Well I'd be out of a job. My employer would see no reason to pay me for something that they have no right to and that I could simply give to a competitor whenever I wanted.
But "owner", "owns" and "property" are pretty good words to use to describe intellectual property. For example:
From "I don't own this apple" I can deduce "I don't have the right to give this apple to my friend"
Similarly from "I don't own this music" I can deduce "I don't have the right to give this music to my friend"
There is a wide range of analogous statements where ordinary intuitions about your taboo words carry over and give reliable intuitions about IP. Admittedly we have problem cases like:
"I took this apple from you" implies "You no longer have this apple" but not "I took this music from you" imples "You no longer have this music".
But we do have "If you grow an apple I'll take it from you without paying" implies "You aren't going to be quite as motivated to grow apples" as well as "If you make some music I'll take it from you without paying" imples "You aren't going to be quite as motivated to make music".
The correspondence works so well most of the time that it seems entirely reasonable, at least to me, to talk of ownership and property.
You don't need a computer algebra system at all. There is a tendency for people to reach for computer algebra tools (that cost thousands) when a much smaller tool would do. In this case every numerical methods book has algorithms for solving nonlinear sets of equations. They fail for many problems, but most are good enough to solve the kinds of equations that might occur in everyday life for spreadsheet users: eg. "what time period should I pay this loan over if I can afford this monthly payment?" or "how many of these widgets do we need to sell to break even next quarter?". I was so let down when I first discovered that most spreadsheets couldn't do this. (Though you can buy plugins that will.)
So true. I wonder if someone could release a spreadsheet for a few hundred bucks that has no computational facilities only. Just arranges things in a grid and allows you to choose your font. That would probably satisfy 95% of users of Excel.
Personally, I was disappointed when I found that spreadsheets only ran the formulas forward so that if I typed in A1=2*B2 it wouldn't work out B2 from A1. Seems almost as useless as formattable grid to me.
I remember versions OS/2 being given out for free on CD on the front cover of magazines. Are these free versions downloadable from anywhere?
And will it run in Virtual PC?
From Dec 1 to Dec 23 is spent surfing web sites trying to figure out what I'd like for Xmas. Dec 24 is spent figuring out what I should get other people. Dec 25 is a break from web surfing to play all the video games received that day. And Dec 26 to Dec 31 is spent surfing web sites trying to figure out with the money and gift vouchers received on Dec 25.
Well if the banks digitally signed and encrypted their emails (and it's completely ridiculous that they don't) then there wouldn't be a problem (or at least there'd be less of one). But don't expect encryption and signatures to arrive any time soon - nobody is actually looking for a solution for spam, just making lots of noise about it.
I'm not sue R&D has been outsourced. Some companies may have closed their R&D groups over the years, but there is still no shortage of companies doing R&D in the US. What has been outsourced is a different type of job.
...build a bridge from Australia to the rest of the world and let everything duke it out. And may the fittest species survive! It's not like this hasn't happened a million times before throughout the history of the earth. It would leave us with fitter species and provide lots of entertainment along the way.
It costs $10,000 to launch 1 pound of cargo into orbit
Well there's a great avenue for research right there - making the things you want to launch weigh less. In fact, NASA have already been doing plenty of work in this area and we can expect to see lots more down the line.
I think you aren't appreciating what it will take to get a space elevator working. We won't see it in our lifetimes. Our children won't see it either. By time it's built, IF it's built, there will be all kinds of other interesting forms of propulsion available.
intellectualism is no longer the primary route to riches
Look at the Forbes 400. I think you'll find more intellectually inclined people than sports figures and entertainers. They include software developers, mathematicians, economists.
So you're saying that because we're geeks and nerds we should support things that we believe are completely impractical at the expense of other interesting projects?
it all sounds quite practical
"sounds practical" is a function of the listener.
Personally I think that work on a space elevator borders on insanity. Your "IF" is hilariously funny. It's like saying that the only IF with visiting Andromeda galaxy is building rockets that can go fast enough or the only IF with immortality is figuring out how to cure death.
I want to see the scene where the five mile long megaship crashes into the edge of the Vavatch Orbital. The camera runs along the 5 miles as the ship screams as it buckles and rips apart with the characters running and ducking to avoid the destruction flying around them. And then the camera pulls out into a cosmic zoom to reveal the Orbital as a vast ring hundreds of thousands of miles across which is itself being sliced apart by beam weapons with billions upon billions of square miles of cities, mountains and deserts being torn apart and an unimaginable torrent of trillions of cubic miles of ocean gushing out into space.
(I slightly rewrote the scene for effect. Director's license...)
I am asked by the learned doctors to give the cause and reason why opium produces sleep: To which I respond, because there is a dormitive virtue in it, of which it is the nature to still the senses.
The "dormitive virtue", of course, has no explanatory power. It's just a fancy way of restating that it makes you go to sleep. This researcher into love also seems to have a theory that is little better than what your or I already know.
Anyway, I quoted it in Latin because you know what they say: Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
...this much stuff in something as small as a phone! Imagine what PalmSource could do if they wrote the OS for something as large as a microwave oven. Or even a refrigerator.
