And to the person who claims that this is just a dialog and not approval, you are very naive.
First, science has a built in peer review process. To open this issue up to public debate is wrong. Science has its own built-in procedures to decide these issues. This discussion must take place considering normal scientific methods and within the already established scientific forums.
Second, public opinion based on ignorance is utterly worthless. Far too many people base their opinions on sensationalized news stories and wacko religious nuts. For the most part, these people know nothing of the methodologies and theories on which science is based. People believe weird things for weird reasons and are uniquely unqualified to objectively evaluate cutting edge science.
Finally, this is not a religious issue. To the extent that mankind can create life using their own knowledge and technology is the extent to which that creation is not a concern of religion. I'm sure this won't stop the loony religionists from chiming in with their opinions. This is not elitism because anybody in the world is free to know the science and join the debate within the standard forums.
Judgment should not come from the public or theologians, but from fellow scientists who are much more likely to comprehend the true value and risks of the work. This is why established scientific procedures should be followed in this matter. To do otherwise is to stand the scientific method on its ear. How many people think that Linus should allow Jerry Falwell to judge his work on the Linux kernel? The principles are the same.
It's my article. I would not publish this if it weren't true. If you take the trouble to click the link in the very first paragraph you will be miraculously transported to the ZDNet site where a Mr. Chowdhry of ZDNet Labs will tell you that it's true.
The only problem is that you have to take the trouble to click the link.
ZDNet Labs deliberately chose to ignore the 21 security flaws that would most likely be used by any cracker to crack the Linux box. ZDNet's Chowdhry's claim that this was because IT managers prefer monolithic patches where the administrator has no hope of tracking individual changes is a ridiculous equivocation. This same argument didn't stop them from applying the service release 5 patches to the NT setup.
The lesson to be learned here is that ZDNet Labs has violated the public trust. Somebody's head should roll.
Real Networks have posted an unexpired version of the Linux G2 Real Player on their site. This is still the Alpha version, but I have not had any serious problems with it.
Kudos to Cara at Public Relations and the technical support people for going to bat for us Linux folks.
Star Wars defense of this type is nice for Star Wars, the Movie. But that's as far as it goes. That's why nearly every physicist who is not receiving an SDI paycheck from the government is against SDI. It is also opposed by economists and most arms negotiators.
The facts in this matter are very simple. In economical terms, it is called "The Law of Diminishing Returns." When you use a 10 million dollar bullet to shoot down a 1 million dollar missile, the opposition only has to build and launch more missiles to overwhelm and defeat your system.
The latter fact makes SDI very destabilizing. The advantage to the opponent is to just build more weapons and adopt more agressive targetting profiles. This forces the SDI builder to devote more and more resources to counter the threats either by building more missiles themselves or by deploying more defense. Obviously, with the expense of the latter, it isn't long before the SDI deployer is bankrupted (not the opponent). For these reasons the story that the U.S. SDI program bankrupted the Soviet Union causing its fall is ridiculous. This argument is a great example of post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
SDI will have no effect on the most likely nuclear attack, a terrorist weapon smuggled into the country via ship and triggered at a static ground location or in a tall building.
SDI is a waste of money. Always has been, always will be.
Boom goes London. Boom Paree. There's more room for you. There's more room for me. They all hate us any how So let's drop the big one now. Randy Newman, Political Science
History isn't going to be very kind to Edward Teller. Here are some of the reasons why:
When Oppenheimer opposed the "Super" on the grounds that it was an unnecessary weapon of genocide, Teller skewered him. This was a very organized and deliberate maligning of another scientist only because he held an opposing opinion. Teller's words were used to undermine Oppenheimer's veracity in front of the AEC. In an era dominated by HUAC and Senator McCarthy, and in spite of all that Oppie had accomplished for the country, that was enough to destroy a very important person's life, career, etc. The impact of these events is incalculable.
Teller's version of the Super probably would not have worked--it was a likely dud. So say the other physicists surrounding the project, including Hans Bethe.
Teller wanted control of the Super project at Los Alamos, but nobody wanted to work with him. Norris Bradbury, the lab's director, had a choice. It was either Teller or two-thirds of his division leaders. Teller had to go. He refused to work under anybody and resigned in a huff in Sept., 1951 when Norris appointed Marshall Holloway to direct the project. This was right when the project got going. Teller wasn't even directly involved in development of the Super from that point on.
In March, 1951, Ulam saved Teller's design with his staged implosion design. In spite of these facts, Teller continues to take sole credit. How many people have heard of Stanislaw Ulam?
The Russians had a more advanced A-bomb on the drawing boards when they exploded their first A-bomb, a copy of the Nagasaki device. If spies hadn't turned over the design to the Russians they would have soon had an A-bomb anyway. They were working on the Super soon after their first atomic test in 1949.
Teller is almost totally driven by his hatred of the Russians. This is a hideous concept on which to base one's existence. In my opinion, Edward Teller deserves his reputation as the much maligned enfant terrible of science. Dr. Stranglove, indeed.
References:
Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. 1995. Simon and Schuster.
Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. 1986. Simon and Schuster. Pulitzer Prize winner. A great book.
Goodchild, Peter. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds. 1985. Fromm International Publishing Corp.
During the dark days of WWII Alan Turing helped break the German Enigma codes. This was in England at Bletchley Park, where Turing collaberated on the building of Colossus, one of several different special purpose digital computers.
Prior to that, I believe that a German University had built a digital computer, in the 1930's. I don't think that this resulted in significant research beyond preliminary experiments.
By any standards, the first digital computer that was used to do something would be Colossus which predated ENIAC by years.
I really hate the kind of centrism that mandates that history needs to be rewritten so that one's country can be favored in the eyes of the world. Scott McCartney is wrong, wrong, wrong about ENIAC being first. I wouldn't put much credibility in a history book that gets something as primary as this incorrect.
