the auto manufacturers may complain -- but this improves a small metric that will yield tremendously beneficial results for decades to come. by 2020 - when fuel prices are at a premium, the american autos won't be thought of as the equivalent of the 1970s gas-guzzlers with V8 engines -- they'll have got ahead of the curve and squeezed out at etra 7mpg -- bringing the american autos that much more into consideration vs the much more fuel efficient autos made everywhere else.
it may be bitter short term medicine for the auto industry, but it is good for you!!
We don't need a lot of economic growth to address the problem of the world's poor. We put subsistence farmers out of business because that's our choice. Clean water would do more to alleviate disease than high tech medicine. (Bill Joy, Wired 11.2003)
| when seven years becomes eight years - and eight years becomes ten years, | and ten years becomes fifteen years, will you still be a winter biker in Toronto?
but this really is kind of a pointless question, because nobody knows the future -- i don't think you could tell me where you will be in fifteen years either.
and as 7 becomes 8 becomes ten years -- will you still be able to afford gas at $7, $8, $10 a gallon?? maybe you were in an accident in twelve years -- we don't know the future. maybe due to a change in circumstances, i'll need a car, and you'll discover the joys of a bike in four years -- and then switch back again in nine years -- who knows??
that said -- here on toronto island, we have several hundred cyclists in our community, and in january, i see long hardy bikers -- 65 year old grandmothers still out on their bikes in january -- and good fellows that are architects -- and pushing 55 years -- and still out on their bikes in january. i admire their hearty spirit -- they're healthier than others their age. there's a deep heartiness that comes from such endurance.
there is also some great joy that you cannot even know exists until having gone through the experience of biking through the winter, and coming back again to spring -- of that -- what do you know??
there are many problems in america -- obesity and cars among them. these two problems are easily solved if only people would become less lazy. but it seems that's not too likely -- we'll have a big disaster instead.:-(
speaking as a seven year winter-biker in toronto canada --
foldable cars are nice and all -- but why!?!? you've got manufacture and maintain all the equipment.
it always amazes me how much money is wasted on big monster solutions when cheaper and better alternatives have long existed -- why not offer bicycles?? seriously -- they're cheaper, less problems, it always gets you there, and enjoyable!:-)
bicycles are the solution to the nation's energy and over-weight problems. break down less, and are especially for localized urban commuting.
for the winter -- covered 'bike tunnels' would take the edge off, and would still cost less than building a road, or several hundred foldable cars.
americans love robots -- they couldn't live without internet and industrial manufacture for one day. the robots are thirsty, and have already sent us on their way.
for all those other things, humans are already good at doing that. we've already obliterated privacy, come up with the concepts necessary for mechanized mass destruction, and created this capability, where it ddn't exist before.
we already feed our brains to the televisions and internets -- our mind is only filled with things fed us by the web. what happens without the lights?? -- when the lights when out on toronto in 2003 -- people started talking to their neighbours face-to-face, like they had never seen them before -- ussually sat at their desks paying more attention to a box than to the person sitting next to them. its easy enough to treat your fellows indifferently, as if they were just inputs on a machine -- to treat them humanely is much harder, since it takes more work -- yet i find face-to-face time infinitely more rewarding, and in-depth. there are ways of non-verbal communication that surpass anything virtual. the best thing i've done in the last decade, is to go a lot of places with my bike which most people take their car to -- you'd be surprised at the things you see, and the people you meet.:-)
report on: photoshop 7 and filemaker 7 under tiger:
i've used the very good filemaker pro 7.0v1 and photoshop 7 in panther and tiger for years.
after paying for the leopard upgrade -- you always end up finding out about the extra hidden costs of the cascade of further upgrades one must buy in order to get everything working that was working working again...:-P
first: photoshop 7 is dead under leopard -- pay up or switch to colourIt (ugh). i get a 'An unexected and unrecoverable problem has occured because of a program error. Photoshop will now exit' message just after the splash screen appears. deleting preference plists doesn't help either. reading several other reports of dead photoshop 7 on leopard after googling -- it appears that she's dead jim. although i do not want the additional features, i've installed photoshop CS2 (i.e. v8.0) and it works now.
