Slashdot Mirror

This belongs in the company of
"The Effect Of Country Music On Suicide" and
"Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula Hooping"
---
The Ig Nobel Home Page

At my school there was a lot of cheating going on. There was a lot of honest students who didn't cheat, but then there was also students who cheated on just about everything. In many courses, like math and engineering courses, it's kind of hard to catch cheating on assignments, since everybody is supposed to have the same answer. Professors usually dealt with this with the rule that if you don't pass the exam, you don't pass the course, regardless of how well you did on the assignments. It's a lot harder to cheat on the exams then on the assignments, so I think this may have worked pretty well.

No, Microsoft will be the ones to build Sky.NET, their crappy coders rushing to market without the checks needed to ensure Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics

"There's no statute in the UK or US on what is cybersquatting, but judges have pretty much decided, and come up with good judgements."

You're muddling national legal statutes and the WIPO/NAF resolution organisations under UDRP, and they've been _getting better_. They've not been consistently 'good'.

Take for instance, Aimster. The ruling was that 'aim' stood for 'AOL Instant Messenger'. Curiously, there is precedence for it being a word, all on it's own as well, but that didn't stop the ruling in AOLs favour.

Professor Geist produced a report on the findings of the UDRP way back in 2001 PDF Here and although I know that it's gotten better, the situation back then was ludicrous...of course those were the days when a lot of people were overinflating the value of 'internet property', and 'cybersquatting' was the next great evil.

"However, in the case of Anand Mani, who is also known as A R Mani, he argued that his business had been running since 1981 and so had as much right to the name Armani."

Mani's case hinged on two aspects; that he was born A. R. Mani (Something he took great lengths to prove), and he had already asked for restitution to be made and permission to use another less contentious domain name. The found in favour of Mr Mani for as much those as to whether he was 'there first'.

The fundamental point of this all is that even stretching the bounds of confusing a domain with one that 'sounds like' and claiming brand dilution is a reach, even for Microsoft. As has been pointed out amusingly within this thread, Microsoft hasn't even attempted to register other similar sounding domains...so what's the gig?

One of these talking points is to license software developers and make them accountable for security breaches.

It seems to really prevent all possible security breaches, you need to prove that the program is correct first - I don't know of many entities that even try to prove their programs. I have heard of a few telecom infrastructure programs, but remember the big SS7 outage caused by one tech some years ago? The SS7 code is probably better "audited" than most code but would that outage have been construed as a "security breach"? - Yes, after the lawyers were done with it.

What about how quickly the world changes after a program is released? You use the best encryption technology of the day, you prove your programs correct, not just audit the code or use "good" software engineering/management methodologies. But you used DES (back in the day) or MD5 more recently, then MD5crack comes along or quantum computing and suddenly you are responsible for a "security breach" because of some exploit that didn't exist when you created the program.

That is nuts, who would want to sign up for that?

Besides DJB does anyone even have the balls to reward people for finding security problems? Or even advertise security as a feature? OpenBSD (yeah, I know its dead, blah, blah, blah), pureftpd, NSA Linux
I expect not many others, because people expect code to have security issues.

Since security is such a big concern now (and in the past), I would think that people who wanted to show off their programming prowess would be bragging about how secure their code is. But no one does, that I know of - why? because its just damn hard to be sure that the code is perfect - which is what is required to prevent all possible security problems. So where are all these people with the big security cahones going to come from?

Can a program be proven correct for all inputs?
If it isn't stateless then can each permutation of state and input be proven?
Are all the protocols used by the program verified?

The impossibility of preventing security breaches seem to make this kind of government action more likely. Burn the witches!! They hexed our computers, and were seen in the woods cavorting with unaudited code fragments!

Hard to say which is the loony toon. The "And how do you pillage the ocean..." or the reply with it's "... human intervention most likely...". In the former case declining fisheries is a valid counter. In the latter, well:

a) the natural ocean background radiation
far exceeds the meagre amounts humans have dumped unless you're sitting right next to the dumped core;

b) recent volvanic activity (above (Mt. St. Helen's) and below (black
smokers) the ocean) has contributed considerably more "pollution" than human industry has (recall some recent eruptions have tangibly affected the atmosphere _globally_); and

c) research (e.g. work of Jan Veizer) has pointed out far more plausible climate altering effects than our meagre industrial effluent. Speaking of which, we still do not have a proven climate model let alone one of the role of various chemicals within the atmosphere except in the most very general sense.

