The people who put up the capital for the cables get paid. And it doesn't make any difference to the cost of internet access for Australians whether those people are Americans of Australians.
What is different is that American internet users will be paying their fair share of the costs of those cables.
I really recommend "River Out of Eden", by Richard Dawkins as a short, accessible and fascinating book about the beauty of evolutionary theory.
I expect it will be more detailed than the coverage you get in class -- and evolution is so amazing that it deserves to be better understood by everyone.
In what way is it amazing? I suppose because it explains so much with such simple principles, and because our lives as humans depend so much on what evolution has 'done' in the past.
Perhaps someone else can recommend to you a book on Creationism?
...is that it avoids any argument about whether a program is really intelligent or actually 'understands' by defining intelligence as behaving sufficiently like a human (ignoring the physical aspects of humanity) that other humans accept it as one.
This isn't easy at all -- imagine asking a computer program to not only suggest a move in a chess game, but to write a poem about a subject of your choosing, compare and contrast two public figures, and so on.
I don't think any of this can be done without a *deep* understanding of language and human culture.
Of course there are *many* very useful things for AI to achieve which fall short of passing the Turing test -- in fact I think by the time we can pass the Turing test we'll probably have achieved everything else -- except super-human intelligence, but perhaps that's just a matter of cranking up the clock speed:-)
As someone else pointed out, you still need to dial your ISP in the stand-alone case.
You seem to be assuming in the HTML case that you are using a free email service somewhere out on the net.
If you were buying the email service from your ISP (as you are in the standalone case) there wouldn't need to be any banner ads, and connectivity would be just as reliable as it is to the POP server in the first case.
As fast internet connections (cable/xDSL) become more common, web based applications will become useful for a wider range of applications.
ActiveX is not cross platform (nor is it secure), but Java applets can be, as long as you can find a browser for your platform which supports a reasonable version...
I believe Sun arranged for Borland to port their JBuilder IDE to Solaris. This product is now in beta.
Apparently this is a 100% Java product, so it is also expected to be available for Linux, assuming the Linux JVM is up to it...
JBuilder on NT is a good product, so if the 100% Java conversion doesn't slow it down too much (and JBuilder 3 is 80% Java already) this is certainly something to look forward to.
- An Australian sees a URL they object to. - They apply to the Australian Broadcasting Authority to have the content rated. - If the ABA classifies it as restricted content, then if it is hosted in Australia the hosting ISP must remove the content. - If it is hosted outside Australia, the the ISP must take the action prescribed in the industry code of content. This action is just that the ISP must have made available to their users some filtering software which filters URLs classified as restricted content.
There is *no* obligation on the end user to use the filtering software. The *only* legal obligation is for the ISP to adhere to the industry code of content, i.e. make the filtering software available.
The filtering software doesn't need to be net-nanny like -- it doesn't need to use keywords, it just blocks a particular set of sites.
And to reiterate, you *don't* have to run the software.
Firstly, you *don't* have to use filtering software -- your ISP has to make filtering software available to you.
The filtering software they provide must be on a list approved by the IIA. It *won't* use keyword filtering, it will use a list of URLs which have been classified as prohibited content. The list will be supplied by the ABA.
No doubt the sites on the list will consider it good advertising!
Rob, my reading of the code is that your customers *don't* have to tell you they have filtering software -- you just have to make the software available to them.
If they say they do have it, then you don't even have to make it available.
Most people responding to this post seem not to have looked at the code of practice itself, or the useful explanation of the code from the IIA.
Looking at section 12B, all that an ISP is required to do is to "make available to those subscribers, whether for a charge or otherwise, at least one of the facilities, products or services as set out in Schedule 1 of this Code."
[Schedule to be entitled "SCHEDULE 1: Content Control Options". This schedule will include a list of alternative content control measures including client side filtering, optional differentiated services, password controlled limited access systems and other like products or services, provided that those measures are capable of periodical updates so as to cause the exclusion, where practicable, of Prohibited Content, according to information provided in confidence to the suppliers of such measures by the ABA.]
You do *not* have to promise to use it, and there is *no* legal requirement to use it. You are not committing a criminal offence if you don't use the filtering software.
