Hmm, I'm not sure I entirely disagree but probably not for the reason that you imply (greed).
Personally, I think the major players are in it because it suits their belief system. If nobody bought into it they'd still try to sell it (with fewer resources at their disposal). While getting paid to do linux advocacy in it's myriad of forms is potentially a factor in their continued involvment, I fail to see how this differs from any other model. Frankly, I wouldn't do what ESR is doing for less than $200K a year even if I was willing to sacrifice the rest of my life (which I'm not). If he gets paid through indirect means for his efforts then good for him.
As for the OSS model, in its current incarnation, it's too immature for me to make a personal final judgement but I suspect that your view is a little pessimistic. If the OSS movement doesn't give you warm fuzzies, avoid it. I doubt it will bring any hazardous trends, let alone the downfall of civilization.
Unless you happen to have a mind bogglingly common real name. I'm Andy Smith btw. I dare any employer to sift through the thousands of my clones to find the real me. Folks stand a better chance searching on email, thus the importance of having a public (corporate?) email and a private email address.
Hmm, I'm not sure that I'd agree with that. There are a number of ways I could attack that premise "if(topic==romanticizing) ESR = MS;"
For one, there is a difference between romanticizing and marketing. Marketing often uses concepts or techniques that are classifiable as "romanticizing" in order to convince a potential customer to buy their product. Romanticism in and of itself is an attempt to glorify something thought of as mundane. ESR is also trying to create something where there is nothing: a community dedicated to open source ideals.
Microsoft is interested in community only so far as it helps them sell products. From what I can tell, ESR believes that the community is the product. This is actually a good thing for MS, since if they were interested in starting hacker communities then they probably wouldn't make much money (the ultimate point to any company).
My original point was that in spite of the articles obvious good idea (not that there weren't a lot of bad ones), they missed the point. EMS doesn't have time to convince everybody. Instead he's trying to create an army of geeks to help him convince everybody that what he says is true. The neat thing about this religion of geeks (my words) is that if he does manage to convince enough people, then what he says comes true. Thus his romanticism is romantic, but dismissing it (in the article) because of that is a big mistake.
As an aside, the allusion to linux advocacy being done for cash is highly improbable. Although I could see EMS doing it for the kicks of getting invited to dinners with Stephenson and Brin. The idea that a company like RHAT could make enough money to meaningfully IPO postdates linux advocacy significantly.
There are a number of good points being brought up that I don't want to waste time by repeating. I think the article is interesting, but that one of the basic arguments is flawed.
It seems obvious to me, especially given certain statements by ESR, that CatB and the related essays are definitely optimistic and romantic versions of the open source movement by design. ESR and some others of the OSS are trying to sell the idea so that it becomes a reality. They are trying to create a meme that will propagate and overwhelm some of the less useful capitalistic conventions of the modern software world.
That the article attacks on these points is valid, but it misses the entire purpose of ESR's writing.
Complete list of Stephenson's works
on
The Big U
·
· Score: 1
The ISFDB has the most complete list of NS' writings that I've seen. To view it, hit http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cgi?N eal_Stephenson
According to ISFDB "The Big U" is 1984, "Interface" is 1993 and "The Cobweb" is 1996.
The license text as pointed out by reverse solidus actually makes it sound like they just want everybody else to do the work for them. Not only is it not "open source", but if you change anything, they have a right to that change and can then sell the enhanced code with no obligation to you.
Drop them an email and let them know how you feel about being used.
1) How much would you be willing to pay for a dedicated device that offers witty insight and meaningless trivia?
2) Why is this hardware instead of software?
Assuming integrated GMS/GPS I'm guessing the device wouldn't go for under $200 which is well above my price range for cool but useless toys.
Far better to offer this as a service (I'm guessing there would be a monthly fee anyway) for any GPS/GMS equipped lap/palmtop computer through software.
This is a toy for pure geeks, and most of them are already toting a mobile computer of some sort. I doubt many of them are gonna want to try to find a pocket for one of these too.
