The lawsuit is not about java. Most of the complaints relate to workgroup servers, web-browsers and productivity suites.
Does anyone know what became of the DR-DOS/Novell/Caldera complaint that Microsoft illegally tied the OS to the window manager (GUI)? I remember running Win95 on top of DR-DOS even though Microsoft claimed the window manager and OS were inextricably linked.
The poster seems to be confusing free speech with criminal speech. Criminal speech includes such things as perjury, threats, sexual abuse, and libel. These are not, and have never been deemed protected under free speech laws.
On the other hand, the supreme court has repeatedly upheld citizen's rights to express their opinions no matter how unpopular, to display art no matter how distasteful, to research and publish biographies of public figures no matter how embarrassing. I believe it was Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes who first stated the still current opinion that "The constitution is only necessary to protect speech that the public finds offensive!"
There are criminal uses of speech, but freedom of speech is not conditional.
Check out Jakob Nielsen's Usability Website. Much of his current writing is on web design, but prior to that he spent alot of time researching application usability. Very insightful! Provides a consistent framework for approaching the usability problem.
The court also said the wiretapping law did not apply because police did not intercept Proetto's messages as he was sending them, but after the fact.
It seems that the defendent's case is extremely weak. Do police need a wiretap warrant to listen to a message left on an answering machine? No! Do police need a search warrant on the sender to look at a postal letter sent to a victim? No!
This case has nothing to do with Internet privacy, wiretapping laws!
I have too many questions to respond intelligently. What type of organization is it? Is it a tech company? Software, or hardware? Is it an educational foundation? Is it a charitable organization? What is their purpose for trying to blow approx. $1000 per child in two days?
But this topic really interests me. I lived three years in Africa (Chad) and four years in Asia (India) during the nineties, I am a teacher, and I'm almost finished with a Ed Tech Master's degree.
Some comments:
1) It's going to be really difficult to get kids involved who aren't already connected in some way. In Chad few villages have any phones or even regular mail service. The elementary school in the village where I lived had exactly two books for use by the teachers for over 100 students. The situation is better in India, but outside of major cities, most students aren't going to know about this opportunity.
2) Children tend to be given much less respect in both Asia and Africa than they are in the west. A ten-year-old who has been given a crash course in whizbang technology, is unlikely to be able to rally a community to take advantage of the benefits of technology.
3) Cities in many less-developed countries have a glut of technologically proficient youth. In India over the last five years internet-cafes have sprung up on every street corner. The challenge is to integrate technology, information and the benefit it can provide into the daily life of the community.
Golem1024, please give us more information on which to base recommendations.
Re:AI in Poker
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The programmers did nothing once play beganActually that's not true. Part of the controversy surrounding the match was that the programming team, including some grandmasters, were constantly tweaking Big Blue, even during games. In addition, they reserved the right to select from Big Blues top choices. The match was far from the Man vs Machine match that was marketed.
Creative adaptation
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
To truly demonstrate artifcial intelligence, a machine must be general purpose. A key feature of human intelligence is creatively adapting to context.
For example, I'd like to see a machine do what 4-year old Jose Capablanca did in 1892. Though he'd not yet been taught to play chess, while watching his uncle and father play he warned his Dad that the move he was about to make was a mistake. Both adults scoffed that he even knew how to play, so 4-year old Jose challenged his father and beat him. The rest, of course, is history.
Show me a machine with no specific chess programming do that, and I'll accept that it is intelligent.
But it's already clear that some of the strengths of open source software simply don't apply to music. In computing, the open source method lets users improve software by eliminating errors and inefficient bits of code, but it's not obvious how that might happen with music. In fact, the music is not really "open source" at all. The files posted on the OAL music website http://www.openmusicregistry.org so far are all MP3s and Ogg Vorbises--formats which allow you to listen but not to modify.
Only nerds would confuse the medium (MP3, Ogg ) with the music. To see Open Source Music in action go to a Folk Music Festival or Jazz Club. What you'll see is late-night jam sessions full of old-timers demonstrating licks for neophytes who then incorporate them into new music. You'll also see older musicians excited to learn a new style from younger musicians. These venues are hothouses of creativity where everyone is borrowing, adapting and perfecting. Sounds pretty much like Open Source to me!
