Ah, but you can't say that a formal proof is the correct method unless you have proved that a proof exists.
In which case, you have proved the conjecture and should be collecting your prize rather than posting to slashdot.....
If on the other hand the above proof does not exist, then there must exist a counterexample. Therefore searching by brute force may be a perfectly valid approach.
Hmmmm.... you can't actually *prove* Goldbach's conjecture by direct computation because the number of combinations you would have to try is infinite. It's the same reason why you couldn't prove Fermat's Last Theorem this way.
You could of course *disprove* the conjecture by finding a counter-example, i.e. by finding a positive even number X>2 such that X is not the sum of two primes.
It would certainly be fun if you were to find such a beastie, but I think you might be in for a long search:-)
Delphi is pretty good at hiding all the diferences. You can specify a range of different calling conventions if you need them. Most data types have a direct equivalent and you can probably find a stack of free tools to do header conversions and suchlike.
Also, Delphi strings are slightly different from the old pascal-style strings - They are basically reference counted null-terminated strings that can be passed to C/C++ functions just fine.
I think a lot of the C/C++ compatibility resulted in the first place from Delphi having to be compatible with all of the Windows APIs. Delphi is pretty far removed from the original Pascal langauge both beacuse of this and a lot of programmer productivity enhancements.
It's not about deserving at all. It is pure economic sense.
The simple fact is that the cost of duplicating information is practically zero. Thus in economic terms it is a limitless resource and should have zero price. In order for markets to be efficient, all goods should be available at a price equal to their economic cost. This is the fundamental theoretical basis for all free-market economies.
Many people feel intuitively that information should be free. They are right, but often don't realize that their viewpoint is backed up by a whole load of sound economic theory and research.
There remains the problem of how to promote the creation of information resources in the first instance. Unlike the duplication of information, this *is* a costly activity. This is the real issue that needs to be addressed, but I am certain that the best solution does *not* involve an arbitrary system of property rights over ideas like we currently suffer from.
No sooner do I make the transition from Windows to Linux then my favourite development tool follows me. There is a god after all.
Seriously, Delphi is a great product and will really speed the development of applications for Linux. Think of the simplicity of Visual Basic with the power and flexibility of C++ and you are somewhere close.
But the real advantage is the great environment that Delphi provides for GUI design work. Linux applications often seem to lack polish in the user interface. I am sure that this is in part due to developers not wanting to spend loads of time tweaking convoluted front-end code.
This is why Linux needs a good visual IDE. It's extremely difficult and time consuming to design a decent user interface without one.
In Delphi, you can build, compile and test a GUI for your application without even touching the keyboard. You rarely need to consult any documentation because most features are just a click away. All the chores of programming are basically handled for you, although you can still dive down into the nitty gritty if you feel the need. It's a nicely designed environment that helps you out with all the tedious tasks but doesn't restrict you in any way.
Basically, the sooner I can start coding with Delphi/Kylix on Linux, the better.
Evolutionary/genetic algorithms can come up with pretty good solutions to the travelling salesman problem - I wrote one myself a few years back that has a reasonable shot at 80-100 cities.
The problem is that while these techniques produce a good solution relatively fast, they aren't guaranteed to find the optimal solution.
Finding the perfect solution ultimately means checking all the combinations, which could take a rather long time.....
One of the things that really infuriates me about the UCITA rationale is the assumption that licenses can be negotiated by buyers. There seems to be this crazy notion that as long as a contract is signed/clicked then it must be fair.
That is utter bullshit. Anything sold to large numbers of buyers isn't usually open to negotiation. You have no power to negotiate shrink-wrapped software licenses, period. Sounds like some legislators need to take a look around the real world.
When there is such an imbalance of negotiating power, this would suggest that you need some pretty firm legislation to protect the small buyers and limit the powers of the sellers, and not the other way round.....
With respect, it sounds like you don't have much of a clue about development processes.
Microsoft probably do a new internal build of their current OS-in-development every day with loads of broken features. You don't get to see this unless you are a Microsoft employee.
The difference in the Open Source model is that everyone gets to see these incremental releases. You are free to test them out, improve them or make constructive criticism if you have the skills and inclination to do so. There will undoubtably be bugs, as there are in every single large software prooject during development.
Nobody in their right minds would use a patched development release to run a production system and expect it to run flawlessly. Hence the "development kernel" numbering system. But lots of people are interested in these releases, either because they are actively interested in making them better or just like having the latest and greatest features to hack around with.
It's much more sensible to compare NT service packs to stable kernel releases, but even then the analogy isn't perfect.
