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Never say never. It would not be a bad idea to write Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" into International Law, https://www.auburn.edu/~vestmo... just in case Musk has a clue.

Bullshit! RoHS isn't silly, it wouldn't apply to spacecraft and you "bible" doesn't negate the actual research that is done on solder alloys after it was printed!

You obviously don't understand alloys and that proportions of different components plus the choice of the components makes a huge difference. You don't understand the reasoning (and research) behind the RoHS and you think an old book triumphs modern research...

It is easy to list things that changes the properties of solders, one example is that bismuth shouldn't be used in standard leaded solder as it can drastically reduce melt temperatures, in a lead free formulation there are not such problems (though an excess of bismuth will make joints fragile).

Bullshit! RoHS isn't silly, it wouldn't apply to spacecraft and you "bible" doesn't negate the actual research that is done on solder alloys after it was printed!

Chill out anger person. The pamphlet showed photograps and photomicrographs of various solders. Lead free solder is not something just thought up then designed by teams of scientists after tin/lead was declared bad. Analysis has gone on for many decades, as pointed out in a cite below. This thing had dozens of images, and the lead free solders of the time looked remarkably like lead free solder of today.

You obviously don't understand alloys and that proportions of different components plus the choice of the components makes a huge difference. You don't understand the reasoning (and research) behind the RoHS and you think an old book triumphs modern research...

Oh anger person, I think maybe less coffee or working out whatever has caused your rage might be in order, because there are one of two choices, you either have anger management issues because going wild over my post is uncalled for, or whatever that is bothering you that causes you to snap at an innocent post needs addressed.

Anyhow, yes, they did have a lot of research back in the day. Especially with solder, due both to it's importance in electronics, but in the different melting points and strength characteristics, as well as the final intended use. A lot of interesting work was going on, in aerospace and space itself, where problems could be pretty critical and life ending. In addition, Mil-Spec had it's own strict requirements due to extreme reliability requirements. In general, Lead free solders were considered inadequate, and many consider them inadequate for the same reasons today. In space, whiskers are a problem aside for their obvious shorting tendencies, but rework isn't likely at all.

If you need a more recent report, here's one from Auburn University: http://aaq.auburn.edu/node/88

Especially important is the following:

"Tin whiskers" were a problem with early electronic solders, and lead was initially added to the alloy in part to eliminate them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder). On July 1, 2006 the European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) and Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) came into effect prohibiting the intentional addition of lead to most consumer electronics produced in the EU. Manufacturers in the U.S. may receive tax benefits by reducing the use of lead-based solder. Lead free solders in commercial use may contain tin, copper, silver, bismuth, indium, zinc, antimony, and traces of other metals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder). There is no U.S. legislation presently on the horizon pertaining to lead containing solders. Most of the focus presently on eliminating lead in electronic solders is from European community countries and Japan (www.indium.com/_dynamo/download.php?docid=21). There are many lead free solders exists, but the group comprising tin-silver-copper alloys is considered the mainstream alloy system that will replace tin-lead (www.indium.com/_dynamo/download.php?docid=21).

Is lead free

We need to implement Asimov's three laws of robotics for any system that is strong/agile enough to injure humans.

Or perhaps these three laws.

That why I usually prefer the BEST competition. Very similar events, but BEST puts everyone on the same playing field. http://best.eng.auburn.edu/wor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Most people are familiar with the Left/Right (AKA Liberal/Conservative) dimension of politics. More perceptive people are aware that people also analyze politics along a values spectrum that spans from 'economic values' to 'social values'. But few people consider that there is a *3rd* dimension to politics, which we might refer to as the centralism/decentralism continuum. Viewed from this perspective, the major parties occupy the 'centralized' end, and the minor parties occupy the 'decentralized' end of the continuum. This continuum refers to the locus of political power. In a certain sense, it is an artifact of the Cold War, when you had two highly centralized powers confronting each other. In America, of course, you had the two monolithic political parties of Democrats and Republicans. Later, you saw this reflected in the Big Threes of the Sixties: the Big Three media (CBS, NBC, ABC); the Big Three automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler), and the Iron Triangle of governmental policy-making (legislators, lobbyists, agencies). However, in our own age, the rise of the Net has slowly been undermining these centralist organizing memes. As hierarchies flatten, decision-making moves from the center to the edges. This trend bodes badly for the past-oriented (two) major political parties and well for the future-oriented (many) minor political parties. You can expect to see a backward-facing conservative movement to protect centralism from both major parties, but that movement --- like most conservative movements -- is already doomed to failure. The trend away from centralist organizations will only accelerate. Eventually we will see, here in America, a true multi-party system, which, like most multiple-body systems, will only be meta-stable at best. This increased political landscape, however, will be good for democracy in general, as the market in political ideas will sort itself out via competition among the various groups. Centralism is now the walking dead of politics. Remember, you read it here first, on Slashdot, Election day, 2012.

