I guess from my point of view as a coder, determining the visible text strings of an entire PDF vectored image might be more complicated that looking up the meta-data for an image, MP3, or whatever, which presumably is nicely organized in either a static header or as a series of tag/data elements.
I'm a coder too, although I don't do any OS X development to speak of (although I am an OS X user). I do know, though, that the version of Preview in Panther already does an excellent job of text recognition, and so I assumed that Spotlight would use the same library to do so.
Grabbing EXIF metadata from image files is easy... what's hard is having more meaningful metadata than what camera took the picture and at what time. Searching for images having to do with "Niagra Falls Vacation" is a much harder problem than searching for images "Taken with Canon EOS 20D between April 1 and April 15, 2005". For that matter it's also harder than searching PDFs and Word documents for "Niagra Falls".
The real question I have about Spotlight is how meaningful metadata is set, not how it's searched. How is the "Niagra Falls Vacation" keyphrase getting set and saved in the image?
Well that can't be it because Tiger will do things like look in PDFs for keywords.
I never intended to imply that Spotlight didn't search the contents of files where possible... I actually used the example of a photograph because it was a case (an edge case maybe) where the content isn't readily indexable as text. I never doubted that Spotlight would look at the contents of PDFs or Word documents or the like.
Still, other comments in this thread have set me straight. Spotlight does support rich metadata, even for photos, through the use of format-specific metadata standards (i.e. EXIF).
So how is Microsoft's service "father reaching"? Is he including possible network indexing so you can find every file on the network as well (perhaps something for Windows Longhorn Server) - and is this ability to be used in OS X Tiger Server?
My understanding is that Microsoft's plans for Longhorn (although it changes every day) include the use of richer metadata than Apple uses... In other words, photos can be tagged as "Vacation at Niagara Falls" and searched on that basis, while Spotlight is more likely to use the file path for this purpose.
I should add a huge disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure of my characterization of either product... I'm just sharing what I've picked up while watching these guys go at it from a distance.
I haven't been there, nor have I played e-scrabble, but is this guy Jared paying for the server, bandwidth, whatever else without making a dime in return? Is there some sort of advertising that is on there to recoup his costs?
Actually, yes. As far as I know there are not now nor have there ever been any advertisements on e-Scrabble. Jared has purchased two machines and payed hosting for e-Scrabble because it's a hobby. He enjoys writing the code.
TV shows exist for one reason, to make money for networks.
In the beginning there were the Networks. The Networks produced their own shows. Then independent TV production companies got into the mix, and they started producing TV shows and selling them to the networks, which then ran them and sold advertising on them.
TV shows currently exist for two reasons: First, to make money for production companies. Second, to make money for networks. There are other reasons, too, but those will do.
These days the vast majority of TV shows are produced by independent production companies. The network's own news division is one of the few exceptions to this rule.
It isn't necessarily the networks who will start selling TV shows on the Internet -- it may well be the production companies themselves, cutting out the middleman.
(Sorry about the original, unformatted version of this comment. I hit "Submit" by accident, then hit "Stop". Not quickly enough. I figured it'd be good to resubmit with some paragraph breaks...)
TV shows exist for one reason, to make money for networks.
In the beginning there were the Networks. The Networks produced their own shows. Then independent TV production companies got into the mix, and they started producing TV shows and selling them to the networks, which then ran them and sold advertising on them.
TV shows currently exist for two reasons: First, to make money for production companies. Second, to make money for networks. There are other reasons, too, but those will do.
These days the vast majority of TV shows are produced by independent production companies. The network's own news division is one of the few exceptions to this rule.
It isn't necessarily the networks who will start selling TV shows on the Internet -- it may well be the production companies themselves, cutting out the middleman.
Is there an "official" body for sectioning off the moon? How does all that work?
There's the Moon Treaty, which reads in part:
Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof. The foregoing provisions are without prejudice to the international regime referred to in paragraph 5 of this article.
And:
The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on the moon shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration and use of the moon shall also not be prohibited.
And:
The exploration and use of the moon shall be the province of all mankind and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. Due regard shall be paid to interests of present and future generations as well as to the need to promote higher standards of living conditions of economic and social progress and development in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
I did RTFA... I didn't mean to imply that Philly was going to build the network or be the ISP. What I'm saying is that the city shouldn't fund the network either. Just help out a little bit with the difficult parts.
The city itself shouldn't be talking about forming a monopoly, supporting a monopoly or operating a utility. Instead the city should be doing what it needs to do to facilitate the creation of city-wide mesh networks by private providers.
There are several impediments to the creation of city-wide wireless mesh networks. The first, and perhaps most important, is right of way. The second is cost.
