Warez still lives, as it did many years ago.... Drugs still survive despite some high profile victories by the DEA.
It is the same with the RIAA. These and DEA "folks" will keep on busting some high profile targets, but the iceberg like underground trading will forever go on...
It has always been like this, and will be, even if the "boston strangler" steps in...
It seems that a persuasive argument that is being advanced by the "copyright holders" (and gosh, "copyright" holders and "extenders" like Disney make me want to puke) is that Google is going to be making money selling contextual advertising based on content from these scanned books.. but has not yet promised to share any of these monies with the copyright holders...
I don't the race should be about beating the results provided by google, but it should be about the interface provided to wade thru the results. By that I don't mean the 3D or clustering interfaces like vivisimo, nor the visual-basic like constructs of "search builder" at beta.search.msn.com - but more so about how to improve your results after you have started.
Of all the advanced mathematics classes that I took, one thing that stands out for me is that out of many possible solutions it was hard to just jump to the right one - what always had to be done was to select a "seed" and then improve upon the feedback that was provided...
Google suggest is one step in that direction. You key in the first alphabet and then you get feedback... some day it might anticipate your question itself because so many other people have asked the same question - that to me is a more realistic goal than trying to anticipate the answer.
In other words the direction of the research should be to anticipate quickly (like google suggest does) what the person is trying to ask rather than what answer the person is expecting. I know the differnce is subtle enough to raise the question of if I am saying anything different. Yes, it is - just like 2 isomers are essentially the same in construction but very different in effects -
there is a big difference in trying to anticipate the question that someone wants to ask versus anticipating the answer they are expecting.
It happenned a long time ago but I still have not understood as to why they wanted to milk the 56 K dialup customers so much, that as others were signing up broadband customers - AOL was focussed on getting more 56 K customers at a faster rate than they were losing them. They should have tried harder to retain them even if they were cannibalizing their own 56 K customers by moving them up to broadband. Classic business case of a slow response...
I think when there is peace, business flourishes because people then start looking towards more than the bare necessities of life. Only if you are comfortable will you start looking for that funky feature on your mobile, or that vacation that you were looking forward to.
War is a good stimulant as it pulls more out of people for a brief time, and it jump starts the war-industry establishment. But, over a long period of time, like line after line of coke, it starts doing damage. There is nothing really profitably "produced" in war - it just lays the ground with destruction to start rebuilding.
Mr. Bush has accomplished the impossible. He has declared "endless" war, destroyed so much of the infrastructure that rather than being a stimulant for reconstruction, it is a depressant to see the needless devastation. Best of all, Mr. Bush has made so many "friends" that the next step where you profit from war is impossible in Iraq. And other than polarizing the country he has achieved nothing. It is fitting that he goes down in history as the mantle-bearer of Herbert Hoover.
It is not easy for a single peorson to gut the economy. But Mr. Bush with his neocon and tax-cut loving buddies has achieved the impossible. Here's cheers to the endless wars!
Sure, there is a lot you can tell about the whole building even by looking at the 75 stories.
If you tell me that the 75 stories are the bottom stories then I agree with you. The problem is that you are showing me the top 75 stories standing up in thin air, and asking me to believe that the bottom 25 stories will soon be done. In this case, which is what it is with the Administration's "achievements" in Iraq, it is a cause of considerable worry. Pure and simple delusion.
Even though it seems like the convergence of so many efforts is all low-level and coincidental, I beleive that so many projects would not have emerged if there was no guidance from the top levels.
Like the Abu Ghraib Humiliation scandal the intellectual direction has been set at the top levels of the administration, even though the work on the projects is being done by lowly Primary Investigators.
What I wonder is whether the ones setting the intellectual agenda in the administration have any idea ofwhere they are leading us.
