Amid all the jokes about Zaphod's extra arm and elysian scifi about replacement organs, there are some ethical issues to consider. Is it right to create a clone for the sole purpose of killing it to harvest organs? Or doing the same thing, only much earlier, to harvest the stem cells from the cloned blastocyst?
(a) It was actually only a couple of months after Unisys announced its patent and its intent to enforce, before the PNG format was finalized. It was really an example of lightning-speed format development. google "png history"
(b) the worldwide patents on LZW have not yet expired! It's arguable whether the following patent is valid, but IBM was issued a patent on *the same algorithm* covered by the Unisys patent -- and IBM's patent is good for another two years: United States Patent No. 4814746 issued in 1989.
Talk about letting your biases show! The commentary above says "widespread right-wing conspiracy theories have done great harm". Yet the link is to a story that describes LEFT wing fears! (Specifically, that Diebold et. al. are all GOP contributors, and the machines "are being used to fix elections all over the country in Republicans' favor.")
Now, this is not to say there aren't a TON of right wing conspiracy theories out there, about these voting machines; of course there are. But why mislabel the link as describing right wing kooks when it actually describes left wing kooks? It's easy enough to find a link that actually supports the submitter's predisposition concerning the nuts on the right...
8.3 file limitations? Nonsense; cygwin, like windows, supports long file names. (there is ONE file name issue that we cannot fix directly: the magic names 'aux' or 'con' or 'lpt' which are utter hell. However, we DO have an indirect fix even for that -- "managed" mountpoints are available in cygwin-1.5.0 and later, where ALL file access is handled by cygwin and all names are translated on the fly to something braindead windows can handle. But it's slower.)
About maintaining patchsets. what the F*** are you talking about? I've maintained patchsets for 30-some different ports for years. Still do. However, over the last two years, the "size" of the patches needed for cygwin have become much less intrusive. That's because of transparent support for "linux-like" shared library linking means we no longer __declspec(dllimport) this_symbol or __declspec(dllexport) that_symbol. Poof! Instant patch elimination. Most patchsets now just boil down to re-autotooling and some packaging info (like.deb rules files only dumber; and certainly not intended to go "upstream").
But, to reach that point we did (geez, I'm so sorry) work with the binutils and gcc folks to attain that level of functionality.
Now that the only two of your specific claims are lying in tattered shreds on the floor, would you like to *specifically* name what "extended features" of linux you want? I'm not promising anything because developer time is volunteer/limited, but specific requests are always better than ignorant generalized rants...
Did anybody notice that this "repeal", while rolling back the FCC regulations, also slips in a few whammies of its own?
The "Fairness" Doctrine (AKA Hush Rush) is back.
Some politicians -- Dems as well as squishy GOPers -- have gotten their feelings hurt over the years by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. So now they want to impose a new (actually old) rule: for every (profitable) hour of a popular (at least on radio) right wing talkshow host, THOU SHALT put on an hour of some unprofitable, unpopular (at least on radio) left wing host.
Because NPR is just not enough.
Most stations that aren't directly subsidized by the Guvmint would simply go broke doing that -- they can't just waste half of their broadcast day with zero ad revenue. So, away with Sean, away with Rush, and bring on 24hour MiqueToast McMiddle. And they'd probably STILL go broke. (of course, for the "free speech means say only what I like" crowd and the "all corporations are evil scum" crowd, they're probably cheering right now)
Say what you want about Rush&Friends, but they have definitely enlivened political debate in this country. Of course, that's a bad thing -- because incumbent politicians might get their feelings hurt by such indecorous public criticism...
Or you could use cygwin's internal mount-point mapping thus (as Administrator):
$ mount -s [-b] C:/Documents\ And\ Settings/home
Now, from within cygwin,/home/bob/ and ~bob will end up mapping to "C:\Documents And Settings\bob"
The downside is, I've noticed that folks with XP tend to use "My Full Name With The Spaces" as their logon id. As in most shells, dealing with "/home/Bob Smith" from within cygwin is a PITA.
