It's weird how communicating by reading and writing many more times over than we did during the 20th Century would have somehow made us better at it....
Data network: GPRS class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 107/64.2 kbps (DL/UL) EDGE class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 296/177.6 kbps (DL/UL) WCDMA 900/1700/2100. Maximum speed PS 384/384 kbps (DL/UL) HSPA 900/1700/2100. Maximum speed PS 10/2 Mbps (DL/UL) WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g
You're not wrong that it's desirable for some people to own their data and their processing , including myself and probably a lot of other people here. But I think you are wrong in thinking that most people will care about having their files and their processing solely under their control, especially if an equivalently convenient alternative is offered which provides the advantage of being able to access your data easily from anywhere.
A lot of Slashdot users - including me - tend to mistake their own preferences for the preferences of the general population. We fail to consider that the general population will give up some privacy for something as simple as convenience . And we also fail to consider the changing nature of privacy as a concept.
'You did everything right, and nothing wrong. I am more thinking that the people who are angry are jealous that they did not think of it first.
Agreed.
' I am more thinking that the people who are angry are jealous that they did not think of it first.'...or, another possibility: the author of the original XPilot appears to have a legitimate (but not legally protected) vision of the legacy of his work, and is trying to protect it/disguise it behind his (clearly flawed) interpretation of the GPL.
It would be much better if the author just communicated that his wish would be to have software based on his own be free-as-in-beer, acknowleding that the new authors are under no legal obligation to do so. The authors of this new software are legally free to do whatever they want, including telling the original author to piss off. Would they feel morally comfortable about doing so, is the real question? This is really a moral and/or friendship dispute, not a legal one.
"Apple's biggest challenge will be convincing its huge installed base of iPhone owners that they need a MacPad too. "
What? No.
First of all, if this "MacPad" exists it is not going to be targetted at existing iPhone customers. It will be targetted at existing Mac users and PC users. From what I'm hearing this thing more akin to a mobile PC than a Netbook-ified cell phone. You're not going to convince many users of the expensive but very functional iPhone that they need yet another mobile device. So, yes, in a way, this would be a challenge, such a big one, in fact, that it would make no sense to try to do it.
No. I don't think the solution will be algorithms running on existing digital electronics.
Our brain is an analog machine. Its plasticitiy is not limited to two discrete states. Therefore, the 'software running on hardware' model for how intelligence works is not the most efficient explanation. Our brains operate the way they do because of they way they are organized, not because they are programmed in the sense we usually understand it. To put it another way, the software 'instructions' (algorithm) and the information processing(the processor) are really the same component in our intelligent machine. The mind is not software running on the brain - it *is* the brain.
In my opinion, the first artificial mind will be structured in a similar way, not in the processor-memory paradigm, but in the 'learning circuit' model. This is so because we have 'prior art' (from nature) that demonstrates that this already works for creating an intelligent machine - us.
It's ok to blow things up if you just want to know if "there is water there."
For instance, I just blew up a watermelon 'to see if there was water in there.' It was moist, leading me to believe that there is, in fact, water in there. Then I blew up a junk yard Ford Pinto so I could verify that there was not, in fact, "water in there." As I suspected, there wasn't.
You bring up a good point. Monkeys and chimps share up to 90% of their DNA with humans, and yet the last time I tried to teach my capuchin sign language, I got beaned with a fecal fast-ball.
Yeah, I think it's that 10% responsible for our neocortex that's going to make a difference here...
I agree, the lack of unification works to create a lot of options, some of which are excellent and which create happy circumstances among a very select and relatively very savvy group of users.
That said, I don't buy this idea there is no Linux community. I think there's a sustained effort by a large number of developers and users to make across a number of distros to make a Linux desktop that is competitive against Windows and OS X. If that's not something of a community I don't know what is. And if competing as a mainstream desktop is one of the goals of this community, then your target userbase is not going to be 100% savvy about binary compatibility, dependencies, shared libraries, etc. and choice is not going to mean much to them if they can't get something to work. So if various Linux distros purport to be able to compete with market leaders on the desktop, it should set some goals for itself, and some of these goals require standards.
