Something that seems to not have been commented on yet is the somewhat hypocritical nature of the article. The author starts that one should not confuse the idea with the people or the people with the idea. Specifically he makes a point that one should not conde the many good people who believed in communism for the atrocites and suffering tht have come out of communism. He also points out that one should not comdem democracy for the actions of corrupt politcians.
This is a good start and then everything flies out the window. The author goes on to examine the 'ethics' of free software and open source software by examining the ethics and politics of the poster boys RMS and ESR. Very disappointing.
That is not to say that he does not make good points but they are hard to find amoungst the garbage and hypocritical gas bagging of the rest of the article. As others have pointed out there is the definite tone of someone with an axe to grind.
In all a very disappointing article for what is an important issue that does need to be discussed more within and without of the open source community.
The concerns of Microsoft employees about the behavior of the company illustrates an important point. We (open source community etc.) should stop trying to attack microsoft from the outside but from the inside. Win more employees over. More will happen if we can get the Microsoft employees to do their little bit to change the behavior of the company than to stand outside banging on the doors.
There are several things we can do to help. 1) Clearly deliminate between the organization and individual empolyees. Granted some indiviudals are, for want of a better phrase, the organization but many aren't. 2) Be eloquent and pervausive. We are working against a very strong organizational culture. 3) Be helpful. Speaks for itself I think.
Remember many microsoft employees are shareholders.
As many people have noted guns do not kill people, people kill people. While this may be simplistic it illustrates the point. Technology (science), in any form, is not moral or unmoral. It is amoral. The application of techonology (science) is what we should be worried about.
Guns, or weapons of any kind, a not a really a good example as they have a focused useage that riases questions. Genetics (or for that matter darwinism as others have mentioned) is a better example. Genetics has the potential to revolutionilize the application of medicines. Imagine a treatment tailored to fit your physiology. No more sideo effects. On the other hand genetics can be used to discriminate against. So do we stop all research into genetics because it can be possible be used in 'the wrong way' or inmorally?
I repeat technology is amoral (despite what some would have you believe. A gun lying on the floor is NOT going to kill anyone.). It is, and will always be, the APPLICATION of technology that we will have to debate and moralize over.
Basically, no one should be vilafied for creating a technology. It is how we use a technology that needs to be examined.
As many people have noted guns do not kill people, people kill people. While this may be simplistic it illustrates the point. Technology (science), in any form, is not moral or unmoral. It is amoral. The application of techonology (science) is what we should be worried about.
Guns, or weapons of any kind, a not a really a good example as they have a focused useage that riases questions. Genetics (or for that matter darwinism as others have mentioned) is a better example. Genetics has the potential to revolutionilize the application of medicines. Imagine a treatment tailored to fit your physiology. No more sideo effects. On the other hand genetics can be used to discriminate against. So do we stop all research into genetics because it can be possible be used in 'the wrong way' or inmorally?
I repeat technology is amoral (despite what some would have you believe. A gun lying on the floor is NOT going to kill anyone.). It is, and will always be, the APPLICATION of technology that we will have to debate and moralize over.
Basically, no one should be vilafied for creating a technology. It is how we use a technology that needs to be examined.
As many people have noted guns do not kill people, people kill people. While this may be simplistic in illustrates the point. Technology (science), in any form, is not moral or unmoral. It is amoral. The application of techonology (science) is what we should be worried about.
Guns, or weapons of any kind, a not a really a good example as they have a focused useage that riases questions. Genetics (or for that matter darwinism as others have mentioned) is a better example. Genetics has the potential to revolutionilize the application of medicines. Imagine a treatment tailored to fit your physiology. No more sideo effects. On the other hand genetics can be used to discriminate against. So do we stop all research into genetics because it can be possible be used in 'the wrong way' or inmorally?
I repeat technology is amoral (despite what some would have you believe. A gun lying on the floor is NOT going to kill anyone.). It is, and will always be, the APPLICATION of technology that we will have to debate and moralize over.
