Your post has come back to haunt me. From my short stint at a large monopolistic software company I can confirm that senior researchers have direct contact with the CEO/chairman/whatever and that green light is given by him and is, more often then not, very conservative. I would think that convincing Jobs is not the easiest and that appealing to his typographical knowledge must wear thin after a few encounters. Innovation is a risk&investment game and you find your share of high-risk takers, hedge managers, lemmings, etc. Apple is an Integration-and-Synergy (I apologize for my use of this last word) company now (what you synthesized correctly as productivity) and the technical challenges are probably too few and far between for a guy like Kay.
But being an academic certainly has its shortcoming, first among them being the paycheck. Second would be the unconstant workforce you can leverage. It's also somewhat difficult to do anything large scale in an academic setting, academic research IS mostly a race for the low hanging fruits. If Kay wants to change the world he might find no perfect spot. If he wants to be at the forefront of research/technological advancement (which I personally doubt), then academic would be the better route.
There is no Bell Labs now but you probably find more academics tailoring their research for private parties. Apple, Microsoft and even Google are single-mindedly focused on short-to-middle term return on their investments. Maybe it's always been that way but the conditions were different, I honestly can't give an answer to that.
Kay as already been at Apple, during the early Macintosh day. He's been at Xeros during the days of the Alto, worked on SmallTalk. Some people will tell you there as never been anything like it since.
Kay is the kind of people that have too much ideas and not enough time to research or implement all of them (in a good sense of course). That means he's got potential ideas lined up waiting for some CPU cycles to become available. You give him carte blanche over a talented team and he create amazing stuff. I'd be the ideal person to build an "Internet Plateform", whatever it is. I can tell what exists today is not "it" and barely registers as functional in his mind. I'd be surprised if he doesn't end at Google.
The trust of my argument is that a good sci-fi movie is watched multiple times leading to truly awesome DVD sales. I sample what is released and buy what I like. I'm not going to buy Fantastic 4 or even Spiderman (I'm probably protesting for not having the Ramones version of the theme song here). Also since DVD sales have insane profit margins, that business proposition of creating a lasting, self-contained product makes a lot of sense.
I've said it several times, once the Star Wars saga is over and the Studio have finished their soul searching (seeing as they can't effectively go directly to the bank with past brands) we'll start getting amazing sci-fi.
Blockbuster sci-fi has gone the "more realistic special effects" direction for some time now at the expense of storylines and actual character development. (As a side, am I the only one to have been completely blown away at the initial scene of the latest Star Wars?) Spielberg has done a great disservice by not being bold enough but just so. Maybe he doesn't want to risk his emerging production company yet? Nobody else stepped up to the plate. Matrix was probably the last film that wowed audiences just by the special effects (and the music). Special effects are so good now that you won't see them as a good enough reason to head to the theatre for that 12$ ticket and 16$ soda/pop-corn combo.
I've missed the first season of Galactica and catched up by downloading the episodes on the net. The 2 special episodes are truly fantastic. The first season has the making of a good series. Unfortunately, since I've watched the first season back-to-back, I could see how diluted the content is compared to the special episodes. This must be the Studio wanting to milk to good ideas as much as they can. This is the Star-Trek disease and honestly I'll probably put up with it as I don't have better options.
What I am longing for is self-contained, one-time features. I don't mind spending 3 hours or more (whatever is needed to finish the story, don't do the Revolutions gimmick). I don't want to invoke past cliches like BladeRunner and 2001, but there need to be more exploration of genres. Spielberg is kinda trying to try,,but always settle for the good ending. Good sci-fi is intrinsically watched multiple time and is a natural DVD bestseller. As is usually the case in our society, good investment leads more surely to profits. So take that to heart Studios!
As to whether I'd like to see a movie version of Galactica. I don't know, the rebirth of Galactica clearly show how the fans are not the best judges and that the green light shouldn't be given according to fan's opinions.
When you didn't have a steam engine it sure shakes up things a tad. When you didn't have the phone or radio it sure changes our perception of the world. When cars appears it doesn't change things so much as the steam engine but still. When TV appears things evolve more than they dramatically change. When the transistor appears it basically replace computing machines that already existed.
