The legality of an emulator depends on how it was created and what exactly it includes and how it can be used.
Hardware emulation: If you open up a console or have proprietary information regarding how it works (anything not publicly released), then your emulator is illegal (assuming the patent still protects it). The emulator needs to be reverse engineered the same way you'd reverse engineer it for hardware. You can look at the inputs and the outputs, but you have to treat the middle as a "black box." If it happens to resemble to original, then your mind just happened to follow their designer's mind. If you include (for console emulation) any games, then you're violating copyright, which is illegal. If it can't be used without proprietary software and there is no way to use the original software on it, you're asking for piracy, which usually can't be put on the emulator's creator's head, but won't earn you any breaks either. To wit, the reason Bleem! won is mainly because the whole thing was reverse engineered, it plays original Sony PSX CDs, and includes nothing except the emulator. I believe Bleem is a High-Level Emulator (HLE) meaning it recognizes code chunks ahead of time and responds to them (as in, it might recognize a "draw polygon at these coordinates with this color" chunk of code, and it will execute that relatively rapidly. The alternative is one which would read, convert and run each instruction separately). This leads to minor errors, since the code chunk may be imperfectly recognized or imperfectly executed, but causes a great increase in speed.
Software emulation: For things like WINE, I'm not sure what the legality of it is. As long as you have no proprietary information on the original software, I think you're basically safe. That's why there can be half-a-dozen clone word-processors out there. There's only a finite number of ways to write efficient code, and to create a relatively easy interface. Actually, I can think of very few things which emulate only software.
VirtualPC is a hardware emulation, by the way. It creates an emulation of an entire PC, including motherboard, BIOS, CPU, sound card (I think the new version has SB emulation in it now...), video card, ethernet, possibly a modem... Everything. Then you run any OS you want on top of that. They have specialized routines for specific OSes to run faster, which is why you specify an OS to emulate.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Carmageddon 2 had a power-up called "Drunk," I know there have been some games about political power (Machiavelli's: The Prince comes to mind, but that just had the bribing of senators and gossip-mongers), KingPin had some life-of-crome ideas, as did TradeWars 2002, where being Evil paid off hugely, but got you blown-up frequently. And while it isn't precisely a game, there are home creation utilities that could be interpretted as a "Paint the world" game. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
However, the nice conclusion exists, given this premise, that microwave radiation that misses the target and haphazardly strikes people will benefit the overall IQ level of the country. Maybe we should target some high schools and examine the effects.
I'd just like it noted that the IQ level will remain exactly the same, with 100 being the median. It's a quotient. As everyone gets smarter, it stays the same. It just takes more to get a "high-IQ" than it used to. Intelligence may increase, and the IQ standard mayrise, but the IQ-level itself (unless no other countries benefit) should remain about the same. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Re:the article already discredited itself...
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Microsoft Janus
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· Score: 1
The point of that line isn't referring to how powerful Linux is, but how it gets used right now. Linux still requires a significant amount of technical know-how of the Linux system in order to install it. Linux is a "toy" for techies because non-techies can't really use it effectively. The real problem is the lack of good technical administrators.
Some of my co-workers (I work at CSC) may use computers for the entirety of their job, but they couldn't format a disk without help. Some of them even have trouble understanding how to use the graphical file systems in Windows. They'd never understand how to sort a text based directory tree, much less remember any number of commands for use in the system. Point, Click and Type (normal documents) is about all they can handle effectively. Don't get me wrong, CSC is good at what it does. There are some amazing techies here who can handle mainframes and other very large systems very well. Most of them prefer one of the older UNIX systems over Linux.
The point being that until Linux is as easy to operate as Windows, it will remain a techie's OS, and stay out of the main-stream of office environments. Before calling the article uniformed, think about what they're trying to say. Linux is a very good OS with lots of up-time... if you know how to tweak it properly and are using a small computer. But, if we're talking about pure up-time, I've yet to see a Win95 machine here crash while running nomral programs (like MS Word, MS Excel or Lotus Notes), and the mainframes they use for back-ground networking have up-times measured in years (well, as a whole. Sections get turned off for vacuuming and internal checks now and again, but they have to, being room-sized machines). I think a few of the core machines have been on and running perfectly since before Linux existed. And I have no clue what they run, except that it was written in-house before getting bought out by the current owners. Until Linux can mach the usability of Windows, it will have a hard time capturing anything more than servers (run by a good techie who isn't using a different UNIX) and techie's personal computers. But that's just my perspective. Maybe I'm missing something since last time I helped a friend install Linux (I personally use Win98 system, since most of what I do is game related. Thanks mostly to Loki, I may soon switch.)