A good model would include the city throwing out an RFP asking for proposals to create a city-wide mesh network that accomplishes the following:
Covers at least X% of the city, where X is a large enough percentage to ensure that poor areas of the city are at least partially covered in mesh.
Provides at least X mbps throughput to all users
Allows independent providers to use the network to provide their own brand of wireless mesh services, for appropriate fees
In exchange, providers get:
The right to borrow money at favorable rates through the use of the city's credit. The city floats bonds, and then loans the money to the chosen provider(s) at the same interest rate as the bonds themselves
Streamlined approval of right of way throughout the city, probably using the city's lamposts
A temporary monopoly on some types of premium services on the network (i.e. the provider is forced to allow the rebranding of the regular tier of service, but a higher tier of service [twice as fast?] is the sole province of the provider for X years).
New York City has an interesting plan out there for better cell phone coverage under a similar model: offering right of way on the city's lamposts in exchange for certain guarantees. See New York Timescoverage on the subject.
If by "another North Korea" you mean a country prepared to stand up to outrageous american threats then we could do with a few more North Koreas.
I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Let's start with American foreign policy. I think that we can both agree that there is legitimate and agreeable American foreign policy that would happen under most any administration, and illegitimate or unagreeable foreign policy that is most likely to occur under administrations such as that which we have now.
I would submit to you that an active and aggressive foreign policy in terms of nuclear proliferation as related to the DPRK fits into the first category, while an invasion and occupation of Iraq fits into the second. Where Iran fits is debatable, I think.
The problem with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is not only its failure, but also the delegitimizing effect it's had on all American foreign policy. We can no longer threaten the DPRK without some -- many? -- standing up and cheering for Kim Jong-Il. What a situation the Bush Administration has placed us in that people actually seriously say "we could do with a few more North Koreas."
I don't think that you should ever seriously utter those words. Has the DPRK stood up to the American behemoth? Sure. But why has it done so? Because it's a crazed, dictorial regime fueled by a destructive personality cult that punishes dissenters by placing them in concentration camps and performing outrageous medical experiments on prisoners in said camps.
You want dystopia? Look no further than the good 'ole DPRK. You want to find a country that the United States should legitimately engage, you want a war that the United States should legitimately seek, you want a regime that should be legitimately changed by American power? Look no further than the DPRK.
Now, let's be clear. Nuclear weapons work. Mutually assured destruction, while MAD, works. Or I should say, has worked. It worked great with the Soviet Union, with Britain and France, with Israel and South Africa. It can't and won't work with the DPRK, and the worry is that it won't work with Iran (I disagree with many on this point, I think it can work with Iran).
The DPRK is nuts. It's a country that thinks sea cucumbers are divine signs of the righteousness of their leadership. It's a country so poor that it sells nuclear expertise and equipment to the highest (and lowest) bidders, from Libya to Pakistan. It's a country that regularly confronts American soldiers.
Screw standing up to America in such a situation. Don't cheer them. Don't call for more DPRKs. This is a situation where America is right. Don't let Iraq color your perception of all American foreign policy. Use it as a lesson that can be applied, but must be applied selectively. Apply it, if you like, to Iran. But not to the DPRK. It doesn't apply.
I should preface this by saying that I'm not opposed to nuclear power generation, and that I think that the newest generation of reactors (especially those using pebble beds) are very promising.
Still, I'm wary of these sweeping, blanket statements people tend to make about new technology. Remember how electricity would be too cheap to meter? Remember how Vioxx easily secured FDA approval? How the Space Shuttle flew for years with bad O-Rings?
I'm not a luddite, and I'm all for progress -- even when it's dangerous. But people are making sweeping statements about the safety of this new generation of reactors. What about spent fuel? What about issues that we don't fully understand yet?
We have a long track record of giving lay people the rosiest possible picture of progress. Then something goes wrong. The SL-1 Reactor, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, others. The public gets scared and recoils. And then we're surprised when they balk at a new generation of "meltdown proof" reactors!
I'd like to see the PRC try these reactors out for a decade or so before I approve the operation of one in my backyard. Remember the consequences of missteps -- entire regions of the country made uninhabitable for generations. The risk may not be great, but the consequences are.
2) Have you ever tried to kill a pesky mosquito with a flamthrower? You're going to tell me it's not more fun that way?:)
I haven't tried, but I'm sure it's fun!
Oh, yes. Let's remove a spyware infection by "wiping out the home directory" because that "would usually fix you right up."
Excellent solution. It's like using a flamethrower to get at that pesky mosquito.
No, the proper solution is anti-virus style threat control systems for Web browsers. Systems that scan incoming traffic and look for malicious code, then say something like "I've detected what looks like malicious code. Please think carefully, and go forward only if you trust the site sending you this code."