My guess is around 6.204 * 10^23 Assuming that your exclamation mark after 720 isn't meant to be a factorial symbol;-) If it is a factorial symbol, then I guess my answer would have to be ((4!)!)! whuch is a little bit too big to cut and paste here.....
I would have thought that this was a good idea were it not for the fact that moderation of submissions could be pretty clueless. A lot of moderators aren't experts in a given field and therefore don't know the issues well enough to distinguish between insight and bullshit.
Plus, you have the additional editorial nighmare that if a misleading article gets moderated through and the editors subsequently decide to reject it,then all hell of a flamewar would break loose.
In general, I think the Slashdot editors do a damn fine job. They can't please everybody all the time, but when I see an article I'm not interested in the I simply ignore it rather than complaining.
People who get stressed about the editorial policy of a light-hearted geek news site really should get a life.
Java runs slowly if you don't know how to use it. Certain operations in Java have a lot more overhead because of the requirements for security, portability and garbage collection.
But like any language, if you know it well enough to avoid the performance pitfalls then you can write some pretty fast code. I've written plenty of graphics and AI stuff in java that runs at a pretty acceptable speed.
Java isn't perfect, but it really is worth checking out for certain kinds of applications. Performance really isn't as bad as some people make out, and the langauge has a lot of advantages in terms of development speed that easily make up for it. I'm certainly extremely pleased to see it being better supported on Linux nowadays.
You point out the problems of too much diversity pretty well, but I think they are mainly short term.
When diversity starts to cause problems (e.g. GUI toolkits) then it creates an automatic need to improve interoperability. Hence there is a movement towards standardisation, drawing from the best features of the existing options.
I see the development of open source technology following something of a four stage process:
Pioneer -> Diversity -> Consolidation -> Maturity
It's an evolutionary model where the problems of the chaotic period eventually pay off by contributing to the base of code and experience that is needed for a mature open standard.
Whoa.
I've just written a pile of pseudo-scientific bullshit. I think I better stop now......
Perhaps the general idea is simple, but the implementation is quite a nightmare. It's much like saying "Well, we'll just set up a government that passes laws and distributes money in a way we'll all find acceptible".
Sure, it's complex. But I don't see that it's any more arbitrary than "Lets make some random laws and rely on people to sue each other all the time and hope that everything just works out".
It's an ambitious enterprise certainly. But it's worth the effort because the potential rewards are enormous.
Don't forget that patents and intellectual property are articficial constructs. They were created at a time when information was scarce and economic progress was paramount.
Now, technology has brought us to a state where information could be made free and the sum of human knowledge could be harnessed for everbody's mutual advantage. How sad then that antiquated laws remain, stifling the economy and providing little more than a way for businesses to stab each other in the back and extort monopoly power.
"Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards."
Consider what this would entail, particularly if we're talking on the scope you seem to be. Lets just consider software development - who decides who gets what out of the myraid of potential developers? I could go on for awhile here, but I'll limit this post to direct responses.
Quite easy. New products get registered and published. Anyone is free to take them up, package them and sell them. Over the next yaer or two, surveys are done on the uptake of different types of products. Awards are given to creators based on how well used the products are, with a modifiying factor for the type and complexity of software.
I don't think that is particularly hard to administer. With reasonable data gathering a fairly small team of people could distribute awards to a whole industry. If people get missed out, you can always give them an award later when the true potential of their idea/product is realised. A democratically elected steering committee can stamp out abuses, but I think these would be relatively few since the process would be open to public scrutiny.
Yeah, the award system is more geared towards tangible things like patents, innovations and copyrighted works. It's a big thank-you from society for those who make the world a better place.
For things like ongoing drug research, it might be better to focus on funding practical scientific research through universities and suchlike. Getting research grants beforehand is certainly much less risky for innovators.
Still, I think the main beauty of the award system is that it virtually eliminates potential corruption and uncertainty about the value of a project. Awards are only given for things which are a proven success, at which point the innovator has certainly shown themselves to be deserving.
Ultimately, I guess that the exact nature of funding would be somewhat dependant on the nature of the field being researched. You'd also need a transitional period as these new systems are introduced, although I think this could be managed quite easily provided the long term objectives are always bourne in mind.
Since I graduated in economics, the issue of incentives to innovate has always been a fascinating subject to me. I have never been happy with the concept of "ownership" of an idea, but as a practical person I see the need to guarantee that the important innovations actually occur.