Unnecessarily Harsh Review
on
A Beautiful Mind
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Disclaimer: I read the book a couple of years ago, so much of this is from memory.
Irony: People who discover the book because of the movie tend to be more critical of the movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the movie. Sure I was aware of things that got left out, but as we all know from for example LOTR, when movies are made from books choices have to be made. I really appreciate the way them movie chose to emphasize the importance of relationships in Nash's li
fe, as troublesome as they may have been at times.
Nash's bisexuality: The book shows this ambiguously, not as a well-developed preference. It reflects Nash's narcissism more than anything else.
Nash's divorce: Although they did separate for a short time after the divorce, they lived together for 25 years before getting remarried. When they were remarried last summer, Nash referred to the event as a retraction of the divorce, like a journal would retract a publication error.
Terry Gross interviewed Sylvia Nasar on last night's Fresh Air(Real Audio). She was strongly supportive of the choices made while writing the screenplay. She suggested that if more emphasis had been put on Nash's sexuality or political views, it would have detracted from the more important stuff, ie, Nash's lifelong relationship with Alicia and his descent into schizophrenia.
The article is kinda breathy, especially for New Scientist - but
I hate to disillusion you, but New Scientist is well-known for their sensationalism. If this were Nature, Science, or even Scientific American, Hemo's comment would make sense. Don't take me wrong I've enjoyed reading New Scientist for a number of years, but its niche is tabloid-style, scientific journalism. It is not a scientific journal.
If this research is valid, it is a huge breakthrough. But it means that human cloning will have to be argued for its own sake, rather than it somehow being necessary for growing spare kidneys. My concern with this is that Bush, et al, will use it to shut down cloning research altogether; they've never seemed to have any other use for cloning. On the other hand, it may allow clarity on the morality of cloning.
Having spent a lot of time in The University library over the last couple of years, I'd commend Yahoo on a good move. Academic journals are an interesting little world. Often the subscription cost exceeds circulation, eg. $900 per year, circulation 800. Currently database services which include articles from these journals tend to follow a similar marketing concept, often charging $15 - $20 dollars per article. If Yahoo is able to provide these same articles for $1 to $4 that would be a huge benefit for many struggling grad students.
Hopefully the benefit will also trickle down to the general public as the lowered cost of access to research makes it easier to apply research in practice.
The principal investigator in this study, Derek Lovley was on NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday(Real Audio). He really encouraged people try microbial power for themselves. He admitted that it was a bit of a trick to keep everything properly insulated in the wet environment, but offered to give tips to those who contact
him.
Having recently downloaded Kylix2 Open Edition, I read this story with some consternation. But after reading the entire license from my install directory (Yes I installed it before reading; so sue me.) I've calmed down considerably.
The license appears to have two levels: general language which may not have any applicability to the product you are using, and language specific to a particular product. Since I have the "free" version of Kylix2, the auditing paragraph is totally irrevelant to me. On the other hand, the jury trial / class action paragraph may be relevant if something happens to precipitate such action. As has been stated previously, this clause is extremely unlikely to hold up in court.
The license does have two paragraphs specifically addressing Kylix2 Open Edition. I see nothing in those which would keep me from using the product. The licenses references to GPL in fact refer to any software developed using Kylix, not to Kylix itself. I don't see any conflict in this.
This reminds me of a situation I was in about 20 years ago. I was looking to upgrade the memory on an NCR mini. NCR was telling me it would cost $5000, so I was looking for a third-party/used vendor. Eventually I found one which would sell me the board for $2000. But, fine fellow that he was, he told me that usually NCR had shipped the computers with memory maxed but had set the DIP switches to a lower setting and not documented how to change the settings. Ten minutes later, I had my memory for $0. Our local NCR rep was mad, but the contract was clearly in our favor.
An ISP provides customers bandwidth. They don't have to tell you how to use it most effectively or efficiently; they can even attempt to deny service to certain protocols. But if you or your company is able to use that bandwidth in ways that the ISP didn't envision, all they can do is go away grumbling. The fact is, it's their infrastructure that makes it all possible. So they either have to do some re-engineering or realize that innovative customers will always be ahead of the curve.
