Why did you/. K5? Their server has already been experiencing severe problems in the last few days. This is the last thing they'd have wanted. If its a random website, the/. editors' claim that it is too much of a hassle to ask if it is OK to reproduce the article is acceptable, kinda. But K5? Most of whom are/.ers? In fact, the article specifically said that verbatim reproduction is OK. This totally sucks.
Not necessarily. If your product won't interoperate, and you're the first in your market segment, then you've got a big lead. But at the same time, you leave yourself open to a bigger player (who can survive longer) undercutting you with lower (possibly anticompetitive) pricing.
I have one thing to say: When X-Ray was invented, there was wide misunderstanding about what it could and could not do and so some women started going to bath with their clothes on because they were afraid of being photographed through the walls.
My point is that it is never the technology itself that is bad. It's surprising that/.ers who can see this so clearly in the case of p2p are the ones clamoring against it whenever anything infringes privacy. Don't oppose technology, oppose oppressive governments and mega-corps.
Maybe if more shit like this happens, then more companies will start realizing that DRM is an unworkable mess, and people would prefer to buy non-DRM things, and we might be able to delay 1984 by a few more years.
Actually the caste system existed in India for 'functional reasons' and not as a means of discrimination. Politicians have groomed these into vote-banks by offering money and power.... Present social conditions have actually made things screwed up for all concerned.
Shit.
Same old RSS propaganda material.
Most common excuse given to hide from the fact that the caste system has always been extremely unfair to the lower castes, a highly shameful, dehumanizing and severe abuse of human rights.
(I am an Indian) I too used to believe what you said, having been brainwashed by the right, but I'm sorry to tell you that there's no truth to it. I've done courses on Indian history, and I assure you that it doesn't become any better as you go back in time (which is contrary to the central dogma of Hindu philosophy). Buddhism and Jainism arose more than 2500 years ago as rebel movements against the caste system. (If you haven't guessed it already, I'm atheist).
Here's an interesting tidbit: the concepts of karma and rebirth arose (partly) as a method of oppression of the underprivileged, as a tool to convince them that the misery they faced was the result of their own faults in "previous births".
Anyway, my rant is done. I'll accept two things you said: dirty politicians leverage caste to achieve their dirty ends, and that it initially arose as a functional classification. But there's no way at all you can justify it, its been sickening and shameful almost from the beginning (the dividing line is, IIRC, between the "early Vedic" and the "later vedic" periods, when Varna became "Jathi".)
Hi, I'm Indian too, and I don't think I agree with you:
in a country where the Rs. 30 can buy a gourmet meal for 5 (well, I'm exagerating, but please try to see my point), it strikes me as quite a price for a vote
I don't think the voter is required to pay for the card. The cost is Rs. 30 to the government.
But even if we assume that the voter has to pay:
One only has to get a voter ID card once in a lifetime, not for each election. So the cost gets amortized.
Besides, if someone values their vote at less than a meal or two (not 5, your pulling that out of your ass), then they're probably voting because someone paid them Rs 10 to do so. If there's a slight cost to vote, then it will ensure that anyone who votes will have some motivation to vote and a reason for choosing one candidate over the other. That way I'd say its a good thing.
Third, the scheme has just been introduced; I'm sure the price will go down in the future.
Fourth, consider the total cost savings for the country in throwing away ballot papers; it will probably work out to more than Rs 30. per voter.
It's a sad day in India when these 800,000 machines (which will hardly service 1,000,000,000 people) are spread through India.
1e9 people, but only 3e8 are voters, and less than half of them actually turn up. So were talking about 200 people per machine. I don't see the problem. And no, it won't be a sad day, it'll be a day to celebrate.
As an Indian, I must say that you're missing out a lot about how it was done in the old days:
It was extremely common for polling booths to be attacked by goons paid by one of the candidates and all the ballot papers destroyed.
Large numbers of "party members" would vote repeatedly by pretending to be someone else or using special techniques that would remove the ink from their fingers.
Earlier, results for each voting center would be individually known. This would lead to goons beating up people of those villages that voted against them. AFAIK this doesn't happen in the current system because the EVMs are centrally processed and only constituency-wise results are known.
To summarize, the old system was a nightmare both in terms of fairness and in terms of cost because of the huge population. In comparison, the EVMs in the last elections were a panacea. I'm sure its going to be better this time.
Don't be a luddite. ID cards aren't infringing on anyone's freedom. It sounds especially ridiculous considering that in India we have a long way to go to achieve basic freedoms, like the right of a female to live. Voter ID cards and EVMs are the best thing to happen to India's political system in a long time.
Did anyone else notice that the/. story blurb is full of spelling mistakes? Anyway, here's the fixed version:
"The three kompanies behind the Kroupware Project (Erfrakon, Intevation and Klarälvdalens Datakonsult) announced its successful kompletion today. This new groupware approach using only Free Software is now available in stable versions under the Kolab brand name. Kommercial support on an individual basis is already offered with further support options to kome."