So is humankind the big baddie? We really don't know. Is it blameless? We really don't know. But why is natural pollution OK, but "unatural"(?) pollution bad? Why does it seem that human activity beyond the most primitive animal functions is "bad"?

It might just be that we humans neither appreciate how truly huge this planet is, how truly insignificant we are, and how profoundly ignorant we still are about all that is around us.

C'mon up to Canada for your education. The tuition is about half (or less) of what it is in the states, if you're gay you can get married, and we're about to decriminalize marijuana.

Better yet, you don't have to pay to see our rankings:

1 Toronto
2 Queen's
*3 McGill
*3 Western
5 UBC
6 Montreal
7 Alberta
8 Sherbrooke
9 Ottawa
10 McMaster
11 Dalhousie
12 Saskatchewan
13 Laval
14 Calgary
15 Manitoba

Example 1, Quebec.

Example 2, France

Everyone in France/Quebec can speak whatever word they want, but if they put it into print they might have the language police after them.

The period from 1980 to 1995 saw "the United States' lead in software products become seemingly invincible." This is illustrated with case studies of IBM (a manufacturer) and three big independent vendors: Computer Associates (a consolidator), Oracle (databases), and SAP (ERP software). One reason for the success of the latter, a German company, was that European companies lagged those in the United States and had not yet invested in company-specific software.

United States software industry? SAP is a German company. How is our invincible lead illustrated by the success of a German firm? Isn't Germany part of Europe? Maybe SAP is an illustration of the US losing a lead. ABAP programmers were advised to brush up on their German before examining SAP source code. They probably still are.

One Parsec = 3.26 Light Years.

More technically, One parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends one second of arc.

See: This Site for a definition of the Parsec.
See: This Site for a definition of the Light Year

One Parsec = 3.26 Light Years.

More technically, One parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends one second of arc.

See: This Site for a definition of the Parsec.
See: This Site for a definition of the Light Year

Or, it could be that a light year is the distance that a photon would travel on a standard solar year, in vacuum, while a parsec is the distance from which the radius of the earth's orbit would subtend an angle of one second of arc. One parsec is roughly 3.26168 light years.

Google is mother, Google is father. Worship Google.

Or, it could be that a light year is the distance that a photon would travel on a standard solar year, in vacuum, while a parsec is the distance from which the radius of the earth's orbit would subtend an angle of one second of arc. One parsec is roughly 3.26168 light years.

Google is mother, Google is father. Worship Google.

Ottawa? Isn't it in Kansas? [ottawa.edu]

Ottawa University, not to be confused with the University of Ottawa

Doh, your forgot Zeroth Law dude.

A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

Which of course alters First law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would conflict with the Zeroth Law.

> A 40 gig Maxtor 3.5 inch, ATA/EIDE hard drive ready to go with GNU-Darwin OS pre-installed, plus GNU-Darwin Office, plus a full ports tree and select distfiles.

What about it? Where's the predicate?

Wow, Australia almost passes Canada in anti-free-speech activity!

Ernst Zundel, an active user of hate-speech has for years shown up Canada for what a lack of free-speech we have by hosting it all outside this country.

I'd link to his site so you can all have a good laugh at what kind of a nutter he is, but I don't want special interest groups to suggest I'm promoting hate speech and have me carted off to jail.

IMHO, how can you possibly decide for yourself what is right and wrong thinking if you're never given the opportunity to see what's wrong?

The only difference is that in Canada all speech is limited like this, not just 'net speech.

Well recently, there has been more and more attention being given to things called Learning Objects and Learning Object Repositories.

Basically, what MIT is doing, is placing a bunch of Learning Objects online. (A learning object can be considered to be an entire course, among other things...I won't get into it here, but rest assured there's a huge initiative behind this whole Learning Object thing in the educative and private community/industry)

Now imagine for a minute if an individual were to take all the learning objects in the world (i.e. all the courses offered by all the universities and colleges and other schools, as well as some from private industry, who has also been researching and using Learning Objects for years) and store them in some massive database. Essentially what you've created is a Learning Object Repository.

