I'm just installing Slackware on my mother's new Laptop.
With Openoffice, Firefox and other software, she won't notice the difference with windows.
The hardest part will be to teach her to write "51@ckw4r3 Ru13z"....
2003 : in april, AMD releases the Opteron, which has Palladium Hardwired. The AMD Athlon64 and Intel Prescott will follow. 2004 : the mass market of hardware is mainly converted to Palladium. 2005 : M$ releases Windows Longhorn, thus activating Palladium.
Hey, how do you get root on a DRM machine ? You can't, by definition of DRM.
Instead, there's a remote server which is root for you.
Now go watch your DRM movie instead of thinking about politics (which is forbidden anyway).
DRM is anticoncurrential
on
Linus on DRM
·
· Score: 1
It is _plain obvious_ from the Palladium specs that Microsoft is going to use it to shut down competition.
Each of the arguments used to pretend that DRM won't be used in an anticoncurrential way could have been used some years ago to pretend that file formats wouldn't be useds in such a way.
Ok, this post most probably won't be rated as 'informative' but too bad. I've got some karma to waste to tell how I'm feeling right now.
This is the lowest point since last June, when Palladium was announced. At that time I thought, if Americans want to sell their freedom to Valenti&Rosen, that's their problem, and this piece of suicidal legislation will never pass in Europe because Europe is just soooo cultivated - or so I thought.
Today, Europe's most cultivated country adopts the DMCA. The other european countries are likely to follow. Even the UK - who has always been good at preserving its freedom - will fall, because he won't dare to offend the US. France will fall in the end : although she likes very much to disagree with the US, and although she values citizenship higher than any economic consideration, she can't do much without Germany.
So, DMCA, Palladium, Longhorn, all that will be in Europe just as soon as in the USA. Palladium hardware is already being manufactured - think about the Opteron. The Palladium OS, Longhorn, will be released in 2005 or 2006. Somewhat later, when critical mass will be reached, the 'secure network' will be activated, thus cutting us from the mainstream network.
The question is no longer how to avoid it. The only thing that could have prevented it from happening was lack of international cooperation. Even the USA were not mighty enough to kill alone the internet. International cooperation was needed. There it is.
The question is how long it will take before people react. The main factors that are going to maintain them asleep are: 1) vast availability of media contents on the palladium network 2) patriotism, excited by fear (of terrorism, of piracy...) 3) ignorance : not everybody understands why palladium is so bad.
Reason 1) is definitely the most dreadful. Because 2) and 3) can only be temporary, or so I think. But think of the 'brave new world' book by Huxley and you'll understand how I feel about 1).
hey, I'm sacrificing 50 karma points to ask : *why* was my original post a troll ? I'm beginning to suspect you don't know what a troll is. Not every message you dislike is a troll !
Er, may I ask for some explanation as to why my parent message has been modded as 'troll' ? I really don't understand. Is Hilary Rosen slashdotting around here ?
Re:We must fear such a technology
on
8.6 GB Internet?
·
· Score: 1
Come on, the bottleneck is connection speed, not storage space, you know that. Even with a 9GB disk, you can download a film to watch for one evening... as soon as you've got an appropriate connection.
We must fear such a technology
on
8.6 GB Internet?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
that may be silly, but in the case this technology is actually developped, there will remain a crucial battle : the RIAA/MPAA (media lobbies) are going to be so scared by such a tech that they'll do all what they can so that it comes with some kind of DRM (digital rights managements).
In other words, such a technology would give a boost to legal attempts to allow hard DRM - as is today illegal under the liberty-preserving legislation of a lot of countries, especially in Europe.
Do not answer that the media lobbies aren't asked to give their opinions here. Because it is part of Microsoft's, Intel's and AMD's (to cite only 3 members of the vast TCPA alliance) strategy to maintain good relationships with the media companies in order to enlarge the computer market.
You know what I'm talking about - Palladium. I don't think it's necessary to insist on the fact that it would be a bad thing for us.
since the celebrated geometric interpretation does not seem to have convinced the masses, I thought it's be appropriate to present another interpretation. Would have been useless to repeat an interpretation they did already know.
my point was that numbers could be thought of as "multiplication operators" - the part on sqare roots did not pretend to any originality.
Re:Visualizing functions of a complex variable
on
Imagining Numbers
·
· Score: 1
great work ! btw, if you want to have fun, do that for a modular function like the j function. I did it a while ago and that was really beautiful !
If you want a good source for fourier formulas for the j function see for example S. Lang's book "Elliptic Functions".
you know, scientists aren't believers : if you don't give the proof they'll assume you don't have it - and hence you can't be trusted. So the fact Fermat said it was a bit too big to fit in the margin cannot not be taken too seriously...
