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Speaking of aberrations, check out my (inappropriately named) sendmail for Matlab script. It doesn't get more aberrated than that!

Joris

I wonder how they will allow interation (no nasty thoughts please) to a DNA computer; actually - how do they make "JMP" instructions in DNA?

They can't iterate or jump. "There are computing tasks it inherently can't do". The "operations" it does are absolutely nothing like computer programming. These DNA computers generaly resemble your classic bogosort:

Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of cards in the air, picking them up at random, and then testing whether they are in order.

If the problem is simple enough then eventually you'll trip over the right answer by accident. With DNA computers each molecule represents a random potential solution. Since you can make molecules by the billions you can get massive parallelism. You may get 100's of trillions of "operations" per second, but almost all of those operations are the equivalent of tossing a deck of cards in the air then looking to see if they landed in the right order.

-

Look what it does to the Britney Spears video from Windowsmedia.com.

YHBT
YHL
HAND


(sorry, it was too obvious, couldnt resist :)

That link for the Jargon definition is broken. What happened to tuxedo.org? And if it's gone, who's maintaining the jargon file nowadays? I can find old mirrored copies, but there should be an authoritative source.

More related links.

That link for the Jargon definition is broken. What happened to tuxedo.org? And if it's gone, who's maintaining the jargon file nowadays? I can find old mirrored copies, but there should be an authoritative source.

More related links.

That link for the Jargon definition is broken. What happened to tuxedo.org? And if it's gone, who's maintaining the jargon file nowadays? I can find old mirrored copies, but there should be an authoritative source.

More related links.

Use paper tape and avoid retyping! If you are really hardcore you can punch metal tape like the US military and achieve nuclear survivability.

Enjoy.

Animaris Sabulosa

Cheers,

Maybe also of interest: the Computer Museum of the University of Amsterdam.

http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/

In the collection a.o.: a functional analog computer, the Electronic Associates Inc. Model 680 Scientific Computing System (http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/eai.ht ml, various machines for reading punchcards and paper tape, and lots more. Well worth a visit.

Maybe also of interest: the Computer Museum of the University of Amsterdam.

http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/

In the collection a.o.: a functional analog computer, the Electronic Associates Inc. Model 680 Scientific Computing System (http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/eai.ht ml, various machines for reading punchcards and paper tape, and lots more. Well worth a visit.

www.myrealbox.com supplies free (as in FREE IVERSON) and supposedly secure IMAP accounts. Free calendar, too, so now you'll be able to figure out how old you are.

I always thought the UvA Computermuseum was over here.

Took me a while to realize that this was the University of Virgina instead of the University of Amsterdam (also abbreviated UVA), which has a computer museum as well.

Took me a while to realize that this was the University of Virgina instead of the University of Amsterdam (also abbreviated UVA), which has a computer museum as well.

The Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) has a nice Computer Museum too. I was actually surprised to see the lead "UVA Computer Museum" directing me to another site.

>Someone should do an article on proper Internet message syntax vs. language rules.

Too late.

How very interesting to note once again that Americans tend to think that everything important in computers has been American. For instance, I don't see the Electrologica machines, the X1 and X8, mentioned anywhere, even though they were the first to incorporate interrupts. Oh well. :)

Oh, some more information is at the University of Amsterdam's Computer Museum's Electrologica X1 and X8 site.

The reason "the bare minimum is considered 44.1 KHz" is because that's a sample rate, not a frequency response measurement. Check out the definition of Nyquist Frequency to understand why you need to sample at double the max frequency you're interested in.

BTW, the current hot item in the digital audio world is 96Khz sampling rates. I don't know of a single instance of a human being able to distinguish 48Khz frequency tones. I can't explain it -- but then again the audio industry has never been ruled by logic.

from the Jargon:


Ken Thompson has since confirmed that this hack was implemented and that the Trojan Horse code did appear in the login binary of a Unix Support group machine. Ken says the crocked compiler was never distributed. Your editor has heard two separate reports that suggest that the crocked login did make it out of Bell Labs, notably to BBN, and that it enabled at least one late-night login across the network by someone using the login name `kt'.

I found this site with some stats.

It looks like you'd be dealing with a whoping 3203128 bits/disk.

With the format they used you get about 242944 bytes per disk. (I'll round that 243KB per disk)Because sectors were found using a hole in the disk, I'll use the formatted compacity here.