i know this is an inevitable consequence of them testing photoshop 7 on the then existing OSX 10.2 (!) -- they can't test on a system that won't exist for a couple years yet (!).
but the fact remains that the cost of leopard is just the start of the upgrade dominoes -- on top of the leopard, i must pay for more features (that i don't want!!) -- just to buy compatibility with this latest cat. what if i don't want CS3? the functionality of ps7 is all i need (+leopard compatibility). but its time to cough up to pay the programmers - who after all - make it go.
second -- filemaker 7: this opened up the ol database well enough, but had a disturbing 'Unexpectedly Quit' every time i quit the application -- making me fear if it had corrupted my database by not properly closing (it opened again -- but now there is uncertainty about its data integrity -- aaargh!). i checked the versions -- it was brought into leopard as 7.0v1, (and it crashed on exit) -- then i downloaded the 7.0v3 update, and it no longer crashed on exit after i had applied the upgrade.
hope this helps someone else who needs to get their filemaker 7 working on leopard.
third: Edirol UA-700 usb audio device support: i have an Edirol UA-700 usb audio device which worked fine in panther and tiger. version 2.0.1 of the drivers died under leopard -- no audio out. upgrading to the 2.2.1 drivers fixed it.
four: Classic is Dead -- Leopard also marks the loss of classic. this is almost bearable, except for the fact that adobe dropped FRAMEMAKER development and never made an OSX version. i also have 3000 pages of carefully formatted legacy documents in framemaker -- conversion to HTML or PDF loses all the parametric structure of the multi-document books, the paragraph numbering, and style sheets -- there's never been a product that does so well what framemaker does -- it was far superior to MS word for long technical documents -- apple's own documentation was written using it ('Get Info' on some of their pdfs!) -- still no replacement, and never going to get one. just the backwards leap of going down to the level of MS word when for over a decade, framemaker was better then what MS word is now -- ugh.
losing classic also means the loss of all the data kept in hypercard. and my dad has several documents still in Fullwrite (venerable processor), and macWrite Pro (which can be converted with macLink Plus). the other hold-out for classic was FONTOGRAPHER -- there was no equivalent product anywhere on the market. but thank god, they finally converted that -- thank god for FontLab who did the upgrade.
the alternative then for: Hundreds of FrameMaker (.fmk) documens, HyperCard stacks, and hundreds of legacy MacWrite Pro documents is then left in the hands of OS 8.6 and SHEEPSHAVER -- without that, i doubt it would be possible to open these documents for anyone after tiger.
five: Address Book reversion problems. i find that under Leopard, my addressbook reverts back to an old version (des
stronger in one thing ussually means weaker in something else:
If you see in one creature an exceptional trait
In some way bestowed, then ask at once where it suffers
Elsewhere some lack, and search with investigative spirit.
At once you will find to each form the key,
For never did beast, with all kinds of teeth his upper
Jaw bone bedecking, bear horns on its forehead,
And therefore a horned lion the eternal mother
Could not possibly fashion though she apply her full strength;
For she has not mass enough, rows of teeth
To fully implant and antlers and horns to push forth.
i think jon ive got it -- the designers who would make it better are at a level too low in the hierarchy to make effective changes:
Q: There's a widespread perception that computers in general have taken on a generic appearance, i.e., the ubiquitous beige box. Why do you think this has been the case?
Ive: I DON'T THINK THE REASONS STEM FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DESIGNERS DESIGNING THOSE PRODUCTS THAT WAY. I THINK IT IS DRIVEN BY AN INDUSTRY THAT HAS DEFINED ITS AGENDA AND WHAT IT BELIEVES THE PURCHASING CRITERIA SHOULD BE. THAT, THEREFORE, DEFINES THE PRIORITIES FOR THE DESIGNER.
((THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Interview with Jonathan Ive,
Charles Arthur talks to the designer of the iMac, January 14 2002)
first they give 'em a left with the iPhone (take that zune!), and then they give 'em a right (let all the clatter from the iphone build a bit first tho) -- and before microsoft can say vista SP1... there comes apple uppin the ante with its cat -- leopard.
microsoft botched vista, and they botched the zune; while on their own, they are 'upgrades' to the mediocrity that is microsoft -- they pale when compared to leopard and the iphone.
two in one year -- i don't see how that's missing any opportunities.
its gettin to be a mighty high signal to noise ratio, but people will still keep using email, because...
