flame? come on! jon shut down qbert, and it's what any self-respecting guy would have done!
without going back to look at it, qbert's question was like this: why do you talk to us when we know so much more than you do? it's the stupidest question in the world.
i don't particularly like katz, and i know nothing about qbert, but i would say that katz handled this question perfectly.
godel's theorem couldn't be further from relevant here.
science is completely different from mathematics in that you start from states of uncertainty and gradually become more certain one way or the other.
christianity predicts amazingly little, in the sense that astrology also predicts astonishingly little. where christianity predicts anything, it seems to be false:
example: the story of the flood together with the hypothesis that macro-evolution dosen't happen in 4000 years predicts that there should be a paucity of variety in land creatures since everything would have had to fit on the ark. by contrast, there is a plethora.
another example: the flood predicts that massive riverbeds such as the grand canyon should not exist. it does.
another example: creation theory predicts that we should never find evidence that the earth is older than 6000 years. we do.
wherever the theory of christianity makes a prediction, it is wrong.
you would like to bring mathematical or philosophical arguments to a scientific question. but healthy scientists do not take such arguments too seriously either because they are inapplicable (godel) or make too many assumptions (aristotle, descartes, st. augustine).
if you wanna convince me there's a god, then give me something that i've no choice but to chalk up to god. failing that, i won't believe in god or unicorns.
while i cannot answer your question directly, having never read behe myself, i can at least suggest the proper forum for you. on usenet, look at talk.origins, or on the web, www.talkorigins.org. michael behe used to write to the usenet group.
i would also recommend picking up richard dawkins' "the blind watchmaker" for a convincing take on the other side of this argument.
The problem with QM isn't that it can't be understood; maybe it can. The problem is that it isn't properly understood now. We know how it works for limited cases (small simple systems) but we don't really know its true boundaries, and therefore what other ramifications it might have that are as yet undiscovered.
that's also deceptive. yes, it's true that the equations describing quantum chemistry are only tractable for small systems. however, that's not the physicist's fault anymore--it's the damn computer scientists. if we could only get more FLOPS, we'd have it made. this is why it's said that everything involving just electrons, photons, and whole nuclei is in principle solved.
(source: richard feynman, the character of physical law and other of his works.)
by the way, that's still not to say that there's no more insight to be had. perhaps some mathematician or physicist will come up with a much simpler and more beautiful way of doing p-chem. until then, the problem remains in principle, solved.
cheers,
sh_
Re:How it works (I think...)
on
RNA Computer
·
· Score: 1
Quantum computing seems like a much cooler way to do these problems.
quantum computing not faster for this problem. why? because you have to get all possible solutions. if all you demand is a single solution, then possibly quantum computing is faster.
while it's true that a quantum computer could check all 512 possibilities at the same time, you can never ever get more than one answer in the end of the computation.
hey, let me say first that i think you are a very reasonable guy, and i like your way of arguing.
let me say, first, that i respect people's rights to GPL their code. (i don't actually think that was in question) furthermore, like open-source software. however, i don't think that GPL is necessary or even helpful for the adoption of open-source.
the fact is that people already recognize the value of open-source products and of open standards. hence people are today far less likely to be trapped by proprietary standards. what you are using AOL for today, you can use earthlink for tomorrow (not that you are using AOL).
so, if somebody tries to make a program whose value comes mostly from public domain software, and tries to distribute it as proprietary, people will laugh. otoh, if somebody makes a truly useful and original thing, and uses public domain code to do it, he deserves what he earns, and nobody's the poorer.
by contrast, if the original code was not public domain, but GPL, then it could never happen, and nobody's the richer. i am suprised that you don't find this distasteful.
