The Register made it clear that what is at stake is IBM's status as an early adopter. One would assume that Microsoft will pretty much have to resolve the issues that IBM has, and then the rollout will go on.
But for now it is banned from their production network.
Keep their hands tied down until the market moves past them. Do you think that Linux would today be such big news had the OEM control not been loosened? I don't!
How long will it take? Not very. Just today there is an earnings warning, and their stock fell below 80. I also cannot wait for this tidbit about IBM not allowing Windows 2000 on the production network to get into wide circulation. (It is not the only, and won't be the last such memo circulated.)
Well it was their decision to "bet the farm" on a bloated OS, let us just hold them to it for a bit...:-)
Perl together with Safe.pm is able to provide a security model that allows people to run untrusted applets, etc. But it is not as comprehensive a system as the browser, and more importantly it is not the same system.
Something like a browser should have a single security model that there is no confusion about. If you start matching unmatched security models, well welcome to the security hole game.
Perl is a great language.
It just isn't a great language to have client-side stuff delivered in over a browser.
Cheers, Ben
PS JavaScript, BTW, is not a very good language IMHO. If x and y are both 2, then what is x+x? It could be 4 or 22, neither variables nor operators are typed. Bad decision.
PPS Some good points for JavaScript. A lot of web programmers don't know, but should, that JavaScript objects are virtually interchangable with Perl's hashes. JavaScript also supports full closures.
He wrote a simple server that pretended to be an ftp server. It wasn't, of course. But if the same IP address tried to log into it somewhere between 5-10 times in a row, then bingo! You are in!
You see a small directory with interesting looking files. (eg passwords.gz).
So go to download and it goes ssslllooowwwlllyyy. (You aren't getting anything meaningful, just 100 bytes/second or so to make you go away and shut up.)
Worked quite well...
On a more serious note, what would be nice is if there was a set-up that noticed a portscan in progress and blocked that IP (plus notified the administrator etc). Anyone know of something like this?
Most of NYC was laid out in a grid in the early 1800's. The result is that for a city of its size you have an amazing amount of light, and very long views N-S and E-W.
So from the street you can usually see (a bit of) horizon.
Laurence (not Lawrence) Godfrey was a net legend years ago. Aside from flaming some of his more nasty comments I thought he was pretty harmless. Oh sure, he talked about suing everyone, but I didn't really believe it.
Never underestimate the effect that a single nut with a lawyer.:-(
Welcome to the dark ages, Britain. Just as something was being done about access costs for being online, you have now been censored. I just wonder how long it will be until The Register is forced to relocate...
The Findings of Fact were very clear, and we have heard a lot about the potential lawsuits that would depend on quoting them. OTOH since a final ruling had not come down, those lawsuits couldn't yet be filed.
Will those lawsuits start to be filed with this decision? Or does that have to wait for final punishment?
I am sure there would be a market for compressed images of multiple operating systems. Imagine for $10 getting a variety pack that included compressed VMWare images of the *BSDs, Solaris 8, several distributions of Linux, EROS, and BeOS?
Very handy for someone who wants to play around, or for a starting place for testing...
I recommend Robert Forward's "Indistinguishable from magic" for a start. At least his devices, as impossible as they seem, are based on real science that could potentially be built with a future technology.
There is an amusing book called "Indistinguishable from Magic" by Robert Forward that you should read.
He sticks to current science for his wonders, but manages to design things that are unbelievable but could potentially happen given our current knowledge of science. One of them is an immobile device that creates a stationary region of low gravity.
The very scientists who made all of the advances you are calling "impossible" would be the last to advocate going out and testing random ideas they consider "stupid" or "patently impossible".
The progress of science depends upon torture-testing our best current theories, and then attempting to figure out WTF went wrong when the theory starts to break down. You cannot effectively torture test the theory if you don't understand it!
The progress of technology lies in finding practical applications of our current understanding of science.
No, the movie industry doesn't call sequels versions. That is a programmer slipping up.
But they might as well for the lack of originality generally shown.
Cheers, Ben
PS Don't trust the fortunes to be very accurate. The fortune as I am posting this is Wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us. -- R. Browning I happen to know that this is due to Robbie Burns. Which makes me wonder about others out there that I don't know about...
