Though a big fan of Astralwerks, I've given up buying their stuff...because they too are an RIAA member. check it: here. sad, really. I'm having the hardest time finding good labels with no ties to the RIAA (at least they publish a member list, though).
Actually, Apple provided a firmware update to thier AirPort cards to upgrade them to 128bit encryption: this way they don't have to make a new card, and all the old card owners (like me) are still happy.
Real Intelligence is not a matter of subjectivity, except in some fringe cases. Even the most idiotic human can be distinguished from an intelligent gorilla. That is precisely why a less subjective test is needed
from whose point of view? an idiotic human is still intelligent (very much so. just not to your standard.), but look at it from a similar indivdual's point of view. Intelligence is very much in the eye of the beholder: it is subjective. Everyone has a different standard of what intelligence is; its something we all intuitively understand, but it is very hard to pin down. Dennett's way of pinning it down was simply to posit that if you would attribute some aspect of intelligence to it, it must be intelligent. How can we know other , humans are intelligent? We know we are, looking through our own eyes at the world, but there's no way we can just crack open someone's skull over lunch and find the inteliigence organ. No, we must infer from thier actions and reactions whether or not they are intelligent.
the Turing Test is simply a formalise version of the task we apply every freakin' day: determining whether we are dealing with something intelligent or not based on inference. The trick is, some of our inferences are based on appearance, which has nothing to do with intelligence; this must, then, be factored out, and so on...It's really quite slick when you think about it some.
Ah, but as some (Daniel Dennett comes to mind) would argue, "real" intelligence is itself a matter of subjectivity (and I dare you to argue otherwise). If this is the case, why should we hold AI to a higher standard than we hold human intelligence?
just checked battlebots.org and noticed that the owner capitulated to battlebots Inc (sold them the domain for $70). Who knows who was in the right; i don't. just thought it worth mentioning that it's quite over. for now.
The Thomas search engine only says that there was a voice vote. but if you look hard enough, it does list the senators and reps who sponsored the bill...including my rep, Chip Pickering (R, MS)(rat bastard).
Sorry, no URLs; did this research about a year ago. Is it just me, or did they vote on this in the middle of the whole Clinton impeachment process?
Wackenhut is doing more than positioning themselves...in some parts of Jackson MS, they/are/ the police force. Really. In the nicer neighborhoods (not the nicest, I haven't even visited those. This may hold there, too), where there is some level of crime, who patrols the streets at night? Not JPD! They're mired in the nasty parts of downtown. No, Wackenhut provides residents the peace of mind that your nice house won't get burglarised or have beer cans thrown at it by drunken idiots while you sleep.
At my little A&M university (ok, mybe not so little), the Uni has ample and fast and ubiquitous internet access. Leave campus, and you get 56K modems, or if you're really lucky (and well off), a good cable modem connection. Next month we'll finally have DSL, but that's another story.
The point? Riding my bike to the CS dep't with two 100MB zip disks (a 15-20 minute ride, one-way), downloading stuff there, and riding back is muchos faster than my 56K line...my zip drive, as much as I hate Iomega, has been invaluable (understand, of course, that the school standardised on ZIP disks for large format floppies before I got here...)
(note: they're Helix Code now, no longer Ximian).
Let us suppose that, somehow, MS is driven out of business by the clear superiority of Gnome (no bias here!): Helix Code finds itself in a unique position, and raises prices.
What happens?
Helix Code goes out of business, because they cannot compete with the still no-money download from gnome.org, a different distribution.
Or suppoose the entire Gnome group, everyone working on it, decides to, God forbid, release the next version with a MS like lisence and charge great gobs of cash for it.
Well, my copy of Gnome 1.4 was lisenced to me under the GPL/LGPL...this would be a most opportune time for a fork. And fork it would. GnuevoGnome (or some such) would then rise to take the place of the now proprietary GnoGnome...or, then too, there's always KDE.