I've noticed for some time now that articles about science have by far the lowest response rate on slashdot. For example, Designing An Astrophysical Virtual Observatory and Space Station Gets A Blanket got only 4 comments each, and none moderated up to my normal reading level. More typically a science article gets 20-30 comments, compared to the 100-200 comments on other topics. Anybody understand why?
As to what I read... I enjoy New Scientist (scientifiction) when I can get my hands on it, almost always read Scientific American, glance through Science to see if theirs something I might understand (excellent editorials). I'm also getting the email summary of Nature, and occasionally follow the links to their website. Oh, I also enjoy Natural History though it lacks something since since Stephen Jay Gould stopped writing his column.
The Self-Made Tapestry
Pattern Formation in Natur
on
Emergence
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Since reading and doing an undergrad seminar on Symmetry in Chaos by Marty Golubitsky and Mike Field several years ago, I've been quite interested in this topic.
For example, consider the transfer of a 1 GB file with an average Internet packet loss rate (2%) and global average RTT (just over 200 msec). For this case TCP has an inherent bandwidth limitation of 300 Kbps regardless of link speeds and thus will take more than 7 hours to transfer the file. A Digital Fountain server sending Meta-Content allows almost complete bandwidth utilization. With Digital Fountain, on a fully utilized 1.5 Mbps (T1) line the transfer of the 1 GB file will take about 1.5 hours and on a fully utilized 45 Mbps (T3) line the transfer time will be a little over 3 minutes.
I don't pretend to understand all the details, but the technology is based on the Luby transform which was invented by the company's founder. Essentially the content is broken into segments which are then randomly XORed to produce the metacontent. This provides redundancy since each segment of metacontent contains information from several of the original segments. Also the metacontent segments do not require sequential transmission.
Yah, I went there too when Slashdot carried the story.
The thing that bugged me is they were emphasizing first posts and asking for additional topics to add to their timeline, but they didn't have an "oldest first" sort option. (Like Slashdot...)
But after hearing last nights interview with Peter Jackson on World News for Public Television, my fears have been allayed. Jackson was asked what John Ronald Raoul would have thought about the movie. Peter said (approx.), "I hope he'd see the love we put into it over the years. But I think he'd be grumpy about many of the changes we had to make."
He seemed to have a deep understanding of Tolkien the man, and was quite aware that he'd meddled with literature that had been canonized. The seriousness with which he approached his task impressed me.
IANAE but, I am literate enough to realize that Karl Marx made a huge contribution to the study of economics. Anyone who has take an economics course, even in H.S., knows that Marx first illucidated many principles which are used by all economists today.
Today, unfortunately, many people are only aware of Marx in relation to the political movement which adopted some of his ideas.
If we dismiss serious economic thought as pablum because of its references to Marx , we will need to redevelop much of modern economics.
There's one in every crowd, so here goes... 5.5 oz times 28.4 grams per oz is 156 grams. Pure fat, the highest calorie food available, has 9 calories per gram, so 156 grams times 9 calories per gram is
1406 calories maximum.
Yeah, I know, the satirical art by Mom and Pop artist Mandy Warhole makes a better story, but someone has to standup for the pork producers.
Amazingly just last Saturday, I was discussing hog butchering with some of the old-timers and they said that they used to serve Pork Brains and Scrambled Eggs for lunch on Butchering Day. I'm not making this up...
I'm just amazed at most people's ignorance of the musical quality of good vinyl. Sure CDs are handier and more rugged so lots of people are transferring LPs to CDs. But you have to realize that a clean, well-mastered (or even better direct to disk ala Sheffield Labs) LP has musical fidelity that no CD will ever match.
When an audiophile chooses to transfer their cherished LPs to CD their primary concern is to minimize the distortion and noise which will be introduced. Buying used CDs isn't going to be the solution.
Slashdot Mirror
The lawsuit is not about java. Most of the complaints relate to workgroup servers, web-browsers and productivity suites.
Does anyone know what became of the DR-DOS/Novell/Caldera complaint that Microsoft illegally tied the OS to the window manager (GUI)? I remember running Win95 on top of DR-DOS even though Microsoft claimed the window manager and OS were inextricably linked.
