Are you implying that amazon and Microsoft have not yet patented the idea of collecting ideas together in the form of chemical marks on bound sheets of processed trees?
They both have patents pending on this. Since neither of them have found any prior art, the PTO will probably grant one of them:)
...the point is to teach theory in the context of practical application.
Agreed. I have a BS in mathematics, and an long standing interest in electronics. Large systems of equations, complex analysis, etc. are not a problem. I even have some knowledge of FEM, SVD, levelset (very little), and other graduate level numerical methods. Combined with physics, introductory electronics courses, and self study, I should be a prime candidate according to the gradparent post.
The biggest problem I've had in electronics is grappling with the zen of board layout, the small tips on prototyping, and practical troubleshooting that some of my EE friends pick up as random comments from their instructors. This is not trivial; from most of the stories I hear, theory seems to be a structure that most professional EE's us to hang their experience on. Not the other way around.
I'm glad to hear about this myself; though I'll happily stay with my hardcore math for now.
IANAL as well, so this is the perfect time to put in my $.02...
When you go to a gas pump and fill up your tank, you've got an implicit contract to go and pay.
This is quite a different issue. The transfer of goods in a store (or gas station) setting is a well defined interaction in the culture. When I pick up something from a merchant's store I *should* understand that I'm obligated to pay for it.
After I pay for it, I also understand that I can do with it what I wish. In a limited form, this is codified in section 109 of Title 17:
"...the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord."
There is no implied contract with DVDs. There is no shrink wrap contract with DVDs. As a matter of fact, in Title 17, section 1201 (c)(1) it states that
"Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." (emphasis added)
Also, if it can be argued that DVD is reverse engineering, then that's protected under title 17 as well:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title."
Alright, I'll take a swing....the Wolfowitz doctrine...
Only time will tell if Wolfowitz has send America to the same end as Rome, Spain, France, and Britain. However, it rests firmly on the assumptions that our allies will either fall in line with the hegemony or at least forgive our actions out of political necessity.
The stance of the majority of the world's powers before, during and after the last conflict suggests that both of these presuppositions are wrong.
First, even among the countries listed as members of the coalition, the vast majority wished to be silent partners and only one offered significant millitary support; and almost all rely on heavy US support for stability (eg.Afghanistan, Colombia), or financial support (eg. Japan). Also significant to me is that some of these countries actually hindered the US effort in some way (eg. Turkey). If this is the resistance to ousting a dictator that enjoyed no support in the region (before the conflist), what sort of support can we expect when the action is against a long time ally (eg. France, Saudi Arabia)?
Secondly, the path of hegemony hasn't worked for any empire in history; so why should it work now? Rome's focus on domination cause instability in its political system (allegence of the armies to the general instead of the state broke the political mechanism among other things). Britain's position caused other governments to support internal actions against the government in thier colonies (eg. France's help to the American colonies offering training, money, and engaging the British in europe to keep the full strength of thier army from reaching the American shores). The Byzantine empire's fractured culture allowed Islam invaders to find ready allies in the marches of that empire (also due to protracted wors wth the empire to the east in modern day Iran).
Thirdly, the US taking this stance seems to foster in the international opinion the view that the only defense against the US intrusion into your local interest is to become a viable military and economic threat.
So, I don't see how the American hegemony will protect any of the things you claim it will.
Transcribing music in the two different scales is slightly different when youhave to keep track of where to put the naturals et al. Also, reading a piece that's written in a key near the bottom of the circle of fifth is a pain for us mortals.
I think you've missed the point. Jpellino was pointing out that the fact that humans have a literary community, artistic community, philosophical community, etc, indicates the significance of the difference between humans and chimpanzees.
No, I got that. I was only pointing out the limitations on self referntial systems. Humans are special and unique, but we're also the only ones (we know of) defining the ideas "special" and "unique."