The will is not set upon a surplus of pleasure, but upon the amount of pleasure that remains after getting over the pain. This is the essence of all genuine will... It reaches its goal though the path be full of thorns. It lies in human nature to pursue it so long as the displeasure connected with it does not extinguish the desire altogether.
The question is not whether the pleasure to be gained is greater than the pain, but whether the desire for the goal is greater than the hindering effect of the pain involved... for the will is not set upon a surplus of pleasure, but upon the amount of pleasure that remains after getting over the pain. This still appears as a goal worth striving for.
with RFID required on the forehead or right hand, and some space-based laser weapons, the beast will be able to call forth fire from heaven to all those who do not abide by the law of the lowest price...! {laugh, its funny for any recurring fundies}
> showing the crows successfully doing a meta-tool task (i.e. using a tool, to get a tool, to get food)
this is old news -- back in 1974, they filmed animal are beautiful people -- where the animals are filmed doing 'meta-tasks' -- catching one animal in order to track it in order to find the water hole.
this will just play into the hands of our detractors who can now claim that 'Open Source Really Is Like Communism' (never mind that it was invented by an American...;-)
at least i'm trying to be funny...
j
-- open source -- in the long tradition of libraries, liberty, and threefolding...
| Their military budget is a joke when compared to ours. | That's why they're able to run a surplus -- it's not being spent on defense.
so you're saying it is: army vs health-care -- americans would rather spend their money killing people (and its ruining their economy), whereas canadians would rather spend it on healing people (and they're economy shows stronger). hmmm.... (he thinks from toronto)...
since most everything they report news about is available in 3,495 other places on google news, i've made it a point to generally avoid them, because its 'just one more !@#$ password i have to deal with'...
looks like they've decided to broaden their readership.:-)
google was the first company to realise the vision, 'the network is the platform'.
microsoft wouldn't exist without apple inventing the PC, and douglas englebart inventing the mouse, and Shockley inventing the trasistor -- and all this depended on a generation of tube electronics, which depended on the existence of AC power distribution -- which wouldn't have existed without Nikola Tesla inventing AC power distribution... and on it goes right on back up the chain.
the hardware of computers assumes the prior existence of universal power. microsoft supplied their OS by assuming universal hardware, and google supplied their service by assuming a universal network layer.
| you could design the machines to want to destroy humanity | or evolve them in ways that create such motivations, | but it seems unlikely this is what we will do.
oh - so that's why we try so hard to make more battlebots!!;-} (its funny!)
i don't know if i'm going to trust to a possible benevolence, but parent poster had very good points - we cannot assume that a machine intelligence will have the same motivators, or be as subject to corruption as we are. we can't assume it will qualities similair to our intelligence at all.
in a way it is like frankenstein, who was created by an evil doctor, but was niave in himself, and was only burned by the villagers, because they feared what they did not know.
ever since kantian critical idealism, one only makes the assumption that one can only think ABOUT things -- one predicates one's episitemology on the belief that our thinking about things has nothing to do with the things. yet the thoughts of things exist for experience as do sense impressions. it is the problem of epistemology to understand how knowledge of things in the 'black box' becomes knowledge within us, and how this knowledge can be shared by consciousnesses which have built independent datasets.
Slashdot Mirror
the auto manufacturers may complain -- but this improves a small metric that will yield tremendously beneficial results for decades to come. by 2020 - when fuel prices are at a premium, the american autos won't be thought of as the equivalent of the 1970s gas-guzzlers with V8 engines -- they'll have got ahead of the curve and squeezed out at etra 7mpg -- bringing the american autos that much more into consideration vs the much more fuel efficient autos made everywhere else.
it may be bitter short term medicine for the auto industry, but it is good for you!!
2cents from toronto
We don't need a lot of economic growth to address the problem
of the world's poor. We put subsistence farmers out of business
because that's our choice. Clean water would do more to alleviate
disease than high tech medicine. (Bill Joy, Wired 11.2003)
| New features or abilities added to older games with new graphics
| will NEVER seem as amazing as the "old days".
arguably -- doom, and all the 3D FPS shooters are simply variants of PacMan..
