Comment Re:Publisher friendly? (Score -1, Flamebait) 155
no, originally copyright was put in place to censor content the king did not want spreading. The author is now and has always been an afterthought.
Comment Re:Well ... (Score 2) 200
Seriously? Just stop it. Mono is never going to make the mountain of C code obsolete. Linux will never be dependent on Mono. If Microsoft somehow stopped distribution of Mono on the internet (HAHAHHAHAHAHA) and everyone simply had to do without, you just port the application to Java, C++ or Go!. GNote proves this isn't that big of a deal. Your concerns have no merit.
Comment Re:Mandatory (Score 1) 875
Does Netcraft confirm that?
Comment Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score 3, Informative) 409
If they didn't care about selling in Europe they could just ignore them and cease operations there. I don't see it being worth it to either oracle or sun for that to happen.
Comment Re:RTFM (Score 1) 907
I bet if you looked statistically at the operations of a computer, you would find that almost none of it is random. This is why they sell entropy devices.
Comment Re:Okay, so where's the ball lightning? (Score 1) 168
to quote wikipedia:
Laboratory experiments have produced effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but it is presently unknown whether these are actually related to any naturally occurring phenomenon.
Now, other than what is most likely something I saw on "In Search of" I have nothing that tells me that it exists. Your barking up the wrong tree. I don't imagine that a plasma could retain it's shape for any meaningful duration in our atmosphere.
I am simply pointing out that irrational beliefs are persistent because those who believe them are as well.
Comment Re:Okay, so where's the ball lightning? (Score 1) 168
Given that they have actually produced them in the lab, I am going to have to say a while. Given that there isn't a shred of any kind of scientific evidence for alien visitations, bigfoot, loch ness monster, santa clause or the tooth faerie, their should be no one who actually thinks they exist. Yet there are those of us amongst the rest of us who believe in the existence of those things.
Comment Re:How Exactly Does This Fight Spam? (Score 0, Offtopic) 287
Last time I had moderator points, it was 15. But then again
Comment Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me] (Score 1) 894
Ford says no.
Comment Re:Let me be the first critic (Score 1) 1127
This, of course, assumes that the majority linux developers have a goal of seeing linux everywhere. I doubt that is true for the majority of linux developers. Red Hat has said many times that linux on the desktop is a red herring. It isn't so much that it isn't their fault as it is that they don't care. Linux doesn't need mainstream adoption to be relevant or successful. Linux has already won the hearts and minds of those that matter to it, developers.
Comment Re:Mr. Reality Check Here (Score 1) 740
Unfortunately, this system is not realistic and poses some massive privacy concerns. While it may be feasible to create the network of cameras described in (a), it is substantially difficult with current technology to implement the optical character recognition required to implement part (b).
The post office begs to differ.
Comment Re:Customer information sharing (Score 1) 526
BTW, X being a legal signature, I don't ever sign on those pads. I don't even get strange looks, since the sophisticated system is just hunky dory with the whole thing.
Submission + - Artificial intelligence and Internet self-awarenes (uic.edu)
Andreas Martin Lisewski writes: "When will the Internet wake up and become aware of itself? In a suggested Internet project (Internet Awareness Day 2008, IAD2008) this problem is approached by asking a different question: Can the Internet cope with stress? Its aim is to run a large-scale distributed software experiment, which could reject the hypothesis that the Internet is not a conscious entity.
The idea of self-awareness and consciousness developing global computer network has migrated from science fiction to the attention of scientists. Terrence Sejnowski has readdressed this thought in a recent contribution. He argues that the Internet's rapid growth, its communication design and architecture along with some of its functional measures, such as storage capacity and bandwidth, resemble neurobiological aspects or are not far from values representative of the human brain. Although still speculative, it appears that this idea could be formulated as a valid scientific hypothesis, which, however, cannot be decided by today's scientific knowledge in neuroscience, according to Sejnowski. This inability likely stems from the fact that no scientifically accepted and objective procedure exists that would allow a detection of consciousness in any given system or organism, hence from a current lack of a fabulous consciousness test.
The project's key is to add to the problem a psychological perspective, which could possibly lead to an empirically testable strategy regarding the corresponding null hypothesis, i.e., that the current Internet has no detectable form of consciousness. The main conjecture is that the null hypothesis can be rejected on the ground of two distinct stress and problem situation adaptation processes known to psychology: coping and defense. These criteria differentiate between defense and coping and include the conscious/unconscious status and the intentional/non-intentional nature of the process. Psychologist Phebe Cramer summarizes that "[...]coping mechanisms involve a conscious, purposeful effort, while defense mechanisms are processes that occur without conscious effort and without conscious awareness (i.e., they are unconscious). Also, coping strategies are carried out with the intent of managing or solving the problem situation, while defense mechanism occur without conscious intentionality; the latter function to change internal psychological state but may have no effect on external reality."
