Well, I'm not the OP, but I think the point is that it's not just an "old saying" -- it's from the notorious Supreme Court decision that found an exemption in the First Ammendment that isn't there. The phrase "clear and present danger" (also commonly used to excuse infringements of civil rights) originates in the same case.
It's not really a question of raw computational power (if that can even be measured in the human brain). What we lack, for now, is the software to make an artificial mind. Contrary to a lot of bad SF, computers won't become sentient just by throwing more storage and CPU power at them.
I have no problem believing that Blue Gene/L will be 1.8 times as "powerful" as a human brain. But it still won't pass the Turing Test.
In 1988, on the first BBS I ever called, I found a vulnerability one day. It was a configuration error that allowed any user to elevate themselves to sysop status. Thinking I was being helpful, I reported it to the sysop. The next call, I was shocked to find myself locked out. Eventually the co-sysop persuaded the sysop to let me back on, but I was "on probation".
So of course I learned my lesson, and I never reported any vulnerability to anyone, ever again. Found them, though.
Here's my favorite: On my first ISP (shell account), files in/var/spool/mail/ were set readable and writable by the "mail" group. Also, "pine" was setgid mail. I could start pine, Compose a new message, and then ^R anybody's inbox right into it. One of the sysadmins had three megs of messages in his inbox, and some of them included credit card numbers. But like I say, I'd learned my lesson; I reported nothing. (Don't worry, that ISP later got assimilated by a bigger one, and that particular email system is long gone.)
I don't even have a problem with people illegally downloading that stuff.
Moby has said something very similar, as have others. But it would be incorrect to classify this as "giving away their music". He can say he doesn't have a problem with it, but it's still illegal. He hasn't taken the steps to make it legal, which of course he very well could do (and which, in this case, is what Pearl Jam is doing). Either he doesn't realize that, or he just wants to have it both ways.
Works pretty well, I'd say. If somebody ever comes out and starts telling secrets, they are immediately branded a "giant conspiracy nutjob." And after that.... and after that nothing. Nobody pays attention to them any more.
But people would pay attention to them, if they had any evidence. When they don't, they are rightly ignored.
And hey, not all adults are in on the Santa Claus conspiracy. I think it's despicable. I have no kids, but if and when I do, I will not knowingly teach them to believe in lies. Not Santa Claus, not God... and not UFOs.
You're not the only one. The advertisers gave up on it, too. Computer Shopper has shrunk, from being possibly the largest magazine ever published, to something quite thin, probably below average in size. If they shrink it any more it'll be a digest.
I agree with you about the non-PC stuff. But they kept it up longer than anyone else, I think (at least, any generalist computer publication).
That's more or less how it looks here, too. I don't get why people a) often favor such tiny fonts, and b) never seem to even consider flexible layout. It's not like it's hard.
My issue with the article is that he says at the end, "I[n] some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux," but never says what those ways are.
I don't think "stopped our evolution" is quite the right way to look at it. Rather, our cultural evolution just vastly outpaces our biological evolution... which continues at its old (slow) pace, but has been rendered largely irrelevant to the future of the species.
Re:The problem of nerve impulse conduction (and..)
on
An Alternate Human
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· Score: 1
Five digits go back way, way before our ancestors could throw things. I think it's basically a leftover -- four or six would probably work just as well, but there's been no selection pressure in either direction. But some of our cousins, whose ancestors also started with five digits, have changed -- e.g., horses, who pared down to just one.
I don't want the close button on a window to be large because that makes it easy to hit by accident.
You know, you can shrink the close button (along with the rest of the titlebar) without having to switch to Classic. (Display Properties, Appearance, Advanced...)
Most consumers bought XP for the playschool GUI, not for core enhancements.
Most consumers didn't buy XP -- it came with their new computers. It will be the same with Vista. (So, yes, I do think that most people will be using Aero, eventually.)
So why did you (I assume) choose NetBSD over Linux and the other BSDs?