Just like many eyeballs make bugs shallow, the distributed nature of the community could work to our advantage here. If we fought them separately in each country, we would be fighting from a position of strength, wouldn't we (not to imply that we aren't already...) Just a thought.
BTW,/. should probably stop posting SCO stories every few hours and have a "Weekly SCO digest" feature (or "SCOback" like slashback) or something like that.
...but since I can't access the page, I'll just say that if they can make a similar device to convert the death throes of a webserver into digital music, we could have some real fun during slashdottings:)
Oops sorry that wasn't what I meant. My question is, does the Australian public think Bush and co. are imperialist bastards or lovable role models? (Obviously somewhere in between, but where exactly?)
Yes but you see the Australian Federal Government doesn't want independance from the US. It wants to be the 52nd state.
Maybe, but this bill is being introduced by the opposition, and I don't think they share the government's viewpoint. I have no idea what public sentiment is on the issue. Could any Australians here clue us in?
They're just pushing for transparency and greater accountability! "Downtrodden open source software" is another piece of nonsense I noticed. Quite effective at preventing getting the message of open source across.
The oppression industry is quite good at playing the name game. Look at how entrenched "piracy" has become.
...that the desire for independence from the US is going to be an increasingly important factor in driving Linux/OSS adoption throughout the world. I mean, "government wasting money on Microsoft products" wouldn't have such a ring to it in the US now, would it?
Usually you don't find government adopting new tech earlier than private enterprise, but with Linux it seems to be working the other way (or at least both ways). And I'd say that a major reason for that is anti US sentiment.
I have a feeling that nanotech + genetic algos can be particularly deadly. One of the constraints for GA is that we can't afford to have population of billions as nature can. With nanotech that might be possible, and then who knows what might evolve?
Re:Just wait for the game with this feature...
on
Mutating Animations
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I'll assume that you're referring to the game adjusting to your playing style, because there are no real-time CPU constraints if you just want to evolve a generic entity. If that's the case, the more serious problem would probably be getting sufficient user input. Genetic algos usually take hundreds, sometimes thousands of generations, and since you cant wait for the user to play the game thousands of times you've got to improvise.
In the case of board games, we've had learning algorithms for a long time now. I remember Fritz4 (chess program) having it 6-7 years ago.
Its more difficult than one thinks...
on
Mutating Animations
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· Score: 5, Informative
In simple textbook situations illustrating the genetic algorithm, we simply represent the solution space as a string of bits, and cut it at some point and recombine them to form offspring. However, real world applications are a lot more complex. That's because an arbitrary cut-n-paste of solution strings is likely to result, with extremely high probability, in an invalid string. This is the problem of having a sparse solution space. In this particular example, suppose you represent the figure as a sequence of pixels and try to apply a genetic algorithm on that representation. You'll never get anywhere, because most sequence of pixels are meaningless.
What needs to be done to make the GA work is to develop a solution space representatin in which each parameter can be varied independently of the others. In this case:
The character's body plan involved 700 distinct parameters that needed to be optimized to teach it how to walk like a human.
.
So its not like the computer learnt to walk by itself. There's a lot of hard work involved before you can even start the GA. Congrats to Reil.
<shameless plug>
On a slightly related note, I'm about to start implementing a GA to develop a killer AI for gtkboard . If you are interested in coding a GA, you are welcome to join:) (Of course it won't be anywhere as complex as the one in the article, but still lots of fun.)
Slashdot Mirror
Why did you /. K5? Their server has already been experiencing severe problems in the last few days. This is the last thing they'd have wanted. If its a random website, the /. editors' claim that it is too much of a hassle to ask if it is OK to reproduce the article is acceptable, kinda. But K5? Most of whom are /.ers? In fact, the article specifically said that verbatim reproduction is OK. This totally sucks.
Not necessarily. If your product won't interoperate, and you're the first in your market segment, then you've got a big lead. But at the same time, you leave yourself open to a bigger player (who can survive longer) undercutting you with lower (possibly anticompetitive) pricing.
You're right, tar is not just a linux thing. Like most GNU programs, it is very portable. ;^)
My point is that it is never the technology itself that is bad. It's surprising that /.ers who can see this so clearly in the case of p2p are the ones clamoring against it whenever anything infringes privacy. Don't oppose technology, oppose oppressive governments and mega-corps.
Maybe if more shit like this happens, then more companies will start realizing that DRM is an unworkable mess, and people would prefer to buy non-DRM things, and we might be able to delay 1984 by a few more years.
Yeah I know, I'm Indian :-)
Shit.
Same old RSS propaganda material.
Most common excuse given to hide from the fact that the caste system has always been extremely unfair to the lower castes, a highly shameful, dehumanizing and severe abuse of human rights.
(I am an Indian) I too used to believe what you said, having been brainwashed by the right, but I'm sorry to tell you that there's no truth to it. I've done courses on Indian history, and I assure you that it doesn't become any better as you go back in time (which is contrary to the central dogma of Hindu philosophy). Buddhism and Jainism arose more than 2500 years ago as rebel movements against the caste system. (If you haven't guessed it already, I'm atheist).
