a) A HATE of arrogance. Americans encourage the NFL type of attitude, your brought up on it "Im da man", "I am the greatest", "You
can't play me" etc.
We in Australia really don't give a shit how good you think you are, coming across as one of us, a mate as such, is much more important.
This means we draw a fine line between confidence and arrogance.
How does this relate to the "tall poppy" syndrome we oft hear about over there in Australia? Don't g et me wrong, I'm not in the business of disparaging Aussies, but it does seem like the line is thin between these two classic Aussie characteristics.
Mojotoad
I hearby submit to the public domain the notion of associating products and their manufacturers to to relevant pages on the Internet via any device capable of recognizing relevant information in any sort of RF Identification system, or for that matter, any Identification system operating in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Looks like it's designed to rest on the upper edge of your monitor. It's not designed for live music, but do you think it uses the technology you describe?
In some ways, our system's division of power is responsible for producing politicians with no balls.
As it stands, there is no motivation for polititians to be arbiters of constitutionality. Why do you suppose unconstitutional laws continually come out of the beltway? Because they are passed in response to popular opinion, fears, and hysteria. Not because they are consitutional.
Why take the political risk of sinking a bill due to constitutionality when you can pass it, reap the popularity dividend, knowing full well that the courts will sort it out.
The problem is that constitutionality is rarely, if ever, an issue that the masses care about. If the public cared about consitutionality, then passing popular, but unconstitutional, laws would no longer reward the lawmakers.
Raise awareness, and fondness, for the constitution. Could you imagine, during a presidential compaign, if candidates were asked such questions as "Did you indeed sign off on the following laws, which were subsequently struck down as unconstitutional, and if so can you explain your reasoning at the time?"
I think this author is uncomfortable with the notion of "wide spectrum of choice", and instead prefers "limited, clearly defined choices".
And to be fair, it could be argued that his real beef is about misallocations of resources...why work on all of these choices when the collective time could be more constructively spent on fewer choices?
And trying really hard to be fair, he has an implicit assumption that "reinventing the wheel" is a Bad Thing; we are left to infer his heavy bias against code forking, since this as well would represent a misallocation of resources.
Open Source is not meant to be efficient. I'd rather have several serious contentders rise from hundreds of choices rather than a couple rise from several choices.
As for maintainers running fiefdoms, not accepting patches...well fine, that's what the big stick of forking can cure in an instant. Implement the changes that they were planning on adding, give it a new name, and see what happens.
Diversity of choice is better than limited choice. This might not be the best allocation of the programmer energy pool, but there is a hidden benefit: every line of code that is written represents a learning process for the coder who wrote it. You get a far larger pool of coders with experience under their belt if you let them reinvent the wheel from time to time. Consider it a training exercise. And reap the results, for you can only benefit in the long run.
I know one of the MIT patent holders in the SensAble Tech device.
It's impressive. It dials straight into the brain's ability to construct reality around tactile input. A great visual example would be when you are in one of the Omnimax type theater rides such as they use at Universal and Disney; simply by being surrounded by the visual experience, your brain invents the sensation of momentum and disorientation.
The pen device they use for SensAble Tech operates on a similar illustion, using tactile feedback to construct the illustion of texture.
At Shell, they use it to navigate 3D seismic volumes, and you can feel the relative densities (amongst many other variables) as you navigate the pointer device, which is a pen on an armature. (I have to say, upon examining the SensAble site, they go to great lengths to avoid any association with exoskeleton devices; this is true -- you simply hold their device like you would a pencil or pen, but it is nevertheless attached to an armature)
The feedback mechanism is impressive. If you hit granite, that sombitch don't move any further. The feedback includes "bounce", so they had to include logic for circumstances when the device somehow feels that it has suddenly appeared in the middle of a solid volume -- under which circumstances it would kick out to an "acceptable" state outside of the volume. Without the failsafe, you would not want to be holding the peripheral under those circumstances.
Like so "amy" comes after "Yasmen" but before "betty". Sounds like a good system to me.
Case sensitivity is yet another way to make the user wrong. This is why they got rid of it for domain
names, email addresses, etc, stuff that human beings have to use.
