Work out approximately how many AU away you'd be now, if you'd been born on a spaceship in Earth's orbit just as it resumed 1g for a trip to the stars....
Alternatively, how old would you be if the trip was to Proxima Centuri?
I think scientists have discovered how to duplicate a particle, but it's a while before we get to replicating a complex structure.
Probably the best way of doing space travel is to transport information rather than matter, i.e. use robots under remote control rather than send people out there.
There's a latency problem, but I reckon that'll get solved before we solve the escape velocity problem. Although the space elevator is pretty neat.
It relies on the interested subscribers being confident about the quality of future production, i.e. confident in the broadcaster based on past performance.
It is also much better if there's a large number of subscribers, and that they all understand why they should subscribe rather than simply free-load. Why in some countries like the UK that there is a statutory TV license (if there's anything that looks remotely like a TV in your household).
With single items of digital content (music, whatever) you can withhold it until you have sufficient 'subscribers' for its release. There's still freeloading, but at least you get to make the decision as to whether the total 'subscription' from the punters petitioning for its release is sufficient - if it is, it's easy money, if not, go the normal publishing route.
Artists can still earn money, by releasing the perfect copies (as opposed to low quality demos) only after sale. File-sharing does not make it impossible to sell music - even without copyright.
An idea that doesn't miss the point is to sell the CD/DVD BEFORE you release it, and then it doesn't matter whether it gets copied or not - in fact the more copies that are made, the cheaper your distribution costs are.
This is the same as the number of different arrangements of 4,096 symbols in a sequence of 25,600 (160x160).
If the number of different combinations of 2 symbols (binary) in a sequence of n (bits) is 2^n, then the Palm can display 4096^25600 different colour combinations (ignoring symmetry).
That's.... erm...
2 ^( 25600 x log2(4096) )
which is: 2^307200
Cor! Wot a lot of colour combos! (and quite a few of them are probably copyrighted, obscene, etc.)
The second the US gives up trying to use the courts to keep MS in check, it'll simply nationalize MS. It'll certainly do this the moment it perceives a conflict of interest. It may neuter it (like IBM), but it will probably nationalize it given widespread reliance on it.
There is of course the small chance that MS will become the ascendant (espicially with a tad of infiltration in congress, etc.), and the US will become the United States of Microsoft.
When more taxes get spent on IT infrastructure than anything else, they'll be the de facto government anyway.
So, there's a choice: Software Dictatorship or Software Democracy. Run by an individual from taxation, or run by the people by community sponsorship.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with making money out of software, but it's not a good idea to have a government start enshrining the interests of commercial organisations in law at the expense of peoples constitutional rights.
Well, ok, maybe 'public domain' has a variety of meanings, but yes, basically an entity that operates on the public'c behalf and ensures that works that have been entrusted to the public domain, whether under BSD or GPL type license, are adhered to.
This means if someone creates a digital work, they don't need to have the license in their name, but can create an approved license in the public domain's name. It would have to be one of a few 'approved' licenses in order not to risk creating unnecessary burdens on this public entity however.
So an author can donate a work under the GPL to the public domain, and it guarantees that it, and all derivatives remain available to the public, but most importantly, without even allowing the author to separately license the work under a different license (if anyone wants to do this, well, they can still use the old GPL license).
Ok, we need a public domain entity that can be the licensor within a GPL license, i.e. a public domain with teeth.
It's no good having a public domain if the second you give something to it, it immediately says "Duh, dunno what this is? Anyone want to take it off my hands?".
We need to be able to ensure that something will remain in the public domain in perpetuity.
Maybe one day NYTimes, Gamasutra and other sites will abandon the idea of registrations.
Here's a sample of the article just to give you a flavour:
"With the advent of the Internet it's important not to lose sight of what we're trying to secure, and risk ending up thinking security is sacred. Fragile systems that lose significant value when they're compromised by accident or deliberate act are indeed candidates to warrant considerable security. However, more flexible systems that are expected from the outset to be compromised (perhaps only in part) on a continuous or occasional basis can still maintain their value. Security for such systems is, and must be, an intrinsic property and not an added feature.
