I very much like your post, because it highlights an important point: fundamentally, the Bible (representative of Judeo-Christian beliefs) is not an analysis of physical processes (science) -- it is a history of a people and their social interaction with each other and with their God.
To look to the Bible for an explanation of gravity is obviously ridiculous because it does not even mention it. You might as well look to the law for scientific explanations. But to look to the Bible for how one should generally live their life can be instructive. Of course, any teaching can be perverted, even scientific ones -- though those may be more easily disproved than moral ones.
At its core, the Bible is a history with a context; not even always intended as instruction to future generations, but simply as a record of events. Sometimes it's even symbolic (e.g. the Garden of Eden story). To the extent that the Bible does describe the "supernatural," it is beyond which science will likely be able to prove or disprove in my lifetime.
However, I for one do believe that if God does exist and engages Himself in our reality, then we will find evidence of Him through our scientific pursuits, which is perhaps why stories like "Technology Spontaneously Combusts In Sicily" spark hope in people who have faith.
I cannot comment on those "religious leaders" who assign everything to a direct act of God, disallowing any more pertinent explanation, except to say that they are not everyone's religious leaders and do not represent everyone's religious beliefs.
Like other positive religions, Christianity not only provides a paragon of virtues (which forms the basis of much modern law), but can also provide peace and hope for the future beyond this life. Ultimately, however, if one does not believe that the precepts of a religion are useful for their daily lives, then there really is little point in believing.
Ah, but even that has its limits. In the not too distant future, I suspect that the analog hole will exist only as long as we use old equipment and software.
Unfortunately, there is heavy research into DRM techniques such as digital watermarks which survive DA/AD conversion. They can be distributed across the medium, making removal impossible without significantly deteriorating the quality. Not only could these watermarks be used stenographically to uniquely identify copies for legal prosecution, but also to hold DRM authorization information.
Of course, even with old analog equipment, forces like macrovision (V1,V2) are still trying to close the analog hole. So, at the very least, technically, it will be a hassle and more costly to break whatever DRM system is used.
I used to believe as you and your sibling poster, holding high my and my fellow engineer's technical skills, which gave me peace of mind that I would always retain my freedom. But I've grown to be saddened when I see such posts because that attitude breeds apathy.
Ultimately, the war will be won or lost through legislation and its enforcement, and currently, those of us interested in "fair use" and freedom are losing. Consider that even in the best case, what good is technical freedom if you are fined or thrown in jail for exercising it?
In this case Sun is probably taking advantage of the "system libraries" exception in GPL section 3
As another poster pointed out, the relevant parts of GNOME are actually LGPL. This is why KDE/QT is still not fully embraced by much of the community -- because QT is licensed under the GPL (on linux) and therefore cannot be used for proprietary apps. You can purchase a commercial license for QT, but I'm not sure if that would extend to the rest of KDE whose license must remain compatible with the GPL version.
But you make a good point -- in fact, it seems that it's not just "system libraries", but also compiler libraries (which seems like a loophole if someone distributes a proprietary compiler package with a bunch of proprietary libraries).
From the GPL FAQ: I'm writing a Windows application with Microsoft Visual C++ (or Visual Basic) and I will be releasing it under the GPL. Is dynamically linking my program with the Visual C++ (or Visual Basic) run-time library permitted under the GPL?
Yes, because that run-time library normally accompanies the compiler or interpreter you are using.
Another aspect I've been pondering is defining "distribution" versus "usage". If the GPL only restricts distribution, then what is to prevent the creation of a program (to be invoked by users) that automatically downloads (from various sources) and combines GPL code and some proprietary code?... i.e. this would technically shift the actual creation of a derivative work to the user, who in turn could not distribute the resulting app.
It seems like a loophole that I'm sure someone else has thought of, so I'm probably missing something. But without restricting certain modification or "usage" of a program, I'm not sure how this could be overcome.
It's not really about credit, but the form of the credit and technically incompatible licenses. GPL provides for credit in the copyright line as well as prominent notices of change.
From the GPL: You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
From the GPL FAQ: I want to get credit for my work. I want people to know what I wrote. Can I still get credit if I use the GPL?
You can certainly get credit for the work. Part of releasing a program under the GPL is writing a copyright notice in your own name (assuming you are the copyright holder). The GPL requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice.
I agree that it is a terrible shame that so many "free" licenses are subtley incompatible with one another, but such is the nature of law.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Computers only do what they are told (excepting "hardware failure", which is not the topic).
Shouldn't the validity of computational proofs be able to be determined by proving the meta-logic of the solver? i.e. proving that a strategy for finding a proof is valid (and therefore trusting its results).
Maybe those wary mathematicians are just unaccustomed to working on a problem meta-logically, and prefer to find proofs directly themselves (with the meta-logic being defined solely within their own minds)?