I ran NetBSD on a Mac SE/30 for a while, as it was the most advanced free *nix for the system at the time. But it was never my primary system. Nowadays my main contact with it is at SDF (freeshell.org). They run on Alphas, which (combined with the sysadmin's hatred of Linux) I think has something to do with their choice of NetBSD.
You know I actually have more respect for the fundies than I do for people like you. It's one thing to believe in a two thousand year-old fairytale, but it's another thing entirely to pick out the bits of the fairytale you like and call the rest silly. That evokes the "that's no different to simply making shit up" response in me.
I second that. People who say "you can reconcile science and religion" are either kidding themselves, or (in most cases) just haven't thought about it very deeply.
To nowhere.elysium: The only sane way out is to start by recognizing a fairy tale for what it is. And no, you won't be overcome by existential loneliness, whatever that is. I've been an atheist for, let's see, 23 years. If you ask me, "Why are we here?", I'll just answer you "Why not?". Any "meaning" that you give to life, you'll have to make for yourself. And after all, that's no different than what we, as a species, have always done.
(Why does the idea of God help with that, anyway? Sure, "God has a plan for you". But do you have a plan for yourself? What if you don't like God's plan?)
I find I *do* get Wikipedia results near the top for many of my queries lately... and I've started going there directly and skipping Google sometimes. I agree, I'm rarely disappointed. If I consult several sources, Wikipedia is usually the best.
Britannica may or may not be more reliable for the subjects it covers, but it's also limited in scope. Would Britannica have an article about Matisyahu, for example? Britannica's front page claims 120,000 articles; Wikipedia, over a million, just for the English edition.
Show me a CRT that can display a straight line. Or a pixel -- an actual pixel, instead of a blob.
All display technologies have their trade-offs. As for the LCD I'm looking at right now (a Samsung SyncMaster 172N), I've never seen the slightest motion blur on it, and any theoretical deficit it may have in contrast ratio is more than made up for by its nigh-infinite sharpness. I don't miss my CRTs, and I wouldn't go back.
Yes, I do the same; but I've noticed a trend... My oldest computers, things like a TRS-80 CoCo 3, still work fine. In my XT, the hard drive died only recently (of course it didn't even have a hard drive originally). My 486 lasted for over ten years... an AMD K6-500 about four years, and my Athlon 700 about three years. So I fear that collecting old computers may turn out to be a self-limiting phenomenon.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I'm not the OP, but I think the point is that it's not just an "old saying" -- it's from the notorious Supreme Court decision that found an exemption in the First Ammendment that isn't there. The phrase "clear and present danger" (also commonly used to excuse infringements of civil rights) originates in the same case.
r owded_theater
Let's see... here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_c
It's not really a question of raw computational power (if that can even be measured in the human brain). What we lack, for now, is the software to make an artificial mind. Contrary to a lot of bad SF, computers won't become sentient just by throwing more storage and CPU power at them.
I have no problem believing that Blue Gene/L will be 1.8 times as "powerful" as a human brain. But it still won't pass the Turing Test.
We'll get there, though.
Generating revenue is the site's problem, not yours. If it still bothers you, subscribe.
In 1988, on the first BBS I ever called, I found a vulnerability one day. It was a configuration error that allowed any user to elevate themselves to sysop status. Thinking I was being helpful, I reported it to the sysop. The next call, I was shocked to find myself locked out. Eventually the co-sysop persuaded the sysop to let me back on, but I was "on probation".
/var/spool/mail/ were set readable and writable by the "mail" group. Also, "pine" was setgid mail. I could start pine, Compose a new message, and then ^R anybody's inbox right into it. One of the sysadmins had three megs of messages in his inbox, and some of them included credit card numbers. But like I say, I'd learned my lesson; I reported nothing. (Don't worry, that ISP later got assimilated by a bigger one, and that particular email system is long gone.)