Now if they could make one that could be fitted onto a pair of eyeglasses then they'd be in business;)
Let's just assume for the moment that this is in fact censorship, or a reasonable attempt at it. Can somebody with some practical knowledge let us poor lay geeks know what we can do to fight this one? Letters to the congressman seem a little outside of their jurisdiction at this point, so who can we bitch at?
Barring that, who wants to lead the effort to lay wire for a non-profit global network that has a ban on ratings? I'll volunteer my limited services.
For one thing I have my doubts that even the most foolish inventor would construct a computer or AI that would lead to the destruction of the human race. While Asimov's 3 laws are deceptively complex (and probably prohibitively so), a person would be a fool to create a life form that destroys them.
Secondly, in spite of all the frankenstein press that technology often gets, I sincerely doubt that machines (assuming they do become self aware) would have anything worse than a symbiotic relationship with machines. What reason would a machine have for trying to eliminate organic life given that organic life created it? Logically it follows that if organic life can create a machine that is self aware, it could also create other useful things.
As far as the meshing of living with machine, I personally can't wait to get some upgrades. Embrace technology, don't fear it.
20 years ago they were still talking about most computers in terms of tons. I agree that the current situation has perhaps less impact than the article's author implied, but I think your timeline is overly pessimistic. I'd be surprised if it wasn't more like 5-10 years. The old axiom "the more things change, the more things stay the same" is not relevant to current trends in technology. Now the axiom is "the more things change, the faster things change".
You are assuming some enterprising fellow(s) don't see the problem and start up something that explicitely defies these "suggestions". If you are given the choice between MCINazis, ATTNazis, SprintNazis and "Joe's Unrestricted Uncensored Telcom", which one will you choose?
Since the government can't outright ban Joe, they'd be unable to more than just harass him. Given that any harassment would immediately be made embarassingly public, they'd have to play at least moderately nice. Joe would become rich due to all the people signing on to his service and 5 zillion other entrepreneurs would see this and start up their own uncensored Telcoms, restoring the balance.
I can't realistically bring myself to fear this rather silly attempt at censorship. Not to say it shouldn't be opposed, as it could potentially be dangerous if combined with certain obvious other (more blatantly censoring) measures.
(unrelated stuff) BTW, can anybody think of a way to legally assert that labels themselves are "objectionable content"?
Also, where the hell are these friggin censors? Do they have conventions we can crash or mailing lists we can hack?
While I will instantly agree that labels in other areas of our life are almost always a Bad Thing, I don't see how this will really affect most of us.
IMO this is yet another stupid attempt to regulate the internet that is hobbled by it's own lack of foresight (not that having stupid censors is entirely bad).
First of all, this article implies that once a labelling scheme is implemented, censorship will occur at the provider level. Even supposing a worst case scenario when 90% of the current "major" providers somehow succumb to hysteria and ban certain content, we as consumers still dictate where the market share goes. If we know we can't get our porn, violence, and obscenity through AOL, then we won't use AOL and AOL will wither up and die.
Those that sell access to "unrestricted" materials will always appeal to more people who actually care about censorship. Unless the US (and other involved countries) somehow manage to mandate what adults can and cannot access, then providers that provide unfettered access will always be permitted to exist. If they exist, then anybody with half a brain will choose them over a censored system.
This is not to say that we shouldn't oppose such a labelling system as this article mentions, but I believe it to be doomed from its conception. Now if we can just figure out a way to get censors to deem their own content objectionable then we'll really be in business;)
I don't really know enough of security systems on any OS to really be able to critique that statement, but "always" seems a little farfetched.
Perhaps if you were to offer supporting arguments/historical examples then your statement might be a tad more believable...
Note: I am not a *bigot. I fully expect that any existing operating system/hardware currently in use will be fully replaces by some revolutionary new concept within 20 years. Thus I try not to get attached to any of the current systems.