(Note: cygwin's mount command is internal to cygwin programs. It doesn't use junction points -- which means it works on W9x, too)
Actually, I have the same problem with Cadence [a high end CAD/VLSI tool]. It wants PseudoColor -- it'll work in -depth 8 -fullscreen mode, but it's UGLY (everybody remember the color flashing behavior from the bad old days of *nix?)
I just ruled that I have the authority to regulate interstate banking, in addition to the Fed. As my first act, I decree that 0.01% of all transactions shall be deposited in my various accounts, to cover my "expenses."
Anybody else want to rule that they have some spurious authority that supersedes a federal agency's direct purview?
Personally, I don't trust Senator Leaky Leahy as far as I can pick him up and throw him. Sen. Leahy was kicked off the Senate Intelligence Committee back in the 80's for leaking top secret information to the press -- a leak which arguably resulted in the death of several of our undercover agents.
Perhaps Alan just could not bring himself to maintain the stable 2.4 tree with the new 2.4 VM (Andrea), given his stated preference for the improved older 2.4 VM (Rik)?
Whataminute. All this DeCSS controversy and the MPAA and the RIAA and whatnot all started within the last eight years. The government intervention IN THOSE CASES was under the Clinton Watch. Mary Jo White (the US Attorney who filed the amicus curiae brief we're all upset about) was a Clinton appointee.
W's been in office for exactly 1 month, and this stuff has been brewing for several years.
Whose fault is all this, again? Oh, yeah -- the Republicans. That's right.
If you'd like to contact Mary Jo (especially if you are from "the southern district of New York) try:
Mary Jo White
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Attorney for Intervenor United States of America.
100 Church Street, 19th Floor
New York, New York 10007
(212) 637-2741
The amateurish "according to my reading of the Constitution" analysis of people who don't know shit about the case law is embarrassing, unhelpful, and only raises the overall signal/noise ratio.
Well, yeah, us poor dumb hicks who don't
know nuthin' 'bout bein' a fancy lawyer
take a real exception to the whole concept
of case law trumping the Constitution. It seems
pretty obvious that it's real easy to build
a road, one 'case law' brick at a time, that
takes you from "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech"
to "Certain politically disapproved speech
is not allowed in certain forums" to "Say what
we allow you to say and don't say anything else"
And code isn't protected speech
Neither is email
Nor wireless transmissions
Nor any kind of digitally encoded data
And yes, it CAN happen here. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist
Party?" "Identify your associates within that
organization, and we'll go easy on you..."
Or, for a even more divisive example from today's news: from "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" to "five days later, maybe, but you can't take it with you
anywhere---and be sure not to store it in such
a way that it would actually be useful as
protection against an intruder..."
It seems that on occaision, one MUST return to
the core principles---"according to my reading
of the Constitution..."---otherwise, the United States as a Constitutional Republic is doomed. One 'case law' brick at a time. If people can't be expected
to understand their rights without a law degree, what good are they?
Errmmm...did you *read* any of our papers, or just rely on the pop-science reporting in the referenced article?
We're quite aware of the analog nature of transistors -- *we* almost always use them that way. However, the current computing paradigm invariably uses transistors in the digital mode; hence the distinction between "digital" transistors (for computing) and analog neurons.
Yes, silicon neurons can be self organizing and learn. We've shown this with our silicon-based research. However, most silicon neurons use 10^4 -- 10^6 times the amount of energy per switching transistion than a neuron. In many cases, the speed of silicon neurons is a drawback -- motor neurons have to "slow down" in order to interact with the real world; you can't move an actuator at 1,000,000x speed. (And, all that speed means increased power consumption. If you don't need speed -- e.g. the motor neuron mentioned above -- why spend the power?)