I fear, that one day we will be left in shock and awe when we discover that their idea of "preventing terrorism" was as well thought out as the idea of democratizing Iraq. We will all be at the mercy of a State that, like the Iraqi Monster, has grown too big for them to bully around. And then all of us, being in the same boat, will realize that those bas***** in the administration are screwed - but so are we.
yet simple enough that even the school's janitors could use it
Using the language is one thing, knowing what to use it for is another. I know of many many "programmers" who know the programming language's syntax and can write basic programs, but ask them to program something creative or program something creatively and they fail miserably.
He argues that Moore's law was based on three axes of development, speed, miniaturization, and price, and that we need a new law adding a fourth one, overall system efficiency.
I think the battery power does not have to be solved by only "internal" system efficiency, but also by "external" system efficiency.
What if the places to charge our devices become pervasive, and just like you get can find a gas station almost everywhere you seem to be running out of gas, you should be able to find a place to charge your batteries.
Of course this is easeir said than done. The "external" system is developed well for vehicles running on gas - but it is not well developed for vehicles on electric power. That is why electric cars lag so far behind....
Anyway, the crux of my post is that the system efficiencies not have to improve internally in the "super"devices, but also externally to the devices.
.
10,000 rupees a month. This is about $2000 US a month.
10,000 Rs equal about 222 dollars not 2000 dollars. You may have rework your math and conclusions...
(One $ buys about 45 rupees.)
20,000 rupees a month is more reasonable, which means that you could easily save $3000 US dollars a month and still live like a king
So, you can't really save $3000. To save $3000 you would have to be saving Rs 135,000 every month. Some people make this kind of money, but not as many as you seem to believe.
It sounds funny when you first hear it, but it is scary how serious this is to some people. In many ways this mentality also captures the state of the evolution versus "intelligent design" debate. And an ungodly number of people believe in intelligent design.
George Filer is not deterred. In a boulder photographed by Spirit on its 44th Martian day, he said, there's a distinct white E and a G, though the E may be closed off at the top, like a P. The letters appear to be 3 to 4 inches tall, Filer said.
In his living room, he enlarged the picture on his wide-screen television. He still had to point out the E and the G. They looked like they might have been chiseled or spray-painted or they might have been created by streaks of light that happened to look like letters.
"I could see easily how NASA would miss them," he said. "What we do is blow them up, so to speak, on the computer, using Photoshop and the like. If you believe there's something out there, you look for evidence."
If you believe these's something out there, you will find someone to tell you there is something out there. And that someone will also want to tell you what that something out there is telling you to do...
This expansion of the term "hackers" is a great idea. Now if we could just combine it with the idea of making really "creative hacks" patentable, we might have a solution to the whole mess of US Patents, and democratize the gold rush towards the "patent extortion money" pie.
"... everyone who creates anything is a hacker -- programmers, artists, musicians, writers, engineers, chemists and so on are all hackers and, no matter how culturally diverse we may be, as creators we have convergent interests,"
Think about it for a moment. Creativity deserves to be patentable. Once a hack is patented the "hacker" will then try to dissuade others from using it till they pay him for the rights to use it. Thus we have transferred the policing of the hack to the hacker itself! That is advantage number one.
Advantage number 2 stems from the fact that why let SCO (and other similar scum) try to get away with the patent extortion money. Let all the others who are really creative (hackers) get a share of it too. This way, everyone, programmers, artists, musicians, writers, engineers, chemists, and so on, are now eligible for patents (much better than the measley copyrights) and the patent extortion pie.
And the bonus advantage of making the "creative hacks" patentable is that it would flood the US Patent Office and wash away its patenting sins, and maybe force it to stop giving out dumb patents.
I will always prefer Google over Yahoo because of what Yahoo did to me in its other "portal properties" specifically the Mail system. Yahoo is becoming downright mean to extract money from its users. It is starting to create inconveniences like Microsoft owned Hotmail does. And I would prefer Google just to spite them.
I had an account under leoaugust11 at yahoo created long time ago where I had stored a lot of my emails. When it got sufficiently full, I reduced using it and created another account. I went to it yesterday and got a message that all mail has been deleted as I did not login in it for 4 months. Never got a warning. They didn't give me a chance during any login telling me that the rules had changed so better login. Nothing. I just go there one day and there is nothing. Why?