In such cases, perhaps peer review should not require human verification of a computational proof, but rather another independent meta-logically valid computational proof?
Do you know how fast these frames propagate outward? c?
Does this mean that most spinning objects will tend to stop spinning because they are pushing on other external bodies which are not orbiting them synchronously?
- What is the storage restrictions on a chatbot in the competition?
- Is it allowed to google for a reasonable human response to your statements?... i.e. basically using other past human responses as its own response.
- This is particularly interesting because, in this way (with a large enough db like the web), a chatbot could appear to be human, but we probably wouldn't consider this AI.
- If a chatbot reiterates something it downloads from the web, is that copyright infringement? In the case of humans, if we read something, I think we are generally allowed to quote it from memory.
... because it is indirectly dirty: IIRC, "fark" is intended to be a euphemism for "fuck".
So, not only is it amusing, it's also accurate (at least in popular parlance)... and perhaps not quite as confusing as saying "I've been slashdotted by cnn.com".
Perhaps in some cases a student may learn better from a good teacher than a good doer, but at least with the doer, the student can always learn from example.
Plus, "persuasion" might even be considered a form of teaching, so the best doer may in fact be the best teacher.
All in all, the AC has a good point. Ultimately, though, the fact that it isn't a #1 best seller might be more illustrative of the limits of the power of persuasion and its haphazard effects than of the author's abilities.:)
Perhaps I was being too strict; your terminology was mostly fine. Your sentence just confused me at first and I wanted to make sure we shared a common understanding of the word "prototype" in context. Please forgive me if I was discourteous.
You're absolutely correct that objects in prototype-based languages are often divided into "class" (prototype) and "instance" categories.
In fact, some prototype-based languages blur the line even further by involving the prototype directly in the inheritance hierarchy, exactly like classes. The only major difference is that the hierarchy is uniform and the prototype's own slots are copied rather than being dynamically created by the constructor / cloner.
Of course, the "clone" message handler could be written to do extra hidden processing like constructors, and constructors could be written to copy a portion of the class' attributes/slots into the new instance it creates, like prototypes.
With a flexible OO message dispatch system which is independent of the distinction between class and instance, prototypes and classes become practically identical.
If your methods are associated with prototype objects, then if you have existing non-prototype objects and change a method, then would the non-prototype objects get the method def passed down, or what?
Your use of the term "(non)-prototype object" is a bit confusing since every object is a "prototype" which can be cloned... but I think I understand your question.
In prototype-based languages, creation of new objects occurs by copying (cloning) existing objects. After copying, the clone is independent from the original -- changing one has no effect on the other (there is no Inheritance relationship between them).
Inheritance-style call (message) dispatch is handled through a slot named "parent" that every Object has. A call (message) that does not have an object-local slot (handler) is deferred to the objects referenced in the parent slot. In this way, objects can share the same parent and thus the same behaviour (unless locally overridden).
Note that when a clone is made, all slots in the original are copied to the clone, so the clone has the same parents as the original. Of course, after cloning, you can change any of the clone's slots independently from the original, including the "parent" slot.
Prototype languages are really not much different from class-based languages... they just split up the responsibilities a bit differently (and perhaps more uniformily).
I've been considering a PVR for a while, and I'm still rather conflicted. As far as I can tell the issues with a custom PVR are:
+ more flexible and future-proof (depending on what you buy)... a hardware MPEG-4 en/decoder might be even more future-proof.
+ ideally this would give more control over unwanted restrictions, like Macrovision, commercial skip, etc.
- much more expensive -- though if you already have a 800Mhz+ computer sitting around doing "nothing", they might be more comparable.
- have to manually deal with concerns such as noise, heat dissipation, size/shape, power consumption, etc., which can be at odds with having a flexible and upgradeable system.
- I think custom PVRs are primarily for analog cable users. This is actually ok for me since I am an analog cable user and, hopefully, if I want some digital service I could just stick in another PCI card (if I buy a larger system)... though, currently, it seems that such cards are either not available or not very popular (at least in the US)?
I'd be interested to hear from any/.ers if they have a custom digital PVR setup. I've heard of external digital tuners which are changed via IR from the computer, but those seem like a hack, prone to error, and less controllable.
IMHO, if you are using DirectTV / DishNetwork then the corresponding TiVo is the way to go... especially with all the hacks I've heard about (e.g. networking, free guide, etc.). Of course, that locks you into their respective digital service, but that might not be so bad.
FYI: This might be the PVR Hardware Database you were looking for. BYOPVR also has some useful info.
and there really isn't a simple console (text-mode) editor geared for DOS/Windows users available on Linux.
