I recall something vaguely like this.
on
Social Robot?
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· Score: 5, Informative
This has been done before. Back in 1999, five robots had to make their way around the American Assocation for Artifical Intelligence annual meeting in Orlando.
The problems seems to be that they can't code. This causes them to not do their work. The only solution is if they magically learn how to code.
Ain't gonna happen any time soon. There's only one way to learn how to code well, and that's experience. But if they won't even try (because they can't), then they're not going to learn.
"What you will be doing is less understood than if you became a Tarot Card reader, and less appreciated than a digital rectal examination. You will be expected to be everywhere at once, but when you arrive your presence will be unwelcome."
"Because it's sysadmin day, Drew here has kindly volunteered to come to our school and tell us about the advantages of working in system administration."
"Thanks, Mrs B. Well, kids, the best part of sysadminning is being able to play about with computers all day. You get to watch over people's shoulders and see what they're typing, and you also get to listen to people whining that they can't print. When someone important messes up, you get the blame. If you do something right, no one notices. If you do something wrong, you're thrown out of the door. You can't get promoted since only incompetent people ever get higher than the bottom rung of the career ladder. I know a lot of you like downloading MP3s, but if you get caught using them on the systems at work then you get demoted to toilet cleaning duties. And you can get fined. Plus you spend a lot of your time being irradiated by decades-old CRTs, and getting throttled by old Cat5 wire. If someone pages you, you have to be there within 30 seconds or they talk to your boss. When you do get there, you find out that they idiotically didn't make any backups before the network went down, so they chew you out and tell your supervisor. When the supervisor finds out, he refuses to accept that it's anyone else's fault and chews you out. Then a passing vice president comes along to ask why his porn stash has disappeared, and chews out your boss. Then your boss chews you out again. After this you have to go to someone who got the delete and insert buttons mixed up, and when you point this out to them they ignore you. You don't get home before nine o' clock in the evening, and when you do there's always someone who feels the urge to phone you because they have an "urgent technical problem". Any questions?"
"WARNING: Continued use of Pulse has been known to be psychologically addictive. After prolonged use of this software, not having it loaded may make you feel slightly "empty", and as though you are wasting your keystrokes for every key you type that is not being counted.
This warning is stated only half in jest."
They were right. RIGHT, I tells you! I just...can't...stop...pressing...the...buttons.... AAAH!GHGH!
Just had a look at Project Dolphin's top typers. Someone called "magictiti" has typed 24,535,976 keystrokes since he began on 31st May. That's 56 days in all, with 438,142 keystrokes a day.
This person has been typing an average of 305 keystrokes a minute since May 31.
THAT'S 5.1 KEYSTROKES A SECOND, NON STOP, FOR TWO MONTHS.
Here's a summary of the article for those who couldn't get to it before it was/.ed.
YALE: We have an insecure website, which allows anyone with a student's birth date and SSN to look at a student's personal details.
PRINCETON: We took advantage of this and looked at the details of 11 students. We also got to find out whether or not they were accepted or rejected, so we could poach 'em. W00t!
YALE: No fair! You're not supposed to get into our website like that! See you in court!
PRINCETON: No fair! We were just checking out the security! Hell, it was an insecure system, anyway!
So, some people seem to think that all they have to do now is trick the RIAA into using copyrighted materials and then DDos them into last year.
Fine. But how exactly would you do this? The RIAA probably doesn't even use the Internet a great deal, and denying them access probably wouldn't have a tremendous effect, except as perhaps a symbolic gesture. Would you even know what IP addresses to attack? Would you be able to coordinate it? Hell, all the RIAA does these days is make threatening phone calls, write threatening letters, and say threatening statements at press conferences. Will Dossing them make any difference to that? They'll probably just use it to put forward their point that all Internet users are vandals who are trying to steal their IP. Trying to attack them will probably just make their wrath even worse.