Just remember, even if you don't like it, it isn't necessarily either bad or false. I've seen Win2000 beta, and I personally liked it as PC OS. I can't vouch for its ability as a server OS, however. And, like Linux, it needs more drivers, but I know those will appear. The Linux ones are more in doubt. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
And to make a new thread or first post, there's a bar underneath the story segment. You should see a drop box for score:posts, threading or not and order, then buttons "Change" and "Reply". The "Reply" button starts a new thread. Changing the subject does not. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
There was a long article about short functions in... No, wait, it was Goto, nevermind. Short comments can be good, but if they're too short, they're unlikely to contain anything useful. On the other hand, most long-posts (I mean anything over 2 paragraphs) have some useful content. The way the preferences are set up, it's based on your own choice of character counts. I figure anything under 50-100 characters isn't likely to contain some amazing message. I'm still undecided on how long is a long post. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
If she can get her domain back without a lawsuit, then she won't bring one up. If NSI refutes her claim (which is valid) she should sue NSI, not AOL. I don't see where AOL is really to blame in this unless they actually went to NSI and made some under-the-table deal. NSI is the one who transferred the domain name over without permission. AOL may have pressured them, but NSI is the only one with the capability of actually doing the deed. If this is typical (and I don't know if it is) then they should be stripped of their gov't contract and it should be assigned to a company that can do it right.
Also...
You agree that you will not
reproduce, sell, transfer, or modify any of the data presented in response to your search request, or use of any such data for commercial purpose, without the prior express written permission of Network Solutions.
Isn't this reproduction of results from his query? Did 'Daveo' get proper permissions before posting this? Just to clarify it a bit, that should be written: "You agree that you will not (reproduce, sell, transfer, or modify results) or (use results for a commercial purpose)..." meaning the commercial use is a separate clause from the rest. I think. As long as we're talking about lawsuits and NSI and all... ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Since I live in the boonies of computer usage most of the time, I've never seen ESR speak... Does anyone have a video file of him speaking anywhere? The MS one would be cool to see, but I'd just like to hear his talk at this point. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Re:Think again - I did You forget exposure!
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Feature:GPL vs BSD
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The reality is that the entire point of Berkeley TCP/IP was to assist companies like Microsoft, Sun, and Apple to build a standard networking infrastructure. Which they did.
Are you suggesting that people like myself are incapable of building such an infrastructure? The whole industry would love to have you believe that only MS, Apple, SUN can do the work.
I doubt that was the intention. The point is that if there weren't a free standard available, each would have their own proprietary standard (remember when Netscape and MS each had their own version of HTML?) and there would be MSNet and SunNet and... instead of the Internet.
And indiviual programmers would have a lot of trouble turning out that infrastructure. But Sun and MS and Apple didn't do it either. It took a combined effort of many, and they got lots of money for doing it. And then they released all of their work. It was BSD who produced the infrastructure, for use by everyone (including companies). It wasn't created just for BSD, it wasn't created just for Open Source programmers, it was done for everyone's benefit.
As for being sued by a company usurping BSD liscensed software and then suing anyone who has that BSD source, you don't understand the concept at all. If the code already exists under the BSD liscense, and you use it and some company who has used it in proprietary software sues you, you just have to show the court the BSD liscensed copy you used. Just because that company used the code, doesn't remove it from the public domain. Yes, they've sued for less, and yes there were 'look n feel' lawsuits. And very few of those succeeded. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Ok, I think I get it now. Joe can change the liscense on v0.2, because he's the author. v0.1 has to remain under the GPL, however. If Bob were to fork the code and add his own improvements, the portion that was originally from Joe remains under the GPL, but the additions from Bob are not, unless Bob decides to place them there. If Bob decides to make his version proprietary, he needs to release the entirety of that under the GPL, since it is a derivitave of the original GPL program. If he later chooses to use his additions elsewhere, they are distinct, and do not need to fall under the GPL. I hate legal issues.
I suspect it's being nice and cool because it is a rather volatile issue and could spark a holy war if people don't remain calm about it. Besides, most people probably can see that there are uses for different types of liscenses. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Unless the author is the liscensee, as you put forth in your original example. Joe liscensed his work under the GPL, becoming the liscensee, and therefore subject to its restrictions. Oh yeah, and while reading through the GPL, I also noticed that by modifying and then distributing, Bob tacitly agreed to the GPL. A reader of the code is not subject to the GPL, since they haven't signed it, but since the only rights to modify are under the GPL, to modify, you automagically have your code placed under the GPL.
Note: I'm really interested in this, since I really don't know. I've got some code I might release, and I'm currently looking at these Liscenses. I'd like to be sure that I understand this all first. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I am free however, to release the same code under a different license because I OWN the code. It's mine.
As I understand the terms of the GPL, and subsidiary releases of code (that is, uses of the same code) are also under the GPL. The GPL protects the software, the programmer loses the freedom to choose a new liscense.
From the GPL: If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
The question wasn't missed. The idea is that v.1 is under GPL, and therefore, v.2 is under GPL, since you used previously GPLed code on it. If the Patch has code you want to reuse somewhere (somehow) and contains NONE of the code from v.1, then it has no liscense. If it has pieces of v.1, then it is GPL. At least, that's how I understand this. Once some section of code is GPL, all subsequent revisions on that code become GPL, as well as partial reuses of that code, etc, etc...
And, as far as I can tell, Joe would own the copyright still, but v.2 would have to go under GPL. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
An alternative (albeit, less effective and from a far older experiment) method is a set of EEG sensors placed around the head to monitor brain activity. After training for a few (3-6) months, most participants in the experiment could pretty easily control a cursor on a screen in vertical motion. Next step, as of last I heard, was to work on full screen motion for it. As it was, it was already being used to pick out letters by using a "wheel" of letters which could be rotated around to spell out words, or speak by using something between that and one of those chimpanzee boards of simple phrases. Regardless, a cap to be worn over the head (ala "Strange Days" recorder, maybe?) would be far less invasive than any sort of surgery. Ability to put signals back into the brain, however (ala "Matrix") still looks like it's a long way off.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Beyond the "newbie questions" as cited in an earlier post, there are other points of interest here.