I assume you are looking for an interface with the basic CUA (Windows) keybindings? Unfortunately, AFAIK, full support for CUA seems to be virtually impossible in the generic case of remote terminals (due to ESCaping keycodes and the ancient keyboard limitations kept alive by terminal emulators -- e.g. this is the reason you have to hit ESC twice in mc to register a single ESC), but in the specific case of the Linux Console (which has direct access to hardware), this is possible.
Many editors have CUA bindings, though to varying degrees of success. e.g. Emacs or Jed. Unfortunately, some of the time it feels like a hack and a few might even require manually modifying Linux's keymappings.
Perhaps the closest I've found is SetEdit, which is based on a port of the TurboVision text-mode windowing library, which is very comfortable for me since I used to use the old DOS Borland IDE, which also happens to have an OSS Linux version called Rhide.
I love text-mode and I think a lot could be done to improve it in Linux; particularly, "fixing" the ancient terminal system and providing for modular non-linear behavior. Sometimes I don't want to deal with the 100MB+ required for X (not to mention GNOME & KDE for apps that are dependent upon them), but I'd like a non-linear interface.
Screen is a step in the right direction, though it is not (initially) very user-friendly (not using Windows/CUA keybindings;)). I've also found the simpler dtach to be useful at times.
I don't know why more non-linear text mode applications aren't created. I've found a few that are made as independent ncurses apps, but, ideally, I think they should all use some standard text windowing environment. Recently, I noticed Twin which looks familiar (tvision?), but doesn't seem to be very actively used... and I don't know if it supports CUA keybindings.
Please forgive my ignorance, but it just struck me: - Can (i386) 32-bit code run in (AMD64) 64-bit mode? - Must we abandon all 32-bit code when we switch to 64-bit mode?
It would be awesome if we could get the best of both worlds simultaneously: smaller 32-bit programs in most cases, and 64-bit for those (fewer?) applications where that would be more effective. Intel would have to compete in performance with the best of both modes.
If so, then GCC should compile to 32-bit mode when that would yield faster code, no? Or is there a penalty for switching back and forth between 32-bit and 64-bit mode?
Otherwise, Athlon64 would seem more like two (mutually exclusive) CPUs in one rather than an extension of i386. In which case, is it even possible to have a backwards compatible 64-bit extension of the kind I am describing?
Can it really be manipulated so precisely? It seems to me that if the satellites' signals were manipulated, they would cause everyone in a large geographical area (how many sats are there?) who use that GPS system to calculate the wrong location.
Plus, if they were smart, their position could be roughly verified by other "old-fashioned" navigational means, so they probably couldn't mislead them on a large scale.
As others have mentioned, you can disable use of the Referrer tag in the header of http requests, just like browser identification... in fact, theoretically, you can set it to anything you want.
The only problem is that some sites depend upon your using a "proper" referrer tag... e.g. when downloading certain content. IIRC, GetRight includes the ability to take the referrer from the source download page for this purpose.
I don't see how segmenting names geographically is going to help much. At the very least, there would still be these battles within each country. At some level, a central registry is needed.
Organizations or companies might even try to register their name in every country they *might* do business in, for PR and to make it easier (and less confusing) for potential customers to find them.
Suing over similar names seems (mostly) ridiculous to me. Maybe it would be better to "force" domain names to be shared (using the next domain level to distinguish) in the case of a legitimate conflict?
Though I don't like using "force" to share, this solution is already voluntarily in effect in some cases... e.g. when you go to a site and at the top they say "if you are looking for X, go here."
The other downside with sharing domains is that businesses with shorter unique names (not requiring re-routing) might have an advantage.
I took a closer look, and it does appear that (IMHO) the EFF did somewhat misrepresent pertinent sections of the Patriot Act by omitting additional requirements.
Their more detailed analysis, that I also linked to previously, provides much better explanations (the bottom half of the page basically analyzes the USAPA point by point). I've verified several of them with the USC and they appear to be more accurate interpretations of the law (from my newbie perspective), while also providing some useful context to the individual topics (since the law is synergistic and open to interpretation).
With respect to your particular question of whether it is legal for government employees investigating "computer trespass" to perform wiretaps without a court order, it appears to be possible under 217 -- as long as the computer owner and operator (e.g. ISP) "authorizes" surveillance. To quote from the EFF analysis:
PATRIOT 217 changes
18 USC 2510, adding another area where any government employee, not just law enforcement, may conduct content surveillance of U.S. persons. This is when a computer owner and operator "authorizes" surveillance and a law enforcement agent "has reasonable grounds to believe contents of communication will be relevant" to investigating computer trespass and does not acquire anyone else's communications. This section authorizes interception of messages suspected of being sent through a computer without "authorization."
a. The term "authorization" is not defined, giving the owner/operator of protected computer and the government agent great discretion.
b. BUT this does not include someone who is known to have an existing contractual relationship to access all or part of the computer. According to DOJ, ISP customers who send spam in violation of ISP's terms of service would not be trespassers.