Imagining Imaginaries
on
Imagining Numbers
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Here's a hint to imagine the complex number i.
(the mathematicians here will recognize that it's nothing more than a linear-algebraic interpretation of i ).
First let's reinterpret ordinary numbers. There are many ways to interprete them; here's one which can be (see below) generalized to complex numbers.
Take an ordinary number n. For example you may choose n=0 or -3 or 150 or sqrt(2)=1.4142... or pi=3.14159265... This is what's called a real number. Here's the interpretation of this number n that I'd like to propose to you:
You can think of n as multiplying everything by n. For example imagine you've got $10 and n=2. Then, after n has "acted" on your $10, you've got $20. On the other hand, if n=-1, you've got $-10, so you've got a debt.
Now, let's carry on the example when n=2. The question i'm asking is : is there another number x such that x does half the job of n ? That is, to let x act twice is the same as to let n act once ?
Answer : yes, such a number x exists and can even be choosed to be positive - it's called the square root of n. In the case n=2, we have x=1.4142...
At last, let's carry on the example where n=-1. Can we find a number i such that "to let i act twice is the same as to let n act once" ? In other words, is there any number i which does half of the job of -1 ? Well no real number does, but one introduces the new number i, which does the trick.
Personnally, this is as I think of i. These examples, with dollars, may seem oversimplified but it's a very deep interpretation of numbers, it's the main idea behind Linear Algebra. For example, in Algebraic Number Theory, the linear algebraic formalism is used to introduce concepts as fundamental as the degree, norm and trace of a field extension.
have you seen what books they recommend to 'learn maths of complex numbers' ? Ahlfors and Cartan ! Caution, these are books on complex analysis, not on complex numbers. Don't buy them unless you've got already a good acquaintance on complex numbers ! Moreover, there are other prerequisites for Cartan, like point-set topology and real analysis (don't know for Ahlfors).
and anyway, these are dated books. Cartan dates back to the 60's and Ahlfors is (imo) even older. The presentation is a bit heavy. I'm sure you can find better and cheaper books. (personnally I learned from Cartan but I didn't find it easy to read).
In my school, we run only *nix. There are a lot of benevole, voluntary students helping the other ones to start with these systems, and that works pretty nice.
I'm at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and we run FreeBSD on PCs. There are also a few Windows machines but they're unusable because of exterior attacks. (we have important scientific data on our hard drives).
So for us, using Windows is suicidal. In the case of an undergraduate-only college, of course, this problem does not exist, but security remains an important concern. In my opinion, this should be taken into account when computing the TCO of Windows.
GalCiv has such a bright AI that at most difficulty levels, not only doesn't it cheat, but it is defavorised against the human player - for example, if I understand well, it gets less money.
This has been made possible by the use of a multithreaded AI. To wit, whereas most turn-based games did 'think' only during a short lapse of time between the human's turns, GalCiv thinks continuously while the human is playing. So that allows for a much longer computation time.
GalCiv has already been used on Tom's Hardware to test the hyperthreading capacity of the new Pentium4 3GHz.
Moreover, there's a stuff called the 'Metaverse'. In short : after you end a game, you can automatically upload some crucial game data (your score, elements of your strategy...) to a central server which then deduces improvements to the game's AI. Then I guess you end up with a game which plays better.
The guys from the GalCiv team say it has already been working with the betatesters's games and has very significantly improved the game's AI.
The Riemann Hypothesis, in 'layman' terms, implies a precise statement concerning the statistical distribution of prime numbers.
Among its innumerable consequences, it would imply the existence of a polynomial (=not too slow for large numbers) and non-probabilistic (=sure-fire) algorithms to determine whether a number is prime or not. Which would be interesting for cryptography. Moreover, such an algorithm has already been written-down, but it is not very effective as for today.
But the greatest thing with the RH is that it is only a first step towards a unification of quantum physics and number theory.
I doubt very much of the validity of the currently discussed proof. First, if it was true, I would probably have heard of it; next, the most important program to prove it, the Deninger program, is sooo ambitious that one doesn't expect it to be fully accomplished in the next years. There is a lot of work to do.
... but a bio computer is going to be very slow at computations. This is because chemical phenomena are intrisically slow. So they might be better at AI or Shape Recognition, but they won't replace usual computers for any computing task.
It's more probable that these computers will have additionnal traditionnal circuits in them to allow for fast computations.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just installing Slackware on my mother's new Laptop. With Openoffice, Firefox and other software, she won't notice the difference with windows. The hardest part will be to teach her to write "51@ckw4r3 Ru13z"....
