When I read these headlines about "countries that time forgot", I just can't help thinking about the same headlines that are routinely applied to our countries (continental Europe), saying:
"Oh, look, those poor little Europeans that still live in the Middle Ages with such some obsolete things as welfare systems, social security for all, minimum wages, and so on. Why don't they realize they live in the 21st century and scrap all those dinausoresque social systems ?"
One world, one language, one socio-economical framework.
Between 7.2 and 8.0 Mandrake switched to a newer version of the glibc (2.2, I think). As a rsult, all of their binary rpms now require that version of the glibc to run.
I've been unable to upgrade from the previous glibc to the more recent one with the rpm system. I've also been quite surprised to see that the two versions of the glibc files actually share the same name (libc.so.6).
As a resultt, I can't install Mozilla 9.1 as a binary rpm. I could probably compile from source, but I think that rpms were created exactly to avoid doing that !
The only reason this story is getting printed is because Steven Spielberg's AI movie is coming out soon, and his studio is trying to drum up interest in the subject.
The coincidence is neat, but this story is important in itself, at least for a significant proportion of AI researchers.
Doug B. Lenat is one of the guys who gave me the AI "vvirus". I remember reading an old book about the "first generation" of AI, and of all the things I saw in it none impressed me nearly as much as Lenat's Eurisko. It was a kind of modern fairy tale for the little boy that I was at the time.
Cyc was mentioned in that book as a "long-term project". I remember visiting their website once, and thinking how all this definitely looked like the ultimate vaporare story.
In itself, Cyc is simply a continuation of Lenat's previous work, that is, a monumental, "new generation" expert system. It is to traditional expert systems what the internet is to telegraph : it does basically the same things, but the technical difference lead to a qualitative leap. It is neither intelligent (it was not designed to pass the standard Turing test) nor "conscious" (it knows about itself, but just as much as a Java class that can do introspection). But when it comes to practical applications about analyzing abstract data and drawing abstract conclusions, it can crush the competition any time.
Bloody hell, they've finally done it. Yes, this is important. Don't let the journalists' hype fool you: this guy is worth your attention, and you might pretty well hear about him again over the next few years.
I use exactly two types of GNU tools proper: the gcc suite and the shell utilities suite. Period. My GUI is composed of X and the awesome BlackBox WM. I use vi as my only editor and good old Netscape 4.75 as my only web browser. I find it hard to call the system I use a "GNU/Linux" system.
Granted, without GNU there would be no Linux (thank you gcc, thank you glibc, etc.) Okay. Right. But if that's the only reason why we should call it GNU/Linux, then it should really be Turing/VonNeumann/Djikstra/.../ATT/MIT/GNU/Linux. Hey, if you consider that many graphical apps, even in the very GNOME project, were simply copy/pasted from their Microsoft equivalents (even Miguel says it), you should even add "Gates" somewhere in the name ! (Not to mention the outstanding contribution to the whole Open Source movement bringed by Microsoft's monopolistic practices:o)
In the end, I suspect the perpetual braggling from GNU will prove tiresome enough that people will actually switch everything they can to non-GNU software (KDE everywhere !) just to avoid having to feel guilty everytime they mention their OS under the name of "Linux".
It's not a Hell, but at least with the Glibc libraries it's quite an annoyance.
I can't get Mozilla 0.9.1 because it wants Glibc2.2 - which I can't install without putting at risk my system. Same thing apply for the latest version of emacs.
The Glibc Heck has proven to be quite a pain in the hard drive. If anyone has a solution that doesn't involve rebuilding the whole packages (I already thought about that, thx), I'd be glad to hear.
To me, even more interesting is whether or not man killed off Neandertals. These guys were all over Europe for a very long time, and they were smart enought to fight back. A war with them would have truly been "World War One".
It's possible, but it's only a possibility among others. The only thing we know about interactions between Cro Magnon (the modern man) and Neanderthal is that they actually existed. Other than that, the evidence is scarce, and it's difficult to figure out. As of now, we think that Neanderthal were simply displaced by Cro-Magnon (modern man) immigrants who pushed them further and further, until they got "cornered" in southern Spain and Gibraltar, then eventually disappeared altogether. Interbreeding was long thought impossible, but recent evidence indicates that it was. Maybe we (white men of European descent) all have Neanderthal genes. Maybe not. We don't know.