What you describe is a classic example of why Genetic Algorithms work so well in some particularly knotty mathematical domains. This is why you should never throw out all the bad cases. No matter how bad a candidate is, it may spawn a champion. For the mathematician it means that GA's continue to search globally even after a candidate global solution has been found.
In other words, survival of the fittest is a very naive way of putting it. Both GA's and nature are more complex than that. We need an occasional "first poster" to keep genetic diversity alive.
As somebody has already pointed out above, many of the examples given in text books are not typical real world problems solved with Genetic Algorithms (GA). More typical would be:
Complex mathematical solutions or optimizations in which conventional methods fail or are problematic. GA helps here because conventional methods tend to concentrate their energies on local features whereas a good GA will continue to act globally even when it's found a fairly optimum solution.
Nonmathematical problems which lack analytical solutions.but where the construction of input parameters (the chromosome encoding) and a fitness function (how well does a candidate solve the problem) can be constructed. This family of solutions could be just about anything. Game playing comes to mind as a candidate here. How about a game of global thermonuclear war?
GA's have shown themselves to be very useful in assisting other techniques. For instance, the training of a neural network can be accelerated with GA's. Often a GA is biased with knowledge of the solution domain that strict, blind Darwinistic evolution could not have. This is why GA's are often used to accelerate other techniques--even other GAs.
As multiprocessing becomes cheaper (thanks in part to Linux), GA's should find more uses. It is very, very easy to parallelize a GA. (You don't need Beowulf to do it.) See September's Linux Journal for a case of a GA designed only to solve a particular mathematical problem concerning White Dwarf stars. No Beowulf here, just a customized, 33-node Genetic Algorithm machine. Cost? A mere $22,000. Not too shabby.
I have played around some with Genetic Algorithms and have found them interesting and useful for a variety of optimization and problems solving tasks.
In my wanderings around the Web I haven't found a better resource than The Genetic Programming Notebook. It is by far the most comprehensive site I've found. Here you will find everything. The three main topics are:
Genetic Programming
Genetic Algorithms
Artificial Intelligence, including A. Life.
Within each section are tutorials, FAQs, links, bibliographies, papers, journals and generally everything you need to get started and become a GP, GA or A. Life pro.
These are very interesting fields which are really coming into their own with the advent of Linux and free software.
Experimenting with these techniques is as easy as downloading an existing library. One of the best is GALib, a library of C++ Genetic Algorithm objects.
Have fun.
Re:Illegal search and seizure...
on
UCITA is passed
·
· Score: 1
Illegal search and seizure? Maybe.
I'm not a lawyer. (I don't even play one on television.;-)) I would look for this to be challenged on prior restraint grounds.
This entire issue is so lame. The proponents of this legislation are trying to tell people that they have no rights under the law to the use of their computers. This imposes a huge restraint on the rights of all users of commercial software. Right now, that must be about 90-some percent of the computers.
This very well might make it to the Supreme Court. But, I'd bet anything it will be struck down in the lower courts long before that. There will be plenty of big-time corporations who, not wanting their rights to use software restricted either, will pour tons of money into the fight.
Regardless, this is such a ludicrous bill that the states implementing it will become laughing stocks. Can you imagine being the governor of such a state asking large corporations whose livelihood depend on high technology that moving to your state means they have to give up their rights to the software on which their corporation depends? I don't think so.
I love my Cordless Desktop. I wouldn't have any other keyboard/mouse combo (unless the Happy Hacker keyboard was cordless).
I have experienced some of the problems others have reported of skipped key presses, etc. But, they all went away when I found a good place to put the receiver. As the documentation says, placement is important. Don't place the receiver near anything that emits RF. That means keep it away from your display and your Linux boxen.
My PII-300 makes both the keybd and mouse go lame. Likewise my displays and the network hub. My HP Inkjet printer and my NetWinder don't do anything bad. In fact, I usually keep the receiver right between the two with no ill effects.
If we are all to be able to learn from this, it is important that the techniques used be repeatable by anybody. After all, it's not really a real world test, is it? This benchmark is probably most useful as a comparitive measurement. It's just too encompassing to be useful for making an absolute decision on Linux vs. Windows NT. Also, as many have pointed out, there are many other parameters which have not been tested. E.G., reliability, cost, etc. These would definitely be in Linux's favor. Standing alone without the parameters under which the tests were conducted, this benchmark, while interesting, is worthless to anybody interested in choosing between the two.
How about it ZDNet? Let's have the gory details. Specifically what tuning was done to each of the operating systems? How was the software procured? Who installed it? How was the hardware procured? I want to see it all.
That keyboard is shaped identically to my Logitech Cordless. The mouse is a wired one. Too bad they didn't go with the entire Logitech Cordless Desktop--one of my favorite purchases. Just sit back with the keyboard on my lap and code to my heart's content. Mouse is on small table at perfect height near my right knee. No wires.
For the money, I'd buy separates and get Linux hardware compatibility, more memory, more hard drive and not have to pay Microsoft for all that software. If it's PC technology anyway, why not make it the standard platform, expandability and non-monopoly support. Assemble it yourself. You might even save a few sheckles.
If you want cool looking, proprietary and Linux compatibility, there's the NetWinder or Cobalt Qube. That way you are supporting companies which support the Linux effort, too. IMHO.
When I put out my blurb on the exclusive Red Hat release of MetroWerks CodeWarrior on Linux Today, I thought that people would understand that the issue was not Red Hat per se. I would be equally upset if Corel released "Word Perfect for Debian Linux" to the exclusion of other distributions.
Likewise, the point is not whether CodeWarrior will work with other Linux distributions or not. The problem is that it is being marketed as exclusively Red Hat. Other major binary Linux product releases have not been marketed this way.
Let's look at the facts.
MetroWerks has a very close association with Red Hat.
CodeWarrior is a software development tool.
Many Linux software developers use distributions other than Red Hat. How many? I haven't measured, but it must be significant. Red Hat is known for easy installation and integration, but not necessarily as a software developer's distribution. Other distributions have that reputation. I can cite Debian as an example.