A specific aim is to develop a freely available program, a client, to advertise and to distribute it among many, possibly thousands or millions, human Internet users, and to use this program to monitor and to perform a large scale and synchronized disconnection or shutdown of a number of Internet hosts — a stressful and adverse situation for the Internet. This action requires a foregoing preparation stage followed by the shutdown event both communicated and directed by humans. In a hypothetical response, a coping Internet would act to prevent the intended shutdown by trying to interfere with external reality of the user, hence to change the course of events and to effectively reduce stress. The decisive experimental question is whether a coping Internet has the power to dissuade humans from their intended plan."
The idea of self-awareness and consciousness developing global computer network has migrated from science fiction to the attention of scientists. Terrence Sejnowski has readdressed this thought in a recent contribution. He argues that the Internet's rapid growth, its communication design and architecture along with some of its functional measures, such as storage capacity and bandwidth, resemble neurobiological aspects or are not far from values representative of the human brain. Although still speculative, it appears that this idea could be formulated as a valid scientific hypothesis, which, however, cannot be decided by today's scientific knowledge in neuroscience, according to Sejnowski. This inability likely stems from the fact that no scientifically accepted and objective procedure exists that would allow a detection of consciousness in any given system or organism, hence from a current lack of a fabulous consciousness test.
The project's key is to add to the problem a psychological perspective, which could possibly lead to an empirically testable strategy regarding the corresponding null hypothesis, i.e., that the current Internet has no detectable form of consciousness. The main conjecture is that the null hypothesis can be rejected on the ground of two distinct stress and problem situation adaptation processes known to psychology: coping and defense. These criteria differentiate between defense and coping and include the conscious/unconscious status and the intentional/non-intentional nature of the process. Psychologist Phebe Cramer summarizes that "[...]coping mechanisms involve a conscious, purposeful effort, while defense mechanisms are processes that occur without conscious effort and without conscious awareness (i.e., they are unconscious). Also, coping strategies are carried out with the intent of managing or solving the problem situation, while defense mechanism occur without conscious intentionality; the latter function to change internal psychological state but may have no effect on external reality."
A specific aim is to develop a freely available program, a client, to advertise and to distribute it among many, possibly thousands or millions, human Internet users, and to use this program to monitor and to perform a large scale and synchronized disconnection or shutdown of a number of Internet hosts — a stressful and adverse situation for the Internet. This action requires a foregoing preparation stage followed by the shutdown event both communicated and directed by humans. In a hypothetical response, a coping Internet would act to prevent the intended shutdown by trying to interfere with external reality of the user, hence to change the course of events and to effectively reduce stress. The decisive experimental question is whether a coping Internet has the power to dissuade humans from their intended plan."
Submission + - Governor Tramples First Ammendment
bladesjester writes: "Ohio's Governor, Ted Strickland, has ordered that Nativity scenes be replaced at two state parks because they are "an appropriate part of our traditional holiday displays".
In response to concerns voiced over violation of the First Amendment, it was stated that some other symbols would be allowed on a case-by-case basis (at least one has already been refused).
If someone wanted to add a menorah near the Nativity scene, that would be acceptable, but not a Zoroastrian symbol, according to Strickland's spokesperson, Keith Dailey. "It's not something that is traditionally displayed" during the holidays, he said.
In a related note, the article touched on a similar controversy in the town of Whitehall in which the City Council refuses to remove the prominently displayed Nativity scene on public grounds. In response to the outcry, City Council member Chris Rodriguez said "I think people should get over it and stop being so smug about their rights.""
In response to concerns voiced over violation of the First Amendment, it was stated that some other symbols would be allowed on a case-by-case basis (at least one has already been refused).
If someone wanted to add a menorah near the Nativity scene, that would be acceptable, but not a Zoroastrian symbol, according to Strickland's spokesperson, Keith Dailey. "It's not something that is traditionally displayed" during the holidays, he said.
In a related note, the article touched on a similar controversy in the town of Whitehall in which the City Council refuses to remove the prominently displayed Nativity scene on public grounds. In response to the outcry, City Council member Chris Rodriguez said "I think people should get over it and stop being so smug about their rights.""
Submission + - Companion Operating System to Linux (losethos.com)
losethos writes: "LoseThos V3.14 released. LoseThos is a supplemental operating system to be used in addition to Linux. Linux is for the Internet and multimedia, while LoseThos is for fun with programming. Unlike Linux, the kernel code is easy to understand and tinker with. The kernal AND compiler together are only 45,000 lines of code! A hello world program takes one line of code! Like it should! Put graphics on the screen with 5 lines of code. LoseThos has no security — everything runs in kernel mode so it's fast without overhead of switching modes. LoseThos has no virtual memory and can switch tasks in half a microsecond. LoseThos is 64-bit and supports multicore. It's open source and free. You can test drive it from the CD without installing, if you wish. It has some games with impressive animation using a runge-kutta numeric integrator built into the operating system."