I think, by your own argument, that you admit that case sensitivity is indeed relevant to human eyeballs and the brains behind the eyeballs that do the interpretation.
What we might be dodging around is the issue of whether computers are better at parsing than humans. You can make a quite legitimate argument that an ASCIIbetic sort is ridiculous compared to the equivalent case-insensitive sort, but does this not indeed depend on the application?
Take the quintessintial README. It is arguable that the computer might consider this equivalent to a "readme" file. Fine. But the fact that the user indicated "README" should at *least* be an indicator that this file should "stand out" more. Whether it is the same file as "readme" is irrelevant, but for applications such as listing (i.e., 'ls') it should gain more prominence because the author deemed it so.
Never confuse bit length with case-sensitivity. Bit length is infinitely extensible -- case sensitivity is not.
Arguing case sensitivity in this sense is mapping a constant multiple onto the exponential gain of bit length.
However, that's really not what we are talking about, right? I think we are (or should be) talking about ergonomics. What does it cost, in terms of finger-energy, to distinguish between case-sensitive files vs. files that merely have longer file names?
Personally I prefer case sensitivity. But I can certainly see the sanity, in an ergonomic sense, of having case insensitive file systems. If you need a more random file name, add more bits and bytes.
Excellent point, and also one that you would think that Google could be adapted to exploit.
The point in question -- multiple meanings of intent for words and phrases. You use the example of the word "Magic" (which a truly intelligent search engine would search for phonetically, and include such things as "Magick", but I digress).
Anyway, as others have pointed out, Google operates in terms of Authorities and Hubs. There should exist clusters of these for each meaning of the word -- with some overlap, of course, but don't tell me computers can't grok Zen diagrams.
Google should offer subsearches based on these clusters. I don't think the problem is in finding the clusters -- the problem is in properly phrasing what these clusters are actually about...something that a computer has a lot of trouble doing. Google should shy away from the Jeeves approach...it has the clusters in hand, it should offer a few contextual phrases around the tidbits of phrasing that caught its attention on the Authorities in question, each of these phrase bundles representing a cluster of "relevant density".
How about it, Google? You guys are clever, I know you've thought about it. Is it simply how to phrase the things?
The article is touting it primarily as a forensic tool, and gets me thinking -- how many passes of write-over-with-random-data are now required to securely delete a file?"
Answer: Assume that security via obliteration will be ineffective. Instead, use non-random data. Use something so nasty, atrocious, and baiting that those that pry go for the lure rather than the information beneath the palimpsest.
A good reason why we should vote on a per-issue (as in platform) basis for candidates rather than for the whole platform.
That way, you still get your candidate, but they cannot claim a "mandate" on an otherwise unpopular issue because they had several popular ones included in the platform.
And, since there is still a candidate in the process, there is some check against tyranny of the majority.
(argue the puppet status of candidates at your leisure)
I think your refutation is well thought out, and it cuts to the core of what's really going on here.
It seems that there is a prevalent opinion out there in favor of voluntarily compensating artists for pleasure derived from their work -- however, it must be voluntary, not coerced.
MP3board is linking directly to illegal files, which they know are illegal, and tout as illegal.
That's a tough case to prove. Perhaps by "Legal MP3's" they only mean MP3s that they have certified as legal. That's a far cry from stating that the rest of the ocean is illegal. Methinks you read far too much into their labeling scheme.
Big Business is no more good or evil than mother nature. They are driven by one thing: the bottom line.
Just like the wind, it can be behind you and greatly assist in getting you to your destination, or it can turn right in your face with hurricane force and crush you.
Big Business doesn't care either way, they will go for whatever enhances the bottom line.
Now, whether a particular company is short sighted in that regard...well, there's a chewy topic.
There are two separate issues going on here. Whether the code itself is free speech, and whether linking to the code is the same as "providing" the code.
The first issue is that of speech. I see an easy analogy: how to make bombs. (cracking silly DVD encryption has little to do with bombs, I agree). Anyway, with bomb making instructions, you always have that clash between free speech, which it is, and the 'threat to society', wich is far more debatable.