Let's assume for ease of calculation that this 100GB disk is 100,000MB. (I dont feel like calculating everything with real binary values)

100,000MB is 100,000,000KB

100,000,000KB / 243KB/disk is 411522.6 (round up to 411,523 disks!

The original floppy disks were about 1/8" thick.

1/8" * 411,523 is 51,440" divide that by 12" you get 4287 feet. Approxamatly 4/5 of a mile.

good luck,
sopwath

There are analog computers, though they are not the general-purpose gadgets we have today.

No, BrokenHeartsAreForAssholes!

And it's "flaming", with one 'm'. If there were 2 m's, it would rhyme with "slamming", which would be stupid.

P.S. See how effective IP bans are?

http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/b/backdoor.h tml

back door: n. [common] A hole in the security of a system deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for such holes is not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field service technicians or the vendor's maintenance programmers. Syn. trap door; may also be called a `wormhole'. See also iron box, cracker, worm, logic bomb. Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known.
Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM admitted the existence of a back door in early Unix versions that may have qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time. In this scheme, the C compiler contained code that would recognize when the `login' command was being recompiled and insert some code recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to the system whether or not an account had been created for him.
Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to recompile the compiler, you have to _use_ the compiler -- so Thompson also arranged that the compiler would _recognize when it was compiling a version of itself_, and insert into the recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled `login' the code to allow Thompson entry -- and, of course, the code to recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time around! And having done this once, he was then able to recompile the compiler from the original sources; the hack perpetuated itself invisibly, leaving the back door in place and active but with no trace in the sources.
The talk that suggested this truly moby hack was published as "Reflections on Trusting Trust", "Communications of the ACM 27", 8 (August 1984), pp. 761-763 (text available at http://www.acm.org/classics). Ken Thompson has since confirmed that this hack was implemented and that the Trojan Horse code did appear in the login binary of a Unix Support group machine. Ken says the crocked compiler was never distributed. Your editor has heard two separate reports that suggest that the crocked login did make it out of Bell Labs, notably to BBN, and that it enabled at least one late-night login across the network by someone using the login name `kt'.

"Penguin in Bondage" is one of Frank Zappa's cooler songs. So they'd even get a theme song along with their mascot.

IIRC, the MIT Computing Museum (or whatever it's called) in Boston has some exhibits along these lines. The Dr. Dobb's article mentions that The Computer Museum History Center has a 604 on display, so perhaps they'd put a PIC emulator next to it, which could make for a fun resume item!

Google turned up this page which contains some info on the 604's basic instruction set.

Does anybody remember that this is the guy that units of bogosity were named after? Check your jargon file. Not at all to say that I think Cyc is bogus - I just wanted to be the first to bring it up. PS Yes this is a repost - I accidentally buried the 1st one in a -1 thread. Forgive me for being a newbie, please don't call the karma police. Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking .sig - Apply here.

Does anybody remember that this is the guy that units of bogosity were named after? Check your jargon file. Not at all to say that I think Cyc is bogus - I just wanted to be the first to bring it up.

If you look at where the money is, you can see that many monied interests wanted to improve things for themselves, often with no regard for others [I am positively shocked by this idea! Aren't You? Say it isn't so!]

Take a look at this summary of Psychology and Industrial Efficiency by Hugo Münsterberg (1913). As Münsterberg himself put it: 'We ask how we can find the men whose mental qualities make them best fitted for the work which they have to do; secondly, under what psychological conditions we can secure the greatest and most satisfactory output of work from every man; and finally, how we can produce most completely the influences on human minds which are desired in the interest of business.' This is not unusual for that period.

In a modern context we have the example of the microserfs and Microdroids, as seen here

Even during the DotCom Craze we have examples of the tremdous loyalty seen at one time at Amazon.com, as documented on slash here (Original site here) Another example are the Romans who prosecuted anyone who who not do pagan sacrifice for the cult of the Emperor (the state). This was bad news for the Christians for a while.

Bottom line, the cult of the current belief systems, as expressed by the dominant powers, hates anyone who would or could be a threat to them. This applies to Romans, business men, the Spanish Inquisition, politicians, and for that matter whatever clique of individuals that has control in an area.

