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Yeah, fucking with the brains of children to damage them psychological for life, not the same. Why is this different from paedophiles grooming children to exploit them, of course it is different the paedophiles do it to a child here and there, the corporations do it on a mass scale. They are actively promoting sex to children, why, what are the corporate executives after http://pediatrics.aappublicati..., https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharon....

How damning is that stuff, is profit all that psychopath corporate executives are after, they know, they full well know all the harm they cause. Not only do they not care but it seems very much like they want the outcomes. Are corporations mass grooming children for their corporate executives, so that those corporate executives can access and abuse those children after their databases have exposed the most accessible and exploitable ones.

This is starting to look real sick probably because it is real sick.

“Cartoons and drawings depicting paedophilia do not encourage people to commit child sex offences in real life, a report by experts who treat sexual problems concludes.”
“There is no evidence to support the claim that the existence of lolicon, or engagement with such content, encourages “cognitive distortions” or criminal acts.”
“[T]here is no demonstrable relationship between the production of yaoi, participation in online yaoi communities and harm to actual children.”

LOL fucking noob.

After Fukushima Japan passed a new law to forbid journalist from reporting anything about it.

While sites like Enenews have been reporting how all the underground water has been polluted near Fukushima.

There are even radioactive hot spots in Tokyo.

And many Japanese are faking the origin of the food so that they could export radioactive food.

The Japanese are fucked.

No more fucked than us Australians. We chose Homebush for the site of the "Green" Olympics because it was so heavily contaminated. Then we got caught lying about the mercury clean up - several times. All so a few companies could make a few fast bucks and the government save money, and face. Mercury - one of the main problems at Homebush, is actually not difficult to clean up, and one company (FineMetals) came up with a process to make it profitable - but instead it was decided to pay (buddy deal for Thiess) to have some of it dug up and dumped elsewhere.

The dioxin problem was kept fairly hidden until after the Olympics.

Really? You're going to link to a personal website of a .edu employee to refute the standard dictionary definition of "scientific theory?"

How could you possibly do that? If your link says monkeys can fly, that won't change what the standard definition of a scientific theory is, or where the thing called a "theory" fits into the scientific method?

If you check another of that person's pages: http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb...
You see them recite the actual consensus Scientific Method, and then declare it a myth. Nice, but that is not science, that is quackary.

It points out that the Scientific Method is new, post 1800. True enough. And that Newton wasn't a scientist because "science" hadn't been invented yet. True that, he was a Natural Philosopher. Now, I may love Natural Philosophy even more than science, but that can't and won't change the meaning of "Scientific Method" or what "theory" means in the context of modern science. Indeed, we don't need whatever the consensus was in Newton's time for that, we need the modern consensus.

The strange stuff you linked even claims that Einstein's Thoery of Relativity was "discovered in a dream." What a load of hogwash. The theory comes later, even if the initial idea was in fact from a dream. There is a step near the start of the scientific process where you do indeed engage in wild thinking. But that is not the step that involves "theories." It is even pre-hypothesis.

If you can't even read a mainstream definition of what "scientific method" means, if you're so allergic to wikipedia that you can't read it, even where it acts as a dictionary, then no weird niche personal website by a little known professor will make you science-y, or change what the definition of "science" is when you get a "formal education."

Sigh... I doubt this with help you at all, but it's worth a try. This is the simplest summary I could find:
http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb...

I can suggest additional topics and readings, though I don't think you're actually interested.

The problem with autodidacts is that they tend to focus only on a few small areas, ignoring ancillary topics they find uninteresting or to lessen the importance of topics they find difficult or that challenge their preconceptions.

>You can say bad things all you want, you just can't be defamatory.

Trouble is if I think you've defamed me I can take you to court and it will cost you your house before a judge gets around to making that decision. Even if you win you will only get some of your costs back from me. It will also tie you up in court for years. They are called SLAPPs Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation and the best way to avoid them is not to say anything bad about anyone no matter what they have done:
http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/SLAPPS.html
http://www.edo.org.au/edonq/images/stories/factsheets/edonq_defamation_factsheet.pdf - HOW TO DUCK DEFAMATION AND SLIP 'SLAPP' SUITS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

http://www.uow.edu.au/~/bmartin/dissent/documents/AIDS/

http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

Maybe the whole point is to waste your time and dumb you down and keep you locked up in a mirror maze?