There's a great epsidode of "This American Life" (if you don't listen to this radio program I recommend it) where the subject of the episode goes to visit a South American faith healer. When they are there, there's this amazing buzz of people expectant about being cured. Hundreds of people are hanging out in this remote village and everyone has a story to recount about how someone else has just been cured of this or that ailment. And yet the reporter can't actually find anyone who's actually been cured of anything. And none of the people who have failed to be cured have anything negative to say. "Oh, maybe I feel a bit better, maybe I'll feel better as time goes on." These people are deluded. They are willing partners in the deception by the healer because all they have left is hope and that's what the healer gives them.
Thousands of people pray for a cure. The cure happens and is outside of current known science or technology.
I don't believe a word of what you're saying. But that doesn't matter. You're making claims that are falsifiable. So while I disagee with you about the facts, I'm fully on your side against people who claim that religion is "by definition" unfalsifiable.
How does the *honest* scientist deal with the unknown but that which is provably true?
And while I'm at it I might as well deal with this. I think people who have been blinded by faith are a bunch of liars. Note that cynical as this seems it's still more 'respectful' than dismissing such claims as unfalsifiable and hence nether true nor false.
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Well I'd be out of a job. My employer would see no reason to pay me for something that they have no right to and that I could simply give to a competitor whenever I wanted.
But "owner", "owns" and "property" are pretty good words to use to describe intellectual property. For example:
From "I don't own this apple" I can deduce "I don't have the right to give this apple to my friend"
Similarly from "I don't own this music" I can deduce "I don't have the right to give this music to my friend"
There is a wide range of analogous statements where ordinary intuitions about your taboo words carry over and give reliable intuitions about IP. Admittedly we have problem cases like:
"I took this apple from you" implies "You no longer have this apple" but not
"I took this music from you" imples "You no longer have this music".
But we do have
"If you grow an apple I'll take it from you without paying" implies "You aren't going to be quite as motivated to grow apples" as well as
"If you make some music I'll take it from you without paying" imples "You aren't going to be quite as motivated to make music".
The correspondence works so well most of the time that it seems entirely reasonable, at least to me, to talk of ownership and property.
You don't need a computer algebra system at all. There is a tendency for people to reach for computer algebra tools (that cost thousands) when a much smaller tool would do. In this case every numerical methods book has algorithms for solving nonlinear sets of equations. They fail for many problems, but most are good enough to solve the kinds of equations that might occur in everyday life for spreadsheet users: eg. "what time period should I pay this loan over if I can afford this monthly payment?" or "how many of these widgets do we need to sell to break even next quarter?". I was so let down when I first discovered that most spreadsheets couldn't do this. (Though you can buy plugins that will.)
Personally, I was disappointed when I found that spreadsheets only ran the formulas forward so that if I typed in A1=2*B2 it wouldn't work out B2 from A1. Seems almost as useless as formattable grid to me.
I remember versions OS/2 being given out for free on CD on the front cover of magazines. Are these free versions downloadable from anywhere? And will it run in Virtual PC?
*money = capitalism, efficient allocation of resources, riches for all, freedom, liberty, anything money can buy
From Dec 1 to Dec 23 is spent surfing web sites trying to figure out what I'd like for Xmas. Dec 24 is spent figuring out what I should get other people. Dec 25 is a break from web surfing to play all the video games received that day. And Dec 26 to Dec 31 is spent surfing web sites trying to figure out with the money and gift vouchers received on Dec 25.
Well if the banks digitally signed and encrypted their emails (and it's completely ridiculous that they don't) then there wouldn't be a problem (or at least there'd be less of one). But don't expect encryption and signatures to arrive any time soon - nobody is actually looking for a solution for spam, just making lots of noise about it.
...may be correct. In which case "intellectualism is no longer the primary route to riches" is a weird statement for a different reason.
I'm not sue R&D has been outsourced. Some companies may have closed their R&D groups over the years, but there is still no shortage of companies doing R&D in the US. What has been outsourced is a different type of job.
...build a bridge from Australia to the rest of the world and let everything duke it out. And may the fittest species survive! It's not like this hasn't happened a million times before throughout the history of the earth. It would leave us with fitter species and provide lots of entertainment along the way.
I think you aren't appreciating what it will take to get a space elevator working. We won't see it in our lifetimes. Our children won't see it either. By time it's built, IF it's built, there will be all kinds of other interesting forms of propulsion available.
Personally I think that work on a space elevator borders on insanity. Your "IF" is hilariously funny. It's like saying that the only IF with visiting Andromeda galaxy is building rockets that can go fast enough or the only IF with immortality is figuring out how to cure death.
It said Opera, not Musical. Now "Mario and the Magic Flute" actually sounds like a game.
(I slightly rewrote the scene for effect. Director's license...)
Anyway, I quoted it in Latin because you know what they say: Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Quia est in eo virtus dormitava cujus est proprietas sensus assoupire.
...this much stuff in something as small as a phone! Imagine what PalmSource could do if they wrote the OS for something as large as a microwave oven. Or even a refrigerator.
There's a great epsidode of "This American Life" (if you don't listen to this radio program I recommend it) where the subject of the episode goes to visit a South American faith healer. When they are there, there's this amazing buzz of people expectant about being cured. Hundreds of people are hanging out in this remote village and everyone has a story to recount about how someone else has just been cured of this or that ailment. And yet the reporter can't actually find anyone who's actually been cured of anything. And none of the people who have failed to be cured have anything negative to say. "Oh, maybe I feel a bit better, maybe I'll feel better as time goes on." These people are deluded. They are willing partners in the deception by the healer because all they have left is hope and that's what the healer gives them.
So he wasn't lying to us after all at our last departmental meeting.