Slashdot Mirror

Isn't it common to log an Ip address if you run a website?

It is. Wouldn't their approach be much more effective if, in addition to logging your IP, they also installed a rootkit on your machine? That's legal, right? (And maybe they could make it so you're violating the DMCA if you remove it. Excellent.)

Can you publish politically dissenting views?

Not if you want to keep your job

Can you openly criticize the government?

nope

Are you allowed to practice any religion you want without punitive recourse?

My (non)religious views allow abortion, gay/group marriage, assisted suicide and stem cell therapy. I hear some folks are being prosecuted or assaulted for trying to do these things.

Are you executed for being in possession of mind-altering drugs?

Killing someone is not the only way to destroy a life. A lengthy prison term and/or prison rape will do.

Can you freely travel to most parts of the world?

Sure, that's because most parts of the world, including China, make it easier to get a visa than US.

Can you read any publication in print or the web without gettign thrown in prison?

You got to be kidding!

It must have been an intelligent designer!

Four weeks later, the scientist sends me an email saying that he has completed the DNA analysis and found no evidence of modification. He tested specifically for the presence of CP4 - a telltale indicator of the Roundup Ready modification - as well as for the cauliflower mosaic virus, the gene most commonly used to insert foreign DNA into a plant. It is still possible that the plant has been genetically modified using other genes, but not likely. Discovering new methods of engineering glyphosate resistance would require the best scientific minds and years of organized research. And given that there is already a published methodology, there would be little reason to duplicate the effort.

So you see, mother nature can develop Roundup resistance faster than our genetic engineers. She's been at it longer though. I would imagine "survival of the fittest" works quite nicely with with roundup resistance just like it does with antibiotic resistance. But there's no reason to argue about it. Obviously, it's possible to test this cross-pollenation theory by looking at the genes in these weeds. According to TFA:

"The frequency of such an event [the cross-fertilisation of charlock] in the field is likely to be very low, as highlighted by the fact it has never been detected in numerous previous assessments."

However, he adds: "This unusual occurrence merits further study in order to adequately assess any potential risk of gene transfer."

Apparently, they haven't bothered to do genetic testing yet. No reason to bitch one way or the other until they do. And you both know what they say about arguing on the internet, right?

It seems like many of the posters here don't know Walter Mossberg. They should. He is one of the most powerful technology journalists around and he deliberately adopts a newbie tone (when you read him regularly, it's clear he's quite knowledgable). Here is a profile of him.

I actually cut the second paragraph from my previous comment before posting, but since you bring the subject up: yes, I do challenge the claims in those articles.

Let's ignore issues of running on a JVM, and assume that once Hotspot or the like has done its stuff we're dealing with fully compiled code. Even then, Java has natural inhibitions regarding performance compared to a lower-level language like C or C++. These range from its lack of "value types" to a highly portable but necessarily non-optimal floating point model.

Some of these inhibitions can be overcome with sufficiently smart optimisation techniques. The escape analysis stuff that's starting to filter through (but AFAIK isn't in widespread use among mainstream implementations yet) should help a lot with some things, for example.

However, some of the weaknesses, particularly the floating point model, are inherent. If you want truly portable behaviour, you have to use the portable floating point model, which means you can't take advantage of a lot of hardware-based optimisation available to other languages. If you switch to using those optimisations, as I understand you can in the more recent versions of Java, then you pick up the performance but you give up any pretence of getting the same results on all platforms. (I write highly portable floating point code for a living; trust me, you can't have both complete portability and optimal performance, ever.)

In summary, then, to satisfy the claims about Java performance made in those articles, you need tomorrow's Java optimisation technology today and to give up one of the main advantages to programming in Java. I'll concede that the kind of projects mentioned in the articles might be a in position where those two requirements aren't a problem, but most Java developers sure aren't -- at least, not yet.

