You're right of course that it will never happen, but Open Source Windoze would be useful since it would make it easier to create Windoze emulation environments and would remove any need to purchase Windoze to run Windoze-only apps.
You're right it wasn't a great leap for UIs, but it was a huge leap for Windows. The fact that many people think a huge leap for Windows represents a huge leap for UIs in general shows that most people are still unaware that Microsoft is not the center of the computing Universe, nor is it, in any sense an innovator.
It is possible for a program to be "usable" and yet still horrible to use. This is what Windows was prior to Win9x.
But the WinNT based OSes get around the 16-bit mode problem* by running them in a 'subsystem' (sort of like an emulated environment I guess?)
* The 'problem' I'm referring to is the one where any *one* mis-behaving 16-bit mode program takes out the whole operating system.
Of course, it also runs them horribly, horribly slow. I really wonder if that's actually necessary. I expect it isn't (even though it's doing emulation), but I also expect MS doesn't care. Because--hey! It fits with MS's moto: "We're Microsoft. We don't care, we don't have to."
But I'm confused. I actually had the misfortune to use Win 3.11, Windows For Workgroups and it sucked hard. It really was nothing more than a shell for DOS. If it could really pre-emptively multitask real mode x86 code, then why did it have such a problem running DOS apps?
The thing was so stupid it couldn't even close a Command Prompt window! You had to actually typeexit, you couldn't double click the upper left hand corner of the window or choose the 'close' option. Now, I'm a console jockey, so I didn't mind typing exit, but it did seem pretty stupid that Windoze wasn't more aware of what DOS was doing--seeing as how they were made by the same company.
And then there were the memory leaks. I had Sim City 2000 for Windows. During a given Windows session, the first time I'd start it, SC2K would report approx. 8MB of physical memory free. (I only had 16MB RAM and Windows ate about half of it.) Then, if I exited SC2K and restarted it without even doing anything else in between, SC2K would report less physcial memory free. I could keep doing this, shuting down and restarting SC2K, and it would keep happenning until the situation got so bad that SC2K wouldn't even start.
It was common practice to periodically exit Windoze and restart it to free up the memory it had lost. I hated that program. A lot.
WFW 3.11 was my first real introduction to Microsoft. My hatred and distrust has steadily grown ever since.
That is only partly correct. Sure MSDOS.SYS is a text file in Win9x, but IO.SYS is most definitely binary. In previous versions of DOS, both IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS were binary, but apparently they moved all the real code into IO.SYS in Win95. Possibly to help make the claim that 'DOS is dead'--even though it wasn't. DOS won't be completely dead until MS drops support for WinMe. I live for that day, just as I'm sure everyone at Microsloth does.
To verify that IO.SYS is binary, just look at it on a Win9x box. You don't even have to load windows. Just boot a Win9x machine with Command Prompt Only and type attrib io.sys -r -h -s edit io.sys (carful not to save changes;-) ) to have a look.
Oh great, it must be the Apocolypse or something. They actually posted a *link* to a *PowerPoint* document in a Slashdot article! Worse yet, no one seems concerned.
No. I do not think in my heart. My brain does most of the thinking, thank you very much.
The point was supposed to be, that an outside observer that's not a Chess expert might not even be able to tell the difference between the computer Chess player and the human Chess player. But let's drop that for now.
I'm hearing a lot of anger here. Is it because you hate when people redefine words in the middle of a debate, or is it because you'd like to see the state of the art in AI move lightyears ahead of where it currently stands, or is it because you feel threatened by the idea of a "smart computer"?
I grant you that a Chess program or an expert system are sorely lacking in adaptability. I grant you that a Chess program doesn't play Chess the same way a human does. So what? It gets the job done. It's a job that, tradionally, could only be acheived by an intelligent human. Therefore, the computer that can play Chess and beat most opponents is demonstrating artificial intelligence. The fact that the computer is using a Min/Max algorithm and the human does not is irrelevant in making this determination.
Congratulations. You have successfully committed the common mistake of oversimplifcation by failing to note that there are multiple definitions of Aritifical Intelligence.
Mostly, I'm referring here to the debate over strong AI vs. weak AI.
IMHO, which is not necessarily the same as that expressed in the page I linked to, though it's probably similar, strong AI is: Somehow constructing a computer system or robot such that it can truly think in the same manner as a real human being. By constrast, weak AI is merely: Constructing a computer system or robot such that it can appear to be intelligent like a human at least in limited situations.