At least Hotmail advertised these limitations and that is why I never keep a Hotmail account. Fair and square. Tomorrow if they try to sell me something I will give them a listen. To Yahoo - No.
I am so angry that I will probably avoid Yahoo Search because failures in its Mail property. Google is focussed, and I think that is where they win.
Regions and language groups that don't have enough of a PC market now to justify development of proprietary commercial software will naturally turn to open-source alternatives, they say.
I think that this is a very strong conclusion to draw esp. if you are talking of open-source. Open-source does not mean that you are not trying to give it away for free.
The assertion strongly suggests that in the "localization market" there is a driving force for open source that lacks in corporations (esp. Microsoft). Something about this market attracts open-source but does not attract closed-(though now compromised)-source. I wonder what it is, and if something like that is really there.
Is there some fundamental shift in what is driving these markets compared to what we think drives markets? If it is not profits, then what is it? Maybe it is about profits, but not about humongous profits.
Maybe it is about being comfortable with decentralization, and not bearing the centralization burden of presenting a single face to the rest of the world - and, hence unflexible corporate-wide policies.
Maybe it is about not being such a big target that it attracts life-threatening law suits.
Maybe it is about so many people being able to pour over your "crown jewels" that you can now tap into the knowledge of anyone who is willing to look and tamper with your code.
So, there there is nothing really of much to big and very big corporations.
But then the article goes on to say that the same "localization markets" will some day draw the attention of Microsoft and others.
And by the time those markets become big enough to draw the attention of Microsoft and other commercial software makers, open-source could be as entrenched as Microsoft is in developed countries now.
But why would they want to do such a thing? Is the whole PC market going to change in such a way that it will become attractive for them. Or are they going to change in a way that the now find the market attractive. Will it happen? When will it happen? Will someone else come into the picture by then?
Google pulled us out of "The Dark Ages"
on
Google's Bigger Index
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There is an interesting article in Wash Post Search For Tomorrow on Google, and possible AI in search.
Some excerpts:
We stumbled around in libraries. We lifted from the World Book Encyclopedia. We paged through the nearly microscopic listings in the heavy green volumes of the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. We latched onto hearsay and rumor and the thinly sourced mutterings of people alleged to be experts. We guessed. We conjectured. And then we gave up, consigning ourselves to ignorance.
Only now in the bright light of the Google Era do we see how dim and gloomy was our pregooglian world. In the distant future, historians will have a common term for the period prior to the appearance of Google: the Dark Ages.
There have been many fine Internet search engines over the years -- Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, Infoseek, Ask Jeeves and so on -- but Google is the first to become a utility, a basic piece of societal infrastructure like the power grid, sewer lines and the Internet itself.
What is going on in the athletes and sports trainers minds? Some day people are going to be testing for these "enhancements."
He said it would require a biopsy of specific muscles followed by a sophisticated DNA laboratory study to detect the use of gene therapy in an athlete.
So, once the authorities can do the testing, whom are they going to go after ?
Murray said he ''has no doubt athletes will be in touch with Sweeney'' when they learn of his research. Sweeney said that already half the e-mails he receives are from athletes or sports trainers.
What are these athletes and sports trainers thinking ?
. I have been putting my spam with full headers here, and hope that people investigating can use the info in the headers like IP addresses, gateways, aliases etc. As it is cached in Google so the results should show up for specific keywords.
If you are spam hunters, please be my guest and fry some spammers a***
I think chipping at privacy is like hitting a block of stone with a hammer.
Nothing seems to happen at first, and then you see a few flakes fall - nothing much. It seems nothing is happening to the huge block of stone. And then suddenly with just one more blow the whole block of stone splits apart.
Unfortunately, what is happening to the stone as each hammer blow pounds on it is not visible - and our eyes cannot see what our minds cannot see. Trusting our eyes we don't realize what is happening to the our privacy, and less so as to what effect it shall have on us...
phones with fancy features (cameras, games, etc.) are starting to dominate. I beg to differ - one of the few things stopping me from purchasing a phone is the fact that I do not want to pay for hundreds of features that I will never use.
