Slashdot Mirror

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dsladic/vice/vice.html

I guess I have to add something to make the lameness filter happy. First time I've ever hit it. How annoying.

Some Carnegie Mellon University folks conducted this experiment (PDF format). A continuously-operating Bluetooth link in close proximity to an 802.11 link caused a few percent 802.11 packet loss, and sometimes caused the 802.11 link to fallback to lower data rates. This is even with one of the 802.11 nodes right between the BT nodes, which were 6 feet apart. Sounds tolerable to me...

I was going through A Brief Introduction to Forth, and in its section on Factoring, I came across this:

Good Forth programmers strive to write programs containing very short (often one-line), well-named word definitions and reused factored code segments. The ability to pick just the right name for a word is a prized talent.

good god, I would suck at this language. How many times have I named variables, even functions, 'foobar,' or otherwise named stuff with some combination of those letters? I've always wondered what names I might end up dooming my children with... I've even used raboof a few too many times to spice things up :(

—

These guys have been around for years, as have similar groups, one of which I spent the last three years working with. USC had a really sweet robot for size and power, but Xerox was up to 15 amps per face last I recall. That is NEVER going to be autonomous, at least not for more than a millisecond or two. For more modular, self-reconfigurable robots, check out I-Cubes (my former job). There are lots of pretty pictures and links to a bunch of other groups, like CONRO at USC and Fractum from Japan.

This research project is repackaged swarm robotics. Swarm robots have been around for years. The main problem with swarms is getting the power and leverage to manipulate large objects as the swarm is only as strong as it's weakest link. The main benefit is that they tend to be more fault tolerant than monolithic robots.

See:
Robotics portal
Swarm robotics google search
CMU Robotics Institute

Rick Rashid was the principal investigator of the CMU Mach Project, which means the grant requests were filed under his aegis as a professor at CMU; it does not mean that he was the principal systems architect. He went to work for Microsoft Research.

Avadis Tevanian was one of the graduate students on the Mach project, but his name figured prominently in most of the papers given at various USENIX Technical Conferences (after the PI's name, of course!). He went to work for NeXT, and is now CTO at Apple Computer.

Microsoft doesn't get all the good people. They don't even end up with most of the good people.

I've installed linux on the "Lavie" which seems
to just be a different name for the same machine. I posted some comments and details at:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jcl/linux/lavie/nec_lavie.h tml

On a whim I did a Google search for a more recent version (kinda like what these two great guys did with Xscorch). Someone seems to have liked it enough to make a GNU version, although there's not a lot there yet.

-B

In so far as programming is an art it is the art of the tradeoff. As the old saying goes: You can have it fast, you can have it good, you can have it cheap. Pick one.

Among the issues that a programmer has to balance are:

features

reliability

maintainability

efficiency

development time

To a great extent, satisfying any one of these requirements means shirking the others. The resulting work is a compromise that will annoy and offend most of its constituents to some degree.

The art, therefore, is in the process, not the result. As such, programming resembles politics in that a deal must be worked out between conflicting interests.

A programmer can be artist but what he produces will rarely look like a work of art.

We make an email server and put it in the bathroom.
http://blacktop.res.cmu.edu/mailserver.jpg We're still working out some networking troubles but you can try http://bathroom.res.cmu.edu/~tw

And no, a PII 233 is not old hardware. Anything pentium class or even 486 can make a linux server of almost any type.

We make an email server and put it in the bathroom.
http://blacktop.res.cmu.edu/mailserver.jpg We're still working out some networking troubles but you can try http://bathroom.res.cmu.edu/~tw

And no, a PII 233 is not old hardware. Anything pentium class or even 486 can make a linux server of almost any type.

Special? Not really; I've had a T22 for more than a month; Our lab bought two at the cmu computer store in late July. And it's happily running Debian.

Before people go ranting and raving about the DMCA, take some time to poke around these sites:

Full text of the DMCA (see section 1201)

Legislative history of the DMCA

Prof. Touretzky's page (lots of great resources here)

General DMCA/DeCSS paper

I'm sure that there's a bunch of other places where you can go grab some knowledge...if you have any good links, post them below, because I'd be interested in reading more...