Basically, no one should be vilafied for creating a technology. It is how we use a technology that needs to be examined.
Several questions and concerns with the system have been raised by posts. Below is a brief list of them.
1) The internet is too large 2) The system is a form of self censorship in that you moderate out opinions you do not agree with. 3) Who do you trust? 4) Moderation anomolies. 5) Normal human differences (i.e. no two people have exactly the same opinions.) 6) Groups modifying the code to favour one view over another. 7) Hanging censorship laws on it
Relying on just profiles moderation leaves the system open for abuse and censorship. I think the addition of a profiless rankings system will be needed as a balance to the profile rating. I think that using a statistical-neural approach will probably be the most successful.
As far I have thought it out at the moment, it works like this. The ratings would need to be split into five different categories general, news, entertainment, science and technology and arts. All information units would have a general rating. Each site then falls into one of the other three categories.
Statistical calculations are carried out on the ratings for each post. Most posts should show a guassian distribution of ratings around a point. I think that most anomolies will show up as spikes at either end of the distribution. To reduce the effect of these on the post ranking, ratings outside say one standard deviation on either side are weighted downwards.
The neural network comes into play by looking for patterns in posts. It examines posts with ratings at several key points suchs as 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 and 3/4 (Note: I think 0-10 or -10 to 10 will not be large enough. I think -100 to 100 or 0-100 will be needed) of the range. With in these posts the neural code is looking for information patterns that characterise posts at those particular points. It then uses this information to rate new posts. This rating can then be used as the starting point. It also provides another check for anomolous ratings. If something is really way off then the neural network can flag it and/or after a comparison with past posts add in weighting factors. To continuely improve the neural net, its' ratings and the public ratings are compared. The neural net would also continuely analyze new posts at the points to better characterise them.
The neural net is not looking at the information per se but the characteristics of the post. I'm not sure are this stage what the characteristics would be. There was an article in the New Scientist from this year that looked at the research by several people into detecting when a report is missing pertinent information. I was thinking that a similar technique as their's could be used to characterise the posts.
In effect you have three ranking systems the public, the neural and the profile ranking. Once the neural has had time to operate it will help to classify all those pesky dynamics of the internet. Note that the profile ratings can also be statistically examined and inputed into the neural net. A generalise profile rating would supply a fourth ranking.
One major concern is somebody(people) changing the code to weigh particular information up or down. The best solution to this problem is open source. It would be very hard, if not near impossible, to slip code favoring information in without finding out. If they did it would almost certainly be found out and the reprecussions for those people would be devastating.
The internet is large and this will definetly be a problem. One solution is two use many distributed ranking servers. This would also provide backup. Based on the draft, I foresee that you would have one server as a database recording the rankings (public, profile, neural) and message id/URL. Another server does the statistical calculations and runs the neural net. Distributed servers would provide an elegant way of chewing through the large amount of information and in the case of the neural net provide a rapid development path.
As to the last problem, well any system either governmental or public has the possibility of laws being hung off it. The realty is if we don't come with a reasonable rating system, vested interests will create their own. Now which is worse?
As I noted in my other post, if it was gravity effects it would show up not as *constant* acceleration but acceleration that drops. Remember newtons law of universal gravitation? The acceleration due to gravity changes with square of the distance.
Here's some food for thought. What if gravity does not quite follow the gravity law? That is perhaps it doesn't drop off by r^2.
Hmm...that isn't close. The acceleration is constant so it doesn't have anything to do with the r^2 profile. Would it necessarily be the the RTG either? IIRC RTG power output (or heat output, since RTG use thermonics for power generation) drops over time. Consequently, the heat radiation would also drop and there wouldn't be constant acceleration.
I wonder if there is a strange spacetime drag going on here? That would account for the constant acceleration. It would work like this. Spacetime is viscous and as you move along it bunches up in front just like it does with planes in air. The drag comes from spacetime trying to return its' lowe energy state. What do you think?