Note that I linked to the USC above so you could read the complete law yourself (it's at the bottom of the page).
IMHO, this law may prove to be fairly complex because, quite often, "computer trespass" occurs (at least in part) through legitimate users' accounts or means. Hence, in order to monitor a suspected computer trespasser, a legitimate user might be monitored, which seems to be in conflict with one of the implied requirements.
In addition, I'd like to illuminate a couple of points in the USAPA 216 MODIFICATION OF AUTHORITIES RELATING TO USE OF PEN REGISTERS AND TRAP AND TRACE DEVICES, which you quoted in a previous post:
1) "if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation..."
- If I understand correctly, "certified" is a very weak requirement... essentially, it is the government officially saying "we believe it is relevant" and not necessarily providing proof at that time.
2) "A) Where the law enforcement agency implementing an ex parte order under this subsection seeks to do so by installing and using its own pen register or trap and trace device..."
- Note that if an ISP's own equipment is used by the government for "wiretapping", the associated accountability does not apply.
- Perhaps this is why the government (through some other laws) is pushing all ISPs (e.g. Time Warner) to implement their own built-in wiretapping capabilities -- i.e. in order to obviate the legal requirement of accountability?
Here's a few more brief points I extracted from the EFF analysis on how the Patriot Act broadens the powers of law enforcement: 1) broader applicability of warrants:
- extending
You raise a very interesting question. IANAL and I have not personally investigated or read the entire Patriot Act myself, since it is ridiculously long and terse to the point of being untractable -- particularly due to the included amendments to other laws using sentence fragments, which might be where the answer your are looking for actually lies.
I have thus far relied upon summaries, such as EFF's analysis of the USAPA, which obviously tends towards a particular viewpoint.
The Government can monitor an individual's web surfing records, use roving wiretaps to monitor phone calls made by individuals "proximate" to the primary person being tapped, access Internet Service Provider records, and monitor the private records of people involved in legitimate protests.
and
Government spying on suspected computer trespassers (not just terrorist suspects) requires no court order. Wiretaps are now allowed for any suspected violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, offering possibilities for Government spying on any computer user.
It looks like it might be section 202 of the USAPA that deals with "computer fraud and abuse offenses," which is one of those "fragment amendments" which I'm not up to copying/pasting/parsing.
So, as I understand it, the USAPA does not do away with the courts in the general case, but rather provides exceptions for requiring court approval including being "proximate" to a person under investigation and being suspected of "computer fraud and abuse offenses."
I also found a site called Slate that has an evaluation of the USAPA which might interest you.
It is also curious that your interpretation of the quoted passages seems very similar to how I understood the process to work prior to the Patriot Act, which begs the question of why this portion of the Patriot Act is necessary at all?
Actually, referencing and dereferencing are not the same thing as boxing.
Boxing is the act of taking a given Value (which does not have any inherent type info) and creating an equivalent Object (which has embedded type info).
Boxing is a solution to viewing everything as "Objects" while not requiring type information (e.g. a vtable) to be maintained with every binary block (e.g. ints, floats, etc.).
e.g. In some languages, every 'int' is an Object, which roughly means that it contains: 1) a vtable pointer AND 2) the actual int value.
Hence, these Int Objects are twice the size of what an 'int' needs to be. This is often silly since, in most cases, there is no need to abstract away the type of an 'int'.
I think the reason for the confusion is that 'Objects' exist on the heap and are passed by reference, while 'Values' (non-Objects) exist on the stack and are passed by value. Hence, it is the Values which need to be boxed in order to use them as Objects.
Yup. In logic, there are always assumptions. Statements can only be proven relative to those assumptions.
I suppose "cogito ergo sum" is actually a philosophical appeal to empiricism, since, to be meaningful, the logical assumption that "thinking implies existence" must be empirically self-evident.
i.e. sensing anything is evidence of existence; and reflecting upon that sensation allows us to empirically "prove" our own existence (even if only to ourselves).
The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be empty.
An interesting sig, though I don't know what the language-game is. It seems to depend upon your definition of "thing" and beg the question of defining a variable encompassing both "thing" and "empty".
This reminds me of another potentially confusing quote: "Nothing is too good for you... and that is exactly what you'll get." In this case, the differing definitions of the word "nothing" must be considered.
Ho hum... after re-reading this post, it seems rather arbitrary and silly, but seeing as I've already written it and I'm sleepy... bah.:)
I haven't mastered the art of the flip per se, but with the protocol of "flip, catch, then place on the back of your other hand", I can control the outcome by the feel of the coin (furtively flipping or not flipping as I place it on the back of my other hand).
This gleaned after an hour feeling up a coin and realizing that one side is smooth and the other is rough.
