rug.ac.be · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Re:Wow... by drsquare · 2005-07-07 15:17 · Score: 1, Redundant · on Last Year's Gadgets Get New Life As... Jewelry

No, it's hard for nerds to procreate because they look like this:

http://studwww.rug.ac.be/~rgevaert/gnulinux/rms.jp g
or this:
http://www.pinatariders.org/freon/tanstaafl/ESR%20 at%20Penguicon.jpg

Spoofing DNA by Hoi+Polloi · 2005-03-31 05:42 · Score: 1 · on Passport Chip Could Attract High-Tech Muggers

"Can DNA be spoofed?"

Not sure how much you'd need to copy but there is a thing called PCR.

Sniffit? by Mark+Bainter · 2004-04-09 03:25 · Score: 1 · on What Network Sniffing Tools Do You Use?

Nobody is going to mention sniffit?

Here are some links. Mit's pendulam project. by zymano · 2003-11-11 09:01 · Score: 1 · on 'Reversible' Computers More Energy Efficient

Mit's reversible computing page and pendulam project

Another site with Reverse logic gate pictures

Photographs of "a very simple reversible computer" by Dlugar · 2003-11-11 08:54 · Score: 3, Interesting · on 'Reversible' Computers More Energy Efficient

Universiteit Gent has some pictures of reversible logic gates, including a four-bit adder composed out of Feynman's "NOT, the CONTROLLED NOT, and the CONTROLLED CONTROLLED NOT" reversible logic gates, and some other circuits they've built.

They also have links to other sites about reversible logic and reversible computing, such as Ralph Merkle's Reversible Computing page (from Xerox).

Also note the bottom of the page: there's a vacancy in the research group, for all those just aching for a chance to work on reversible computing! (Looks like you'll have to speak Dutch, though.) ;-)

Dlugar

Wrong! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-02 16:08 · Score: 0 · on Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked

There's a long history of cheating in Netrek. Paranoid model, my ass. (I think the old versions were even peer-to-peer.)

The "Open Source" solution to this problem was develop a form of DRM, using signed binaries. Just like all the closed source games on the shelves.

The open-source networked game "Netrek" allows for trusted binary-only distribution of "RSA-blessed" clients so that cheating behavior can be eliminated/reduced. Although anyone can compile a fully operational client using the publicly distributed source, it will not be RSA-blessed and some public Netrek servers may have been configured to disallow unblessed clients. What differentiates a blessed client is a compile-time directive and the inclusion of a private RSA (or sometimes PGP) key within the compiled binary. The corresponding public half of the key must then be given to each Netrek server operator so that it can be added to his server's list of explicitly allowed clients.

here

FYI by bdejong · 2003-04-19 08:40 · Score: 5, Informative · on Belgium Rolls Out Java ID Cards

For you information:
belgium allready has non-digital ID cards, which are obligatory to every citizen. You are even obligated to carry them around at any time and CAN be asked to show them to police if they have "reason" to suspect you of something.

You could have a look at mine, for example...
http://studwww.rug.ac.be/~bdejong/id.jpg

another one by Mike_R · 2003-02-18 23:52 · Score: 2, Informative · on Open Source Software for Print Tiling?

I needed this exact functionality some time ago, and mentioned it to a friend. He incorporated it into his anti-paint program. It's a linux program and it needs to be compiled from source. I haven't tried it yet, so don't blame me if it doesn't work, blame the author :)

Re:it's all lies by smoondog · 2003-01-17 13:11 · Score: 1 · on Racing Dinosaurs with Spoilers

All the evidence I've seen and found(and I've looked, please show me any you think is compelling), falls into two categories. DNA that looks like it has evolved over a short time within species, or junk DNA we don't yet know the purpose of and we assume similarities in this junk DNA between species is evidence of common descent.

All of your points are well taken. As to the one above, the rate at which sequences change is a PhD in itself, and looking for a good molecular clock (sequences that change on the order of time that you are trying to look) is a challenging problem. I think the work by Gary Olson and Carl Woese (at UIllinois many years ago) on ribosomal RNA sequences is the most interesting. There are databases of these sequences available here and here and many many papers discussing their implications. Including the prediction of a third cell type based on rna sequences, the archaens....