Slashdot Mirror
Something that seems to not have been commented on yet is the somewhat hypocritical nature of the article. The author starts that one should not confuse the idea with the people or the people with the idea. Specifically he makes a point that one should not conde the many good people who believed in communism for the atrocites and suffering tht have come out of communism. He also points out that one should not comdem democracy for the actions of corrupt politcians.
This is a good start and then everything flies out the window. The author goes on to examine the 'ethics' of free software and open source software by examining the ethics and politics of the poster boys RMS and ESR. Very disappointing.
That is not to say that he does not make good points but they are hard to find amoungst the garbage and hypocritical gas bagging of the rest of the article. As others have pointed out there is the definite tone of someone with an axe to grind.
In all a very disappointing article for what is an important issue that does need to be discussed more within and without of the open source community.
The concerns of Microsoft employees about the behavior of the company illustrates an important point. We (open source community etc.) should stop trying to attack microsoft from the outside but from the inside. Win more employees over. More will happen if we can get the Microsoft employees to do their little bit to change the behavior of the company than to stand outside banging on the doors.
There are several things we can do to help. 1) Clearly deliminate between the organization and individual empolyees. Granted some indiviudals are, for want of a better phrase, the organization but many aren't. 2) Be eloquent and pervausive. We are working against a very strong organizational culture. 3) Be helpful. Speaks for itself I think.
Remember many microsoft employees are shareholders.
As many people have noted guns do not kill people, people kill people. While this may be simplistic it illustrates the point. Technology (science), in any form, is not moral or unmoral. It is amoral. The application of techonology (science) is what we should be worried about.
Guns, or weapons of any kind, a not a really a good example as they have a focused useage that riases questions. Genetics (or for that matter darwinism as others have mentioned) is a better example. Genetics has the potential to revolutionilize the application of medicines. Imagine a treatment tailored to fit your physiology. No more sideo effects. On the other hand genetics can be used to discriminate against. So do we stop all research into genetics because it can be possible be used in 'the wrong way' or inmorally?
I repeat technology is amoral (despite what some would have you believe. A gun lying on the floor is NOT going to kill anyone.). It is, and will always be, the APPLICATION of technology that we will have to debate and moralize over.
Basically, no one should be vilafied for creating a technology. It is how we use a technology that needs to be examined.
Simon.
As many people have noted guns do not kill people, people kill people. While this may be simplistic it illustrates the point. Technology (science), in any form, is not moral or unmoral. It is amoral. The application of techonology (science) is what we should be worried about.
Guns, or weapons of any kind, a not a really a good example as they have a focused useage that riases questions. Genetics (or for that matter darwinism as others have mentioned) is a better example. Genetics has the potential to revolutionilize the application of medicines. Imagine a treatment tailored to fit your physiology. No more sideo effects. On the other hand genetics can be used to discriminate against. So do we stop all research into genetics because it can be possible be used in 'the wrong way' or inmorally?
I repeat technology is amoral (despite what some would have you believe. A gun lying on the floor is NOT going to kill anyone.). It is, and will always be, the APPLICATION of technology that we will have to debate and moralize over.
Basically, no one should be vilafied for creating a technology. It is how we use a technology that needs to be examined.
Simon.
As many people have noted guns do not kill people, people kill people. While this may be simplistic in illustrates the point. Technology (science), in any form, is not moral or unmoral. It is amoral. The application of techonology (science) is what we should be worried about.
Guns, or weapons of any kind, a not a really a good example as they have a focused useage that riases questions. Genetics (or for that matter darwinism as others have mentioned) is a better example. Genetics has the potential to revolutionilize the application of medicines. Imagine a treatment tailored to fit your physiology. No more sideo effects. On the other hand genetics can be used to discriminate against. So do we stop all research into genetics because it can be possible be used in 'the wrong way' or inmorally?
I repeat technology is amoral (despite what some would have you believe. A gun lying on the floor is NOT going to kill anyone.). It is, and will always be, the APPLICATION of technology that we will have to debate and moralize over.