Linux has tools to facilitate the port of projects to different distributions. Who would know this better than software developers, MetroWerks prospective customers?
System requirements on binary releases can be easily specified as CPU+kernel+library and the program will function perfectly, as has been pointed out by many people. Again, wouldn't MetroWerks customers be aware of this?
Support issue can be handled separately and again can be along the same lines as the build. Again, MetroWerks' customers would know this as well.
Although it may be difficult to support all the Linux distributions, it's extremely easy, and given the number of developers using other distributions, very cost effective to support more than one.
The Linux communitee would be eager and proud to help bring about the global Linux support of a product like CodeWarrior. MetroWerks products have been a mainstay in the Mac environment for a long time. CodeWarrior is also the preferred platform for the Palm Pilot, the most popular handheld on the planet. MetroWerks products have a great reputation in the industry and would be highly desireable.
Corel doesn't release a different version of their software for each Linux distribution. Neither does Star Division nor Applix nor Adobe (Acroread), etc. I could go on and on here. This list would include almost all of the binary-only Linux products up to the current date.
The MetroWerks' press release which originally announced Linux support for CodeWarrior last October says nothing specifically about Red Hat. MetroWerks' similar announcement made in early April has Red Hat all over the place.
Why specifically put for Red Hat in the name of the product when that will only result in undercutting the sales to all the other distributions, especially in a market where the number of customers could be significant?
I'm not trying to bash Red Hat but this makes absolutely no sense. More important, it divides the community. And, it's not the way things have been done--until now.
The rules have changed. I want to know why. Don't you?
I suppose that you would also say that Bill Gates is being punished for being successful.
I'm sorry. I find your argument somewhat shallow and obtuse. Saying that Bill Gates is a businessman hardly excuses him for violating federal anti-trust laws, no matter how vague you might think they are. I'll leave it to those more knowledgable of the law to argue the issue. Here's a couple of links which put Microsoft's actions in perspective of the law.
If Windows were really the most technically advanced and innovative operating system on the planet, would Microsoft be in court against the DOJ at this time? Somehow, I doubt it.
It's the fact that monopolies stifle innovation as well as competition which has brought these issues to the forefront. This is why Microsoft has to resort to proprietorization of protocols--what Bill Gates calls innovation--to assure that their monopoly survives. See the oft-quoted Halloween Document for clear evidence of Microsoft intentions. See any account of the Sun/Java Case for an example where Microsoft exercised these proprietorization techniques.
I find the DOJ evidence against Microsoft compelling. Even Microsoft's own defense was a great embarassment. Don't take my word for it. Look for yourself. There are sufficient sites on the Web covering the trial. Check out CNN, ZDNet, Business Week, InfoWorld, etc.
Bork 'em, Danno.
Arne W. Flones Long Ship Software
Pay no mind to the chaos you are seeing. It is merely the shifting of paradigms.
It's all very easy to say "split up microsoft", but along what lines? and what would that accomplish, exactly? having three seperate Microsofts would do nothing except confuse consumers,with no benefits.
I disagree. This is the solution suggested by Robert Bork. His logic is compelling. I feel that this is the only solution which will:
Restore competition to the marketplace
Not involve the government in long term interference with the computer industry.
The splitting off of applications and OS has the problems which you aptly cite:
...where you draw the line between OS and applications.
I'm not one who is paranoid of everything that the government touches, but I'm not at all comfortable with the courts, or any other branch of government, deciding a dividing line between app and OS. The best way to avoid this is to just take this off the table altogether. It's an idea which sounds good, but utterly fails in practice.
For many of the same reasons I am against any regulatory solutions. Again, my reasons are less about mistrust of the government than they are about mistrust of Microsoft.
Presuming that Microsoft has broken the anti-trust laws--I hear very few outside of Redmond who doubt that, but the judge has yet to speak--have they indicated that they would change their practices one iota if a regulatory solution were imposed? The answer to this important question for me is quite simply, No.
The previous consent decrees have been blatantly and totally ignored by Microsoft. Their shenanigans during the trial are further evidence that Bill Gates is not going to "do the right thing" about the charges against him and his company. I suspect that the DOJ is close to bringing perjury charges against more than one of the defense witnesses, almost all Microsoft executives. In other words, regardless of how badly the trial is going for Microsoft, they continue to exhibit many of the behaviors which brought them into court.
It is my prediction that Microsoft will be found guilty of breaking the anti-trust laws. They are going to lose big. The solution Judge Jackson will make is going to be severe. My recommendation would be to break Microsoft up into teeny-weeny pieces so that they can never darken the world again with their anti-innovation, anti-consumer, monopolistic practices.
Give Windows and all the applications to three, four, even five new companies who will then be competing amongst each other for the 90+ percent of the desktops Microsoft currently has. This will assure that the products on which the industry has come to depend remain in the marketplace. At the same time, it prevents any of the Baby-Bills from immediately taking control.
Further, I would impose a corporate death penalty on Bill Gates. The court must forbid his involvement in any of the Baby-Bills so that the playing field will remain level. (None of the Baby-Bills should be able to say that they are the real Microsoft because they still have the real Bill Gates.) With his money he can start another company or go into retirement. One thing he shouldn't get is the Microsoft software.
I am probably for the first time in my life siding with Robert Bork. I think that breakup of Microsoft is essential to a future which isn't substantially dominated by Bill Gates and the innovation-stifling Microsoft.
Isn't it yet apparent to everybody in the Linux community that this MindCrap business is just another Micro$oft ploy.
Micro$oft and their toadies at MindCrap have already rigged the results. They are still controlling the test conditions, and ultimately, the outcome. The Linux community must not allow this to happen.
Independant testing should be done which have the following features:
Testing should be done by an independant organization who has nothing to gain by a specific party winning the test.