2003 : in april, AMD releases the Opteron, which has Palladium Hardwired. The AMD Athlon64 and Intel Prescott will follow.
2004 : the mass market of hardware is mainly converted to Palladium.
2005 : M$ releases Windows Longhorn, thus activating Palladium.
Internet has no future.
Hey, how do you get root on a DRM machine ? You can't, by definition of DRM.
Instead, there's a remote server which is root for you.
Now go watch your DRM movie instead of thinking about politics (which is forbidden anyway).
It is _plain obvious_ from the Palladium specs that Microsoft is going to use it to shut down competition.
Each of the arguments used to pretend that DRM won't be used in an anticoncurrential way could have been used some years ago to pretend that file formats wouldn't be useds in such a way.
Ok, this post most probably won't be rated as 'informative' but too bad. I've got some karma to waste to tell how I'm feeling right now.
:
This is the lowest point since last June, when Palladium was announced. At that time I thought, if Americans want to sell their freedom to Valenti&Rosen, that's their problem, and this piece of suicidal legislation will never pass in Europe because Europe is just soooo cultivated - or so I thought.
Today, Europe's most cultivated country adopts the DMCA. The other european countries are likely to follow. Even the UK - who has always been good at preserving its freedom - will fall, because he won't dare to offend the US. France will fall in the end : although she likes very much to disagree with the US, and although she values citizenship higher than any economic consideration, she can't do much without Germany.
So, DMCA, Palladium, Longhorn, all that will be in Europe just as soon as in the USA. Palladium hardware is already being manufactured - think about the Opteron. The Palladium OS, Longhorn, will be released in 2005 or 2006. Somewhat later, when critical mass will be reached, the 'secure network' will be activated, thus cutting us from the mainstream network.
The question is no longer how to avoid it. The only thing that could have prevented it from happening was lack of international cooperation. Even the USA were not mighty enough to kill alone the internet. International cooperation was needed. There it is.
The question is how long it will take before people react. The main factors that are going to maintain them asleep are
1) vast availability of media contents on the palladium network
2) patriotism, excited by fear (of terrorism, of piracy...)
3) ignorance : not everybody understands why palladium is so bad.
Reason 1) is definitely the most dreadful. Because 2) and 3) can only be temporary, or so I think. But think of the 'brave new world' book by Huxley and you'll understand how I feel about 1).
hey, I'm sacrificing 50 karma points to ask : *why* was my original post a troll ? I'm beginning to suspect you don't know what a troll is. Not every message you dislike is a troll !
Er, may I ask for some explanation as to why my parent message has been modded as 'troll' ? I really don't understand. Is Hilary Rosen slashdotting around here ?
Come on, the bottleneck is connection speed, not storage space, you know that. Even with a 9GB disk, you can download a film to watch for one evening... as soon as you've got an appropriate connection.
that may be silly, but in the case this technology is actually developped, there will remain a crucial battle : the RIAA/MPAA (media lobbies) are going to be so scared by such a tech that they'll do all what they can so that it comes with some kind of DRM (digital rights managements).
In other words, such a technology would give a boost to legal attempts to allow hard DRM - as is today illegal under the liberty-preserving legislation of a lot of countries, especially in Europe.
Do not answer that the media lobbies aren't asked to give their opinions here. Because it is part of Microsoft's, Intel's and AMD's (to cite only 3 members of the vast TCPA alliance) strategy to maintain good relationships with the media companies in order to enlarge the computer market.
You know what I'm talking about - Palladium. I don't think it's necessary to insist on the fact that it would be a bad thing for us.
AxelBoldt,
since the celebrated geometric interpretation does not seem to have convinced the masses, I thought it's be appropriate to present another interpretation. Would have been useless to repeat an interpretation they did already know.
alienmole,
my point was that numbers could be thought of as "multiplication operators" - the part on sqare roots did not pretend to any originality.
great work ! btw, if you want to have fun, do that for a modular function like the j function. I did it a while ago and that was really beautiful ! If you want a good source for fourier formulas for the j function see for example S. Lang's book "Elliptic Functions".
ahem, I wrote "cannot not", which of course should be read "cannot".
you know, scientists aren't believers : if you don't give the proof they'll assume you don't have it - and hence you can't be trusted. So the fact Fermat said it was a bit too big to fit in the margin cannot not be taken too seriously...
Here's a hint to imagine the complex number i. (the mathematicians here will recognize that it's nothing more than a linear-algebraic interpretation of i ).
:
First let's reinterpret ordinary numbers. There are many ways to interprete them; here's one which can be (see below) generalized to complex numbers.