Regardless of whether or not the language used to express bomb making is legally distributable or not, is it in turn illegal to even refer to those instructions? Unlikely. You'd might as well try to make it illegal to refer to bomb making instructions in any abstract way whatsoever.
Not that cracking the silly DVD encryption is anything tanamount to making bombs.
I was wondering if you could comment about the Freenet mission: how do you see this software affecting the world. I notice that files on freenet will disappear after disuse, for instance, since it is more of a distributed file cache rather than a data haven.
Some similar projects are clearly aimed at the distributed data haven issue, such as The Eternity Service, which due to nigh permanent cacheing is clearly aimed at a distributed data haven type problem domain, or intermemory which takes an approach somewhere in between the cache/haven solution.
So what all do you expect to see the distributed file cache used for?
Great work...keep it up! (BTW, if readers are interested, there exists a nice collection of information on these projects)
I don't see how "a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow" has any relevance to shortening the patent timespan.
If anything, it argues for shortening it, because one of the key issues here is the crushing of innovation along with all those near-term dollars in the fist. If innovation is not smothered, then there will always be more dollars to be had, near-term or otherwise.
Bezos is asking for special treatment and making a monkey of us all by cloaking it under the guise of reform
I understand that taken literally, "special treatment" includes "less protection than we now have". The reason this is spin is that an average citizen upon hearing that statement will think that Bezos is asking for more protection, not less. This is human psychology, the reason why spin works.
I don't think Bezos is necessary to make monkey's out of the establishment. Primal instincts such as territoriality and pissing contests do a good enough job of that.
Slashdot Mirror
I hearby submit to the public domain the notion of associating products and their manufacturers to to relevant pages on the Internet via any device capable of recognizing relevant information in any sort of RF Identification system, or for that matter, any Identification system operating in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Mojotoad
Just curious. I recently saw an advertisement in the latest Discover magazine for a "hands free headset" made by GN Netcom.
It's for what they call a Voice Array Microphone that screens out ambient noise.
Looks like it's designed to rest on the upper edge of your monitor. It's not designed for live music, but do you think it uses the technology you describe?
Mojotoad
In some ways, our system's division of power is responsible for producing politicians with no balls.
As it stands, there is no motivation for polititians to be arbiters of constitutionality. Why do you suppose unconstitutional laws continually come out of the beltway? Because they are passed in response to popular opinion, fears, and hysteria. Not because they are consitutional.
Why take the political risk of sinking a bill due to constitutionality when you can pass it, reap the popularity dividend, knowing full well that the courts will sort it out.
The problem is that constitutionality is rarely, if ever, an issue that the masses care about. If the public cared about consitutionality, then passing popular, but unconstitutional, laws would no longer reward the lawmakers.
Raise awareness, and fondness, for the constitution. Could you imagine, during a presidential compaign, if candidates were asked such questions as "Did you indeed sign off on the following laws, which were subsequently struck down as unconstitutional, and if so can you explain your reasoning at the time?"
Mojotoad
What if your mouse does not have the mechanical feedback of a "click"?
Does that even count as "clicking" on something?
Mojotoad
I think this author is uncomfortable with the notion of "wide spectrum of choice", and instead prefers "limited, clearly defined choices".
And to be fair, it could be argued that his real beef is about misallocations of resources...why work on all of these choices when the collective time could be more constructively spent on fewer choices?
And trying really hard to be fair, he has an implicit assumption that "reinventing the wheel" is a Bad Thing; we are left to infer his heavy bias against code forking, since this as well would represent a misallocation of resources.
Open Source is not meant to be efficient. I'd rather have several serious contentders rise from hundreds of choices rather than a couple rise from several choices.
As for maintainers running fiefdoms, not accepting patches...well fine, that's what the big stick of forking can cure in an instant. Implement the changes that they were planning on adding, give it a new name, and see what happens.
Diversity of choice is better than limited choice. This might not be the best allocation of the programmer energy pool, but there is a hidden benefit: every line of code that is written represents a learning process for the coder who wrote it. You get a far larger pool of coders with experience under their belt if you let them reinvent the wheel from time to time. Consider it a training exercise. And reap the results, for you can only benefit in the long run.