Of course taking this too far, what we do is discredit ideals like friendship and loyalty. Who deserves your loyalty and friendship, ever? Who indeed?

To only see the mechanism in the thing you love to hate most is small minded indeed.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

If you look at where the money is, you can see that many monied interests wanted to improve things for themselves, often with no regard for others [I am positively shocked by this idea! Aren't You? Say it isn't so!]

Take a look at this summary of Psychology and Industrial Efficiency by Hugo Münsterberg (1913). As Münsterberg himself put it: 'We ask how we can find the men whose mental qualities make them best fitted for the work which they have to do; secondly, under what psychological conditions we can secure the greatest and most satisfactory output of work from every man; and finally, how we can produce most completely the influences on human minds which are desired in the interest of business.' This is not unusual for that period.

In a modern context we have the example of the microserfs and Microdroids, as seen here

Even during the DotCom Craze we have examples of the tremdous loyalty seen at one time at Amazon.com, as documented on slash here (Original site here) Another example are the Romans who prosecuted anyone who who not do pagan sacrifice for the cult of the Emperor (the state). This was bad news for the Christians for a while.

Bottom line, the cult of the current belief systems, as expressed by the dominant powers, hates anyone who would or could be a threat to them. This applies to Romans, business men, the Spanish Inquisition, politicians, and for that matter whatever clique of individuals that has control in an area.

Of course taking this too far, what we do is discredit ideals like friendship and loyalty. Who deserves your loyalty and friendship, ever? Who indeed?

To only see the mechanism in the thing you love to hate most is small minded indeed.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

LOL!

Sparky?

Calling it a "troll" won't make it go away, Sparky. Sorry 'bout that.

No need to say sorry. All you need to do is read the definition. I calls 'em as I sees 'em, and you're simply spewing to start an argument. *shrug* it is what it is. And a good one, too, considering the number of sysadmins, IT, and network people who read /.

Anyway, when you write this amazing do it all program, I'll start looking for another skive. Until then, I don't think I'm going to loose any sleep over the "the people who have to pay the bills" replacing me with an .exe.... Sparky.

>> I honestly believe that the best way to tackle the drug war would
>> be to legalize it.. Put strict taxes on all drugs (except
>> Marijuana) and sell them
>
> That's called surrender. You don't win like that. Also the attendant
> social problems.

You're surrendering to who? To the mafia? Once legalized, they wouldn't have any source of income anymore. To the drug users? They don't fight, they're just victims here.

As long as drugs are very well available on the black market, do you think anyone is protecting your childs? I don't. Only when the market those things are available on is controllable, we can try to protect our children. That's not possible on the black market.

>> The fairy tale that if it were legalized everyone would do it is
>> false.
>
> Since we don't have a nice statistical correlate for American
> behaviour and we don't have a nice contemporary example I can't
> believe this. I am a serious person after all.

In Holland, cannabis products are available for sale, and free to use. They have about 2.5% cannabis users. In America, you can get a life sentence for dealing with cannabis -- still, 5% of all americans are regularily using cannabis.

http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/bookstore/20.html
http://www.csdp.org/research/us_euro.pdf

And if you want to have facts about america alone -- during the prohibition of alcohol, the use of alcohol *rose*. The effects of the prohibition are well-known. Gangsters fighting on open streets, corrupt policemen, etc. The alcohol consumed was bad self-made stuff, instead of good wine or beer. Only after the prohibition, the use of alcohol began to decline again. I think this is a pretty good evidence that prohibition is not the ultimate answer to problems.

>> I truly believe that a good majority of drug use is harmless.
>
> hard data is needed not just by people from California who want to
> totally decriminalize all drugs

At least for Cannabis, here you are: http://books.nap.edu/html/marimed/

Just a few excerpts: "... few marijuana users develop dependence ...", "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.", etc.

Please also note the following reports, only available on paper:

• Roques, B., et al.: Problèmes posées par la dangerosité des drogues. Rapport du professeur Bernard Roques au Secrétaire d'Etat à la Santé. Paris 1998. (french report about cannabis)
• Auswirkungen des Cannabiskonsums. Dieter Kleiber, Karl-Artur Kovar (german report about cannabis effects)

Almost all major reports issued by governments all over the world come to the conclusion that cannabis is one of the most harmless drugs available. The war on drugs and the whole illegalization causes a lot more harm, death and destroyed lifes and families than cannabis ever could.