But *where* do you think the inspiration for these silicon neurons came from? That's right -- people working with real neurons. Do you truly think that we know everything there is to know about real neurons? That we can learn nothing more from working with them directly? Come on, biology still has mysteries we haven't yet fathomed -- and that's why we're experimenting with the real thing in *addition* to building systems that use silicon neurons.
Actually, I work at the Laboratory for Neuroengineering with Dr. Ditto. One of the things we are doing, in addition to "neuronal computing" is building electronic, silicon-based systems that emulate the learning ability and multiplicity of inputs that neurons posess. Both approaches are valid and provide their own benefits. The "silicon emulating neuronal circutry" field was started by Carver Mead at CalTech back in the eighties; you can probably find a lot of information on it by using google to search for "neuromorphic engineering". Also, I seem to recall a slashdot article a while back concerning the neuromorphic community's annual workshop -- the "Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop" at Telluride, CO (although that article concentrated heavily on the robotic side of our field and not so much on the neurobiological side of it.)
BTW, we use leech neurons because (a) it's an invertibrate (less paperwork) (b) big ganglia (c) low maintainance -- a few drops of blood now and then and they're happy (just kidding).
If elected, you will swear (or affirm) "that [you] will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of [your] ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." -US Const, Article II, Section 1.
The Federal Government in its present form vastly overreaches the constitutional authority it was granted by the Founders. (*) As James Madison said in the Federalist Papers: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce.... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."
How do you propose to bring the Federal Govt into compliance with its constitutional authority? Reducing the federal scope, or amending the constitution -- or forswearing your oath?
(*) If you disagree with this statement, then please list Article and Section of the Constitution where the Federal Govt is given the power to (1) provide prescription drugs (2) manipulate the education systems of the several states (3) restrict the use of private property without recompense (4) Social Security, farm subsidies, bank bailouts, food stamps, toilet gallons per flush, driving speed...
If you are tempted to use the 'general welfare' clause in the preample and in Article I Section 8, don't be. See President Madison's veto of certain proposed legislation during his term:
http://www.snowcrest.net/siskfarm/natwelf.html
Not...exactly. My logs show that they check port 119 four times a day, but they don't scan every port on the customer's computer. I have no idea why they care about NNTP but not 137/138/139 (Windows file sharing) or ftpd, httpd,... e.g. all those other things prohibited by the TOS.
I never assumed that "it means creating a home network". I know the difference between NAT and VPN. Roblimo deleted my commentary on the news and added his own, and forgot to put closing quotation marks to end my part of the story.
Roblimo said,
Apparently @Home is looking for the little bit of extra revenue they can get by selling additional IPs to people (like me) who have more than one computer. This might not be so bad if @Home provided reliable e-mail and DNS servers and other "basic" services one expects from an ISP, which they don't. This is just another piece of woe for those of us whose only broadband choice is @Home. Bah!
So, blame Roblimo, NOT me, for the ensuing confusion in almost EVERY BLASTED message in this thread, where people are mixing up NAT and VPN. My original commentary was something along the lines of
What possible reason could Comcast have for dissallowing this service? Are they just trying to insist on being able to snoop on my traffic, and don't want any encryption? What's next -- no outgoing ssh client connections to external ssh servers?
GASP: Could ssh itself be considered a VPN Tunneling Protocol?
That's not a completely accurate quotation of my original comments; I can't seem to access my story as originally posted, but Roblimo probably can. Anyway, that's about what I was thinking when I wrote it. FWIW, here is the email I sent to my provider last night:
While most of the revisions specified seem reasonable, I would like to know your rationale for the apparently arbitrary decision to disallow the use of VPN Tunneling Protocol. While I do not currently use a VPN, I have always considered the *possibility* of hooking up to my company's VPN one of the main benefits of a fast, always-on connection.
WHY are you disallowing this use of the service for which I am paying? Is it because you don't like it when your customers encrypt their packets? For the life of me, I can't imagine what possible detriment VPN could have on your infrastructure or other users.