The first genocide in history probably happened quite some time later, between two kind of people belonging to modern mankind: mongoloids and blacks: it was the destruction of Australian-like Aborigines (i.e. Blacks) by Northeast-Asians (i.e. the ancestors of what you call "Native Americans"). We have some archeological evidence, and more surprisingly, we even have documents !
However, even in this case, it is very possible that actual fighting only took a minor role, and that the first inhabitants were simply driven out of their lands further and further, up to Terra del Fuego (the island that forms the other side of the Magellan Strait).
When the number of years exceeds four figures, the only thing we know is that we hardly know anything.
There are folks in the US who get pissed because Disney commodifies traditional western cultural symbols, fairy tales, and works of art (Hercules, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
Not only in the US:o)
In fact, what's really annoying is not their ripping-off of foreign cultures. After all, culture is meant to be shared. No, the really annoying thing is that they never, ever mention the origins of their "creations".
In other words, making a movie about Notre-Dame de Paris is okay, but not even citing Victor Hugo's name once is most definitely NOT ! -and that's what really pissed us about the Hunchback.
And I think it's pretty much the same thing with these Maori words: the Polynesians would be much happier with Lego's idea if the company had actually mentioned the Polynesian origin of these names. But they didn't. Take nice-souding words and just pretend they were born out of the genius of your marketing department.
You were talking about Disney movies; I wonder how many Americans think that Walt Disney actually invented Snow-White and Cinderella...
Neuroscientists like Dr. Henry Markram and Terrence Sejnowski have already figured out that accurate timing of neural spikes is the key to biological intelligence.
Hm. Yeah, great. So what ? Let's just put a bunch of "accurately timed" neurons and voilà, we've got Artificial Intelligence (harp chords and organ music, angels dancing in the skies) ?
Mr Markam, for example, studies mainly the behaviour of small groups of neurons within the neocortex. Of course this is very important and very interesting for building our knowledge of the brain, but calling this "the key to biological intelligence" as you do (and as he does not because he knows more than that:o) is plain ridiculous.
The animal brain is the most complex structure known in this world, and although we do have some insight about its global architecture ("hmmm, this bit looks to be involved in memory, that part seems more involved with emotions, this one is a mixture of both.."), we can't even begin to understand a single bit of how it actually works. And the most frustrating is that the more we identify special elements within the system, the less we understand it.
For all the research that's been done over the past 150 years or so, nobody can tell you what's really going on when a frightened dog runs away. We can mention bits and pieces ("amygdala", "basal ganglia", etc.) but as for how it actually works, we're just like newborn babies alone in a very dark room.
"Yeah, them friggin Frogs yad think thay could rwite propah English, like um, dunno, like in Slashdot posts ?":o)
English has become a tool for international communication. As long as what you write can be understood by the majority of your users (and this is the case for Mandrake's texts), proper grammar/spelling is irrelevant. Blaming software developers for their poor mastering of The One True Language of Civilization and Progress is like blaming Arthur C. Clarke for the historical inaccuracies in "2001".
I suppose you have no problem, then, with what happened in Bosnia... or Rwanda... or Cambodia... or, well, we won't mention that little country in Europe 60 years ago that decided it was OK to use a little bit of force to gain some "living space" for its ethnically-pure citizens.
It's reassuring to see that the internet is not such a lawless place. At least Godwin's law is respected.
While I admit Quebec language laws have gone somewhat ridiculous, I just can't equate "requiring any English contents to be translated in French" with "deporting and/or killing all English-speaking Canadians".
France Telecom has chosen a simpler solution. Last time I've been to the Gare de Lyon railroad station, I noticed that most payphones had an RJ45 socket on them.
While I've never actually seen anyone plugging his/her computer in these, I found the idea rather cool:-)
This is just a side thought - does it surprise anyone that the most prosperous nation on earth has the hardest workers? Just an idea.
If prosperity was directly related to hard working, Southeast Asia would rule the world.