The reason for such excitement is any of that material in the Repository can be extracted and repurposed elsewhere (i.e. in helping another new prof find new or different ways of teaching Biology for instance).

This is what I believe the future of online learing will get to, and MIT is aiding in getting there. I also think that's why they called their courseware OpenCourseWare - so that other users may come in and repurpose the material for others to use. It's kinda like open source software for education!!

Well recently, there has been more and more attention being given to things called Learning Objects and Learning Object Repositories.

Basically, what MIT is doing, is placing a bunch of Learning Objects online. (A learning object can be considered to be an entire course, among other things...I won't get into it here, but rest assured there's a huge initiative behind this whole Learning Object thing in the educative and private community/industry)

Now imagine for a minute if an individual were to take all the learning objects in the world (i.e. all the courses offered by all the universities and colleges and other schools, as well as some from private industry, who has also been researching and using Learning Objects for years) and store them in some massive database. Essentially what you've created is a Learning Object Repository.

The reason for such excitement is any of that material in the Repository can be extracted and repurposed elsewhere (i.e. in helping another new prof find new or different ways of teaching Biology for instance).

This is what I believe the future of online learing will get to, and MIT is aiding in getting there. I also think that's why they called their courseware OpenCourseWare - so that other users may come in and repurpose the material for others to use. It's kinda like open source software for education!!

The precedents set so far do not seem to clearly indicate what would happen if an offshore webcaster began filling the void left by the stations that were effectively shut down by the recent CARP ruling.

However, the RIAA could probably argue for jurisdiction in some American court if said webcaster did not go through a few steps to ensure that it's audience was not American. Indeed, the courts will probably weigh heavily on the interpretaton of the webcaster's intent, target audience, and the effect of their service (If, at the end of the day, it's still easy for most Americans to receive service from said webcaster without licence fees being paid to the RIAA, said webcaster would probably be in for a rough ride).

The only way a foreign webcaster could fight this would probably be to execute an origin check, say with a combination of IP address identification/localization, a clickwrap agreement, and even probably an offline check such as a credit card number (for the billing address)

Net result? American audiences would still be left without access to these offshore webcasters. Such measures need not be 100% effective though, as it seems that the courts will accept that this is near impossible. Nevertheless, it would probably have to be shown that a concerted effort was made to block 90-95% of the American audience.

What if the webcaster ignores this and proceeds? The US courts, due to the lack of a defending opinion from the webcaster, would probably rule that jurisdiction applies. The RIAA would get a monetary judgement, probably for estimated licensing fees outstanding + legal costs, and try to have it recognized by the webcaster's local courts. The local courts would once again have to decide if jurisdiction applies. Even if they decide in favour of the webcaster, the webcaster's executive, and any funds/financing they have would have to avoid US control for the remainder of their lives. Not an enviable position.

So, I don't recommend trying to circumvent by attempting to operate outside the USA, IF a webcaster indends to target a US audience. My advice would be to stick to the basics, and support this bill. Call your congresperson, etc.

It sounds rather DMCA-like. I wonder if Parliament passed something DMCA-like with almost no fanfare.

No. Heritage Canada and Industry Canada have been collaborating in a very significant consultation process accross Canada. I attended their Ottawa consultation meeting, which had surprisingly strong "citizen" representation. The big american content producers were given their say, but not given a lot of credibility. Michael Geist, a U of Ottawa lawyer , was particularly good with not letting things by.

Canada DMCA opponents mailing list.
Digital-Copyright.ca
Thorough background brought to you by Matthew Skala, the chap that broke (IIRC) the Cyber-Patrol encryption and, again IIRC, was pursued by Mattel for DMCA violations, despite being a Canadian.

This was my final year project thesis. Just remember the golden rule unstructured 2 structured == convert 2 XML I wrote a [very bad] program in C++/Perl/tcsh IPC=pipes to add XML tags to English, and then index them into a search engine which would use the lingual data stored in the XML tags to help the search.