The thing is that society has hit its sweet operative spot and we're just basically improving and tweaking the successful recipe. I can't see how my super duper cell phone with holographic display and surround sound with voice command and freaking metal welding laser (for cutting your hairs and nails of course) will change the basic functioning of society as we know it.
Innovation getting slower is a loaded concept and doesn't take into account the incredible leverage we make of technology. Well, I assume they talk about technological innovations. Changes in society are usually more profound and more durable. Take as an example the Great Darkness where Europe stayed commatose for centuries. Sure technology is important in the scheme of things, but maybe the question should be: If innovation is really slowing, maybe it's because it is being slowed down by our current organization of society.
You're wrong of course because pi/2 is a ratio and is as irrational as pi itself. What irrational means is that pi cannot be expressed as a ratio of integer numbers, that doesn't mean it cannot be a ratio of some non-integer quantities.
I'm just saying that being pragmatic (ie doing a benefit analysis) is a far more solid reason to engage in open source than doing it for good will. It is a logical and rational decision instead of a sentimental or ideological one and is a lot more defendable as a business model.
If a big corporation such as Apple can justify its OSS activities as a positive, value-added investment then this is a big plus for OSS. This is a validation of the benefits of sharing in business terms without the need for all the FSF ideological framework. Please note, M. Anonymous troll that I haven't commited against the ideology of Free Software. In fact, I'm saying that you don't need to to find a rational justification for engaging in OSS.
I don't want to crush your hope about your community perceptions. But certainly they did some benefit analysis and came out with the fact the the more "aligned" (for lack of a better word) they are the more they can leverage OSS effort. And vis-versa really, I don't think Apple minds OSS leveraging their effort. So this is a pretty pragmatic decision, a good thing for OSS as it shows a company having rationalized its relationship with open source without reverting to goodwill or mindshare (Google?).
As TFA mentions, Wifi as really changed things for consumers. It is now possible to keep working on the same machine all day long without loss in connectivity.
I've been an exclusive laptop user for the last 8 years and I don't see myself going back to a fixed desk.
First, search for "Protein Gels" in google image. What you'll find is COMPLETELY representative of what any software will have to deal with. The situation is completely impossible thanks to those fine biologists. What's a blot, where does it end, what is the intensity, what's the background. Is the background uniform (probably not), how to correct it? You'll find different answers with every fine biologist you speak to.
The problem is not building some clickety tool for enabling the fine biologists to extract manually their data. That is easy. The problem is having an automated tool to go through the metric ton of images a lab can produce and perform consistently in an otherwise inconsistent set of individual experimental procedures. Suppose you find the magic solution to all those problems, is there scientific background to the image analysis techniques you used? The answer is no, everybody could argue that the results are an artifact of the software. Try explaining how a neural network does it's thing. You can't for a particular image. That's probably why everyone uses NIH image...
Protein Gels is just a mean for an end. It's an indirect way to obtain information about something. I suggest those fine biologists find another mean to the same end. As it is, gels are extremely unreliable and tricky to get right in a standardized fashion.
Ok, suppose you login to google in some way (google history) and they rank you and decide that your a reputable expert in some field f. Than, suppose you're search pattern reveals that in some field f, you prefer some source s1 or s2. Then google can conclude that in field f sources s1 and s2 should be ranked higher due to your personal input.
I've tried various "native" ports of Emacs and none fit my tastes. It's either the color scheme I can't set correctly or the font. I should mention that I prefer non anti-aliased fonts while programming.
I've got fink to manage my open-source packages. I hear darwinports is also really good. I've got both KDE 3.3 and Xorg 6.8.1 installed and running under the XDarwin application. I got the KDE dock even. Everything works as it should, I can even copy-paste between Terminal.app and Emacs (under XDarwin*) without much hassle. I had freetype (anti-aliased fonts) working at some point but lost it when updating to KDE 3.3.
Because everything of value should be instantly be shared over the world to improve the life of others. You need others right?
Because you didn't really create something of value, others came before you and did the grunt work, you're just putting the pieces together.