To say that the cells age "as fast as" the originator is correct but I don't think that's what you meant. DNA can be said to have a counter on it like a integer decrementer in a standard "for" loop. Every time the cell divides the DNA gets truncated and various Bad Things have their probability of being triggered raised (for the derived cells in the division).
So loosely, the cloned being starts of with cells the *same* age as the originator and then those cells age "normally". One of the problems with this is that clones start out with basically the same resources as a newborn, but are genetically coded to be older. This could theoretically cause stunted developement and a host of defects.
Besides that, there is the issue of neural aging and degeneration in the originators brain if there is a transplant. Not to mention the fact that a cloned genetically defective human will still have the genetic defect.
All those things aside, the scary thing to me is that somebody would consider cloning a human that would age prematurely. Seems particularly cruel.
Love the nick btw, I've got about 100 pages left to the Cryptonomicon. Gotta see if I can finish that up tonight.
You'd have to be able to not only simulate a brain in software (in realtime as well), but you'd have to be able to "sample" somebody's brain state to get a snapshot of who/what they are in order to simulate it.
If we were hypothetically able to pass those barriers then I don't see what anybody could do to prevent it being done. The idea of immortality is just too appealing to assume that somebody with resources wouldn't do it (myself included, minus resources).
As far as "dying", I think it could be said that we would technically die when our bodies did. Just because a copy of us goes on does not eliminate the death of our biological self. The fact that some aspect of our personality lives on separately from our biological self would undoubtedly cause a host of social issues, and not only post mortem.
Fortunately or unfortunately this is all probably not much of an issue. I suspect that we'll have biological immortality long before we come close to an electronic variant. Makes for some interesting fiction though.
They had electronic personalities all over the place in those books. Unfortunately, I agree with the first poster, this is suckerware. Besides, it's more fun to try to bring them back to life with large doses of electricity =)
Theoretically if we ever gain a detailed understanding of the human brain and also create imaging technology sophisticated enough to analyze a complete state of a human brain this stuff might be feasible. Right now you're better off getting your head frozen (this also applies to people thinking of buying this program, not just the recently deceased).
I did some work for Eddie Bauer a while back and I believe they're using an AIX system developed by IBM and some third parties.
It's probably costly but IBM undoubtedly has a generic system that could be adapted. I know they sell the source (Eddie Bauer always insisted on buying source, they're competent enough to know not to depend on IBM for quick fixes), but it's probably fairly expensive. You'd have to adapt it to Linux but it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal.
If your scale is small though you probably would have trouble affording it. Plus there's the whole idea of giving money to IBM...
If they actually used it to actively spy on people without a warrant then a qualified "yes". Basically it's the same deal as with key escrow, just because they *can* use it to spy does not necessarily mean that they will use it. They are supposed to obtain a warrant before doing that sort of thing.
The problem that most people have is that some government agencies are a little loose about obtaining warrants, or alternatively the judges may be a little too loose about granting them. The very fact that they could be able to access all your data without your knowledge is what riles most folks.
My understanding of the article is that they never intended to release the symbolic information that identified the key as NSAKEY. As such, perhaps the "accidental" release of that info is actual some MS person with a conscience attempting to let the cat out of the bag....
I'm one of the few (seemingly) geeks that doesn't get into southpark. I must be missing the southpark appreciation gene;)
As far as the nerves, I was actually referring to the biochemical interaction of the nerves, not the quantity. Not knowing much about the molecular level difference between mammalian neurons and those of reptiles and insects, it was actually just a wildly unfounded guess that their biochemical interface would be dramatically different from ours. For all I know their neural chemical interface is identical.
Given that the protein in question is something that interacts on a molecular level, if the chemicals that trigger it are not present in some other form of life (like reptiles and insects) then inserting a gene for that protein will have, at best, no effect.
First off, thanks to all for pointing out the difference between GP and GA. That distinction was obviously lost on me before this thread (guess I better go read the book).
On the idea of understanding the code, mainstream code often requires "adjustments" and maintenance on a regular basis.