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/parmega/articles/neon/

Whoa whoa whoa, folks! When I posted this story, I certainly didn't intend to spark a discussion of various means of violating 17 USC 1201(a). I expect you all to (a) call your lawyers, and (b) consult your nearest spiritual adviser for immediate legal and moral correction. (In all seriousness, thanks to Unknown Lamer for crediting me with the link to freecode. It's a way more diverse and cross-platform list of rippers than I would have included. I just figured that nobody needed my help.) Also, don't forget to tune in to hear the results from the triennial DMCA exemption proceedings, as administered by the Copyright Office. As PK notes in their post, they've filed for an exemption to make it legal when end users rip DVDs for personal use. While the process has been better in recent rounds, don't hold your breath. When Oscar Gandy and I did an analysis of the first two rounds, we condemned the process as a Kafka-esque exercise (pdf) administered by a captured agency. (OK, that's enough of a self-promotional victory lap.)

The UI benefits for the next 2 years are $56B. The extended reduced tax rates on over $250K income costs $150B. The extended reduced tax rates on the first $250K costs $300B.

Which programs are "entitlement spending"? None of them. Entitlement programs include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, most Veterans' Administration programs, federal employee and military retirement plans, unemployment compensation, food stamps, and agricultural price support programs.

Social Security pays for itself (workers pay to buy government bonds that pay off and are rolled over, but at an interest rate that's smaller than the growth of the economy that's taxed to pay the interest), and will continue to do so for at least another 25 years. Are you talking about (and wanting to cut) Medicare and Medicaid? Food stamps? Veterans services, including their pensions and healthcare? Pensions for Federal employees, who deferred their incomes while working to get it back as a pension later? Agricultural subsidies?

Or some other actual entitlement program?

Or maybe you just didn't really know what an entitlement program really is.

I'm sorry, the only source of information about a war is a picture of a dead soldier in a major newspaper?

I just googled combat dead in Iraq and found photos.

Desert Storm had a press pool.

http://web1.duc.auburn.edu/~benjadp/gulf/gulf.html

In OIF we had embedded reporters who had much less restrictive rules than Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Serbia or Desert Storm had.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA423756&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/rodriguez.pdf

But for death porn, no it hasn't been as widespread as it was in Vietnam.

Once we get decent robots (and they can now pick loose nuts out of a bin), 99% of jobs (even low skill ones) go away.

Indeed, this is why (until last year), US manufacturing output has been continuously expanding, while US manufacturing employment has been dropping. Machinery has increased the productivity of US manufacturing workers so much, we can produce more goods with less people.

All you have to do is watch "How It's Made" and count the number of machines versus people. Not very many people, except for when custom artistry is required.

The most "offshored" work is that which requires hand operation, such as sewing. But increasingly even those manual operations will become automated. Sock toe sewing is a prime example, the US lost much of its sock industry overseas, now with automated sock toe sewing machines, it is returning, but not hiring many people as they are not required.

"Most of what we do every minute of every day is unconscious, "says University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Paul Whelan.

http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/ENGL2210/USNWR-mind.html

Hope that helps.

It probably doesn't make the machines look any better than the report on Sequoia machines done by the California Secretary of State (http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm) or the recent followup done by UCSB, including a video showing how even a paper trail version can be compromised (http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~seclab/projects/voting/).

We know these machines are garbage, are easily manipulated, compromise the determination of the "consent of the governed", and thereby are threats to our democracy.

Tampering with voting machines and voting result reporting has been the basis of George Bush's presidency and has led to Republican victories in senate and governorship elections. For example, look at
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Republican_IT_consultant_subpoenaed_in_case_0929.html
  and
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2008/Documents_reveal_Georgia_was_warned_of_0730.html
  and

http://web6.duc.auburn.edu/~gundljh/Baldwin.pdf

It will probably take many years to discover the scope of Republican election fraud. Eventually, history will record that banking deregulation, unaffordable tax cuts for the wealthy, failure to pursue alternative energy development (as a favor to the oil and gas industry), and many other of our nation's problems had their roots in voting machine manipulation.

Echoing your comment:

"The Liberty ships were transport ships built very quickly and in great numbers during WWII. One of the reasons they were able to build them so fast was they used welded, rather than riveted, seams.