I'm playing devil's advocate here. Of course ideas are valuable and should be protected and inventors should be given exclusive rights do their inventions and given the possibility to distribute/licence, wait for it, as they wish!
If some people, even if they were the majority, want to give algorithms/methods they possess for free, then more power to them. The fact is, if you work your ass off for a number of years researching, fleshing out details and coming up with solid solutions to problems, you have something of value on your hands and that should be protected.
Some whiners will want to throw away the patent system because of the way some companies have patented obvious ideas and trivial algorithms. Those particular patents should be reneged by the patent office or offered to the public domain as a goodwill gesture.
The thing with code is that, over time, you come to rely on it. You want tools to remain available to you to perform your daily tasks.
For example, you want to continue using compiler X 2.95 say for however long you want witout having to pay for a subscription or without being vulnerable to deficiencies. Same thing with other programs like email readers, browser and more fundamentally an OS.
So there is a need to take measures to keep the code free and available, unencumbered by legal or economical conditions. Conditions that would/could, ultimately, be a loss to its users. In fact, the thing with free software in general is that reliance on free software is safe because it cannot be taken away.
At first thought it was nothing more than a WAN. But they are way bigger, more mobile. They need reliable (redundant), mobile (non-localized), secure and fast communications. In other words, it's likely that the specs of the current system are below their requirements and the only solution is to start from scratch.
It's probably akin to what you can achieve with only bricks and mortar. If you want to go to the next level, you have to go with new materials and new building techniques. If they want to use technology as an important battle force, they probably need the rethink most of their current comm building blocks. What they are envisioning is probably going to be way more than a database of all the maps and building blueprints existing. What I mean is that it's probably going to be something more than just support material for aiding during combat.
Maybe this will spur new technologies in the same way the original ARPANet did and have vast ramifications into our lives 10 or 20 years down the road.
Until there's a precedent establishing the un-responsibility of the owner of a shared connection, I wouldn't take the chance. Also there is certainly some language in your contract with your ISP against sharing your connection anyway. So your screwed both ways.
But with WiFi probably going to be the next step for the Internet I'm sure there _will_ be a precedent.
If google's cluster is interconnected via ethernet, there is a whole range of computational problems it can't tackle. If you want to simulate a spatial phenomenon with lot of things going back and forth in a volume, you're bound to have a _lot_ of communications. The cost of the interconnect system in those simulation systems is often a substantial proportion of the total cost of the installation.
They only have results from a computer simulation. Probably only a simulation of what is happening in a cell or in the neighborhood of one. We are _far_ from clinical tests.
There's also the problem that this modified virus can itself be propagated autonomously which is a problem, because once its "out there", its out of control in a way. And if its out there uncontroled in may mutate in unexpected ways (stated in the article).
I think the methodology of using virus and modifying the "payload" is a good research direction. But there should be safeguards. For example, it should be possible to add a deficiency or vulnerability in the modified virus so that it could be taken out using normal antibiotics. Therefore making the "runaway" scenario at most a benign one.
There's a national park near my parents' home. There are some wonderful (and dangerous) hiking trails. Before entering the trail, there's a small place with a log where you enter:
Person name, departing time and approx. returning time. And upon you return, you "close" the log.
Now its not mandatory but the log is checked every day by some park personnel. So if there's someone missing, they know _who_, _when_. They know those who departed before and after them, etc. Now if you want to make it computerised, that's great, only give people choice to "log in".
Slashdot Mirror
But being an academic certainly has its shortcoming, first among them being the paycheck. Second would be the unconstant workforce you can leverage. It's also somewhat difficult to do anything large scale in an academic setting, academic research IS mostly a race for the low hanging fruits. If Kay wants to change the world he might find no perfect spot. If he wants to be at the forefront of research/technological advancement (which I personally doubt), then academic would be the better route.
There is no Bell Labs now but you probably find more academics tailoring their research for private parties. Apple, Microsoft and even Google are single-mindedly focused on short-to-middle term return on their investments. Maybe it's always been that way but the conditions were different, I honestly can't give an answer to that.