NIST does a MASSIVE competition on this annually. I don't want to be an XML-buzzword whore <Arnold Schwarzenegger accent> (XML commando eats Green berets, C++, Java, Perl, COBOL for breakfast)</Arnold Schwarzenegger accent> but you can't beat XML for easily converting anything that you can make sense out of into computer readable format. Real h3cKoRs use SGML, but us underlings have to stick with things we can understand like XML. As for expandability, if we want to encode something else into the document, then just tag-it-and-go

It took me 200 hours to fish out all these links (before the Google days), I don't want anyone to have to waste as much time as I did feeding the search engines exotic foods. It's a year old so pardon me for the odd broken link, armed with these you could probably turn jello into XML ;-)

My favourite bookmarx
PROJect[21 links]
Beginners' Guide[13 links]
Berkeley Linguistics Dept. Course Summaries, general stuffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzCryptic IR Vocabulary defined
Explanations of weird words like hypernym zzzzzzzzzzzzzzHow do we produce and understand speech
How Inverted Files are Created - Univeristy of Berkeley zzzzzzzzzzzzzzNLP Univ. of Indiana, very good basics e.g. word sense d
Simple langauge - useful.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWhat is Natural Language Processing, links
What is POS tagging........ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWord Sense Disambiguation defined
Word Sense Disambiguation in detail, scroll down far zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWord Sense Disambiguator - LOLITA (tested at MUC-7 and SENSEVAL competition as best)
XML for the absolute beginner

HTML, XML stuff + parsers[19 links]
Apache plug-in that uhhh does stuff with XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzConvert COM to XML
convert XML, HTML to Unix pipeable formats zzzzzzzzzzzzzzconverters to and from HTML
expat XML parser zzzzzzzzzzzzzzHTML Tidy - converts HTML 2 XML + source code!!
Parse DB (RDBMS, whatever) to XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPerl-XML Module List
PHP Manual XML parser functions - what the hell are they talking about, PHP Virtual M... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPublic SGML-XML Software
Pyxie - XML Processor for Python, Perl, etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzSGML+XML tools.org
The XML Resource Centre - massive number of links zzzzzzzzzzzzzzW4F wrapper - wrapper converts XML to HTML
XFlat - convert flat file into XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzXML Parsers and other XML stuff
XML.com - Parsers, etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzXML-Data Catalog System - uhhhh looks close
XTAL's general converter - convert anything 2 XML

other Background[8 links]
Is Linux ready for the Enterprise, scalable... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzLinux reliability
Linux Versus Windows NT, Mark(sysinternals bloke) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPC reliability (pcworld)
SPEC - Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzSystems benchmarks
TPC - Transaction Processing Performance Council zzzzzzzzzzzzzzUnix Beats Back NT In EDA Workstation Arena
Proper TREC(-8) QA systems[2 links]

pg. 387 LIMSI-CNRS pretty deep parsing[2 links]
More links....
NLP, IR links - lots to corpii, etc.

pg. 575 U. of Ottawa and NRL (shit system, got 0%)[1 links]
LAKE Lab
pg. 607! University of Sheffield (crap system, but OPEN SOURCE!)[2 links]
GATE - FREE IE app w`source code
LaSIE - ER, coreference, template (cv)

pg. 617 Univ of Surrey (inconclusive matches)[2 links]
System Quirk - Or is this their search system..... Hmmmmmm
Univ of Surrey - pointers (hopefully this is their WILDER search system...)

SMU - Pg. 65[1 links]
Natural Language Processing Laboratory at SMU

Textract[2 links]
Cymfony - Technology
Textract - State of the Art Information Extraction

Xerox uhhhhh maybe[1 links]
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(OVERVIEW) 1999 TREC-8 Q&A Track Home Page
NLP bloke, Univ Sussex


