I am slightly troubled by one aspect of your.sig though, and that is the prevalence both of harmless forms of greed, and of mechanisms by which greed can be harnessed (vis-a-vis trade). There is a risk that in seeking to neuter greed, life is harmed: that is, excessive righteousness can be destructive.
But then, maybe I just need to read the rest of your.sig; stupidity is indeed a great force for evil, especially when it combines with greed (notably for power). I just think that the way it is written is an attack on the right, whereas such idiocy is near-universal!
Trouble is that once Kazaa el al are down, BitTorrent comes into its own. It's only the existance of other methods of sharing that have become the norm that stops BT from becoming a major means of trafficing copyrighted works.
Super-seeding ensures that a site with low upload rates can still serve a lot of music. From TheSHAD0W:
This method has resulted in much higher seeding efficiencies, by both inducing peers into taking only the rarest data, reducing the amount of redundant data sent, and limiting the amount of data sent to peers which do not contribute to the swarm. Prior to this, a seed might have to upload 150% to 200% of the total size of a torrent before other clients became seeds. However, a large torrent seeded with a single client running in super-seed mode was able to do so after only uploading 105% of the data. This is 150-200% more efficient than when using a standard seed.
Indeed. The documentation in gnugo-3.4/doc is pretty good. From move_generation.texi:
In the value field of a pattern (@pxref{Pattern Values}) one may
specify a shape value.
This is used to compute the shape factor, which multiplies the score of a move. We take the largest positive contribution to shape and add 1 for each additional positive contribution found. Then we take the largest negative contribution to shape, and add 1 for each additional negative contribution. The resulting number is raised to the power 1.05 to obtain the shape factor.
The rationale behind this complicated scheme is that every shape point is very significant. If two shape contributions with values (say) 5 and 3 are found, the second contribution should be devalued to 1. Otherwise the engine is too difficult to tune since finding multiple contributions to shape can cause significant overvaluing of a move.
From this kind of detail, you start to get a serious idea of what's going on!
I hope you managed to explain to your girlfriend that the net doesn't need top-down command and control to function.
I sort-of managed to explain it, but she's not a natural libertarian. I guess that slashdot and its ilk are simply sites that she wouldn't use.
"No deletes" gives me a sense of clarity, rather than warmth and fuzziness, since I know that what I'm getting is representative; I am interacting with people as they are, rather than the sense of falseness that a "moderator-nazi" policy would induce. As a mathematician, I very much value such clarity!
So how will your auto-responders etc tell the difference between bad guys and good guys?
If it's effective enough, you won't need the good guys!
If every address they give becomes useless, they can't advertise. Whilst there's nasty DDOS potential, it break the commercial model, so should halt their income stream, and their entire reason to knock out the good guys: the good guy's become distributed and impossible to attack!
I see. This is presumably why you don't allow replies to your journal posts. I was disappointed with some of the replies to this Journal entry of mine, not that they're that bad, just unnecessary.
In your position, I'd be inclined to get an account so that I could request "Friends and Friends of Friends only", or even "Friends only" for your journal entries, but I entirely respect your position, and I'm not saying that this is what you should do!
It's a shame that there are such assholes about, but it's a large planet, and the assholes out there bait who they can, so you can expect a few to bait you (or me) occasionally.
I'm not surprised that some of the troll posts are so offensive to women; when I had my ex-girlfriend come round to visit recently, I was showing her about slashdot, and although I avoided any potentially risky links, I started feeling scared on her behalf that one would turn up! She asked me "are such posts removed", and I explained "no they're just modded down", and explained the system of moderation. Whereas I'd be inclined to see this as healthy self-regulation, she saw it as irresponsibility on behalf of the editors.
I'm sorry that your site was attacked in this way. It's unpleasant and unfortunate to see what some consider to be sport.
For the truly brave, this is the only option. It is a curse of our time that we blur individualism, meaning property law, with actual freedom.
Freedom is not open to contract, and once we are too strongly oppressed, we must remember that. Contract is a means by which we get on. It is a voluntary trade, a voluntary restraint. When our rights are shat upon from a great height, this is not a voluntary trade: it is oppression.
Fair use rights might appear to be the right to rip off an artist; in reality they are a recognition in law that freedom of action trumps property rights. Naturally, they're limited in society, for we do want to protect artists' income streams, but we do not prescribe the death penalty for all misdemeanours, for we believe in graded punishment that "fits the crime", ie. we do not want to deter actions too much.