The poster seems to be confusing free speech with criminal speech. Criminal speech includes such things as perjury, threats, sexual abuse, and libel. These are not, and have never been deemed protected under free speech laws.
On the other hand, the supreme court has repeatedly upheld citizen's rights to express their opinions no matter how unpopular, to display art no matter how distasteful, to research and publish biographies of public figures no matter how embarrassing. I believe it was Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes who first stated the still current opinion that "The constitution is only necessary to protect speech that the public finds offensive!"
There are criminal uses of speech, but freedom of speech is not conditional.
Check out Jakob Nielsen's Usability Website. Much of his current writing is on web design, but prior to that he spent alot of time researching application usability. Very insightful! Provides a consistent framework for approaching the usability problem.
The court also said the wiretapping law did not apply because police did not intercept Proetto's messages as he was sending them, but after the fact.
It seems that the defendent's case is extremely weak. Do police need a wiretap warrant to listen to a message left on an answering machine? No! Do police need a search warrant on the sender to look at a postal letter sent to a victim? No!
This case has nothing to do with Internet privacy, wiretapping laws!
Anyone out there will to 'fess up to adding a GOTO command at the end of every card pointing to the next card.
It was really cool! You could shuffle the deck, and the program would still run just fine...
I have too many questions to respond intelligently. What type of organization is it? Is it a tech company? Software, or hardware? Is it an educational foundation? Is it a charitable organization? What is their purpose for trying to blow approx. $1000 per child in two days?
But this topic really interests me. I lived three years in Africa (Chad) and four years in Asia (India) during the nineties, I am a teacher, and I'm almost finished with a Ed Tech Master's degree.
Some comments:
1) It's going to be really difficult to get kids involved who aren't already connected in some way. In Chad few villages have any phones or even regular mail service. The elementary school in the village where I lived had exactly two books for use by the teachers for over 100 students. The situation is better in India, but outside of major cities, most students aren't going to know about this opportunity.
2) Children tend to be given much less respect in both Asia and Africa than they are in the west. A ten-year-old who has been given a crash course in whizbang technology, is unlikely to be able to rally a community to take advantage of the benefits of technology.
3) Cities in many less-developed countries have a glut of technologically proficient youth. In India over the last five years internet-cafes have sprung up on every street corner. The challenge is to integrate technology, information and the benefit it can provide into the daily life of the community.
Golem1024, please give us more information on which to base recommendations.
The programmers did nothing once play beganActually that's not true. Part of the controversy surrounding the match was that the programming team, including some grandmasters, were constantly tweaking Big Blue, even during games. In addition, they reserved the right to select from Big Blues top choices. The match was far from the Man vs Machine match that was marketed.
To truly demonstrate artifcial intelligence, a machine must be general purpose. A key feature of human intelligence is creatively adapting to context. For example, I'd like to see a machine do what 4-year old Jose Capablanca did in 1892. Though he'd not yet been taught to play chess, while watching his uncle and father play he warned his Dad that the move he was about to make was a mistake. Both adults scoffed that he even knew how to play, so 4-year old Jose challenged his father and beat him. The rest, of course, is history. Show me a machine with no specific chess programming do that, and I'll accept that it is intelligent.
But it's already clear that some of the strengths of open source software simply don't apply to music. In computing, the open source method lets users improve software by eliminating errors and inefficient bits of code, but it's not obvious how that might happen with music. In fact, the music is not really "open source" at all. The files posted on the OAL music website http://www.openmusicregistry.org so far are all MP3s and Ogg Vorbises--formats which allow you to listen but not to modify.
Only nerds would confuse the medium (MP3, Ogg ) with the music. To see Open Source Music in action go to a Folk Music Festival or Jazz Club. What you'll see is late-night jam sessions full of old-timers demonstrating licks for neophytes who then incorporate them into new music. You'll also see older musicians excited to learn a new style from younger musicians. These venues are hothouses of creativity where everyone is borrowing, adapting and perfecting. Sounds pretty much like Open Source to me!
Disclaimer: I read the book a couple of years ago, so much of this is from memory.