Some people seem to think that patents are in some way neccessary to create innovation. This is demonstrably untrue. People have been programmed to regard ideas as property, but this is a lie perpetuated by a combination of inertia and vested interests. If you look at the issue with an open mind, you can see that there is in fact no need for intellectual property at all.
So what is the solution? There are many good ones, but I think my solution is relatively simple and effective.
All ideas / algorithms / techniques are to beconsidered public knowledge. This has big economic benefits, since it ensures competitive markets and guarantees that the benefits of science will be utilised to the maximum extent, which is *not* the case when you are restricted by patents.
Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards.
Awards are only given if an innovation is a proven success, i.e. people take it up and use it effectively in the market. In a way, the award is meant to reflect what the inventor would have been able to earn under a patent system. Note that the product could be produced by anyone, not necessarily the inventor, which is a good thing because the market will now be competitive, driving economic growth and further innovation.
Funding for the awards will come out of general taxation. This is the fairest solution, since innovations now benefit society and the economy as a whole. I would estimate that this would be a fairly small addition to the tax burden, which would be more than compensated by greater economic progress.
The award system will undoubtably cost money to set up and run effectively, but will probably still be cheaper than the current patent system, if you include all the legal expenses paid by firms.
Biggest bonus of all is that since all ideas are now free, innovation and research can occur much faster without being encumbered by other people's patents, the need to patent your own ideas or any of the frightful legal wrangling that currently occurs.
Of course, there are a lot more complicated economic arguments behind all this. But I'm pretty convinced any country that adopted this model would surge ahead of the rest of the world in technological and economic development. Not only does it have practical economic advantages, I think it is also philosophically more elegant and more morally justifiable in terms of freedom.
Since I graduated in economics, the issue of incentives to innovate has always been a fascinating subject to me. I have never been happy with the concept of "ownership" of an idea, but as a practical person I see the need to guarantee that the important innovations actually occur. Some people seem to think that patents are in some way neccessary to create innovation. This is demonstrably untrue. People have been programmed to regard ideas as property, but this is a lie perpetuated by a combination of inertia and vested interests. If you look at the issue with an open mind, you can see that there is in fact no need for intellectual property at all. So what is the solution? There are many good ones, but I think my solution is relatively simple and effective. All ideas / algorithms / techniques are to beconsidered public knowledge. This has big economic benefits, since it ensures competitive markets and guarantees that the benefits of science will be utilised to the maximum extent, which is *not* the case when you are restricted by patents. Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards. Awards are only given if an innovation is a proven success, i.e. people take it up and use it effectively in the market. In a way, the award is meant to reflect what the inventor would have been able to earn under a patent system. Note that the product could be produced by anyone, not necessarily the inventor, which is a good thing because the market will now be competitive, driving economic growth and further innovation. Funding for the awards will come out of general taxation. This is the fairest solution, since innovations now benefit society and the economy as a whole. I would estimate that this would be a fairly small addition to the tax burden, which would be more than compensated by greater economic progress. The award system will undoubtably cost money to set up and run effectively, but will probably still be cheaper than the current patent system, if you include all the legal expenses paid by firms. Biggest bonus of all is that since all ideas are now free, innovation and research can occur much faster without being encumbered by other people's patents, the need to patent your own ideas or any of the frightful legal wrangling that currently occurs. Of course, there are a lot more complicated economic arguments behind all this. But I'm pretty convinced any country that adopted this model would surge ahead of the rest of the world in technological and economic development. Not only does it have practical economic advantages, I think it is also philosophically more elegant and more morally justifiable in terms of freedom.
Don't windows DVD decoders (or any legit decoder) have to pay a license fee or something to use whatever it is you need to decode DVDs?
That's the whole root of the problem. CSS doesn't do a thing to prevent copying, but is a scam to extort cash from hardware manufacturers (and therefore indirectly consumers). It's monopoly power over playback, pure and simple.
There is literally no excuse for this kind of setup in an age where technology ought to be enabling the seamless interchange of information through common standards. If anything, government action should be focused on breaking up this kind of damaging trade practise.
Could someone get a license to make a Linux decoder? Possibly. But the point is that they shouldn't have to. Running a competitive market economy requires that no single company or cartel has control over any sector. Proprietary content formats of the kind we are discussing here are a serious abuse of the free market and are likely to hinder the development of digital technology.
Pretty clear who the real criminals are in this case.
I've always thought that if more people understood the prisoner's dilemma and it's implications then there would be a lot less inane conflicts within society. It's a masterpiece of logic that fits the real world remarkably well.