And failing that, to neuter you politically? See Jeff Schmidt's "Dsiciplined Minds":
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
"How to survive? Well, how can captive soldiers survive what is commonly called "brainwashing"? The US Army has a manual on resisting indoctrination when a prisoner of war. As Schmidt amusingly notes, this manual wasn't written for students, but "students in graduate or professional school should be able to put such resistance techniques to good use." (p. 239). A person who maintains an independent, nonconforming outlook in any institution, including a prisoner-of-war camp, is seen as deviant and threatening. The keys to resistance are knowing what you're up against, preparing to take action, working with others (organization!), resisting at all levels, and dealing with collaborators by cutting them off from key information and attempting to win them over. Schmidt gives a revealing account of his own difficulties in graduate school and how he survived as a radical."

Undergrad is not quite as bad though. But remember, all the professors and assistants whose salaries you are paying (even by incurring debt) -- they have all gone through this brainwashing process.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Something else I wrote on this:
http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle/browse_thread/thread/3dd2b7e6648da125/231e63e966e932df?hl=en#231e63e966e932df

And on how things may change, by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

Or by someone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Good luck.

As others have said, you can not get accurate speech recognition for multiple speakers. Even for the best of breed closed source software (Dragon) you also need to have good control over microphone quality and placement, and the technique in this instance is to shadow the speakers (put them on headphones and speak into the microphone). transcript.el will remove some of the pain points for transcribing for you if you're happy using emacs. It works out as cost/time effective - I reckon it takes transcription time from 5-8x the length of the recording to something like 2-3x the length, but at this point in time you're not going to find a satisfactory open source solution to machine transcription, either shadowed, or from live tapes.

Thanks for the great link. And here is another that relates to that:
    http://www.disciplined-minds.com/
"""
[Schmidt] argues in Disciplined Minds that work is an inherently political activity and that hiring therefore involves political screening. ...
    Who are you going to be? That is the question.
    In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict "ideological discipline."
    The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy.
    Schmidt details the battle one must fight to be an independent thinker and to pursue one's own social vision in today's corporate society. He shows how an honest reassessment of what it really means to be a professional employee can be remarkably liberating. After reading this brutally frank book, no one who works for a living will ever think the same way about his or her job.
"""

Example review:
    http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html

And in some ways, that is not too different from Noam Chomsky's argument here:
    "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream"
    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Yes, yes, yes, and when I recieved my Doctorate in Baraminology from Thunderwood College we...

Wait, Wollongong is a real place? You Aussies and your crazy words...

google this - "C++ expression trees"

I don't know how you found this so wonderful, but its pretty much a basic C++ programming 101 class.

So the NSW state police have been given the same powers that other state police forces/services and the Federal Police already have? Who cares?

As has already been pointed out, it's under the same type of arrangements as other Australian agencies are subject to: Court ordered warrants. Not just any court, but the Supreme Court of NSW.

When applying for a warrant, the police must provide convincing reasons to the judge, and the contents of these warrants come out in court if a prosecution results. Somehow I don't think "he looks funny" is going to cut it.

I think this is a reasonable use of police powers, with suitable checks and balances in place

Have you ever heard of THE YELDHAM SCANDAL? http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/yeldham.html

basicly Mr yeldham was a pet supreme court judge that the police used when they wanted to do nasty things.

really juicy reading a quote " Mr. Yeldham, a retired supreme court judge in New South Wales committed suicide when he was subpoenaed to appear before a Royal Commission inquiring into police corruption and the protection of paedophiles."

How about you just stop electing people? Why do you need a fucking "big brother" to look after you anyway? I am an adult. I am responsible for my self. I don't need a government telling me I should wear a seat belt, not take drugs etc.

How about (if you want a government at all), you have a look at demarchy (see also Demarchy; random selection of decision makers)? Or heck, with present technology, everyone could vote on everything! Of course, you would have to introduce a quorum, maybe at least 60% of people have to actually vote for anything to pass. Then if people don't care, well, who needs more laws anyway?

Basically, this man, he won't change anything.

At the end of the day, you still have rich people who screw over poor people. Poor people who screw over poor people. Politicians who screw over everyone (and bend over backwards for donations from rich people and corporations).