From what I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong), in order to make any change to the resultant code I'd have to change my target and completely re-run the algorithms (or at least re-run from some relatively close match). For some generic things, like a search algorithm, you don't really care about the underlying features of the algorithm so long as it works. I'm imagining that this sort of approach is less useful for code that deals with things like changing UI, database access etc. Not only because of the difficulty in defining the "target" when the target is moving, but also because some maintance would be made harder by the inability to understand how the result was achieved (thus forcing you to return to the algorithm, instead of making a quick fix).
You can splice genes anywhere on any creature's DNA. Whether it produces an organism capable of living and reproducing is another matter.
In this case, from what I can tell from the/. article, it seems that they targetted a gene that deals with a construct common to most mammals: a protein construct for nerve cells. Generally speaking, all mammals have a certain number of common traits and it is quite likely that they managed to stumble on a gene that works well on a large % of mammals. Granted, there are undoubtedly a multitude of genes that would not work in this way. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that this gene wouldn't work nearly so well on reptilian and insect specimens, given their differences in the basic nervous system.
Unfortunately I have a profound mistrust of programs that I don't understand/can't maintain. While there are some areas where GA's can be very nicely applied, mainstream programming most likely won't get to use them much.
I'm more curious about their use in creating faster/cheaper hardware (but that's probably because I'm a software guy).
Well, I'd have to agree with some people that chances are that if you don't do it, they'll get somebody that will.
Reach a compromise that all users are notified of the change and be sure they all know that any images included in their email will likely be looked at. Also, at approximately the same time you can publish a memo on the importance of making sure your email is secure and that any sensitive data should be encrypted. Point them at the recently revealed Canadian "email encryption made simple" that was on slashdot a few weeks ago http://www.ipc.on.ca/Web_site.ups/MATTERS/SUM_PAP/ PAPERS/encrypt.htm
The really smart ones will start encrypting, the moderately smart ones will stop getting it sent to work and the dumb ones will get caught and fired. Natural selection at work.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, I'm not sure I entirely disagree but probably not for the reason that you imply (greed).
Personally, I think the major players are in it because it suits their belief system. If nobody bought into it they'd still try to sell it (with fewer resources at their disposal). While getting paid to do linux advocacy in it's myriad of forms is potentially a factor in their continued involvment, I fail to see how this differs from any other model. Frankly, I wouldn't do what ESR is doing for less than $200K a year even if I was willing to sacrifice the rest of my life (which I'm not). If he gets paid through indirect means for his efforts then good for him.
As for the OSS model, in its current incarnation, it's too immature for me to make a personal final judgement but I suspect that your view is a little pessimistic. If the OSS movement doesn't give you warm fuzzies, avoid it. I doubt it will bring any hazardous trends, let alone the downfall of civilization.
Unless you happen to have a mind bogglingly common real name. I'm Andy Smith btw. I dare any employer to sift through the thousands of my clones to find the real me. Folks stand a better chance searching on email, thus the importance of having a public (corporate?) email and a private email address.
brain fart combined with EAU (excessive acronym use)
Hmm, I'm not sure that I'd agree with that. There are a number of ways I could attack that premise "if(topic==romanticizing) ESR = MS;"
For one, there is a difference between romanticizing and marketing. Marketing often uses concepts or techniques that are classifiable as "romanticizing" in order to convince a potential customer to buy their product. Romanticism in and of itself is an attempt to glorify something thought of as mundane. ESR is also trying to create something where there is nothing: a community dedicated to open source ideals.
Microsoft is interested in community only so far as it helps them sell products. From what I can tell, ESR believes that the community is the product. This is actually a good thing for MS, since if they were interested in starting hacker communities then they probably wouldn't make much money (the ultimate point to any company).
My original point was that in spite of the articles obvious good idea (not that there weren't a lot of bad ones), they missed the point. EMS doesn't have time to convince everybody. Instead he's trying to create an army of geeks to help him convince everybody that what he says is true. The neat thing about this religion of geeks (my words) is that if he does manage to convince enough people, then what he says comes true. Thus his romanticism is romantic, but dismissing it (in the article) because of that is a big mistake.