Mojotoad
I know one of the MIT patent holders in the SensAble Tech device.
It's impressive. It dials straight into the brain's ability to construct reality around tactile input. A great visual example would be when you are in one of the Omnimax type theater rides such as they use at Universal and Disney; simply by being surrounded by the visual experience, your brain invents the sensation of momentum and disorientation.
The pen device they use for SensAble Tech operates on a similar illustion, using tactile feedback to construct the illustion of texture.
At Shell, they use it to navigate 3D seismic volumes, and you can feel the relative densities (amongst many other variables) as you navigate the pointer device, which is a pen on an armature. (I have to say, upon examining the SensAble site, they go to great lengths to avoid any association with exoskeleton devices; this is true -- you simply hold their device like you would a pencil or pen, but it is nevertheless attached to an armature)
The feedback mechanism is impressive. If you hit granite, that sombitch don't move any further. The feedback includes "bounce", so they had to include logic for circumstances when the device somehow feels that it has suddenly appeared in the middle of a solid volume -- under which circumstances it would kick out to an "acceptable" state outside of the volume. Without the failsafe, you would not want to be holding the peripheral under those circumstances.
All in all, the illusion is suprisingly complete.
Mojotoad
I think, by your own argument, that you admit that case sensitivity is indeed relevant to human eyeballs and the brains behind the eyeballs that do the interpretation.
What we might be dodging around is the issue of whether computers are better at parsing than humans. You can make a quite legitimate argument that an ASCIIbetic sort is ridiculous compared to the equivalent case-insensitive sort, but does this not indeed depend on the application?
Take the quintessintial README. It is arguable that the computer might consider this equivalent to a "readme" file. Fine. But the fact that the user indicated "README" should at *least* be an indicator that this file should "stand out" more. Whether it is the same file as "readme" is irrelevant, but for applications such as listing (i.e., 'ls') it should gain more prominence because the author deemed it so.
So...OS equivalence...user impartment difference.
Mojotoad
Well thank gosh!
I can rest assured that I will not confuse:
myfile.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
with the astonishingly ambiguous:
myfile.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaA
Hmmm.
Never confuse bit length with case-sensitivity. Bit length is infinitely extensible -- case sensitivity is not.
Arguing case sensitivity in this sense is mapping a constant multiple onto the exponential gain of bit length.
However, that's really not what we are talking about, right? I think we are (or should be) talking about ergonomics. What does it cost, in terms of finger-energy, to distinguish between case-sensitive files vs. files that merely have longer file names?
Personally I prefer case sensitivity. But I can certainly see the sanity, in an ergonomic sense, of having case insensitive file systems. If you need a more random file name, add more bits and bytes.
Mojotoad
And an even more intelligent search engine would realize that I meant Venn diagram rather than Zen.
But both seem appropriate. Pick your meaning and savour.
Mojotoad
Excellent point, and also one that you would think that Google could be adapted to exploit.
The point in question -- multiple meanings of intent for words and phrases. You use the example of the word "Magic" (which a truly intelligent search engine would search for phonetically, and include such things as "Magick", but I digress).
Anyway, as others have pointed out, Google operates in terms of Authorities and Hubs. There should exist clusters of these for each meaning of the word -- with some overlap, of course, but don't tell me computers can't grok Zen diagrams.
Google should offer subsearches based on these clusters. I don't think the problem is in finding the clusters -- the problem is in properly phrasing what these clusters are actually about...something that a computer has a lot of trouble doing. Google should shy away from the Jeeves approach...it has the clusters in hand, it should offer a few contextual phrases around the tidbits of phrasing that caught its attention on the Authorities in question, each of these phrase bundles representing a cluster of "relevant density".
How about it, Google? You guys are clever, I know you've thought about it. Is it simply how to phrase the things?
Mojotoad
This is great, and will allow untold freedoms just like the V-chip did!
Now, in all places with similar laws in place we can have XXX games with mega-violence in the partitioned "adult" sections, right? Right?
That's not what they had in mind? Oh. Perhaps there is some other agenda involved, then.
Mojotoad
This is great! Now, with the proper implementation by the major browsers, pop-up ads will be guaranteed to appear right where you are looking!