This is by far the best solution possible without any router or BGP infrastructure upgrade. Works for me.

I was thinking about the benefits and problems of cooperative multitasking and no processor memory protection, in favor of speed. (I haven't read Phil Koopman's " Stack Machines" yet to see if this is addressed.) Do you think that a "validation process" similar to what Java runs on applet bytecodes to ensure they behave, before execution, would be effective in building a general purpose computer built on colorforth / x18 ?

The DMCA does not require an ISP to do anything about mere allegations of copyright vioation. However, the DMCA says that if an ISP receives proper notification of a claim of infringement, and it takes down the allegedly infringing material and notifies the user of the details of the situation and gives the user the proper opportunity to respond, then the ISP cannot be sued by either the accuser (for contributing to copyright infringement) or the user (for breach of contract.) This is spelled out in 17 USC 512, and you can read about how to respond to an accusation of copyright violation here. If you follow this form of reply, your ISP has to put your files back.

Warner Cable's actions were not justified under the DMCA. Since the infringing files were posted to Usenet, there's nothing the DMCA requires Warner Cable to do except delete the posts from their own news servers. But as they're a division of Time-Warner we shouldn't expect any kind of reasonable or moral behavior from these clowns. At least not this early in the game. They are still many clue sticks away from enlightenment.

As for Hemanshu Nigam, I've had dealings with him as well. He seems to be the perfect straight man for those who want to point out the idiocy of the MPAA.

The DMCA does not require an ISP to do anything about mere allegations of copyright vioation. However, the DMCA says that if an ISP receives proper notification of a claim of infringement, and it takes down the allegedly infringing material and notifies the user of the details of the situation and gives the user the proper opportunity to respond, then the ISP cannot be sued by either the accuser (for contributing to copyright infringement) or the user (for breach of contract.) This is spelled out in 17 USC 512, and you can read about how to respond to an accusation of copyright violation here. If you follow this form of reply, your ISP has to put your files back.

Warner Cable's actions were not justified under the DMCA. Since the infringing files were posted to Usenet, there's nothing the DMCA requires Warner Cable to do except delete the posts from their own news servers. But as they're a division of Time-Warner we shouldn't expect any kind of reasonable or moral behavior from these clowns. At least not this early in the game. They are still many clue sticks away from enlightenment.

As for Hemanshu Nigam, I've had dealings with him as well. He seems to be the perfect straight man for those who want to point out the idiocy of the MPAA.

Heh, when I saw the headline I thought that there was a Linux version of Dance Dance Revolution coming out or something. Now that'd be sweet, dancing penguins, songs to DeCSS (look about halfway down the page), or maybe even the Free Software Song. It'd be popular in San Francisco at least....

That is completely wrong!!

First of all, Mac OS X uses the BSD Mach Microkernel (developed by Rick Rashid.. now VP of research for MS) instead of the a traditional monolithic UNIX kernel! It has a lot of the GNU and BSD tools included with it, but after all, GNU's not UNIX!

As to your various other claims there is no "BSD Mach Microkernel" though MacOS X is based on a derivative of the Mach microkernel originally developed at CMU (I know - those three letter school acronyms all sound alike..)

Mach's " Principal Investigator " was Rick Rashid, with Avadis "Avie" Tevanian who was " principal designer and engineer of the Mach operating system. BTW Avie Tevanian left CMU to continue the development of Mach at Next and is now Sr. VP of SW Engineering at Apple.

Not to sound rude, but clueless mac evangelists should check their facts!

That is completely wrong!!

First of all, Mac OS X uses the BSD Mach Microkernel (developed by Rick Rashid.. now VP of research for MS) instead of the a traditional monolithic UNIX kernel! It has a lot of the GNU and BSD tools included with it, but after all, GNU's not UNIX!

As to your various other claims there is no "BSD Mach Microkernel" though MacOS X is based on a derivative of the Mach microkernel originally developed at CMU (I know - those three letter school acronyms all sound alike..)

Mach's " Principal Investigator " was Rick Rashid, with Avadis "Avie" Tevanian who was " principal designer and engineer of the Mach operating system. BTW Avie Tevanian left CMU to continue the development of Mach at Next and is now Sr. VP of SW Engineering at Apple.