> Nothing positive can come from drugs.

The most negative thing that comes from drugs is the total devotion to ideals, even if they're proved wrong.

"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither"
-- Thomas Jefferson

Greetings,
-- Jorgen

The only danger is sending out the wrong message. Drugs kill, and anyone advocating their use is little better than a killer.

Yet another person who is venomously opposed to drugs without getting the facts. I don't know about LSD but I know for a fact that after decades of study the health risks of marijuana are still debatable and there are few if any documented fatalities related to marijuana abuse.

The same goes for MDMA which is the primary ingredient of Ecstacy which has practically no ill after effects either in the short term or in the long term. Ecstacy is one place where regulation can help because the major problem with it is that most sellers cut it with harmful drugs to either enhance its effects or to short change buyers. Pure MDMA is thus hard to find so the Ecstacy consumed by most of the raver culture is actually more harmful than it has to be.

On the other hand, alcohol and cigarettes which are legal are amongst the leading causes of death in the U.S. either directly (lung and liver related diseases) or indirectly (drunk driving and second hand smoke).

Anyway, the War On Drugs is an acknowledged failure. As large a percentage of the U.S. population uses drugs as those in countries where the usage of certain drugs is not as frowned upon. The only successful thing about the war on drugs is that it has enabled the government to pass laws abridging due process (various seizure laws) and circumvent the 4th Ammendment.

This response is paraphrased from an earlier response on kuro5hin.

PS: If you want to read insightful discussion on the War On Drugs, I suggest reading one of the following articles and a few of the comments posted, Why Drugs Should Be Illegal or More Cluelessness In The War On Drugs.

--

Godwin.

--Tom

uh....

huh?

BTW, just so you know, a hacker is not someone who breaks into computer systems. That would be more properly called a cracker .

BTW, just so you know, a hacker is not someone who breaks into computer systems. That would be more properly called a cracker .

You almost had me. I didn't realize you were a troll, until:

I only need to point to a few infamous locations here in the US to dispute your argument....lets start with Columbine high school in Colorado.

I propose that for the 21st century, the "Nazis" in Godwin's law should be replaced by "Columbine." It seems that anytime anyone doesn't like something, it's become traditional to blame Columbine on that thing. "British beef caused the Columbine tragedy! Chinese spies caused the Columbine tragedy! American television caused the Columbine tragedy!"

Leave MINE alone you hypocritical free expression at all costs liberal!

Liberal? Now I know you're trolling. Liberals are just as happy to be censors as conservatives are.

Ken Thompson is noted in this definition of 'Back Door'.

Oh, yes, they will. Those days you could still keep up with Usenet, the days 99% of posts was relevant to the group and the previous message, those days when "Flame" stood for an intelligent, almost literary rebuttal, instead of moronic incendiary gutter-drivel, the days of the Crystal Cave, the days the 'net _was_ free and open, and abuse and crass commercialism non-existent. They will be missed, Jon, until they pry the keyboard from my cold, dead fingers and nail the coffin shut. And I bet many will agree, if maybe not here.

I call bullshit. Maybe you really feel this way, but stop whining - if you really are hanging around bemoaning the good ol' days, then it means you have gotten slow.

September refers to the start of the fall semester, when a whole bunch of Freshmen in college got access to the Usenet, and all the veterans (many of them sophmores) had to start educating the newbies in ettiquitte and "the way things are done around here". It made things more civil, more of a tight-nit community, etc., because the numbers were small enough that the old users always outnumbered the new users.

The September that Never Ended refers to when AOL openned Usenet access for it's members, and the newbie outnumbered the old-timers by huge margins. Usenet got overwhelmed by uncouth barbarians who didn't learn the rules, didn't want to learn the rules, and were numerous enough never to be taught properly.

What did the old-timers do? Some tried to cope, updating the FAQ, and making sure that new folks knew that there were rules to be followed if they wanted to be accepted and respected. Others bitched and moaned, and were called elitist for their whining. Others, who couldn't stand the newbies, formed other, smaller newsgroups or mailing lists, and abandoned those when they got too popular.