The directors came from a background in superhero comics, not movies. This shows in their choice of effects, angles, etc.
Secondly they did an extremely good job of cutting the film back. Partway through shooting their budget was cut drastically - after they had already spent a lot. Which is why some of the special effects are high tech, and some are painfully obviously low.
Somehow I think that their next version won't have the budget problems...
Playstation 2, in one country, in one day, sold as well as Windows 2000 did across the entire world in about 3 weeks (actually 22 days). And Playstation 2 did not have any OEM preload channels to claim as "sales".
Yes, Windows 2000 is selling well compared to the original NT 4.0 (which was hardly a hit before Service Pack 1), and compared to some unspecified "expectations". However suppose that your average machine turns over in 2 years. Then Microsoft's sales are consistent with replacement alone on about 33 million machines. Of course the installed base of NT is a lot larger than that, and NT tends to get replaced more often than once every 2 years.
Hmmm...doesn't seem like much "pent up demand" there!
No, if the Windows 2000 news doesn't improve at some point, Microsoft is in trouble.
Option 2 is evolutionarily unlikely. Even if only a small percentage is properly biologically prediposed to prefer the real thing with babies at the end no matter what the external world (global population decreases say that this is not everyone), they are the only ones that matter evolutionarily and will dominate in the long run.
Option 1 is possible, but I don't think that the catastrophe will be externally induced when it comes...
The third possible (and actually accurate) resolution is that Penrose does do a good job explaining one of the many possible proofs for a lay audience, but fails himself to understand the exact meaning of the theorem and horribly misapplies it to artificial intelligence.
I am another person who believes that AI is coming. Why have we not seen it yet? Because by any attempt to measure it computers have nowhere near the computational power that we take for granted doing something as simple as making out speech or recognizing someone! However we can estimate when computers will hit something in that order of magnitude of power. Estimates are in the range 2020-2030.
What happens then?
Every technological advance until now has shown a pattern where humans are displaced, find new jobs, and everyone is better. The reason that humans can find new jobs is that there are always jobs that are easier to have filled by general purpose humans than specialized machine.
With artificial intelligence and robots I see the advent of general purpose machines that can more cheaply do anything that a human can do.
What then?
Humans get displaced - and there is no job that is not better filled by a computer. The basic equation of capitalism is that there is something you can do for someone else with money that is valuable enough that they are willing to pay you for it. This is called work. If they pay you money and you don't provide value back it is called charity. The majority of people work for someone else.
What happens when most people have nothing they can do that those with money find valuable? Unless we give up capitalism they go on welfare or starve. I don't see us giving up capitalism, and I don't see the welfare system expanding like that - technology will just move to countries without welfare.
What then?
Will we see mass starvation before 2050?
It is one thing to rationally saying we will become irrelevant and be replaced evolutionarily. It is quite another to view with equinamity a real prospect of widespread death inside of a century!
Every logician who I have ever seen discuss the topic says that Penrose completely misunderstands the contents of Goedel's theorem. And furthermore his attempted application of it to AI is misguided. Here is a short explanation of Goedel.
Strong words?
Let me give you a quick sample of why Goedel does not apply to us. Goedel merely puts a limit on what absolutely consistent reasoning can determine. However our reasoning is inconsistent - we make mistakes. (Mistakes which historically have often taken years to discover.) And so Goedel says nothing about us at all!
Slashdot Mirror
For instance, what do you do in the US if someone in Russia decides to ignore copyright?
Is it fair?
No.
Can you stop it?
..?
Cheers,
Ben
The first time I heard about her was a little over a year ago when she was running in some poll against Linus Torvalds. I saw it here and said, "Huh?"
/., which it to say "not much".
I find it amusing that the number times I run into mentions of her is about as often as she shows up on
Cheers,
Ben
They list the two patents in question here.
Cheers,
Ben
The Register made it clear that what is at stake is IBM's status as an early adopter. One would assume that Microsoft will pretty much have to resolve the issues that IBM has, and then the rollout will go on.
But for now it is banned from their production network.
Regards,
Ben
Keep their hands tied down until the market moves past them. Do you think that Linux would today be such big news had the OEM control not been loosened? I don't!