Irony: People who discover the book because of the movie tend to be more critical of the movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the movie. Sure I was aware of things that got left out, but as we all know from for example LOTR, when movies are made from books choices have to be made. I really appreciate the way them movie chose to emphasize the importance of relationships in Nash's li fe, as troublesome as they may have been at times.
Nash's bisexuality: The book shows this ambiguously, not as a well-developed preference. It reflects Nash's narcissism more than anything else.
Nash's divorce: Although they did separate for a short time after the divorce, they lived together for 25 years before getting remarried. When they were remarried last summer, Nash referred to the event as a retraction of the divorce, like a journal would retract a publication error.
Terry Gross interviewed Sylvia Nasar on last night's Fresh Air (Real Audio). She was strongly supportive of the choices made while writing the screenplay. She suggested that if more emphasis had been put on Nash's sexuality or political views, it would have detracted from the more important stuff, ie, Nash's lifelong relationship with Alicia and his descent into schizophrenia.
Not surprisingly, this topic is red hot with controversy -- sharply dividing a world scientific community ...
This is a claim that Reuter's is making I'm pretty sure this isn't true.
The article is kinda breathy, especially for New Scientist - but
I hate to disillusion you, but New Scientist is well-known for their sensationalism. If this were Nature, Science, or even Scientific American, Hemo's comment would make sense. Don't take me wrong I've enjoyed reading New Scientist for a number of years, but its niche is tabloid-style, scientific journalism. It is not a scientific journal.
If this research is valid, it is a huge breakthrough. But it means that human cloning will have to be argued for its own sake, rather than it somehow being necessary for growing spare kidneys. My concern with this is that Bush, et al, will use it to shut down cloning research altogether; they've never seemed to have any other use for cloning. On the other hand, it may allow clarity on the morality of cloning.
Having spent a lot of time in The University library over the last couple of years, I'd commend Yahoo on a good move. Academic journals are an interesting little world. Often the subscription cost exceeds circulation, eg. $900 per year, circulation 800. Currently database services which include articles from these journals tend to follow a similar marketing concept, often charging $15 - $20 dollars per article. If Yahoo is able to provide these same articles for $1 to $4 that would be a huge benefit for many struggling grad students.
Hopefully the benefit will also trickle down to the general public as the lowered cost of access to research makes it easier to apply research in practice.
The principal investigator in this study, Derek Lovley was on NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday (Real Audio). He really encouraged people try microbial power for themselves. He admitted that it was a bit of a trick to keep everything properly insulated in the wet environment, but offered to give tips to those who contact him.
Having recently downloaded Kylix2 Open Edition, I read this story with some consternation. But after reading the entire license from my install directory (Yes I installed it before reading; so sue me.) I've calmed down considerably. The license appears to have two levels: general language which may not have any applicability to the product you are using, and language specific to a particular product. Since I have the "free" version of Kylix2, the auditing paragraph is totally irrevelant to me. On the other hand, the jury trial / class action paragraph may be relevant if something happens to precipitate such action. As has been stated previously, this clause is extremely unlikely to hold up in court. The license does have two paragraphs specifically addressing Kylix2 Open Edition. I see nothing in those which would keep me from using the product. The licenses references to GPL in fact refer to any software developed using Kylix, not to Kylix itself. I don't see any conflict in this.
BSD is not Linux...
This reminds me of a situation I was in about 20 years ago. I was looking to upgrade the memory on an NCR mini. NCR was telling me it would cost $5000, so I was looking for a third-party/used vendor. Eventually I found one which would sell me the board for $2000. But, fine fellow that he was, he told me that usually NCR had shipped the computers with memory maxed but had set the DIP switches to a lower setting and not documented how to change the settings. Ten minutes later, I had my memory for $0. Our local NCR rep was mad, but the contract was clearly in our favor.
An ISP provides customers bandwidth. They don't have to tell you how to use it most effectively or efficiently; they can even attempt to deny service to certain protocols. But if you or your company is able to use that bandwidth in ways that the ISP didn't envision, all they can do is go away grumbling. The fact is, it's their infrastructure that makes it all possible. So they either have to do some re-engineering or realize that innovative customers will always be ahead of the curve.