There is a small percentage of people who like the old and simple stuff... like for example cars. I think "An anonymous reader" might have found him/her self in good company with the people described here. DRIVING: My Life, My '58 Lincoln (sorry couldn't find the reg-free link.)
Predident has a history of Linux support
on
Stallman Goes to India
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The Indian President is tech-savvy and has on earlier occasions tried to promote Linux. He was really a rocket scientist before he was appointed the President.
In May 2003, he gave a speech in which he said "said it is 'unfortunate' that proprietary software - such as Windows - is so popular and has called for broader adoption of open source products." More details here - ZDNet UK - News - Indian President adds salt to MS wounds
From the article, notes on a conversation with Bill Gates:
President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam recounted a conversation earlier this year with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "We were discussing the future challenges in information technology, including the issues related to software security," Kalam said, according to a transcript of the speech. "I made a point that we look for open-source codes so that we can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our discussions became difficult, since our views were different."
I wasn't aware that you needed to download special software to run this Google search application.
I think the application comes into picture via the Google Toolbar and also the need to somehow organize all the Google Services & Tools. & Google has also gotten into one-click Blogging via Blogger.
When you start having a book called Google Hacks , you know that there are a lot of HPI's (like API's but for H-Hacking), you know that there is a better way to offer access to these hacks via well organized tools. That is the form and function of the application.
Of course there are other applications like Copernic ( a longer listing here Search Tools), but I think the current applications have miniscule following. What will come from Microsoft or Google will flood the market.
Rather than being round, nuclei in that region and beyond could contain bubbles and have strange doughnut-like shapes, Dr. Nazarewicz said.
One of the theories is that our universe is shaped like a doughnut. Universe as Doughnut: New Data, New Debate So, the highest and the deepest reaches are similar in our conception.
The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape of undiscovered elements beyond.
I recollect that Star trek starts off with "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."
Those numbers should help map out what Dr. Nazarewicz prefers to call generically a "region of stability" among the superheavies. (Because, he says, it could resemble a peninsula more than an island.) Various theories have suggested that the next magic proton number is 114, 120 or 126, he said. There is general agreement that the next magic neutron number is 184, he said.
According to Douglas Adam, the answer is 42. I would say the other possible answers are 84, 126, 168, & 210. So, the correct answer is 126.
Slashdot Mirror
It is the same with the RIAA. These and DEA "folks" will keep on busting some high profile targets, but the iceberg like underground trading will forever go on
It has always been like this, and will be, even if the "boston strangler" steps in
It's the money, stupid.
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/ar chives/000385.php
Of all the advanced mathematics classes that I took, one thing that stands out for me is that out of many possible solutions it was hard to just jump to the right one - what always had to be done was to select a "seed" and then improve upon the feedback that was provided ...
Google suggest is one step in that direction. You key in the first alphabet and then you get feedback ... some day it might anticipate your question itself because so many other people have asked the same question - that to me is a more realistic goal than trying to anticipate the answer.
In other words the direction of the research should be to anticipate quickly (like google suggest does) what the person is trying to ask rather than what answer the person is expecting. I know the differnce is subtle enough to raise the question of if I am saying anything different. Yes, it is - just like 2 isomers are essentially the same in construction but very different in effects -
there is a big difference in trying to anticipate the question that someone wants to ask versus anticipating the answer they are expecting.
War is a good stimulant as it pulls more out of people for a brief time, and it jump starts the war-industry establishment. But, over a long period of time, like line after line of coke, it starts doing damage. There is nothing really profitably "produced" in war - it just lays the ground with destruction to start rebuilding.
Mr. Bush has accomplished the impossible. He has declared "endless" war, destroyed so much of the infrastructure that rather than being a stimulant for reconstruction, it is a depressant to see the needless devastation. Best of all, Mr. Bush has made so many "friends" that the next step where you profit from war is impossible in Iraq. And other than polarizing the country he has achieved nothing. It is fitting that he goes down in history as the mantle-bearer of Herbert Hoover.