Your ISP doesn't even need to include using the software in your terms of service.
ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO YOU!
If you tell your ISP (truthfully or otherwise) that you already have and use a filter then they don't have to make it available to you.
So the worst case is that you get charged a few dollars for a bit of software you don't use. I think that most ISPs will either absorb the cost or find a free filter. Remember that the filter doesn't have to be sophisticated. It doesn't look for keywords or use rating protocols, it just blocks a list of URLs supplied by the ABA.
Sorry to make this seem less exciting, but I think that the IIA has done a good job -- as long as the ABA agrees to register the code.
And if it discourages seppos from settling here, perhaps we have something to thank Alston for too!:-)
I'm pretty sure that the treads *are* geometry -- look at the edge of the tread against the background. However this means that the second tyre has perhaps 50 times as many polygons as the first, not the 3-4 times that the chip *might* provide. So yes, the pictures are just hype.
No, you would be required to stop providing access to www.hardcore.com using the mechanisms defined in the ISP code of conduct, which will be worked out by ISPs and certified by the ABA.
I think that a service like http://www.anonymizer.com allows one to sidestep blocking of particular IP addresses very nicely -- unless of course the legislation was interpreted as requiring that Australian ISPs had to block access to such services.
I suspect it wouldn't be, and I think that providing such a service -- even in Australia -- may be legal. The person providing the service is (probably) not an internet carriage service under the act, and isn't hosting internet content either, and so isn't subject to the act. This would make an interesting test case!
I'm pretty sure that providing such a service to Australians wouldn't make anyone subject to extradition.
At worst we might need a service which emails the contents of a URL to you -- that is certainly legal, even if the email contains prohibited content.
The law doesn't cover mailing lists -- email is explicitly excluded, newsgroups are explicitly included.
As to adults supervising children, the law intends that all Australian ISPs will sign up to a code of conduct which will include:
"(d) giving parents and responsible adults information about how to supervise and control children's access to Internet content;
(e) procedures to be followed in order to assist parents and responsible adults to supervise and control children's access to Internet content;"
Under the act, the Australian Broadcasting Authority also has a responsibility to advise parents about supervision.
There is no requirement placed on parents to supervise their children, and no requirement placed on ISPs to ensure that children are supervised while they use the ISPs services.
Some posters have said that any information stored on a host is subject to classification. This isn't the case, as the information also has to be available for access via an ISP.
The interesting thing will be to see what the ABA accepts as the means of dealing with offshore prohibited content. This will be defined in the ISP's code of practice.
This is where the next battle will be fought, and the result won't necessarily be a requirement for filtering at each ISP. The law isn't clear (to me) on when a code can be judged 'deficient' by the ABA and overruled.
I'm very glad that we don't have a (government owned) telecoms monopoly any more, or the government might have considered filtering content at a single point.
Bull's EJB server is easy to set up and works well, as far as I can tell from the limited experience I've had with it. It seems to be significantly faster than EJBHome, for instance.
Not having used either, perhaps I shouldn't comment:-)
But what I'd worry about are:
-- Does mysql handle concurrency? Remember that you may have several requests being processed at once by your web server.
-- Is PHP3 a 'real' programming language? That is, are you going to reach a point where it is not powerful or efficient enough to do what you want? When you reach this point can you easily use a third tier written in a different languiage? Note that PHP3 & a database doesn't count as three tier IMHO -- I don't think the browser is really a tier any more than a VT100 is.
Java application servers can provide a 'solution' (there's that word again) using Servlets/JSP in the first tier, Beans (or Enterprise Beans) in the second and the relational database of your choice in the third.
That second tier contains most of your 'business rules' expressed in a good programming language, the first tier handles presentation.
Compared to PHP3/mysql you've separated the programming from the presentation more cleanly, and only need one language.
Slashdot Mirror
Have a look at floppyfw
The people who put up the capital for the cables get paid. And it doesn't make any difference to the cost of internet access for Australians whether those people are Americans of Australians.
What is different is that American internet users will be paying their fair share of the costs of those cables.
Tom
If you are interested, why not read a few books?
I really recommend "River Out of Eden", by Richard Dawkins as a short, accessible and fascinating book about the beauty of evolutionary theory.