The had an unfortunate tendancy to unzip." (from comment)

I'm not sure that unzipping implies that the rivets were in straight lines. I think it is a statement that the seams gave way.

Slightly OT, this applied to later vessels also, particularly the liberty ships. The Liberty ships were transport ships built very quickly and in great numbers during WWII. One of the reasons they were able to build them so fast was they used welded, rather than riveted, seams.

The had an unfortunate tendancy to unzip.

If you think this is the first open source project for Alabama, you obviously have never heard of Gaim (now Pidgin) or Asterisk, both of which were started by Mark Spencer (an Auburn grad from Huntsville). Phorum also got its start in Huntsville as well.

Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"?

      1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

      2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

      3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I've had several EE teachers use this at Auburn.

Nice one, only two more laws to go. Well, and sentience.

Try jGRASP (http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/cse/research /grasp/). Some good points below. 1) IDE front-end to compilers. 2) Generates CSD (source code visualization). 3) Runs on all platforms that use JVM. 4) Supports Java, C/C++, Ada, VHDL & Objective-C. 5) In-built debugger for Java.

http://www.auburn.edu/~smith01/notes/maxdem.htm

Think, Mr. Fizzl! Think!

What's the big deal here?

Uh, it looks nicer than a huge faraday cage in your concert hall?

I know quite a few Universalists who would disagree with that, using arguments also backed up by the Bible. You can argue forever about why you think they're wrong, but the fact remains - there is something in the Bible to support just about any point of view on any subject.

you've misinterpreted the issue. Epert and Roeper can decrease the box office's take by making a negative review. The basic balancing test required to ensure that use is fair use says otherwise to what you state.

I encourage you to read the following: Definition of Fair Use (pay special attention to points 3 and 4 there). I also encourage you to find out what a "balancing test" means, legally, in case that term is new to you.

Not only do you have to check that US graduates didn't get something from a degree mill, postgraduate students from a reputatable university don't have a minimum one year for a masters like in other countries so we have to ignore that qualifiaction as well?

Perhaps you have you are not famaliar with the credit hours standard which is common amongst United States colleges and universities. The GP is talking about 30 additional credit hours, not clock hours. A typical courseload is 15 credit hours per semester, 30 hours is usually a full year. Thus, one year plus 30 credit hours adds up to a full 2-year program. 2-year masters programs are fairly common in the United States.

Yea, thats kind of my delima. However, there are some great courses in some of the programs I am looking at for a MSCS. I actually "want" to learn this stuff...artificial intelligence, computer vision, etc... IN response to your MSSE quest...I have heard good things about Auburns program .. it is distance. Here is a link: http://www.auburn.edu/distance_learning/programs/e ng_mcse/ This is one I briefly considered in the past. The two programs I am trying to decide between are Columbia's MSCS program and Boston's MSCIS program...which looks very nice. Hope that helps!

These beasts could be dangerous: As other comments have already pointed out they will most likely wander about and do upskirt photos.

Oh, wait... Shooting upskirt photos isn't forbidden under Asimov's laws, it it?

Jgrasp

Source-navigator

Jedit

You can code in a way that is both easy to understand and efficient. That's what //comments are for.
Then again enough comments and the code becomes pretty murky.
My favorite code editor (little windows program called pcGRASP) has a button that will hide/show all code comments. Very useful when trying to see just the beef through a mountain of comments.
--Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

This is good news, but it won't necessarily eliminate some of the obnoxious terms found in EULAs. I wonder if another approach might help there. One principle of contract law (at least in the Anglo-American system) is that provisions contrary to law or to the public interest are invalid. (See also 17A Am. Jur. 2d Contracts 257 (1991).) For example, here's a discussion of a case in which a couple had signed a contract requiring that they be faithful to each other and providing damages if one or the other was unfaithful. The man was unfaithful again, his wife divorced him, and then sued to enforce the contract. The California courts refused to enforce the contract on the grounds that it conflicted with the public policy underlying California's no-fault divorce law. The crucial thing here is that the contract was not specifically prohibited by any statute; the court's ruling was based on its inference of public policy.

The courts are careful about taking too broad a view of the public interest for this purpose because if they did they'd effectively be legislating after the fact. For example, they will not interpret a life insurance policy as a health insurance policy even though one might argue that it is in the public interest for death to be prevented rather than the survivors compensated. My question is, are some of the provisions of EULAs sufficiently obnoxious that the courts can be persuaded that they should be invalidated as contrary to public policy? It seems to me, for example, that provisions forbidding the user from monitoring his own network traffic should be considered contrary to public policy since they adversely affect both the individual user and the general public.