Basically, for all you people who think that this new fellow is going to be "different", tell me in four years time whether you still have to go to fucking work nearly every day of the week (for the vast majority who do). Heck, I would guess at least half of the things he promised aren't even possible without the Congress, and they aren't different, even if you think this man is.

Big deal. You got a "black" fellow as president. When you are you going to abolish the outdated presidential system? That would be real change worth having.

The whole nuclear winter thing is a bunch of politics getting mixed up in science. Thus far, there has been no good proof that there's any sort of reality in it. For a decent paper on it have a look at http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/88spp.html he covers some of the background of the politicization of the concept.

As for Sagan himself on the issue, his research seems more speculative rather than concrete. Remember he also predicted that the first Iraq war would lead to global cooling because of the particulate matter generated from the oil fires Saddam threatened to set. Well indeed Saddam did set those fires as he threatened and it had no measurable impact on our climate.

Don't confuse scientists speculating on things with real empiricism. There's lots of interesting ideas and theories, something with mathematical or computer models to back them up. That doesn't mean any of it has a thing to do with reality. That proof is separate.

String theory would be a good example. It is, in fact, not a theory. It makes no testable prediction. It's a neat bit of math and who knows, might even be correct. However at this time all it is is a neat bit of math, a hypothesis on how things might work. It won't even be a theory until they figure out how to make some testable predictions and won't be at all something to hang your hat on until there've been some serious tests of those predictions.

Sure. Briefly, Micheal sucks.
The Michael MIC sucks so badly in ways we know about that the spec says you need to drop the connection for 1 minute if you detect any possible tampering. It was chosen in order to be able to be implemented on the hardware of the day without much performance loss, not for security.
WPA with TKIP is still considered strong, though theoretically attackable for today, but I will be greatly surprised (as would the designer of the MIC) if it lasts much longer.
Once the MIC falls, the scheme becomes open to similar attacks that killed WEP.

The plan espoused by most wlan security people is get the heck off WEP 5 years ago towards something stronger, and be planning all your new equipment purchases in order to get off of WPA-TKIP to WPA2-AES soon.

Here's a supporting blurb from the 802.11i standard that defines the basis for WPA and WPA2:

The TKIP MIC trades off security in favor of implementability on pre-RSNA devices. Michael provides only weak protection against active attacks. A failure of the MIC in a received MSDU indicates a probable active attack. A successful attack against the MIC would mean an attacker could inject forged data frames and perform further effective attacks against the encryption key itself. If TKIP implementation detects a
probable active attack, TKIP shall take countermeasures as specified in this subclause. These countermeasures accomplish the following goals:

MIC failure events should be logged as a security-relevant matter. A MIC failure is an almost certain indication of an active attack and warrants a follow-up by the system administrator.

The rate of MIC failures must be kept below two per minute. This implies that STAs and APs detecting two MIC failure events within 60 s must disable all receptions using TKIP for a period of 60 s. The slowdown makes it difficult for an attacker to make a large number of forgery attempts in a short time.

As an additional security feature, the PTK and, in the case of the Authenticator, the GTK should be changed.

From http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.11i-2004.pdf section 8.3.2.4
Also:

The confidentiality and integrity mechanisms of TKIP are not as robust as those of CCMP. TKIP is designed to operate within the hardware limitations of a broad class of pre-RSNA devices. TKIP is suitable for firmware-only, hardware-compatible upgrade of fielded equipment. RSNA devices should only use TKIP when communicating with devices that are unable or not configured to communicate using CCMP.

Section 8.3.1 of 802.11i-2004, emphasis mine

Also see Security Analysis of Michael: the IEEE 802.11i Message Integrity Code

Hello APOLOGIST. I suppose you blame the prosecution of simple possession. But possession exist in order to consume. I doubt someone keeps hash just to look at it....

And when it gets consumed and abused it is SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN that it DAMAGES THE BRAIN. And I am talking just about hash wich is one of the lightest drugs out there.

Of course I want to emphatize the fact that it is proven by scientists working on facts rather than some pot smoking retard glorifying the miracles of his marijuana crap on a personal website or blog.

So when consumption it's done on a mass scale you get a society made up of amotivated morons with reduced mental capabilities. Isn't that more harmful than allowing piracy?