If they're using the Radio Band in the EM (Electro-Magnetic, for you purist coders who missed Physics) Spectrum, that should raise an even more obvious question than "How much RF (Radio Frequency) eneergy is my putting out?" That question being how much are the normal Radio towers affecting us. We've got holes in the Ozone, several dozen carcinogenic artificial products, another several dozen natural carcinogenic products, we've surrounded ourselves in EM Force (what with Power lines, phone lines, TV stations, Satallites, Electronic Devices, Radio towers, Radar Towers, etc...). This is just one more item on top. It's no longer a question of trying to avoid cancer, but more one of what you choose to get it from.
Closer to the topic, if there's damage from Cell Phones, can I get second-hand cell-phone damage if enough people around me are using them, even if I don't? Granted, the effect decreases at a geometric rate (probably something like radius squared), but whereas that used to be an effective argument against that possibility, if there are more users, it could increase low-dose amounts to everyone to some long-term dangerous level.
I know most of this is highly speculative. I don't think any one source is enough of a risk to be noticed... The problem is that it isn't just any one source anymore. It's a combination of hundreds (possibly thousands in cities) of EMF sources bombarding you at any given moment. One won't get you. One hundred probably won't. One thousand probably won't do much for a very long time. But as the number sources increases, maybe some research into the risks of multiple types of EM radiation at once should be done, instead of always trying to see what one individual source does alone. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
If this is a vote by email, it stands a much higher chance of being a truly challenging game for Kasparov. After a few days, anyone thinking of stuffing the box will probably get bored and cease such activites (ruling out most non-enthusiast players). Being the start, it'll probably proceed with standard openings anyways. If it's on the web, forget it. Someone, sometime, will spoof the box to kill the whole project (I didn't see any info on how the votes would occur, and I'm NOT signing up for a mailing list). Out of curiousity, anyone notice that this rather odd idea is from everyone's favorite place? MSN... Knowing MicroShaft, in it's eternal brillance, this will most likely be an open web vote. I hope Kasparov enjoys the game... ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Humans remember faces not by the total image of the face, but by a specific set of key points on the face (typically eyes, nostrils, ears, lip points... anything with a good defined edge). This explains why, until you know several people, people in certain ethnic groups all tend to look very similar to you (it seems to a frequent symptom). Within that group, eyes, nose and normally hairline (the basic 3 pieces, along with general curvature of the facial edges) are all about the same. In my personal experience, I used to confuse 2 people knew casually, but after I got to know them better, I could distinguish them far better, because I consciously found differences to note between them. Now, looking at people who look even similar to them, I can distinguish those persons much faster, because I have a new set of critical points to match their faces against. Consider it similar to storing a wire-frame image onto which you attach standard pieces (eyes, skin, etc...) For more about memory being pointers or simple fractions of original data, see my reply to Post #7 "Capacity of Human Brain." ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I'd like it first noted that the 2bps rate was on input retained, not total input. The brain filters out gobs of information evry second. In fact, it probably filters out between 90 and 99% of incoming data. Don't believe me? What do your socks feel like on your feet (assuming you are wearing socks, if not, apply to appropriate clothing in region you weren't just thinking about)? Were you noticing that feeling before I asked? How much does it weigh on you? What is the texture of your {Keyboard, Mouse, Trackball, etc...}? Your brain is dumping this 'useless' information from concious sight. Most people actually retain this information for a short time, in case it does become important, but it is otherwise lost. Additionally, since vision keeps popping up... How many significantly different images of a good friend can you bring up, and can you notice details on them, where they are, what was happening around them at the time, etc...? Most of the images you see probably (not always) end up being rather similar, even if the situation you remember them from is very different. Now do the same of a place you visit often (like your computer's room, without looking around now).
The first point is that a lot of input is simply lost on us. We don't have the throughput or need to absorb all of it. The second actually deals with soemthing deeper. Our brain tends to associate data withprevious items stored more frequently than it will create entirely new sections of data (granted, the data gets stored in half a dozen or more sections, being split up into component pieces,but we'll deal with one aspect for now). Looking at animage, you're more likelyto break it down into component shapes and store those than the entire image. In programming terms, you've got a map of pointers to predefined objects, not a bit-map. You may only input 2 bps, but those 2 bits actually contain a great deal of information. The way the brain interconnects, those 2 bits could (even in binary trees) actually deal with more than a meg of information, since those bits are likely to be pointers, which split into pointer, which... which finally lead to actual memory objects. When we're young, we learn everything much faster, because our brain is still in a formative stage, creating these actual objects (sometimes referred to as hooks) of memory.