The thing is, there's a risk that by continually reinforcing a system's security it simply becomes more and more complicated, burdensome to maintain, unwieldy, and worst of all, ever more fragile. That's why I think it's useful exploring analogues to networked computers, it broadens one's perspective of what's important and how much security, or lack of it, other systems can tolerate. "
Nevertheless, the capitalisation of the 'p' in these cases provides such an indispensable cue for the pronunciation of the word that to say it doesn't, and that it is only context that affects pronunciation, is like saying that vowels are redundant, e.g. 'Slshdt - Nws fr Nrds. Stff tht mttrs'.
Many languages have strength from their redundancy, and errors can thus be corrected from context. Removing or discounting an aspect on the justification that it's redundant impairs or insults the language. Even programming languages have redundancy, e.g. let x=5. vs x=5.
You try reading legal contracts where all capitalisation and punctuation has been removed! The perverse argument is that this removes ambiguity or confusion.
There's always a tendency for techies to make life easier for themselves and exploit the redundancy of the information they process. But that doesn't make it valid to do so. In an ideal world filenames should have been handled properly, i.e. unicode, locale based sorting and matching, punctuation, case retention, etc. Just as dates should always have been recognised as not limited to 2 digit years.
One of the oldest examples of techies cutting corners was probably the authors/scribes of the Bible deciding to take advantage of the vowel-free, shorthand version of their written language (Aramaic?). Still causes arguments about interpretation even today...
Write down on a piece of paper the following characters:
'A','D','A','M','space','H','A','D','space','apo st rophe','E','M'
Then he can say "Ok, you lot, you've just infringed copyright on the shortest poem: Fleas"
Or perhaps he could dish out tons of sealed envelopes that contain instructions that would violate the DMCA. He can say that no-one must open the envelopes, on pain of violating the DMCA. Then a bit of a nudge and a wink and the audience may take it upon themselves to open the envelopes...
What would be far more effective and less risky would be for Bruce to figure out a nice cute way to get each member of the audience to violate the DMCA.
Of course you're right. But, as Wally said, it's a matter of politics.
It's not like Schroedinger's cat. If we open up our brains and discover that instead of a mystical soul there's just a bunch of slimy cells, it doesn't suddenly make us unintelligent. Neither does it matter if we discover that some of our neurons are actually being simulated by hyper-intelligent beings from another dimension as a form of penance.
Just as it doesn't matter if we're living in the Matrix or not. If you can't tell the difference, there is no difference. And we're right back to Turing. Looking behind the curtain does not disprove intelligence, it simply reveals the mechanism.
And frankly, the interview really did indeed appear to be a joke on Wally's part where he just fed all his theses and other literary output into ALICE and let it answer the questions.
How much of a coup to be able to say that even slashdotters can't tell the difference between Wally and a computer simulation of him...;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Work out approximately how many AU away you'd be now, if you'd been born on a spaceship in Earth's orbit just as it resumed 1g for a trip to the stars....
Alternatively, how old would you be if the trip was to Proxima Centuri?
Probably the best way of doing space travel is to transport information rather than matter, i.e. use robots under remote control rather than send people out there.
There's a latency problem, but I reckon that'll get solved before we solve the escape velocity problem. Although the space elevator is pretty neat.
Here's an article I wrote almost a decade ago:
'Interstellar Travel' is an Oxymoron
Voluntary subscription is similar, yes.
It relies on the interested subscribers being confident about the quality of future production, i.e. confident in the broadcaster based on past performance.
It is also much better if there's a large number of subscribers, and that they all understand why they should subscribe rather than simply free-load. Why in some countries like the UK that there is a statutory TV license (if there's anything that looks remotely like a TV in your household).