All in all, the community, if it exists, should try to be more organized. But since there's an independent streak in the Linux community that makes a lot of developers allergic to the discipline that standards require, it doesn't seem to materialize.
Some of the same things can be said of the New York Times. And if you've read the WSJ lately, it has been diluted with entertainment news, sports news(this is not to denigrate sports, just to show that the WSJ is becoming just like other papers), and all the other things that make it par for the course for a Murdoch publication.
No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
Here's a possibility: as another reader pointed out, you are allowed to access WSJ's premium content if you have been referred from another site. So what you are really paying for is the indexing of content at the WSJ site, and the ability to read the content which you can otherwise get for free the same way you would read a newspaper.
'But other than home, do you have permission to install software on the workstations? '
Yes. But since I just want to focus on typing, I tend not to waste time downloading my preferred software.
This is not true for everything. When it comes to development I like to be able to work everywhere. Since my work at one job, for example, is in Java, and I switch workstations a lot, I have a USB key with a full installation of Eclipse and all of my code. This may be because there's no real good cloud alternative for Java development. This way, I can just plug in the key and start working. When it comes to things I view as more mundane, such as word processing, I tend to want to spend as little time and money as possible fussing around with software. Going to docs.google.com allows me that.
There's a lot of places I can (and do) access my data and I don't have 3G Access. Work, home, the library, school, etc etc. They all have workstations for me, and I tend to use them. As a matter of convenience.
The message seems to be you can't trust anyone but yourself. I don't see how computing, or really anything, is possible under this philosophy. Computing from the very second you start your computer up requires trust. Trust that your OS isn't intercepting your keystrokes and sending them away, trust that the manufacturer of your hard drives are competent and the drives won't crash and lose all your data, trust that you don't have a worm on your computer, trust when you send payment info that there's nobody in the middle intercepting the data. I certainly don't examine every line of every application I use, and so even using open source software requires very much trust - trust that the patch reviewers and committers are honest, that nobody inserted a line(and I'm not saying this isn't the case for prop. software to an even greater degree). In a lot of cases it is comforting to that I could review the code, but in 99% of cases I will not have reviewed the source of the software I am using. So I have to trust. And most of that trust comes from reputation, not whether or not I can empirically verify what is going on. In short, there's a limit to the precautions I can take, and it's practically impossible to go around believing the whole world will take advantage of my trust if they can.
So I don't see what a major difference between using the cloud computing services for proprietary software and using open source cloud computing services on a private host. I still have to trust the people who wrote the software or who host the servers or who made the servers, etc etc etc.
Seriously, I respect a lot of what Stallman does, but what he doesn't seem to understand is the economics of software. All that matters when it comes to productivity applications, for me and for most people, is convenience. I'm much more willing to have my work on a cloud if it's easier to access that work from anywhere and I also don't have to shell out $300 for my own copy of MS Office or waste my own computing power running a bloated copy of OO.org/AbiWord/insert your favorite open source word processor here rather than simply opening a browser and gaining access to the limited set of WP features I actually use and all of my files. The benefits of being able to access my data, very easily, anywhere and being able to spend my cycles on processes I care more about while saving money clearly outweigh the risk of having Google (a company which, wrongly or rightly, I trust more than I fear) in possession of my data. For me, at least, and I suspect also for most people. It strikes me that Stallman may just be a bit paranoid.
It also strikes me that someone who, I thought, believes information should be free should be so guarded about private - proprietary - information. Does he mean free for everyone or free for everyone but businesses?
Not really seeing a difference between behavior and ability.
Any action that you perform is behavior, and, obviously, if you perform an action you are also capable of performing it. A behavior is therefore an ability. Any algorithm that tries to distinguish between human behavior and computer behavior is still a reverse Turing test.