Tcl-Tk[4 links] Tcl tutorial
Tcl-Tk Contributed Programs Index
Tcl-Tk Resources, sources
TclXML - manipulating XML using Tcl-Tk
Artificial Natural Language - Is this what I'm trying to parse into...
Comparison of Indexers - Prise vs. Inquery vs. MG, etc.
Eagles - Language Engineering Standards
Language Technology Group - lots of modules!
LDC - Linguistic Data Consortium, lots of corpora
Lexical Resources
Links 2 resources, indexers.....
Lots of IR stuff, University of uhhh
Managing Gigabytes Indexer
Managing Gigabytes Manuals and stuff
Htdig search system
NLP & IR (NLPIR, NIST) Group
OVERVIEW OF MUC-7-MET-2
Perl XML Indexing - XML search engine type thing
Phrasys Language Processing Software Components (money)
QA HCI bullshit
SIGIR - TREC-type thing, resources
SMART indexer system documentation
Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Home Page
The Natural Language Software Registry
Thunderstone IE and IR products
WordNet - FREE DOWNLOADABLE lexical English database

Page created with URL+, nice utility for working with internet shortcuts

This was my final year project thesis. Just remember the golden rule unstructured 2 structured == convert 2 XML I wrote a [very bad] program in C++/Perl/tcsh IPC=pipes to add XML tags to English, and then index them into a search engine which would use the lingual data stored in the XML tags to help the search.

NIST does a MASSIVE competition on this annually. I don't want to be an XML-buzzword whore <Arnold Schwarzenegger accent> (XML commando eats Green berets, C++, Java, Perl, COBOL for breakfast)</Arnold Schwarzenegger accent> but you can't beat XML for easily converting anything that you can make sense out of into computer readable format. Real h3cKoRs use SGML, but us underlings have to stick with things we can understand like XML. As for expandability, if we want to encode something else into the document, then just tag-it-and-go

It took me 200 hours to fish out all these links (before the Google days), I don't want anyone to have to waste as much time as I did feeding the search engines exotic foods. It's a year old so pardon me for the odd broken link, armed with these you could probably turn jello into XML ;-)

My favourite bookmarx
PROJect[21 links]
Beginners' Guide[13 links]
Berkeley Linguistics Dept. Course Summaries, general stuffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzCryptic IR Vocabulary defined
Explanations of weird words like hypernym zzzzzzzzzzzzzzHow do we produce and understand speech
How Inverted Files are Created - Univeristy of Berkeley zzzzzzzzzzzzzzNLP Univ. of Indiana, very good basics e.g. word sense d
Simple langauge - useful.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWhat is Natural Language Processing, links
What is POS tagging........ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWord Sense Disambiguation defined
Word Sense Disambiguation in detail, scroll down far zzzzzzzzzzzzzzWord Sense Disambiguator - LOLITA (tested at MUC-7 and SENSEVAL competition as best)
XML for the absolute beginner

HTML, XML stuff + parsers[19 links]
Apache plug-in that uhhh does stuff with XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzConvert COM to XML
convert XML, HTML to Unix pipeable formats zzzzzzzzzzzzzzconverters to and from HTML
expat XML parser zzzzzzzzzzzzzzHTML Tidy - converts HTML 2 XML + source code!!
Parse DB (RDBMS, whatever) to XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPerl-XML Module List
PHP Manual XML parser functions - what the hell are they talking about, PHP Virtual M... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPublic SGML-XML Software
Pyxie - XML Processor for Python, Perl, etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzSGML+XML tools.org
The XML Resource Centre - massive number of links zzzzzzzzzzzzzzW4F wrapper - wrapper converts XML to HTML
XFlat - convert flat file into XML zzzzzzzzzzzzzzXML Parsers and other XML stuff
XML.com - Parsers, etc. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzXML-Data Catalog System - uhhhh looks close
XTAL's general converter - convert anything 2 XML

other Background[8 links]
Is Linux ready for the Enterprise, scalable... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzLinux reliability
Linux Versus Windows NT, Mark(sysinternals bloke) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzPC reliability (pcworld)
SPEC - Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzSystems benchmarks
TPC - Transaction Processing Performance Council zzzzzzzzzzzzzzUnix Beats Back NT In EDA Workstation Arena
Proper TREC(-8) QA systems[2 links]

pg. 387 LIMSI-CNRS pretty deep parsing[2 links]
More links....
NLP, IR links - lots to corpii, etc.

pg. 575 U. of Ottawa and NRL (shit system, got 0%)[1 links]
LAKE Lab
pg. 607! University of Sheffield (crap system, but OPEN SOURCE!)[2 links]
GATE - FREE IE app w`source code
LaSIE - ER, coreference, template (cv)

pg. 617 Univ of Surrey (inconclusive matches)[2 links]
System Quirk - Or is this their search system..... Hmmmmmm
Univ of Surrey - pointers (hopefully this is their WILDER search system...)