Why, because you've decided that Slashdot is lame now and can't get over the fact that no one else shares your opinion?
no, i think there might be at least one other guy who thinks the same.
anyway, can you think of a better term than 'karma whore' for someone who posts +1 and the only thing he has to say is 'don't let the door hit you on the way out?' as if i was fucking leaving in the first place. if you can, i will be happy to use it next time:)
except that the analogy between murderers and people who write and sell software is not very good in a strict sense.
by choosing GPL, you are saying that you don't want to play with for-profit software writers who would presumably like to use your code and sell their product to others. by the way, what exactly are they being dishonest about?
incidentally, there is no need to use quotes when describing GPL as less free than other licenses. to the extent that GPL differs from the public domain, it is less free than the public domain. no quotes. less free.
haha, how much time did you waste writing that? fucking karma whore. look. i'm logged in. mod me down. karma is lame. and posting +1 because you wasted your time meta-mod'ing is as lame as your posts are (i am supposing you are WNight. if not, why do you waste your time defending his lame-ass posts). god, this makes me feel stupid for caring about/. once.
sh_
oh yea, i forgot: GPL sucks ass. (god forbid i should get "offtopic")
i don't think i heard anyone say in this thread that the GPL is useless. i believe the comment was that it is "complicated." also, i don't think anyone said that they don't care about the GPL, but rather that they find GPL'ed code to be less valuable than public domain code. i would characterize it as preference which is not apathy.
that having been said, you are certainly in the majority in this forum, especially since your post got mod'd up despite your having missed both of our points so well.
The developers of successful Open Source projects are its users.
you are right, but if the only guy using open source software is the developer. then we don't need any sort of forum like/. to talk about exchanging and publishing software. the author of this piece is concerned with how OSS fits the needs of the clueless user, not the developer, which is something that many are concerned with. if you don't see this as a valid concern on the part of the community, then that is a mistake on your part.
given their previous attempts at astroturfing, why should I assume this is any different?
so, your hypothesis is: John Bass and James Robinson == microsoft employees? if you're serious, why don't you put your sleuthing abilities to the test? you'll be a/. hero!
i would not go so far as to say that the authors were anyhow biased. they chose windows for the clearly stated reason that it had the best configuration tools. they also pointed out that win2k had a very nice security feature set (which is of course not the same as having good security--we will have to wait for l0pht and others to decide that).
and by the way: Why do I think this is more of an advertisement for Win2000, than a serious article? is pretty close to an ad hominem in the reporting business.
as a side note: why did/. run this under the title "Red Hat Finishes Last" ? it seems that the overall theme to the article was that these four OS'es each fill their nitch. i saw no references to ranks there.
i see. okay. then the FSF has no power to, on it's own, enforce a GPL violation involving code whose copyright belongs to somebody else--is that right?
this is a perfectly reasonable post, and usually it would be right, but...
i think i read somewhere in the GPL that in the process of GPL'ing the code, you give the copyright to the FSF. in that case, it seems that you would no longer be able to distribute the same program under a different license (the same way an employee of a software company wouldn't be able to sell his company's product).
anyway, i am not trying to slander the GPL, so if it dosen't say this, somebody just say "it dosen't say that" or whatever.
(i posted this to an earlier thread, but it seems relevant here too.)
what we need is some geneva conventions here. they should go like this:
industry: you have the right to encrypt your stuff however you want. if you fail, you have the right to prosecute people for illegal distribution, but not for circumventing the encryption.
would be crackers: if you can crack it, you can have it, BUT it is still illegal to sell cracked copies, as it is with other unprotected media.
it should be this way for only one reason: it is the most defensible (read: enforcable) way of drawing the lines! and even with readily available cracks, if there is no real money in piracy, which there won't be, then pirated movies will account for like 1% of the market, as it does with auido CD's.
first of all, i reject your distinction between incremental changes and fundamental defects. it dosen't really matter.
nevertheless, your point is: ford could have saved many lives cheaply. maybe you're right and maybe you're not. if you are, then they are stupid not to have. anyway, the only way to make your case is to do some real number crunching, which, despite your good technical descriptions, you haven't done. (neither, of course, have i)
what the jury fined ford several billion dollars wasn't for making a poor deisgn choice, but for putting a price on human life, which is something they simply have to do. unfortunately it's something that we, precious children of god, would rather not hear.
so, how the hell do you find out if the solution's reasonable? do a cost analysis and see if it's worth it. it will cost $4.2 million to save 1 life? not worth it--a similar investment in the frame would save 3 lives. end of story. the irrisponsible comapany is the one who, understanding, fixes the gas tank and not the frame.
as far as internalizing the externalities... they are already internilized for the following reason: people decline to buy fords when consumer reports says they are unsafe.
as far as the original analogy goes, it would be even more stupid to hold companies liable in the general case. if, on the other hand, the company is willing to guarantee that its software is resistant to certain types of attack, then let them make their own contracts!