It's important to have these two categories. It may take many, many years to acheive the goal of strong AI. It may not be possible at all. On the other hand, we've got plenty of systems right now that meet the low goals of weak AI. Examples are: any Chess program, or any "expert system". These programs can appear to be intelligent at a specific task, but nothing more. You can't carry on a normal conversation with a Chess playing program, for example.
The little orcs running in the MASSIVE system count as weak AI because, although they may not learn and grow over time as a human would, and although they have to be programmed how to hold an axe, they do appear (vaguely) intelligent when you put them in an artificial battlefield. And that's fine because that's all the Weta people needed them for.:-)
Because people desperately want it to be water. If it's water, then that greatly increases the chance that there's life there. Or, if there isn't, it would make it a lot easier to start life there.
Humans (including scientists) are social creatures. That means they don't like being alone. As long as our Earth is the only one we know of that has water and supports life, we are alone in the Universe. Wouldn't it be great if there were life (or at least water) on Mars? Then we could point to it and say, "See! Us poor, isolated little lusers here on Earth aren't such freaks after all! They've got water just like we do!"
It's a nice idea, but, as usual, the details don't seem to reinforce the headline much. I can't blame Slashdot (much) for being sensational this time--the story submitter copied the headline from the BBC article. Although the submitter did manage to make it just that tiny bit more sensationist by removing the quotes from the word flows.
The article says how the observed phenomena do all these various things that water should do. As Eric points out, water is not the only liquid. More generally, the question of importance is: what are the other possible causes for the observed phenonena? All we've really got are Dark Streaks and possible Dynamic Fluid Flow. That's not really so much to go on. Sure something's definitely happening down there, and it could be water or some other fluid--but that's all we know right now.
Cool. Good luck with the game. The reason I'm so interested, is me and my dad played and completed Trinity when I was young. (insert sickening tearjerking sentiment here)
If/when you complete it, you can send me an email (but please don't feel obligated to do so). But if you send it to the address listed on my Slashdot account, I might never read it because that's not my main email address. Better is: wyrder42@@@yahoo...com (filtering out the extraneous characters of course)
That's true, but based on what I've seen and read of MS's activity over the years, I've seen nothing to make me believe they're benevolent. If MS were indeed benevolent, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with them. But they aren't. They just want all the corporate power they can have, yet more still.
Because MS is a monopoly. If you don't understand that, wait until that get to that part of your history class in high school. Listen attentively to the part about the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the Clayton Act.
But won't this break all the 3rd party apps that are expecting either Media Player or IE to be there so that they can call on MP or IE as an ActiveX component? Also, hate to discourage you, but IE isn't contained in just one place on the hard drive. There's the IE folder sure, but there is also IE information in "Documents and Settings" and perhaps other places.
The reason for the space in the URL is that this is slashdot and they intentionally mangle long strings of non-whitespace characters by inserting a space. I'm not sure why, I think it has to do with subverting the posting of ASCII-art porn.
I may be missing something, but I think we are still a very long way from building an artificial hippocampus, and I think that we won't be successful in this endeavor unless we build in some knowledge about how the structure actually works...
The only thing you're missing is that at least part of your assesment is based off of a New Scientist article and it's likely that many details have been simplified to the point of being wrong. It's like trying to do calculations using Pi rounded to the nearest 10 (=0).
Have you ever seen Forbidden Planet? Really, there are many obstacles on the path to becoming a "race of superbeings".
The main thing is: are humans really changing in that way? I know lots of things humans do have changed over the years, but have humans themselves really changed as a species? We still breathe, eat, sleep, laugh, cry, have sex, get lonely, feel happy, feel sad, etc, etc. As long as those things remain mostly constant, I can't see humans evolving into a planet super-brain no matter what technological advances are made.
Oh yeah, and there's no way in hell humans will be able to make anything that produces enough energy to drive the planet around or make up for the light and heat generated by the Sun. If you solve those problems, please let the rest of the human race know how and you'll be remembered for 1000 years.
The subject line of the previous post by me is in error because I wrote it before I noticed that the page you originally linked to had a link to Invisiclues already there.