But I'm more curious as to how the RIAA itself will DDos us. If there's a million people all using P2P, then they'll need a million machines to DDos them all. Even at only, say, $500 a machine, that's still a cool half-billion dollars. They wouldn't be able to do a Code Red job and infect us with trojans/viruses, since that is technically altering our data. So how exactly will they attack us (or vice versa)?
The best part about OSS is that it can't be used to restrict the freedom of others, and that it can't be corrupted as easily as Communism itself. Human nature shows that Communism often becomes a dictatorship, but it is hard to see how OSS can become proprietary software.
Picture a crowded intercity train. With an inconsiderate commuter phoning home.
Then: "HELLO? HELLO? I SAID I'M GOING TO BE LATE! HELLO? @#$% battery!"
Now: "HELLO? HELLO? I SAID I'M GOING TO BE LATE, DARLING! Damn." (insert loud cranking sound) "AAH, THAT'S BETTER! NOW, ANYWAY, I SAID I'M GOING TO BE LATE BACK! HOW LONG? UH, ABOUT HALF AN HOUR TO AN HOUR LATE! YES? CAN YOU PUT MY DINNER IN THE OVEN? WHAT? HANG ON!" (insert loud cranking sound) "YES, DINNER! IN OVEN! OH, CAN YOU GET THE WASHING MACHINE READY FOR WHEN I COME IN? OK? WAIT, GOING THROUGH A TUNNEL! HANG ON! PUT THE WASHING MACHINE ON! WHAT DO YOU MEAN? MY SUIT! HELLO? HANG ON!" (insert loud cranking sound)
A tragic maritime disaster happened 87 years ago TODAY, and you people are discussing the first wind-up phone charger review??? My *god*, geeks, get some priorities!
Truman suggested the nuclear bomb to Stalin 57 years ago TODAY, and you nerds are discussing the first wind-up phone charger review? MY GOD, GET SOME FRICKIN' PRIORITIES!!!
The Mormons first settled in Utah and founded Salt Lake City 155 years ago TODAY, and you people are JACKING OVER a wind up phone charger? JESUS H. CHRIST, PEOPLE, GET SOME PRIORITIES!!!
Martin Van Buren died 140 years ago TODAY, and you people are STILL going on about that phone charger? DAMMIT, GET SOME PRIORITIES, YOU SICK FREAKS?!?!?!
This really isn't very hard to work out. If the amount of Internet traffic doubles every 100 days, then we can work out that:
traffic in x days = current traffic * 2^(x/100)
It implies that every year Internet traffic increases by a factor of 2^(365/100), or ~12.6. This means that from the creation of the Internet, which was 32 years ago, Internet traffic has increased 12.6 times a year. This implies that by the year 2002, there would be 12.6^32 times more traffic, or approx. 10^35 times as much.
Do you believe that there's ~
16,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as much traffic on the Internet as in 1970?
Nooope. Even though recipes themselves aren't copyrightable (since all they are is a simple process), compilations of them are. The manner in which they are put together and indexed is copyrightable, so you would get in trouble if you started cutting and pasting bits of your favourite cookbook on the WWW.
For more info on this topic, look at the case of Feist v. Rural, which pretty much says how copyright law covers compilations.
You people are all saying "Just switch to PNG" as if it can be done seamlessly and immediately. This is ridiculous. Many images on the Internet are in JPG format. Even assuming people could immediately switch to PNG, this wouldn't solve the problem because JPEG is actually a format where the amount of compression applied to pictures can be varied on a scale of 0 to 100. The amount of compression cannot be fine tuned as well with a PNG image.
Anyway, the issue at stake here is not just about whether or not JPGs can or cannot be used; if Forgent gets away with this, the door is open for all other companies to get away with submerging their patents and then springing royalties onto us. GIFs have been taken from us, and now it looks as if JPGs will be taken from us as well, and I don't think that it's a good idea to rely on just one picture format. I'd rather have choice, thanks very much.