Software should be purchased anonymously off-the-shelf from a retailer. This assures that the software being tested is the same software anybody would be running and not something cobbled together specially for the test.
The hardware configuration should be one which would realistically be found for the task being performed. I assume that it won't be a Web server with quad Xeons and 4 Gb of RAM. Similarly, network configurations will be typical.
Where configurations differ (e.g., NT clients vs. 95/8 clients) results will be reported separately.
Application software will be realistic for the task(s) being tested. The selection of software will be as unbiased as possible. Where possible, the same software will be run on all platforms.
Tuning will be done by independant consultants, selected by the testing agency, not by interested parties.
Exactly what was done to tune the systems must be published along with the results. This will enable anybody to repeat the benchmark and obtain the similar results.
In other words, to play along with Micro$oft and their MindCrap cronies is complete folly. The best thing for the Linux community to do with this MindCrap BS is to do nothing.
Our only response to MindCrap requests should be a very public appeal for unbiased testing procedures.
I've had a NetWinder DM since February. It's the 64 Mbyte RAM, 4 Gbyte Hard drive model. When I ordered it from Corel, I received it the next day. That was a pretty good omen. I hope HCC (aka Rebel.com) can do as well. Here are my impressions of the machine so far.
First, realize that the NetWinder is still in beta form. Although the hardware is fairly mature at this time, the software is still in quite rough shape. Although there has been a flurry of activity on the developer's site since the beginning of the year, the last official release was before the beginning of the year. I'd like to see that change soon. What happened to release early and often?
The software on my DM is a crazy quilt of different releases. egcs and glib2, but there's no Netscape. It's got some of Red Hat 5.x, but all RPM's have to installed with the --nodeps flag because the software is a crazy quilt. There is no userful configuration tool that I've seen and the documentation is next to non-existent, printed or otherwise. Many things work well, but many other things don't work at all. All this has to be straightened out before the NetWinder is ready to sell to the general public, especially as an everyday workstation.
Okay, so what's so good about the NetWinder? Fortunately there is a lot of good. It's got to be one of the coolest computers I've ever seen. But, nobody would buy a computer that looked cool if it didn't act the part as well. I'm happy to say that the NetWinder fits the role.
The hardware is mature even if the software isn't. Built-in features are plentiful. Sound, IrDA, video capture and output (both NTSC and PAL), two NICs (one a DEC Tulip 10/100base), microphone and speaker, parallel (EPP/ECP) and serial ports. Parallel port IDE devices are supported. The originally specified built-in modem and telephony capability is gone (although the connectors still live on my machine). That is too bad, but even without telephony there are sufficient features to make most anybody happy. And the components with which I've had experience all seem to be of very high quality. Hardware wise this is a very nice machine. I feel that alone could assure its success in the market (if the software gets done).
One feature with which I have quite a bit of experience is the Dec Tulip 10/100base network interface. The Corel developers did their homework on this interface. It flies. My entire network uses DEC Tulip chip cloan NICs. All the machines are quick, but the NetWinder really pumps it out. There is a noticable difference here. The NetWinder can effortlessly saturate my little hub while my PII-300 has to really work to do it.
The Winder is also speedy in loading large chunks from hard drive. I don't think that this is because of the hard drive, which is a 2.5 inch, 4 GB Toshiba. I believe that the credit goes to intelligent coding, the StrongARM CPU and its support chips. For instance, emacs and X windows load much quicker on the Winder than on my PII-300. This would support HCC's claim that the NetWinder is ideal as a server. After using the machine for a few months in that mode, it still seems fast. I'm still very impressed.
The NetWinder uses less than 15 watts of power. One of the Corel engineers told me that he got a NetWinder to bootstrap using only one regular nine volt battery for power. I guess it didn't run too long, but it got to the login prompt with no problems. I haven't tried this, nor do I intend to. But, this will give you an idea of how little power it uses. I can see a lot of special applications being made that take advantage of this feature. Solar power anybody?
Am I glad that I bought a NetWinder? On the whole, yes. I am very pleased with it. This little guy figures prominently in my future plans. I hope that HCC soon will get through the transition and release the desperately needed major software upgrade. In the meantime, I'll let my NetWinder serve up Web pages for my network and do some other miscellaneous things. But, what I'd really like is to use it as an easily packable computer. Soon, I hope.
Your article in Smart Reseller about projected costs of a Microsoft breakup failed to take into account that the entire study is biased. Your article indicates that the study is from Microsoft-friendly companies, but continues to present the information without further challenge to its validity. Being from biased sources, I suggest that the conclusions are skewed. This is not objective journalism.
With the debacle of the MindCraft Windows NT tests fresh in everybody's mind, I am surprised that you would not see through this ploy. Leibowitz presents the worst-case scenerio and then draws conclusions like it is a likely outcome. Leibowitz also ignores moderating influences and past costs.
And quit saying that Microsoft is being punished for being successful. They deserve to be punished because they used their monopoly position in the computer OS market to leverage monopolies in other markets. This is *illegal* under U. S. anti-trust laws.
As a long time software developer I've watched markets and opportunities dwindle under the repressive Microsoft regime. At the same time software quality and reliability has plummeted and innovation has been stifled. I suggest that somebody sponsor a study of how much this has cost computer users over the past three decades.
I suggest that what we have lost is not just the competition, quality and innnovation in an industry, we have also lost billions and billions of dollars to merely prop up Bill Gates' monopoly. How many clever, independant software developers could that money have funded? So Mr. Leibowitz's $30 billion is a mere pittance compared to what Microsoft's monopoly has already cost. If it costs a worst-case $30 billion to repair the damage, so be it.
The horizontal break-up of Microsoft into three or even four baby-Bills is, in effect, a death penalty to Microsoft. In my opinion, this is the only way to restore competition. For the untold billions wasted on smothering competition and innovation, and for the murder of an untold number of what would otherwise have been productive and innovative software development enterprises, Microsoft richly deserves the death penalty. It's time to put an end to it. Break 'em up.