Given that, testing the quirky way humans navigate through the web is arguably even flimsier test than the captcha. There is a certain degree of randomness, but nothing that rand() can't imitate to fool what would have to be an algorithm based, somewhat, on measuring randomness with a limit to its sensitivity so that false positives can be reduced to a reasonable level.
I'm skeptical of the whole story. Is our eletrical grid really accessible to spies? If our electric grid is connected at all to the public Internet then we have bigger problems, namely TeH Stupid, and we'll soon defeat ourselves with our own dementia.
Second, When you find software 'payloads', as the story claims the officials have , is your first impulse not to phase out all infected systems and replace them with safe, clean ones? This seems pretty easy to fix.
If they don't know what they're getting into, then "FUCK the veteran's families" seems to be assigning the blame in the wrong place, no?
I agree that war and militarism are bad when they are in the service of empire. But defense does serve an important role in principle. Let's not defame our troops because we disagree with the reason they are deployed - as we both, clearly, do.
They bought a brand, something that the non-business open-source community can't build because all-too-often our reaction to disagreements is to fork or start a new project.
Some brands are beginning to exist(Firefox, Ubuntu, to name a couple, but those are sponsored by a Foundation and a private enterprise that need revenues.) I guess it comes down to what our motivations are for writing free/open-source software. If it's not to make money or build brands to compete with proprietary brands, then forking is all fine and good. But if it is to compete with Windows, we could take some cues from the business community and focus on building solid brands rather than forking or starting new projects every time we get frustrated.
Slashdot Mirror
It's weird how communicating by reading and writing many more times over than we did during the 20th Century would have somehow made us better at it....
It does. "WLAN" - from the site:
I don't want to bookmark those sites , and those URLs are hard to remember! Sometimes completing against history is the fastest option.
"Was it one girl and two cups? Three girls and one cup? Two and a half girls and one and a half cups? I can't remember!"
You're not wrong that it's desirable for some people to own their data and their processing , including myself and probably a lot of other people here. But I think you are wrong in thinking that most people will care about having their files and their processing solely under their control, especially if an equivalently convenient alternative is offered which provides the advantage of being able to access your data easily from anywhere.
A lot of Slashdot users - including me - tend to mistake their own preferences for the preferences of the general population. We fail to consider that the general population will give up some privacy for something as simple as convenience . And we also fail to consider the changing nature of privacy as a concept.
'You did everything right, and nothing wrong. I am more thinking that the people who are angry are jealous that they did not think of it first.
Agreed.
' I am more thinking that the people who are angry are jealous that they did not think of it first.' ...or, another possibility: the author of the original XPilot appears to have a legitimate (but not legally protected) vision of the legacy of his work, and is trying to protect it/disguise it behind his (clearly flawed) interpretation of the GPL.
It would be much better if the author just communicated that his wish would be to have software based on his own be free-as-in-beer, acknowleding that the new authors are under no legal obligation to do so. The authors of this new software are legally free to do whatever they want, including telling the original author to piss off. Would they feel morally comfortable about doing so, is the real question? This is really a moral and/or friendship dispute, not a legal one.
"Apple's biggest challenge will be convincing its huge installed base of iPhone owners that they need a MacPad too. "
What? No.
First of all, if this "MacPad" exists it is not going to be targetted at existing iPhone customers. It will be targetted at existing Mac users and PC users. From what I'm hearing this thing more akin to a mobile PC than a Netbook-ified cell phone. You're not going to convince many users of the expensive but very functional iPhone that they need yet another mobile device. So, yes, in a way, this would be a challenge, such a big one, in fact, that it would make no sense to try to do it.
No. I don't think the solution will be algorithms running on existing digital electronics.
Our brain is an analog machine. Its plasticitiy is not limited to two discrete states. Therefore, the 'software running on hardware' model for how intelligence works is not the most efficient explanation. Our brains operate the way they do because of they way they are organized, not because they are programmed in the sense we usually understand it. To put it another way, the software 'instructions' (algorithm) and the information processing(the processor) are really the same component in our intelligent machine. The mind is not software running on the brain - it *is* the brain.