An Indonesian works up to 70 hours a week. A Frenchman works 35 hours a week (down from 39 hrs/wk until recently). Of course your definition of "propserity" may differ from mine, but I wouldn't call Indonesia more "prosperous" than France.
Quick personal note: When art forms an industry, and decides to make the public pay for its use, it ceases to be art. Art is that which enriches your soul for no greater price than that of your time.
Example given: Mozart's operas were always shown in paying venues (you had to buy a ticket to see Figaro). Therefore, Mozart's operas are not art. Eh.
An artist is someone who can live out of fresh air and pure aesthetics. Anyone who needs basely material things (such as, say, money) to survive ceases to be an artist.
(Boy, and this is rated +5 insightful...)
Thomas Miconi
Re:Typical pro-chinese bullshit
on
First Arcology?
·
· Score: 2
The Chinese people had never been agressive towards their neighboors.
(*Cough*)
The Chinese had never been domineering. They've never sent their troops to intervene in other country's political affairs
In the second part of the XXth century alone, China has invaded (not "intervened in the affairs of"; "invaded") three different countries: Korea, Viet Nam, and Tibet.
*Every* country in the region has suffered a Chinese invasion at some point in its history. Some have managed to fight back, some haven't.
China behaves exactly like any other big, overwhelmingly powerful empire in history. The only difference with the US are time (4000 years for China, two centuries for the US) and the fact that China doesn't have the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to protect it against invasions. Yes, it has been invaded by Mongols, Turks, Japanese, and any other big empire of the region. Yet being a victim at some point doesn't prevent you from becoming an aggressor later on. Ever wondered why a region of China was called "Interior Mongolia" ?
Excellent introduction to RMS' writing style - who else could write four paragraphs to explain that not paying for some person's work does not cause a loss to this person ? If syllogism was an olympic sport RMS would be the Carl Lewis of modern times.
But the most important thing is that almost all of RMS' (rare) points are based on a rather peculiar aspect of the US legal system: in this country, copyright and intellectual property are not regarded as inalienable, fundamental rights. IP is merely a tool, a strictly utilitarian clause in the legal system, a "thing" that can be bought, sold and disposed of at will and in its entirety.
With such a conception of intellectual property, the corporatization of IP issues is hardly surprising. You reap what you sow.
Yes, it's good to see companies undertaking real, useful projects - and actually throwing money and resources at it.
Yet I can't help thinking about how all of this will only be helpful for KDE users.
Of course, GNOME users (or even people who don't use desktop environments at all - personally I use X and the BlackBox window manager, period) can actually use KDE software - if you've got a few tens of megabytes of RAM to waste. I'm afraid I don't.
I know, competition is good, but... Damn the desktop war. Really.
Thomas Miconi
Re:Ha! Metric unit of mass is still a chunk of met
on
Uncle Sam's Funhouse
·
· Score: 4
While your post is an obvious piece of shameless trolling, and despite Betcour's remarkably accurate answer, I'll still add a few comments:
Still rely on the French to define your unit of mass, eh? (Rusting, other chemical readtions with the block. Bye bye perfect reference!) And the meter being
the distance from the North pole to the equator thru Paris divided into 10,000,000 parts? Yah, that's real accurate
The kilogram is the only unit that is still defined after a physical reference: a 2001-like monolith of platinium covered with iridium, located at the Conservatoire national des arts et metiers There are other equivalent "reference kilograms" worldwide that are similarly amagnetic and insensitive to rust or corrosion. The metre is the distance covered by a photon in 1/299 792 458 second. The second itself is based on transitions between two states of the cesium 133 atom. More information at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (Yes, there is an English version:o)
And why do people state "weight" or "thrust" in kilograms? Why not
Newtons?
Because people (including me and you) are morons, so they use a MASS unit to describe WEIGHTS and FORCES, or use WEIGHTS and FORCES to determine MASSES. This is totally stupid if you're an angst-ridden physicist living in an ivory tower somewhere in the Kalahari desert. For the rest of us, since G is a constant in any given place (there may be slight differences between two different places), the confusion is acceptable, because measuring something's WEIGHT is still the easiest way to determine its MASS. Could you tell me of any practical mass measurement method (for solids) that does not rely on weight comparison ?