The page I linked to walks through several examples showing where IRV causes problems similar to our current voting method.
e.g. in close races with IRV, it is possible to cause your candidate to win by voting against him (A) and voting for a third-party (C) in order to eliminate the other major candidate (B) in run-off fashion.
i.e. the problem is the way IRV totally eliminates the lowest candidate to calculate the winner in non-trivial cases.
The site suggests another system called "Condorcet" which seems to be a much more fair and consistent way of calculating a winner.
In light of this new information, the paranoid in me is starting to think that IRV might be a superficial tactic for our appeasement, actually intended to further subjugate us.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I very much like your post, because it highlights an important point: fundamentally, the Bible (representative of Judeo-Christian beliefs) is not an analysis of physical processes (science) -- it is a history of a people and their social interaction with each other and with their God.
To look to the Bible for an explanation of gravity is obviously ridiculous because it does not even mention it. You might as well look to the law for scientific explanations. But to look to the Bible for how one should generally live their life can be instructive. Of course, any teaching can be perverted, even scientific ones -- though those may be more easily disproved than moral ones.
At its core, the Bible is a history with a context; not even always intended as instruction to future generations, but simply as a record of events. Sometimes it's even symbolic (e.g. the Garden of Eden story). To the extent that the Bible does describe the "supernatural," it is beyond which science will likely be able to prove or disprove in my lifetime.
However, I for one do believe that if God does exist and engages Himself in our reality, then we will find evidence of Him through our scientific pursuits, which is perhaps why stories like "Technology Spontaneously Combusts In Sicily" spark hope in people who have faith.
I cannot comment on those "religious leaders" who assign everything to a direct act of God, disallowing any more pertinent explanation, except to say that they are not everyone's religious leaders and do not represent everyone's religious beliefs.
Like other positive religions, Christianity not only provides a paragon of virtues (which forms the basis of much modern law), but can also provide peace and hope for the future beyond this life. Ultimately, however, if one does not believe that the precepts of a religion are useful for their daily lives, then there really is little point in believing.
Ah, but even that has its limits. In the not too distant future, I suspect that the analog hole will exist only as long as we use old equipment and software.
Unfortunately, there is heavy research into DRM techniques such as digital watermarks which survive DA/AD conversion. They can be distributed across the medium, making removal impossible without significantly deteriorating the quality. Not only could these watermarks be used stenographically to uniquely identify copies for legal prosecution, but also to hold DRM authorization information.
Of course, even with old analog equipment, forces like macrovision (V1,V2) are still trying to close the analog hole. So, at the very least, technically, it will be a hassle and more costly to break whatever DRM system is used.
I used to believe as you and your sibling poster, holding high my and my fellow engineer's technical skills, which gave me peace of mind that I would always retain my freedom. But I've grown to be saddened when I see such posts because that attitude breeds apathy.
Ultimately, the war will be won or lost through legislation and its enforcement, and currently, those of us interested in "fair use" and freedom are losing. Consider that even in the best case, what good is technical freedom if you are fined or thrown in jail for exercising it?
In this case Sun is probably taking advantage of the "system libraries" exception in GPL section 3
... i.e. this would technically shift the actual creation of a derivative work to the user, who in turn could not distribute the resulting app.
As another poster pointed out, the relevant parts of GNOME are actually LGPL. This is why KDE/QT is still not fully embraced by much of the community -- because QT is licensed under the GPL (on linux) and therefore cannot be used for proprietary apps. You can purchase a commercial license for QT, but I'm not sure if that would extend to the rest of KDE whose license must remain compatible with the GPL version.
But you make a good point -- in fact, it seems that it's not just "system libraries", but also compiler libraries (which seems like a loophole if someone distributes a proprietary compiler package with a bunch of proprietary libraries).
From the GPL FAQ:
I'm writing a Windows application with Microsoft Visual C++ (or Visual Basic) and I will be releasing it under the GPL. Is dynamically linking my program with the Visual C++ (or Visual Basic) run-time library permitted under the GPL?
Yes, because that run-time library normally accompanies the compiler or interpreter you are using.
Another aspect I've been pondering is defining "distribution" versus "usage". If the GPL only restricts distribution, then what is to prevent the creation of a program (to be invoked by users) that automatically downloads (from various sources) and combines GPL code and some proprietary code?
It seems like a loophole that I'm sure someone else has thought of, so I'm probably missing something. But without restricting certain modification or "usage" of a program, I'm not sure how this could be overcome.
It's not really about credit, but the form of the credit and technically incompatible licenses. GPL provides for credit in the copyright line as well as prominent notices of change.
From the GPL:
You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
From the GPL FAQ:
I want to get credit for my work. I want people to know what I wrote. Can I still get credit if I use the GPL?
You can certainly get credit for the work. Part of releasing a program under the GPL is writing a copyright notice in your own name (assuming you are the copyright holder). The GPL requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice.