Cheers,

-Sean

Re:Direct Link -- PLEASE don't use it! by Halo1 · 2003-01-12 00:44 · Score: 5, Informative · on S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse

Please don't use this link anymore, the gnn people mailed me to say that if the slashdotting of their servers continued like this, they'll be broke by morning. Either watch it at Sundance or use my mirror (for now at least, can't promise how long it will stay up).

Mirror opf Quicktime version by Halo1 · 2003-01-12 00:10 · Score: 4, Informative · on S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse

I forewarned the gnn guys and got their permission to include direct links to the Quicktme versions on their site, but I just got a mail of them stating that if the slashdotting of their site continues like this, they'll be broke by morning :)

I've setup a mirror of the Quicktime version here. It's limited to 30 connections currently, but this may change at any time.

Re:Not just for computer people by vrt3 · 2002-12-26 02:46 · Score: 2 · on Computer Geeks and Jury Duty in the US?

A couple of points:

All of my education took place in Europe, Belgium. This (a) explains why my English isn't as good as yours and (b) makes it difficult to compare education levels
My diploma says I'm a bio-engineer in environmental technology (first cycle, second cycle), which is something that doesn't exist in the USA, I think. It is a 5-year study, comparable to M.Sc. level. Basics of physics (and chemistry, mathematics and other sciences) are studied, but of course not on the same level as a M.Sc. in Physics.
We did study the differences between real vs. fictitious forces, IIRC in the very beginning of our physics course.
Full name of the faculty is Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences. In accordance with the name, most attention is given to the applied aspect of physics and other sciences. I guess that's why we studied the differences between inertial and non-inertial systems, and we studied how to deal with both, but not that we should limit ourselves to classical mechanics and inertial coordinate systems when non-intertial are more appropriate for the task at hand: "use the right tool for the job"
Perhaps a shortcoming of our education is that little attention is given to demarcation of different scientific theories. At one time, while studying, I bought an introduction to quantum mechanics, because I found it was a severe hiatus in our study. As it turned out, the only hiatus was that the name 'quantum mechanics' was never mentioned; most of the concepts were covered in our study.

Re:Not just for computer people by vrt3 · 2002-12-26 02:46 · Score: 2 · on Computer Geeks and Jury Duty in the US?

A couple of points:

All of my education took place in Europe, Belgium. This (a) explains why my English isn't as good as yours and (b) makes it difficult to compare education levels
My diploma says I'm a bio-engineer in environmental technology (first cycle, second cycle), which is something that doesn't exist in the USA, I think. It is a 5-year study, comparable to M.Sc. level. Basics of physics (and chemistry, mathematics and other sciences) are studied, but of course not on the same level as a M.Sc. in Physics.
We did study the differences between real vs. fictitious forces, IIRC in the very beginning of our physics course.
Full name of the faculty is Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences. In accordance with the name, most attention is given to the applied aspect of physics and other sciences. I guess that's why we studied the differences between inertial and non-inertial systems, and we studied how to deal with both, but not that we should limit ourselves to classical mechanics and inertial coordinate systems when non-intertial are more appropriate for the task at hand: "use the right tool for the job"
Perhaps a shortcoming of our education is that little attention is given to demarcation of different scientific theories. At one time, while studying, I bought an introduction to quantum mechanics, because I found it was a severe hiatus in our study. As it turned out, the only hiatus was that the name 'quantum mechanics' was never mentioned; most of the concepts were covered in our study.

In color by extra88 · 2002-11-13 08:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on ASCII QuickTime Movie Player

From the comments on the MacOSXHints article.

ASCIIMoviePlayer in color

Also, ASCIIMoviePlayer can play/show anything Quicktime can, including many graphics file formats and Flash.

BTW, if you run it over a remote ssh connection, the sound should not come out at the console since it's a separate session.

Re:And there's a new song, too by Anonymous Coward · 2002-11-01 07:47 · Score: 0 · on OpenBSD 3.2 Available

Re:Essential QT supplement for Unix nerds by babbage · 2002-10-24 03:10 · Score: 5, Interesting · on QuickTime 6.0.2 Released

Actually, the comments made it look like you're meant to run light text on a dark background, which probably explains the luminence hack.

On a related note, I found out about a color version of the software, available (again with source etc) from this site. I'm sure this can be pushed in all sorts of ways (command line flags for color or "greyscale" or without color afjustment, command line hints for the desired image geometry, etc), but I don't know nearly enough C to feel comfortable with such a project (being a lowly Perl hacker & hardly an expert at that).