Not to sound rude, but clueless mac evangelists should check their facts!

It's already here:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/pinealweb/

My self contained portable Linux server... :)

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~tw/serv.jpg

It's only natural that the MPAA etc would go after "fringe players." Not a lot of laypeople have much sympathy for 2600 The Hackers Quarterly which is exactly why they went after them. Look at Touretsky and what he's able to get away with here. They start with the "unsympathetic" target (Judge Kaplan's disdain for 2600 was obvious in his opinion. Would he have felt the same way about Touretzky?) And when they get case law behind the DMCA then EVERYONE will be fair game.

Not sure too many people would be interested in this, but the Kerberos authentication clients used by CMU to verify the ID of people also breaks with this update. We were provided with detailed instructions on how to remove the IE 5.5 update until modifications to the plugins (called KClient) were made.

http://www.cmu.edu/computing/freshstart

What was setup was an MySQL database that users can sign onto (web interface) and activate outlets and add machines to DNS and DHCP. All the user pretty much has to do is know their outlet number (listed on the outlet and available through maps), their hardware address, and what they want to call their machine.

The rest is pretty simple. Kiosks are setup near all the major dorms with help staff available. The information goes in and the database takes care of activating the outlet (by automatically connecting with the switch) and takes care of adding DHCP and DNS entries (updated every 2 hours).

This system has saved many hours of technicians going around to the network closets to activate switches, not to mention end user support. You can probably get more information if your interesting by checking out this page or emailing the Andrew Advisor.

What was setup was an MySQL database that users can sign onto (web interface) and activate outlets and add machines to DNS and DHCP. All the user pretty much has to do is know their outlet number (listed on the outlet and available through maps), their hardware address, and what they want to call their machine.

The rest is pretty simple. Kiosks are setup near all the major dorms with help staff available. The information goes in and the database takes care of activating the outlet (by automatically connecting with the switch) and takes care of adding DHCP and DNS entries (updated every 2 hours).

This system has saved many hours of technicians going around to the network closets to activate switches, not to mention end user support. You can probably get more information if your interesting by checking out this page or emailing the Andrew Advisor.

What was setup was an MySQL database that users can sign onto (web interface) and activate outlets and add machines to DNS and DHCP. All the user pretty much has to do is know their outlet number (listed on the outlet and available through maps), their hardware address, and what they want to call their machine.

The rest is pretty simple. Kiosks are setup near all the major dorms with help staff available. The information goes in and the database takes care of activating the outlet (by automatically connecting with the switch) and takes care of adding DHCP and DNS entries (updated every 2 hours).

This system has saved many hours of technicians going around to the network closets to activate switches, not to mention end user support. You can probably get more information if your interesting by checking out this page or emailing the Andrew Advisor.

Probably the most famous example of a machine which taught itself, IBM's Deep Blue, which taught itself to play chess better than the human world chess champion, Garry Kasparov.

Poker is an excellent domain for artificial intelligence research. It offers many new challenges since it is a game of imperfect information, where decisions must be made under conditions of uncertainty. Multiple competing agents must deal with probabilistic knowledge, risk management, deception, and opponent modeling, among other things.

If Chess is added to the Olympics, it's only a matter of time before many many other "mental" games are petitioning the Olympic Commission for admission to the games.

Poker is an excellent domain for artificial intelligence research. It offers many new challenges since it is a game of imperfect information, where decisions must be made under conditions of uncertainty. Multiple competing agents must deal with probabilistic knowledge, risk management, deception, and opponent modeling, among other things.

A DeCSS Gallery. Enjoy DeCSS in Traditional Haiku.
For more information, here is the main page. E

A DeCSS Gallery. Enjoy DeCSS in Traditional Haiku.
For more information, here is the main page. E

A DeCSS Gallery. Enjoy DeCSS in Traditional Haiku.
For more information, here is the main page. E

If you were writing something like this today, it's a tossup whether the right language to use for the assembly portions would be the ugly but well-known and widely available Intel 8086 assemblers, or Java Bytecode which are a simpler model for a virtual machine.

someone should make a "sig archive" on the web

And as to sending out resumes, I think I sent out about 25 or so and got exactly 2 interviews. But that's not untypical.