I agree that it is a terrible shame that so many "free" licenses are subtley incompatible with one another, but such is the nature of law.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Computers only do what they are told (excepting "hardware failure", which is not the topic).
Shouldn't the validity of computational proofs be able to be determined by proving the meta-logic of the solver?
i.e. proving that a strategy for finding a proof is valid (and therefore trusting its results).
Maybe those wary mathematicians are just unaccustomed to working on a problem meta-logically, and prefer to find proofs directly themselves (with the meta-logic being defined solely within their own minds)?
In such cases, perhaps peer review should not require human verification of a computational proof, but rather another independent meta-logically valid computational proof?
Sounds like gravity waves.
:)
Do you know how fast these frames propagate outward? c?
Does this mean that most spinning objects will tend to stop spinning because they are pushing on other external bodies which are not orbiting them synchronously?
(sorry, I'm a relative physics newbie)
That's an interesting point:
... i.e. basically using other past human responses as its own response.
- What is the storage restrictions on a chatbot in the competition?
- Is it allowed to google for a reasonable human response to your statements?
- This is particularly interesting because, in this way (with a large enough db like the web), a chatbot could appear to be human, but we probably wouldn't consider this AI.
- If a chatbot reiterates something it downloads from the web, is that copyright infringement? In the case of humans, if we read something, I think we are generally allowed to quote it from memory.
Sorry for insulting your intelligence, but alas, on slashdot, you never can tell.
:)
Though "Captain Obvious" does have a nice ring to it...
... because it is indirectly dirty: IIRC, "fark" is intended to be a euphemism for "fuck".
So, not only is it amusing, it's also accurate (at least in popular parlance)... and perhaps not quite as confusing as saying "I've been slashdotted by cnn.com".
Perhaps in some cases a student may learn better from a good teacher than a good doer, but at least with the doer, the student can always learn from example.
:)
Plus, "persuasion" might even be considered a form of teaching, so the best doer may in fact be the best teacher.
All in all, the AC has a good point. Ultimately, though, the fact that it isn't a #1 best seller might be more illustrative of the limits of the power of persuasion and its haphazard effects than of the author's abilities.
Yeah, I was being a bit sloppy.
Perhaps I was being too strict; your terminology was mostly fine. Your sentence just confused me at first and I wanted to make sure we shared a common understanding of the word "prototype" in context. Please forgive me if I was discourteous.
You're absolutely correct that objects in prototype-based languages are often divided into "class" (prototype) and "instance" categories.
In fact, some prototype-based languages blur the line even further by involving the prototype directly in the inheritance hierarchy, exactly like classes. The only major difference is that the hierarchy is uniform and the prototype's own slots are copied rather than being dynamically created by the constructor / cloner.
Of course, the "clone" message handler could be written to do extra hidden processing like constructors, and constructors could be written to copy a portion of the class' attributes/slots into the new instance it creates, like prototypes.
With a flexible OO message dispatch system which is independent of the distinction between class and instance, prototypes and classes become practically identical.
Thanks for the insight
You're very welcome. I'm happy I could help.
In prototype-based languages, creation of new objects occurs by copying (cloning) existing objects. After copying, the clone is independent from the original -- changing one has no effect on the other (there is no Inheritance relationship between them).
Inheritance-style call (message) dispatch is handled through a slot named "parent" that every Object has. A call (message) that does not have an object-local slot (handler) is deferred to the objects referenced in the parent slot. In this way, objects can share the same parent and thus the same behaviour (unless locally overridden).
Note that when a clone is made, all slots in the original are copied to the clone, so the clone has the same parents as the original. Of course, after cloning, you can change any of the clone's slots independently from the original, including the "parent" slot.
Prototype languages are really not much different from class-based languages... they just split up the responsibilities a bit differently (and perhaps more uniformily).
I've been considering a PVR for a while, and I'm still rather conflicted. As far as I can tell the issues with a custom PVR are:
/.ers if they have a custom digital PVR setup. I've heard of external digital tuners which are changed via IR from the computer, but those seem like a hack, prone to error, and less controllable.
+ more flexible and future-proof (depending on what you buy)... a hardware MPEG-4 en/decoder might be even more future-proof.
+ ideally this would give more control over unwanted restrictions, like Macrovision, commercial skip, etc.
- much more expensive -- though if you already have a 800Mhz+ computer sitting around doing "nothing", they might be more comparable.
- have to manually deal with concerns such as noise, heat dissipation, size/shape, power consumption, etc., which can be at odds with having a flexible and upgradeable system.
- I think custom PVRs are primarily for analog cable users. This is actually ok for me since I am an analog cable user and, hopefully, if I want some digital service I could just stick in another PCI card (if I buy a larger system)... though, currently, it seems that such cards are either not available or not very popular (at least in the US)?