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle
I no longer despair for the future
of the human race. (H.G. Wells)
| when seven years becomes eight years - and eight years becomes ten years,
| and ten years becomes fifteen years, will you still be a winter biker in Toronto?
but this really is kind of a pointless question,
because nobody knows the future -- i don't think
you could tell me where you will be in fifteen years either.
and as 7 becomes 8 becomes ten years -- will you still be able to
afford gas at $7, $8, $10 a gallon?? maybe you were in an accident
in twelve years -- we don't know the future. maybe due to a change
in circumstances, i'll need a car, and you'll discover the joys of a bike
in four years -- and then switch back again in nine years -- who knows??
that said -- here on toronto island, we have several hundred cyclists
in our community, and in january, i see long hardy bikers -- 65 year old
grandmothers still out on their bikes in january -- and good fellows
that are architects -- and pushing 55 years -- and still out on their
bikes in january. i admire their hearty spirit -- they're healthier than
others their age. there's a deep heartiness that comes from such endurance.
there is also some great joy that you cannot even know exists until
having gone through the experience of biking through the winter,
and coming back again to spring -- of that -- what do you know??
there are many problems in america -- obesity and cars among them.
these two problems are easily solved if only people would become less lazy.
but it seems that's not too likely -- we'll have a big disaster instead.
speaking as a seven year winter-biker in toronto canada --
foldable cars are nice and all -- but why!?!?
you've got manufacture and maintain all the equipment.
it always amazes me how much money is wasted on big monster solutions
when cheaper and better alternatives have long existed -- why not offer bicycles??
seriously -- they're cheaper, less problems, it always gets you there, and enjoyable!
bicycles are the solution to the nation's energy and over-weight problems.
break down less, and are especially for localized urban commuting.
for the winter -- covered 'bike tunnels' would take the edge off,
and would still cost less than building a road, or several hundred
foldable cars.
really!!
americans love robots -- they couldn't live without internet and industrial manufacture for one day. the robots are thirsty, and have already sent us on their way.
for all those other things, humans are already good at doing that. we've already obliterated privacy, come up with the concepts necessary for mechanized mass destruction, and created this capability, where it ddn't exist before.
we already feed our brains to the televisions and internets -- our mind is only filled with things fed us by the web. what happens without the lights?? -- when the lights when out on toronto in 2003 -- people started talking to their neighbours face-to-face, like they had never seen them before -- ussually sat at their desks paying more attention to a box than to the person sitting next to them. its easy enough to treat your fellows indifferently, as if they were just inputs on a machine -- to treat them humanely is much harder, since it takes more work -- yet i find face-to-face time infinitely more rewarding, and in-depth. there are ways of non-verbal communication that surpass anything virtual. the best thing i've done in the last decade, is to go a lot of places with my bike which most people take their car to -- you'd be surprised at the things you see, and the people you meet.
a whisper from the other side...
report on: photoshop 7 and filemaker 7 under tiger:
i've used the very good filemaker pro 7.0v1
and photoshop 7 in panther and tiger for years.
after paying for the leopard upgrade -- you always end up
finding out about the extra hidden costs of the cascade of
further upgrades one must buy in order to get everything
working that was working working again...
first: photoshop 7 is dead under leopard -- pay up or switch to colourIt (ugh).
i get a 'An unexected and unrecoverable problem has occured because of a
program error. Photoshop will now exit' message just after the splash screen
appears. deleting preference plists doesn't help either. reading several other
reports of dead photoshop 7 on leopard after googling -- it appears
that she's dead jim. although i do not want the additional features,
i've installed photoshop CS2 (i.e. v8.0) and it works now.
i know this is an inevitable consequence of them testing photoshop 7
on the then existing OSX 10.2 (!) -- they can't test on a system
that won't exist for a couple years yet (!).
but the fact remains that the cost of leopard is just the start
of the upgrade dominoes -- on top of the leopard, i must pay for
more features (that i don't want!!) -- just to buy compatibility
with this latest cat. what if i don't want CS3? the functionality
of ps7 is all i need (+leopard compatibility). but its time to
cough up to pay the programmers - who after all - make it go.