Take an ordinary number n. For example you may choose n=0 or -3 or 150 or sqrt(2)=1.4142... or pi=3.14159265... This is what's called a real number. Here's the interpretation of this number n that I'd like to propose to you
You can think of n as multiplying everything by n. For example imagine you've got $10 and n=2. Then, after n has "acted" on your $10, you've got $20. On the other hand, if n=-1, you've got $-10, so you've got a debt.
Now, let's carry on the example when n=2. The question i'm asking is : is there another number x such that x does half the job of n ? That is, to let x act twice is the same as to let n act once ? Answer : yes, such a number x exists and can even be choosed to be positive - it's called the square root of n. In the case n=2, we have x=1.4142...
At last, let's carry on the example where n=-1. Can we find a number i such that "to let i act twice is the same as to let n act once" ? In other words, is there any number i which does half of the job of -1 ? Well no real number does, but one introduces the new number i, which does the trick.
Personnally, this is as I think of i. These examples, with dollars, may seem oversimplified but it's a very deep interpretation of numbers, it's the main idea behind Linear Algebra. For example, in Algebraic Number Theory, the linear algebraic formalism is used to introduce concepts as fundamental as the degree, norm and trace of a field extension.
have you seen what books they recommend to 'learn maths of complex numbers' ? Ahlfors and Cartan ! Caution, these are books on complex analysis, not on complex numbers. Don't buy them unless you've got already a good acquaintance on complex numbers ! Moreover, there are other prerequisites for Cartan, like point-set topology and real analysis (don't know for Ahlfors).
and anyway, these are dated books. Cartan dates back to the 60's and Ahlfors is (imo) even older. The presentation is a bit heavy. I'm sure you can find better and cheaper books. (personnally I learned from Cartan but I didn't find it easy to read).
... is a very famous number theorist.
His results have had a key role in Wiles's proof of Fermat's last theorem.
He's at Harvard - see his homepage.
In my school, we run only *nix. There are a lot of benevole, voluntary students helping the other ones to start with these systems, and that works pretty nice.
This question cannot be decided without taking into account the strategy of Microsoft.
2005 : MS releases Longhorn, which, according to MS, will require 1TB harddrive to run properly.
It will also come with the Palladium technology - which is ethically inacceptable, unless you're really, really, really patriotic.
It will be bitterly ironic to use such a machine to teach philosophy/ethics. Good luck to your grandfather.
I'm at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and we run FreeBSD on PCs. There are also a few Windows machines but they're unusable because of exterior attacks. (we have important scientific data on our hard drives).
So for us, using Windows is suicidal. In the case of an undergraduate-only college, of course, this problem does not exist, but security remains an important concern. In my opinion, this should be taken into account when computing the TCO of Windows.
GalCiv has such a bright AI that at most difficulty levels, not only doesn't it cheat, but it is defavorised against the human player - for example, if I understand well, it gets less money.
This has been made possible by the use of a multithreaded AI. To wit, whereas most turn-based games did 'think' only during a short lapse of time between the human's turns, GalCiv thinks continuously while the human is playing. So that allows for a much longer computation time.
GalCiv has already been used on Tom's Hardware to test the hyperthreading capacity of the new Pentium4 3GHz.
Moreover, there's a stuff called the 'Metaverse'. In short : after you end a game, you can automatically upload some crucial game data (your score, elements of your strategy...) to a central server which then deduces improvements to the game's AI. Then I guess you end up with a game which plays better.
The guys from the GalCiv team say it has already been working with the betatesters's games and has very significantly improved the game's AI.
The Riemann Hypothesis, in 'layman' terms, implies a precise statement concerning the statistical distribution of prime numbers. Among its innumerable consequences, it would imply the existence of a polynomial (=not too slow for large numbers) and non-probabilistic (=sure-fire) algorithms to determine whether a number is prime or not. Which would be interesting for cryptography. Moreover, such an algorithm has already been written-down, but it is not very effective as for today. But the greatest thing with the RH is that it is only a first step towards a unification of quantum physics and number theory. I doubt very much of the validity of the currently discussed proof. First, if it was true, I would probably have heard of it; next, the most important program to prove it, the Deninger program, is sooo ambitious that one doesn't expect it to be fully accomplished in the next years. There is a lot of work to do.
... but a bio computer is going to be very slow at computations. This is because chemical phenomena are intrisically slow. So they might be better at AI or Shape Recognition, but they won't replace usual computers for any computing task.
It's more probable that these computers will have additionnal traditionnal circuits in them to allow for fast computations.
-1 Troll would be appropriate. It's as if the author wanted to drive europeans crazy about America.
... they've drunk tooooo much magic potion.