Here's an interesting tidbit: the concepts of karma and rebirth arose (partly) as a method of oppression of the underprivileged, as a tool to convince them that the misery they faced was the result of their own faults in "previous births".
Anyway, my rant is done. I'll accept two things you said: dirty politicians leverage caste to achieve their dirty ends, and that it initially arose as a functional classification. But there's no way at all you can justify it, its been sickening and shameful almost from the beginning (the dividing line is, IIRC, between the "early Vedic" and the "later vedic" periods, when Varna became "Jathi".)
it will be the first time a Lok Sabha (central parliament) election will be held in the country since 1952 without the use of ballot papers
Do you mean they used EVMs before 1952??Just joking.
Reminds me of another joke -
Q. What did they use in Romania before they used candles?
A. Electricity.
in a country where the Rs. 30 can buy a gourmet meal for 5 (well, I'm exagerating, but please try to see my point), it strikes me as quite a price for a vote
I don't think the voter is required to pay for the card. The cost is Rs. 30 to the government. But even if we assume that the voter has to pay:
One only has to get a voter ID card once in a lifetime, not for each election. So the cost gets amortized.
Besides, if someone values their vote at less than a meal or two (not 5, your pulling that out of your ass), then they're probably voting because someone paid them Rs 10 to do so. If there's a slight cost to vote, then it will ensure that anyone who votes will have some motivation to vote and a reason for choosing one candidate over the other. That way I'd say its a good thing.
Third, the scheme has just been introduced; I'm sure the price will go down in the future.
Fourth, consider the total cost savings for the country in throwing away ballot papers; it will probably work out to more than Rs 30. per voter.
It's a sad day in India when these 800,000 machines (which will hardly service 1,000,000,000 people) are spread through India.
1e9 people, but only 3e8 are voters, and less than half of them actually turn up. So were talking about 200 people per machine. I don't see the problem. And no, it won't be a sad day, it'll be a day to celebrate.
-
It was extremely common for polling booths to be attacked by goons paid by one of the candidates and all the ballot papers destroyed.
-
Large numbers of "party members" would vote repeatedly by pretending to be someone else or using special techniques that would remove the ink from their fingers.
-
Earlier, results for each voting center would be individually known. This would lead to goons beating up people of those villages that voted against them. AFAIK this doesn't happen in the current system because the EVMs are centrally processed and only constituency-wise results are known.
To summarize, the old system was a nightmare both in terms of fairness and in terms of cost because of the huge population. In comparison, the EVMs in the last elections were a panacea. I'm sure its going to be better this time.Don't be a luddite. ID cards aren't infringing on anyone's freedom. It sounds especially ridiculous considering that in India we have a long way to go to achieve basic freedoms, like the right of a female to live. Voter ID cards and EVMs are the best thing to happen to India's political system in a long time.
I can't help getting the feeling that as the inevitable ganging together of the forces of evil accelerates, armageddon can't be far off.
Rick's dad, Bill, was an electrical engineer who designed one of the world's first computers, then worked for IBM.
Start the "if computer engineers built cars" jokes already!
Also check out rotten flesh, a parody of freshmeat, driven by the same engine as the postmodernist writing generator.
Parent reminds me of the adventures of Polly Nomial
BTW, /. should probably stop posting SCO stories every few hours and have a "Weekly SCO digest" feature (or "SCOback" like slashback) or something like that.
...but since I can't access the page, I'll just say that if they can make a similar device to convert the death throes of a webserver into digital music, we could have some real fun during slashdottings :)
Oops sorry that wasn't what I meant. My question is, does the Australian public think Bush and co. are imperialist bastards or lovable role models? (Obviously somewhere in between, but where exactly?)
Maybe, but this bill is being introduced by the opposition, and I don't think they share the government's viewpoint. I have no idea what public sentiment is on the issue. Could any Australians here clue us in?
Huh, what do you expect from someone whose username is "egg troll", and URL is "http://www.microsoft.com" ? ;-D
The oppression industry is quite good at playing the name game. Look at how entrenched "piracy" has become.
Usually you don't find government adopting new tech earlier than private enterprise, but with Linux it seems to be working the other way (or at least both ways). And I'd say that a major reason for that is anti US sentiment.
I have a feeling that nanotech + genetic algos can be particularly deadly. One of the constraints for GA is that we can't afford to have population of billions as nature can. With nanotech that might be possible, and then who knows what might evolve?
In the case of board games, we've had learning algorithms for a long time now. I remember Fritz4 (chess program) having it 6-7 years ago.
What needs to be done to make the GA work is to develop a solution space representatin in which each parameter can be varied independently of the others. In this case:
The character's body plan involved 700 distinct parameters that needed to be optimized to teach it how to walk like a human. .
So its not like the computer learnt to walk by itself. There's a lot of hard work involved before you can even start the GA. Congrats to Reil.
<shameless plug> On a slightly related note, I'm about to start implementing a GA to develop a killer AI for gtkboard . If you are interested in coding a GA, you are welcome to join :) (Of course it won't be anywhere as complex as the one in the article, but still lots of fun.)