In my opinion, the first artificial mind will be structured in a similar way, not in the processor-memory paradigm, but in the 'learning circuit' model. This is so because we have 'prior art' (from nature) that demonstrates that this already works for creating an intelligent machine - us.
It's ok to blow things up if you just want to know if "there is water there."
For instance, I just blew up a watermelon 'to see if there was water in there.' It was moist, leading me to believe that there is, in fact, water in there. Then I blew up a junk yard Ford Pinto so I could verify that there was not, in fact, "water in there." As I suspected, there wasn't.
"my friend's mother gave me a blowjob."
Wow. She sounds like a creep.
You bring up a good point. Monkeys and chimps share up to 90% of their DNA with humans, and yet the last time I tried to teach my capuchin sign language, I got beaned with a fecal fast-ball.
Yeah, I think it's that 10% responsible for our neocortex that's going to make a difference here...
I agree, the lack of unification works to create a lot of options, some of which are excellent and which create happy circumstances among a very select and relatively very savvy group of users.
That said, I don't buy this idea there is no Linux community. I think there's a sustained effort by a large number of developers and users to make across a number of distros to make a Linux desktop that is competitive against Windows and OS X. If that's not something of a community I don't know what is. And if competing as a mainstream desktop is one of the goals of this community, then your target userbase is not going to be 100% savvy about binary compatibility, dependencies, shared libraries, etc. and choice is not going to mean much to them if they can't get something to work. So if various Linux distros purport to be able to compete with market leaders on the desktop, it should set some goals for itself, and some of these goals require standards.
All in all, the community, if it exists, should try to be more organized. But since there's an independent streak in the Linux community that makes a lot of developers allergic to the discipline that standards require, it doesn't seem to materialize.
I think Ubuntu implicitly has set the standard. Ubuntu comes standard with GNOME, GNOME uses GTK, GTK is therefore the de facto standard.
The more relevant complaint seems to be that GTK isn't good enough. I agree that Ubuntu and GNOME could do a lot to improve it.
Some of the same things can be said of the New York Times. And if you've read the WSJ lately, it has been diluted with entertainment news, sports news(this is not to denigrate sports, just to show that the WSJ is becoming just like other papers), and all the other things that make it par for the course for a Murdoch publication.
No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.
Here's a possibility: as another reader pointed out, you are allowed to access WSJ's premium content if you have been referred from another site. So what you are really paying for is the indexing of content at the WSJ site, and the ability to read the content which you can otherwise get for free the same way you would read a newspaper.
'Hey RMS, ever do any online banking? How about use an ATM?'
I have criticized him, but I suspect that he never has used online banking and it's quite possible that he's never used an ATM.
There's a lot of things to criticize about Stallman, as I have on this very thread, but not living up to his own principles is not one of them.
If only it was possible for anyone else to live up to his principles...
It's interesting how a technological pioneer has loudly obligated himself to being a contagious technophobe...
'But other than home, do you have permission to install software on the workstations? '
Yes. But since I just want to focus on typing, I tend not to waste time downloading my preferred software.
This is not true for everything. When it comes to development I like to be able to work everywhere. Since my work at one job, for example, is in Java, and I switch workstations a lot, I have a USB key with a full installation of Eclipse and all of my code. This may be because there's no real good cloud alternative for Java development. This way, I can just plug in the key and start working. When it comes to things I view as more mundane, such as word processing, I tend to want to spend as little time and money as possible fussing around with software. Going to docs.google.com allows me that.
There's a lot of places I can (and do) access my data and I don't have 3G Access. Work, home, the library, school, etc etc. They all have workstations for me, and I tend to use them. As a matter of convenience.
