You fucking piece of shit bearded GNU freak. As more and more of these GPL fiasco stories come up the more companies are learning to avoid the GPL quagmire.
Viral licenses that promote kooky ideologies have no place in the commercial world.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it wasn't innocently deliberate. They probably got a copy of the DOSBox source and started deleteing what the developers thought were irrelevant files in order to make their jobs customizing the software easier. Not a big deal. As mentioned elsewhere, this has already been fixed.
I'm a cynic, but I'm with you. A mere conflict of interest does not imply that wrongdoings have occurred. The Board of Trustees was obviously aware of this "conflict of interests" (more like a tempest in a teacup), as they hired the guy. Unless there's evidence that he strong-armed the trustees, there's absolutely no reason to think he didn't just present a good deal to the trustees, who then decided to take it for its merits.
So what? A mere conflict of interests doesn't imply that any wrongdoings have occurred. He did disclose this conflict of interests to the Indiana University trustees. It's up to their charter to determine whether or not he gets a vote on the matter. Is it so hard to believe he presented the board a great deal, and they decided to accept?
I'd say Apple hardware is most like Audi or SAAB in this flawed analogy. Both are known for their high quality construction and attention to detail, especially regarding ergonomics. But both have historically had some reliability problems under the hood. Just as in Apple's case, they eventually got sorted out, but being an Audi or SAAB or Apple early adopter has historically been a bad idea.
There are "better" cars than Audis or SAABs. But "better" strongly becomes a function of the intended purpose once you've reached a certain threshhold of quality. Few companies make better four-door sedans then Audi or SAAB. Similarly, few (mainstream) companies make better a better general purpose desktop or laptop than Apple. (Sun makes very nice workstation hardware, but seriously priced themselves out of the desktop market. The Apple tax has nothing on the Sun tax.)
No, I mean the US Treasury. In every instance I've found of "quarter dollar" on their site, it was in fact spelled "quarter-dollar", and used descriptively. You're referring to the denomination as if it were a name. Do you think dollar bills and Sacagawea dollar coins share a name because they both have "ONE DOLLAR" on them?
The best I could find on this topic was Federal laws issuing directives to the treasury. They used the phrase "quarter dollar coins" descriptively.
I am strongly considering getting one of these, but only if it is fast enough to play H.264 encoded videos at a decent resolution (640x480 would be good, though HD resolutions would be better). I have a 1GHz G4 PowerBook that is unable to do so without stuttering.
If it can do this, the Asus Eee is less computer than I want, but more than I need. At that price, it is a great value.
Your implication is that the human mind cannot be reduced to a Turing machine. I am in the other camp--who believe that the mind is subject to rigorous physical law, and that physical law can be expressed arithmetically (in principle), and so the human mind is a Turing machine.
It is eminently doubtful that physical laws can be expressed arithmetically. Many mathematical concepts cannot. If that isn't enough proof, consider that they are used to describe the physical world. So it does not follow from the claim that the brain is subject to physical law that the brain is merely a Turing machine. Obviously, the mind can implement one, so it is demonstrably as computationally powerful as a Turing machine.
Godel's theorem says that a consistent arithmetic system will contain unprovable truths. Put otherwise, such a system cannot be both consistent and complete. Thus the Godel counterargument to Strong AI (that human minds and computers are not fundamentally different) is that humans (e.g. mathematicians) can prove things like Godel's theorem, so we are able to "rise above" the arithmetic and exist in states of full proof and full consistency.
But I think there is a flaw in that logic (note: I am not a mathematician). The theorem doesn't preclude that a given arithmetic system (e.g. human mind) will be able to prove a truth that a weaker system ignored. Thus our ability to see certain truths doesn't mean that there are not other truths that are unprovable to us.
I would suggest that Godel's original formulation of the theorem isn't the right tack to take here. Consider Godel's completeness theorem. It states that a theory has a model iff it is consistent.[1] Further, consider the soundness theorem: a proof exists for a sentence P in a theory T iff P is true in every model of T. Cast in this light, the incompleteness theorem says that there exist models for arithmetic for which some sentence P is true in some and false in others. The point being that a finite axiomatization of arithmetic can't "pin" the model down so we're only talking about the P-true kinds (or P-false kinds).
This is important philosophically because it means that your "mental model" of arithmetic might be consistent as far as our chosen language can communicate, but might still be different from my "mental model".[2] Godel got away with saying that the sentence is "true, but not provable" because he meant a very limited kind of truth. He meant "true of the standard model of arithmetic" -- before his proof, nobody knew there were essentially different mental models of arithmetic, let alone essentially different models. So people's mental models were assumed to agree, and they were called the Standard Model.
In short, Godel's theorem is relevant to this discussion, but you haven't hit on why.