Well, *I* am one of those good Christians -- or at least I try to be. And I want to vehemently disavow the 'rot in hell' sentiment.
I am embarassed and disgusted by the unlawful and amoral behavior of the whole Clinton gang over the last seven years. I am glad it looks as though the US is going to repudiate the sinking standards of conduct represented by his administration, and will elect Bush/Cheney.
I am also embarassed and disgusted that anyone would wish someone else to 'rot in hell'.
I pray that Clinton and Gore will confess, repent, and seek God's forgiveness for their lawless behavior. It is not God's will that ANY should be condemned to hell -- and it is uncharitable and un-Christlike to wish such a fate on anyone.
However, if folks choose to ignore God's gift of forgiveness and refuse to accept it -- then they are choosing their fate, to the shame of us all.
[Yup, it's Chuck Wilson again; I remembered my password]
This really isn't the forum to debate the ethics of the death penalty, but I'll try to answer your question anyway. These are my personal beliefs, and I speak only for myself.
And I'm not talking about Bush's or Gore's *personality* -- I'm talking about his *character*. That's completely orthogonal. I think GWB is a man of *integrity* (character) -- as well as *affability* (personality).
A man of *integrity* may also be a complete jerk.
Clinton, on the other hand, is by all accounts a likeable, personable guy -- great *personality*. He's also a liar, amoral, and irresponsible (IMO). Terrible *character*.
Anyway, back to the death penalty. People are responsible for their actions, and when a person chooses to commit murder they know what the penalty is. Forgiveness does not equate to immunity from the temporal penalty that the law demands. Put bluntly, there is no conflict between forgiving an individual of his crime but still carrying out the punishment demanded by the law.
To cast it in religious terms, while Christ's death paid the spiritual penalty for our sin, and those who accept it are forgiven by God, it did not eliminate physical death from the world. [cf. "the penalty for sin is death", Romans 6:23] 'Saved' people do not immediately become physically immortal. Further, those who choose to reject God's gift of forgiveness do not receive it; forgiveness always requires confession and is powerless unless accepted.
So, you may observe my arguments, and ask, "What if a convicted murderer confesses his guilt and asks forgiveness? Shouldn't we then grant it, and commute his/her sentence -- since your 'requirements' for forgiveness have been met?"
Well, first, these aren't *my* requirements -- they are God's. (Again, IMO). But, I say in return, "Yes, we should grant forgiveness -- but not immunity. Why not release him, rather than just commuting his sentence? You seem to assume that forgiveness equals immunity from punishment."
Forgiveness does not -- by itself -- require that society absolve a murderer of the temporal penalty the law demands. The law demands the death penalty in certain cases; it demands incarceration in others. Christ himself did not dispute this: Christ forgave the thief on the cross next to him; but did not release him from the temporal punishment his crime demanded. (He could have, you know -- He *was* God after all. With a single word He could have lifted the thief from the cross and healed his wounds; instead, He said, "Today you will be with Me in paradise." That is, the thief still would die -- since that was the punishment his society had set for his crimes; however, God's spiritual penalty for the thief's sin had been satisfied by the substitutionary death of Christ Himself, since the thief had accepted it).
If Christ took no stand against the death penalty -- and that was when the condemned was merely a thief, not a murderer -- why should we say it is unfair for society to protect itself from convicted murderers?
------
In any case, the complaint against GWB concerning the death penalty is really a red herring. The governer of Texas cannot commute the sentence of any death row inmate. He can only grant a stay -- and he can only do that three times, I think. If the Board of Pardons/Parole refuses to commute the sentence, and the allotted number of stays has been used up, there's nothing the Texas governer can do. Blame the citizens of Texas, blame the Texas law, blame the Texas courts, the Texas juries -- not the governer. Whether you agree or disagree with the death penalty, the governer of Texas is pretty powerless in death penalty cases when you get right down to it.