122 MB of information could be an awful lot... if it's done properly. Since these experiments were likely done on adults, the inherent problem is that they can't capture the person creating those intial storage blocks. Using a horribly evil programming example, I'll try to elaborate. Assume that during your formative years you actually receive information on a much greater scale. This is true, since your brain has developed the necessary filters yet. It also isn't being called on to do any other tasks other thanabsorb at that point. These initial blocks can be equated to library files. (.dll) If you were to compile even a small program which statically called on assembly functions contained in their binary executable code, you could easily make a file of several MB (this is for bloatware windows). On the other hand, compiling the same program using dll libraries can reduce the size by more than an order of magnitude. If you consider the input on the adult mind to be mostly pointers to libraries of previously organized and stored memories, then that input rate, and that data size is no longer quite as absurd as some of you seem to think it to be. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
the brain's storage of "knowledge" is not a digital structure, so it cannot be measured in bits.
It most certainly is digital. What did you think neurons were? They store 'bits' of data. As well as working as gates and flow controls. The exact workings may not be exactly bit-wise (ie. it may have a few more settings than either on or off), but the general method is certainly broken down on a level that can be described in a digital manner.
The actual amount of data that would be found within the human mind is still quite controversial. The exact number isn't likely to be nailed down until we can mimic the human memory system on a computer, either via Artificial Neural Network or in an advanced form of biological based storage media. If we could mimic the human brain, we'd not only know the answer to this question, but we'd be able to lick the AI problem, too. Also noted... Better organized thoughts than mine. This has a few previous discussions of how large the brain's storage capacity might be. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Then again, any censorship is a bad idea. But in libraries it'd be even worse. The point of a library is to be a collection center of information. If we begin cutting out anyflow of information, no matter what the content maybe, we're losing something. We used to have a list of banned books, because we feared what was contained within them. Many of those banned books were also great literary works by some of our most celebrated authors, and are now not only allowed once again, but required reading in many school's English classes.
On a similar note of censorship... If we did allow this bill to pass, what sites would be blocked? Those which contained "Sexually Explicit or Violent Material" is how they usually phrase it. I think I saw that in this article too. Does that mean every news network on the web would be blocked? Thenews is certainly one of the greatest sources of violent content in any media. We have wars, rape, killing, terrorism, and other atrocities occuring in the world. Preventing people from seeing it doesn't stop those from happening. And removing said content from the web greatly reduces a person's ability to research using the web, since most research topics probably have at least one violent aspect. Do we next cut out chemical health advisories because the chemical may be fatal, and therefore used by some sadistic kid? Granted, this is a slippery slope argument, but the real problem here is not the slope. Normally these arguments run along the lines that if we continue, it will lead to absurdity. This one begins in absurdity. Keeping this content out of libraries does little to help anything (especially those adults who may need access to potential censorship canidates, depending on exactly what gets shut out), and is potentially very harmful for anyone wishing to do research at libraries. Granted, libraries should probably filter out the porn sites (that isn't precisely a good use of a library computer anyways), but using a gov't mandate to do so, and also remove other sites will not help. If ids really want to get on the internet to see something, they will. I'd think it better if they did it at a library where they havea greater chance of being seen, than at some kids house when the parents are out, or watching the news or otherwise ignoring their kids. That's where we need to focus. Kids can't be quite so violent if parents are a little more watchful. Again, granted, that isn't the whole answer, but it is certainly better than loosening gun control up at gun shows to a 24 hour limit on a background check, to be performed by over-taxed law enforcement officers (not the gun retailer), and then placing a worse than useless ban on a library research tool. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
This may well be true (I haven't a clue as to what Huntington's chorea is) but I can tell you that you can have half of sickle-cell anemia. In fact, the reason sickle-cell anemia has become so wide-spread in some specific regions is that the half-way version is a very powerful advantage in those regions. The half-way condition (I'm sure it has a name, but I can't remember it) stops Malaria (I'm almost positive it was Malaria) by only "sickling" (The cells affected will change from the normal disc shape to a curled up curve, looking similar to a crescent moon) those blood cells which were infected by the disease. A cell so affected is culled from the blood stream before it can infect others, and thus, those with this mutation can survive Malaria whereas those without are much less likely to do so. Sickle cell anemia is a case where both parents pass on a copy of the mutation and all blood cells have a chance to become sickled.
Anyways, getting back to the topic at hand, it is possible to have a partial genetic condition. Whereas nucleotides are digital units, genes are not. They are large chains of small units, and the composition and order of those units is what is important. The idea that a meme could be absorbed and then altered stands perfectly to reason and analogy. Consider any retro-virus. These viruses invade and then alter existing cells with their DNA, with their genes to cause something entirely different to occur in some cases, but more frequently to alter what normally occurs very slightly. The cell continues to build proteins, etc. as normal, but the product is what the virus wants, and it normally isn't quite the same as what the cell would ordinarily build. These retro-viruses borrow what already exists "and then modified the that they borrowed."
What components of concepts are so basic that they can be borrowed only as digital units? Well, there are building block units. I'm using them to write to you. Words, letters, phonemes are so small that while they can be modified in appearence, their meaning is very difficult to alter. In the analogy, these are the nucleotides, the individual pices that string toggether to form DNA. Or better, if yu know some cell biology, it is like tRNA. The individual pieces can get altered, but the overall meaning remains the same.