Basically, no one should be vilafied for creating a technology. It is how we use a technology that needs to be examined.
Simon.
Several questions and concerns with the system have been raised by posts. Below is a brief list of them.
1) The internet is too large
2) The system is a form of self censorship in that you moderate out opinions you do not agree with.
3) Who do you trust?
4) Moderation anomolies.
5) Normal human differences (i.e. no two people have exactly the same opinions.)
6) Groups modifying the code to favour one view over another.
7) Hanging censorship laws on it
Relying on just profiles moderation leaves the system open for abuse and censorship. I think the addition of a profiless rankings system will be needed as a balance to the profile rating. I think that using a statistical-neural approach will probably be the most successful.
As far I have thought it out at the moment, it works like this. The ratings would need to be split into five different categories general, news, entertainment, science and technology and arts. All information units would have a general rating. Each site then falls into one of the other three categories.
Statistical calculations are carried out on the ratings for each post. Most posts should show a guassian distribution of ratings around a point. I think that most anomolies will show up as spikes at either end of the distribution. To reduce the effect of these on the post ranking, ratings outside say one standard deviation on either side are weighted downwards.
The neural network comes into play by looking for patterns in posts. It examines posts with ratings at several key points suchs as 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 and 3/4 (Note: I think 0-10 or -10 to 10 will not be large enough. I think -100 to 100 or 0-100 will be needed) of the range. With in these posts the neural code is looking for information patterns that characterise posts at those particular points. It then uses this information to rate new posts. This rating can then be used as the starting point. It also provides another check for anomolous ratings. If something is really way off then the neural network can flag it and/or after a comparison with past posts add in weighting factors. To continuely improve the neural net, its' ratings and the public ratings are compared. The neural net would also continuely analyze new posts at the points to better characterise them.
The neural net is not looking at the information per se but the characteristics of the post. I'm not sure are this stage what the characteristics would be. There was an article in the New Scientist from this year that looked at the research by several people into detecting when a report is missing pertinent information. I was thinking that a similar technique as their's could be used to characterise the posts.
In effect you have three ranking systems the public, the neural and the profile ranking. Once the neural has had time to operate it will help to classify all those pesky dynamics of the internet. Note that the profile ratings can also be statistically examined and inputed into the neural net. A generalise profile rating would supply a fourth ranking.
One major concern is somebody(people) changing the code to weigh particular information up or down. The best solution to this problem is open source. It would be very hard, if not near impossible, to slip code favoring information in without finding out. If they did it would almost certainly be found out and the reprecussions for those people would be devastating.
The internet is large and this will definetly be a problem. One solution is two use many distributed ranking servers. This would also provide backup. Based on the draft, I foresee that you would have one server as a database recording the rankings (public, profile, neural) and message id/URL. Another server does the statistical calculations and runs the neural net. Distributed servers would provide an elegant way of chewing through the large amount of information and in the case of the neural net provide a rapid development path.
As to the last problem, well any system either governmental or public has the possibility of laws being hung off it. The realty is if we don't come with a reasonable rating system, vested interests will create their own. Now which is worse?
Simon.
As I noted in my other post, if it was gravity effects it would show up not as *constant* acceleration but acceleration that drops. Remember newtons law of universal gravitation? The acceleration due to gravity changes with square of the distance.
Simon.
Here's some food for thought. What if gravity does not quite follow the gravity law? That is perhaps it doesn't drop off by r^2.
Hmm...that isn't close. The acceleration is constant so it doesn't have anything to do with the r^2 profile. Would it necessarily be the the RTG either? IIRC RTG power output (or heat output, since RTG use thermonics for power generation) drops over time. Consequently, the heat radiation would also drop and there wouldn't be constant acceleration.
I wonder if there is a strange spacetime drag going on here? That would account for the constant acceleration. It would work like this. Spacetime is viscous and as you move along it bunches up in front just like it does with planes in air. The drag comes from spacetime trying to return its' lowe energy state. What do you think?
Simon.