With single items of digital content (music, whatever) you can withhold it until you have sufficient 'subscribers' for its release. There's still freeloading, but at least you get to make the decision as to whether the total 'subscription' from the punters petitioning for its release is sufficient - if it is, it's easy money, if not, go the normal publishing route.
Artists can still earn money, by releasing the perfect copies (as opposed to low quality demos) only after sale. File-sharing does not make it impossible to sell music - even without copyright.
www.digitalartauction.com
.
An idea that doesn't miss the point is to sell the CD/DVD BEFORE you release it, and then it doesn't matter whether it gets copied or not - in fact the more copies that are made, the cheaper your distribution costs are.
Read www.digitalartauction.com for the low-down.
"display 58,621 'color combinations'"
Colour combinations?
This is the same as the number of different arrangements of 4,096 symbols in a sequence of 25,600 (160x160).
If the number of different combinations of 2 symbols (binary) in a sequence of n (bits) is 2^n, then the Palm can display 4096^25600 different colour combinations (ignoring symmetry).
That's.... erm...
2 ^( 25600 x log2(4096) )
which is: 2^307200
Cor! Wot a lot of colour combos! (and quite a few of them are probably copyrighted, obscene, etc.)
The second the US gives up trying to use the courts to keep MS in check, it'll simply nationalize MS. It'll certainly do this the moment it perceives a conflict of interest. It may neuter it (like IBM), but it will probably nationalize it given widespread reliance on it.
There is of course the small chance that MS will become the ascendant (espicially with a tad of infiltration in congress, etc.), and the US will become the United States of Microsoft.
When more taxes get spent on IT infrastructure than anything else, they'll be the de facto government anyway.
So, there's a choice: Software Dictatorship or Software Democracy. Run by an individual from taxation, or run by the people by community sponsorship.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with making money out of software, but it's not a good idea to have a government start enshrining the interests of commercial organisations in law at the expense of peoples constitutional rights.
Truth stranger than fiction?
Shouldn't be too tricky to apply this to a chimpanzee and before you know it! Charlton Heston to the rescue...
Well, ok, maybe 'public domain' has a variety of meanings, but yes, basically an entity that operates on the public'c behalf and ensures that works that have been entrusted to the public domain, whether under BSD or GPL type license, are adhered to.
This means if someone creates a digital work, they don't need to have the license in their name, but can create an approved license in the public domain's name. It would have to be one of a few 'approved' licenses in order not to risk creating unnecessary burdens on this public entity however.
So an author can donate a work under the GPL to the public domain, and it guarantees that it, and all derivatives remain available to the public, but most importantly, without even allowing the author to separately license the work under a different license (if anyone wants to do this, well, they can still use the old GPL license).
Ok, we need a public domain entity that can be the licensor within a GPL license, i.e. a public domain with teeth.
It's no good having a public domain if the second you give something to it, it immediately says "Duh, dunno what this is? Anyone want to take it off my hands?".
We need to be able to ensure that something will remain in the public domain in perpetuity.
I'm thinking GPL or LGPL rather than BSD here...
We need a new entity, the public domain, recognisable by law which can receive donations of IP.
At the moment the originator of the Open Source license has to be this entity (hence the code isn't truly public domain).
Just my revenge for all the NYTimes stories...
but I take your point.
Maybe one day NYTimes, Gamasutra and other sites will abandon the idea of registrations.
Here's a sample of the article just to give you a flavour:
"With the advent of the Internet it's important not to lose sight of what we're trying to secure, and risk ending up thinking security is sacred. Fragile systems that lose significant value when they're compromised by accident or deliberate act are indeed candidates to warrant considerable security. However, more flexible systems that are expected from the outset to be compromised (perhaps only in part) on a continuous or occasional basis can still maintain their value. Security for such systems is, and must be, an intrinsic property and not an added feature.