Social Psychology can explain a lot. It can also predict a lot. Then again, the Babylonians, using an Earth-centered astronmical set, could explain the motions in the sky. They could also precisely predict eclipses and severalother phenomona. That doesn't mean it was the best theory to use. Perhaps Memetics can't explain anything new, but it can explain some things better. Social Psychology has a great deal of difficulty explaining some interactions, or the reasons that certain ideas remain when better ones are available (eg. why do people use M$ products over others, or why did people resist the notion that gravity affected all objects equally?) From my limited reading in Psychology, and Social Psychology in specific, the reasons behind these types of occurences tend to be rather long explantions of complex inner workings of the mind, often dealing with general inertia about changing attitudes, views or learning new methods. Well, if a meme was particularly good at spreading, it might also be defensive. It has already claimed a mind and would make every attempt to stop others from invading that would be able to displace it. Memetics may not be an end-all theory, but it certainly could help to explain some things that Social Psychology and commonn-sense knowledge already know to be true, but are unable to expalin directly.
As for critical thinking impossible, I think your Social Psychology memes are interfering with your acceptance of of memetic memes. The idea of an infectious idea is evidently heavily prevalent on the web. It is difficult to believe that anyone would refute that ideas spread quickly, especially someone who purportedly thinks critically. Make sure you are actually thinking, and not just rearranging prejudices. We critical thinkers tend to be a bit more receptive to new ideas, and keep our memes in good order, with defensive mechanisms disabled.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Slashdot Mirror
The legality of an emulator depends on how it was created and what exactly it includes and how it can be used.
Hardware emulation: If you open up a console or have proprietary information regarding how it works (anything not publicly released), then your emulator is illegal (assuming the patent still protects it). The emulator needs to be reverse engineered the same way you'd reverse engineer it for hardware. You can look at the inputs and the outputs, but you have to treat the middle as a "black box." If it happens to resemble to original, then your mind just happened to follow their designer's mind. If you include (for console emulation) any games, then you're violating copyright, which is illegal. If it can't be used without proprietary software and there is no way to use the original software on it, you're asking for piracy, which usually can't be put on the emulator's creator's head, but won't earn you any breaks either. To wit, the reason Bleem! won is mainly because the whole thing was reverse engineered, it plays original Sony PSX CDs, and includes nothing except the emulator. I believe Bleem is a High-Level Emulator (HLE) meaning it recognizes code chunks ahead of time and responds to them (as in, it might recognize a "draw polygon at these coordinates with this color" chunk of code, and it will execute that relatively rapidly. The alternative is one which would read, convert and run each instruction separately). This leads to minor errors, since the code chunk may be imperfectly recognized or imperfectly executed, but causes a great increase in speed.
Software emulation: For things like WINE, I'm not sure what the legality of it is. As long as you have no proprietary information on the original software, I think you're basically safe. That's why there can be half-a-dozen clone word-processors out there. There's only a finite number of ways to write efficient code, and to create a relatively easy interface. Actually, I can think of very few things which emulate only software.
VirtualPC is a hardware emulation, by the way. It creates an emulation of an entire PC, including motherboard, BIOS, CPU, sound card (I think the new version has SB emulation in it now...), video card, ethernet, possibly a modem... Everything. Then you run any OS you want on top of that. They have specialized routines for specific OSes to run faster, which is why you specify an OS to emulate.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Carmageddon 2 had a power-up called "Drunk," I know there have been some games about political power (Machiavelli's: The Prince comes to mind, but that just had the bribing of senators and gossip-mongers), KingPin had some life-of-crome ideas, as did TradeWars 2002, where being Evil paid off hugely, but got you blown-up frequently. And while it isn't precisely a game, there are home creation utilities that could be interpretted as a "Paint the world" game.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I'd just like it noted that the IQ level will remain exactly the same, with 100 being the median. It's a quotient. As everyone gets smarter, it stays the same. It just takes more to get a "high-IQ" than it used to. Intelligence may increase, and the IQ standard mayrise, but the IQ-level itself (unless no other countries benefit) should remain about the same.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
The point of that line isn't referring to how powerful Linux is, but how it gets used right now. Linux still requires a significant amount of technical know-how of the Linux system in order to install it. Linux is a "toy" for techies because non-techies can't really use it effectively. The real problem is the lack of good technical administrators.
Some of my co-workers (I work at CSC) may use computers for the entirety of their job, but they couldn't format a disk without help. Some of them even have trouble understanding how to use the graphical file systems in Windows. They'd never understand how to sort a text based directory tree, much less remember any number of commands for use in the system. Point, Click and Type (normal documents) is about all they can handle effectively. Don't get me wrong, CSC is good at what it does. There are some amazing techies here who can handle mainframes and other very large systems very well. Most of them prefer one of the older UNIX systems over Linux.
The point being that until Linux is as easy to operate as Windows, it will remain a techie's OS, and stay out of the main-stream of office environments. Before calling the article uniformed, think about what they're trying to say. Linux is a very good OS with lots of up-time... if you know how to tweak it properly and are using a small computer. But, if we're talking about pure up-time, I've yet to see a Win95 machine here crash while running nomral programs (like MS Word, MS Excel or Lotus Notes), and the mainframes they use for back-ground networking have up-times measured in years (well, as a whole. Sections get turned off for vacuuming and internal checks now and again, but they have to, being room-sized machines). I think a few of the core machines have been on and running perfectly since before Linux existed. And I have no clue what they run, except that it was written in-house before getting bought out by the current owners. Until Linux can mach the usability of Windows, it will have a hard time capturing anything more than servers (run by a good techie who isn't using a different UNIX) and techie's personal computers. But that's just my perspective. Maybe I'm missing something since last time I helped a friend install Linux (I personally use Win98 system, since most of what I do is game related. Thanks mostly to Loki, I may soon switch.)