I was sceptical at first (it looked too much like a 'toy'), but jGRASP has proven surprisingly useful for getting to grips with legacy C code (reams and reams of 1000+ line functions with nested ifs and cases). It should be useful for teaching purposes too, since it allows collapsing bits of code to show the underlying structure, and handles block exits better than a folding editor would

While mathematical economists may not deny that the ultimate cause is to be found in the actions of market participants, they proceed untroubled by the fact that mathematics is inherently silent on the issue of cause and effect. This disadvantage of the mathematical method was Mises's concern [1966, p. 350] when he remarked that [i]ts syllogisms are not only sterile; they divert the mind from the study of the real problems and distort the relationships between the various phenomena.

However, as part of friendly treaties, it's very highly unlikely anything low orbit would be nuclear. Given the short life span of current satellites, there really isn't a need. However, deep space and other orbits that go through long periods of darkness will be viable for nuclear power. Thus, these missions do not put the earth at risk because it's thousands of miles away and has no chance of de-orbiting.

This just leaves the spacelift as a risk. We're getting pretty reliable, but nothing in life is fool proof. I think people use Chernobyl to scare people through ignorance. So, for the near future all you have to do is say, "3 Mile" or "Chernobyl" and people will be scared. Unfortunatly, fuzzy science and emotion often dictate science and development. Just look at stem cell research.

Getting back to your post, if you're referring to debris at the bottom of the ocean. There's already huge sources of energy released there by molten and other underwater geological occurances where the ocean is exposed to nasty stuff. As far as the atmosphere, yes, we all share it. Nuclear testing in the Nevada desert has been shown to have effects across the earth. However, this isn't the context of the current discussion. The fallout from a satellite or aborted rocket launch is marginally minimal when compared to other sources of pollution (both natural and manmade).

Finally, from the research I've seen the only resistence to radiation built up is death.

However, as part of friendly treaties, it's very highly unlikely anything low orbit would be nuclear. Given the short life span of current satellites, there really isn't a need. However, deep space and other orbits that go through long periods of darkness will be viable for nuclear power. Thus, these missions do not put the earth at risk because it's thousands of miles away and has no chance of de-orbiting.

This just leaves the spacelift as a risk. We're getting pretty reliable, but nothing in life is fool proof. I think people use Chernobyl to scare people through ignorance. So, for the near future all you have to do is say, "3 Mile" or "Chernobyl" and people will be scared. Unfortunatly, fuzzy science and emotion often dictate science and development. Just look at stem cell research.

Getting back to your post, if you're referring to debris at the bottom of the ocean. There's already huge sources of energy released there by molten and other underwater geological occurances where the ocean is exposed to nasty stuff. As far as the atmosphere, yes, we all share it. Nuclear testing in the Nevada desert has been shown to have effects across the earth. However, this isn't the context of the current discussion. The fallout from a satellite or aborted rocket launch is marginally minimal when compared to other sources of pollution (both natural and manmade).

Finally, from the research I've seen the only resistence to radiation built up is death.

I'm a librarian at the Mises Istitute as awell as a long-time (8 years) Slashdot reader. I just wanted to inform folks that the Mises Institute does some really cutting edge work on the legitimacy of Intellectual Property. If you are interested, google "Stephan Kinsella" "Against Intellectual Property". I have also written a paper that touches on the economics of this issue, and how the hacker community has been an incredibly influential market factor. It is located here.

What the article doesn't mention is that the other 5% - 15% of time, the tomato harvester displayed a strange tendency towards aggressively "harvesting" some of the scientists on the project.

"I'm not concerned," said one scientist, "that's why we have the Three Laws! Robots are perfectly safe and friendly."

If you take the position that software is a natural monopoly like the phone company used to be, then it only makes sense that it should be socialized rather than trying to regulate it into behaving (like they used to try to do with the phone company).

I bet the AU part of my name confused you; I'm not an Australian Tiger but rather an Auburn University Tiger.

Do you think future robots will adhere to the Three Laws of Robotics, as defined by Isaac Asimov?

Being virtually freely copyable, software is coming close to fitting economists' definition of a public good - something that can't be provided to one person without providing it to everyone.

Government action is the only sustainable way to fund public goods, because of the free rider problem. This announcement was only a matter of time - and it's only the beginning.

Andrew Klaassen

Being virtually freely copyable, software is coming close to fitting economists' definition of a public good - something that can't be provided to one person without providing it to everyone.