Kay is the kind of people that have too much ideas and not enough time to research or implement all of them (in a good sense of course). That means he's got potential ideas lined up waiting for some CPU cycles to become available. You give him carte blanche over a talented team and he create amazing stuff. I'd be the ideal person to build an "Internet Plateform", whatever it is. I can tell what exists today is not "it" and barely registers as functional in his mind. I'd be surprised if he doesn't end at Google.
The trust of my argument is that a good sci-fi movie is watched multiple times leading to truly awesome DVD sales. I sample what is released and buy what I like. I'm not going to buy Fantastic 4 or even Spiderman (I'm probably protesting for not having the Ramones version of the theme song here). Also since DVD sales have insane profit margins, that business proposition of creating a lasting, self-contained product makes a lot of sense.
Blockbuster sci-fi has gone the "more realistic special effects" direction for some time now at the expense of storylines and actual character development. (As a side, am I the only one to have been completely blown away at the initial scene of the latest Star Wars?) Spielberg has done a great disservice by not being bold enough but just so. Maybe he doesn't want to risk his emerging production company yet? Nobody else stepped up to the plate. Matrix was probably the last film that wowed audiences just by the special effects (and the music). Special effects are so good now that you won't see them as a good enough reason to head to the theatre for that 12$ ticket and 16$ soda/pop-corn combo.
I've missed the first season of Galactica and catched up by downloading the episodes on the net. The 2 special episodes are truly fantastic. The first season has the making of a good series. Unfortunately, since I've watched the first season back-to-back, I could see how diluted the content is compared to the special episodes. This must be the Studio wanting to milk to good ideas as much as they can. This is the Star-Trek disease and honestly I'll probably put up with it as I don't have better options.
What I am longing for is self-contained, one-time features. I don't mind spending 3 hours or more (whatever is needed to finish the story, don't do the Revolutions gimmick). I don't want to invoke past cliches like BladeRunner and 2001, but there need to be more exploration of genres. Spielberg is kinda trying to try, ,but always settle for the good ending. Good sci-fi is intrinsically watched multiple time and is a natural DVD bestseller. As is usually the case in our society, good investment leads more surely to profits. So take that to heart Studios!
As to whether I'd like to see a movie version of Galactica. I don't know, the rebirth of Galactica clearly show how the fans are not the best judges and that the green light shouldn't be given according to fan's opinions.
The thing is that society has hit its sweet operative spot and we're just basically improving and tweaking the successful recipe. I can't see how my super duper cell phone with holographic display and surround sound with voice command and freaking metal welding laser (for cutting your hairs and nails of course) will change the basic functioning of society as we know it.
Innovation getting slower is a loaded concept and doesn't take into account the incredible leverage we make of technology. Well, I assume they talk about technological innovations. Changes in society are usually more profound and more durable. Take as an example the Great Darkness where Europe stayed commatose for centuries. Sure technology is important in the scheme of things, but maybe the question should be: If innovation is really slowing, maybe it's because it is being slowed down by our current organization of society.
You're wrong of course because pi/2 is a ratio and is as irrational as pi itself. What irrational means is that pi cannot be expressed as a ratio of integer numbers, that doesn't mean it cannot be a ratio of some non-integer quantities.
If a big corporation such as Apple can justify its OSS activities as a positive, value-added investment then this is a big plus for OSS. This is a validation of the benefits of sharing in business terms without the need for all the FSF ideological framework. Please note, M. Anonymous troll that I haven't commited against the ideology of Free Software. In fact, I'm saying that you don't need to to find a rational justification for engaging in OSS.
I don't want to crush your hope about your community perceptions. But certainly they did some benefit analysis and came out with the fact the the more "aligned" (for lack of a better word) they are the more they can leverage OSS effort. And vis-versa really, I don't think Apple minds OSS leveraging their effort. So this is a pretty pragmatic decision, a good thing for OSS as it shows a company having rationalized its relationship with open source without reverting to goodwill or mindshare (Google?).
I've been an exclusive laptop user for the last 8 years and I don't see myself going back to a fixed desk.