Just remember, even if you don't like it, it isn't necessarily either bad or false. I've seen Win2000 beta, and I personally liked it as PC OS. I can't vouch for its ability as a server OS, however. And, like Linux, it needs more drivers, but I know those will appear. The Linux ones are more in doubt.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Well, first point is to your idea about free books... It's already happened, mostly.
Project Gutenburg
And to make a new thread or first post, there's a bar underneath the story segment. You should see a drop box for score:posts, threading or not and order, then buttons "Change" and "Reply". The "Reply" button starts a new thread. Changing the subject does not.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
There was a long article about short functions in... No, wait, it was Goto, nevermind. Short comments can be good, but if they're too short, they're unlikely to contain anything useful. On the other hand, most long-posts (I mean anything over 2 paragraphs) have some useful content. The way the preferences are set up, it's based on your own choice of character counts. I figure anything under 50-100 characters isn't likely to contain some amazing message. I'm still undecided on how long is a long post.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Also...
Isn't this reproduction of results from his query? Did 'Daveo' get proper permissions before posting this? Just to clarify it a bit, that should be written: "You agree that you will not (reproduce, sell, transfer, or modify results) or (use results for a commercial purpose)..." meaning the commercial use is a separate clause from the rest. I think. As long as we're talking about lawsuits and NSI and all...
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Since I live in the boonies of computer usage most of the time, I've never seen ESR speak... Does anyone have a video file of him speaking anywhere? The MS one would be cool to see, but I'd just like to hear his talk at this point.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I doubt that was the intention. The point is that if there weren't a free standard available, each would have their own proprietary standard (remember when Netscape and MS each had their own version of HTML?) and there would be MSNet and SunNet and... instead of the Internet.
And indiviual programmers would have a lot of trouble turning out that infrastructure. But Sun and MS and Apple didn't do it either. It took a combined effort of many, and they got lots of money for doing it. And then they released all of their work. It was BSD who produced the infrastructure, for use by everyone (including companies). It wasn't created just for BSD, it wasn't created just for Open Source programmers, it was done for everyone's benefit.
As for being sued by a company usurping BSD liscensed software and then suing anyone who has that BSD source, you don't understand the concept at all. If the code already exists under the BSD liscense, and you use it and some company who has used it in proprietary software sues you, you just have to show the court the BSD liscensed copy you used. Just because that company used the code, doesn't remove it from the public domain. Yes, they've sued for less, and yes there were 'look n feel' lawsuits. And very few of those succeeded.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I suspect it's being nice and cool because it is a rather volatile issue and could spark a holy war if people don't remain calm about it. Besides, most people probably can see that there are uses for different types of liscenses.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Note: I'm really interested in this, since I really don't know. I've got some code I might release, and I'm currently looking at these Liscenses. I'd like to be sure that I understand this all first.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
As I understand the terms of the GPL, and subsidiary releases of code (that is, uses of the same code) are also under the GPL. The GPL protects the software, the programmer loses the freedom to choose a new liscense.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
The question wasn't missed. The idea is that v.1 is under GPL, and therefore, v.2 is under GPL, since you used previously GPLed code on it. If the Patch has code you want to reuse somewhere (somehow) and contains NONE of the code from v.1, then it has no liscense. If it has pieces of v.1, then it is GPL. At least, that's how I understand this. Once some section of code is GPL, all subsequent revisions on that code become GPL, as well as partial reuses of that code, etc, etc...
And, as far as I can tell, Joe would own the copyright still, but v.2 would have to go under GPL.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
An alternative (albeit, less effective and from a far older experiment) method is a set of EEG sensors placed around the head to monitor brain activity. After training for a few (3-6) months, most participants in the experiment could pretty easily control a cursor on a screen in vertical motion. Next step, as of last I heard, was to work on full screen motion for it. As it was, it was already being used to pick out letters by using a "wheel" of letters which could be rotated around to spell out words, or speak by using something between that and one of those chimpanzee boards of simple phrases. Regardless, a cap to be worn over the head (ala "Strange Days" recorder, maybe?) would be far less invasive than any sort of surgery. Ability to put signals back into the brain, however (ala "Matrix") still looks like it's a long way off.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Beyond the "newbie questions" as cited in an earlier post, there are other points of interest here.
If they're using the Radio Band in the EM (Electro-Magnetic, for you purist coders who missed Physics) Spectrum, that should raise an even more obvious question than "How much RF (Radio Frequency) eneergy is my putting out?" That question being how much are the normal Radio towers affecting us. We've got holes in the Ozone, several dozen carcinogenic artificial products, another several dozen natural carcinogenic products, we've surrounded ourselves in EM Force (what with Power lines, phone lines, TV stations, Satallites, Electronic Devices, Radio towers, Radar Towers, etc...). This is just one more item on top. It's no longer a question of trying to avoid cancer, but more one of what you choose to get it from.
Closer to the topic, if there's damage from Cell Phones, can I get second-hand cell-phone damage if enough people around me are using them, even if I don't? Granted, the effect decreases at a geometric rate (probably something like radius squared), but whereas that used to be an effective argument against that possibility, if there are more users, it could increase low-dose amounts to everyone to some long-term dangerous level.