The page you linked to has a link for the Invisiclues(tm) at the bottom. You probably arleady know what they are. If you don't, go back to that page, and click on the Sample Question "How do I fold a piece of paper to make it look like a bird?". Ivisiclues are pretty cool because the hints always go from vague and general (only partly giving away the answer) to really, really precise (tells you exactly what command to type).
If you're not playing this from an actual C128 Trinity disk (or maybe even if you are), you may not have gotten all (or any) of the feelies that came with Trinity. Feelies were a special thing that all Infocom games had, but maybe you alreay know this in which case, I feel stupid. But if you don't have them and you'd like to see what Trinity's feelies were, you can get them here:
(warning: no spoilers, but huge graphics) Trinity feelies. The map at the bottom will be helpful later in the game, and the sundial's neat.:-)
"Milk and honey, Fresh whole lizard, killed in the light o' the crescent moon. Mix 'em with a pinch o' garlic, then stand back 'cause it go boom!" "It go boom," mutters the magpie.
Sorry if that was spoilery. How far have you gotten?
... That may happen, but I'm not so sure. I was too young when IBM was the Evil Empire so I can't say for sure. I have a feeling though that IBM was only a normal tyrant--difficult to live with but not impossible.
Microsoft on the other hand... What can I say? I Blame Microsoft. I'll never forgive Bill Gates for perverting the once-beautiful word "innovate". In any Microsoft message you read or hear, s/innovate/steal/g (in all word-forms and tenses).
If you download MAME (www.mame.net), and if you can find llander.zip, you can play the arcade version of Moon Lander (Lunar Lander). One warning though: the standard llander.zip romset used by MAME is not correct--there's specific ROM file for which it always says, '034597.01 NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN'. If you should happen to be able to get a romdump of this rom, you could help the MAME community and, more importantly, the preservation of video games.:-)
It reminds me of INTERCAL. In that joke programming language, approximately 33% of the lines have to say 'PLEASE'. If not enough lines say 'PLEASE', the compiler will say that you are rude and will refuse to compile your program. If too many lines say 'PLEASE', the compiler will accuse you of being overly polite. (It won't compile then either.)
Slashdot Mirror
You're right of course that it will never happen, but Open Source Windoze would be useful since it would make it easier to create Windoze emulation environments and would remove any need to purchase Windoze to run Windoze-only apps.
As I understand it, Micorsoft was selling DOS from version 1.0 on up. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think so...
You're right it wasn't a great leap for UIs, but it was a huge leap for Windows. The fact that many people think a huge leap for Windows represents a huge leap for UIs in general shows that most people are still unaware that Microsoft is not the center of the computing Universe, nor is it, in any sense an innovator.
It is possible for a program to be "usable" and yet still horrible to use. This is what Windows was prior to Win9x.
But the WinNT based OSes get around the 16-bit mode problem* by running them in a 'subsystem' (sort of like an emulated environment I guess?)
* The 'problem' I'm referring to is the one where any *one* mis-behaving 16-bit mode program takes out the whole operating system.
Of course, it also runs them horribly, horribly slow. I really wonder if that's actually necessary. I expect it isn't (even though it's doing emulation), but I also expect MS doesn't care. Because--hey! It fits with MS's moto:
"We're Microsoft. We don't care, we don't have to."
But I'm confused. I actually had the misfortune to use Win 3.11, Windows For Workgroups and it sucked hard. It really was nothing more than a shell for DOS. If it could really pre-emptively multitask real mode x86 code, then why did it have such a problem running DOS apps?
The thing was so stupid it couldn't even close a Command Prompt window! You had to actually type exit, you couldn't double click the upper left hand corner of the window or choose the 'close' option. Now, I'm a console jockey, so I didn't mind typing exit, but it did seem pretty stupid that Windoze wasn't more aware of what DOS was doing--seeing as how they were made by the same company.
And then there were the memory leaks. I had Sim City 2000 for Windows. During a given Windows session, the first time I'd start it, SC2K would report approx. 8MB of physical memory free. (I only had 16MB RAM and Windows ate about half of it.) Then, if I exited SC2K and restarted it without even doing anything else in between, SC2K would report less physcial memory free. I could keep doing this, shuting down and restarting SC2K, and it would keep happenning until the situation got so bad that SC2K wouldn't even start.
It was common practice to periodically exit Windoze and restart it to free up the memory it had lost. I hated that program. A lot.
WFW 3.11 was my first real introduction to Microsoft. My hatred and distrust has steadily grown ever since.