As an aside, the allusion to linux advocacy being done for cash is highly improbable. Although I could see EMS doing it for the kicks of getting invited to dinners with Stephenson and Brin. The idea that a company like RHAT could make enough money to meaningfully IPO postdates linux advocacy significantly.
There are a number of good points being brought up that I don't want to waste time by repeating. I think the article is interesting, but that one of the basic arguments is flawed.
It seems obvious to me, especially given certain statements by ESR, that CatB and the related essays are definitely optimistic and romantic versions of the open source movement by design. ESR and some others of the OSS are trying to sell the idea so that it becomes a reality. They are trying to create a meme that will propagate and overwhelm some of the less useful capitalistic conventions of the modern software world.
That the article attacks on these points is valid, but it misses the entire purpose of ESR's writing.
The ISFDB has the most complete list of NS' writings that I've seen. To view it, hit http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cgi?N eal_Stephenson
According to ISFDB "The Big U" is 1984, "Interface" is 1993 and "The Cobweb" is 1996.
The license text as pointed out by reverse solidus actually makes it sound like they just want everybody else to do the work for them. Not only is it not "open source", but if you change anything, they have a right to that change and can then sell the enhanced code with no obligation to you.
Drop them an email and let them know how you feel about being used.
Not that I don't love the idea but:
;)
1) How much would you be willing to pay for a dedicated device that offers witty insight and meaningless trivia?
2) Why is this hardware instead of software?
Assuming integrated GMS/GPS I'm guessing the device wouldn't go for under $200 which is well above my price range for cool but useless toys.
Far better to offer this as a service (I'm guessing there would be a monthly fee anyway) for any GPS/GMS equipped lap/palmtop computer through software.
This is a toy for pure geeks, and most of them are already toting a mobile computer of some sort. I doubt many of them are gonna want to try to find a pocket for one of these too.
Now if they could make one that could be fitted onto a pair of eyeglasses then they'd be in business
Let's just assume for the moment that this is in fact censorship, or a reasonable attempt at it. Can somebody with some practical knowledge let us poor lay geeks know what we can do to fight this one? Letters to the congressman seem a little outside of their jurisdiction at this point, so who can we bitch at?
Barring that, who wants to lead the effort to lay wire for a non-profit global network that has a ban on ratings? I'll volunteer my limited services.
For one thing I have my doubts that even the most foolish inventor would construct a computer or AI that would lead to the destruction of the human race. While Asimov's 3 laws are deceptively complex (and probably prohibitively so), a person would be a fool to create a life form that destroys them.
Secondly, in spite of all the frankenstein press that technology often gets, I sincerely doubt that machines (assuming they do become self aware) would have anything worse than a symbiotic relationship with machines. What reason would a machine have for trying to eliminate organic life given that organic life created it? Logically it follows that if organic life can create a machine that is self aware, it could also create other useful things.
As far as the meshing of living with machine, I personally can't wait to get some upgrades. Embrace technology, don't fear it.
20 years ago they were still talking about most computers in terms of tons. I agree that the current situation has perhaps less impact than the article's author implied, but I think your timeline is overly pessimistic. I'd be surprised if it wasn't more like 5-10 years. The old axiom "the more things change, the more things stay the same" is not relevant to current trends in technology. Now the axiom is "the more things change, the faster things change".
You are assuming some enterprising fellow(s) don't see the problem and start up something that explicitely defies these "suggestions". If you are given the choice between MCINazis, ATTNazis, SprintNazis and "Joe's Unrestricted Uncensored Telcom", which one will you choose?
Since the government can't outright ban Joe, they'd be unable to more than just harass him. Given that any harassment would immediately be made embarassingly public, they'd have to play at least moderately nice. Joe would become rich due to all the people signing on to his service and 5 zillion other entrepreneurs would see this and start up their own uncensored Telcoms, restoring the balance.