Why do we still ask for a "pint of ale" in the UK?
First, because Brits are drunkyards. Personally I always drink beer by the glass (half-pint);o)
Second, because you (or at least your ancestors) blatantly screwed the French. In 1875, France accepted to leave the international zero-meridian to the English (Greenwich instead of Paris), because the English promised to adopt the metric system in return. Yet another shameless lie from the Perfide Albion;o)
And if base 10 is so l33t, where is metric time? Base 60? Why
stick with millenia old numbering from Babylonian times yet praise base 10 everywhere else
There is no such thing as "metric time". The second was invented by astronomists long before the metric system. The idea to "pack" the second with the metric system (metre, kilogram, litre) in order to have a coherent measurement system is (c) Gauss (1832). And this is how the International System was born.
And, by the way, there is no base-60 stuff in the International System itself. The only time unit in it is the second, period. If you were to speak in pure IS units, you would talk about kiloseconds and hectoseconds (just in the same way as you talk about milliseconds or microseconds). Hours and minutes are pure legacy stuff, and are not part of the IS - they're just here because it's easier to divide the day in 24 hours than in 86,4 kiloseconds.
There is quite some debate going on between the two main theories on global warming, namely the well-known Greenhouse Effect theory vs. the Solar Activity theory, i.e. the idea that Earth's temperature is much more correlated to solar activity than to anything else, making human activity a negligible factor.
The latter is quickly gaining momentum. The correlation exhibited in the Friis-Christensen & Lassen graph (first published in 1991 in Science) is really disturbing. Their more recent publications are even more so (better data thanks to satellites).
Diversity good. If mutations weren't everywhere, not as many things could survive a changing environment.
As artificial life research (read: hundreds of underpaid graduate students:o) has shown, while it is true that mutations are an important part of evolution and adaptativity, the most efficient tool for optimizing a population is still sexual reproduction (ie crossing-over between similar-but-different genotypes).
We can see a brilliant example of this in the distro problem: distros evolve not only by inventing new things, but also by borrowing from each other. Imagine if Red Hat or Caldera or Debian could prevent others from using this or that package in their distro ! Same thing for Gnome/KDE (disclaimer: I use X & Blackbox, period:o) : they get better and better by inventing new features, but also by borrowing each other's inventions and adding them their own little tweaks.
The United States can't just announce one day that's it's extending its waters and now gets Cuba.
Well that's more or less what they did in the Cuban War. More exactly, they busted Spain out of it, and occupied the island for a few years (virtually making it a protectorate of the USA).
To use cryptology terms, international law is definitely weak against brute force attacks. The US can still extend their waters and claim ownership of Cuba - they'll just have to manage the international outroar (easy part) and destroy Fidel's army (much less easy part - Pigs Bay, Episode II anyone ?)
The problem is that as of now, there is no Cuban army on Sealand to protect it from English invasion and... Hey, wait, that's an idea ! I'm sure Uncle Fidel would happily accept to send Cuban troops to protect Sealand - just to annoy the Imperialists. Besides, it would be much easier to find Ruben Gonzalez's old tracks on Napster:o)
mail fidel.castro@gov.cu -s "Hi, could you send me one or two airborne divisions before mid-June, please ?"
The existance of a rental market implies that there is some impediment to you making a copy of the
thing you rented. If it is trivial to make the copy, then the rental market is likely to destroy the purchase market. Imagine for a moment that
Blockbuster rented audio CD's for $1.00 a day or something. What do you think it would do to the market for CD's? It would probably completely
destroy it.
Well, yes and no.
I don't know in your country, but in mine, libraries are allowed to lend books (of course) and audio/video material (CD, video tapes, etc.) In almost any significant city there are public libraries where you can borrow CDs free of charge. Yet that did not kill the market for music commerce. Every year, several records sell more than a million copies (in a potential market of 60 million people).
BTW, notice that I live in a country where IP rights are a fundamental right. Maybe that's a proof that strong IP protection (for authors, at least) is not absolutely incompatible with fair use.
Slashdot Mirror
Can I have a common clipboard, please? pretty please?