I've noticed for some time now that articles about science have by far the lowest response rate on slashdot. For example, Designing An Astrophysical Virtual Observatory and Space Station Gets A Blanket got only 4 comments each, and none moderated up to my normal reading level. More typically a science article gets 20-30 comments, compared to the 100-200 comments on other topics. Anybody understand why?
As to what I read... I enjoy New Scientist (scientifiction) when I can get my hands on it, almost always read Scientific American, glance through Science to see if theirs something I might understand (excellent editorials). I'm also getting the email summary of Nature, and occasionally follow the links to their website. Oh, I also enjoy Natural History though it lacks something since since Stephen Jay Gould stopped writing his column.
Since reading and doing an undergrad seminar on Symmetry in Chaos by Marty Golubitsky and Mike Field several years ago, I've been quite interested in this topic.
A more serious alternative to Emergence might be The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature.
For example, consider the transfer of a 1 GB file with an average Internet packet loss rate (2%) and global average RTT (just over 200 msec). For this case TCP has an inherent bandwidth limitation of 300 Kbps regardless of link speeds and thus will take more than 7 hours to transfer the file. A Digital Fountain server sending Meta-Content allows almost complete bandwidth utilization. With Digital Fountain, on a fully utilized 1.5 Mbps (T1) line the transfer of the 1 GB file will take about 1.5 hours and on a fully utilized 45 Mbps (T3) line the transfer time will be a little over 3 minutes.
I was a Skeptic, but I'm now that I've read the Digital Fountain white papers: Meta-Content Technology White Paper and TCP White Paper, I'm a True Believer.
I don't pretend to understand all the details, but the technology is based on the Luby transform which was invented by the company's founder. Essentially the content is broken into segments which are then randomly XORed to produce the metacontent. This provides redundancy since each segment of metacontent contains information from several of the original segments. Also the metacontent segments do not require sequential transmission.
Yah, I went there too when Slashdot carried the story.
The thing that bugged me is they were emphasizing first posts and asking for additional topics to add to their timeline, but they didn't have an "oldest first" sort option. (Like Slashdot...)
I'll admit I was worried after reading stories like Feedback: Not the subtractions, but the additions about changes made to the story during the making of the film.
But after hearing last nights interview with Peter Jackson on World News for Public Television, my fears have been allayed. Jackson was asked what John Ronald Raoul would have thought about the movie. Peter said (approx.), "I hope he'd see the love we put into it over the years. But I think he'd be grumpy about many of the changes we had to make."
He seemed to have a deep understanding of Tolkien the man, and was quite aware that he'd meddled with literature that had been canonized. The seriousness with which he approached his task impressed me.
IANAE but, I am literate enough to realize that Karl Marx made a huge contribution to the study of economics. Anyone who has take an economics course, even in H.S., knows that Marx first illucidated many principles which are used by all economists today.
Today, unfortunately, many people are only aware of Marx in relation to the political movement which adopted some of his ideas.
If we dismiss serious economic thought as pablum because of its references to Marx , we will need to redevelop much of modern economics.
There's one in every crowd, so here goes...
5.5 oz times 28.4 grams per oz is 156 grams. Pure fat, the highest calorie food available, has 9 calories per gram, so 156 grams times 9 calories per gram is 1406 calories maximum.
According to the USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 14 Braised Pork brains have 138 calories per 100 grams or 215 calories in our 5.5 oz can.
Yeah, I know, the satirical art by Mom and Pop artist Mandy Warhole makes a better story, but someone has to standup for the pork producers.
Amazingly just last Saturday, I was discussing hog butchering with some of the old-timers and they said that they used to serve Pork Brains and Scrambled Eggs for lunch on Butchering Day. I'm not making this up...
I'm just amazed at most people's ignorance of the musical quality of good vinyl. Sure CDs are handier and more rugged so lots of people are transferring LPs to CDs. But you have to realize that a clean, well-mastered (or even better direct to disk ala Sheffield Labs) LP has musical fidelity that no CD will ever match.
When an audiophile chooses to transfer their cherished LPs to CD their primary concern is to minimize the distortion and noise which will be introduced. Buying used CDs isn't going to be the solution.