It has occured to me that the whole patent situation can be regarded as a prisoner's dilemma. Companies may either release technology into the public domain or patent. Open release benefits everybody via the sharing of information, but patenting makes a greater profit for the firm concerned.
So it's a pure prisoner's dilemma. In accordance with theory, real world evidence suggests that the non-cooperative outcome that everbody patents is the result. This is of course not the optimal outcome - everybody would be better off if there were no patents.
Maybe I'll formalise the argument properly some time..... but basically any system that encourages co-operation and sharing of information resources is a Good Thing. Kind of nice to know that Open Source insticts are fully backed up with the latest and greatest game theory.
It is used in the context of the deliberate spreading of rumours (possibly lies) in order to create confusion and uncertainty about a new and untested product, platform, idea or business. This is done with the intention of preventing the uptake of said FUD target through two means:
a) The uninformed masses may regard the FUD as true. They therefore quite naturally avoid taking any risks.
b) The informed few, even though they may see through the FUD, realise that the FUD target will be unpopular and unsuccessful because of the general misinformation and hence decide to cut their losses and avoid it themselves.
Now I'm sorry to be a pedant, but FUD is clearly a tactic that only be used against a new, unproven technology or a newcomer to the market. Hence Microsoft may be able to spread FUD about Linux.
The reverse is not true. There is no way in hell that Linux Zealots could convince the world that Microsoft products are unfeasible, unpopular or unusable. Trying to use FUD tactics against microsoft is like trying to stop an elephant with a water pistol.
What Microsoft-bashing you may observe on Slashdot may be pointless abuse, but simply by definition it cannot be regarded as FUD. I dissaprove of mindless Microsoft-bashing as much as the next guy, but we should all recognise that FUD is a completely different phenomenon entirely.
Hmmm.... back in the days when I used to dabble in a bit of demo coding I would frequently benchmark my 486 code against the (Borland) compilers.
I almost inevitably won. Hands down.
Compilers may have come on a bit since then, but I'd still fancy my chances. Of course, I would only dream of doing this kind of optimization for the most critical inner loops. Most of the time it isn't worth it.
But I would like to stress the point that a human with good knowledge of the system and the problem at hand should be able to beat a compiler in many cases. Compilers can't think laterally.
For example, consider a function that must fill an array of bytes with consecutive numbers between X and Y.
Compiler produces beautifully optimized loop that increments a counter, moves an array index and sets the bytes appropriately. If it's clever, it might use the same register as both an index and a loop variable. No problems. Pretty fast, but....
Joe Hacker takes one look at the problem, sets a 32-bit register to contain the bytes X, X+1, X+2, X+3 and does a quarter of the number of loops just adding 04040404 hex to the register each time.
Joe wins, because he *knows* that most of the time X and Z will be sufficiently far apart for his bit of hackery to be quicker. His knowledge of the nature of the problem will beat the compiler.
This is the kind of thing that humans will be better at for the time being. Once AI compilers start to make an appearance, things may change. But right now, I'll bet on human intuition any day of the week.
Well, a good optimization typically makes one type of instruction or sequence of instructions a fair bit faster (say 30-50%).
While this might give a 2% improvement across average code, it will make a lot of difference if this particulr optimization helps out your inner loop. There are times when you really need this.
The way I see it, if compilers can optimize effectively, then there becomes less need to hand-code an inner loop in assembly. Decent optimising compilers may not give you a great deal of extra speed but they sure as hell give the hardcore coder an easier life.
BTW, The rate of hardware improvement is a good argument *unless* you are trying to stay at the cutting edge. In these cases, optimizations are certainly not trivial.
That's a very enlightened decision. Opening up the source code and allowing people to tinker with it is a great way to build interest and encourage people to try out your robots.
So all in all, it's a shrewd business move, good for people who like robots, good for open source software. It would be great if other hardware manufacturers took note and followed your example.
I agree that it could be a great idea. But only if the Linux advocates are good spokespeople.
Public relations is extremely difficult for any uncoordinated group. While diversity of opinion is a great thing for enlightened minds, it can be presented by others as evidence of division, mob mentality and logical inconsistency. This will always give corporate entities an advantage in this field.
Plus, any linux gatecrashing event could turn into a complete PR disaster if any Linux zealots end up doing something stupid. It's not inconcievable that M$ might use some agent-provocateurs to achieve exactly this.
I don't think I can stress this enough - Linux advocates need to be extremely calm, polite, helpful and professional at all times. Anything less and you do the open source movement no good at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but you can't say that a formal proof is the correct method unless you have proved that a proof exists.