SMU - Pg. 65[1 links]
Natural Language Processing Laboratory at SMU

Textract[2 links]
Cymfony - Technology
Textract - State of the Art Information Extraction

Xerox uhhhhh maybe[1 links]
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(OVERVIEW) 1999 TREC-8 Q&A Track Home Page
NLP bloke, Univ Sussex


Tcl-Tk[4 links] Tcl tutorial
Tcl-Tk Contributed Programs Index
Tcl-Tk Resources, sources
TclXML - manipulating XML using Tcl-Tk
Artificial Natural Language - Is this what I'm trying to parse into...
Comparison of Indexers - Prise vs. Inquery vs. MG, etc.
Eagles - Language Engineering Standards
Language Technology Group - lots of modules!
LDC - Linguistic Data Consortium, lots of corpora
Lexical Resources
Links 2 resources, indexers.....
Lots of IR stuff, University of uhhh
Managing Gigabytes Indexer
Managing Gigabytes Manuals and stuff
Htdig search system
NLP & IR (NLPIR, NIST) Group
OVERVIEW OF MUC-7-MET-2
Perl XML Indexing - XML search engine type thing
Phrasys Language Processing Software Components (money)
QA HCI bullshit
SIGIR - TREC-type thing, resources
SMART indexer system documentation
Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Home Page
The Natural Language Software Registry
Thunderstone IE and IR products
WordNet - FREE DOWNLOADABLE lexical English database

Page created with URL+, nice utility for working with internet shortcuts

Michael Geist's hompage at University of Ottawa

Recently the Canadian Recording Industry Association sent our ISP this ceases & desist letter. Fortunately our ISP called us up and told us that they wouldn't be shutting us down unless they received a court order. We then fired back this response to CRIA pointing out the absurdities of their letter to our ISP.

A good source of info on copyright in Canada is Michael Geist's website. He actually wrote an article entitled Napster north of the 49th parallel outlining the current copyright situation faced by file shares up here.

Matt.

(IANAL)

Just thought I'd add a point to this discussion. While it's all very sexy to have a napster server on the outlaw military installation of sealand there is a much better alternative.

Host it in Canada.

That right, under canadian copyright law's fair use section Napster like uses of copyrighted materials are legal. While as I said, IANAL, I was listening to a radio show on the CBC called Cross Country Checkup on Feb 18 and the subject was Should Napster be shut down?. If you follow the link you'll see that Michael Geist, Assistant Prof. of Law at U of Ottawa was one of the guests. According to him our copyright laws have no provision in them saying that napster like uses of copyrighted materials are illegal, as long as nobody profits from such transactions.

So while running a napster server out of some outlaw state is pretty cool, Canada makes a much better alternative. It has good bandwidth, good living conditions and you can't be shut down. If this sounds too good to be true, than contact Mr. Geist through his webpage.

"Sex on TV is bad. You might fall off." - Monty Python

--

THe second Idea, that the world around you is fake, Has also been done a few times in sci-fi, though not as often as the AI thing. However it is based (stolen) on one of Socrates thought experiments, and for the geeks of the world, it is also not a new concept. But for all the non-geeks, and proto-geeks out there, this is world-shattering strangeness.

I don't think you can assume that all geeks have read Socrates. I haven't (although I am familiar with the Cave of Shadows bit), and I bet that many geeks still in HS haven't read it either. (I may be biased, since my HS sucked. Perhaps most people do have exposure in HS.)

Ok, I just read the Allegory of the Cave. It doesn't really seem to address the concept of reality being based only on perceptions so much as persecution of those who have seen beyond the shadows. So, I don't think it's really all that applicable to the Matrix. Although it does kind of touch on the question of the true nature of reality, that's not the main point.

Anyway, I don't think you should assume that all geeks would be familiar with the allegory. And, the Matrix made the fact that all you have are your perceptions much more tangible. It clearly demonstrated that reality (for you) is really only what you percieve.