But maybe what we need is a good Pinto case - wherein the bean counters at Ford decided that the cost of adding an 8 cent plastic cap to a bolt in front of the gas tank was more than the projected number of immolation-deaths per year. Jury-award was a record at the time, nailing Ford for hundreds of millions in punitive damages to demonstrate the moral repugnance of such calculation. Something to think about, at least.
a prof. of mine once said that this case showed the immaturity of our society. after all, you can always add, say, an ounce more of steel to the frame (or a damn plastic bolt to the gastank) and save a few deaths per year. I don't expect slashdotters to be a bunch of libertarians like me, but i do expect more sophistication than this jury had.
if you wanna cough up the cash for your safety, buy a volvo. cheers,
what we need is some geneva conventions here. they should go like this:
industry: you have the right to encrypt your stuff however you want. if you fail, you have the right to prosecute people for illegal distribution, but not for circumventing the encryption.
would be crackers: if you can crack it, you can have it, BUT it is still illegal to sell cracked copies, as it is with other unprotected media.
it should be this way for only one reason: it is the most defensible (read: enforcable) way of drawing the lines! and even with readily available cracks, if there is no real money in piracy, which there won't be, then pirated movies will account for like 1% of the market, as it does with auido CD's.
the idea of breaking MS this way has been discussed in a number of other forums and one of the themes which arises is that while what you propose (so called 'horizontal' breakup) would do the most to kill the monopoly, it also does the least good for the customer for various reasons. there is of course the danger (or the gurantee) that windows would fragment. while that would make joe slashdot happy, it wouldn't actually be much fun for the hoi paloi.
as for leaving the OS monopoly intact--what of it? the OS monopoly is a perfectly legal thing. what is illegal is for MS to push into other areas (applications, internet content, etc...) by leveraging this monopoly, and that's precisely what the DoJ is targeting. in this case, i must think that it is not the DoJ who needs to get a clue from slashdot, but perhaps the other way around.
Slashdot Mirror
damn, i was going to write this. if i had any moderator points, i'd mod this up, but i don't.
cheers.
sh_
that would be the biological tree, of course.
cheers,
sh_
flame? come on! jon shut down qbert, and it's what any self-respecting guy would have done!
without going back to look at it, qbert's question was like this: why do you talk to us when we know so much more than you do? it's the stupidest question in the world.
i don't particularly like katz, and i know nothing about qbert, but i would say that katz handled this question perfectly.
cheers,
sh_
godel's theorem couldn't be further from relevant here.
science is completely different from mathematics in that you start from states of uncertainty and gradually become more certain one way or the other.
christianity predicts amazingly little, in the sense that astrology also predicts astonishingly little. where christianity predicts anything, it seems to be false:
example: the story of the flood together with the hypothesis that macro-evolution dosen't happen in 4000 years predicts that there should be a paucity of variety in land creatures since everything would have had to fit on the ark. by contrast, there is a plethora.
another example: the flood predicts that massive riverbeds such as the grand canyon should not exist. it does.
another example: creation theory predicts that we should never find evidence that the earth is older than 6000 years. we do.
wherever the theory of christianity makes a prediction, it is wrong.
you would like to bring mathematical or philosophical arguments to a scientific question. but healthy scientists do not take such arguments too seriously either because they are inapplicable (godel) or make too many assumptions (aristotle, descartes, st. augustine).
if you wanna convince me there's a god, then give me something that i've no choice but to chalk up to god. failing that, i won't believe in god or unicorns.
thank you.
sh_
while i cannot answer your question directly, having never read behe myself, i can at least suggest the proper forum for you. on usenet, look at talk.origins, or on the web, www.talkorigins.org. michael behe used to write to the usenet group.
i would also recommend picking up richard dawkins' "the blind watchmaker" for a convincing take on the other side of this argument.
happy contemplation,
sh_
The problem with QM isn't that it can't be understood; maybe it can. The problem is that it isn't properly understood now. We know how it works for limited cases (small simple systems) but we don't really know its true boundaries, and therefore what other ramifications it might have that are as yet undiscovered.
that's also deceptive. yes, it's true that the equations describing quantum chemistry are only tractable for small systems. however, that's not the physicist's fault anymore--it's the damn computer scientists. if we could only get more FLOPS, we'd have it made. this is why it's said that everything involving just electrons, photons, and whole nuclei is in principle solved.