I know most of this is highly speculative. I don't think any one source is enough of a risk to be noticed... The problem is that it isn't just any one source anymore. It's a combination of hundreds (possibly thousands in cities) of EMF sources bombarding you at any given moment. One won't get you. One hundred probably won't. One thousand probably won't do much for a very long time. But as the number sources increases, maybe some research into the risks of multiple types of EM radiation at once should be done, instead of always trying to see what one individual source does alone.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
If this is a vote by email, it stands a much higher chance of being a truly challenging game for Kasparov. After a few days, anyone thinking of stuffing the box will probably get bored and cease such activites (ruling out most non-enthusiast players). Being the start, it'll probably proceed with standard openings anyways. If it's on the web, forget it. Someone, sometime, will spoof the box to kill the whole project (I didn't see any info on how the votes would occur, and I'm NOT signing up for a mailing list). Out of curiousity, anyone notice that this rather odd idea is from everyone's favorite place? MSN... Knowing MicroShaft, in it's eternal brillance, this will most likely be an open web vote. I hope Kasparov enjoys the game...
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Humans remember faces not by the total image of the face, but by a specific set of key points on the face (typically eyes, nostrils, ears, lip points... anything with a good defined edge). This explains why, until you know several people, people in certain ethnic groups all tend to look very similar to you (it seems to a frequent symptom). Within that group, eyes, nose and normally hairline (the basic 3 pieces, along with general curvature of the facial edges) are all about the same. In my personal experience, I used to confuse 2 people knew casually, but after I got to know them better, I could distinguish them far better, because I consciously found differences to note between them. Now, looking at people who look even similar to them, I can distinguish those persons much faster, because I have a new set of critical points to match their faces against. Consider it similar to storing a wire-frame image onto which you attach standard pieces (eyes, skin, etc...) For more about memory being pointers or simple fractions of original data, see my reply to Post #7 "Capacity of Human Brain."
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I'd like it first noted that the 2bps rate was on input retained, not total input. The brain filters out gobs of information evry second. In fact, it probably filters out between 90 and 99% of incoming data. Don't believe me? What do your socks feel like on your feet (assuming you are wearing socks, if not, apply to appropriate clothing in region you weren't just thinking about)? Were you noticing that feeling before I asked? How much does it weigh on you? What is the texture of your {Keyboard, Mouse, Trackball, etc...}? Your brain is dumping this 'useless' information from concious sight. Most people actually retain this information for a short time, in case it does become important, but it is otherwise lost. Additionally, since vision keeps popping up... How many significantly different images of a good friend can you bring up, and can you notice details on them, where they are, what was happening around them at the time, etc...? Most of the images you see probably (not always) end up being rather similar, even if the situation you remember them from is very different. Now do the same of a place you visit often (like your computer's room, without looking around now).
The first point is that a lot of input is simply lost on us. We don't have the throughput or need to absorb all of it. The second actually deals with soemthing deeper. Our brain tends to associate data withprevious items stored more frequently than it will create entirely new sections of data (granted, the data gets stored in half a dozen or more sections, being split up into component pieces,but we'll deal with one aspect for now). Looking at animage, you're more likelyto break it down into component shapes and store those than the entire image. In programming terms, you've got a map of pointers to predefined objects, not a bit-map. You may only input 2 bps, but those 2 bits actually contain a great deal of information. The way the brain interconnects, those 2 bits could (even in binary trees) actually deal with more than a meg of information, since those bits are likely to be pointers, which split into pointer, which... which finally lead to actual memory objects. When we're young, we learn everything much faster, because our brain is still in a formative stage, creating these actual objects (sometimes referred to as hooks) of memory.
122 MB of information could be an awful lot... if it's done properly. Since these experiments were likely done on adults, the inherent problem is that they can't capture the person creating those intial storage blocks. Using a horribly evil programming example, I'll try to elaborate. Assume that during your formative years you actually receive information on a much greater scale. This is true, since your brain has developed the necessary filters yet. It also isn't being called on to do any other tasks other thanabsorb at that point. These initial blocks can be equated to library files. (.dll) If you were to compile even a small program which statically called on assembly functions contained in their binary executable code, you could easily make a file of several MB (this is for bloatware windows). On the other hand, compiling the same program using dll libraries can reduce the size by more than an order of magnitude. If you consider the input on the adult mind to be mostly pointers to libraries of previously organized and stored memories, then that input rate, and that data size is no longer quite as absurd as some of you seem to think it to be.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
It most certainly is digital. What did you think neurons were? They store 'bits' of data. As well as working as gates and flow controls. The exact workings may not be exactly bit-wise (ie. it may have a few more settings than either on or off), but the general method is certainly broken down on a level that can be described in a digital manner.
The actual amount of data that would be found within the human mind is still quite controversial. The exact number isn't likely to be nailed down until we can mimic the human memory system on a computer, either via Artificial Neural Network or in an advanced form of biological based storage media. If we could mimic the human brain, we'd not only know the answer to this question, but we'd be able to lick the AI problem, too. Also noted... Better organized thoughts than mine. This has a few previous discussions of how large the brain's storage capacity might be.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Then again, any censorship is a bad idea. But in libraries it'd be even worse. The point of a library is to be a collection center of information. If we begin cutting out anyflow of information, no matter what the content maybe, we're losing something. We used to have a list of banned books, because we feared what was contained within them. Many of those banned books were also great literary works by some of our most celebrated authors, and are now not only allowed once again, but required reading in many school's English classes.