That is only partly correct. Sure MSDOS.SYS is a text file in Win9x, but IO.SYS is most definitely binary. In previous versions of DOS, both IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS were binary, but apparently they moved all the real code into IO.SYS in Win95. Possibly to help make the claim that 'DOS is dead'--even though it wasn't. DOS won't be completely dead until MS drops support for WinMe. I live for that day, just as I'm sure everyone at Microsloth does.
;-) )
To verify that IO.SYS is binary, just look at it on a Win9x box. You don't even have to load windows. Just boot a Win9x machine with Command Prompt Only and type
attrib io.sys -r -h -s
edit io.sys (carful not to save changes
to have a look.
Dude, you can't even *spell* X-M-L correctly. Why should we trust that you know what you're talking about?
Perhaps someone should have "tuaght" you how to spell.
Oh great, it must be the Apocolypse or something. They actually posted a *link* to a *PowerPoint* document in a Slashdot article! Worse yet, no one seems concerned.
No. I do not think in my heart. My brain does most of the thinking, thank you very much.
The point was supposed to be, that an outside observer that's not a Chess expert might not even be able to tell the difference between the computer Chess player and the human Chess player. But let's drop that for now.
I'm hearing a lot of anger here. Is it because you hate when people redefine words in the middle of a debate, or is it because you'd like to see the state of the art in AI move lightyears ahead of where it currently stands, or is it because you feel threatened by the idea of a "smart computer"?
I grant you that a Chess program or an expert system are sorely lacking in adaptability. I grant you that a Chess program doesn't play Chess the same way a human does. So what? It gets the job done. It's a job that, tradionally, could only be acheived by an intelligent human. Therefore, the computer that can play Chess and beat most opponents is demonstrating artificial intelligence. The fact that the computer is using a Min/Max algorithm and the human does not is irrelevant in making this determination.
Congratulations. You have successfully committed the common mistake of oversimplifcation by failing to note that there are multiple definitions of Aritifical Intelligence.
Mostly, I'm referring here to the debate over strong AI vs. weak AI.
IMHO, which is not necessarily the same as that expressed in the page I linked to, though it's probably similar,
strong AI is: Somehow constructing a computer system or robot such that it can truly think in the same manner as a real human being. By constrast,
weak AI is merely: Constructing a computer system or robot such that it can appear to be intelligent like a human at least in limited situations.
It's important to have these two categories. It may take many, many years to acheive the goal of strong AI. It may not be possible at all. On the other hand, we've got plenty of systems right now that meet the low goals of weak AI. Examples are: any Chess program, or any "expert system". These programs can appear to be intelligent at a specific task, but nothing more. You can't carry on a normal conversation with a Chess playing program, for example.
The little orcs running in the MASSIVE system count as weak AI because, although they may not learn and grow over time as a human would, and although they have to be programmed how to hold an axe, they do appear (vaguely) intelligent when you put them in an artificial battlefield. And that's fine because that's all the Weta people needed them for. :-)
Because people desperately want it to be water. If it's water, then that greatly increases the chance that there's life there. Or, if there isn't, it would make it a lot easier to start life there.
Humans (including scientists) are social creatures. That means they don't like being alone. As long as our Earth is the only one we know of that has water and supports life, we are alone in the Universe. Wouldn't it be great if there were life (or at least water) on Mars? Then we could point to it and say, "See! Us poor, isolated little lusers here on Earth aren't such freaks after all! They've got water just like we do!"
It's a nice idea, but, as usual, the details don't seem to reinforce the headline much. I can't blame Slashdot (much) for being sensational this time--the story submitter copied the headline from the BBC article. Although the submitter did manage to make it just that tiny bit more sensationist by removing the quotes from the word flows.
The article says how the observed phenomena do all these various things that water should do. As Eric points out, water is not the only liquid. More generally, the question of importance is: what are the other possible causes for the observed phenonena? All we've really got are Dark Streaks and possible Dynamic Fluid Flow. That's not really so much to go on. Sure something's definitely happening down there, and it could be water or some other fluid--but that's all we know right now.