In which case, you have proved the conjecture and should be collecting your prize rather than posting to slashdot.....
If on the other hand the above proof does not exist, then there must exist a counterexample. Therefore searching by brute force may be a perfectly valid approach.
Hmmmm.... you can't actually *prove* Goldbach's conjecture by direct computation because the number of combinations you would have to try is infinite. It's the same reason why you couldn't prove Fermat's Last Theorem this way.
:-)
You could of course *disprove* the conjecture by finding a counter-example, i.e. by finding a positive even number X>2 such that X is not the sum of two primes.
It would certainly be fun if you were to find such a beastie, but I think you might be in for a long search
Delphi is pretty good at hiding all the diferences. You can specify a range of different calling conventions if you need them. Most data types have a direct equivalent and you can probably find a stack of free tools to do header conversions and suchlike.
Also, Delphi strings are slightly different from the old pascal-style strings - They are basically reference counted null-terminated strings that can be passed to C/C++ functions just fine.
I think a lot of the C/C++ compatibility resulted in the first place from Delphi having to be compatible with all of the Windows APIs. Delphi is pretty far removed from the original Pascal langauge both beacuse of this and a lot of programmer productivity enhancements.
It's not about deserving at all. It is pure economic sense.
The simple fact is that the cost of duplicating information is practically zero. Thus in economic terms it is a limitless resource and should have zero price. In order for markets to be efficient, all goods should be available at a price equal to their economic cost. This is the fundamental theoretical basis for all free-market economies.
Many people feel intuitively that information should be free. They are right, but often don't realize that their viewpoint is backed up by a whole load of sound economic theory and research.
There remains the problem of how to promote the creation of information resources in the first instance. Unlike the duplication of information, this *is* a costly activity. This is the real issue that needs to be addressed, but I am certain that the best solution does *not* involve an arbitrary system of property rights over ideas like we currently suffer from.
Have you actually used Delphi seriously?
I guess not, because if you had then you wouldn't be putting Perl/GTK/Glade in the RAD category.
This issue isn't so much the power or flexibilty, but the speed and convenience with which you can develop.
Don't get me wrong, I love all the free software tools. But they just can't compare with an application as refined and powerful as Delphi right now.
No sooner do I make the transition from Windows to Linux then my favourite development tool follows me. There is a god after all.
Seriously, Delphi is a great product and will really speed the development of applications for Linux. Think of the simplicity of Visual Basic with the power and flexibility of C++ and you are somewhere close.
But the real advantage is the great environment that Delphi provides for GUI design work. Linux applications often seem to lack polish in the user interface. I am sure that this is in part due to developers not wanting to spend loads of time tweaking convoluted front-end code.
This is why Linux needs a good visual IDE. It's extremely difficult and time consuming to design a decent user interface without one.
In Delphi, you can build, compile and test a GUI for your application without even touching the keyboard. You rarely need to consult any documentation because most features are just a click away. All the chores of programming are basically handled for you, although you can still dive down into the nitty gritty if you feel the need. It's a nicely designed environment that helps you out with all the tedious tasks but doesn't restrict you in any way.
Basically, the sooner I can start coding with Delphi/Kylix on Linux, the better.
Evolutionary/genetic algorithms can come up with pretty good solutions to the travelling salesman problem - I wrote one myself a few years back that has a reasonable shot at 80-100 cities.
The problem is that while these techniques produce a good solution relatively fast, they aren't guaranteed to find the optimal solution.
Finding the perfect solution ultimately means checking all the combinations, which could take a rather long time.....
One of the things that really infuriates me about the UCITA rationale is the assumption that licenses can be negotiated by buyers. There seems to be this crazy notion that as long as a contract is signed/clicked then it must be fair.
That is utter bullshit. Anything sold to large numbers of buyers isn't usually open to negotiation. You have no power to negotiate shrink-wrapped software licenses, period. Sounds like some legislators need to take a look around the real world.
When there is such an imbalance of negotiating power, this would suggest that you need some pretty firm legislation to protect the small buyers and limit the powers of the sellers, and not the other way round.....
With respect, it sounds like you don't have much of a clue about development processes.
Microsoft probably do a new internal build of their current OS-in-development every day with loads of broken features. You don't get to see this unless you are a Microsoft employee.
The difference in the Open Source model is that everyone gets to see these incremental releases. You are free to test them out, improve them or make constructive criticism if you have the skills and inclination to do so. There will undoubtably be bugs, as there are in every single large software prooject during development.