[1] A model for a theory T is a set of objects that satisfies T -- that is, T is true of the objects. The following example is meant to be illustrative, but it isn't the whole story: Consider a theory that says "Everything is Red". Then the set of all red cars is a model for the theory. And if the theory is "Everything is Red and has license plate number OR-1234567", we can assume, for the sake of this discussion, that there is only one model --the set containing a red car with that license plate. (Unfortunately, this isn't exactly true, for several reasons. But it demonstrates that axioms of the theory help make the theory more specific. More on that up top.
[2] In fact, unless your model includes infinite elements, our models are definitely different. Mine includes all the countable ordinals.
Basically, the more computing power you have, the better the data mining can be. No computer ever made could exhaust the space of all photographs, let alone all valid image files.
So Moore's law is good for going smaller/faster/cheaper, but the demand for s/f/c will spell the end of Moore's law?
Yes. There's only so small a laptop can be without becoming a PDA. There's only so cheap they can get before there's no money for R&D. And people, the article claims, are discovering that there's no need for faster laptops.
Yes, and? CmdrTaco is still Editor-in-Chief or whatever. He is in charge of maintaining and directing Slashdot.
Oh, for fuck's sake. I sad discussions. Discussions. A story about the end of BS is interesting for most of the/. demographic. So is a story about the launch of the latest HP book. Inviting a discussion like this is a reading club is, i repeat, outside the scope of the site, even when a story would end up the same way.
We agree there would be no practical difference if a story about Harry Potter were posted or not. So what was your point again? Unless you're an investor in Sourceforge, Inc. (the current owners of Slashdot -- Andover got bought out), you don't have much of a say in the sites' scope.
So, we have to draw a distinction: is this a forum about things "geeks" will find interesting? Or is it a portal with news for nerds?
It's a blog. It's their blog. It's a forum about things CmdrTaco et al. find interesting.
I like Battlestar Galactica, why don't we have a front page discussion on it at the end of every season?
You must have missed the dozen or so stories put up in the last few months. They posted something like three stories about Edward James Olmos claiming the show was ending. Not surprising that you didn't notice. Most people only complain about things that irritate them.
Slashdot Mirror
Mechanical Engineers.
Aha, the hai2u.com girl must have been a victim!
For the morning triple-s routine.
demands a coherent defense.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it wasn't innocently deliberate. They probably got a copy of the DOSBox source and started deleteing what the developers thought were irrelevant files in order to make their jobs customizing the software easier. Not a big deal. As mentioned elsewhere, this has already been fixed.
I'm a cynic, but I'm with you. A mere conflict of interest does not imply that wrongdoings have occurred. The Board of Trustees was obviously aware of this "conflict of interests" (more like a tempest in a teacup), as they hired the guy. Unless there's evidence that he strong-armed the trustees, there's absolutely no reason to think he didn't just present a good deal to the trustees, who then decided to take it for its merits.
So what? A mere conflict of interests doesn't imply that any wrongdoings have occurred. He did disclose this conflict of interests to the Indiana University trustees. It's up to their charter to determine whether or not he gets a vote on the matter. Is it so hard to believe he presented the board a great deal, and they decided to accept?
No, it just laughed and did it again more loudly.
I'd say Apple hardware is most like Audi or SAAB in this flawed analogy. Both are known for their high quality construction and attention to detail, especially regarding ergonomics. But both have historically had some reliability problems under the hood. Just as in Apple's case, they eventually got sorted out, but being an Audi or SAAB or Apple early adopter has historically been a bad idea.
There are "better" cars than Audis or SAABs. But "better" strongly becomes a function of the intended purpose once you've reached a certain threshhold of quality. Few companies make better four-door sedans then Audi or SAAB. Similarly, few (mainstream) companies make better a better general purpose desktop or laptop than Apple. (Sun makes very nice workstation hardware, but seriously priced themselves out of the desktop market. The Apple tax has nothing on the Sun tax.)
Link please. I googled hacking modelines and hacking modelines os x. Both produced a ton of links for Linux troubleshooting, and none for OS X.
No, I mean the US Treasury. In every instance I've found of "quarter dollar" on their site, it was in fact spelled "quarter-dollar", and used descriptively. You're referring to the denomination as if it were a name. Do you think dollar bills and Sacagawea dollar coins share a name because they both have "ONE DOLLAR" on them?
The best I could find on this topic was Federal laws issuing directives to the treasury. They used the phrase "quarter dollar coins" descriptively.
I am strongly considering getting one of these, but only if it is fast enough to play H.264 encoded videos at a decent resolution (640x480 would be good, though HD resolutions would be better). I have a 1GHz G4 PowerBook that is unable to do so without stuttering.
If it can do this, the Asus Eee is less computer than I want, but more than I need. At that price, it is a great value.
Someone should inform the US Treasury and US Mint of that factoid. http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/index.cfm?fla sh=yes&action=coin_specifications
Rioters were buying baseball bats? Sounds like a lame riot to me.