(source: richard feynman, the character of physical law and other of his works.)
by the way, that's still not to say that there's no more insight to be had. perhaps some mathematician or physicist will come up with a much simpler and more beautiful way of doing p-chem. until then, the problem remains in principle, solved.
cheers,
sh_
Quantum computing seems like a much cooler way to do these problems.
quantum computing not faster for this problem. why? because you have to get all possible solutions. if all you demand is a single solution, then possibly quantum computing is faster.
while it's true that a quantum computer could check all 512 possibilities at the same time, you can never ever get more than one answer in the end of the computation.
cheers,
sh_
hey, let me say first that i think you are a very reasonable guy, and i like your way of arguing.
let me say, first, that i respect people's rights to GPL their code. (i don't actually think that was in question) furthermore, like open-source software. however, i don't think that GPL is necessary or even helpful for the adoption of open-source.
the fact is that people already recognize the value of open-source products and of open standards. hence people are today far less likely to be trapped by proprietary standards. what you are using AOL for today, you can use earthlink for tomorrow (not that you are using AOL).
so, if somebody tries to make a program whose value comes mostly from public domain software, and tries to distribute it as proprietary, people will laugh. otoh, if somebody makes a truly useful and original thing, and uses public domain code to do it, he deserves what he earns, and nobody's the poorer.
by contrast, if the original code was not public domain, but GPL, then it could never happen, and nobody's the richer. i am suprised that you don't find this distasteful.
sh_
Why, because you've decided that Slashdot is lame now and can't get over the fact that no one else shares your opinion?
no, i think there might be at least one other guy who thinks the same.
anyway, can you think of a better term than 'karma whore' for someone who posts +1 and the only thing he has to say is 'don't let the door hit you on the way out?' as if i was fucking leaving in the first place. if you can, i will be happy to use it next time
sh_
except that the analogy between murderers and people who write and sell software is not very good in a strict sense.
by choosing GPL, you are saying that you don't want to play with for-profit software writers who would presumably like to use your code and sell their product to others. by the way, what exactly are they being dishonest about?
incidentally, there is no need to use quotes when describing GPL as less free than other licenses. to the extent that GPL differs from the public domain, it is less free than the public domain. no quotes. less free.
sh_
haha, how much time did you waste writing that? fucking karma whore. look. i'm logged in. mod me down. karma is lame. and posting +1 because you wasted your time meta-mod'ing is as lame as your posts are (i am supposing you are WNight. if not, why do you waste your time defending his lame-ass posts). god, this makes me feel stupid for caring about
sh_
oh yea, i forgot: GPL sucks ass. (god forbid i should get "offtopic")
i don't think i heard anyone say in this thread that the GPL is useless. i believe the comment was that it is "complicated." also, i don't think anyone said that they don't care about the GPL, but rather that they find GPL'ed code to be less valuable than public domain code. i would characterize it as preference which is not apathy.
that having been said, you are certainly in the majority in this forum, especially since your post got mod'd up despite your having missed both of our points so well.
sh_
GPL is not free. public domain is free. also, check out my
sh_
The developers of successful Open Source projects are its users.
/. to talk about exchanging and publishing software. the author of this piece is concerned with how OSS fits the needs of the clueless user, not the developer, which is something that many are concerned with. if you don't see this as a valid concern on the part of the community, then that is a mistake on your part.
you are right, but if the only guy using open source software is the developer. then we don't need any sort of forum like
cheers,
sh_
given their previous attempts at astroturfing, why should I assume this is any different?
so, your hypothesis is: John Bass and James Robinson == microsoft employees? if you're serious, why don't you put your sleuthing abilities to the test? you'll be a
well, i thought some of the same things, but...