Those that did not like associating with every Tom, Dick, or Harry paying $14.95 for AOL access has two choices: stay and complain, or create something new. Those creative types gave us many new forums: ICQ, excelent mailing lists, moderated newsgroups, Slashdot, Kuro5hin, etc. When their pet group gets too popular, they will move on to something new, and take their friends with them.

These forums (Usenet, Slashdot, etc) get good because creative folks invest themselves into making them good. Even the common user recognizes quality, and wants a part of it (or, more annoyingly, to destroy it). Good forums and good ideas will eventually get popular. Deal with it, or move on and make something better.

Besides, you will always have something to divide the lamers from the elites. AOL vs. "pure" ISP. MSIE vs. fringe browser. FrontPage vs. HTML by hand. Web user vs. web builder. RPM user vs. Make user. GUI vs. CLI. HLL vs. Assembly. Diable vs. Angband. Internet Multiplayer vs. LAN party. Whatever you use to make yourself more superior than the next guy, go ahead, latch yourself onto it.

For my part, I welcome an Internet that is less white, middle-class, college-educated Americans. One that doesn't get deomonized by politicians, or blamed for school shootings, but one that is part of our lives, with a supported backbone, and enough space for everyone to play.

Nope, read the link in my parent post. It shows that the main source of alpha radiation is from the chip casings. Not a whole lot you can do about that.
--

If so, we'd need to think about employing a lossy grid of gates, so that a few failures don't kill the processor.
--

I disagree completely and wholeheartedly.

I see banner ads as an assault on my psyche, trying to extract from me things ($$$) which I want to keep.

IF banner ads work, then I am paying to look at free sites one way or another (TANSTAAFL, and all that). I would rather be subjected to an earnest plea to support the site than I would subject myself to the creations of people whose very job is to subtly manipulate my psyche in the favor of their company.

A number of the online comics I frequently read have shifted in the direction of a PBS model - if you like it, send us a few bucks. If we get enough bucks we'll run some kind of special feature (not too unlike the Street Performer Protocol). It is not anywhere near as obtrusive as your example - one of the reasons at least Penny-Arcade shifted to this model is that ad banners were too obtrusive and disruped their site. (their network kept sneaking popups in, plus just vibrating windows and stuff)

Nanny Ogg
Deacon Vorbis

It's all Terry Pratchett.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzztttt. Wrong!
Pedant alert: The Ogg in Ogg Vorbis is taken from the move in Netrek - to Ogg an opponent. The full definition is here but to summarize the Netrek definition: "to execute kamikaze attacks against enemy ships which are carrying armies or occupying strategic positions". Quite appropriate really.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I remember seeing an article about nano-motors that used vaporised water to move a piston that made a shaft rotate. A friend pointed out it was a steam engine. Just very small.

Now people are talking about fibre optic delay lines as storage devices. Some of the earliest computers stored data as sound waves in mercury and
nickel wires. A speaker injected sound in one end, it was picked up my a microphone at the other, re-shaped and squirted back in.

Same idea, different medium.

I remember seeing an article about nano-motors that used vaporised water to move a piston that made a shaft rotate. A friend pointed out it was a steam engine. Just very small.
Now people are talking about fibre optic delay lines as storage devices. Some of the earliest computers stored data as sound waves in mercury and
nickel wires. A speaker injected sound in one end, it was picked up my a microphone at the other, re-shaped and squirted back in.

Same idea, different medium.

-

It is operated by a touchscreen display, and so won't need a mouse.

Yipppie....

Have you ever used a touchscreen? We banned our machine vendors from using them in our factory because they suck.

Remember the Gorilla Arm

Nick wrote:

Anyway, here's what I've had to say about Windows lately. Two weeks ago, I called for Microsoft to open the source code to Windows so that we could be certain it didn't have any secret backdoors (see Resources for a link). Most of the people I've heard from on the topic agree. One person insisted that people could be embedding backdoors into Linux as well. I agree -- it is certainly possible. But here's the crucial difference between Windows and Linux: if someone puts a backdoor into Linux, someone will eventually find it. Once it is found, I can eliminate it, rebuild the kernel, and get back up and running safely within minutes.

In fairness, it must be pointed out that the Jargon File mentions a famous hack, where Ken Thompson put an undetectable backdoor into a version of *NIX. Does anyone know a reason to assume that they same hack couldn't be inserted into a binary distribution of Linux? I'm just trying to keep things fair.