It won't be easy, but it's not a bad option. Snort provides an excellent model. Think of a browser or browser add-on that constantly updates threat signatures from a central repository. Or just think of the current anti-virus software model.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess from my point of view as a coder, determining the visible text strings of an entire PDF vectored image might be more complicated that looking up the meta-data for an image, MP3, or whatever, which presumably is nicely organized in either a static header or as a series of tag/data elements.
I'm a coder too, although I don't do any OS X development to speak of (although I am an OS X user). I do know, though, that the version of Preview in Panther already does an excellent job of text recognition, and so I assumed that Spotlight would use the same library to do so.
Grabbing EXIF metadata from image files is easy... what's hard is having more meaningful metadata than what camera took the picture and at what time. Searching for images having to do with "Niagra Falls Vacation" is a much harder problem than searching for images "Taken with Canon EOS 20D between April 1 and April 15, 2005". For that matter it's also harder than searching PDFs and Word documents for "Niagra Falls".
The real question I have about Spotlight is how meaningful metadata is set, not how it's searched. How is the "Niagra Falls Vacation" keyphrase getting set and saved in the image?
Well that can't be it because Tiger will do things like look in PDFs for keywords.
I never intended to imply that Spotlight didn't search the contents of files where possible... I actually used the example of a photograph because it was a case (an edge case maybe) where the content isn't readily indexable as text. I never doubted that Spotlight would look at the contents of PDFs or Word documents or the like.
Still, other comments in this thread have set me straight. Spotlight does support rich metadata, even for photos, through the use of format-specific metadata standards (i.e. EXIF).
So how is Microsoft's service "father reaching"? Is he including possible network indexing so you can find every file on the network as well (perhaps something for Windows Longhorn Server) - and is this ability to be used in OS X Tiger Server?
My understanding is that Microsoft's plans for Longhorn (although it changes every day) include the use of richer metadata than Apple uses... In other words, photos can be tagged as "Vacation at Niagara Falls" and searched on that basis, while Spotlight is more likely to use the file path for this purpose.
I should add a huge disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure of my characterization of either product... I'm just sharing what I've picked up while watching these guys go at it from a distance.
I haven't been there, nor have I played e-scrabble, but is this guy Jared paying for the server, bandwidth, whatever else without making a dime in return? Is there some sort of advertising that is on there to recoup his costs?
Actually, yes. As far as I know there are not now nor have there ever been any advertisements on e-Scrabble. Jared has purchased two machines and payed hosting for e-Scrabble because it's a hobby. He enjoys writing the code.
TV shows exist for one reason, to make money for networks.
In the beginning there were the Networks. The Networks produced their own shows. Then independent TV production companies got into the mix, and they started producing TV shows and selling them to the networks, which then ran them and sold advertising on them.
TV shows currently exist for two reasons: First, to make money for production companies. Second, to make money for networks. There are other reasons, too, but those will do.
These days the vast majority of TV shows are produced by independent production companies. The network's own news division is one of the few exceptions to this rule.
It isn't necessarily the networks who will start selling TV shows on the Internet -- it may well be the production companies themselves, cutting out the middleman.
(Sorry about the original, unformatted version of this comment. I hit "Submit" by accident, then hit "Stop". Not quickly enough. I figured it'd be good to resubmit with some paragraph breaks...)
TV shows exist for one reason, to make money for networks. In the beginning there were the Networks. The Networks produced their own shows. Then independent TV production companies got into the mix, and they started producing TV shows and selling them to the networks, which then ran them and sold advertising on them. TV shows currently exist for two reasons: First, to make money for production companies. Second, to make money for networks. There are other reasons, too, but those will do. These days the vast majority of TV shows are produced by independent production companies. The network's own news division is one of the few exceptions to this rule. It isn't necessarily the networks who will start selling TV shows on the Internet -- it may well be the production companies themselves, cutting out the middleman.
These treaties are just a speed bump to a full militarization and nationalization of space. Sorry to be pessimistic.
I wouldn't disagree at all. The Moon Treaty will be withdrawn from faster than you can say "Kyoto".
If you RTFA...
I did RTFA... I didn't mean to imply that Philly was going to build the network or be the ISP. What I'm saying is that the city shouldn't fund the network either. Just help out a little bit with the difficult parts.
The city itself shouldn't be talking about forming a monopoly, supporting a monopoly or operating a utility. Instead the city should be doing what it needs to do to facilitate the creation of city-wide mesh networks by private providers.
There are several impediments to the creation of city-wide wireless mesh networks. The first, and perhaps most important, is right of way. The second is cost.
A good model would include the city throwing out an RFP asking for proposals to create a city-wide mesh network that accomplishes the following:
- Covers at least X% of the city, where X is a large enough percentage to ensure that poor areas of the city are at least partially covered in mesh.