Thank you for an opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Arne W. Flones Long Ship Software A Microsoft free developer
Each year the number grows by 25% of the total of that year.
So, if I start with 1,000 units the first year...
Second year I should sell the 1,000 units plus 25% of the 1,000 units. 1000 + (.25 x 1000) = 1250
Third year, I should sell the 1,250 units plus 25% of the 1,250 units 1250 + (.25 x 1250) = 1562.50
Fourth year, I should sell the 1562.5 units plus 25% of the 1562.5 units 1562.5 + (.25 x 1562.5) = 1953.125
In other words, doubling in a little over four years. That's pretty phenomenal considering IDC is only counting commericial sales and not downloads and cheap disks.
Bill Gates, eat your heart out. Linux will rule the world. Comforting, isn't it?
I am a fervent supporter of Constitutional rights and and a supporter of ACLU actions. This letter is to urge you to show restraint in your opposition to laws outlawing unsolicited e-mail, so-called SPAM.
As a thirty-year software developer and a vigorous user of the Internet, I have first hand knowledge that Spam has become one of the most insidious forms of invasion of privacy. There is not one day in which I don't receive unsolicited e-mail for sex, illegal multilevel marketing schemes, and other questionable ventures. This is in spite of the fact that I do not frequent any locations on the Internet in which this kind of thing is topical. These messages gobble up Internet bandwidth at the cost of every system and every user in which they touch.
As a very knowledgeable computer user, I have taken the time and effort to attempt to trace some of these messages back to their origin. What I have found out (and this is common knowledge among Internet users) is that the Spammer often uses deception to disguise their origin, their identity and their intentions. Most often, the technique used is "spoofing," which is to construct a bogus e-mail header with the intention of disguising the identity of the guilty party. To make their e-mail look legit they must necessarily target an existing Internet domain. The company or person providing the service for the targeted domain must then somehow deal with the reprocussions of being a target.
In no other commercial endeavor are advertisements as blatantly dishonest. In no other commercial endeavor would it be tolerated to use another's good name to foist commercial messages on an unwilling public. These practices deserve to be illegal and should be penalized severely.
AOL, based in Virginia, is a target of many Spammer attacks because their visibility allows the Spammer to remain relatively invisible. That's why Spammers choose the big guys as targets. However, every server on the Net is subject to these attacks. Even my little server on a dial-up line has been attacked. Nobody is immune. Fighting this kind of thing has been costly for me and I have no doubt that it has been very costly to AOL.
These activities are intolerable to any Internet provider. They have a real cost in handling complaints and for providing the additional security necessary to block the attacks. The state of Virginia, acting on behalf of their citizens and businesses, including America On-Line, has the right to make these kind of activities illegal. But, how does one do this without infringing on the very freedoms which the Internet provides. With this technology we may be treading on new ground here.
I am not a Constitutional scholar, nor have I read all the arguments for and against the new Virginia Spammer law. However, I would urge you to take a strong position opposing the practice of using the public forum of the Internet as a free-for-all to dishonestly foist strictly commercial messages on the public. In this age of instant Internet communications, one person's right to free speech must be tempered by another's right to privacy and the right not to have any just any transmission crammed down their throats.
Slashdot Mirror
And to the person who claims that this is just a dialog and not approval, you are very naive.
First, science has a built in peer review process. To open this issue up to public debate is wrong. Science has its own built-in procedures to decide these issues. This discussion must take place considering normal scientific methods and within the already established scientific forums.
Second, public opinion based on ignorance is utterly worthless. Far too many people base their opinions on sensationalized news stories and wacko religious nuts. For the most part, these people know nothing of the methodologies and theories on which science is based. People believe weird things for weird reasons and are uniquely unqualified to objectively evaluate cutting edge science.
Finally, this is not a religious issue. To the extent that mankind can create life using their own knowledge and technology is the extent to which that creation is not a concern of religion. I'm sure this won't stop the loony religionists from chiming in with their opinions. This is not elitism because anybody in the world is free to know the science and join the debate within the standard forums.
Judgment should not come from the public or theologians, but from fellow scientists who are much more likely to comprehend the true value and risks of the work. This is why established scientific procedures should be followed in this matter. To do otherwise is to stand the scientific method on its ear. How many people think that Linus should allow Jerry Falwell to judge his work on the Linux kernel? The principles are the same.
The only problem is that you have to take the trouble to click the link.
The lesson to be learned here is that ZDNet Labs has violated the public trust. Somebody's head should roll.
Kudos to Cara at Public Relations and the technical support people for going to bat for us Linux folks.
For the new version, go to Real Player G2 Download Site
To install the driver:
The facts in this matter are very simple. In economical terms, it is called "The Law of Diminishing Returns." When you use a 10 million dollar bullet to shoot down a 1 million dollar missile, the opposition only has to build and launch more missiles to overwhelm and defeat your system.
The latter fact makes SDI very destabilizing. The advantage to the opponent is to just build more weapons and adopt more agressive targetting profiles. This forces the SDI builder to devote more and more resources to counter the threats either by building more missiles themselves or by deploying more defense. Obviously, with the expense of the latter, it isn't long before the SDI deployer is bankrupted (not the opponent). For these reasons the story that the U.S. SDI program bankrupted the Soviet Union causing its fall is ridiculous. This argument is a great example of post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
SDI will have no effect on the most likely nuclear attack, a terrorist weapon smuggled into the country via ship and triggered at a static ground location or in a tall building.
SDI is a waste of money. Always has been, always will be.
Boom goes London.
Boom Paree.
There's more room for you.
There's more room for me.