I expect it will be more detailed than the coverage you get in class -- and evolution is so amazing that it deserves to be better understood by everyone.
In what way is it amazing? I suppose because it explains so much with such simple principles, and because our lives as humans depend so much on what evolution has 'done' in the past.
Perhaps someone else can recommend to you a book on Creationism?
Abortion and the death penalty are moral issues. Evolution vs. creationism is not a moral issue, it is a matter of fact.
...is that it avoids any argument about whether a program is really intelligent or actually 'understands' by defining intelligence as behaving sufficiently like a human (ignoring the physical aspects of humanity) that other humans accept it as one.
:-)
This isn't easy at all -- imagine asking a computer program to not only suggest a move in a chess game, but to write a poem about a subject of your choosing, compare and contrast two public figures, and so on.
I don't think any of this can be done without a *deep* understanding of language and human culture.
Of course there are *many* very useful things for AI to achieve which fall short of passing the Turing test -- in fact I think by the time we can pass the Turing test we'll probably have achieved everything else -- except super-human intelligence, but perhaps that's just a matter of cranking up the clock speed
As someone else pointed out, you still need to dial your ISP in the stand-alone case.
You seem to be assuming in the HTML case that you are using a free email service somewhere out on the net.
If you were buying the email service from your ISP (as you are in the standalone case) there wouldn't need to be any banner ads, and connectivity would be just as reliable as it is to the POP server in the first case.
As fast internet connections (cable/xDSL) become more common, web based applications will become useful for a wider range of applications.
ActiveX is not cross platform (nor is it secure), but Java applets can be, as long as you can find a browser for your platform which supports a reasonable version...
What attributes of an EJB server make it high or low end?
For instance, what makes Bulls EJB low end?
Is Oracle's EJB server in 8i high end? (aside from it not doing entity beans AFAIK)
JBuilder 2.01 and 3.0 are OK stability-wise in my experience. What version/environments have you had problems with?
I agree that VisualAge is nice.
Which IDEs did you look at? I'd consider JBuilder and Visual Age to both 'not suck'.
I believe Sun arranged for Borland to port their JBuilder IDE to Solaris. This product is now in beta.
Apparently this is a 100% Java product, so it is also expected to be available for Linux, assuming the Linux JVM is up to it...
JBuilder on NT is a good product, so if the 100% Java conversion doesn't slow it down too much (and JBuilder 3 is 80% Java already) this is certainly something to look forward to.
In "An Anthropologist on Mars" Saks makes a similar speculation in passing.
It's a fascinating book.
The process works like this:
- An Australian sees a URL they object to.
- They apply to the Australian Broadcasting Authority to have the content rated.
- If the ABA classifies it as restricted content, then if it is hosted in Australia the hosting ISP must remove the content.
- If it is hosted outside Australia, the the ISP must take the action prescribed in the industry code of content. This action is just that the ISP must have made available to their users some filtering software which filters URLs classified as restricted content.
There is *no* obligation on the end user to use the filtering software. The *only* legal obligation is for the ISP to adhere to the industry code of content, i.e. make the filtering software available.
The filtering software doesn't need to be net-nanny like -- it doesn't need to use keywords, it just blocks a particular set of sites.
And to reiterate, you *don't* have to run the software.
Does that make things clearer?
Firstly, you *don't* have to use filtering software -- your ISP has to make filtering software available to you.
The filtering software they provide must be on a list approved by the IIA. It *won't* use keyword filtering, it will use a list of URLs which have been classified as prohibited content. The list will be supplied by the ABA.
No doubt the sites on the list will consider it good advertising!
Rob, my reading of the code is that your customers *don't* have to tell you they have filtering software -- you just have to make the software available to them.
If they say they do have it, then you don't even have to make it available.
Have I got the wrong end of the stick?
Tom
The Australian government can't ban a site. Only the ABA can do that.
Looking at section 12B, all that an ISP is required to do is to "make available to those subscribers, whether for a charge or otherwise, at least one of the facilities, products or services as set out in Schedule 1 of this Code."