Thank you, I was looking for a place to mention the significance of regulation. You did it better than I could have:)
Sitting here working for the TB proteome project, I find it amaizing that even after the structural biologists finish the lion's share of their work on the mysteries of sequence to structure mapping, we still won't have a solid grasp of organism systems' protein interaction until the regulatory sites are found and thoroughly studied.
From what I've seen on PBS, and other magazine shows, the Human Genome Project people are misrepresenting what they've accomplished (I'm not taking anything away from them, it's truly amainzing). They keep talking about the medical marvels that are now possible and how we understand everything about humans without mentioning the titan effort it will take to understand the translation and interaction.
My hat's off to the statistical genetics people for all they're able to do with prediction of traits from marks, kinship coefficients and pedigrees, but won't break out the champagne until the system (systeome?) project is done.
I think it's funny that Funkitup actually believes that evolution is a progressive process. What a maroon!
It seems rather common with people who equate "nature" as an outside force. As such, I guess you'd have to come up with some reason to justify our exclusion from it.
Silly. I don't see any evidence to suggest that we are separated from nature, that we are any different in principle from the critters who don't build concrete ant hills, or that the human brain is a successful evolutionary developement (note: an unsuccessful evolutionary developement is one that causes the extinction of a species, so we can't know the positive, only the negative - then we won't be around to know).
...but I did get a laugh from the grandparent post.
Indeed, but it's not reasonable to assume professional equipment is available to the general public. Also, the same right (fair use) that gives the right to backup a DVD also gives the right to use parts of a copyrighted work (ala. educational, commentary). This would required the decryption of part of a DVD to accomplish. (of course, IANAL)
I know how you feel. After a few years in retail followed by a BS in math, I only work in Z[2^(1/2)][(-5.13)^(1/3)]:)
Re:Maybe the problem is Minsky himself?
on
AI Going Nowhere?
·
· Score: 1
But the real AI comes when you create a 'stupid' system that is able to become smart through learning and training.
The problem I see is that the natural intelligent system we're using as a model (us) doesn't work like that. The human brain has all sorts of tricks to handle its environment. We are not tabla rasa.
Consider vision. We don't see 3D, but use visual clues to pick up an idea of what the space around us is like. These techniques are so intengrated into how we perceive the world that we don't realize we're doing them.
Higher levels of learning seem to work that way to. People's relations to one another, the size of a room by hearing, location of a speaker, and math proofs are all things that we use counter intuitive cheats for that have been discovered by experiment. By nature or culture, we infer a hugh amount of knowledge from simple clues in our environment Since we don't know what they are (ie. we can't read our own wiring yet); it's not sensible to claim that we can produce a reasonable simmulation of the world.
Can we grow an AI the Minsky way? Hell, I have no idea in the long run. But, even if you can, I don't think it's the fastest or brightest way. It seems to me that real world testing fills a vital gap in the hypothesis testing ritual of good science that the older AI sandbox method left open. It sees if your hypothesis is actually workable in the real world.
Your example was based on the web. People who have seen the internet develope will remember when telnet and ftp were the kings; and before that when bbs' were the typical interaction a computer would be used for. So, how does your "common sense" rule cover the next big thing? How does it handle p2p interaction? How does it handle poorly defined or new protocols?
The user friendly face of the web is a thin mask pulled over a non-human readable universe. Does common sense tell you when connection failures are configuration or authentication failures?
There in lies one of the many thorns in this issue. Almost every type of access incolves the copying of information, from motd to default setups. Even if you only limit it to "important information", you still leave most access at the mercy of the victim to define the value of the information (as a sibling post mentions). Ref. Bell lab's value of their documents in the old Phrack case, the various victims claiming thier code is worth $billions in the various mitnick cases.
I don't think you need to limit government prosecution of CRIMINAL cases.