It is not easy for a single peorson to gut the economy. But Mr. Bush with his neocon and tax-cut loving buddies has achieved the impossible. Here's cheers to the endless wars!
If you tell me that the 75 stories are the bottom stories then I agree with you. The problem is that you are showing me the top 75 stories standing up in thin air, and asking me to believe that the bottom 25 stories will soon be done. In this case, which is what it is with the Administration's "achievements" in Iraq, it is a cause of considerable worry. Pure and simple delusion.
.
Like the Abu Ghraib Humiliation scandal the intellectual direction has been set at the top levels of the administration, even though the work on the projects is being done by lowly Primary Investigators.
What I wonder is whether the ones setting the intellectual agenda in the administration have any idea ofwhere they are leading us.
I fear, that one day we will be left in shock and awe when we discover that their idea of "preventing terrorism" was as well thought out as the idea of democratizing Iraq. We will all be at the mercy of a State that, like the Iraqi Monster, has grown too big for them to bully around. And then all of us, being in the same boat, will realize that those bas***** in the administration are screwed - but so are we.
.
I think the battery power does not have to be solved by only "internal" system efficiency, but also by "external" system efficiency.
What if the places to charge our devices become pervasive, and just like you get can find a gas station almost everywhere you seem to be running out of gas, you should be able to find a place to charge your batteries.
Of course this is easeir said than done. The "external" system is developed well for vehicles running on gas - but it is not well developed for vehicles on electric power. That is why electric cars lag so far behind ....
Anyway, the crux of my post is that the system efficiencies not have to improve internally in the "super"devices, but also externally to the devices. .
10,000 Rs equal about 222 dollars not 2000 dollars. You may have rework your math and conclusions ...
(One $ buys about 45 rupees.)
So, you can't really save $3000. To save $3000 you would have to be saving Rs 135,000 every month. Some people make this kind of money, but not as many as you seem to believe.
.
.
This expansion of the term "hackers" is a great idea. Now if we could just combine it with the idea of making really "creative hacks" patentable, we might have a solution to the whole mess of US Patents, and democratize the gold rush towards the "patent extortion money" pie.
Think about it for a moment. Creativity deserves to be patentable. Once a hack is patented the "hacker" will then try to dissuade others from using it till they pay him for the rights to use it. Thus we have transferred the policing of the hack to the hacker itself! That is advantage number one.
Advantage number 2 stems from the fact that why let SCO (and other similar scum) try to get away with the patent extortion money. Let all the others who are really creative (hackers) get a share of it too. This way, everyone, programmers, artists, musicians, writers, engineers, chemists, and so on, are now eligible for patents (much better than the measley copyrights) and the patent extortion pie.
And the bonus advantage of making the "creative hacks" patentable is that it would flood the US Patent Office and wash away its patenting sins, and maybe force it to stop giving out dumb patents.
.
I will always prefer Google over Yahoo because of what Yahoo did to me in its other "portal properties" specifically the Mail system. Yahoo is becoming downright mean to extract money from its users. It is starting to create inconveniences like Microsoft owned Hotmail does. And I would prefer Google just to spite them.
I had an account under leoaugust11 at yahoo created long time ago where I had stored a lot of my emails. When it got sufficiently full, I reduced using it and created another account. I went to it yesterday and got a message that all mail has been deleted as I did not login in it for 4 months. Never got a warning. They didn't give me a chance during any login telling me that the rules had changed so better login. Nothing. I just go there one day and there is nothing. Why?
At least Hotmail advertised these limitations and that is why I never keep a Hotmail account. Fair and square. Tomorrow if they try to sell me something I will give them a listen. To Yahoo - No.
I am so angry that I will probably avoid Yahoo Search because failures in its Mail property. Google is focussed, and I think that is where they win.
While reading the text "i" was reminded of "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. Of course, this text was more "Poignant."