That sounds like you're either very unlucky, or not using your resume to best effect. I've been through this process, and I now see how the hiring process works from the point of view of the small software house where I work. Perhaps these few tips will help you out.

1. Think about who will read your resume.
   1. If it's a big company, they probably have a specialised HR department, who may or may not be technically literate. You have to deal with them appropriately.
   2. If it's a small firm, chances are that your resume will be read by a team lead or project manager, who might well be highly computer literate (or even your boss-to-be). These people will appreciate your achievements, but not a list of today's buzzwords with no supporting evidence that you understand them or have experience with them.
2. Make good use of the web. You're applying for an IT job, so they'll have access to it. Further, if you're being considered by a technical person (small firm, typically) they'll probably visit it.
   1. Don't link to your ultra-cheesey homepage. Provide a well presented, clear page for recruiters. You've probably got about 20 seconds to catch their eye. If they see something interesting in that time, they'll probably check it out. If not, they're gone.
   2. Make sure your presentation is up to speed. Make sure the HTML/XML/whatever behind the page is good. This page itself is a demonstration of important skills or attitudes you may or may not have, including presentation/communication skills, whether you believe in flashy gimmicks or solid basic design, how well you write code (is your HTML tidy?), whether you spend the time to get something just right or give up at 90% and so on.
   3. If you're really keen, write a simple demo application of a few hundred lines in your language of choice. Implement a nice, useful algorithm -- quicksort, a parser for a math expression, something like that. Make it downloadable, and include some documentation. I guarantee that if you write good code and documentation and let someone technical see it, your chances of being interviewed/recruited will go way up. This may not help if you're going for the big companies, though, since most HR people wouldn't know good code if it stared them in the face.
3. Target your resume and covering letter to a particular company. Nobody likes a letter where you promise to be a great worth to "your company". Do your homework, and mention a detail or two that you're interested in. This shows that you've bothered to check them out properly, and gives a potential starting point for a conversation at interview. Don't waste your time writing speculatively to companies that clearly say they aren't hiring. Spend it writing better stuff to the ones that are.
4. Remember a resume is just a starting point, not your life history. We see way too many bad resumes at work -- 95% or more, probably. The other 5% walk straight into an interview, just like that. One of the biggest problems is forgetting that a resume is just an introduction, providing basic information about who you are and what you can do. It doesn't have to go into massive detail, just enough to support any claims you make. Detail is what interviews are for.
5. Never forget that they're looking for more than just coding/technical knowledge. To work in a serious job, you also need communications and presentation skills, the flexibility to work alone or in a team, good time management, knowledge of wider issues in the project (planning, business circumstances, etc) and so on. If you can demonstrate some of these (e.g., by mentioning that you were part of a team who ran a club or worked on some project) then it will set you apart a bit from the crowd.

At the end of the day, looking at 16 year olds is a risk for most IT companies. Different employment rules may apply, you probably have no proven track record, and most 16 year olds won't be as good as most 21 year olds. If you're the exception, you have to prove it to them, but first you have to stand out from the crowd by writing a good resume and supporting docs.

There are some good web sites out there to help with this, but many bad ones, too. Most agencies and "CV writing services", at least in the UK, suck. Take everyting you read on-line with a healthy pinch of salt, and always get your resume and covering letter proofread by someone informed -- a careers adviser, a friend who works in recruitment, someone like that. It's amazing the difference they can make.

After you've watched the original you should definitely see the C64 version of Second Reality (I'm not kidding) to help put things back into perspective. 1MHz/64kB should be enough for everyone. You can download it at ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1997/theparty97/c6 4/smash_secondreality_d64.zip and it should work on any good C64 emulator. At least Vice works just fine.

RoboCup is only one part of IJCAI. Another interesting event taking place at IJCAI is the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition for urban search and rescue (USAR) robots. They have to navigate three courses developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The courses have proved extremely difficult for autonomous robots to navigate.