Point is, Helix et al would not last a minute if they tried to do something like that (not that I'm saying they would...nonononono; it's an example). This holds true of any software package that started life as free software
So, no, it's not dumping, because there would be no real opportunity to profit from it; I think those involved know this.
Now, providing service (via.NET)...that's something very different. Now we've moved beyond the realm of simply writing and distributing software via the "normal" channels...I don't want to even touch this subject just yet...
Not having a copy of either the Wizard of Oz or Dark Side of the Moon, a friend of mine and I conducted a simple experiment to convince ourselves that the WoO/DSoM thing really is just coincidence...you can try this one at home, kids!
We picked a movie from his collection at random (Slackers) and a CD from his collection at random (Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique) and played them at the same time.
Eerily, they meshed exceedingly well. Thus, we must conclude that the Beastie Boys had Slackers in mind when writing that album: surely not too far fetched, if you think on it.;)
They really did work together. The Pink Floyd thing really is coincidence. Pick a movie and CD at random and watch...
To write out a proper argument would take some time, so I'm going to throw out some interesting points as a pre-emptive move. Help would be nice...but I think these points have the potential to make a good argument for code as protected free speech.
First, lets look at the origin of computer languages. Set the way-back machine to the early 20th century. In particular, I'm thinking of Bertrand Russel, and others. The Analytic Philosophy tradition.
One goal of the analytic philosophy tradition was to turn philosophical techniques to the analysis of language: if one can determine the precise meaning of a statement, one can determine empirically the validity of such a statement. It was a turning of Aristotlean logic sideways, really: they created formal languages that one could translate english propositions into, then analyse using mathematical principles. The ultimate expression of philosophy as empirical science. The propositional calculus and later predicate calculus both derived from this work.
They were trying to use formal languages to regiment natural languages. That is, they were created formal languages as a stand-in for english.
Of course, the propositional calculus is known to many of us as Boolean Logic (despite the fact that it was Russel who really put it all together in complete form. Boole just kinda started the whole thing). Both these calculuses and the very notion of formal languages itself is fundamental to computer science. you learned this in your Foundations of CS class, of course. Hence the title.
Thus, the argument could go, the fact that computer languages are useful in instructing computers how to achieve a task is incidental to thier very existence! This is not the primary purpose of this class of language! these formal languages (the propositional calculus, C, whathaveyou) exist primarily as a means for providing a clear and concise medium for communication.
Therefore, the censorship of expressions in such a language based on one aspect of thier utility is unconstitutional.
I DO want my government imposing strict protocols with regards to rogue nations. Embargos DO have an affect, and it is NOT just on the poor common people of those nations.
Define for me please what a rogue nation is exactly. One that does not abide by U.S. desires? Technically, all nations are "rogue" in that they are all sovereign...rogue implies that there is some international government dictating thier actions. (The U.N. doesn't count, because it rules by consent: you don't/have/ to be a member).
Iraq, lest you forget, invaded another sovereign nation with every intention of keeping it. Overwhelming force from a large coalition of nations forced them to abandon Kuwait. Not content to have their parade rained on, the Iraqis systematically set fire to many of the oil fields in Kuwait. These require explosives to quench -- not a simple task.
But then, you also forget that Iraq didn't always used to be the "bad guys". Prior to the whole Kuwait thing, we had actually told (our close ally) Saddam Hussein that we (the U.S.) would look the other way when Iraq moved to retake the disputed territory that Kuwait held at the time. We told them to go ahead and take it. This was taken, however, by Saddam Hussein to mean we wouldn't care if he took/all/ of Kuwait...which was a mistake. If Hussein had bothered to notice that Bush's ranking in the opinion polls in the U.S. had been slipping, he might have forseen that his actions provided a convienent excuse for Bush to try to make himself look good...
The only reason Hussein was ever vilified was because the Bush family was getting antsy about thier chances for re-election.
We won't even go into the Bush family's ties with the Texas (vs. Iraqi) oil industry...
Since Saddam was, unfortunately, not removed from power during the war, it is not unreasonable to assume he might be a little bitter. Imposing an embargo helps contain him and his ability to threaten other nations. No it isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than letting him freely buy any military hardware he needs.