On a similar note of censorship... If we did allow this bill to pass, what sites would be blocked? Those which contained "Sexually Explicit or Violent Material" is how they usually phrase it. I think I saw that in this article too. Does that mean every news network on the web would be blocked? Thenews is certainly one of the greatest sources of violent content in any media. We have wars, rape, killing, terrorism, and other atrocities occuring in the world. Preventing people from seeing it doesn't stop those from happening. And removing said content from the web greatly reduces a person's ability to research using the web, since most research topics probably have at least one violent aspect. Do we next cut out chemical health advisories because the chemical may be fatal, and therefore used by some sadistic kid? Granted, this is a slippery slope argument, but the real problem here is not the slope. Normally these arguments run along the lines that if we continue, it will lead to absurdity. This one begins in absurdity. Keeping this content out of libraries does little to help anything (especially those adults who may need access to potential censorship canidates, depending on exactly what gets shut out), and is potentially very harmful for anyone wishing to do research at libraries. Granted, libraries should probably filter out the porn sites (that isn't precisely a good use of a library computer anyways), but using a gov't mandate to do so, and also remove other sites will not help. If ids really want to get on the internet to see something, they will. I'd think it better if they did it at a library where they havea greater chance of being seen, than at some kids house when the parents are out, or watching the news or otherwise ignoring their kids. That's where we need to focus. Kids can't be quite so violent if parents are a little more watchful. Again, granted, that isn't the whole answer, but it is certainly better than loosening gun control up at gun shows to a 24 hour limit on a background check, to be performed by over-taxed law enforcement officers (not the gun retailer), and then placing a worse than useless ban on a library research tool.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
"you can't have half of Huntington's chorea"
This may well be true (I haven't a clue as to what Huntington's chorea is) but I can tell you that you can have half of sickle-cell anemia. In fact, the reason sickle-cell anemia has become so wide-spread in some specific regions is that the half-way version is a very powerful advantage in those regions. The half-way condition (I'm sure it has a name, but I can't remember it) stops Malaria (I'm almost positive it was Malaria) by only "sickling" (The cells affected will change from the normal disc shape to a curled up curve, looking similar to a crescent moon) those blood cells which were infected by the disease. A cell so affected is culled from the blood stream before it can infect others, and thus, those with this mutation can survive Malaria whereas those without are much less likely to do so. Sickle cell anemia is a case where both parents pass on a copy of the mutation and all blood cells have a chance to become sickled.
Anyways, getting back to the topic at hand, it is possible to have a partial genetic condition. Whereas nucleotides are digital units, genes are not. They are large chains of small units, and the composition and order of those units is what is important. The idea that a meme could be absorbed and then altered stands perfectly to reason and analogy. Consider any retro-virus. These viruses invade and then alter existing cells with their DNA, with their genes to cause something entirely different to occur in some cases, but more frequently to alter what normally occurs very slightly. The cell continues to build proteins, etc. as normal, but the product is what the virus wants, and it normally isn't quite the same as what the cell would ordinarily build. These retro-viruses borrow what already exists "and then modified the that they borrowed."
What components of concepts are so basic that they can be borrowed only as digital units? Well, there are building block units. I'm using them to write to you. Words, letters, phonemes are so small that while they can be modified in appearence, their meaning is very difficult to alter. In the analogy, these are the nucleotides, the individual pices that string toggether to form DNA. Or better, if yu know some cell biology, it is like tRNA. The individual pieces can get altered, but the overall meaning remains the same.
Social Psychology can explain a lot. It can also predict a lot. Then again, the Babylonians, using an Earth-centered astronmical set, could explain the motions in the sky. They could also precisely predict eclipses and severalother phenomona. That doesn't mean it was the best theory to use. Perhaps Memetics can't explain anything new, but it can explain some things better. Social Psychology has a great deal of difficulty explaining some interactions, or the reasons that certain ideas remain when better ones are available (eg. why do people use M$ products over others, or why did people resist the notion that gravity affected all objects equally?) From my limited reading in Psychology, and Social Psychology in specific, the reasons behind these types of occurences tend to be rather long explantions of complex inner workings of the mind, often dealing with general inertia about changing attitudes, views or learning new methods. Well, if a meme was particularly good at spreading, it might also be defensive. It has already claimed a mind and would make every attempt to stop others from invading that would be able to displace it. Memetics may not be an end-all theory, but it certainly could help to explain some things that Social Psychology and commonn-sense knowledge already know to be true, but are unable to expalin directly.
As for critical thinking impossible, I think your Social Psychology memes are interfering with your acceptance of of memetic memes. The idea of an infectious idea is evidently heavily prevalent on the web. It is difficult to believe that anyone would refute that ideas spread quickly, especially someone who purportedly thinks critically. Make sure you are actually thinking, and not just rearranging prejudices. We critical thinkers tend to be a bit more receptive to new ideas, and keep our memes in good order, with defensive mechanisms disabled.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"