I'd be interested to hear from any
IMHO, if you are using DirectTV / DishNetwork then the corresponding TiVo is the way to go... especially with all the hacks I've heard about (e.g. networking, free guide, etc.). Of course, that locks you into their respective digital service, but that might not be so bad.
FYI:
This might be the PVR Hardware Database you were looking for.
BYOPVR also has some useful info.
and there really isn't a simple console (text-mode) editor geared for DOS/Windows users available on Linux.
;)). I've also found the simpler dtach to be useful at times.
I assume you are looking for an interface with the basic CUA (Windows) keybindings? Unfortunately, AFAIK, full support for CUA seems to be virtually impossible in the generic case of remote terminals (due to ESCaping keycodes and the ancient keyboard limitations kept alive by terminal emulators -- e.g. this is the reason you have to hit ESC twice in mc to register a single ESC), but in the specific case of the Linux Console (which has direct access to hardware), this is possible.
Many editors have CUA bindings, though to varying degrees of success. e.g. Emacs or Jed. Unfortunately, some of the time it feels like a hack and a few might even require manually modifying Linux's keymappings.
Perhaps the closest I've found is SetEdit, which is based on a port of the TurboVision text-mode windowing library, which is very comfortable for me since I used to use the old DOS Borland IDE, which also happens to have an OSS Linux version called Rhide.
I love text-mode and I think a lot could be done to improve it in Linux; particularly, "fixing" the ancient terminal system and providing for modular non-linear behavior. Sometimes I don't want to deal with the 100MB+ required for X (not to mention GNOME & KDE for apps that are dependent upon them), but I'd like a non-linear interface.
Screen is a step in the right direction, though it is not (initially) very user-friendly (not using Windows/CUA keybindings
I don't know why more non-linear text mode applications aren't created. I've found a few that are made as independent ncurses apps, but, ideally, I think they should all use some standard text windowing environment. Recently, I noticed Twin which looks familiar (tvision?), but doesn't seem to be very actively used... and I don't know if it supports CUA keybindings.
Hope this helps.
Please forgive my ignorance, but it just struck me:
- Can (i386) 32-bit code run in (AMD64) 64-bit mode?
- Must we abandon all 32-bit code when we switch to 64-bit mode?
It would be awesome if we could get the best of both worlds simultaneously: smaller 32-bit programs in most cases, and 64-bit for those (fewer?) applications where that would be more effective. Intel would have to compete in performance with the best of both modes.
If so, then GCC should compile to 32-bit mode when that would yield faster code, no? Or is there a penalty for switching back and forth between 32-bit and 64-bit mode?
Otherwise, Athlon64 would seem more like two (mutually exclusive) CPUs in one rather than an extension of i386. In which case, is it even possible to have a backwards compatible 64-bit extension of the kind I am describing?
Thanks in advance.
Can it really be manipulated so precisely? It seems to me that if the satellites' signals were manipulated, they would cause everyone in a large geographical area (how many sats are there?) who use that GPS system to calculate the wrong location.
Plus, if they were smart, their position could be roughly verified by other "old-fashioned" navigational means, so they probably couldn't mislead them on a large scale.
As others have mentioned, you can disable use of the Referrer tag in the header of http requests, just like browser identification... in fact, theoretically, you can set it to anything you want.
The only problem is that some sites depend upon your using a "proper" referrer tag... e.g. when downloading certain content. IIRC, GetRight includes the ability to take the referrer from the source download page for this purpose.
I don't see how segmenting names geographically is going to help much. At the very least, there would still be these battles within each country. At some level, a central registry is needed.
Organizations or companies might even try to register their name in every country they *might* do business in, for PR and to make it easier (and less confusing) for potential customers to find them.
Suing over similar names seems (mostly) ridiculous to me. Maybe it would be better to "force" domain names to be shared (using the next domain level to distinguish) in the case of a legitimate conflict?
Though I don't like using "force" to share, this solution is already voluntarily in effect in some cases... e.g. when you go to a site and at the top they say "if you are looking for X, go here."
The other downside with sharing domains is that businesses with shorter unique names (not requiring re-routing) might have an advantage.
Yeah, but are those stereotypes wrong?
Hrmmm... I mean, obviously they're wrong in my case, but I mean, you know, in general?
At least "muscle car dudes" have to lift heavy things, so they get *some* exercise.
Their more detailed analysis, that I also linked to previously, provides much better explanations (the bottom half of the page basically analyzes the USAPA point by point). I've verified several of them with the USC and they appear to be more accurate interpretations of the law (from my newbie perspective), while also providing some useful context to the individual topics (since the law is synergistic and open to interpretation).
With respect to your particular question of whether it is legal for government employees investigating "computer trespass" to perform wiretaps without a court order, it appears to be possible under 217 -- as long as the computer owner and operator (e.g. ISP) "authorizes" surveillance. To quote from the EFF analysis:
Note that I linked to the USC above so you could read the complete law yourself (it's at the bottom of the page).