:-)
How long will it take? Not very. Just today there is an earnings warning, and their stock fell below 80. I also cannot wait for this tidbit about IBM not allowing Windows 2000 on the production network to get into wide circulation. (It is not the only, and won't be the last such memo circulated.)
Well it was their decision to "bet the farm" on a bloated OS, let us just hold them to it for a bit...
Cheers,
Ben
And I speak as a Perl advocate.
Perl together with Safe.pm is able to provide a security model that allows people to run untrusted applets, etc. But it is not as comprehensive a system as the browser, and more importantly it is not the same system.
Something like a browser should have a single security model that there is no confusion about. If you start matching unmatched security models, well welcome to the security hole game.
Perl is a great language.
It just isn't a great language to have client-side stuff delivered in over a browser.
Cheers,
Ben
PS JavaScript, BTW, is not a very good language IMHO. If x and y are both 2, then what is x+x? It could be 4 or 22, neither variables nor operators are typed. Bad decision.
PPS Some good points for JavaScript. A lot of web programmers don't know, but should, that JavaScript objects are virtually interchangable with Perl's hashes. JavaScript also supports full closures.
He wrote a simple server that pretended to be an ftp server. It wasn't, of course. But if the same IP address tried to log into it somewhere between 5-10 times in a row, then bingo! You are in!
You see a small directory with interesting looking files. (eg passwords.gz).
So go to download and it goes ssslllooowwwlllyyy. (You aren't getting anything meaningful, just 100 bytes/second or so to make you go away and shut up.)
Worked quite well...
On a more serious note, what would be nice is if there was a set-up that noticed a portscan in progress and blocked that IP (plus notified the administrator etc). Anyone know of something like this?
Cheers,
Ben
Most of NYC was laid out in a grid in the early 1800's. The result is that for a city of its size you have an amazing amount of light, and very long views N-S and E-W.
So from the street you can usually see (a bit of) horizon.
Cheers,
Ben
New York City is well north of DC.
:-)
I can honestly assure you that the aurora were not visible within the city.
Cheers,
Ben
Laurence (not Lawrence) Godfrey was a net legend years ago. Aside from flaming some of his more nasty comments I thought he was pretty harmless. Oh sure, he talked about suing everyone, but I didn't really believe it.
:-(
Now this?
Never underestimate the effect that a single nut with a lawyer.
Welcome to the dark ages, Britain. Just as something was being done about access costs for being online, you have now been censored. I just wonder how long it will be until The Register is forced to relocate...
Ben
The Findings of Fact were very clear, and we have heard a lot about the potential lawsuits that would depend on quoting them. OTOH since a final ruling had not come down, those lawsuits couldn't yet be filed.
Will those lawsuits start to be filed with this decision? Or does that have to wait for final punishment?
Regards,
Ben
I am sure there would be a market for compressed images of multiple operating systems. Imagine for $10 getting a variety pack that included compressed VMWare images of the *BSDs, Solaris 8, several distributions of Linux, EROS, and BeOS?
Very handy for someone who wants to play around, or for a starting place for testing...
Cheers,
Ben
I remember this asshole. What a jerk!
:-(
He was even a net-legend.
I guess a legend with a lawyer can set an unfortunate precedent...
Regards,
Ben
Why not do a review of something interesting?
I recommend Robert Forward's "Indistinguishable from magic" for a start. At least his devices, as impossible as they seem, are based on real science that could potentially be built with a future technology.
Regards,
Ben
There is an amusing book called "Indistinguishable from Magic" by Robert Forward that you should read.
He sticks to current science for his wonders, but manages to design things that are unbelievable but could potentially happen given our current knowledge of science. One of them is an immobile device that creates a stationary region of low gravity.
Cheers,
Ben
The very scientists who made all of the advances you are calling "impossible" would be the last to advocate going out and testing random ideas they consider "stupid" or "patently impossible".
The progress of science depends upon torture-testing our best current theories, and then attempting to figure out WTF went wrong when the theory starts to break down. You cannot effectively torture test the theory if you don't understand it!
The progress of technology lies in finding practical applications of our current understanding of science.
Regards,
Ben
Take a look for yourself.