second -- filemaker 7: this opened up the ol database well enough,
but had a disturbing 'Unexpectedly Quit' every time i quit
the application -- making me fear if it had corrupted my
database by not properly closing (it opened again -- but now
there is uncertainty about its data integrity -- aaargh!).
i checked the versions -- it was brought into leopard as 7.0v1,
(and it crashed on exit) -- then i downloaded the 7.0v3 update,
and it no longer crashed on exit after i had applied the upgrade.
hope this helps someone else who needs
to get their filemaker 7 working on leopard.
third: Edirol UA-700 usb audio device support: i have an Edirol UA-700
usb audio device which worked fine in panther and tiger. version 2.0.1 of the
drivers died under leopard -- no audio out. upgrading to the 2.2.1 drivers fixed it.
four: Classic is Dead -- Leopard also marks the loss of classic.
this is almost bearable, except for the fact that adobe dropped FRAMEMAKER
development and never made an OSX version. i also have 3000 pages of carefully
formatted legacy documents in framemaker -- conversion to HTML or PDF loses
all the parametric structure of the multi-document books, the paragraph
numbering, and style sheets -- there's never been a product that does so well
what framemaker does -- it was far superior to MS word for long technical
documents -- apple's own documentation was written using it ('Get Info' on
some of their pdfs!) -- still no replacement, and never going to get one.
just the backwards leap of going down to the level of MS word when for
over a decade, framemaker was better then what MS word is now -- ugh.
losing classic also means the loss of all the data kept in hypercard.
and my dad has several documents still in Fullwrite (venerable processor),
and macWrite Pro (which can be converted with macLink Plus). the other
hold-out for classic was FONTOGRAPHER -- there was no equivalent
product anywhere on the market. but thank god, they finally converted
that -- thank god for FontLab who did the upgrade.
the alternative then for: Hundreds of FrameMaker (.fmk) documens,
HyperCard stacks, and hundreds of legacy MacWrite Pro documents
is then left in the hands of OS 8.6 and SHEEPSHAVER -- without that,
i doubt it would be possible to open these documents for anyone after tiger.
five: Address Book reversion problems. i find that under Leopard,
my addressbook reverts back to an old version (des
stronger in one thing ussually means weaker in something else:
If you see in one creature an exceptional trait
In some way bestowed, then ask at once where it suffers
Elsewhere some lack, and search with investigative spirit.
At once you will find to each form the key,
For never did beast, with all kinds of teeth his upper
Jaw bone bedecking, bear horns on its forehead,
And therefore a horned lion the eternal mother
Could not possibly fashion though she apply her full strength;
For she has not mass enough, rows of teeth
To fully implant and antlers and horns to push forth.
(Goethe, Metamorphosis of Animals)
i think jon ive got it -- the designers who would make it better
are at a level too low in the hierarchy to make effective changes:
Q: There's a widespread perception that computers in general have taken on a
generic appearance, i.e., the ubiquitous beige box. Why do you think this
has been the case?
Ive: I DON'T THINK THE REASONS STEM FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DESIGNERS
DESIGNING THOSE PRODUCTS THAT WAY. I THINK IT IS DRIVEN BY AN INDUSTRY
THAT HAS DEFINED ITS AGENDA AND WHAT IT BELIEVES THE PURCHASING CRITERIA
SHOULD BE. THAT, THEREFORE, DEFINES THE PRIORITIES FOR THE DESIGNER.
((THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Interview with Jonathan Ive,
Charles Arthur talks to the designer of the iMac, January 14 2002)
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=114276
first they give 'em a left with the iPhone (take that zune!),
and then they give 'em a right (let all the clatter from the iphone
build a bit first tho) -- and before microsoft can say vista SP1...
there comes apple uppin the ante with its cat -- leopard.
microsoft botched vista, and they botched the zune;
while on their own, they are 'upgrades' to the mediocrity
that is microsoft -- they pale when compared to leopard
and the iphone.
two in one year -- i don't see how that's missing any opportunities.
its gettin to be a mighty high signal to noise ratio,
but people will still keep using email, because...