What do we want to do, then? We want to allow people to break the law if they have sufficient cause. And this is a classic case. Our fair use rights are particularly important, for they link to free speech. This includes the right to quote others our of their chosen context. Without this, political dissent within a free society is not possible. What then is political as apposed to commercial? There is no easy way to deduce that. It has to be left up to the speaker. And sometimes the speaker has to brave prison or other disincentives in order to uphold their rights, and (more importantly) the rights of those who are in a similar position. Civil disobedience is a social act, not an antisocial one. Civil disobedience restores sanity and respect into the minds of the rulers, and reminds them that they are meant to serve us, not rule us.
What about the objection that law is the result of democracy? Democracy, like capitalism is a form of contract, and it may be necessary, but it should itself be held to account to the higher principle of freedom.
Please no-one use this "as is", especially if they live in Cambridge; I only want to encourage others to craft a decent letter.
Dear Anne Campbell,
A few weeks ago, I emailed you concerning software patents, with patent laws being passed in the European Parliament, and soon to be put through to UK law.
Last month, the European Parliament voted for strong restrictions upon software patents, but it is my understanding that UK ministers at the Competitiveness Council of Ministers are likely to push for the Parliament amendments to be overturned. This would be a disaster for software development within Britain.
The UK Patent Office have been lobbying for unlimited patentability, and whilst their consultation found a lot of support from patent professionals were in favour, the views of programmers were extremely hostile. Strong patent laws are not good for the industry, although they might be good for big companies: in the USA, large companies build portfolios of software patents, which creates a minefield for programmers, as every program contains steps which could be considered innovative, meaning that before long, it becomes impossible to write programs of any complexity without stepping upon some of these patents. Although these patents ultimately might not stand up in court, the fear of law and the resources of large companies means that the interests of smaller outfits and individuals are overwhelmed. This is not an efficiency, for the cost is not the natural cost of doing business, but an artificial one of compliance with the regulation.
I should add that in the USA, cross-licensing of patent portfolios is commonplace, creating government-enforced cartels, as those working for such companies don't need to worry about compliance. This is actually proof that patent laws are inefficient, since firms would rather absolve one another of their patent obligations than enforce them. An excellent case against software patents is put forward by Laura Creighton, a software venture capitalist, to be found at http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/030508_1/.
I am faxing, as well as emailing this letter because of the urgency of the issue: there is to be a series of meeting of patent officials throughout Europe on Thursday 23 October ahead of the meeting of the Competitiveness Council of Ministers.
This is a serious worry for me, and not a theoretical idealisation. Everyone that I know in the industry has told be how worried they are about what future laws we are likely to end up with. I hope that you can put the case to Stephen Timms MP, the minister for e-commerce at the DTI, and cast your vote at a future date against an excessive patent regime.
Actually, it seems like there should be laws about this already, but IANAL. Anyone know if wrongfully convicted citizens can file criminal suit against prosecutors?
Dispite your AC critic I think that you're right. Passing information of uncertain veracity is an important part of the information game. If you had to check all of your sources, you'd get the information far too late. This response is a proportional response in an evolutionary contest, based upon a struggle for power.
It would be important to build in ways (perhaps a trusted network as is used with GPG keys) to decide how trusted information should be, though, not only to avoid legal suits, but in order to have decent quality of information for one's own use.
Remember the advice to the British government approching the invasion in Iraq? It was wrong, but information handled by the intelligence agencies has to be at all levels of certainly; they often only get a whisper of what's going on.
If you're going to match the security services' level of insight, you need to handle (but also rapidly reject) "grey" information, since information often comes in shadowy forms, where statistical analysis or a statistical outlook has to be applied.
Every mail server admin defines a list of people whom he trusts (those might also be institutions), and they delegate their trust further, with different levels.
This is too much work. This needs to be automatic and personal, so that "trust" means trust. We need to remember the political importance of not relying upon external raters in any case [censorship]. Linked text below:
For this to happen, PGP/GPG needs to be trivial to use, and integrated into mail. Defaults such as adding someone to your address book gives a basic level of trust (overrideable) would be good. Once this happens automatically, a web of trust would be able to grow rapidly; one could even develop trust databases (which would have to be secure in turn, and would rate one another).
Trust should be two-dimensional. Lack of knowledge needs to be distinguished from knowledge of untrustworthiness, as the most-trusted route could include "mugs", or those who have not yet been conned by someone.
or you need a global web of trust that makes sure that everyone that can connect to the internet has one, and only one, signature that can be unambigously traced down to the real person (of course, without harming privacy...).
For this to happen, PGP/GPG needs to be trivial to use, and integrated into mail. Defaults such as adding someone to your address book gives a basic level of trust (overrideable) would be good. Once this happens automatically, a web of trust would be able to grow rapidly; one could even develop trust databases (which would have to be secure in turn, and would rate one another).