• He did benefit society. Specifically, he helped the blind read electronic documents. (All PDF's can be read by their voice to speech translators. Not all eBooks can.)
• He exposed a flaw that was almost certainly would have been used to defraud the publishers and authors who depended upon the non-existand security of eBooks. (According to Dmitry's talk, eBooks are only obfusicated by XORing the compressed PDF file with the string "encrypted". I'm sure that other people would have found that out and put eBook cracks up on warez sites. The authors should thank him for exposing the flaw. Adobe gave them a lifetime guarantee on the software, so that means that the authors will get the upgrades to the newer, safer eBook format for free. The only people who suffer are Adobe, who *OUGHT* to feel some economic pain for selling broken software like that)
• eBooks are designed to take away rights we have in meatspace; i.e. take a book and loan it to a friend, or to carry it with us and read it anywhere we want to. Dmitry created a program that restores some of those rights by giving people outside the USA the ability to view eBook content on more than one computer.

we take men like Sklyarov who delight in playing a sort of twisted Robin Hood and turn them into our heroes. We rationalize the crimes ("Free speech", "Information wants to be free", blah blah blah)

Why compare him to a thief like Robin Hood? Sklyarov didn't steal anything. What did he do? He spoke about how something could be done, specifically, he described an decryption technique that, if used, might make stealing possible. Ian Flemming's novels described the techniques James Bond might use to kill a person. Should Ian have been charged with murder just because someone else *could* read the books and use those techniques to commit a murder? I don't think so. What else did Dmitry do? He wrote a program that could be used to make stealing easier. Do you think Walther or Colt executives should be charged with murder just because the guns their companies manufacture *might* be used to murder someone?

The simple fact is that Dmitry's only crime in the USA is that of speaking about something that you don't want the rest of the world to know about. The bill of rights is supposed to protect speech, even speech that is not popular with you. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions contradict the bill of rights, and these provisions ought to be overturned.

For what it's worth, SpeechWorks International licensed an earlier version of the AT&T synthesizer. You can find demos here. The version in the NYT seems to have been developed with different constraints. Many TTS engines are designed to achieve real time play back or to use limited amounts of CPU. For instance, synthesized speech during game play should only use 5% or maybe 10% of the processor. Whereas a system for Hollywood may demand considerable CPU power to produce small utterances (say 100 CPU seconds per second of speech). This is completely acceptable for many purposes where perceived quality is the primary criteria.

There is also an open source TTS engine called Festival, developed at the University of Edinburgh and at Carnegie Mellon University. You can find out more here. Or, just download the source.

Except for Concrete Math, all of these are available on the web free of charge, and all of them are of lasting value, and well worth the cost.

I had a similar idea and wrote up some analysis which details how this can be made robust.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Edst/Adobe/Gallery/

Bryguy

He is interested in receiving and publishing the following kinds of information:

Technical descriptions of the access control and encryption mechanisms associated with PDF files and/or eBooks.

Technical descriptions of remedies for these mechanisms, e.g., patches, key recovery algorithms, modified plug-ins, etc.

Source code for implementing these remedies.

He notes that "A large amount of useful content is now encoded as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, including files marketed for the eBook document reader. Unfortunately, some of this content is not usable in all the LAWFUL WAYS [emphasis mine] a purchaser desires, due to access control mechanisms created by Adobe and adopted by content publishers to the detriment of their [LAWFUL] customers."

He further notes that "Computer professionals who have examined [Adobe's access control mechanisms] have found them easy to defeat."

He notes that his website is for discussion of purely technical information of interest to computer scientists and lawful content users. He is not interested in receiving rants about Adobe or the DMCA, suggesting that individuals go to the Boycott Adobe [and/or slashdot - grin] site for that.

It is suggested that individuals wishing to submit TECHNICAL CONTENT first visit the site to see what others have already submitted to avoid unnecessary duplication (e.g. ElcomSoft, Xpdf, Ghostscript, etc).

It is noted that there is yet no "Haiku" regarding Adobe's "easy to defeat" access control mechanism.


Tangential Editorial Comment by RM3 Frisker FTN ... "Why don't people get as bent out of shape when the other Twenty-Six (?) Amendments are violated (e.g. Second Amendment???)"