The problem is not building some clickety tool for enabling the fine biologists to extract manually their data. That is easy. The problem is having an automated tool to go through the metric ton of images a lab can produce and perform consistently in an otherwise inconsistent set of individual experimental procedures. Suppose you find the magic solution to all those problems, is there scientific background to the image analysis techniques you used? The answer is no, everybody could argue that the results are an artifact of the software. Try explaining how a neural network does it's thing. You can't for a particular image. That's probably why everyone uses NIH image...
Protein Gels is just a mean for an end. It's an indirect way to obtain information about something. I suggest those fine biologists find another mean to the same end. As it is, gels are extremely unreliable and tricky to get right in a standardized fashion.
Same system you described but viewed from google.
It is safe to say that you had more than enough coffee already
For those not in the know like me. He is/was a researcher at bell labs and worked on all things related to the activity of developing software.
I've tried various "native" ports of Emacs and none fit my tastes. It's either the color scheme I can't set correctly or the font. I should mention that I prefer non anti-aliased fonts while programming.
Xmms works, koffice works, karm (my personnal favorite) works, kdevelop works, etc.
* I'm not sure of the technical differences between X11 or XDarwin, if someone can point them out.
Because you didn't really create something of value, others came before you and did the grunt work, you're just putting the pieces together.
I'm playing devil's advocate here. Of course ideas are valuable and should be protected and inventors should be given exclusive rights do their inventions and given the possibility to distribute/licence, wait for it, as they wish!
If some people, even if they were the majority, want to give algorithms/methods they possess for free, then more power to them. The fact is, if you work your ass off for a number of years researching, fleshing out details and coming up with solid solutions to problems, you have something of value on your hands and that should be protected.
Some whiners will want to throw away the patent system because of the way some companies have patented obvious ideas and trivial algorithms. Those particular patents should be reneged by the patent office or offered to the public domain as a goodwill gesture.
For example, you want to continue using compiler X 2.95 say for however long you want witout having to pay for a subscription or without being vulnerable to deficiencies. Same thing with other programs like email readers, browser and more fundamentally an OS.
So there is a need to take measures to keep the code free and available, unencumbered by legal or economical conditions. Conditions that would/could, ultimately, be a loss to its users. In fact, the thing with free software in general is that reliance on free software is safe because it cannot be taken away.
No such need or dependency with music...
It's probably akin to what you can achieve with only bricks and mortar. If you want to go to the next level, you have to go with new materials and new building techniques. If they want to use technology as an important battle force, they probably need the rethink most of their current comm building blocks. What they are envisioning is probably going to be way more than a database of all the maps and building blueprints existing. What I mean is that it's probably going to be something more than just support material for aiding during combat.
Maybe this will spur new technologies in the same way the original ARPANet did and have vast ramifications into our lives 10 or 20 years down the road.
No need to hold down the option key, clicking on the OS version gets you there.
But with WiFi probably going to be the next step for the Internet I'm sure there _will_ be a precedent.
but the military goes further and takes photos...
Here's a picture: http://doc.quadrics.com/quadrics/QuadricsHome.nsf/ DisplayPages/3A912204F260613680256DD9005122C7
If google's cluster is interconnected via ethernet, there is a whole range of computational problems it can't tackle. If you want to simulate a spatial phenomenon with lot of things going back and forth in a volume, you're bound to have a _lot_ of communications. The cost of the interconnect system in those simulation systems is often a substantial proportion of the total cost of the installation.
There's also the problem that this modified virus can itself be propagated autonomously which is a problem, because once its "out there", its out of control in a way. And if its out there uncontroled in may mutate in unexpected ways (stated in the article).
I think the methodology of using virus and modifying the "payload" is a good research direction. But there should be safeguards. For example, it should be possible to add a deficiency or vulnerability in the modified virus so that it could be taken out using normal antibiotics. Therefore making the "runaway" scenario at most a benign one.
Person name, departing time and approx. returning time. And upon you return, you "close" the log.
Now its not mandatory but the log is checked every day by some park personnel. So if there's someone missing, they know _who_, _when_. They know those who departed before and after them, etc. Now if you want to make it computerised, that's great, only give people choice to "log in".