Stop making stupid examples.

Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/03/2264063.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mental-health/dn14047-heavy-cannabis-use-linked-to-smaller-brain-parts.html
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/65/6/694
http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW044791.html

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/82cab/index.html

Useful analysis of the effects of a nuclear war.

Overkill is a myth.

He's probably saying that Backpropagation was less efficient than GA.

Posted anon to keep my mods.

Ok I had a look at TFA and I decided they were running the wrong test. What we're actually looking at is whether the corruption index is dependent on the vote. I fired up R and ran a quick kruskal-wallis test (1 way non parametric analysis of variance): > ct kruskal.test ( ct$CPI ~ ct$Vote) Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test data: ct$CPI by ct$Vote Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared = 21.531, df = 3, p-value = 8.166e-05 So there is a significant difference between voting behaviour by corruption index. However this doesn't tell us the size and direction of the difference, so I ran a quick notched boxplot of vote against CPI: plot(ct$CPI ~ ct$Vote, notch=T) The graph is here. If you look at where the notches in the boxplots don't overlap, that will tell you where the significant difference lies. It turns out that the median corruption index score for the yes votes is significantly lower than for all the other groups. This indicates that there is an association between corruption perception and voting yes (i.e. yes voters are seen as more corrupt). This appears to be a very strong significant difference and not the marginally significant difference as in TFA at all.

"Editors not only have enormous power, but they seldom are subject to peer review themselves. Some of them keep their positions for decades. Potential authors may complain privately about inconsistencies and bias, but they are seldom willing to say anything openly. Their fear is that if they did, they would be discriminated against. As in the case of other types of suppression, the fear of stepping out of line has a much greater effect than the few attacks on dissidents that do occur."

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/doc uments/ss/ssall.html#ch5

2) People create a lot of greenhouse gases, and pump them directly into the atmosphere. This comes by way of car exhaust, factory air pollution, power plants, and a host of other things. Automobile pollution is probably the single biggest cause though.

Actually, transportation fuels (which car exhaust is a subset of) are only the #3 contributor of greenhouse gases behind industrial emissions (#2) and power plant emissions (#1). Coal power plants are by far the worst emitters of greenhouse gases (among other nasty stuff, like radioactive Uranium, Thorium, and Potassium-40).

While cars are definitely part of the problem, I think the world needs to first focus on the biggest conributors, and start realizing that we need nuclear power plants. This is a big problem in the US, where public opinion is fairly galvanized against going nuclear.

Some interesting links:
EPA CO2 emission inventory (PDF)
Wikipedia page on Greenhouse Gas
good comparison between Coal and Nuke plants
Excellent article in Wired about this issue

For further reading:

• The arguments about RSI, by Gabriele Bammer and Brian Martin, Community Health Studies, 1988 - Talks about 4 different kinds of RSI sufferers.
• Neurosis in the workplace
• Slashdot | Getting Treatment for Carpal Tunnel?

Against intelectual property:

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/i l03.html

I agree with what you say, except:

Protecting intellectual property is good.

Even if applied "properly," I question the validity of the assumption that ideas can be "owned." The term itself is misleading and two major branches of intellectual property (copyright and patents) are based on highly dubious assumptions.

The arguments are extensive, and others have framed them far better than I can. Consider reading "Information Liberation" by Brian Martin (available online, of course), in particular Chapter 3: Against Intellectual Property (also available in PDF). There are many others interesting texts on the subject.

In short, I think a fairly compelling case can be made for "intellectual property" being, at it's core, a rather "bad" thing.

I agree with what you say, except:

Protecting intellectual property is good.

Even if applied "properly," I question the validity of the assumption that ideas can be "owned." The term itself is misleading and two major branches of intellectual property (copyright and patents) are based on highly dubious assumptions.

The arguments are extensive, and others have framed them far better than I can. Consider reading "Information Liberation" by Brian Martin (available online, of course), in particular Chapter 3: Against Intellectual Property (also available in PDF). There are many others interesting texts on the subject.

In short, I think a fairly compelling case can be made for "intellectual property" being, at it's core, a rather "bad" thing.

I agree with what you say, except:

Protecting intellectual property is good.