You're missing the point. It's not Bach's Das Cantenerks that you're buying. You're purchasing the London Symphony Orchestra's performance of Das Cantenwerks. THEY paid for the rights to perform/record/sell their performance -- by purchasing the sheet music, paying the sheet music publisher for redistribution rights, etc. etc.
I believe that the works of the great past composers are public domain -- but only the composition itself. Not any given orchestra's performance of it.
Ummmm....that mouse you're so proud of? It was designed, developed, and manufactured by HP. Then MS slapped their name on it. Once again, MS doesn't innovate. They take the innovations of others and pretend it was their own.
Slashdot Mirror
Amid all the jokes about Zaphod's extra arm and elysian scifi about replacement organs, there are some ethical issues to consider. Is it right to create a clone for the sole purpose of killing it to harvest organs? Or doing the same thing, only much earlier, to harvest the stem cells from the cloned blastocyst?
...to Palm Beach County voters, where "Oh my god, two columns of candidates" proved too confusing.
Anybody want to explain IRV or Condorcet voting to the folks for whom the infamous butterfly ballot was a significant mental hurdle?
(a) It was actually only a couple of months after Unisys announced its patent and its intent to enforce, before the PNG format was finalized. It was really an example of lightning-speed format development. google "png history"
(b) the worldwide patents on LZW have not yet expired! It's arguable whether the following patent is valid, but IBM was issued a patent on *the same algorithm* covered by the Unisys patent -- and IBM's patent is good for another two years:
United States Patent No. 4814746 issued in 1989.
"commanded not to make a machine in the image of Man's mind"
Huh? Did Dune's Butlerian Jihad already happen, and I missed it? Shoot...
Talk about letting your biases show! The commentary above says "widespread right-wing conspiracy theories have done great harm". Yet the link is to a story that describes LEFT wing fears! (Specifically, that Diebold et. al. are all GOP contributors, and the machines "are being used to fix elections all over the country in Republicans' favor.")
Now, this is not to say there aren't a TON of right wing conspiracy theories out there, about these voting machines; of course there are. But why mislabel the link as describing right wing kooks when it actually describes left wing kooks? It's easy enough to find a link that actually supports the submitter's predisposition concerning the nuts on the right...
It must be a conspiracy!
That's arrant bullshit.
.deb rules files only dumber; and certainly not intended to go "upstream").
8.3 file limitations? Nonsense; cygwin, like windows, supports long file names. (there is ONE file name issue that we cannot fix directly: the magic names 'aux' or 'con' or 'lpt' which are utter hell. However, we DO have an indirect fix even for that -- "managed" mountpoints are available in cygwin-1.5.0 and later, where ALL file access is handled by cygwin and all names are translated on the fly to something braindead windows can handle. But it's slower.)
About maintaining patchsets. what the F*** are you talking about? I've maintained patchsets for 30-some different ports for years. Still do. However, over the last two years, the "size" of the patches needed for cygwin have become much less intrusive. That's because of transparent support for "linux-like" shared library linking means we no longer __declspec(dllimport) this_symbol or __declspec(dllexport) that_symbol. Poof! Instant patch elimination. Most patchsets now just boil down to re-autotooling and some packaging info (like
But, to reach that point we did (geez, I'm so sorry) work with the binutils and gcc folks to attain that level of functionality.
Now that the only two of your specific claims are lying in tattered shreds on the floor, would you like to *specifically* name what "extended features" of linux you want? I'm not promising anything because developer time is volunteer/limited, but specific requests are always better than ignorant generalized rants...
Try p2m.
A friend of mine engraved a proposal to his (now wife) on a microchip he was fabricating. I'll try to get permission to post the micrograph.
Did anybody notice that this "repeal", while rolling back the FCC regulations, also slips in a few whammies of its own?
The "Fairness" Doctrine (AKA Hush Rush) is back.