Nobody in their right minds would use a patched development release to run a production system and expect it to run flawlessly. Hence the "development kernel" numbering system. But lots of people are interested in these releases, either because they are actively interested in making them better or just like having the latest and greatest features to hack around with.
It's much more sensible to compare NT service packs to stable kernel releases, but even then the analogy isn't perfect.
My guess is around 6.204 * 10^23 Assuming that your exclamation mark after 720 isn't meant to be a factorial symbol ;-) If it is a factorial symbol, then I guess my answer would have to be ((4!)!)! whuch is a little bit too big to cut and paste here.....
I would have thought that this was a good idea were it not for the fact that moderation of submissions could be pretty clueless. A lot of moderators aren't experts in a given field and therefore don't know the issues well enough to distinguish between insight and bullshit.
Plus, you have the additional editorial nighmare that if a misleading article gets moderated through and the editors subsequently decide to reject it,then all hell of a flamewar would break loose.
In general, I think the Slashdot editors do a damn fine job. They can't please everybody all the time, but when I see an article I'm not interested in the I simply ignore it rather than complaining.
People who get stressed about the editorial policy of a light-hearted geek news site really should get a life.
Java runs slowly if you don't know how to use it. Certain operations in Java have a lot more overhead because of the requirements for security, portability and garbage collection.
But like any language, if you know it well enough to avoid the performance pitfalls then you can write some pretty fast code. I've written plenty of graphics and AI stuff in java that runs at a pretty acceptable speed.
Java isn't perfect, but it really is worth checking out for certain kinds of applications. Performance really isn't as bad as some people make out, and the langauge has a lot of advantages in terms of development speed that easily make up for it. I'm certainly extremely pleased to see it being better supported on Linux nowadays.
You point out the problems of too much diversity pretty well, but I think they are mainly short term.
When diversity starts to cause problems (e.g. GUI toolkits) then it creates an automatic need to improve interoperability. Hence there is a movement towards standardisation, drawing from the best features of the existing options.
I see the development of open source technology following something of a four stage process:
Pioneer -> Diversity -> Consolidation -> Maturity
It's an evolutionary model where the problems of the chaotic period eventually pay off by contributing to the base of code and experience that is needed for a mature open standard.
Whoa.
I've just written a pile of pseudo-scientific bullshit. I think I better stop now......
Sure, it's complex. But I don't see that it's any more arbitrary than "Lets make some random laws and rely on people to sue each other all the time and hope that everything just works out".
It's an ambitious enterprise certainly. But it's worth the effort because the potential rewards are enormous.
Don't forget that patents and intellectual property are articficial constructs. They were created at a time when information was scarce and economic progress was paramount.
Now, technology has brought us to a state where information could be made free and the sum of human knowledge could be harnessed for everbody's mutual advantage. How sad then that antiquated laws remain, stifling the economy and providing little more than a way for businesses to stab each other in the back and extort monopoly power.
Quite easy. New products get registered and published. Anyone is free to take them up, package them and sell them. Over the next yaer or two, surveys are done on the uptake of different types of products. Awards are given to creators based on how well used the products are, with a modifiying factor for the type and complexity of software.
I don't think that is particularly hard to administer. With reasonable data gathering a fairly small team of people could distribute awards to a whole industry. If people get missed out, you can always give them an award later when the true potential of their idea/product is realised. A democratically elected steering committee can stamp out abuses, but I think these would be relatively few since the process would be open to public scrutiny.
Yeah, the award system is more geared towards tangible things like patents, innovations and copyrighted works. It's a big thank-you from society for those who make the world a better place.
For things like ongoing drug research, it might be better to focus on funding practical scientific research through universities and suchlike. Getting research grants beforehand is certainly much less risky for innovators.
Still, I think the main beauty of the award system is that it virtually eliminates potential corruption and uncertainty about the value of a project. Awards are only given for things which are a proven success, at which point the innovator has certainly shown themselves to be deserving.
Ultimately, I guess that the exact nature of funding would be somewhat dependant on the nature of the field being researched. You'd also need a transitional period as these new systems are introduced, although I think this could be managed quite easily provided the long term objectives are always bourne in mind.
Since I graduated in economics, the issue of incentives to innovate has always been a fascinating subject to me. I have never been happy with the concept of "ownership" of an idea, but as a practical person I see the need to guarantee that the important innovations actually occur.
Some people seem to think that patents are in some way neccessary to create innovation. This is demonstrably untrue. People have been programmed to regard ideas as property, but this is a lie perpetuated by a combination of inertia and vested interests. If you look at the issue with an open mind, you can see that there is in fact no need for intellectual property at all.