Trust should be two-dimensional. Lack of knowledge needs to be distinguished from knowledge of untrustworthiness, as the most-trusted route could include "mugs", or those who have not yet been conned by someone.
Europeans are in a better position to make a stink about it, because they can hold the U.S. up as an example of the problems inherent in granting software patents.
True, but we still get 'em. A combination of strong-arming (from the US), toadying (by the Europeans), and plain political ignorance (patents were defended as making it possible for small companies to compete more fairly with larger firms) means that we get a "compromise", rather than plain common sense.
As with Internet Explorer, users will stick with what they know (MS), and what's good enough: Life's got too many choices already.
As to the switches from Linux, how many of those involve pointy-haired bosses (who want to go for the "professional" rather than the "hobbyist" option), or simply those wanting to tap the market of programmers with MS experience?
Good enough plus pointy hair is as good as a made decision in many firms. SCO FUD can't help either.
Slashdot Mirror
I am slightly troubled by one aspect of your .sig though, and that is the prevalence both of harmless forms of greed, and of mechanisms by which greed can be harnessed (vis-a-vis trade). There is a risk that in seeking to neuter greed, life is harmed: that is, excessive righteousness can be destructive.
.sig; stupidity is indeed a great force for evil, especially when it combines with greed (notably for power). I just think that the way it is written is an attack on the right, whereas such idiocy is near-universal!
But then, maybe I just need to read the rest of your
Fair comment.
Following the link to Suprnova has proved me wrong in any case.
Super-seeding ensures that a site with low upload rates can still serve a lot of music. From TheSHAD0W:
Tinfoil Hat linux.
It's broke.
All email should be Public Key encrypted for the recipient!
From this kind of detail, you start to get a serious idea of what's going on!
Linux: Kernel "Back Door" Attempt.
Good try, there!
"No deletes" gives me a sense of clarity, rather than warmth and fuzziness, since I know that what I'm getting is representative; I am interacting with people as they are, rather than the sense of falseness that a "moderator-nazi" policy would induce. As a mathematician, I very much value such clarity!
If every address they give becomes useless, they can't advertise. Whilst there's nasty DDOS potential, it break the commercial model, so should halt their income stream, and their entire reason to knock out the good guys: the good guy's become distributed and impossible to attack!
I see. This is presumably why you don't allow replies to your journal posts. I was disappointed with some of the replies to this Journal entry of mine, not that they're that bad, just unnecessary.
In your position, I'd be inclined to get an account so that I could request "Friends and Friends of Friends only", or even "Friends only" for your journal entries, but I entirely respect your position, and I'm not saying that this is what you should do!
It's a shame that there are such assholes about, but it's a large planet, and the assholes out there bait who they can, so you can expect a few to bait you (or me) occasionally.
I'm not surprised that some of the troll posts are so offensive to women; when I had my ex-girlfriend come round to visit recently, I was showing her about slashdot, and although I avoided any potentially risky links, I started feeling scared on her behalf that one would turn up! She asked me "are such posts removed", and I explained "no they're just modded down", and explained the system of moderation. Whereas I'd be inclined to see this as healthy self-regulation, she saw it as irresponsibility on behalf of the editors.
I'm sorry that your site was attacked in this way. It's unpleasant and unfortunate to see what some consider to be sport.
For the truly brave, this is the only option. It is a curse of our time that we blur individualism, meaning property law, with actual freedom.
Freedom is not open to contract, and once we are too strongly oppressed, we must remember that. Contract is a means by which we get on. It is a voluntary trade, a voluntary restraint. When our rights are shat upon from a great height, this is not a voluntary trade: it is oppression.
Fair use rights might appear to be the right to rip off an artist; in reality they are a recognition in law that freedom of action trumps property rights. Naturally, they're limited in society, for we do want to protect artists' income streams, but we do not prescribe the death penalty for all misdemeanours, for we believe in graded punishment that "fits the crime", ie. we do not want to deter actions too much.
What do we want to do, then? We want to allow people to break the law if they have sufficient cause. And this is a classic case. Our fair use rights are particularly important, for they link to free speech. This includes the right to quote others our of their chosen context. Without this, political dissent within a free society is not possible. What then is political as apposed to commercial? There is no easy way to deduce that. It has to be left up to the speaker. And sometimes the speaker has to brave prison or other disincentives in order to uphold their rights, and (more importantly) the rights of those who are in a similar position. Civil disobedience is a social act, not an antisocial one. Civil disobedience restores sanity and respect into the minds of the rulers, and reminds them that they are meant to serve us, not rule us.