Some politicians -- Dems as well as squishy GOPers -- have gotten their feelings hurt over the years by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. So now they want to impose a new (actually old) rule: for every (profitable) hour of a popular (at least on radio) right wing talkshow host, THOU SHALT put on an hour of some unprofitable, unpopular (at least on radio) left wing host.
Because NPR is just not enough.
Most stations that aren't directly subsidized by the Guvmint would simply go broke doing that -- they can't just waste half of their broadcast day with zero ad revenue. So, away with Sean, away with Rush, and bring on 24hour MiqueToast McMiddle. And they'd probably STILL go broke. (of course, for the "free speech means say only what I like" crowd and the "all corporations are evil scum" crowd, they're probably cheering right now)
Say what you want about Rush&Friends, but they have definitely enlivened political debate in this country. Of course, that's a bad thing -- because incumbent politicians might get their feelings hurt by such indecorous public criticism...
Or you could use cygwin's internal mount-point mapping thus (as Administrator):
/home
/home/bob/ and ~bob will end up mapping to "C:\Documents And Settings\bob"
$ mount -s [-b] C:/Documents\ And\ Settings
Now, from within cygwin,
The downside is, I've noticed that folks with XP tend to use "My Full Name With The Spaces" as their logon id. As in most shells, dealing with "/home/Bob Smith" from within cygwin is a PITA.
(Note: cygwin's mount command is internal to cygwin programs. It doesn't use junction points -- which means it works on W9x, too)
> I think the L-Edit is just a piece of junk
Actually, I have the same problem with Cadence [a high end CAD/VLSI tool]. It wants PseudoColor -- it'll work in -depth 8 -fullscreen mode, but it's UGLY (everybody remember the color flashing behavior from the bad old days of *nix?)
I just ruled that I have the authority to regulate interstate banking, in addition to the Fed. As my first act, I decree that 0.01% of all transactions shall be deposited in my various accounts, to cover my "expenses."
Anybody else want to rule that they have some spurious authority that supersedes a federal agency's direct purview?
Personally, I don't trust Senator Leaky Leahy as far as I can pick him up and throw him. Sen. Leahy was kicked off the Senate Intelligence Committee back in the 80's for leaking top secret information to the press -- a leak which arguably resulted in the death of several of our undercover agents.
I think this is just a head-fake.
Perhaps Alan just could not bring himself to maintain the stable 2.4 tree with the new 2.4 VM (Andrea), given his stated preference for the improved older 2.4 VM (Rik)?
Whataminute. All this DeCSS controversy and the MPAA and the RIAA and whatnot all started within the last eight years. The government intervention IN THOSE CASES was under the Clinton Watch. Mary Jo White (the US Attorney who filed the amicus curiae brief we're all upset about) was a Clinton appointee.
W's been in office for exactly 1 month, and this stuff has been brewing for several years.
Whose fault is all this, again? Oh, yeah -- the Republicans. That's right.
If you'd like to contact Mary Jo (especially if you are from "the southern district of New York) try:
Mary Jo White
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Attorney for Intervenor United States of America.
100 Church Street, 19th Floor
New York, New York 10007
(212) 637-2741
Well, yeah, us poor dumb hicks who don't know nuthin' 'bout bein' a fancy lawyer take a real exception to the whole concept of case law trumping the Constitution. It seems pretty obvious that it's real easy to build a road, one 'case law' brick at a time, that takes you from "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech" to "Certain politically disapproved speech is not allowed in certain forums" to "Say what we allow you to say and don't say anything else"
And code isn't protected speech
Neither is email
Nor wireless transmissions
Nor any kind of digitally encoded data
And yes, it CAN happen here. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" "Identify your associates within that organization, and we'll go easy on you..."
Or, for a even more divisive example from today's news: from "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" to "five days later, maybe, but you can't take it with you anywhere---and be sure not to store it in such a way that it would actually be useful as protection against an intruder..."