:o)
You already have one. It's called "middle button"
Thomas Miconi
The second I read this, I had "Geek Code" blinking in big, red, flashy letters in my head.
This thing will be to the Geek Code what XML is to DB file format !
Thomas Miconi
It took me a while to realize that you were talking about Farenheit degrees...
"Gosh, I knew those Arabs were hot-blooded, but two degrees below boiling point seems a bit much"
Thomas Miconi
When I read these headlines about "countries that time forgot", I just can't help thinking about the same headlines that are routinely applied to our countries (continental Europe), saying:
"Oh, look, those poor little Europeans that still live in the Middle Ages with such some obsolete things as welfare systems, social security for all, minimum wages, and so on. Why don't they realize they live in the 21st century and scrap all those dinausoresque social systems ?"
One world, one language, one socio-economical framework.
Thomas Miconi
Between 7.2 and 8.0 Mandrake switched to a newer version of the glibc (2.2, I think). As a rsult, all of their binary rpms now require that version of the glibc to run.
I've been unable to upgrade from the previous glibc to the more recent one with the rpm system. I've also been quite surprised to see that the two versions of the glibc files actually share the same name (libc.so.6).
As a resultt, I can't install Mozilla 9.1 as a binary rpm. I could probably compile from source, but I think that rpms were created exactly to avoid doing that !
Does Apt-Get work better in that regard ?
Thomas Miconi
The only reason this story is getting printed is because Steven Spielberg's AI movie is coming out soon, and his studio is trying to drum up interest in the subject.
The coincidence is neat, but this story is important in itself, at least for a significant proportion of AI researchers.
Doug B. Lenat is one of the guys who gave me the AI "vvirus". I remember reading an old book about the "first generation" of AI, and of all the things I saw in it none impressed me nearly as much as Lenat's Eurisko. It was a kind of modern fairy tale for the little boy that I was at the time.
Cyc was mentioned in that book as a "long-term project". I remember visiting their website once, and thinking how all this definitely looked like the ultimate vaporare story.
In itself, Cyc is simply a continuation of Lenat's previous work, that is, a monumental, "new generation" expert system. It is to traditional expert systems what the internet is to telegraph : it does basically the same things, but the technical difference lead to a qualitative leap. It is neither intelligent (it was not designed to pass the standard Turing test) nor "conscious" (it knows about itself, but just as much as a Java class that can do introspection). But when it comes to practical applications about analyzing abstract data and drawing abstract conclusions, it can crush the competition any time.
Bloody hell, they've finally done it. Yes, this is important. Don't let the journalists' hype fool you: this guy is worth your attention, and you might pretty well hear about him again over the next few years.
Thomas Miconi
In the end, I suspect the perpetual braggling from GNU will prove tiresome enough that people will actually switch everything they can to non-GNU software (KDE everywhere !) just to avoid having to feel guilty everytime they mention their OS under the name of "Linux".
Thomas Miconi
"You can now flame me, I am full of love" - Sanctus Michael Icasas
It's not a Hell, but at least with the Glibc libraries it's quite an annoyance.
I can't get Mozilla 0.9.1 because it wants Glibc2.2 - which I can't install without putting at risk my system. Same thing apply for the latest version of emacs.
The Glibc Heck has proven to be quite a pain in the hard drive. If anyone has a solution that doesn't involve rebuilding the whole packages (I already thought about that, thx), I'd be glad to hear.
Thomas Miconi
To me, even more interesting is whether or not man killed off Neandertals. These guys were all over Europe for a very long time, and they were smart enought to fight back. A war with them would have truly been "World War One".
It's possible, but it's only a possibility among others. The only thing we know about interactions between Cro Magnon (the modern man) and Neanderthal is that they actually existed. Other than that, the evidence is scarce, and it's difficult to figure out. As of now, we think that Neanderthal were simply displaced by Cro-Magnon (modern man) immigrants who pushed them further and further, until they got "cornered" in southern Spain and Gibraltar, then eventually disappeared altogether. Interbreeding was long thought impossible, but recent evidence indicates that it was. Maybe we (white men of European descent) all have Neanderthal genes. Maybe not. We don't know.