So of course I learned my lesson, and I never reported any vulnerability to anyone, ever again. Found them, though.
Here's my favorite: On my first ISP (shell account), files in
The tadpole looks interesting, but... where would I buy one? They don't even have prices on their web site.
I'd still invest (if I could) -- because I'd count on other people being excited and not reading the prospectus.
And hey, not all adults are in on the Santa Claus conspiracy. I think it's despicable. I have no kids, but if and when I do, I will not knowingly teach them to believe in lies. Not Santa Claus, not God... and not UFOs.
You're not the only one. The advertisers gave up on it, too. Computer Shopper has shrunk, from being possibly the largest magazine ever published, to something quite thin, probably below average in size. If they shrink it any more it'll be a digest.
I agree with you about the non-PC stuff. But they kept it up longer than anyone else, I think (at least, any generalist computer publication).
That's more or less how it looks here, too. I don't get why people a) often favor such tiny fonts, and b) never seem to even consider flexible layout. It's not like it's hard.
There are pro-Windows forums?
My issue with the article is that he says at the end, "I[n] some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux," but never says what those ways are.
I don't think "stopped our evolution" is quite the right way to look at it. Rather, our cultural evolution just vastly outpaces our biological evolution... which continues at its old (slow) pace, but has been rendered largely irrelevant to the future of the species.
Five digits go back way, way before our ancestors could throw things. I think it's basically a leftover -- four or six would probably work just as well, but there's been no selection pressure in either direction. But some of our cousins, whose ancestors also started with five digits, have changed -- e.g., horses, who pared down to just one.
0 42_01.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/2/l_
It seems to be a rule that every company with a three-word name eventually drops the name in favor of the abbreviation. Most times it makes no sense.
So why did you (I assume) choose NetBSD over Linux and the other BSDs?
I ran NetBSD on a Mac SE/30 for a while, as it was the most advanced free *nix for the system at the time. But it was never my primary system. Nowadays my main contact with it is at SDF (freeshell.org). They run on Alphas, which (combined with the sysadmin's hatred of Linux) I think has something to do with their choice of NetBSD.
To nowhere.elysium: The only sane way out is to start by recognizing a fairy tale for what it is. And no, you won't be overcome by existential loneliness, whatever that is. I've been an atheist for, let's see, 23 years. If you ask me, "Why are we here?", I'll just answer you "Why not?". Any "meaning" that you give to life, you'll have to make for yourself. And after all, that's no different than what we, as a species, have always done.
(Why does the idea of God help with that, anyway? Sure, "God has a plan for you". But do you have a plan for yourself? What if you don't like God's plan?)
I find I *do* get Wikipedia results near the top for many of my queries lately... and I've started going there directly and skipping Google sometimes. I agree, I'm rarely disappointed. If I consult several sources, Wikipedia is usually the best.
More than that: Wikipedia is what Hypertext was originally meant to me. (See... well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext ) And boy is it fun!
Britannica may or may not be more reliable for the subjects it covers, but it's also limited in scope. Would Britannica have an article about Matisyahu, for example? Britannica's front page claims 120,000 articles; Wikipedia, over a million, just for the English edition.
Show me a CRT that can display a straight line. Or a pixel -- an actual pixel, instead of a blob.
All display technologies have their trade-offs. As for the LCD I'm looking at right now (a Samsung SyncMaster 172N), I've never seen the slightest motion blur on it, and any theoretical deficit it may have in contrast ratio is more than made up for by its nigh-infinite sharpness. I don't miss my CRTs, and I wouldn't go back.
Yes, I do the same; but I've noticed a trend... My oldest computers, things like a TRS-80 CoCo 3, still work fine. In my XT, the hard drive died only recently (of course it didn't even have a hard drive originally). My 486 lasted for over ten years... an AMD K6-500 about four years, and my Athlon 700 about three years. So I fear that collecting old computers may turn out to be a self-limiting phenomenon.