Other observations: [a] it can take any file that Quicktime can present, including video & still images (the thought that this program or something like it could attempt to render audio into an ascii movie is too terrifying & wonderful for me to grapple with yet), [b] you should be able to save the output it produces with /usr/bin/script, save it as a "plain" text file, and then play it back on any vt100ish terminal application, up to & including vt100 terminals if you have any laying around. This too is almost too terrible & wonderful for me to properly grapple with yet :-)

squeeze out bloat by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-21 02:03 · Score: 0 · on Smallest Possible ELF Executable?

Sorry for the late post on the issue, but I did not see any mention of binary rewriting developments that have yielded significant code size reductions based upon whole program size optimizations: squeeze++++, a proof-of-concept program compactor

These guys are obtaining 33%-70% size reductions on alpha platforms.

Re:Why? by Osty · 2002-08-24 12:36 · Score: 1 · on Tenebrae Quake

It's too bad Zerstorer doesn't work with Tenebrae. Maybe if someone could hack it to work, then you'd have a good reason to try it.

From the Tenebrae FAQ (which is probably slashdotted by now, but luckily I have it sitting in my squid cache from visiting this earlier today thanks to Blue's News):

Q: I play with my favourite mod and now I get "progs.dat system vars have been modified, progdefs.h is out of date"

A: To make colored lights, etc. possible I had to change the system vars and this means that tenebrae is not compatible with old progs.dat. It should be easy however to "port" old mods to tenebrae (essentially a copy paste job).

Therefore, if you want to get Zerstorer working, it shouldn't take much. Good luck, and if you get it working let others know.

Where's the thiol/nanotube based FPGA? by ahfoo · 2002-05-22 19:30 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Future Computers

It seems like making nano FPGAs would be the easy way to go, but never having made one myself I wouldn't really know, would I? I have done a bit of research on the subject though and apparently there is skepticism of the current king of FPGA, Xilinx, has been criticized for using an inefficient and non-standard design in their FPGAs that would supposedly work better in a much simpler layout. Obviously simplicity of design could be helpful when dealing with nanoscale materials.
On a totally separate note, I thought the DNA experiment about the party guests was a bit suspicious. I've written GRE study guides in the past and so I've spent quite a bit of time analyzing those kinds of analytical questions. From a test writer's perspective, their experiment raises some interesting issues. The GRE frequently uses seven or more entities with special requirements in the analytical section and most of the questions can be solved with a piece of paper and pencil in a few minutes using simple logic. If that wasn't the case, then how would the test writer be sure what the correct answer is if they couldn't verify it?
So, if they've got all these special case situations with perhaps dozens of variables for each party goer then how do they know what the right answer is and that there are not more than one right answer --the bane of test writers. And if they do know how to accurately calculate this data, then is it really as complicated as they make it seem?

No Flash Only, Compatible, Fast, Not annoying by Cpyder · 2002-02-27 07:55 · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

- First of all: you don't want "Flash-only" sites... They are unprintable, not viewable in lynx/links, unusable over slow connections, and generally don't give an added value.

- You also don't want sites that do not display well (or even worse, crash) in some browsers. I don't say you have to support every netscape version up to 0.7, but there really *is* a world apart from Internet Explorer 6.

- Make it fast. If you really want to cram your site full of gizmos, be sure to provide an alternative version for people who haven't got an OC30 directly connected to your datacenter.

- Do not annoy your visitors. That means: No pop-whatevers, no "If this banner is flashing, you've won a monkey to punch"-type of stuff. I also don't like pages with sounds, like the "cameron diaz ad" on kazaa, or even the embedded mp3 on mobistar's page. (Mobistar is a Belgian GSM operator).

One thing I think is really cool is the site of URGent, a Belgian student radio, where you can choose between several designs. The content is drawn from a database, and the designs range from a "lynx" theme to heavy graphics. (And I've heard there's a "kde-like" theme under way)...

Re:Its nice for what it does, but hardly a revolut by anpe · 2002-01-17 22:38 · Score: 3, Informative · on Before PDF: John Warnock's 'Camelot'

I'm no Adobe fan, but I've been working on PDF format for a few years and I found it great.

First, the filesize is ridiculous.

If you're comparing to plain text, yes. Otherwise, PDF have a built-in format that allows the producer to compress the PDF's streams (ie text and images) with a LZW algorithm.