He wasn't removed from power because of treaties the U.S. is party to that prevent us from directly interfering with another/sovereign/ nation's government.
Iraq has shown the capacity to use weapons of mass destruction (nuclear / biological / chemical), just ask some of their own people. Additionally, it has shown it has, and is willing to use missiles to attack other nations (Scuds on Israel during the Gulf War).
Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Don't forget the U.S. is the only nation to have ever used atomics on another nation. Don't see any embargoes being put on us...because we won. These embargoes have nothing to do with Hussein or what he's done: they are not punishment; they are poltics. Cheap Oil. Texas versus OPEC. We are trying to force Iraq's oil prices down, at the expense of the civilian population.
And who, with the "withering of government" is going to take care of all the things so many people take for granted: power, (clean) water, public funding for the arts, funding for research with no obvious profit-making potential (like ARPANet, hint hint)?
If the answer is the corporate world, I suggest you read Snow Crash again...
Let's not forget that like other Open Source scene graph libraries (PLIB's SSG, &c), OpenInventor uses OpenGL's Retained Mode...that is to say, it's faster than you give it credit for. It builds display lists to generate scenes: that is, it buffers every node in the graph before displaying them, speeding up the rendering process by a lot...
Having installed and run WinMe, I can attest that there is a sort of DOS there. It really does appear that WinMe is no longer a shell: to run a DOS app, WinMe starts up a seperate virtural machine, and runs DOS inside of that...now, this is problematic for programs like Partition Magic (if you've used it, you know what I mean: answer: win98 boot disk, and PM for DOS...) but I, M$ hater extreme, think this was a good idea...finally M$ lives up to at least one of thier age-old promises and begins to remove bloat...
Last time my district's rep seat came up for vote, there was this character by the name of Chip Pickering (Republican, 3rd district, MS). He was the first candidate I had ever seen who made Internet policy part of his platform: he espoused all the right ideals: privacy, freedom of speech, yadda yadda yadda. It was beautiful.
Three guesses who I voted for.
So recently I decided to actually make use of Thomas, and check on his record. That's when I discovered that...oh no! He helped introduce a bill into the House to put censorware in public libraries and schools. Argh! But what's this? He signed as a sponsor of the DMCA? He voted in favor of the CDA?
I am Jack's Despondant Sense of Disillusionment. I had been thoroughly lied to. Which, in retrospect, given the stereotypes for politicians, is to be expected.
Now that's an interesting statement. Think about it for a moment.
So my repsonse is: Vote? Ha! For me it has only made things worse. I might cede that one who doesn't vote has no right to complain; however, I posit that voting has become an empty and hollow ritual.
But there has to be an alternative to voting. Preferably one that doesn't involve relocating to another country (where the situation as a whole is surely no better, even though the laws currently in the books may be better). Money is one, but that thought leaves me even more depressed than before. I'm still looking...
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it...He who receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should be spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. . . Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --dangerous leftist Thomas Jefferson, speaking out against intelectual property
Sadly, current law says they can, and are...And there lies the rub...
No clue. Two items you might find of note, though:
there is already a hhg "movie" available (though the date mentioned on your url indicates that that page probably has nothing to do with this), that was really a compilation of a tv mini-series done in england. i have a copy, and its pretty good (if you ignore the really bad red-dwarfish/bbc special effects).
DNA, in his keynote, spoke at length about how he wasn't interested in doing a feature-film, because the 90 minute format didn't work for how HHG is laid out (remember, it was a half-hour radio series). He just couldn't figure out how to tell a complete story within 90 minutes. He found the ~40 min length of IMAX films to be better suited to the plot, and planned on doing them in several installments.
dammit, my first attempt to post this got posted as an AC! argh! i hate these lab computers! Anyway, "Peacekeeper" is by far the most twisted thing my friends and I could come up with (props to vincent dalgara(sp) who isn't reading this)
the idea is simple. its a first-person shooter. you play a national guardsman in the 60's, quelling peaceful protests and such with guns. the first level is Kent State: kill all the rampaging hippies before they get a chance to run away!