The first genocide in history probably happened quite some time later, between two kind of people belonging to modern mankind: mongoloids and blacks: it was the destruction of Australian-like Aborigines (i.e. Blacks) by Northeast-Asians (i.e. the ancestors of what you call "Native Americans"). We have some archeological evidence, and more surprisingly, we even have documents !
However, even in this case, it is very possible that actual fighting only took a minor role, and that the first inhabitants were simply driven out of their lands further and further, up to Terra del Fuego (the island that forms the other side of the Magellan Strait).
When the number of years exceeds four figures, the only thing we know is that we hardly know anything.
Thomas Miconi
There are folks in the US who get pissed because Disney commodifies traditional western cultural symbols, fairy tales, and works of art (Hercules, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
:o)
Not only in the US
In fact, what's really annoying is not their ripping-off of foreign cultures. After all, culture is meant to be shared. No, the really annoying thing is that they never, ever mention the origins of their "creations".
In other words, making a movie about Notre-Dame de Paris is okay, but not even citing Victor Hugo's name once is most definitely NOT ! -and that's what really pissed us about the Hunchback.
And I think it's pretty much the same thing with these Maori words: the Polynesians would be much happier with Lego's idea if the company had actually mentioned the Polynesian origin of these names. But they didn't. Take nice-souding words and just pretend they were born out of the genius of your marketing department.
You were talking about Disney movies; I wonder how many Americans think that Walt Disney actually invented Snow-White and Cinderella...
("What, you mean, he didn't ?")
Thomas Miconi
Neuroscientists like Dr. Henry Markram and Terrence Sejnowski have already figured out that accurate timing of neural spikes is the key to biological intelligence.
:o) is plain ridiculous.
Hm. Yeah, great. So what ? Let's just put a bunch of "accurately timed" neurons and voilà, we've got Artificial Intelligence (harp chords and organ music, angels dancing in the skies) ?
Mr Markam, for example, studies mainly the behaviour of small groups of neurons within the neocortex. Of course this is very important and very interesting for building our knowledge of the brain, but calling this "the key to biological intelligence" as you do (and as he does not because he knows more than that
The animal brain is the most complex structure known in this world, and although we do have some insight about its global architecture ("hmmm, this bit looks to be involved in memory, that part seems more involved with emotions, this one is a mixture of both.."), we can't even begin to understand a single bit of how it actually works. And the most frustrating is that the more we identify special elements within the system, the less we understand it.
For all the research that's been done over the past 150 years or so, nobody can tell you what's really going on when a frightened dog runs away. We can mention bits and pieces ("amygdala", "basal ganglia", etc.) but as for how it actually works, we're just like newborn babies alone in a very dark room.
Thomas Miconi
Also, their English grammar is tragicomically bad
:o)
"Yeah, them friggin Frogs yad think thay could rwite propah English, like um, dunno, like in Slashdot posts ?"
English has become a tool for international communication. As long as what you write can be understood by the majority of your users (and this is the case for Mandrake's texts), proper grammar/spelling is irrelevant. Blaming software developers for their poor mastering of The One True Language of Civilization and Progress is like blaming Arthur C. Clarke for the historical inaccuracies in "2001".
Thomas Miconi
6000 Deutsche Mark amount to roughly US$ 2600 !
I'm afraid this will seriously reduce the market for this nifty little toy.
Thomas Miconi
I suppose you have no problem, then, with what happened in Bosnia... or Rwanda... or Cambodia... or, well, we won't mention that little country in Europe 60 years ago that decided it was OK to use a little bit of force to gain some "living space" for its ethnically-pure citizens.
It's reassuring to see that the internet is not such a lawless place. At least Godwin's law is respected.
While I admit Quebec language laws have gone somewhat ridiculous, I just can't equate "requiring any English contents to be translated in French" with "deporting and/or killing all English-speaking Canadians".
Maybe I'm just another fascist pig myself.
Thomas Miconi
France Telecom has chosen a simpler solution. Last time I've been to the Gare de Lyon railroad station, I noticed that most payphones had an RJ45 socket on them.
:-)
While I've never actually seen anyone plugging his/her computer in these, I found the idea rather cool
Thomas Miconi
This is just a side thought - does it surprise anyone that the most prosperous nation on earth has the hardest workers? Just an idea.