They are in a closed format

These are java libraries for creating and editing PDFs :

pj[Open Source, GPL]
Big Faceless[Commercial w/ Evaluation]
retepPDF[Open Source, LGPL]
Java Pdf Library[Open Source, LGPL]
PDFGo[commercial]
rugPDF0.20[Open Source, LGPL]

By the way the closed format has an open specification : http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/do cs/PDFRef.pdf

possible protection solution for linux by Anonymous Coward · 2001-09-26 16:38 · Score: 1, Informative · on Still More 'Copy Protected' CDs

I think that there is a file system driver for linux called cdfs which may be able to help us in this cause. I have been thinking about this problem since the first reports of "protected" CDs, but haven't had the time to read the necessary standards, although I am starting right now. If someone has one of these protected CDs and a linux box they would be willing to use for some tests, they would be of great help. Go to the cdfs homepage and download the correct patch for your kernel. This file system MAY be the first step in a robust alternative to CDDA (read paranoia) which works on these "protected" CDs. Please provide feedback to this thread and to the author of cdfs if his filesystem is useful. Now I have to try to get one of these CD's myself and try this out... Stanley Pinchak

Re:WAV files? - Linux? by KrankinJalopy · 2001-08-01 09:14 · Score: 1 · on Macrovision CD Protection Bypassed

Hello!

Non-Linux user here.. I know it's a sin here

But i noticed this CDFS Linux version while trolling the Net this afternoon.

From the site:

CDfs is a file system for Linux systems that `exports' all tracks and boot images on a CD as normal files. These files can then be mounted (e.g. for ISO and boot images), copied, played (audio and VideoCD tracks)... The primary goal for developing this file system was to `unlock' information in old ISO images. For instance, if you have a multisession CD with two ISO images that both contain the file 'a', you only see the file 'a' in the second session if you use the iso9660 file system:

Perhaps this could be of benefit to the plethora of Linux users out there.

Cheers!

-KJ

Re:Not "what it does", ask "how to do" by Jay+Carlson · 2001-08-01 03:53 · Score: 1 · on How Do You Interview A Sysadmin Candidate?

View the contents TCP packets? I'd probably use sniffit which will reconstruct the content of the TCP stream for you. Of course, if you're actually trying to debug TCP itself ("hey, look at this Solaris box spamming retransmits") you back off to something like tcpdump.

The great thing about sniffit is that other people will, uh, install it for you on Internet-exposed machines...

Re:Taco, change that PHP icon.. by fons · 2001-03-01 21:24 · Score: 2 · on Announcing PHP-GTK

Use this one. It's the same as the one you're useing but anti-aliased especially for you.

Add some damping to the loop by Max+Hyre · 2000-07-25 21:11 · Score: 3 · on Kuro5hin Forced Down By DOS

Probably the major problem with weblogs is the instantaneous feedback. Remember the ``flash crowds'' in Niven's teleportation stories (All the Bridges Rusting IIRC)? We have exactly the same phenomenon going on here.

How to fix it? Put some damping in the feedback loop by delaying the appearance of posts, while still assigning karma. The higher your karma, the sooner the post appears. Voila---the trolls and kiddies no longer get the instant gratification they want. What's the fun in working for fifteen minutes to hose a thread when you don't see the results for half an hour?

What??!! I hear you scream, half an HOUR? The discussion's dead meat by then!

Erm, no. Any comments worth reading now will be worth reading in half an hour, or even an hour later. Such a delay would also help damp the rush of mis-informed comments from those who haven't digested (or even read) the story, and thus the reflecto-flames from those offended by such witlessness.

Take any civil or electrical engineering or differential equations class, and learn why damping is good. (Check out the Takoma Narrows Bridge for a short course.) That's part of why you always hear the New York Stock Exchange results are ``delayed fifteen minutes''. (I suspect the other part is so the dealers can get their cut before the unwashed get a shot.)

Bottom line: Slow things down, it can only make them better.

Mirrors with 1.0 by Halo1 · 2000-07-12 15:06 · Score: 4 · on FreePascal v1.0 Released

Since the main site seems to be pretty slashdotted already (and the US isn't even awake yet :), here are the mirror links (I've only added those of which I know for sure they have 1.0):

Austria
Belgium
Canada
Germany
The Netherlands (= ftp.freepascal.org)
FTP-only mirrors in Brazil, Turkey and the US: see the links section on your favorite mirror.

--

Slashdot Mirror

Domain: rug.ac.be

Comments · 27