So what is the solution? There are many good ones, but I think my solution is relatively simple and effective.
All ideas / algorithms / techniques are to beconsidered public knowledge. This has big economic benefits, since it ensures competitive markets and guarantees that the benefits of science will be utilised to the maximum extent, which is *not* the case when you are restricted by patents.
Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards.
Awards are only given if an innovation is a proven success, i.e. people take it up and use it effectively in the market. In a way, the award is meant to reflect what the inventor would have been able to earn under a patent system. Note that the product could be produced by anyone, not necessarily the inventor, which is a good thing because the market will now be competitive, driving economic growth and further innovation.
Funding for the awards will come out of general taxation. This is the fairest solution, since innovations now benefit society and the economy as a whole. I would estimate that this would be a fairly small addition to the tax burden, which would be more than compensated by greater economic progress.
The award system will undoubtably cost money to set up and run effectively, but will probably still be cheaper than the current patent system, if you include all the legal expenses paid by firms.
Biggest bonus of all is that since all ideas are now free, innovation and research can occur much faster without being encumbered by other people's patents, the need to patent your own ideas or any of the frightful legal wrangling that currently occurs.
Of course, there are a lot more complicated economic arguments behind all this. But I'm pretty convinced any country that adopted this model would surge ahead of the rest of the world in technological and economic development. Not only does it have practical economic advantages, I think it is also philosophically more elegant and more morally justifiable in terms of freedom.
Since I graduated in economics, the issue of incentives to innovate has always been a fascinating subject to me. I have never been happy with the concept of "ownership" of an idea, but as a practical person I see the need to guarantee that the important innovations actually occur. Some people seem to think that patents are in some way neccessary to create innovation. This is demonstrably untrue. People have been programmed to regard ideas as property, but this is a lie perpetuated by a combination of inertia and vested interests. If you look at the issue with an open mind, you can see that there is in fact no need for intellectual property at all. So what is the solution? There are many good ones, but I think my solution is relatively simple and effective. All ideas / algorithms / techniques are to beconsidered public knowledge. This has big economic benefits, since it ensures competitive markets and guarantees that the benefits of science will be utilised to the maximum extent, which is *not* the case when you are restricted by patents. Now, the incentive to innovate is created by a public body that is independant of the government, perhaps even with its own democratically elected committee. Its role is to reward those who create useful innovations with hard cash awards. Awards are only given if an innovation is a proven success, i.e. people take it up and use it effectively in the market. In a way, the award is meant to reflect what the inventor would have been able to earn under a patent system. Note that the product could be produced by anyone, not necessarily the inventor, which is a good thing because the market will now be competitive, driving economic growth and further innovation. Funding for the awards will come out of general taxation. This is the fairest solution, since innovations now benefit society and the economy as a whole. I would estimate that this would be a fairly small addition to the tax burden, which would be more than compensated by greater economic progress. The award system will undoubtably cost money to set up and run effectively, but will probably still be cheaper than the current patent system, if you include all the legal expenses paid by firms. Biggest bonus of all is that since all ideas are now free, innovation and research can occur much faster without being encumbered by other people's patents, the need to patent your own ideas or any of the frightful legal wrangling that currently occurs. Of course, there are a lot more complicated economic arguments behind all this. But I'm pretty convinced any country that adopted this model would surge ahead of the rest of the world in technological and economic development. Not only does it have practical economic advantages, I think it is also philosophically more elegant and more morally justifiable in terms of freedom.
Don't windows DVD decoders (or any legit decoder) have to pay a license fee or something to use whatever it is you need to decode DVDs?
That's the whole root of the problem. CSS doesn't do a thing to prevent copying, but is a scam to extort cash from hardware manufacturers (and therefore indirectly consumers). It's monopoly power over playback, pure and simple.
There is literally no excuse for this kind of setup in an age where technology ought to be enabling the seamless interchange of information through common standards. If anything, government action should be focused on breaking up this kind of damaging trade practise.
Could someone get a license to make a Linux decoder? Possibly. But the point is that they shouldn't have to. Running a competitive market economy requires that no single company or cartel has control over any sector. Proprietary content formats of the kind we are discussing here are a serious abuse of the free market and are likely to hinder the development of digital technology.
Pretty clear who the real criminals are in this case.
I've always thought that if more people understood the prisoner's dilemma and it's implications then there would be a lot less inane conflicts within society. It's a masterpiece of logic that fits the real world remarkably well.