As devil's advocate [sic], I'd have to point out that the government has a long history of passing legislation after the fact that puts severe penalties on a minor crime that sit on the books until some unsuspecting victim fumbles into the trap. Examples are the NET Act and 1933's H.R. 4220 "For the Protection of Government Records" that penalized people who disseminated information that was once in coded or encrypted form (ref. "The Codebreakers", David Kahn).
Congress has distilled the crime of felony copyright infringement to four essential elements: (1) a copyright exists; (2) it was infringed by the defendant, specifically by reproduction or distribution of the copyrighted work; (3) the defendant acted "willfully"; and (4) the defendant infringed at least 10 copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $2,500 within a 180-day period. See 17 U.S.C. 506(a)(2); 18 U.S.C. 2319(a), (c)(1).
Do they hire some guy to force you to stare at ads in between articles?
Yeah, they used to tie up Vinny and throw him on my porch every Sunday. He was a really nice guy with a real talent for breaking arms and hammering toes when I skimmed passed the Classified section or glanced pass one of those ad boxes on the bottom right.
Unfortunately, he suffered from splinters and abrasions after the rainy seasons when my wooden porch fell into disrepair; and, when the new paper boy started throwing him in the cactus planter, he put in his two weeks.
For a while it was kinda lonely and pointless reading the sunday paper. I kept reading from article from article until I completely forgot to focus on the "New Paint for Your Clunker" and "Vaginal Rejuvination" ads.
I hear they've hired a guy named Guido to take his place, so looks like I can finally get back to the consumer indocrination I agreed to by purchasing a paper.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you implying that amazon and Microsoft have not yet patented the idea of collecting ideas together in the form of chemical marks on bound sheets of processed trees?
:)
They both have patents pending on this. Since neither of them have found any prior art, the PTO will probably grant one of them
...the point is to teach theory in the context of practical application.
Agreed. I have a BS in mathematics, and an long standing interest in electronics. Large systems of equations, complex analysis, etc. are not a problem. I even have some knowledge of FEM, SVD, levelset (very little), and other graduate level numerical methods. Combined with physics, introductory electronics courses, and self study, I should be a prime candidate according to the gradparent post.
The biggest problem I've had in electronics is grappling with the zen of board layout, the small tips on prototyping, and practical troubleshooting that some of my EE friends pick up as random comments from their instructors. This is not trivial; from most of the stories I hear, theory seems to be a structure that most professional EE's us to hang their experience on. Not the other way around.
I'm glad to hear about this myself; though I'll happily stay with my hardcore math for now.
-RB
Also, if it can be argued that DVD is reverse engineering...
:)
Sorry, I meant DeCSS and not DVD
When you go to a gas pump and fill up your tank, you've got an implicit contract to go and pay.
This is quite a different issue. The transfer of goods in a store (or gas station) setting is a well defined interaction in the culture. When I pick up something from a merchant's store I *should* understand that I'm obligated to pay for it.
After I pay for it, I also understand that I can do with it what I wish. In a limited form, this is codified in section 109 of Title 17:
"...the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord."
There is no implied contract with DVDs. There is no shrink wrap contract with DVDs. As a matter of fact, in Title 17, section 1201 (c)(1) it states that
"Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." (emphasis added)
Also, if it can be argued that DVD is reverse engineering, then that's protected under title 17 as well:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title."
It does seem that way - they don't seem to own any copyrights of mass destruction after all 8)
:)
Only, they're the ones claiming they *do* this time
If I had mod points, I'd mod you back up.
sumbry, please stop feeding the trolls :)
Alright, I'll take a swing. ...the Wolfowitz doctrine...
Only time will tell if Wolfowitz has send America to the same end as Rome, Spain, France, and Britain. However, it rests firmly on the assumptions that our allies will either fall in line with the hegemony or at least forgive our actions out of political necessity.
The stance of the majority of the world's powers before, during and after the last conflict suggests that both of these presuppositions are wrong.