IMHO, this law may prove to be fairly complex because, quite often, "computer trespass" occurs (at least in part) through legitimate users' accounts or means. Hence, in order to monitor a suspected computer trespasser, a legitimate user might be monitored, which seems to be in conflict with one of the implied requirements.
In addition, I'd like to illuminate a couple of points in the USAPA 216 MODIFICATION OF AUTHORITIES RELATING TO USE OF PEN REGISTERS AND TRAP AND TRACE DEVICES, which you quoted in a previous post:
1) "if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation..."
- If I understand correctly, "certified" is a very weak requirement... essentially, it is the government officially saying "we believe it is relevant" and not necessarily providing proof at that time.
2) "A) Where the law enforcement agency implementing an ex parte order under this subsection seeks to do so by installing and using its own pen register or trap and trace device..."
- Note that if an ISP's own equipment is used by the government for "wiretapping", the associated accountability does not apply.
- Perhaps this is why the government (through some other laws) is pushing all ISPs (e.g. Time Warner) to implement their own built-in wiretapping capabilities -- i.e. in order to obviate the legal requirement of accountability?
Here's a few more brief points I extracted from the EFF analysis on how the Patriot Act broadens the powers of law enforcement:
1) broader applicability of warrants:
- extending
I have thus far relied upon summaries, such as EFF's analysis of the USAPA, which obviously tends towards a particular viewpoint.
An even more brief summary seems to suggest at least two points you might be interested in:andIt looks like it might be section 202 of the USAPA that deals with "computer fraud and abuse offenses," which is one of those "fragment amendments" which I'm not up to copying/pasting/parsing.
So, as I understand it, the USAPA does not do away with the courts in the general case, but rather provides exceptions for requiring court approval including being "proximate" to a person under investigation and being suspected of "computer fraud and abuse offenses."
I also found a site called Slate that has an evaluation of the USAPA which might interest you.
It is also curious that your interpretation of the quoted passages seems very similar to how I understood the process to work prior to the Patriot Act, which begs the question of why this portion of the Patriot Act is necessary at all?
Actually, referencing and dereferencing are not the same thing as boxing.
Boxing is the act of taking a given Value (which does not have any inherent type info) and creating an equivalent Object (which has embedded type info).
Boxing is a solution to viewing everything as "Objects" while not requiring type information (e.g. a vtable) to be maintained with every binary block (e.g. ints, floats, etc.).
e.g. In some languages, every 'int' is an Object, which roughly means that it contains: 1) a vtable pointer AND 2) the actual int value.
Hence, these Int Objects are twice the size of what an 'int' needs to be. This is often silly since, in most cases, there is no need to abstract away the type of an 'int'.
I think the reason for the confusion is that 'Objects' exist on the heap and are passed by reference, while 'Values' (non-Objects) exist on the stack and are passed by value. Hence, it is the Values which need to be boxed in order to use them as Objects.
I suppose "cogito ergo sum" is actually a philosophical appeal to empiricism, since, to be meaningful, the logical assumption that "thinking implies existence" must be empirically self-evident.
i.e. sensing anything is evidence of existence; and reflecting upon that sensation allows us to empirically "prove" our own existence (even if only to ourselves).An interesting sig, though I don't know what the language-game is. It seems to depend upon your definition of "thing" and beg the question of defining a variable encompassing both "thing" and "empty".
This reminds me of another potentially confusing quote: "Nothing is too good for you... and that is exactly what you'll get." In this case, the differing definitions of the word "nothing" must be considered.
Ho hum... after re-reading this post, it seems rather arbitrary and silly, but seeing as I've already written it and I'm sleepy... bah.
I haven't mastered the art of the flip per se, but with the protocol of "flip, catch, then place on the back of your other hand", I can control the outcome by the feel of the coin (furtively flipping or not flipping as I place it on the back of my other hand).
This gleaned after an hour feeling up a coin and realizing that one side is smooth and the other is rough.
I agree with your underlying idea. I too was once a fan of IRV, but I recently learned (from other readers on slashdot!) about the problematic aberrations which can occur with run-off voting (instant or otherwise).
;)
:)
The page I linked to walks through several examples showing where IRV causes problems similar to our current voting method.
e.g. in close races with IRV, it is possible to cause your candidate to win by voting against him (A) and voting for a third-party (C) in order to eliminate the other major candidate (B) in run-off fashion.
i.e. the problem is the way IRV totally eliminates the lowest candidate to calculate the winner in non-trivial cases.
The site suggests another system called "Condorcet" which seems to be a much more fair and consistent way of calculating a winner.
In light of this new information, the paranoid in me is starting to think that IRV might be a superficial tactic for our appeasement, actually intended to further subjugate us.
Tin-foil hats for everyone!