Government action is the only sustainable way to fund public goods, because of the free rider problem. This announcement was only a matter of time - and it's only the beginning.

Andrew Klaassen

From this page:

Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Machines killing humans deliberately defy Asimov's 3 "Laws" of Robotics.

Perhaps the latest generation of sci-fi writers prefers to think of these as just "rules".

It's not just that 19000 voters produced 144000 votes; it's that 19000 voters produced 5352 BALLOTS that produced 144000 votes.

Obviously, this was intended as the Chicago or Baldwin release of the software.

Indeed, but I think there is some prior art

Why am I speaking of prior art, btw? It's unpatentable anyways, because it's a perpetual motion machine of the second type!

DARPA is also funding a research project that eventually hopes to create software that is self-aware. I believe this was posted previously on /. article here This might also tie into the Genoa II and Sensit projects. There are many projects with similar aims funded by darpa.

The Gift of the Magi. (the Gutenburg Project)

If there's a greater master of irony than O. Henry, I want to know about it. (Though Spider Robinson is also a great master!)

Nonsense, economically, the cost of an additional windows copy is virtually zero. As this is the case for all software, the ability to offer 90% discounts doesn't qualify as dumping but as price discrimination.
Microsoft is - what is called - a natural monoploy, a side effect of the software business.

The Government of Canada is creating a new offence targeting those who would set traps in a any place under section 247 of the Criminal Code. The Government of Canada is creating a new offence targeting those who would set traps in a place used for a criminal purpose and intending to cause injury or death.

One of our government departments asked for express permission to monitor private communications (see Comments on Specific Provisions of Bill C-36) which could be invoked as part of some ammendments post 9-11. Now there is a bill before Parliament to ammend the criminal code to clarify the role of IDS (and by extension one would think, honeypots). Ironically it's the same bill that will deal with the boobytrapped pothouse law.

Under our criminal code, currently, "Every one who, by means of any electromagnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, wilfully intercepts a private communication is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years."

The amendment would create exceptions to the offences of intercepting a private communication and of disclosing its content to ensure quality control in the communications industry. A proposed amendment to the Financial Administration Act (section 161) will ensure that federal departments and agencies may take reasonable measures to manage and protect their computer systems, which may include the interception of private communications.

In order to protect the privacy of persons in Canada, limits would be imposed and use of information intercepted by private IDS systems will be controlled under the Criminal Code.

For example, it is questionable as to whether in email, users have an expectation of privacy. Consider an IDS that captures full packet content. Is it interception of private communications? It could be as simple as setting the correct snaplen in your Snort rule :)

Where I have a problem with this is that a honeypot, by definition, shouldn't have any legitimate use. So how can it be interception of private communications (with what)? Of course this would vary with the statutes in that jusidiction.

When it comes to the liability issues, Honeypots should never be deployed without monitoring outgoing activities. It is likely an obligatory duty of due care to other fellow netizens to not knowingly leave a vulnerable machine out there that could be used to attack other machines. I can see a definite liability issue there of opening up a few shares and walking away for a few months without checking.

IANAL, but AFAIC the safest way is to adapt an explicit policy that individual communications will be monitored as a matter of course in aggregate for suspicious activity, which will be reported to authorities. One might be able to ensure to the best of their abilities that this warning is seen by implementing klaxon that returns a warning to this effect on all unserved ports on your honeypot. Always monitor the honeypot and have reasonably documented procedures on what you plan to do when it gets hacked to minimize damage to your neighbours.

B

In 2000, Arizona Democrats had the first online balloting in their primary. The link contains some analysis also.

Try reading Milton Friedman's works.

Friedman is a paid apologist for the oligarch lobby. dlm3 obviously listens to what he says about Keynes but not what he writes about Keynes's theses. If you are already comfortable with Friedman's style, and you want to get closer to reality, I recommend Galbraith.

Explain to me why emergency rooms collapse when the states offer free health care to illegal immigrants

That is not what I said. Countries that provide universal medical care have lower overall health care costs than those countries where otherwise treatable maladies don't receive treatment until they exhibit acute traumatic symptoms resulting in E.R. visits.

Why should we burden ourselves with ... notions of the rest of the world? We're not the world's last remaining superpower for nothing....

You have answered your own question. We are the world's last remaining superpower for the hundreds of billions of dollars that we pour into wasteful defense programs while cutting education and health care.

California is the most distressed state in the country because its inane government spends too much and taxes its citizens (with highly progressive taxes

Per capita, the California deficit is above average but not as bad as many places. If you think California has progressive taxation then you haven't been paying attention.

I agree with your dislike of sales taxes, which are regressive.