I had the good fortune of seeing Douglas Adams give the keynote address at SIGGRAPH '96. He talked of many things, some have come to pass, some have not. One of the greatest things I have ever seen was when DNA, at one point, slammed M$, and quite a lot of people (including the guy next to me) got up and left. It was wonderful =). In his speech, he talked about a nunber of things: he mentioned he was doing another book (not come to pass), he talked at length about the HHGTG 3D-IMAX films (not come to pass, as far as i know...), and he talked about his vision for a cool computer game called Starship Titanic (has come to pass.) Among other things.
To Douglas Adams, then: Your vision of Starship Titanic in 1996 differed quite a lot from what it really was. This is, of course, natural. What sorts of things influenced those changes; were any really significant or even worth mention?
More importantly, you seem to have a unique view of where computer gaming should go. What is that view, specifically?
Second question (feel free to ignore): Where is that new book and the 3d IMax movies?
Slashdot Mirror
After Google performs its next crawl, we only have to search for text from this page, and voila!
- Unplugged from any network
- Unplugged from any power source
Otherwise there will be some hole to exploit...one cannot expose features without also exposing some vulnerability (be it only social hacking)Now, I've only read "Proof", never seen it produced, but...what was wrong with it?
Was it the math (I have a limited math background; just enough to get a CS degree)? Because otherwise I thought it was quite enjoyable...
sad, really. I'm having the hardest time finding good labels with no ties to the RIAA (at least they publish a member list, though).
have fun
dongoodman
Actually, Apple provided a firmware update to thier AirPort cards to upgrade them to 128bit encryption: this way they don't have to make a new card, and all the old card owners (like me) are still happy.
have fun
dongoodmnan
from whose point of view? an idiotic human is still intelligent (very much so. just not to your standard.), but look at it from a similar indivdual's point of view. Intelligence is very much in the eye of the beholder: it is subjective. Everyone has a different standard of what intelligence is; its something we all intuitively understand, but it is very hard to pin down. Dennett's way of pinning it down was simply to posit that if you would attribute some aspect of intelligence to it, it must be intelligent. How can we know other , humans are intelligent? We know we are, looking through our own eyes at the world, but there's no way we can just crack open someone's skull over lunch and find the inteliigence organ. No, we must infer from thier actions and reactions whether or not they are intelligent.
the Turing Test is simply a formalise version of the task we apply every freakin' day: determining whether we are dealing with something intelligent or not based on inference. The trick is, some of our inferences are based on appearance, which has nothing to do with intelligence; this must, then, be factored out, and so on...It's really quite slick when you think about it some.
Ah, but as some (Daniel Dennett comes to mind) would argue, "real" intelligence is itself a matter of subjectivity (and I dare you to argue otherwise). If this is the case, why should we hold AI to a higher standard than we hold human intelligence?
the MacOS X version has been out almost a week now =) and it's nice. now if only they'd do a MacOS 9 version of it
just checked battlebots.org and noticed that the owner capitulated to battlebots Inc (sold them the domain for $70). Who knows who was in the right; i don't. just thought it worth mentioning that it's quite over. for now.
Sorry, no URLs; did this research about a year ago. Is it just me, or did they vote on this in the middle of the whole Clinton impeachment process?
have fun CaptOblivious
positioning, my ass...
The point? Riding my bike to the CS dep't with two 100MB zip disks (a 15-20 minute ride, one-way), downloading stuff there, and riding back is muchos faster than my 56K line...my zip drive, as much as I hate Iomega, has been invaluable (understand, of course, that the school standardised on ZIP disks for large format floppies before I got here...)
yeah.
What happens?
Helix Code goes out of business, because they cannot compete with the still no-money download from gnome.org, a different distribution.
Or suppoose the entire Gnome group, everyone working on it, decides to, God forbid, release the next version with a MS like lisence and charge great gobs of cash for it.