First, even among the countries listed as members of the coalition, the vast majority wished to be silent partners and only one offered significant millitary support; and almost all rely on heavy US support for stability (eg.Afghanistan, Colombia), or financial support (eg. Japan). Also significant to me is that some of these countries actually hindered the US effort in some way (eg. Turkey). If this is the resistance to ousting a dictator that enjoyed no support in the region (before the conflist), what sort of support can we expect when the action is against a long time ally (eg. France, Saudi Arabia)?
Secondly, the path of hegemony hasn't worked for any empire in history; so why should it work now? Rome's focus on domination cause instability in its political system (allegence of the armies to the general instead of the state broke the political mechanism among other things). Britain's position caused other governments to support internal actions against the government in thier colonies (eg. France's help to the American colonies offering training, money, and engaging the British in europe to keep the full strength of thier army from reaching the American shores). The Byzantine empire's fractured culture allowed Islam invaders to find ready allies in the marches of that empire (also due to protracted wors wth the empire to the east in modern day Iran).
Thirdly, the US taking this stance seems to foster in the international opinion the view that the only defense against the US intrusion into your local interest is to become a viable military and economic threat.
So, I don't see how the American hegemony will protect any of the things you claim it will.
...The CLR was designed to support other languages. From the beginning. It has a huge advantage over Java/JVM.
Please enlighten us. The JVM is a general purpose stack cpu AFAIK. I haven't had much exposure to the CLR, so how is it better than the JVM?
Transcribing music in the two different scales is slightly different when youhave to keep track of where to put the naturals et al. Also, reading a piece that's written in a key near the bottom of the circle of fifth is a pain for us mortals.
I think you've missed the point. Jpellino was pointing out that the fact that humans have a literary community, artistic community, philosophical community, etc, indicates the significance of the difference between humans and chimpanzees.
No, I got that. I was only pointing out the limitations on self referntial systems. Humans are special and unique, but we're also the only ones (we know of) defining the ideas "special" and "unique."
I would have payed your bail if I had to sell my car! The thought alone will give me a smile through my soul draining afternoon meeting.
What a maroon!
That was a bit harsh. I apologize.
Thank you, I was looking for a place to mention the significance of regulation. You did it better than I could have :)
Sitting here working for the TB proteome project, I find it amaizing that even after the structural biologists finish the lion's share of their work on the mysteries of sequence to structure mapping, we still won't have a solid grasp of organism systems' protein interaction until the regulatory sites are found and thoroughly studied.
From what I've seen on PBS, and other magazine shows, the Human Genome Project people are misrepresenting what they've accomplished (I'm not taking anything away from them, it's truly amainzing). They keep talking about the medical marvels that are now possible and how we understand everything about humans without mentioning the titan effort it will take to understand the translation and interaction.
My hat's off to the statistical genetics people for all they're able to do with prediction of traits from marks, kinship coefficients and pedigrees, but won't break out the champagne until the system (systeome?) project is done.
I got news for you... not only does the scientific community have those ideas about how unique and exceptional humans are ("how" unique?), so does...
:)
Hmm... all humans. Not exactly an unbiased audience, are they?
I think it's funny that Funkitup actually believes that evolution is a progressive process. What a maroon!
It seems rather common with people who equate "nature" as an outside force. As such, I guess you'd have to come up with some reason to justify our exclusion from it.
Silly. I don't see any evidence to suggest that we are separated from nature, that we are any different in principle from the critters who don't build concrete ant hills, or that the human brain is a successful evolutionary developement (note: an unsuccessful evolutionary developement is one that causes the extinction of a species, so we can't know the positive, only the negative - then we won't be around to know).
...but I did get a laugh from the grandparent post.
Indeed, but it's not reasonable to assume professional equipment is available to the general public. Also, the same right (fair use) that gives the right to backup a DVD also gives the right to use parts of a copyrighted work (ala. educational, commentary). This would required the decryption of part of a DVD to accomplish. (of course, IANAL)
I know how you feel. After a few years in retail followed by a BS in math, I only work in Z[2^(1/2)][(-5.13)^(1/3)] :)
But the real AI comes when you create a 'stupid' system that is able to become smart through learning and training.