What about the objection that law is the result of democracy? Democracy, like capitalism is a form of contract, and it may be necessary, but it should itself be held to account to the higher principle of freedom.
Come on moderators, this is funny!
Human answers would include wrong ones, where the mistake is based upon human patterns of thought. Aspergics might fail the turning test 'though.
Thanks, but too late :-(
A quick Google, and I find this old chestnut. Original author lost in the mists of time...
SPEL CHEQUER
Eye halve a speling chequer.
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a werd
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this pome threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfekt awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Please no-one use this "as is", especially if they live in Cambridge; I only want to encourage others to craft a decent letter.
Dear Anne Campbell,
A few weeks ago, I emailed you concerning software patents, with patent laws being passed in the European Parliament, and soon to be put through to UK law.
Last month, the European Parliament voted for strong restrictions upon software patents, but it is my understanding that UK ministers at the Competitiveness Council of Ministers are likely to push for the Parliament amendments to be overturned. This would be a disaster for software development within Britain.
The UK Patent Office have been lobbying for unlimited patentability, and whilst their consultation found a lot of support from patent professionals were in favour, the views of programmers were extremely hostile. Strong patent laws are not good for the industry, although they might be good for big companies: in the USA, large companies build portfolios of software patents, which creates a minefield for programmers, as every program contains steps which could be considered innovative, meaning that before long, it becomes impossible to write programs of any complexity without stepping upon some of these patents. Although these patents ultimately might not stand up in court, the fear of law and the resources of large companies means that the interests of smaller outfits and individuals are overwhelmed. This is not an efficiency, for the cost is not the natural cost of doing business, but an artificial one of compliance with the regulation.
I should add that in the USA, cross-licensing of patent portfolios is commonplace, creating government-enforced cartels, as those working for such companies don't need to worry about compliance. This is actually proof that patent laws are inefficient, since firms would rather absolve one another of their patent obligations than enforce them. An excellent case against software patents is put forward by Laura Creighton, a software venture capitalist, to be found at http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/030508_1/.
I am faxing, as well as emailing this letter because of the urgency of the issue: there is to be a series of meeting of patent officials throughout Europe on Thursday 23 October ahead of the meeting of the Competitiveness Council of Ministers.
This is a serious worry for me, and not a theoretical idealisation. Everyone that I know in the industry has told be how worried they are about what future laws we are likely to end up with. I hope that you can put the case to Stephen Timms MP, the minister for e-commerce at the DTI, and cast your vote at a future date against an excessive patent regime.
Yours sincerely,
Tim Wesson.
False Imprisonment?
Dispite your AC critic I think that you're right. Passing information of uncertain veracity is an important part of the information game. If you had to check all of your sources, you'd get the information far too late. This response is a proportional response in an evolutionary contest, based upon a struggle for power.
It would be important to build in ways (perhaps a trusted network as is used with GPG keys) to decide how trusted information should be, though, not only to avoid legal suits, but in order to have decent quality of information for one's own use.
Remember the advice to the British government approching the invasion in Iraq? It was wrong, but information handled by the intelligence agencies has to be at all levels of certainly; they often only get a whisper of what's going on.
If you're going to match the security services' level of insight, you need to handle (but also rapidly reject) "grey" information, since information often comes in shadowy forms, where statistical analysis or a statistical outlook has to be applied.
This is too much work. This needs to be automatic and personal, so that "trust" means trust. We need to remember the political importance of not relying upon external raters in any case [censorship]. Linked text below:
For this to happen, PGP/GPG needs to be trivial to use, and integrated into mail. Defaults such as adding someone to your address book gives a basic level of trust (overrideable) would be good. Once this happens automatically, a web of trust would be able to grow rapidly; one could even develop trust databases (which would have to be secure in turn, and would rate one another).
Trust should be two-dimensional. Lack of knowledge needs to be distinguished from knowledge of untrustworthiness, as the most-trusted route could include "mugs", or those who have not yet been conned by someone.
True, but we still get 'em. A combination of strong-arming (from the US), toadying (by the Europeans), and plain political ignorance (patents were defended as making it possible for small companies to compete more fairly with larger firms) means that we get a "compromise", rather than plain common sense.
In case of Slashdotting
Take note: "Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content."
Guess you're right s/users/managers/g
As with Internet Explorer, users will stick with what they know (MS), and what's good enough: Life's got too many choices already.
As to the switches from Linux, how many of those involve pointy-haired bosses (who want to go for the "professional" rather than the "hobbyist" option), or simply those wanting to tap the market of programmers with MS experience?
Good enough plus pointy hair is as good as a made decision in many firms. SCO FUD can't help either.