It seems that on occaision, one MUST return to the core principles---"according to my reading of the Constitution..."---otherwise, the United States as a Constitutional Republic is doomed. One 'case law' brick at a time. If people can't be expected to understand their rights without a law degree, what good are they?
Errmmm...did you *read* any of our papers, or just rely on the pop-science reporting in the referenced article?
We're quite aware of the analog nature of transistors -- *we* almost always use them that way. However, the current computing paradigm invariably uses transistors in the digital mode; hence the distinction between "digital" transistors (for computing) and analog neurons.
Yes, silicon neurons can be self organizing and learn. We've shown this with our silicon-based research. However, most silicon neurons use 10^4 -- 10^6 times the amount of energy per switching transistion than a neuron. In many cases, the speed of silicon neurons is a drawback -- motor neurons have to "slow down" in order to interact with the real world; you can't move an actuator at 1,000,000x speed. (And, all that speed means increased power consumption. If you don't need speed -- e.g. the motor neuron mentioned above -- why spend the power?)
But *where* do you think the inspiration for these silicon neurons came from? That's right -- people working with real neurons. Do you truly think that we know everything there is to know about real neurons? That we can learn nothing more from working with them directly? Come on, biology still has mysteries we haven't yet fathomed -- and that's why we're experimenting with the real thing in *addition* to building systems that use silicon neurons.
"carbon cult" indeed. Harumph.
Actually, I work at the Laboratory for Neuroengineering with Dr. Ditto. One of the things we are doing, in addition to "neuronal computing" is building electronic, silicon-based systems that emulate the learning ability and multiplicity of inputs that neurons posess. Both approaches are valid and provide their own benefits. The "silicon emulating neuronal circutry" field was started by Carver Mead at CalTech back in the eighties; you can probably find a lot of information on it by using google to search for "neuromorphic engineering". Also, I seem to recall a slashdot article a while back concerning the neuromorphic community's annual workshop -- the "Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop" at Telluride, CO (although that article concentrated heavily on the robotic side of our field and not so much on the neurobiological side of it.)
BTW, we use leech neurons because (a) it's an invertibrate (less paperwork) (b) big ganglia (c) low maintainance -- a few drops of blood now and then and they're happy (just kidding).
If elected, you will swear (or affirm) "that [you] will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of [your] ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." -US Const, Article II, Section 1.
... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."
The Federal Government in its present form vastly overreaches the constitutional authority it was granted by the Founders. (*) As James Madison said in the Federalist Papers: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce.
How do you propose to bring the Federal Govt into compliance with its constitutional authority? Reducing the federal scope, or amending the constitution -- or forswearing your oath?
(*) If you disagree with this statement, then please list Article and Section of the Constitution where the Federal Govt is given the power to (1) provide prescription drugs (2) manipulate the education systems of the several states (3) restrict the use of private property without recompense (4) Social Security, farm subsidies, bank bailouts, food stamps, toilet gallons per flush, driving speed...
If you are tempted to use the 'general welfare' clause in the preample and in Article I Section 8, don't be. See President Madison's veto of certain proposed legislation during his term:
http://www.snowcrest.net/siskfarm/natwelf.html
Not...exactly. My logs show that they check port 119 four times a day, but they don't scan every port on the customer's computer. I have no idea why they care about NNTP but not 137/138/139 (Windows file sharing) or ftpd, httpd, ... e.g. all those other things prohibited by the TOS.
Well, *I* am one of those good Christians -- or at least I try to be. And I want to vehemently disavow the 'rot in hell' sentiment.
I am embarassed and disgusted by the unlawful and amoral behavior of the whole Clinton gang over the last seven years. I am glad it looks as though the US is going to repudiate the sinking standards of conduct represented by his administration, and will elect Bush/Cheney.
I am also embarassed and disgusted that anyone would wish someone else to 'rot in hell'.
I pray that Clinton and Gore will confess, repent, and seek God's forgiveness for their lawless behavior. It is not God's will that ANY should be condemned to hell -- and it is uncharitable and un-Christlike to wish such a fate on anyone.