Nowhere in that policy did I see them mentioning that they were going to go through the code to make sure that it hasn't been tampered with or changed in some bad way. That's as ridiculous as if I just download some source code from a dodgy website and run it without examining it first. If the government just picks up any old code and uses it, then all sorts of stuff could happen.
GOVERNMENT: "We are now using GPL'd software for our banking systems." 1337 H4X0R: "LOL! They don't even know I've h4x0r3d it so I can steal everyone's card numbers! LOL!!11!!"
Of course, if you think I'm just being excessively paranoid, ignore me.
Pioneer 10 has been running for ages and ages in the depths of space, thanks to its mega-reliable design. However, will the "bow shock" and "termination shock" be strong enough to destroy the craft, or break it?
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This has been done before. Back in 1999, five robots had to make their way around the American Assocation for Artifical Intelligence annual meeting in Orlando.
Ain't gonna happen any time soon. There's only one way to learn how to code well, and that's experience. But if they won't even try (because they can't), then they're not going to learn.
Will these be available for "self defence" purposes? Just a thought.
In further news, the sky is blue.
"Because it's sysadmin day, Drew here has kindly volunteered to come to our school and tell us about the advantages of working in system administration."
"Thanks, Mrs B. Well, kids, the best part of sysadminning is being able to play about with computers all day. You get to watch over people's shoulders and see what they're typing, and you also get to listen to people whining that they can't print. When someone important messes up, you get the blame. If you do something right, no one notices. If you do something wrong, you're thrown out of the door. You can't get promoted since only incompetent people ever get higher than the bottom rung of the career ladder. I know a lot of you like downloading MP3s, but if you get caught using them on the systems at work then you get demoted to toilet cleaning duties. And you can get fined. Plus you spend a lot of your time being irradiated by decades-old CRTs, and getting throttled by old Cat5 wire. If someone pages you, you have to be there within 30 seconds or they talk to your boss. When you do get there, you find out that they idiotically didn't make any backups before the network went down, so they chew you out and tell your supervisor. When the supervisor finds out, he refuses to accept that it's anyone else's fault and chews you out. Then a passing vice president comes along to ask why his porn stash has disappeared, and chews out your boss. Then your boss chews you out again. After this you have to go to someone who got the delete and insert buttons mixed up, and when you point this out to them they ignore you. You don't get home before nine o' clock in the evening, and when you do there's always someone who feels the urge to phone you because they have an "urgent technical problem". Any questions?"
This warning is stated only half in jest."
They were right. RIGHT, I tells you! I just...can't...stop...pressing...the...buttons.... AAAH!GHGH!
This person has been typing an average of 305 keystrokes a minute since May 31.
THAT'S 5.1 KEYSTROKES A SECOND, NON STOP, FOR TWO MONTHS.
And you thought that you didn't have a life.
YALE: We have an insecure website, which allows anyone with a student's birth date and SSN to look at a student's personal details.
PRINCETON: We took advantage of this and looked at the details of 11 students. We also got to find out whether or not they were accepted or rejected, so we could poach 'em. W00t!
YALE: No fair! You're not supposed to get into our website like that! See you in court!
PRINCETON: No fair! We were just checking out the security! Hell, it was an insecure system, anyway!
YALE: STFU, WHINER!
Hands up if you saw this coming from the start.
Fine. But how exactly would you do this? The RIAA probably doesn't even use the Internet a great deal, and denying them access probably wouldn't have a tremendous effect, except as perhaps a symbolic gesture. Would you even know what IP addresses to attack? Would you be able to coordinate it? Hell, all the RIAA does these days is make threatening phone calls, write threatening letters, and say threatening statements at press conferences. Will Dossing them make any difference to that? They'll probably just use it to put forward their point that all Internet users are vandals who are trying to steal their IP. Trying to attack them will probably just make their wrath even worse.
But I'm more curious as to how the RIAA itself will DDos us. If there's a million people all using P2P, then they'll need a million machines to DDos them all. Even at only, say, $500 a machine, that's still a cool half-billion dollars. They wouldn't be able to do a Code Red job and infect us with trojans/viruses, since that is technically altering our data. So how exactly will they attack us (or vice versa)?