The problem I see is that the natural intelligent system we're using as a model (us) doesn't work like that. The human brain has all sorts of tricks to handle its environment. We are not tabla rasa.
Consider vision. We don't see 3D, but use visual clues to pick up an idea of what the space around us is like. These techniques are so intengrated into how we perceive the world that we don't realize we're doing them.
Higher levels of learning seem to work that way to. People's relations to one another, the size of a room by hearing, location of a speaker, and math proofs are all things that we use counter intuitive cheats for that have been discovered by experiment. By nature or culture, we infer a hugh amount of knowledge from simple clues in our environment Since we don't know what they are (ie. we can't read our own wiring yet); it's not sensible to claim that we can produce a reasonable simmulation of the world.
Can we grow an AI the Minsky way? Hell, I have no idea in the long run. But, even if you can, I don't think it's the fastest or brightest way. It seems to me that real world testing fills a vital gap in the hypothesis testing ritual of good science that the older AI sandbox method left open. It sees if your hypothesis is actually workable in the real world.
...I live in California!!!
And 640 billion should be enough for anybody.
:)
Yeah, any more and we would be talking about "real money."
Common sense should rule.
Your example was based on the web. People who have seen the internet develope will remember when telnet and ftp were the kings; and before that when bbs' were the typical interaction a computer would be used for. So, how does your "common sense" rule cover the next big thing? How does it handle p2p interaction? How does it handle poorly defined or new protocols?
The user friendly face of the web is a thin mask pulled over a non-human readable universe. Does common sense tell you when connection failures are configuration or authentication failures?
I claim it does little good in the general case.
...OR if ANY copying of information...is done.
There in lies one of the many thorns in this issue. Almost every type of access incolves the copying of information, from motd to default setups. Even if you only limit it to "important information", you still leave most access at the mercy of the victim to define the value of the information (as a sibling post mentions). Ref. Bell lab's value of their documents in the old Phrack case, the various victims claiming thier code is worth $billions in the various mitnick cases.
I don't think you need to limit government prosecution of CRIMINAL cases.
As devil's advocate [sic], I'd have to point out that the government has a long history of passing legislation after the fact that puts severe penalties on a minor crime that sit on the books until some unsuspecting victim fumbles into the trap. Examples are the NET Act and 1933's H.R. 4220 "For the Protection of Government Records" that penalized people who disseminated information that was once in coded or encrypted form (ref. "The Codebreakers", David Kahn).
It is a crime.
To take from novel copyright infringment page:
Congress has distilled the crime of felony copyright infringement to four essential elements: (1) a copyright exists; (2) it was infringed by the defendant, specifically by reproduction or distribution of the copyrighted work; (3) the defendant acted "willfully"; and (4) the defendant infringed at least 10 copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $2,500 within a 180-day period. See 17 U.S.C. 506(a)(2); 18 U.S.C. 2319(a), (c)(1).
Otherwise it's a tort, not a crime.
Do they hire some guy to force you to stare at ads in between articles?
Yeah, they used to tie up Vinny and throw him on my porch every Sunday. He was a really nice guy with a real talent for breaking arms and hammering toes when I skimmed passed the Classified section or glanced pass one of those ad boxes on the bottom right.
Unfortunately, he suffered from splinters and abrasions after the rainy seasons when my wooden porch fell into disrepair; and, when the new paper boy started throwing him in the cactus planter, he put in his two weeks.
For a while it was kinda lonely and pointless reading the sunday paper. I kept reading from article from article until I completely forgot to focus on the "New Paint for Your Clunker" and "Vaginal Rejuvination" ads.
I hear they've hired a guy named Guido to take his place, so looks like I can finally get back to the consumer indocrination I agreed to by purchasing a paper.