Mojotoad
Answer: Assume that security via obliteration will be ineffective. Instead, use non-random data. Use something so nasty, atrocious, and baiting that those that pry go for the lure rather than the information beneath the palimpsest.
Security through what-they-want-ifiscation.
Mojotoad
A good reason why we should vote on a per-issue (as in platform) basis for candidates rather than for the whole platform.
That way, you still get your candidate, but they cannot claim a "mandate" on an otherwise unpopular issue because they had several popular ones included in the platform.
And, since there is still a candidate in the process, there is some check against tyranny of the majority.
(argue the puppet status of candidates at your leisure)
Mojotoad
I think your refutation is well thought out, and it cuts to the core of what's really going on here.
It seems that there is a prevalent opinion out there in favor of voluntarily compensating artists for pleasure derived from their work -- however, it must be voluntary, not coerced.
It's the coercion bit that sticks in the craw.
Mojotoad
That's a tough case to prove. Perhaps by "Legal MP3's" they only mean MP3s that they have certified as legal. That's a far cry from stating that the rest of the ocean is illegal. Methinks you read far too much into their labeling scheme.
Mojotoad
Big Business is no more good or evil than mother nature. They are driven by one thing: the bottom line.
Just like the wind, it can be behind you and greatly assist in getting you to your destination, or it can turn right in your face with hurricane force and crush you.
Big Business doesn't care either way, they will go for whatever enhances the bottom line.
Now, whether a particular company is short sighted in that regard...well, there's a chewy topic.
Mojotoad
There are two separate issues going on here. Whether the code itself is free speech, and whether linking to the code is the same as "providing" the code.
The first issue is that of speech. I see an easy analogy: how to make bombs. (cracking silly DVD encryption has little to do with bombs, I agree). Anyway, with bomb making instructions, you always have that clash between free speech, which it is, and the 'threat to society', wich is far more debatable.
Regardless of whether or not the language used to express bomb making is legally distributable or not, is it in turn illegal to even refer to those instructions? Unlikely. You'd might as well try to make it illegal to refer to bomb making instructions in any abstract way whatsoever.
Not that cracking the silly DVD encryption is anything tanamount to making bombs.
Mojotoad
Hi there,
I was wondering if you could comment about the Freenet mission: how do you see this software affecting the world. I notice that files on freenet will disappear after disuse, for instance, since it is more of a distributed file cache rather than a data haven.
Some similar projects are clearly aimed at the distributed data haven issue, such as The Eternity Service, which due to nigh permanent cacheing is clearly aimed at a distributed data haven type problem domain, or intermemory which takes an approach somewhere in between the cache/haven solution.
So what all do you expect to see the distributed file cache used for?
Great work...keep it up! (BTW, if readers are interested, there exists a nice collection of information on these projects)
Mojotoad
Dude, you're missing the point.
IANAL is a disclaimer. Do you think a real lawyer would get respect in this forum?
Nay, I think it's a cloak -- if you actually know your legal kung fu you have to preface with IANAL in order to get the hacker to swallow the pill.
Sheesh!
Mojotoad
I don't see how "a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow" has any relevance to shortening the patent timespan.
If anything, it argues for shortening it, because one of the key issues here is the crushing of innovation along with all those near-term dollars in the fist. If innovation is not smothered, then there will always be more dollars to be had, near-term or otherwise.
Mojotoad
I understand that taken literally, "special treatment" includes "less protection than we now have". The reason this is spin is that an average citizen upon hearing that statement will think that Bezos is asking for more protection, not less. This is human psychology, the reason why spin works.
I don't think Bezos is necessary to make monkey's out of the establishment. Primal instincts such as territoriality and pissing contests do a good enough job of that.
Mojotoad
That, when in effect, Bezos was suggesting less protection!
Special, indeed.
Mojotoad
As good as Cryptonomicon was, I get more and more convinced that a bunker-style data haven is the wrong way to go.
Why not make the data haven nuke-proof like the internet itself?
Anyway, if you're interested in this paradigm, check out the following projects:
Intermemory
The Eternity Service
FreeNet
And try cypherspace for a nice collection of related links.
Mojotoad