Even if applied "properly," I question the validity of the assumption that ideas can be "owned." The term itself is misleading and two major branches of intellectual property (copyright and patents) are based on highly dubious assumptions.

The arguments are extensive, and others have framed them far better than I can. Consider reading "Information Liberation" by Brian Martin (available online, of course), in particular Chapter 3: Against Intellectual Property (also available in PDF). There are many others interesting texts on the subject.

In short, I think a fairly compelling case can be made for "intellectual property" being, at it's core, a rather "bad" thing.

Consider reading "Information liberation: Challenging the corruptions of information power" by Brian Martin (of course, it's freely available online as a PDF). It discusses aspects of information and freedom. In particular, Chapter 3, "Against Intellectual Property", makes the case for why IP may not be a good thing for society. It oulines the main arguments, and has references to other research where people have analyzed how helpful various forms of IP are.

Consider reading "Information liberation: Challenging the corruptions of information power" by Brian Martin (of course, it's freely available online as a PDF). It discusses aspects of information and freedom. In particular, Chapter 3, "Against Intellectual Property", makes the case for why IP may not be a good thing for society. It oulines the main arguments, and has references to other research where people have analyzed how helpful various forms of IP are.

I worked with the 1-Wire weather station in one of the engineering subjects I did a couple of years back. The lecturer for that subject maintains this weather site. I don't remember much of what I did but I remember being able to pull data from it using Java. I would imagine it would be pretty easy to turn this into a servlet. You don't even have to be an electrical/computer engineer to make it work. Btw, I am a computer science major.

"1) Nobody who actually planned how a nuclear war was to be fought has actually told us; 2) no nuclear was has ever been fought; and 3) wars never turn out exactly as planned, so I doubt you're in a position to make this assertion."

The assertion is based on the simple fact that if the US hit Russia first, Russia's weapons (except for submarines) would be toast. If Russia hit the US first, all of the US's SECOND-STRIKE weapons would be toast (unless our ABM defenses proved extremely effective, which is doubtful.) The US first-strike weapons would presumably be launched on sufficient warning.

In either case, MOST of the world's weapons would be destroyed in the first hour. The submarine weapons would be one-megaton at best (and the following references indicate 500 KT or less) and directed at specific targets - not spread all over the continent. Any notion of "massive indiscriminate retaliation" is nonsense.

A quick Google finds this paper:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/88spp. html

Which I quote:

(1) Targeting. The TTAPS paper uses a baseline case of 5000 megatonnes (MT), supplemented by a wide range of other scenarios which also lead to nuclear winter effects. Though in general terms some of the scenarios appear reasonable, no detailed strategic rationale is offered for any of them[22]. A cynic might say that the key characteristic of the scenarios is that they produce sufficient smoke or dust to produce nuclear winter. This is illustrated by the 100MT scenario, which is often misinterpreted as 100 bombs on 100 cities. Actually it involves 1000 bombs and the burning of a vast number of cities each of just the right size. It is easy to misinterpret the results for this scenario as showing that any 100MT war is enough to trigger nuclear winter, whereas any militarily realistic targeting of 100MT would cause relatively few cities to burn and probably produce little cooling according to present models.

If the scenarios had been designed to produce a spread of soot injections rather than a fairly constant soot injection for different megatonnages, the result of nuclear winter would have seemed more sensitive to variations in targeting.

Ehrlich et al. concentrate on a 10,000MT scenario which generates more severe environmental effects than either the Ambio scenario[23] or the TTAPS baseline case. They state that they take the TTAPS 10,000MT 'severe' case as their reference case because of policy implications[24]. (According to Michael MacCracken, TTAPS in their draft paper presented a 10,000MT baseline. After receiving comments, they corrected an error of a factor of 2 in the smoke density and also reset the baseline to 5000MT. These two changes counteracted each other, leaving the baseline consequences unchanged. Ehrlich et al. considered a maximum but to them plausible scenario which, after the factor of 2 adjustment, turned out to be the TTAPS 10,000MT scenario[25].)