Knowing Microsoft, what do you think?
The best part about OSS is that it can't be used to restrict the freedom of others, and that it can't be corrupted as easily as Communism itself. Human nature shows that Communism often becomes a dictatorship, but it is hard to see how OSS can become proprietary software.
Picture a crowded intercity train. With an inconsiderate commuter phoning home.
Then:
"HELLO? HELLO? I SAID I'M GOING TO BE LATE! HELLO? @#$% battery!"
Now:
"HELLO? HELLO? I SAID I'M GOING TO BE LATE, DARLING! Damn."
(insert loud cranking sound)
"AAH, THAT'S BETTER! NOW, ANYWAY, I SAID I'M GOING TO BE LATE BACK! HOW LONG? UH, ABOUT HALF AN HOUR TO AN HOUR LATE! YES? CAN YOU PUT MY DINNER IN THE OVEN? WHAT? HANG ON!"
(insert loud cranking sound)
"YES, DINNER! IN OVEN! OH, CAN YOU GET THE WASHING MACHINE READY FOR WHEN I COME IN? OK? WAIT, GOING THROUGH A TUNNEL! HANG ON! PUT THE WASHING MACHINE ON! WHAT DO YOU MEAN? MY SUIT! HELLO? HANG ON!"
(insert loud cranking sound)
To be repeated ad fucking nauseam.
Truman suggested the nuclear bomb to Stalin 57 years ago TODAY, and you nerds are discussing the first wind-up phone charger review? MY GOD, GET SOME FRICKIN' PRIORITIES!!!
The Mormons first settled in Utah and founded Salt Lake City 155 years ago TODAY, and you people are JACKING OVER a wind up phone charger? JESUS H. CHRIST, PEOPLE, GET SOME PRIORITIES!!!
Martin Van Buren died 140 years ago TODAY, and you people are STILL going on about that phone charger? DAMMIT, GET SOME PRIORITIES, YOU SICK FREAKS?!?!?!
traffic in x days = current traffic * 2^(x/100)
It implies that every year Internet traffic increases by a factor of 2^(365/100), or ~12.6. This means that from the creation of the Internet, which was 32 years ago, Internet traffic has increased 12.6 times a year. This implies that by the year 2002, there would be 12.6^32 times more traffic, or approx. 10^35 times as much.
Do you believe that there's ~ 16,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as much traffic on the Internet as in 1970?
Well, let's see...
Printer: Comes free with computer.
Ink cartridges: £25 each, must replace both of them every couple of months.
Yeah, I can't say I disagree with that.
Before you ask, yes, they WOULD allow a cookbook. They do host documentation projects, too. This merely documents doing stuff with food.
For more info on this topic, look at the case of Feist v. Rural, which pretty much says how copyright law covers compilations.
Together, we'll beat the Forgent Friggers!
This should solve your problem with the ol' guy.
Did someone say an image format covered by the GPL?
Anyway, the issue at stake here is not just about whether or not JPGs can or cannot be used; if Forgent gets away with this, the door is open for all other companies to get away with submerging their patents and then springing royalties onto us. GIFs have been taken from us, and now it looks as if JPGs will be taken from us as well, and I don't think that it's a good idea to rely on just one picture format. I'd rather have choice, thanks very much.
GOVERNMENT: "We are now using GPL'd software for our banking systems."
1337 H4X0R: "LOL! They don't even know I've h4x0r3d it so I can steal everyone's card numbers! LOL!!11!!"
Of course, if you think I'm just being excessively paranoid, ignore me.
Pioneer 10 has been running for ages and ages in the depths of space, thanks to its mega-reliable design. However, will the "bow shock" and "termination shock" be strong enough to destroy the craft, or break it?
This is probably the best argument I've heard for feature bloat in a long, long time. Overspending can be a good thing, kids.