The will is not set upon a surplus of pleasure, but upon
the amount of pleasure that remains after getting over the pain.
This is the essence of all genuine will... It reaches its goal
though the path be full of thorns. It lies in human nature to
pursue it so long as the displeasure connected with it
does not extinguish the desire altogether.
The question is not whether the pleasure to be gained is greater
than the pain, but whether the desire for the goal is greater
than the hindering effect of the pain involved... for the will
is not set upon a surplus of pleasure, but upon the amount of
pleasure that remains after getting over the pain.
This still appears as a goal worth striving for.
(R. Steiner, Philosphy of Freedom)
with RFID required on the forehead or right hand, and some space-based laser weapons, the beast will be able to call forth fire from heaven to all those who do not abide by the law of the lowest price...! {laugh, its funny for any recurring fundies}
The physicist Crookes concluded the temperature changes
had essentially to do with a kind of fourth dimension in space...
if you can't keep the delicate balance in a fishtank going...
you better not be in charge of maintaining life support in this closed system...!!
2cents
j
> showing the crows successfully doing a meta-tool task (i.e. using a tool, to get a tool, to get food)
this is old news -- back in 1974, they filmed animal are beautiful people -- where the animals are filmed doing 'meta-tasks' -- catching one animal in order to track it in order to find the water hole.
> this would be more appropriate for the likes of Joe Satriani or Steve Vai...
who of course, can tune their guitar by ear as they're playing,
making the item redundant for them...
this is wrong, because two identical videos can be produced by two different behaviours.
in a video, you can have two identical videos of a person taking a piece of candy from a counter.
they have a different behaviour -- and yet, one paid for it, and the other is stealing.
this will just play into the hands of our detractors who can now claim that 'Open Source Really Is Like Communism' (never mind that it was invented by an American...
at least i'm trying to be funny...
j
--
open source -- in the long tradition of libraries, liberty, and threefolding...
| Their military budget is a joke when compared to ours.
| That's why they're able to run a surplus -- it's not being spent on defense.
so you're saying it is: army vs health-care -- americans would rather
spend their money killing people (and its ruining their economy), whereas
canadians would rather spend it on healing people (and they're economy
shows stronger). hmmm.... (he thinks from toronto)...
since most everything they report news about
is available in 3,495 other places on google news,
i've made it a point to generally avoid them, because
its 'just one more !@#$ password i have to deal with'...
looks like they've decided to broaden their readership.
2cents
wonder if he had one of these as a kid...??
google was the first company to realise the vision, 'the network is the platform'.
microsoft wouldn't exist without apple inventing the PC, and douglas englebart
inventing the mouse, and Shockley inventing the trasistor -- and all this depended on
a generation of tube electronics, which depended on the existence of AC power
distribution -- which wouldn't have existed without Nikola Tesla inventing AC
power distribution... and on it goes right on back up the chain.
the hardware of computers assumes the prior existence of universal power.
microsoft supplied their OS by assuming universal hardware, and google
supplied their service by assuming a universal network layer.
| you could design the machines to want to destroy humanity
| or evolve them in ways that create such motivations,
| but it seems unlikely this is what we will do.
oh - so that's why we try so hard to make more battlebots!!
(its funny!)
i don't know if i'm going to trust to a possible benevolence,
but parent poster had very good points - we cannot assume that
a machine intelligence will have the same motivators, or be as subject
to corruption as we are. we can't assume it will qualities similair
to our intelligence at all.
in a way it is like frankenstein, who was created by an evil doctor,
but was niave in himself, and was only burned by the villagers,
because they feared what they did not know.
ever since kantian critical idealism, one only makes the assumption that
one can only think ABOUT things -- one predicates one's episitemology
on the belief that our thinking about things has nothing to do with the things.
yet the thoughts of things exist for experience as do sense impressions.
it is the problem of epistemology to understand how knowledge of things
in the 'black box' becomes knowledge within us, and how this knowledge
can be shared by consciousnesses which have built independent datasets.
"When someone says 'I want a programming language in which
I need only say what I wish done,' give him a lollipop. (Alan J. Perlis)