This survivalist Web site
http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/factsvsmyths .htm
also refers to a number of myths about nuclear war, including the nuclear winter scenario. They cite the following:

"Non-propagandizing scientists recently have calculated that the climatic and other environmental effects of even an all-out nuclear war would be much less severe than the catastrophic effects repeatedly publicized by popular astronomer Carl Sagan and his fellow activist scientists, and by all the involved Soviet scientists. Conclusions reached from these recent, realistic calculations are summarized in an article, "Nuclear Winter Reappraised", featured in the 1986 summer issue of Foreign Affairs, the prestigious quarterly of the Council on Foreign Relations. The authors, Starley L. Thompson and Stephen H. Schneider, are atmospheric scientists with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They showed " that

Having a nice big conductor like this might have interesting effects in storms...

It might stop charge building up in the clouds (by leaking it to the ground), so stop lightning in the area altogether. If it doesn't, it would regularly be hit by lightning which may do something very wierd to the cable: There is research into using carbon nanotubes as actuators (http://www.uow.edu.au/science/research/ipri/curre ntprojects.html).

I believe they report strains of about 0.5%, so assuming 0.1% strain (because the elevator isn't designed to be an actuator)... and a strike at say 5km altitude... a lightning strike could cause the cable to suddenly try to become 5m shorter! Thats about 20 feet for those in Liberia and Burma. Oh and the US :p
I don't know what would happen, but its probably more likely that the cable would snap than pull the space station on the end down...

Funny things, nanotubes!

That quote doesn't contradict what I'm saying. The second two links when googling for astroturf and grassroots yield this and this, written in 1998 and 1996 about ordinary political astroturfing, and both of them make it seem like the term had been around for a little while.

Sure, Microsoft in 1998 might have been the first time a big tech company astroturfed in forums and got caught.

Keywords/topics are the primary feature of Epiphany's bookmark system. A patch exists to build a hierarchical menu out of them. The idea is to be easy-to-use but not radical (like a graph structure would be). Try it out if you want.

http://www.dsl.uow.edu.au/~harvey/code_epiphany.sh tml

The Epiphany system can become unwieldy once you have either a large number of topics or a large number of bookmarks.

There is a patch to build a hierarchical menu of bookmarks automatically by taking into account the bookmarks where a user selected two or more topics. It needs users to test it though.

http://www.dsl.uow.edu.au/~harvey/code_epiphany.sh tml

I have been a struggling UNIX systems programmer and only recently have I realized I have not done computer architecture, complexity theory, or a good OS subject with some programming in it. My progress has generally been slow in becoming a UNIX "hacker". My advice to people is to do as much theoretical subjects at university because practical ones like .NET, ASP or whatever can easily be learned afterwards.

I have been a struggling UNIX systems programmer and only recently have I realized I have not done computer architecture, complexity theory, or a good OS subject with some programming in it. My progress has generally been slow in becoming a UNIX "hacker". My advice to people is to do as much theoretical subjects at university because practical ones like .NET, ASP or whatever can easily be learned afterwards.

If you are interested in seeing what a mega-tsunami might do to your favourite coastline, have a look at this: http://www.uow.edu.au/science/eesc/research/Variou s%20research/tsun.htm

You will find photos (linked at the bottom) of some of the more dramatic and long term effects, such as cavitation erosion of bedrock, boulder deposition and rockshelf breakage (and deposition).

Note: the information is Australian centric but does discuss other tsunamis from history.

There is _NOTHING_ in Canberra... :-)

Honestly though, Canberra is a very small town, so if you are expecting to see "Australia" while you're there, there's not much. Your best bet is to look here or here for things to do there.

Otherwise bear in mind that it's about 200 miles to Sydney, 400 miles to Melbourne or 800 miles to Brisbane, where the real stuff happens...

What kind of things do you like to see when travelling?

Canberra LUG here, Wollongong LUG seems offline at the moment.

if you're going to trumpet Brian Martin's work, do it with a link and a few excerpts.

Against Intellectual Property, Chapter 3 of Information Liberation by Brian Martin

Instead, the underwriters, led by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston, will get 3%

All very nice, reputable people who really don't deserve to be treated like shit. I mean, they'd never to that to anybody themselves would they?