If prosperity was directly related to hard working, Southeast Asia would rule the world.
An Indonesian works up to 70 hours a week. A Frenchman works 35 hours a week (down from 39 hrs/wk until recently). Of course your definition of "propserity" may differ from mine, but I wouldn't call Indonesia more "prosperous" than France.
Thomas Miconi
Quick personal note: When art forms an industry, and decides to make the public pay for its use, it ceases to be art. Art is that which enriches your soul for no greater price than that of your time.
Example given: Mozart's operas were always shown in paying venues (you had to buy a ticket to see Figaro). Therefore, Mozart's operas are not art. Eh.
An artist is someone who can live out of fresh air and pure aesthetics. Anyone who needs basely material things (such as, say, money) to survive ceases to be an artist.
(Boy, and this is rated +5 insightful...)
Thomas Miconi
The Chinese people had never been agressive towards their neighboors.
(*Cough*)
The Chinese had never been domineering. They've never sent their troops to intervene in other country's political affairs
In the second part of the XXth century alone, China has invaded (not "intervened in the affairs of"; "invaded") three different countries: Korea, Viet Nam, and Tibet.
*Every* country in the region has suffered a Chinese invasion at some point in its history. Some have managed to fight back, some haven't.
China behaves exactly like any other big, overwhelmingly powerful empire in history. The only difference with the US are time (4000 years for China, two centuries for the US) and the fact that China doesn't have the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to protect it against invasions. Yes, it has been invaded by Mongols, Turks, Japanese, and any other big empire of the region. Yet being a victim at some point doesn't prevent you from becoming an aggressor later on. Ever wondered why a region of China was called "Interior Mongolia" ?
Thomas Miconi
Excellent introduction to RMS' writing style - who else could write four paragraphs to explain that not paying for some person's work does not cause a loss to this person ? If syllogism was an olympic sport RMS would be the Carl Lewis of modern times.
But the most important thing is that almost all of RMS' (rare) points are based on a rather peculiar aspect of the US legal system: in this country, copyright and intellectual property are not regarded as inalienable, fundamental rights. IP is merely a tool, a strictly utilitarian clause in the legal system, a "thing" that can be bought, sold and disposed of at will and in its entirety.
With such a conception of intellectual property, the corporatization of IP issues is hardly surprising. You reap what you sow.
Thomas Miconi
Yes, it's good to see companies undertaking real, useful projects - and actually throwing money and resources at it.
Yet I can't help thinking about how all of this will only be helpful for KDE users.
Of course, GNOME users (or even people who don't use desktop environments at all - personally I use X and the BlackBox window manager, period) can actually use KDE software - if you've got a few tens of megabytes of RAM to waste. I'm afraid I don't.
I know, competition is good, but... Damn the desktop war. Really.
Thomas Miconi
-
Still rely on the French to define your unit of mass, eh? (Rusting, other chemical readtions with the block. Bye bye perfect reference!) And the meter being
the distance from the North pole to the equator thru Paris divided into 10,000,000 parts? Yah, that's real accurate
The kilogram is the only unit that is still defined after a physical reference: a 2001-like monolith of platinium covered with iridium, located at the Conservatoire national des arts et metiers There are other equivalent "reference kilograms" worldwide that are similarly amagnetic and insensitive to rust or corrosion. The metre is the distance covered by a photon in 1/299 792 458 second. The second itself is based on transitions between two states of the cesium 133 atom. More information at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (Yes, there is an English version-
And why do people state "weight" or "thrust" in kilograms? Why not
Newtons?
Because people (including me and you) are morons, so they use a MASS unit to describe WEIGHTS and FORCES, or use WEIGHTS and FORCES to determine MASSES. This is totally stupid if you're an angst-ridden physicist living in an ivory tower somewhere in the Kalahari desert. For the rest of us, since G is a constant in any given place (there may be slight differences between two different places), the confusion is acceptable, because measuring something's WEIGHT is still the easiest way to determine its MASS. Could you tell me of any practical mass measurement method (for solids) that does not rely on weight comparison ?-
Why do we still ask for a "pint of ale" in the UK?