He is interested in receiving and publishing the following kinds of information:

Technical descriptions of the access control and encryption mechanisms associated with PDF files and/or eBooks.

Technical descriptions of remedies for these mechanisms, e.g., patches, key recovery algorithms, modified plug-ins, etc.

Source code for implementing these remedies.

He notes that "A large amount of useful content is now encoded as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, including files marketed for the eBook document reader. Unfortunately, some of this content is not usable in all the LAWFUL WAYS [emphasis mine] a purchaser desires, due to access control mechanisms created by Adobe and adopted by content publishers to the detriment of their [LAWFUL] customers."

He further notes that "Computer professionals who have examined [Adobe's access control mechanisms] have found them easy to defeat."

He notes that his website is for discussion of purely technical information of interest to computer scientists and lawful content users. He is not interested in receiving rants about Adobe or the DMCA, suggesting that individuals go to the Boycott Adobe [and/or slashdot - grin] site for that.

It is suggested that individuals wishing to submit TECHNICAL CONTENT first visit the site to see what others have already submitted to avoid unnecessary duplication (e.g. ElcomSoft, Xpdf, Ghostscript, etc).

It is noted that there is yet no "Haiku" regarding Adobe's "easy to defeat" access control mechanism.


Tangential Editorial Comment by RM3 Frisker FTN ... "Why don't people get as bent out of shape when the other Twenty-Six (?) Amendments are violated (e.g. Second Amendment???)"

He is interested in receiving and publishing the following kinds of information:

Technical descriptions of the access control and encryption mechanisms associated with PDF files and/or eBooks.

Technical descriptions of remedies for these mechanisms, e.g., patches, key recovery algorithms, modified plug-ins, etc.

Source code for implementing these remedies.

He notes that "A large amount of useful content is now encoded as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, including files marketed for the eBook document reader. Unfortunately, some of this content is not usable in all the LAWFUL WAYS [emphasis mine] a purchaser desires, due to access control mechanisms created by Adobe and adopted by content publishers to the detriment of their [LAWFUL] customers."

He further notes that "Computer professionals who have examined [Adobe's access control mechanisms] have found them easy to defeat."

He notes that his website is for discussion of purely technical information of interest to computer scientists and lawful content users. He is not interested in receiving rants about Adobe or the DMCA, suggesting that individuals go to the Boycott Adobe [and/or slashdot - grin] site for that.

It is suggested that individuals wishing to submit TECHNICAL CONTENT first visit the site to see what others have already submitted to avoid unnecessary duplication (e.g. ElcomSoft, Xpdf, Ghostscript, etc).

It is noted that there is yet no "Haiku" regarding Adobe's "easy to defeat" access control mechanism.


Tangential Editorial Comment by RM3 Frisker FTN ... "Why don't people get as bent out of shape when the other Twenty-Six (?) Amendments are violated (e.g. Second Amendment???)"

The Gallery of Adobe Remedies lists a number of alternatives to Adobe products for dealing with PDF's. For other Adobe applications, see the Boycott Adobe page. It links to replacements for applications like Photoshop and Illustrator.

"... interested in receiving and publishing the following kinds of information:

Technical descriptions of the access control and encryption mechanisms associated with PDF files and/or eBooks.

Technical descriptions of remedies for these mechanisms, e.g., patches, key recovery algorithms, modified plug-ins, etc.

Source code for implementing these remedies.

[visit his website before submitting to see what he is already aware of. His website Gallery of Adobe Remedies already lists ElcomSoft, Xpdf, Ghostscript, but no Haiku ... yet]

Dr. Dave Touretzky notes that his web site is for "discussion of purely technical information of interest to computer scientists and lawful content users".

Dr. Dave Touretzky further notes that he is "not interested in receiving rants about Adobe or the DMCA" suggesting that said rants be submitted to Boycott Adobe wishing to keep his site focused on "Adobe's access control mechanisms and the remedies people have devised [i.e. 'lawful ways a purchaser desires'] to deal with them."

Tangential Editorial Comment by RM3 Frisker FTN ... why don't people get as bent out of shape when the Second Amendment protections [Eric Raymond's Linux Gun Nut Page] are screwed with?