Cool. Good luck with the game. The reason I'm so interested, is me and my dad played and completed Trinity when I was young. (insert sickening tearjerking sentiment here)
If/when you complete it, you can send me an email (but please don't feel obligated to do so). But if you send it to the address listed on my Slashdot account, I might never read it because that's not my main email address. Better is: wyrder42@@@yahoo...com (filtering out the extraneous characters of course)
That's true, but based on what I've seen and read of MS's activity over the years, I've seen nothing to make me believe they're benevolent. If MS were indeed benevolent, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with them. But they aren't. They just want all the corporate power they can have, yet more still.
Because MS is a monopoly. If you don't understand that, wait until that get to that part of your history class in high school. Listen attentively to the part about the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the Clayton Act.
But won't this break all the 3rd party apps that are expecting either Media Player or IE to be there so that they can call on MP or IE as an ActiveX component? Also, hate to discourage you, but IE isn't contained in just one place on the hard drive. There's the IE folder sure, but there is also IE information in "Documents and Settings" and perhaps other places.
s/algorithem/algorithm/g
The reason for the space in the URL is that this is slashdot and they intentionally mangle long strings of non-whitespace characters by inserting a space. I'm not sure why, I think it has to do with subverting the posting of ASCII-art porn.
The only thing you're missing is that at least part of your assesment is based off of a New Scientist article and it's likely that many details have been simplified to the point of being wrong. It's like trying to do calculations using Pi rounded to the nearest 10 (=0).
Have you ever seen Forbidden Planet? Really, there are many obstacles on the path to becoming a "race of superbeings".
The main thing is: are humans really changing in that way? I know lots of things humans do have changed over the years, but have humans themselves really changed as a species? We still breathe, eat, sleep, laugh, cry, have sex, get lonely, feel happy, feel sad, etc, etc. As long as those things remain mostly constant, I can't see humans evolving into a planet super-brain no matter what technological advances are made.
Oh yeah, and there's no way in hell humans will be able to make anything that produces enough energy to drive the planet around or make up for the light and heat generated by the Sun. If you solve those problems, please let the rest of the human race know how and you'll be remembered for 1000 years.
The subject line of the previous post by me is in error because I wrote it before I noticed that the page you originally linked to had a link to Invisiclues already there.
:-) Sorry about before.
The page you linked to has a link for the Invisiclues(tm) at the bottom. You probably arleady know what they are. If you don't, go back to that page, and click on the Sample Question "How do I fold a piece of paper to make it look like a bird?". Ivisiclues are pretty cool because the hints always go from vague and general (only partly giving away the answer) to really, really precise (tells you exactly what command to type).
If you're not playing this from an actual C128 Trinity disk (or maybe even if you are), you may not have gotten all (or any) of the feelies that came with Trinity. Feelies were a special thing that all Infocom games had, but maybe you alreay know this in which case, I feel stupid. But if you don't have them and you'd like to see what Trinity's feelies were, you can get them here: :-)
(warning: no spoilers, but huge graphics)
Trinity feelies.
The map at the bottom will be helpful later in the game, and the sundial's neat.
"It's time!" shrieks the bird woman.
Twas brillig and the slithy toves...
"Milk and honey,
Fresh whole lizard,
killed in the light o' the crescent moon.
Mix 'em with a pinch o' garlic,
then stand back 'cause it go boom!"
"It go boom," mutters the magpie.
Sorry if that was spoilery. How far have you gotten?
...
That may happen, but I'm not so sure. I was too young when IBM was the Evil Empire so I can't say for sure. I have a feeling though that IBM was only a normal tyrant--difficult to live with but not impossible.
Microsoft on the other hand... What can I say? I Blame Microsoft.
I'll never forgive Bill Gates for perverting the once-beautiful word "innovate". In any Microsoft message you read or hear, s/innovate/steal/g (in all word-forms and tenses).
we now return to non-sequiter theater...
If you download MAME (www.mame.net), and if you can find llander.zip, you can play the arcade version of Moon Lander (Lunar Lander). One warning though: the standard llander.zip romset used by MAME is not correct--there's specific ROM file for which it always says, '034597.01 NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN'. If you should happen to be able to get a romdump of this rom, you could help the MAME community and, more importantly, the preservation of video games. :-)
It reminds me of INTERCAL. In that joke programming language, approximately 33% of the lines have to say 'PLEASE'. If not enough lines say 'PLEASE', the compiler will say that you are rude and will refuse to compile your program. If too many lines say 'PLEASE', the compiler will accuse you of being overly polite. (It won't compile then either.)