They all hate us any how
So let's drop the big one now. Randy Newman, Political Science
- When Oppenheimer opposed the "Super" on the grounds that it was an unnecessary weapon of genocide, Teller skewered him. This was a very organized and deliberate maligning of another scientist only because he held an opposing opinion. Teller's words were used to undermine Oppenheimer's veracity in front of the AEC. In an era dominated by HUAC and Senator McCarthy, and in spite of all that Oppie had accomplished for the country, that was enough to destroy a very important person's life, career, etc. The impact of these events is incalculable.
- Teller's version of the Super probably would not have worked--it was a likely dud. So say the other physicists surrounding the project, including Hans Bethe.
- Teller wanted control of the Super project at Los Alamos, but nobody wanted to work with him. Norris Bradbury, the lab's director, had a choice. It was either Teller or two-thirds of his division leaders. Teller had to go. He refused to work under anybody and resigned in a huff in Sept., 1951 when Norris appointed Marshall Holloway to direct the project. This was right when the project got going. Teller wasn't even directly involved in development of the Super from that point on.
- In March, 1951, Ulam saved Teller's design with his staged implosion design. In spite of these facts, Teller continues to take sole credit. How many people have heard of Stanislaw Ulam?
- The Russians had a more advanced A-bomb on the drawing boards when they exploded their first A-bomb, a copy of the Nagasaki device. If spies hadn't turned over the design to the Russians they would have soon had an A-bomb anyway. They were working on the Super soon after their first atomic test in 1949.
Teller is almost totally driven by his hatred of the Russians. This is a hideous concept on which to base one's existence. In my opinion, Edward Teller deserves his reputation as the much maligned enfant terrible of science. Dr. Stranglove, indeed.References:
Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. 1995. Simon and Schuster.
Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. 1986. Simon and Schuster. Pulitzer Prize winner. A great book.
Goodchild, Peter. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds. 1985. Fromm International Publishing Corp.
Prior to that, I believe that a German University had built a digital computer, in the 1930's. I don't think that this resulted in significant research beyond preliminary experiments.
By any standards, the first digital computer that was used to do something would be Colossus which predated ENIAC by years.
I really hate the kind of centrism that mandates that history needs to be rewritten so that one's country can be favored in the eyes of the world. Scott McCartney is wrong, wrong, wrong about ENIAC being first. I wouldn't put much credibility in a history book that gets something as primary as this incorrect.
In other words, survival of the fittest is a very naive way of putting it. Both GA's and nature are more complex than that. We need an occasional "first poster" to keep genetic diversity alive.
As multiprocessing becomes cheaper (thanks in part to Linux), GA's should find more uses. It is very, very easy to parallelize a GA. (You don't need Beowulf to do it.) See September's Linux Journal for a case of a GA designed only to solve a particular mathematical problem concerning White Dwarf stars. No Beowulf here, just a customized, 33-node Genetic Algorithm machine. Cost? A mere $22,000. Not too shabby.
In my wanderings around the Web I haven't found a better resource than The Genetic Programming Notebook. It is by far the most comprehensive site I've found. Here you will find everything. The three main topics are:
- Genetic Programming
- Genetic Algorithms
- Artificial Intelligence, including A. Life.
Within each section are tutorials, FAQs, links, bibliographies, papers, journals and generally everything you need to get started and become a GP, GA or A. Life pro.These are very interesting fields which are really coming into their own with the advent of Linux and free software.
Experimenting with these techniques is as easy as downloading an existing library. One of the best is GALib, a library of C++ Genetic Algorithm objects.
Have fun.
I'm not a lawyer. (I don't even play one on television. ;-)) I would look for this to be challenged on prior restraint grounds.
This entire issue is so lame. The proponents of this legislation are trying to tell people that they have no rights under the law to the use of their computers. This imposes a huge restraint on the rights of all users of commercial software. Right now, that must be about 90-some percent of the computers.
This very well might make it to the Supreme Court. But, I'd bet anything it will be struck down in the lower courts long before that. There will be plenty of big-time corporations who, not wanting their rights to use software restricted either, will pour tons of money into the fight.
Regardless, this is such a ludicrous bill that the states implementing it will become laughing stocks. Can you imagine being the governor of such a state asking large corporations whose livelihood depend on high technology that moving to your state means they have to give up their rights to the software on which their corporation depends? I don't think so.
I have experienced some of the problems others have reported of skipped key presses, etc. But, they all went away when I found a good place to put the receiver. As the documentation says, placement is important. Don't place the receiver near anything that emits RF. That means keep it away from your display and your Linux boxen.
My PII-300 makes both the keybd and mouse go lame. Likewise my displays and the network hub. My HP Inkjet printer and my NetWinder don't do anything bad. In fact, I usually keep the receiver right between the two with no ill effects.
When things are in stock, they can't be beat.
How about it ZDNet? Let's have the gory details. Specifically what tuning was done to each of the operating systems? How was the software procured? Who installed it? How was the hardware procured? I want to see it all.
six months. I'm quite happy with battery life. I've replaced the batteries once.
For a couple of months of that time I wasn't actively
using it, so YMMV.
For the money, I'd buy separates and get Linux hardware compatibility, more memory, more hard drive and not have to pay Microsoft for all that software. If it's PC technology anyway, why not make it the standard platform, expandability and non-monopoly support. Assemble it yourself. You might even save a few sheckles.
If you want cool looking, proprietary and Linux compatibility, there's the NetWinder or Cobalt Qube. That way you are supporting companies which support the Linux effort, too. IMHO.
Likewise, the point is not whether CodeWarrior will work with other Linux distributions or not. The problem is that it is being marketed as exclusively Red Hat. Other major binary Linux product releases have not been marketed this way.
Let's look at the facts.
Why specifically put for Red Hat in the name of the product when that will only result in undercutting the sales to all the other distributions, especially in a market where the number of customers could be significant?
I'm not trying to bash Red Hat but this makes absolutely no sense. More important, it divides the community. And, it's not the way things have been done--until now.
The rules have changed. I want to know why. Don't you?