It has occured to me that the whole patent situation can be regarded as a prisoner's dilemma. Companies may either release technology into the public domain or patent. Open release benefits everybody via the sharing of information, but patenting makes a greater profit for the firm concerned.
So it's a pure prisoner's dilemma. In accordance with theory, real world evidence suggests that the non-cooperative outcome that everbody patents is the result. This is of course not the optimal outcome - everybody would be better off if there were no patents.
Maybe I'll formalise the argument properly some time..... but basically any system that encourages co-operation and sharing of information resources is a Good Thing. Kind of nice to know that Open Source insticts are fully backed up with the latest and greatest game theory.
What is the definition of FUD?
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
It is used in the context of the deliberate spreading of rumours (possibly lies) in order to create confusion and uncertainty about a new and untested product, platform, idea or business. This is done with the intention of preventing the uptake of said FUD target through two means:
a) The uninformed masses may regard the FUD as true. They therefore quite naturally avoid taking any risks.
b) The informed few, even though they may see through the FUD, realise that the FUD target will be unpopular and unsuccessful because of the general misinformation and hence decide to cut their losses and avoid it themselves.
Now I'm sorry to be a pedant, but FUD is clearly a tactic that only be used against a new, unproven technology or a newcomer to the market. Hence Microsoft may be able to spread FUD about Linux.
The reverse is not true. There is no way in hell that Linux Zealots could convince the world that Microsoft products are unfeasible, unpopular or unusable. Trying to use FUD tactics against microsoft is like trying to stop an elephant with a water pistol.
What Microsoft-bashing you may observe on Slashdot may be pointless abuse, but simply by definition it cannot be regarded as FUD. I dissaprove of mindless Microsoft-bashing as much as the next guy, but we should all recognise that FUD is a completely different phenomenon entirely.
Hmmm.... back in the days when I used to dabble in a bit of demo coding I would frequently benchmark my 486 code against the (Borland) compilers.
I almost inevitably won. Hands down.
Compilers may have come on a bit since then, but I'd still fancy my chances. Of course, I would only dream of doing this kind of optimization for the most critical inner loops. Most of the time it isn't worth it.
But I would like to stress the point that a human with good knowledge of the system and the problem at hand should be able to beat a compiler in many cases. Compilers can't think laterally.
For example, consider a function that must fill an array of bytes with consecutive numbers between X and Y.
Compiler produces beautifully optimized loop that increments a counter, moves an array index and sets the bytes appropriately. If it's clever, it might use the same register as both an index and a loop variable. No problems. Pretty fast, but....
Joe Hacker takes one look at the problem, sets a 32-bit register to contain the bytes X, X+1, X+2, X+3 and does a quarter of the number of loops just adding 04040404 hex to the register each time.
Joe wins, because he *knows* that most of the time X and Z will be sufficiently far apart for his bit of hackery to be quicker. His knowledge of the nature of the problem will beat the compiler.
This is the kind of thing that humans will be better at for the time being. Once AI compilers start to make an appearance, things may change. But right now, I'll bet on human intuition any day of the week.
Well, a good optimization typically makes one type of instruction or sequence of instructions a fair bit faster (say 30-50%).
While this might give a 2% improvement across average code, it will make a lot of difference if this particulr optimization helps out your inner loop. There are times when you really need this.
The way I see it, if compilers can optimize effectively, then there becomes less need to hand-code an inner loop in assembly. Decent optimising compilers may not give you a great deal of extra speed but they sure as hell give the hardcore coder an easier life.
BTW, The rate of hardware improvement is a good argument *unless* you are trying to stay at the cutting edge. In these cases, optimizations are certainly not trivial.
That's a very enlightened decision. Opening up the source code and allowing people to tinker with it is a great way to build interest and encourage people to try out your robots.
So all in all, it's a shrewd business move, good for people who like robots, good for open source software. It would be great if other hardware manufacturers took note and followed your example.
Like I said, respect.
I thought that background was a Sterogram.
;)
Came out a bit flat, though
I agree that it could be a great idea. But only if the Linux advocates are good spokespeople.
Public relations is extremely difficult for any uncoordinated group. While diversity of opinion is a great thing for enlightened minds, it can be presented by others as evidence of division, mob mentality and logical inconsistency. This will always give corporate entities an advantage in this field.
Plus, any linux gatecrashing event could turn into a complete PR disaster if any Linux zealots end up doing something stupid. It's not inconcievable that M$ might use some agent-provocateurs to achieve exactly this.
I don't think I can stress this enough - Linux advocates need to be extremely calm, polite, helpful and professional at all times. Anything less and you do the open source movement no good at all.