Before movies they worked for Marvel Comics and it shows in their cinematography.
Regards,
Ben
No, the movie industry doesn't call sequels versions. That is a programmer slipping up.
But they might as well for the lack of originality generally shown.
Cheers,
Ben
PS Don't trust the fortunes to be very accurate. The fortune as I am posting this is Wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us. -- R. Browning I happen to know that this is due to Robbie Burns. Which makes me wonder about others out there that I don't know about...
Some little-known facts about the Matrix.
The directors came from a background in superhero comics, not movies. This shows in their choice of effects, angles, etc.
Secondly they did an extremely good job of cutting the film back. Partway through shooting their budget was cut drastically - after they had already spent a lot. Which is why some of the special effects are high tech, and some are painfully obviously low.
Somehow I think that their next version won't have the budget problems...
Cheers,
Ben
Let me see.
Playstation 2, in one country, in one day, sold as well as Windows 2000 did across the entire world in about 3 weeks (actually 22 days). And Playstation 2 did not have any OEM preload channels to claim as "sales".
Yes, Windows 2000 is selling well compared to the original NT 4.0 (which was hardly a hit before Service Pack 1), and compared to some unspecified "expectations". However suppose that your average machine turns over in 2 years. Then Microsoft's sales are consistent with replacement alone on about 33 million machines. Of course the installed base of NT is a lot larger than that, and NT tends to get replaced more often than once every 2 years.
Hmmm...doesn't seem like much "pent up demand" there!
No, if the Windows 2000 news doesn't improve at some point, Microsoft is in trouble.
Regards,
Ben
Option 3 is (as you admit) implausible.
Option 2 is evolutionarily unlikely. Even if only a small percentage is properly biologically prediposed to prefer the real thing with babies at the end no matter what the external world (global population decreases say that this is not everyone), they are the only ones that matter evolutionarily and will dominate in the long run.
Option 1 is possible, but I don't think that the catastrophe will be externally induced when it comes...
Cheers,
Ben
The third possible (and actually accurate) resolution is that Penrose does do a good job explaining one of the many possible proofs for a lay audience, but fails himself to understand the exact meaning of the theorem and horribly misapplies it to artificial intelligence.
Regards,
Ben
I am another person who believes that AI is coming. Why have we not seen it yet? Because by any attempt to measure it computers have nowhere near the computational power that we take for granted doing something as simple as making out speech or recognizing someone! However we can estimate when computers will hit something in that order of magnitude of power. Estimates are in the range 2020-2030.
What happens then?
Every technological advance until now has shown a pattern where humans are displaced, find new jobs, and everyone is better. The reason that humans can find new jobs is that there are always jobs that are easier to have filled by general purpose humans than specialized machine.
With artificial intelligence and robots I see the advent of general purpose machines that can more cheaply do anything that a human can do.
What then?
Humans get displaced - and there is no job that is not better filled by a computer. The basic equation of capitalism is that there is something you can do for someone else with money that is valuable enough that they are willing to pay you for it. This is called work. If they pay you money and you don't provide value back it is called charity. The majority of people work for someone else.
What happens when most people have nothing they can do that those with money find valuable? Unless we give up capitalism they go on welfare or starve. I don't see us giving up capitalism, and I don't see the welfare system expanding like that - technology will just move to countries without welfare.
What then?
Will we see mass starvation before 2050?
It is one thing to rationally saying we will become irrelevant and be replaced evolutionarily. It is quite another to view with equinamity a real prospect of widespread death inside of a century!
Cheers,
Ben
As am I. (Disclosure, I studied math.)
Every logician who I have ever seen discuss the topic says that Penrose completely misunderstands the contents of Goedel's theorem. And furthermore his attempted application of it to AI is misguided. Here is a short explanation of Goedel.
Strong words?
Let me give you a quick sample of why Goedel does not apply to us. Goedel merely puts a limit on what absolutely consistent reasoning can determine. However our reasoning is inconsistent - we make mistakes. (Mistakes which historically have often taken years to discover.) And so Goedel says nothing about us at all!
Cheers,
Ben
Their mailing list is regularly snapshotted. This one is # 17.
Cheers,
Ben