:while
"I" think.the difference was that Hofstadter wanted to talk to "computers" as if they were "old_wizened_demigods,"
here "Why_The_Lucky_Stiff" wants to talk to the "computer" as if it were an "Enraptured_Infant" called "Ruby."
and "I" mean it in a good way.
.
I know this assertion is attributed to the US Govt, but sounds like Darl from good ole' SCO could have said the exact same thing too!
I think that this is a very strong conclusion to draw esp. if you are talking of open-source. Open-source does not mean that you are not trying to give it away for free.
The assertion strongly suggests that in the "localization market" there is a driving force for open source that lacks in corporations (esp. Microsoft). Something about this market attracts open-source but does not attract closed-(though now compromised)-source. I wonder what it is, and if something like that is really there.
Is there some fundamental shift in what is driving these markets compared to what we think drives markets? If it is not profits, then what is it? Maybe it is about profits, but not about humongous profits.
Maybe it is about being comfortable with decentralization, and not bearing the centralization burden of presenting a single face to the rest of the world - and, hence unflexible corporate-wide policies.
Maybe it is about not being such a big target that it attracts life-threatening law suits.
Maybe it is about so many people being able to pour over your "crown jewels" that you can now tap into the knowledge of anyone who is willing to look and tamper with your code.
So, there there is nothing really of much to big and very big corporations.
But then the article goes on to say that the same "localization markets" will some day draw the attention of Microsoft and others.
But why would they want to do such a thing? Is the whole PC market going to change in such a way that it will become attractive for them. Or are they going to change in a way that the now find the market attractive. Will it happen? When will it happen? Will someone else come into the picture by then?
There is an interesting article in Wash Post Search For Tomorrow on Google, and possible AI in search.
Some excerpts:
.
I have been putting my spam with full headers here, and hope that people investigating can use the info in the headers like IP addresses, gateways, aliases etc. As it is cached in Google so the results should show up for specific keywords.
If you are spam hunters, please be my guest and fry some spammers a***
.
I think chipping at privacy is like hitting a block of stone with a hammer.
...
Nothing seems to happen at first, and then you see a few flakes fall - nothing much. It seems nothing is happening to the huge block of stone. And then suddenly with just one more blow the whole block of stone splits apart.
Unfortunately, what is happening to the stone as each hammer blow pounds on it is not visible - and our eyes cannot see what our minds cannot see. Trusting our eyes we don't realize what is happening to the our privacy, and less so as to what effect it shall have on us
.
There is a small percentage of people who like the old and simple stuff ... like for example cars. I think "An anonymous reader" might have found him/her self in good company with the people described here. DRIVING: My Life, My '58 Lincoln (sorry couldn't find the reg-free link.)
The Indian President is tech-savvy and has on earlier occasions tried to promote Linux. He was really a rocket scientist before he was appointed the President.
In May 2003, he gave a speech in which he said "said it is 'unfortunate' that proprietary software - such as Windows - is so popular and has called for broader adoption of open source products." More details here - ZDNet UK - News - Indian President adds salt to MS wounds
From the article, notes on a conversation with Bill Gates:
I think the application comes into picture via the Google Toolbar and also the need to somehow organize all the Google Services & Tools. & Google has also gotten into one-click Blogging via Blogger.
In addition there are tools that visually organize the Google Search results, SearchDay - Visualizing the Web with Google - 8 January 2003
When you start having a book called Google Hacks , you know that there are a lot of HPI's (like API's but for H-Hacking), you know that there is a better way to offer access to these hacks via well organized tools. That is the form and function of the application.
Of course there are other applications like Copernic ( a longer listing here Search Tools), but I think the current applications have miniscule following. What will come from Microsoft or Google will flood the market.
One of the theories is that our universe is shaped like a doughnut. Universe as Doughnut: New Data, New Debate So, the highest and the deepest reaches are similar in our conception. I recollect that Star trek starts off with "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before." According to Douglas Adam, the answer is 42. I would say the other possible answers are 84, 126, 168, & 210. So, the correct answer is 126.
Q.E.D