Well, my copy of Gnome 1.4 was lisenced to me under the GPL/LGPL...this would be a most opportune time for a fork. And fork it would. GnuevoGnome (or some such) would then rise to take the place of the now proprietary GnoGnome...or, then too, there's always KDE.
Point is, Helix et al would not last a minute if they tried to do something like that (not that I'm saying they would...nonononono; it's an example). This holds true of any software package that started life as free software
So, no, it's not dumping, because there would be no real opportunity to profit from it; I think those involved know this.
Now, providing service (via .NET)...that's something very different. Now we've moved beyond the realm of simply writing and distributing software via the "normal" channels...I don't want to even touch this subject just yet...
We picked a movie from his collection at random (Slackers) and a CD from his collection at random (Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique) and played them at the same time.
Eerily, they meshed exceedingly well. Thus, we must conclude that the Beastie Boys had Slackers in mind when writing that album: surely not too far fetched, if you think on it. ;)
They really did work together. The Pink Floyd thing really is coincidence. Pick a movie and CD at random and watch...
First, lets look at the origin of computer languages. Set the way-back machine to the early 20th century. In particular, I'm thinking of Bertrand Russel, and others. The Analytic Philosophy tradition.
One goal of the analytic philosophy tradition was to turn philosophical techniques to the analysis of language: if one can determine the precise meaning of a statement, one can determine empirically the validity of such a statement. It was a turning of Aristotlean logic sideways, really: they created formal languages that one could translate english propositions into, then analyse using mathematical principles. The ultimate expression of philosophy as empirical science. The propositional calculus and later predicate calculus both derived from this work.
They were trying to use formal languages to regiment natural languages. That is, they were created formal languages as a stand-in for english.
Of course, the propositional calculus is known to many of us as Boolean Logic (despite the fact that it was Russel who really put it all together in complete form. Boole just kinda started the whole thing). Both these calculuses and the very notion of formal languages itself is fundamental to computer science. you learned this in your Foundations of CS class, of course. Hence the title.
Thus, the argument could go, the fact that computer languages are useful in instructing computers how to achieve a task is incidental to thier very existence! This is not the primary purpose of this class of language! these formal languages (the propositional calculus, C, whathaveyou) exist primarily as a means for providing a clear and concise medium for communication.
Therefore, the censorship of expressions in such a language based on one aspect of thier utility is unconstitutional.
Define for me please what a rogue nation is exactly. One that does not abide by U.S. desires? Technically, all nations are "rogue" in that they are all sovereign...rogue implies that there is some international government dictating thier actions. (The U.N. doesn't count, because it rules by consent: you don't /have/ to be a member).
Iraq, lest you forget, invaded another sovereign nation with every intention of keeping it. Overwhelming force from a large coalition of nations forced them to abandon Kuwait. Not content to have their parade rained on, the Iraqis systematically set fire to many of the oil fields in Kuwait. These require explosives to quench -- not a simple task.
But then, you also forget that Iraq didn't always used to be the "bad guys". Prior to the whole Kuwait thing, we had actually told (our close ally) Saddam Hussein that we (the U.S.) would look the other way when Iraq moved to retake the disputed territory that Kuwait held at the time. We told them to go ahead and take it. This was taken, however, by Saddam Hussein to mean we wouldn't care if he took /all/ of Kuwait...which was a mistake. If Hussein had bothered to notice that Bush's ranking in the opinion polls in the U.S. had been slipping, he might have forseen that his actions provided a convienent excuse for Bush to try to make himself look good...
The only reason Hussein was ever vilified was because the Bush family was getting antsy about thier chances for re-election.
We won't even go into the Bush family's ties with the Texas (vs. Iraqi) oil industry...
Since Saddam was, unfortunately, not removed from power during the war, it is not unreasonable to assume he might be a little bitter. Imposing an embargo helps contain him and his ability to threaten other nations. No it isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than letting him freely buy any military hardware he needs.