/. run this under the title "Red Hat Finishes Last" ? it seems that the overall theme to the article was that these four OS'es each fill their nitch. i saw no references to ranks there.
i would not go so far as to say that the authors were anyhow biased. they chose windows for the clearly stated reason that it had the best configuration tools. they also pointed out that win2k had a very nice security feature set (which is of course not the same as having good security--we will have to wait for l0pht and others to decide that).
and by the way: Why do I think this is more of an advertisement for Win2000, than a serious article? is pretty close to an ad hominem in the reporting business.
as a side note: why did
i see. okay. then the FSF has no power to, on it's own, enforce a GPL violation involving code whose copyright belongs to somebody else--is that right?
this is a perfectly reasonable post, and usually it would be right, but...
i think i read somewhere in the GPL that in the process of GPL'ing the code, you give the copyright to the FSF. in that case, it seems that you would no longer be able to distribute the same program under a different license (the same way an employee of a software company wouldn't be able to sell his company's product).
anyway, i am not trying to slander the GPL, so if it dosen't say this, somebody just say "it dosen't say that" or whatever.
so, am i right?
sh_
...joke was funnier.
(i posted this to an earlier thread, but it seems relevant here too.)
what we need is some geneva conventions here. they should go like this:
industry: you have the right to encrypt your stuff however you want. if you fail, you have the right to prosecute people for illegal distribution, but not for circumventing the encryption.
would be crackers: if you can crack it, you can have it, BUT it is still illegal to sell cracked copies, as it is with other unprotected media.
it should be this way for only one reason: it is the most defensible (read: enforcable) way of drawing the lines! and even with readily available cracks, if there is no real money in piracy, which there won't be, then pirated movies will account for like 1% of the market, as it does with auido CD's.
first of all, i reject your distinction between incremental changes and fundamental defects. it dosen't really matter.
nevertheless, your point is: ford could have saved many lives cheaply. maybe you're right and maybe you're not. if you are, then they are stupid not to have. anyway, the only way to make your case is to do some real number crunching, which, despite your good technical descriptions, you haven't done. (neither, of course, have i)
what the jury fined ford several billion dollars wasn't for making a poor deisgn choice, but for putting a price on human life, which is something they simply have to do. unfortunately it's something that we, precious children of god, would rather not hear.
so, how the hell do you find out if the solution's reasonable? do a cost analysis and see if it's worth it. it will cost $4.2 million to save 1 life? not worth it--a similar investment in the frame would save 3 lives. end of story. the irrisponsible comapany is the one who, understanding, fixes the gas tank and not the frame.
as far as internalizing the externalities... they are already internilized for the following reason: people decline to buy fords when consumer reports says they are unsafe.
as far as the original analogy goes, it would be even more stupid to hold companies liable in the general case. if, on the other hand, the company is willing to guarantee that its software is resistant to certain types of attack, then let them make their own contracts!
But maybe what we need is a good Pinto case - wherein the bean counters at Ford decided that the cost of adding an 8 cent plastic cap to a bolt in front of the gas tank was more than the projected number of immolation-deaths per year. Jury-award was a record at the time, nailing Ford for hundreds of millions in punitive damages to demonstrate the moral repugnance of such calculation. Something to think about, at least.
a prof. of mine once said that this case showed the immaturity of our society. after all, you can always add, say, an ounce more of steel to the frame (or a damn plastic bolt to the gastank) and save a few deaths per year. I don't expect slashdotters to be a bunch of libertarians like me, but i do expect more sophistication than this jury had.
if you wanna cough up the cash for your safety, buy a volvo. cheers,
sh_
what we need is some geneva conventions here. they should go like this:
industry: you have the right to encrypt your stuff however you want. if you fail, you have the right to prosecute people for illegal distribution, but not for circumventing the encryption.
would be crackers: if you can crack it, you can have it, BUT it is still illegal to sell cracked copies, as it is with other unprotected media.
it should be this way for only one reason: it is the most defensible (read: enforcable) way of drawing the lines! and even with readily available cracks, if there is no real money in piracy, which there won't be, then pirated movies will account for like 1% of the market, as it does with auido CD's.
the idea of breaking MS this way has been discussed in a number of other forums and one of the themes which arises is that while what you propose (so called 'horizontal' breakup) would do the most to kill the monopoly, it also does the least good for the customer for various reasons. there is of course the danger (or the gurantee) that windows would fragment. while that would make joe slashdot happy, it wouldn't actually be much fun for the hoi paloi.
as for leaving the OS monopoly intact--what of it? the OS monopoly is a perfectly legal thing. what is illegal is for MS to push into other areas (applications, internet content, etc...) by leveraging this monopoly, and that's precisely what the DoJ is targeting. in this case, i must think that it is not the DoJ who needs to get a clue from slashdot, but perhaps the other way around.