I'm sorry. I find your argument somewhat shallow and obtuse. Saying that Bill Gates is a businessman hardly excuses him for violating federal anti-trust laws, no matter how vague you might think they are. I'll leave it to those more knowledgable of the law to argue the issue. Here's a couple of links which put Microsoft's actions in perspective of the law.
May I give you one rhetorical question to ponder?
If Windows were really the most technically advanced and innovative operating system on the planet, would Microsoft be in court against the DOJ at this time? Somehow, I doubt it.
It's the fact that monopolies stifle innovation as well as competition which has brought these issues to the forefront. This is why Microsoft has to resort to proprietorization of protocols--what Bill Gates calls innovation--to assure that their monopoly survives. See the oft-quoted Halloween Document for clear evidence of Microsoft intentions. See any account of the Sun/Java Case for an example where Microsoft exercised these proprietorization techniques.
I find the DOJ evidence against Microsoft compelling. Even Microsoft's own defense was a great embarassment. Don't take my word for it. Look for yourself. There are sufficient sites on the Web covering the trial. Check out CNN, ZDNet, Business Week, InfoWorld, etc.
Bork 'em, Danno.
Arne W. Flones Long Ship Software
Pay no mind to the chaos you are seeing. It is merely the shifting of paradigms.
I disagree. This is the solution suggested by Robert Bork. His logic is compelling. I feel that this is the only solution which will:
- Restore competition to the marketplace
- Not involve the government in long term interference with the computer industry.
The splitting off of applications and OS has the problems which you aptly cite:I'm not one who is paranoid of everything that the government touches, but I'm not at all comfortable with the courts, or any other branch of government, deciding a dividing line between app and OS. The best way to avoid this is to just take this off the table altogether. It's an idea which sounds good, but utterly fails in practice.
For many of the same reasons I am against any regulatory solutions. Again, my reasons are less about mistrust of the government than they are about mistrust of Microsoft.
Presuming that Microsoft has broken the anti-trust laws--I hear very few outside of Redmond who doubt that, but the judge has yet to speak--have they indicated that they would change their practices one iota if a regulatory solution were imposed? The answer to this important question for me is quite simply, No.
The previous consent decrees have been blatantly and totally ignored by Microsoft. Their shenanigans during the trial are further evidence that Bill Gates is not going to "do the right thing" about the charges against him and his company. I suspect that the DOJ is close to bringing perjury charges against more than one of the defense witnesses, almost all Microsoft executives. In other words, regardless of how badly the trial is going for Microsoft, they continue to exhibit many of the behaviors which brought them into court.
It is my prediction that Microsoft will be found guilty of breaking the anti-trust laws. They are going to lose big. The solution Judge Jackson will make is going to be severe. My recommendation would be to break Microsoft up into teeny-weeny pieces so that they can never darken the world again with their anti-innovation, anti-consumer, monopolistic practices.
Give Windows and all the applications to three, four, even five new companies who will then be competing amongst each other for the 90+ percent of the desktops Microsoft currently has. This will assure that the products on which the industry has come to depend remain in the marketplace. At the same time, it prevents any of the Baby-Bills from immediately taking control.
Further, I would impose a corporate death penalty on Bill Gates. The court must forbid his involvement in any of the Baby-Bills so that the playing field will remain level. (None of the Baby-Bills should be able to say that they are the real Microsoft because they still have the real Bill Gates.) With his money he can start another company or go into retirement. One thing he shouldn't get is the Microsoft software.
I am probably for the first time in my life siding with Robert Bork. I think that breakup of Microsoft is essential to a future which isn't substantially dominated by Bill Gates and the innovation-stifling Microsoft.
Bork 'em, Danno.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
Arne W. Flones Long Ship Software
Micro$oft and their toadies at MindCrap have already rigged the results. They are still controlling the test conditions, and ultimately, the outcome. The Linux community must not allow this to happen.
Independant testing should be done which have the following features:
In other words, to play along with Micro$oft and their MindCrap cronies is complete folly. The best thing for the Linux community to do with this MindCrap BS is to do nothing.
Our only response to MindCrap requests should be a very public appeal for unbiased testing procedures.
Arne Flones
Long Ship Software
First, realize that the NetWinder is still in beta form. Although the hardware is fairly mature at this time, the software is still in quite rough shape. Although there has been a flurry of activity on the developer's site since the beginning of the year, the last official release was before the beginning of the year. I'd like to see that change soon. What happened to release early and often?
The software on my DM is a crazy quilt of different releases. egcs and glib2, but there's no Netscape. It's got some of Red Hat 5.x, but all RPM's have to installed with the --nodeps flag because the software is a crazy quilt. There is no userful configuration tool that I've seen and the documentation is next to non-existent, printed or otherwise. Many things work well, but many other things don't work at all. All this has to be straightened out before the NetWinder is ready to sell to the general public, especially as an everyday workstation.
Okay, so what's so good about the NetWinder? Fortunately there is a lot of good. It's got to be one of the coolest computers I've ever seen. But, nobody would buy a computer that looked cool if it didn't act the part as well. I'm happy to say that the NetWinder fits the role.
The hardware is mature even if the software isn't. Built-in features are plentiful. Sound, IrDA, video capture and output (both NTSC and PAL), two NICs (one a DEC Tulip 10/100base), microphone and speaker, parallel (EPP/ECP) and serial ports. Parallel port IDE devices are supported. The originally specified built-in modem and telephony capability is gone (although the connectors still live on my machine). That is too bad, but even without telephony there are sufficient features to make most anybody happy. And the components with which I've had experience all seem to be of very high quality. Hardware wise this is a very nice machine. I feel that alone could assure its success in the market (if the software gets done).
One feature with which I have quite a bit of experience is the Dec Tulip 10/100base network interface. The Corel developers did their homework on this interface. It flies. My entire network uses DEC Tulip chip cloan NICs. All the machines are quick, but the NetWinder really pumps it out. There is a noticable difference here. The NetWinder can effortlessly saturate my little hub while my PII-300 has to really work to do it.