- Provides at least X mbps throughput to all users
- Allows independent providers to use the network to provide their own brand of wireless mesh services, for appropriate fees
In exchange, providers get:- The right to borrow money at favorable rates through the use of the city's credit. The city floats bonds, and then loans the money to the chosen provider(s) at the same interest rate as the bonds themselves
- Streamlined approval of right of way throughout the city, probably using the city's lamposts
- A temporary monopoly on some types of premium services on the network (i.e. the provider is forced to allow the rebranding of the regular tier of service, but a higher tier of service [twice as fast?] is the sole province of the provider for X years).
New York City has an interesting plan out there for better cell phone coverage under a similar model: offering right of way on the city's lamposts in exchange for certain guarantees. See New York Times coverage on the subject.If by "another North Korea" you mean a country prepared to stand up to outrageous american threats then we could do with a few more North Koreas.
I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Let's start with American foreign policy. I think that we can both agree that there is legitimate and agreeable American foreign policy that would happen under most any administration, and illegitimate or unagreeable foreign policy that is most likely to occur under administrations such as that which we have now.
I would submit to you that an active and aggressive foreign policy in terms of nuclear proliferation as related to the DPRK fits into the first category, while an invasion and occupation of Iraq fits into the second. Where Iran fits is debatable, I think.
The problem with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is not only its failure, but also the delegitimizing effect it's had on all American foreign policy. We can no longer threaten the DPRK without some -- many? -- standing up and cheering for Kim Jong-Il. What a situation the Bush Administration has placed us in that people actually seriously say "we could do with a few more North Koreas."
I don't think that you should ever seriously utter those words. Has the DPRK stood up to the American behemoth? Sure. But why has it done so? Because it's a crazed, dictorial regime fueled by a destructive personality cult that punishes dissenters by placing them in concentration camps and performing outrageous medical experiments on prisoners in said camps.
You want dystopia? Look no further than the good 'ole DPRK. You want to find a country that the United States should legitimately engage, you want a war that the United States should legitimately seek, you want a regime that should be legitimately changed by American power? Look no further than the DPRK.
Now, let's be clear. Nuclear weapons work. Mutually assured destruction, while MAD, works. Or I should say, has worked. It worked great with the Soviet Union, with Britain and France, with Israel and South Africa. It can't and won't work with the DPRK, and the worry is that it won't work with Iran (I disagree with many on this point, I think it can work with Iran).
The DPRK is nuts. It's a country that thinks sea cucumbers are divine signs of the righteousness of their leadership. It's a country so poor that it sells nuclear expertise and equipment to the highest (and lowest) bidders, from Libya to Pakistan. It's a country that regularly confronts American soldiers.
Screw standing up to America in such a situation. Don't cheer them. Don't call for more DPRKs. This is a situation where America is right. Don't let Iraq color your perception of all American foreign policy. Use it as a lesson that can be applied, but must be applied selectively. Apply it, if you like, to Iran. But not to the DPRK. It doesn't apply.
I should preface this by saying that I'm not opposed to nuclear power generation, and that I think that the newest generation of reactors (especially those using pebble beds) are very promising.
Still, I'm wary of these sweeping, blanket statements people tend to make about new technology. Remember how electricity would be too cheap to meter? Remember how Vioxx easily secured FDA approval? How the Space Shuttle flew for years with bad O-Rings?
I'm not a luddite, and I'm all for progress -- even when it's dangerous. But people are making sweeping statements about the safety of this new generation of reactors. What about spent fuel? What about issues that we don't fully understand yet?
We have a long track record of giving lay people the rosiest possible picture of progress. Then something goes wrong. The SL-1 Reactor, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, others. The public gets scared and recoils. And then we're surprised when they balk at a new generation of "meltdown proof" reactors!
I'd like to see the PRC try these reactors out for a decade or so before I approve the operation of one in my backyard. Remember the consequences of missteps -- entire regions of the country made uninhabitable for generations. The risk may not be great, but the consequences are.
2) Have you ever tried to kill a pesky mosquito with a flamthrower? You're going to tell me it's not more fun that way? :)
I haven't tried, but I'm sure it's fun!
Oh, yes. Let's remove a spyware infection by "wiping out the home directory" because that "would usually fix you right up." Excellent solution. It's like using a flamethrower to get at that pesky mosquito. No, the proper solution is anti-virus style threat control systems for Web browsers. Systems that scan incoming traffic and look for malicious code, then say something like "I've detected what looks like malicious code. Please think carefully, and go forward only if you trust the site sending you this code." It won't be easy, but it's not a bad option. Snort provides an excellent model. Think of a browser or browser add-on that constantly updates threat signatures from a central repository. Or just think of the current anti-virus software model.