However, if folks choose to ignore God's gift of forgiveness and refuse to accept it -- then they are choosing their fate, to the shame of us all.
[Yup, it's Chuck Wilson again; I remembered my password]
This really isn't the forum to debate the ethics of the death penalty, but I'll try to answer your question anyway. These are my personal beliefs, and I speak only for myself.
And I'm not talking about Bush's or Gore's *personality* -- I'm talking about his *character*. That's completely orthogonal. I think GWB is a man of *integrity* (character) -- as well as *affability* (personality).
A man of *integrity* may also be a complete jerk.
Clinton, on the other hand, is by all accounts a likeable, personable guy -- great *personality*. He's also a liar, amoral, and irresponsible (IMO). Terrible *character*.
Anyway, back to the death penalty. People are responsible for their actions, and when a person chooses to commit murder they know what the penalty is. Forgiveness does not equate to immunity from the temporal penalty that the law demands. Put bluntly, there is no conflict between forgiving an individual of his crime but still carrying out the punishment demanded by the law.
To cast it in religious terms, while Christ's death paid the spiritual penalty for our sin, and those who accept it are forgiven by God, it did not eliminate physical death from the world. [cf. "the penalty for sin is death", Romans 6:23] 'Saved' people do not immediately become physically immortal. Further, those who choose to reject God's gift of forgiveness do not receive it; forgiveness always requires confession and is powerless unless accepted.
So, you may observe my arguments, and ask, "What if a convicted murderer confesses his guilt and asks forgiveness? Shouldn't we then grant it, and commute his/her sentence -- since your 'requirements' for forgiveness have been met?"
Well, first, these aren't *my* requirements -- they are God's. (Again, IMO). But, I say in return, "Yes, we should grant forgiveness -- but not immunity. Why not release him, rather than just commuting his sentence? You seem to assume that forgiveness equals immunity from punishment."
Forgiveness does not -- by itself -- require that society absolve a murderer of the temporal penalty the law demands. The law demands the death penalty in certain cases; it demands incarceration in others. Christ himself did not dispute this: Christ forgave the thief on the cross next to him; but did not release him from the temporal punishment his crime demanded. (He could have, you know -- He *was* God after all. With a single word He could have lifted the thief from the cross and healed his wounds; instead, He said, "Today you will be with Me in paradise." That is, the thief still would die -- since that was the punishment his society had set for his crimes; however, God's spiritual penalty for the thief's sin had been satisfied by the substitutionary death of Christ Himself, since the thief had accepted it).
If Christ took no stand against the death penalty -- and that was when the condemned was merely a thief, not a murderer -- why should we say it is unfair for society to protect itself from convicted murderers?
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In any case, the complaint against GWB concerning the death penalty is really a red herring. The governer of Texas cannot commute the sentence of any death row inmate. He can only grant a stay -- and he can only do that three times, I think. If the Board of Pardons/Parole refuses to commute the sentence, and the allotted number of stays has been used up, there's nothing the Texas governer can do. Blame the citizens of Texas, blame the Texas law, blame the Texas courts, the Texas juries -- not the governer. Whether you agree or disagree with the death penalty, the governer of Texas is pretty powerless in death penalty cases when you get right down to it.
You're missing the point. It's not Bach's Das Cantenerks that you're buying. You're purchasing the London Symphony Orchestra's performance of Das Cantenwerks. THEY paid for the rights to perform/record/sell their performance -- by purchasing the sheet music, paying the sheet music publisher for redistribution rights, etc. etc.
I believe that the works of the great past composers are public domain -- but only the composition itself. Not any given orchestra's performance of it.
Ummmm....that mouse you're so proud of? It was designed, developed, and manufactured by HP. Then MS slapped their name on it. Once again, MS doesn't innovate. They take the innovations of others and pretend it was their own.