The thing is, there's a risk that by continually reinforcing a system's security it simply becomes more and more complicated, burdensome to maintain, unwieldy, and worst of all, ever more fragile. That's why I think it's useful exploring analogues to networked computers, it broadens one's perspective of what's important and how much security, or lack of it, other systems can tolerate.
"
I just wrote something similar at Gamasutra: Cyberspace in the 21st Century: Security is Relative
Nevertheless, the capitalisation of the 'p' in these cases provides such an indispensable cue for the pronunciation of the word that to say it doesn't, and that it is only context that affects pronunciation, is like saying that vowels are redundant, e.g. 'Slshdt - Nws fr Nrds. Stff tht mttrs'.
Many languages have strength from their redundancy, and errors can thus be corrected from context. Removing or discounting an aspect on the justification that it's redundant impairs or insults the language. Even programming languages have redundancy, e.g. let x=5. vs x=5.
You try reading legal contracts where all capitalisation and punctuation has been removed! The perverse argument is that this removes ambiguity or confusion.
There's always a tendency for techies to make life easier for themselves and exploit the redundancy of the information they process. But that doesn't make it valid to do so. In an ideal world filenames should have been handled properly, i.e. unicode, locale based sorting and matching, punctuation, case retention, etc. Just as dates should always have been recognised as not limited to 2 digit years.
One of the oldest examples of techies cutting corners was probably the authors/scribes of the Bible deciding to take advantage of the vowel-free, shorthand version of their written language (Aramaic?). Still causes arguments about interpretation even today...
Ok smarty pants...
How about these:
"I think you'll find that product is polish/Polish"
"Indeed, you'll find the polish/Polish quite difficult to work with in the winter"
"These foreign cobblers are excellent salesmen despite their overuse of polish/Polish"
That's just what I thought.
Nothing new under the sun eh?
Polish is one of the few words whose pronunciation can depend on the case of the initial letter... :-)
Dunno, might be relevant?
Hang on a mo, I thought OS stuff wasn't sold, it was really its delivery and packaging that was sold.
You could warrant the CD, that the stuff comes on, but the s/w is free and unwarranted.
How can you require a warranty on stuff that someone produced (theoretically, just for the hell of it) just because some people attempt to use it?
Next they'll require a warranty on our crap just in case people using it as compost find it lacking...
It's clear - read this: The Digital Art Auction
The answer is The Digital Art Auction.
For example, something like this:
o st rophe','E','M'
Write down on a piece of paper the following characters:
'A','D','A','M','space','H','A','D','space','ap
Then he can say "Ok, you lot, you've just infringed copyright on the shortest poem: Fleas"
Or perhaps he could dish out tons of sealed envelopes that contain instructions that would violate the DMCA. He can say that no-one must open the envelopes, on pain of violating the DMCA. Then a bit of a nudge and a wink and the audience may take it upon themselves to open the envelopes...
Well, you get the idea.
What would be far more effective and less risky would be for Bruce to figure out a nice cute way to get each member of the audience to violate the DMCA.
Of course you're right. But, as Wally said, it's a matter of politics.
;-)
It's not like Schroedinger's cat. If we open up our brains and discover that instead of a mystical soul there's just a bunch of slimy cells, it doesn't suddenly make us unintelligent. Neither does it matter if we discover that some of our neurons are actually being simulated by hyper-intelligent beings from another dimension as a form of penance.
Just as it doesn't matter if we're living in the Matrix or not. If you can't tell the difference, there is no difference. And we're right back to Turing. Looking behind the curtain does not disprove intelligence, it simply reveals the mechanism.
And frankly, the interview really did indeed appear to be a joke on Wally's part where he just fed all his theses and other literary output into ALICE and let it answer the questions.
How much of a coup to be able to say that even slashdotters can't tell the difference between Wally and a computer simulation of him...
The Digital Art Auction
Use your visual cortex!
Simply combine the two images. Either cross or boss your eyes to superimpose the images.
The differences will stick out like sore thumbs.
You don't need extra silicon when you've got so much carbon dedicated to the task!