The Winder is also speedy in loading large chunks from hard drive. I don't think that this is because of the hard drive, which is a 2.5 inch, 4 GB Toshiba. I believe that the credit goes to intelligent coding, the StrongARM CPU and its support chips. For instance, emacs and X windows load much quicker on the Winder than on my PII-300. This would support HCC's claim that the NetWinder is ideal as a server. After using the machine for a few months in that mode, it still seems fast. I'm still very impressed.
The NetWinder uses less than 15 watts of power. One of the Corel engineers told me that he got a NetWinder to bootstrap using only one regular nine volt battery for power. I guess it didn't run too long, but it got to the login prompt with no problems. I haven't tried this, nor do I intend to. But, this will give you an idea of how little power it uses. I can see a lot of special applications being made that take advantage of this feature. Solar power anybody?
Am I glad that I bought a NetWinder? On the whole, yes. I am very pleased with it. This little guy figures prominently in my future plans. I hope that HCC soon will get through the transition and release the desperately needed major software upgrade. In the meantime, I'll let my NetWinder serve up Web pages for my network and do some other miscellaneous things. But, what I'd really like is to use it as an easily packable computer. Soon, I hope.
Regards,
Arne Flones
Long Ship Software
With the debacle of the MindCraft Windows NT tests fresh in everybody's mind, I am surprised that you would not see through this ploy. Leibowitz presents the worst-case scenerio and then draws conclusions like it is a likely outcome. Leibowitz also ignores moderating influences and past costs.
And quit saying that Microsoft is being punished for being successful. They deserve to be punished because they used their monopoly position in the computer OS market to leverage monopolies in other markets. This is *illegal* under U. S. anti-trust laws.
As a long time software developer I've watched markets and opportunities dwindle under the repressive Microsoft regime. At the same time software quality and reliability has plummeted and innovation has been stifled. I suggest that somebody sponsor a study of how much this has cost computer users over the past three decades.
I suggest that what we have lost is not just the competition, quality and innnovation in an industry, we have also lost billions and billions of dollars to merely prop up Bill Gates' monopoly. How many clever, independant software developers could that money have funded? So Mr. Leibowitz's $30 billion is a mere pittance compared to what Microsoft's monopoly has already cost. If it costs a worst-case $30 billion to repair the damage, so be it.
The horizontal break-up of Microsoft into three or even four baby-Bills is, in effect, a death penalty to Microsoft. In my opinion, this is the only way to restore competition. For the untold billions wasted on smothering competition and innovation, and for the murder of an untold number of what would otherwise have been productive and innovative software development enterprises, Microsoft richly deserves the death penalty. It's time to put an end to it. Break 'em up.
Thank you for an opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Arne W. Flones
Long Ship Software A Microsoft free developer
Subject says it all...
hehehe
So, if I start with 1,000 units the first year...
Second year I should sell the 1,000 units plus 25% of the 1,000 units.
1000 + (.25 x 1000) = 1250
Third year, I should sell the 1,250 units plus 25% of the 1,250 units
1250 + (.25 x 1250) = 1562.50
Fourth year, I should sell the 1562.5 units plus 25% of the 1562.5 units
1562.5 + (.25 x 1562.5) = 1953.125
In other words, doubling in a little over four years. That's pretty phenomenal considering IDC is only counting commericial sales and not downloads and cheap disks.
Bill Gates, eat your heart out. Linux will rule the world. Comforting, isn't it?
Ciao,
Arne Flones
Long Ship Software
I am a fervent supporter of Constitutional rights and and a supporter of ACLU actions. This letter is to urge you to show restraint in your opposition to laws outlawing unsolicited e-mail, so-called SPAM.
As a thirty-year software developer and a vigorous user of the Internet, I have first hand knowledge that Spam has become one of the most insidious forms of invasion of privacy. There is not one day in which I don't receive unsolicited e-mail for sex, illegal multilevel marketing schemes, and other questionable ventures. This is in spite of the fact that I do not frequent any locations on the Internet in which this kind of thing is topical. These messages gobble up Internet bandwidth at the cost of every system and every user in which they touch.
As a very knowledgeable computer user, I have taken the time and effort to attempt to trace some of these messages back to their origin. What I have found out (and this is common knowledge among Internet users) is that the Spammer often uses deception to disguise their origin, their identity and their intentions. Most often, the technique used is "spoofing," which is to construct a bogus e-mail header with the intention of disguising the identity of the guilty party. To make their e-mail look legit they must necessarily target an existing Internet domain. The company or person providing the service for the targeted domain must then somehow deal with the reprocussions of being a target.
In no other commercial endeavor are advertisements as blatantly dishonest. In no other commercial endeavor would it be tolerated to use another's good name to foist commercial messages on an unwilling public. These practices deserve to be illegal and should be penalized severely.
AOL, based in Virginia, is a target of many Spammer attacks because their visibility allows the Spammer to remain relatively invisible. That's why Spammers choose the big guys as targets. However, every server on the Net is subject to these attacks. Even my little server on a dial-up line has been attacked. Nobody is immune. Fighting this kind of thing has been costly for me and I have no doubt that it has been very costly to AOL.
These activities are intolerable to any Internet provider. They have a real cost in handling complaints and for providing the additional security necessary to block the attacks. The state of Virginia, acting on behalf of their citizens and businesses, including America On-Line, has the right to make these kind of activities illegal. But, how does one do this without infringing on the very freedoms which the Internet provides. With this technology we may be treading on new ground here.
I am not a Constitutional scholar, nor have I read all the arguments for and against the new Virginia Spammer law. However, I would urge you to take a strong position opposing the practice of using the public forum of the Internet as a free-for-all to dishonestly foist strictly commercial messages on the public. In this age of instant Internet communications, one person's right to free speech must be tempered by another's right to privacy and the right not to have any just any transmission crammed down their throats.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Regards,
Arne W. Flones