First, because Brits are drunkyards. Personally I always drink beer by the glass (half-pint)Second, because you (or at least your ancestors) blatantly screwed the French. In 1875, France accepted to leave the international zero-meridian to the English (Greenwich instead of Paris), because the English promised to adopt the metric system in return. Yet another shameless lie from the Perfide Albion
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And if base 10 is so l33t, where is metric time? Base 60? Why
stick with millenia old numbering from Babylonian times yet praise base 10 everywhere else
There is no such thing as "metric time". The second was invented by astronomists long before the metric system. The idea to "pack" the second with the metric system (metre, kilogram, litre) in order to have a coherent measurement system is (c) Gauss (1832). And this is how the International System was born.And, by the way, there is no base-60 stuff in the International System itself. The only time unit in it is the second, period. If you were to speak in pure IS units, you would talk about kiloseconds and hectoseconds (just in the same way as you talk about milliseconds or microseconds). Hours and minutes are pure legacy stuff, and are not part of the IS - they're just here because it's easier to divide the day in 24 hours than in 86,4 kiloseconds.
Thomas Miconi
... but he might pretty well be right.
There is quite some debate going on between the two main theories on global warming, namely the well-known Greenhouse Effect theory vs. the Solar Activity theory, i.e. the idea that Earth's temperature is much more correlated to solar activity than to anything else, making human activity a negligible factor.
The latter is quickly gaining momentum. The correlation exhibited in the Friis-Christensen & Lassen graph (first published in 1991 in Science) is really disturbing. Their more recent publications are even more so (better data thanks to satellites).
Thomas Miconi
Diversity good. If mutations weren't everywhere, not as many things could survive a changing environment.
:o) has shown, while it is true that mutations are an important part of evolution and adaptativity, the most efficient tool for optimizing a population is still sexual reproduction (ie crossing-over between similar-but-different genotypes).
:o) : they get better and better by inventing new features, but also by borrowing each other's inventions and adding them their own little tweaks.
:o)
As artificial life research (read: hundreds of underpaid graduate students
We can see a brilliant example of this in the distro problem: distros evolve not only by inventing new things, but also by borrowing from each other. Imagine if Red Hat or Caldera or Debian could prevent others from using this or that package in their distro ! Same thing for Gnome/KDE (disclaimer: I use X & Blackbox, period
For the benefit of us all
Thomas Miconi
The United States can't just announce one day that's it's extending its waters and now gets Cuba.
:o)
Well that's more or less what they did in the Cuban War. More exactly, they busted Spain out of it, and occupied the island for a few years (virtually making it a protectorate of the USA).
To use cryptology terms, international law is definitely weak against brute force attacks. The US can still extend their waters and claim ownership of Cuba - they'll just have to manage the international outroar (easy part) and destroy Fidel's army (much less easy part - Pigs Bay, Episode II anyone ?)
The problem is that as of now, there is no Cuban army on Sealand to protect it from English invasion and... Hey, wait, that's an idea ! I'm sure Uncle Fidel would happily accept to send Cuban troops to protect Sealand - just to annoy the Imperialists. Besides, it would be much easier to find Ruben Gonzalez's old tracks on Napster
mail fidel.castro@gov.cu -s "Hi, could you send me one or two airborne divisions before mid-June, please ?"
Thomas Miconi
The existance of a rental market implies that there is some impediment to you making a copy of the thing you rented. If it is trivial to make the copy, then the rental market is likely to destroy the purchase market. Imagine for a moment that Blockbuster rented audio CD's for $1.00 a day or something. What do you think it would do to the market for CD's? It would probably completely destroy it.
Well, yes and no.
I don't know in your country, but in mine, libraries are allowed to lend books (of course) and audio/video material (CD, video tapes, etc.) In almost any significant city there are public libraries where you can borrow CDs free of charge. Yet that did not kill the market for music commerce. Every year, several records sell more than a million copies (in a potential market of 60 million people).
BTW, notice that I live in a country where IP rights are a fundamental right. Maybe that's a proof that strong IP protection (for authors, at least) is not absolutely incompatible with fair use.
Thomas Miconi