuvers are stall tactics more than anything, until they can position themselves into a place where they will control any new methods of distribution.
It's a mistake to assume they're stupid and missing the point. They've made billions, they're not dumb.
This is positive proof that parts of the military are no longer responsive to government. (I wonder what happens when all of it is unresponsive?)
Look at the later history of Rome. There, the Emperors were soon given leadership only with the tacit approval of the military. Those that annoyed the army were soon deposed or assassinated - paraphrasing Thomas Cahill, it soon became rare for an emperor to die of old age.
A metal is not sexy unless you get sexually stimulated by looking at the periodic table. Neither are computers, programs or cars unless you feel urges to do horribly biological things to them.
:P
Geez.
It's funny. Laugh.
No it's not. Flame.
[this text inserted to avoid the also-hilarious lameness filter]
Are intelligent machines transforming life as we know it? Or is A.I. yet another overhyped, self-serving fantasy by deluded scientists and technocrats talking mostly to one another, foisting their ill-conceived, poorly-engineered creations on an unsuspecting public?
.. flawed.
Jon, have you ever heard of the term false dichotomy? I submit that your articles would be far more interesting (and rational) if you read up on it.
The discussion has rarely been better framed..
I beg to differ. See the above link for details as to why this premise is
I have some sympathy for people like this. Not the patronizing, smug kind, but the real kind. The reason is, I myself could be diagnosed as 'electrically sensitive'. It has nothing to do with EM fields permeating the air and giving me skin rashes. What it has to do with is noise. My computer's hard drives spinning away, fans whining and whirring away, the monitor emitting a high-pitched tone just on the edge of my hearing, the TV doing the same thing, the simple hum of the electricity through the walls, and on and on. Ever been hit with a sense of relief when the power goes out and all those noises that you don't hear consciously are quiet? Me too.
It's the NOISE, caused by electrical devices. It's measurable, annoying, and after a while it wears on you, like somebody rubbing you with sandpaper all day.
For problems like that, I tend to work with languages that have good support for multiple programming paradigms, or, to use fewer buzzwords, languages that let me easily abstract the problem in various ways. Some ways of abstraction will map more easily onto certain parts of large problems - logic programming, functional programming, OOP, straight old procedural thought, or concurrent programming might be the best fit for a section of a problem.
Trying to stick a large, multifaceted problem into (for example) the OOP mode of thought is an exercise in pain.
Languages such as those in the Lisp family (Common Lisp, Scheme, Dylan..) or my current project, Oz, all easily support various means of abstraction.
The phrase 'easily support' is important though. It's *possible* to do functional programming in Java, but I sure as hell don't want to.
This is humour by attrition.
Sayeth the moderators: "I give up! I'll moderate it funny! Please stop typing!"
in the beginning it often did seem to be a simple "the mad Queen must be stopped", but always there were multiple layers of truth and reality that had to be peeled away to reveal the true motivation of the game.
In the case of Final Fantasy games however, those layers of, ah, truth tend to work like this:
1) The mad queen must be stopped!
2) No wait, the mad queen is just a pawn of her advisor, the creepy one in black!
3) Oh no! The advisor is actually your brother! *gasp*
4) Oh no! Your brother is being controlled by an ancient alien evil from the moon!
Having multiple layers can be great - when the layers are good. In FF's case though, it's more like unlocking a box and finding a ball of mud.
..we are able to add some incredibly creative enemies like the zombies, zombie knights, and x-creatures
Also in the game are these other highly creative enemies: knights, dogs, zombie dogs, zombie x-creatures, zombie knights (with red arm band), and the truly innovative SS Officer Who Turns Into A Zombie Before Your Very Eyes.
Users get off their asses and drive their cars to the retail center
:)
When someone equates getting off one's ass with driving a car, there is real trouble a-brewing.
George Lucas makes lavish use of computer- generated characters and scenes, but they never overwhelm the intriguing characters at the center of the saga. He uses animation to imagine worlds, not replace story-telling and acting.
Meesa thinka you missed his last movie.
Step 1: Realize that there is much more to a game than programming. :)
Step 2: Memorize the Nintendo mantra: games must be fun. In other words, games are not programming demos, they are interactive entertainment.
Step 3: Get into the gaming industry and be great at what you do so you get noticed. How? That's just an implementation detail.
Well, they weren't kidding when they said the've been optimizing. Playing .oggs via xmms this morning took up about 15% of my cpu time. I upgraded to the new plugin and now I haven't seen cpu usage go above 0.9% for the same songs. Top seemed to be taking up more, for reference.
I don't know if it's an xmms thing or an ogg thing, but it sure is nice.
I think someone went to Blockbuster rented "Rising Sun" last night. :P
This reminds me of one of those "tips" stories on The Onion, Helping Your Kids Succeed in School.
...
6) Develop a working model for a reformed educational system that addresses the needs of every child at a reasonable taxpayer cost. Then become powerful and implement that system.
Simple!
My own thoughts on this little issue tend to revolve around Ockham's Razor. When you go back further and further in time, you either come to a point where you say :)
(1) Okay, the universe poofed into existence at this point
or
(2) The universe has just always existed. It just is.
At (2), you're pretty much done. At (1), you can say 'it just happened', or you can say "Jehovah did it" (or Allah, Cthulhu, or whomever)
My problem with saying some god did it is this - you either have (a) an incredibly complex universe whose origin you can just take for granted, or (b) An incredibly complex universe that exists because an incredibly (infinitely?) complex being created it, and then you're back to the start again where you wonder who created this god, and you can say "well he always just existed.." or "he was born from the milk of the giant space mother" and on and on..
In either case, you come to a stopping point (or an infinite loop), where something just IS. I don't see any reason or evidence to support the extra layer required by a god.
Those who say the universe IS this whole god concept.. well hey. There's a line of argument about intelligent life being made of the exact same stuff as rocks and shit just in different patterns.. and thus we are merely smaller manifestations of the universe, trying to comprehend itself. That's a pretty fun one.
Easy. Just reverse the polarity!
So, I was at the Ottawa Linux Symposium this
morning, and who was doing the opening keynote,
but Miguel de Icaza of Gnome fame. He mentioned the GPL-ing
of StarOffice, and the project underway since
*April* to port it GTK and Bonobo (the Gnome component
system), which Helix Code was assisting in. He
changed the subject quickly after that, mentioning an NDA
but.. very interesting nonetheless. Oh yes, the new name is OpenOffice. Check it out at http://www.openoffice.org
A relevant (and funny) section from The Hitchiker's Guide:
"Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we?"[...]
"That's right," shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
He'll also sell you one, if you're thirsty.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
--Pablo Picasso
I'd personally take issue with the 'useless' part of that, but on the whole, it's a rather important point.
I propose a new gender-neutral pronoun, which
will solve all of these problems. It combines
'she', 'he', and even 'it', in a paradigm-shifting and wholly accurate pronoun:
shit.
--Andrew