I can't realistically bring myself to fear this rather silly attempt at censorship. Not to say it shouldn't be opposed, as it could potentially be dangerous if combined with certain obvious other (more blatantly censoring) measures.
(unrelated stuff)
BTW, can anybody think of a way to legally assert that labels themselves are "objectionable content"?
Also, where the hell are these friggin censors? Do they have conventions we can crash or mailing lists we can hack?
While I will instantly agree that labels in other areas of our life are almost always a Bad Thing, I don't see how this will really affect most of us.
;)
IMO this is yet another stupid attempt to regulate the internet that is hobbled by it's own lack of foresight (not that having stupid censors is entirely bad).
First of all, this article implies that once a labelling scheme is implemented, censorship will occur at the provider level. Even supposing a worst case scenario when 90% of the current "major" providers somehow succumb to hysteria and ban certain content, we as consumers still dictate where the market share goes. If we know we can't get our porn, violence, and obscenity through AOL, then we won't use AOL and AOL will wither up and die.
Those that sell access to "unrestricted" materials will always appeal to more people who actually care about censorship. Unless the US (and other involved countries) somehow manage to mandate what adults can and cannot access, then providers that provide unfettered access will always be permitted to exist. If they exist, then anybody with half a brain will choose them over a censored system.
This is not to say that we shouldn't oppose such a labelling system as this article mentions, but I believe it to be doomed from its conception. Now if we can just figure out a way to get censors to deem their own content objectionable then we'll really be in business
I don't really know enough of security systems on any OS to really be able to critique that statement, but "always" seems a little farfetched.
Perhaps if you were to offer supporting arguments/historical examples then your statement might be a tad more believable...
Note: I am not a *bigot. I fully expect that any existing operating system/hardware currently in use will be fully replaces by some revolutionary new concept within 20 years. Thus I try not to get attached to any of the current systems.
To say that the cells age "as fast as" the originator is correct but I don't think that's what you meant. DNA can be said to have a counter on it like a integer decrementer in a standard "for" loop. Every time the cell divides the DNA gets truncated and various Bad Things have their probability of being triggered raised (for the derived cells in the division).
So loosely, the cloned being starts of with cells the *same* age as the originator and then those cells age "normally". One of the problems with this is that clones start out with basically the same resources as a newborn, but are genetically coded to be older. This could theoretically cause stunted developement and a host of defects.
Besides that, there is the issue of neural aging and degeneration in the originators brain if there is a transplant. Not to mention the fact that a cloned genetically defective human will still have the genetic defect.
All those things aside, the scary thing to me is that somebody would consider cloning a human that would age prematurely. Seems particularly cruel.
Love the nick btw, I've got about 100 pages left to the Cryptonomicon. Gotta see if I can finish that up tonight.
You'd have to be able to not only simulate a brain in software (in realtime as well), but you'd have to be able to "sample" somebody's brain state to get a snapshot of who/what they are in order to simulate it.
If we were hypothetically able to pass those barriers then I don't see what anybody could do to prevent it being done. The idea of immortality is just too appealing to assume that somebody with resources wouldn't do it (myself included, minus resources).
As far as "dying", I think it could be said that we would technically die when our bodies did. Just because a copy of us goes on does not eliminate the death of our biological self. The fact that some aspect of our personality lives on separately from our biological self would undoubtedly cause a host of social issues, and not only post mortem.
Fortunately or unfortunately this is all probably not much of an issue. I suspect that we'll have biological immortality long before we come close to an electronic variant. Makes for some interesting fiction though.
They had electronic personalities all over the place in those books. Unfortunately, I agree with the first poster, this is suckerware. Besides, it's more fun to try to bring them back to life with large doses of electricity =)
Theoretically if we ever gain a detailed understanding of the human brain and also create imaging technology sophisticated enough to analyze a complete state of a human brain this stuff might be feasible. Right now you're better off getting your head frozen (this also applies to people thinking of buying this program, not just the recently deceased).