How did you even get ROFL inside of you?
So, lets says you're running Word (not likely on linux, for quickest example I could come up with)
What the fuck.
Is there a name for someone who thinks everyone is out to get them and have everyone be multiple instances of him? /b/
Your implication is that the human mind cannot be reduced to a Turing machine. I am in the other camp--who believe that the mind is subject to rigorous physical law, and that physical law can be expressed arithmetically (in principle), and so the human mind is a Turing machine.
It is eminently doubtful that physical laws can be expressed arithmetically. Many mathematical concepts cannot. If that isn't enough proof, consider that they are used to describe the physical world. So it does not follow from the claim that the brain is subject to physical law that the brain is merely a Turing machine. Obviously, the mind can implement one, so it is demonstrably as computationally powerful as a Turing machine.
Godel's theorem says that a consistent arithmetic system will contain unprovable truths. Put otherwise, such a system cannot be both consistent and complete. Thus the Godel counterargument to Strong AI (that human minds and computers are not fundamentally different) is that humans (e.g. mathematicians) can prove things like Godel's theorem, so we are able to "rise above" the arithmetic and exist in states of full proof and full consistency.
But I think there is a flaw in that logic (note: I am not a mathematician). The theorem doesn't preclude that a given arithmetic system (e.g. human mind) will be able to prove a truth that a weaker system ignored. Thus our ability to see certain truths doesn't mean that there are not other truths that are unprovable to us.
I would suggest that Godel's original formulation of the theorem isn't the right tack to take here. Consider Godel's completeness theorem. It states that a theory has a model iff it is consistent.[1] Further, consider the soundness theorem: a proof exists for a sentence P in a theory T iff P is true in every model of T. Cast in this light, the incompleteness theorem says that there exist models for arithmetic for which some sentence P is true in some and false in others. The point being that a finite axiomatization of arithmetic can't "pin" the model down so we're only talking about the P-true kinds (or P-false kinds).
This is important philosophically because it means that your "mental model" of arithmetic might be consistent as far as our chosen language can communicate, but might still be different from my "mental model".[2] Godel got away with saying that the sentence is "true, but not provable" because he meant a very limited kind of truth. He meant "true of the standard model of arithmetic" -- before his proof, nobody knew there were essentially different mental models of arithmetic, let alone essentially different models. So people's mental models were assumed to agree, and they were called the Standard Model.
In short, Godel's theorem is relevant to this discussion, but you haven't hit on why.
[1] A model for a theory T is a set of objects that satisfies T -- that is, T is true of the objects. The following example is meant to be illustrative, but it isn't the whole story: Consider a theory that says "Everything is Red". Then the set of all red cars is a model for the theory. And if the theory is "Everything is Red and has license plate number OR-1234567", we can assume, for the sake of this discussion, that there is only one model --the set containing a red car with that license plate. (Unfortunately, this isn't exactly true, for several reasons. But it demonstrates that axioms of the theory help make the theory more specific. More on that up top.
[2] In fact, unless your model includes infinite elements, our models are definitely different. Mine includes all the countable ordinals.
Basically, the more computing power you have, the better the data mining can be. No computer ever made could exhaust the space of all photographs, let alone all valid image files.
So Moore's law is good for going smaller/faster/cheaper, but the demand for s/f/c will spell the end of Moore's law?
Yes. There's only so small a laptop can be without becoming a PDA. There's only so cheap they can get before there's no money for R&D. And people, the article claims, are discovering that there's no need for faster laptops.
Computers are slowly becoming commodities.
The panda. Where did it get a gun?
Ummm...
/. demographic. So is a story about the launch of the latest HP book. Inviting a discussion like this is a reading club is, i repeat, outside the scope of the site, even when a story would end up the same way.
Yes, and? CmdrTaco is still Editor-in-Chief or whatever. He is in charge of maintaining and directing Slashdot.
Oh, for fuck's sake. I sad discussions. Discussions. A story about the end of BS is interesting for most of the
We agree there would be no practical difference if a story about Harry Potter were posted or not. So what was your point again? Unless you're an investor in Sourceforge, Inc. (the current owners of Slashdot -- Andover got bought out), you don't have much of a say in the sites' scope.
Wow, you've almost realized that to grant someone a right, you have to take away another's right. That's life. Get over it.
So, we have to draw a distinction: is this a forum about things "geeks" will find interesting? Or is it a portal with news for nerds?
It's a blog. It's their blog. It's a forum about things CmdrTaco et al. find interesting.
I like Battlestar Galactica, why don't we have a front page discussion on it at the end of every season?
You must have missed the dozen or so stories put up in the last few months. They posted something like three stories about Edward James Olmos claiming the show was ending. Not surprising that you didn't notice. Most people only complain about things that irritate them.
The world would be much worse off if reading Harry Potter was as essential to survival as breathing.