He wasn't removed from power because of treaties the U.S. is party to that prevent us from directly interfering with another /sovereign/ nation's government.
Iraq has shown the capacity to use weapons of mass destruction (nuclear / biological / chemical), just ask some of their own people. Additionally, it has shown it has, and is willing to use missiles to attack other nations (Scuds on Israel during the Gulf War).
Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Don't forget the U.S. is the only nation to have ever used atomics on another nation. Don't see any embargoes being put on us...because we won. These embargoes have nothing to do with Hussein or what he's done: they are not punishment; they are poltics. Cheap Oil. Texas versus OPEC. We are trying to force Iraq's oil prices down, at the expense of the civilian population.
enough rambling. I await your repsonse. =)
have fun
dongoodman
If the answer is the corporate world, I suggest you read Snow Crash again...
harumph. Techno-utopia-sans-government my ass.
Let's not forget that like other Open Source scene graph libraries (PLIB's SSG, &c), OpenInventor uses OpenGL's Retained Mode...that is to say, it's faster than you give it credit for. It builds display lists to generate scenes: that is, it buffers every node in the graph before displaying them, speeding up the rendering process by a lot...
have fun
dongoodman
Last time my district's rep seat came up for vote, there was this character by the name of Chip Pickering (Republican, 3rd district, MS). He was the first candidate I had ever seen who made Internet policy part of his platform: he espoused all the right ideals: privacy, freedom of speech, yadda yadda yadda. It was beautiful.
Three guesses who I voted for.
So recently I decided to actually make use of Thomas, and check on his record. That's when I discovered that...oh no! He helped introduce a bill into the House to put censorware in public libraries and schools. Argh! But what's this? He signed as a sponsor of the DMCA? He voted in favor of the CDA?
I am Jack's Despondant Sense of Disillusionment. I had been thoroughly lied to. Which, in retrospect, given the stereotypes for politicians, is to be expected.
Now that's an interesting statement. Think about it for a moment.
So my repsonse is: Vote? Ha! For me it has only made things worse. I might cede that one who doesn't vote has no right to complain; however, I posit that voting has become an empty and hollow ritual.
But there has to be an alternative to voting. Preferably one that doesn't involve relocating to another country (where the situation as a whole is surely no better, even though the laws currently in the books may be better). Money is one, but that thought leaves me even more depressed than before. I'm still looking...
have fun
dongoodman
more likely I will end up calling it D minus, representing the quality of MS's latest subterfuge...
have fun
dongoodman
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea,
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession
of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it...He who
receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening
mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening
me. That ideas should be spread from one to another over the globe, for
the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition,
seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. . .
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
--dangerous leftist Thomas Jefferson,
speaking out against intelectual property
Sadly, current law says they can, and are...And there lies the rub...
- there is already a hhg "movie" available (though the date mentioned on your url indicates that that page probably has nothing to do with this), that was really a compilation of a tv mini-series done in england. i have a copy, and its pretty good (if you ignore the really bad red-dwarfish/bbc special effects).
- DNA, in his keynote, spoke at length about how he wasn't interested in doing a feature-film, because the 90 minute format didn't work for how HHG is laid out (remember, it was a half-hour radio series). He just couldn't figure out how to tell a complete story within 90 minutes. He found the ~40 min length of IMAX films to be better suited to the plot, and planned on doing them in several installments.
anyway, have fundongoodman
the idea is simple. its a first-person shooter. you play a national guardsman in the 60's, quelling peaceful protests and such with guns. the first level is Kent State: kill all the rampaging hippies before they get a chance to run away!
have fun
dongoodman
To Douglas Adams, then: Your vision of Starship Titanic in 1996 differed quite a lot from what it really was. This is, of course, natural. What sorts of things influenced those changes; were any really significant or even worth mention?
More importantly, you seem to have a unique view of where computer gaming should go. What is that view, specifically?
Second question (feel free to ignore): Where is that new book and the 3d IMax movies?
have fun dongoodman