I did some work for Eddie Bauer a while back and I believe they're using an AIX system developed by IBM and some third parties.
It's probably costly but IBM undoubtedly has a generic system that could be adapted. I know they sell the source (Eddie Bauer always insisted on buying source, they're competent enough to know not to depend on IBM for quick fixes), but it's probably fairly expensive. You'd have to adapt it to Linux but it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal.
If your scale is small though you probably would have trouble affording it. Plus there's the whole idea of giving money to IBM...
If they actually used it to actively spy on people without a warrant then a qualified "yes". Basically it's the same deal as with key escrow, just because they *can* use it to spy does not necessarily mean that they will use it. They are supposed to obtain a warrant before doing that sort of thing.
The problem that most people have is that some government agencies are a little loose about obtaining warrants, or alternatively the judges may be a little too loose about granting them. The very fact that they could be able to access all your data without your knowledge is what riles most folks.
My understanding of the article is that they never intended to release the symbolic information that identified the key as NSAKEY. As such, perhaps the "accidental" release of that info is actual some MS person with a conscience attempting to let the cat out of the bag....
I'm one of the few (seemingly) geeks that doesn't get into southpark. I must be missing the southpark appreciation gene ;)
As far as the nerves, I was actually referring to the biochemical interaction of the nerves, not the quantity. Not knowing much about the molecular level difference between mammalian neurons and those of reptiles and insects, it was actually just a wildly unfounded guess that their biochemical interface would be dramatically different from ours. For all I know their neural chemical interface is identical.
Given that the protein in question is something that interacts on a molecular level, if the chemicals that trigger it are not present in some other form of life (like reptiles and insects) then inserting a gene for that protein will have, at best, no effect.
First off, thanks to all for pointing out the difference between GP and GA. That distinction was obviously lost on me before this thread (guess I better go read the book).
On the idea of understanding the code, mainstream code often requires "adjustments" and maintenance on a regular basis.
From what I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong), in order to make any change to the resultant code I'd have to change my target and completely re-run the algorithms (or at least re-run from some relatively close match). For some generic things, like a search algorithm, you don't really care about the underlying features of the algorithm so long as it works. I'm imagining that this sort of approach is less useful for code that deals with things like changing UI, database access etc. Not only because of the difficulty in defining the "target" when the target is moving, but also because some maintance would be made harder by the inability to understand how the result was achieved (thus forcing you to return to the algorithm, instead of making a quick fix).
You can splice genes anywhere on any creature's DNA. Whether it produces an organism capable of living and reproducing is another matter.
/. article, it seems that they targetted a gene that deals with a construct common to most mammals: a protein construct for nerve cells. Generally speaking, all mammals have a certain number of common traits and it is quite likely that they managed to stumble on a gene that works well on a large % of mammals. Granted, there are undoubtedly a multitude of genes that would not work in this way. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that this gene wouldn't work nearly so well on reptilian and insect specimens, given their differences in the basic nervous system.
In this case, from what I can tell from the
Unfortunately I have a profound mistrust of programs that I don't understand/can't maintain. While there are some areas where GA's can be very nicely applied, mainstream programming most likely won't get to use them much.
I'm more curious about their use in creating faster/cheaper hardware (but that's probably because I'm a software guy).
Well, I'd have to agree with some people that chances are that if you don't do it, they'll get somebody that will.
/ PAPERS/encrypt.htm
Reach a compromise that all users are notified of the change and be sure they all know that any images included in their email will likely be looked at. Also, at approximately the same time you can publish a memo on the importance of making sure your email is secure and that any sensitive data should be encrypted. Point them at the recently revealed Canadian "email encryption made simple" that was on slashdot a few weeks ago http://www.ipc.on.ca/Web_site.ups/MATTERS/SUM_PAP
The really smart ones will start encrypting, the moderately smart ones will stop getting it sent to work and the dumb ones will get caught and fired. Natural selection at work.