The message seems to be you can't trust anyone but yourself. I don't see how computing, or really anything, is possible under this philosophy. Computing from the very second you start your computer up requires trust. Trust that your OS isn't intercepting your keystrokes and sending them away, trust that the manufacturer of your hard drives are competent and the drives won't crash and lose all your data, trust that you don't have a worm on your computer, trust when you send payment info that there's nobody in the middle intercepting the data. I certainly don't examine every line of every application I use, and so even using open source software requires very much trust - trust that the patch reviewers and committers are honest, that nobody inserted a line(and I'm not saying this isn't the case for prop. software to an even greater degree). In a lot of cases it is comforting to that I could review the code, but in 99% of cases I will not have reviewed the source of the software I am using. So I have to trust. And most of that trust comes from reputation, not whether or not I can empirically verify what is going on. In short, there's a limit to the precautions I can take, and it's practically impossible to go around believing the whole world will take advantage of my trust if they can.
So I don't see what a major difference between using the cloud computing services for proprietary software and using open source cloud computing services on a private host. I still have to trust the people who wrote the software or who host the servers or who made the servers, etc etc etc.
Seriously, I respect a lot of what Stallman does, but what he doesn't seem to understand is the economics of software. All that matters when it comes to productivity applications, for me and for most people, is convenience. I'm much more willing to have my work on a cloud if it's easier to access that work from anywhere and I also don't have to shell out $300 for my own copy of MS Office or waste my own computing power running a bloated copy of OO.org/AbiWord/insert your favorite open source word processor here rather than simply opening a browser and gaining access to the limited set of WP features I actually use and all of my files. The benefits of being able to access my data, very easily, anywhere and being able to spend my cycles on processes I care more about while saving money clearly outweigh the risk of having Google (a company which, wrongly or rightly, I trust more than I fear) in possession of my data. For me, at least, and I suspect also for most people. It strikes me that Stallman may just be a bit paranoid.
It also strikes me that someone who, I thought, believes information should be free should be so guarded about private - proprietary - information. Does he mean free for everyone or free for everyone but businesses?
Can Slate stop writing articles about shit it doesn't know about?
Not really seeing a difference between behavior and ability.
Any action that you perform is behavior, and, obviously, if you perform an action you are also capable of performing it. A behavior is therefore an ability. Any algorithm that tries to distinguish between human behavior and computer behavior is still a reverse Turing test.
Given that, testing the quirky way humans navigate through the web is arguably even flimsier test than the captcha. There is a certain degree of randomness, but nothing that rand() can't imitate to fool what would have to be an algorithm based, somewhat, on measuring randomness with a limit to its sensitivity so that false positives can be reduced to a reasonable level.
How strong would you say your relationship with your husband is? Would he be offended if he knew we were dining together?
My Gmail is makebinutils@gmail.com
You're absolutely right
I'm skeptical of the whole story. Is our eletrical grid really accessible to spies? If our electric grid is connected at all to the public Internet then we have bigger problems, namely TeH Stupid, and we'll soon defeat ourselves with our own dementia.
Second, When you find software 'payloads', as the story claims the officials have , is your first impulse not to phase out all infected systems and replace them with safe, clean ones? This seems pretty easy to fix.
'They never know what they are getting into. '
If they don't know what they're getting into, then "FUCK the veteran's families" seems to be assigning the blame in the wrong place, no?
I agree that war and militarism are bad when they are in the service of empire. But defense does serve an important role in principle. Let's not defame our troops because we disagree with the reason they are deployed - as we both, clearly, do.
'Wow, what a moron.'
Yeah, that goes without saying. We're talking about an entertainment columnist from Fox News. Seriously.
They bought a brand, something that the non-business open-source community can't build because all-too-often our reaction to disagreements is to fork or start a new project.
Some brands are beginning to exist(Firefox, Ubuntu, to name a couple, but those are sponsored by a Foundation and a private enterprise that need revenues.) I guess it comes down to what our motivations are for writing free/open-source software. If it's not to make money or build brands to compete with proprietary brands, then forking is all fine and good. But if it is to compete with Windows, we could take some cues from the business community and focus on building solid brands rather than forking or starting new projects every time we get frustrated.