What Dowd fails to mention, in all of this, is that Level A certification requires a detailed specification of requirements that the system must implement. These requirements must be covered by test cases that give full requirement coverage (or appropriate analysis) and structural coverage (for Level A, it is MC/DC statement coverage). The Open Source methodology is a long way from being a DO-178B compliant process, and rightly so - the rules for change control of a Level A-certified product are the exact opposite of the "release early, release often" method embraced by a typical open source program, because the development objectives are entirely different. This does not mean that an open source program can not be certified to Level A - it means that it requires a great deal of work on behalf of the organization submitting it for Level A compliance, first.

DO-178B is the most rigorous safety evaluation standard in the aerospace, automotive, or defense industries. There is no difference in the DO-178B certification guidelines for verifying a closed-source vs. open-source application. The problem that both of them have to come up with is documentation of the process used to produce the product, along with design and architectural requirements for the application that can be independently verified for full MC/DC statement coverage by an independent third party. Each application must be shown to accomodate space (memory access) and time (real-time scheduling) partitioning requirements on any device it is run on.

Most Level A OS's are a RTOS with (if you're lucky) ANSI and POSIX libraries for I/O and math. There are companies that have modified Linux for use in real-time embedded applications, but the standard Linux scheduler is not real-time, and does not perform space partitioning of application memory (which means it can be Level E, but nothing above that). If it does not affect safety-critical parameters, it doesn't have to be Level A - Levels D or E are acceptable.

I ended up dropping out of university and moving into the computer security industry full time, and haven't looked back since. Off and on, I've had to write some code for a work-related project, but not that often (usually use commerical security solutions).

I suspect some of these security guys who have been around a long time, whether they know it or not - develop an ivory tower complex. Nobody knows how to do anything better than they can, because they've seen it all - or you have to prove yourself by being an honours student or something.

Bah! I say... I'm making more money than you smelly students anyway! ;-)

I ended up dropping out of university and moving into the computer security industry full time, and haven't looked back since. Off and on, I've had to write some code for a work-related project, but not that often (usually use commerical security solutions).

I suspect some of these security guys who have been around a long time, whether they know it or not - develop an ivory tower complex. Nobody knows how to do anything better than they can, because they've seen it all - or you have to prove yourself by being an honours student or something.

Bah! I say... I'm making more money than you smelly students anyway! ;-)

quote found here:
University of Wollongong
In 1997, Gistics, Inc. published the following*:
Macintosh users:
spend 38 fewer hours per year 'Futzing" with files
save US $4,950 annually on support and training
use more tools (14.3 versus 8.3)
Save US $2,211 in three-year cost of ownership
Earn US $5.01 more per hour
Earn US $12.22 more revenue per hour of labor
Create US $14,550 more profits per year per person
Earn 32 percent more net profit per project and
Achieve platform payback in 7.2 months (versus 13.9)

*Page 56 Vaughan, T. 1998. Multimedia, Making it Work, Osborne McGraw Hill, Berkeley

It's the name of the Apple higher ed magazine here in Australia.

I don't know why you'd want the raw data. If you just want a data image, check your local TV station or accuweather.com. If you really want to be an armchair weather forcaster, try this. It does make a nice screen saver and the antenna looks pretty cool.

Yes, the scripture is different, but all three scriptures have the same basic source. The God they write about is the same God; one just refers to him as The Lord God, one refers to him as Allah, and one refers to him as Jehovah/Yahweh/whatever.

Oh, and Islam does believe in Jesus, or as they refer to him, Isa, or Eesa. Check out this. The Qur'an specifically refers to Christians as fellow People of The Book. Jesus is specifically referred to as a prophet. The question becomes, though, is he a 'son of God' in the meaning that we are all brothers and sisters, or is he the literal Son of God? Mistranslations and misinterpretations abound. So you are correct, in that Islam does not acknowledge Jesus as God's Child, but they do acknowledge and venerate him.

Or this. Here's another take on the whole thing. And another.

When you get right down to it, McDonalds, Burger King and Wendys all sell hamburgers. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all teach that there is the One True God, and that his word is law. Where they differ is what that word is, what it means, and so on.

Comedi is awsome. The very first driver described leads to The 8255 driver. It's author, Daniel Franklin, recomends "Alessandro Rubini's excellent book Linux Device Drivers (another fine O'Reilly publication)" Ahh, knowledge, what could be finer. Free software, free info. Go get it and become the research tech God you want to be.

This really isn't anything new or unique to printers, computers or anything else. It's called Planned Obsolescence .