[Schedule to be entitled "SCHEDULE 1: Content Control Options". This schedule will include a list of alternative content control measures including client side filtering, optional differentiated services, password controlled limited access systems and other like products or services, provided that those measures are capable of periodical updates so as to cause the exclusion, where practicable, of Prohibited Content, according to information provided in confidence to the suppliers of such measures by the ABA.]
You do *not* have to promise to use it, and there is *no* legal requirement to use it. You are not committing a criminal offence if you don't use the filtering software.
Your ISP doesn't even need to include using the software in your terms of service.
ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO YOU!
If you tell your ISP (truthfully or otherwise) that you already have and use a filter then they don't have to make it available to you.
So the worst case is that you get charged a few dollars for a bit of software you don't use. I think that most ISPs will either absorb the cost or find a free filter. Remember that the filter doesn't have to be sophisticated. It doesn't look for keywords or use rating protocols, it just blocks a list of URLs supplied by the ABA.
Sorry to make this seem less exciting, but I think that the IIA has done a good job -- as long as the ABA agrees to register the code.
And if it discourages seppos from settling here, perhaps we have something to thank Alston for too! :-)
I'm pretty sure that the treads *are* geometry -- look at the edge of the tread against the background.
However this means that the second tyre has perhaps 50 times as many polygons as the first, not the 3-4 times that the chip *might* provide.
So yes, the pictures are just hype.
No, you would be required to stop providing access to www.hardcore.com using the mechanisms defined in the ISP code of conduct, which will be worked out by ISPs and certified by the ABA.
I think that a service like http://www.anonymizer.com allows one to sidestep blocking of particular IP addresses very nicely -- unless of course the legislation was interpreted as requiring that Australian ISPs had to block access to such services.
I suspect it wouldn't be, and I think that providing such a service -- even in Australia -- may be legal. The person providing the service is (probably) not an internet carriage service under the act, and isn't hosting internet content either, and so isn't subject to the act.
This would make an interesting test case!
I'm pretty sure that providing such a service to Australians wouldn't make anyone subject to extradition.
At worst we might need a service which emails the contents of a URL to you -- that is certainly legal, even if the email contains prohibited content.
The law doesn't cover mailing lists -- email is explicitly excluded, newsgroups are explicitly included.
As to adults supervising children, the law intends that all Australian ISPs will sign up to a code of conduct which will include:
"(d) giving parents and responsible adults information about how to supervise and control children's access to Internet content;
(e) procedures to be followed in order to assist parents and responsible adults to supervise and control children's access to Internet content;"
Under the act, the Australian Broadcasting Authority also has a responsibility to advise parents about supervision.
There is no requirement placed on parents to supervise their children, and no requirement placed on ISPs to ensure that children are supervised while they use the ISPs services.
Some posters have said that any information stored on a host is subject to classification. This isn't the case, as the information also has to be available for access via an ISP.
The interesting thing will be to see what the ABA accepts as the means of dealing with offshore prohibited content. This will be defined in the ISP's code of practice.
This is where the next battle will be fought, and the result won't necessarily be a requirement for filtering at each ISP. The law isn't clear (to me) on when a code can be judged 'deficient' by the ABA and overruled.
I'm very glad that we don't have a (government owned) telecoms monopoly any more, or the government might have considered filtering content at a single point.
Bull's EJB server is easy to set up and works well, as far as I can tell from the limited experience I've had with it. It seems to be significantly faster than EJBHome, for instance.
But perhaps I missed your point?
Not having used either, perhaps I shouldn't comment :-)
But what I'd worry about are:
-- Does mysql handle concurrency? Remember that you may have several requests being processed at once by your web server.
-- Is PHP3 a 'real' programming language? That is, are you going to reach a point where it is not powerful or efficient enough to do what you want? When you reach this point can you easily use a third tier written in a different languiage? Note that PHP3 & a database doesn't count as three tier IMHO -- I don't think the browser is really a tier any more than a VT100 is.
Java application servers can provide a 'solution' (there's that word again) using Servlets/JSP in the first tier, Beans (or Enterprise Beans) in the second and the relational database of your choice in the third.
That second tier contains most of your 'business rules' expressed in a good programming language, the first tier handles presentation.
Compared to PHP3/mysql you've separated the programming from the presentation more cleanly, and only need one language.