I suspect it's far more likely that the management teams believe, rightly or wrongly, that their staff will be more productive using Java than, say, C++ or ADA. I doubt that the concerns are purely for the quality of the final product, even in the miiltary field; remember that the US Navy had one of its ships dead in the water after a bug caused the Windows NT code it was running to crash, leaving the ship stranded. Engineers have warned repeatedly against the use of Windows as a foundation for combat systems on US and UK Navy vessels, but they're more likely to be fired for their trouble than to get any sort of rational reaction from senior management.

There was a Wired article awhile back, talking about herbicide resistance in the coca plant. The point is, evolution happens all the time. If resistance in an organism can occur, either naturally or by getting genes from another species, it will eventually happen.

Pesticides have revolutionized agriculture, but like antibiotics, must be used with caution. Eventually it won't be as amazing as it once was. Older, more primitive techniques, may eventually come back into favor.

Returning to the topic - IIRC GM crops were eventually rejected in the EU a few years ago after a lot of hoo-haa when Monsanto et al tried to railroad them through. However as others have pointed out, wind-borne pollen doesn't tend to respect national boundaries... :(

you're talking about John Negroponte, Nick Negroponte's brother. they room together every now and then.

personally, I think that (Nick) Negroponte has a snowball's chance in hell of building the laptop whose specs are being publicized for less than $100. he may get lucky and charge other people more money for the same laptop to subsidize a sale price of $100 to developing nations. but I also doubt that; Negroponte has a very spotty record when it comes to delivering useful goods, as explained in the article.

El Fuego

you're talking about John Negroponte, Nick Negroponte's brother. they room together every now and then.

personally, I think that (Nick) Negroponte has a snowball's chance in hell of building the laptop whose specs are being publicized for less than $100. he may get lucky and charge other people more money for the same laptop to subsidize a sale price of $100 to developing nations. but I also doubt that; Negroponte has a very spotty record when it comes to delivering useful goods, as explained in the article.

El Fuego

This take on the story from Wired states:

The White House's website uses what's known as a web bug to anonymously keep track of who's visiting and when. A web bug is essentially a tiny graphic image -- a dot, really -- that's virtually invisible. In this case, the bug is pulled from a server maintained by the contractor, WebTrends, and lets the traffic analytic company know that another person has visited a specific page on the site.

Whilst WebTrends say they're not aggregating the data across multiple sites, but we only have their word for it.

The article isn't very clear though whether it's talking about cookies/webbugs from the Whitehouse's site or the NSA's site. Nothing like a journalist to confuse you more.

From: "Richard M. Smith"
Date: December 27, 2005 11:43:49 AM EST
To: EPIC_IDOF@mailman.epic.org
Subject: [EPIC_IDOF] The Whitehouse Web site is bugged

Hi,

The Whitehouse.gov Web site is bugged! Apparently the Webmaster for the site has hired Webtrends to track visitors around the site using Web bugs and permanent cookies. Here's the Web bug that I found on the home page of the Whitehouse.gov Web site:

Similar Web bugs can be found on other Web pages at the Whitehouse Web site.

Before 9/11, the Clinton administration said this kind of Web tracking is a no-no for U.S. government Web sites:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/ m00-13.html

Because of the unique laws and traditions about government access to citizens' personal information, the presumption should be that "cookies" will not be used at Federal web sites. Under this new Federal policy, "cookies" should not be used at Federal web sites, or by contractors when operating web sites on behalf of agencies, unless, in addition to clear and conspicuous notice, the following conditions are met: a compelling need to gather the data on the site;

Richard M. Smith
http://www.computerbytesman.com/

It really helps if you RTFA before you comment. Stanley tailgated for a while, then decided that the hummer was going too slow and passed it. Kinda hard to win a race by tailgating the whole way, no? ;)

Also, the hummer from CMU was using all the GPS data and some data that the team gathered about the route beforehand. Kinda cheating if you ask me. Stan uses a combination of lidar(for under 30 meters) and visual recognizion via camera to extend its viewable range to 80 meters. But on page 4 of the fine article, you can read a more detailed explanation.

So, YES, more bandwidth would be nice. Especially on the upstream (which is typically 1/10 or less of the downstream). People may not notice when that web page loads .05s faster, but they'll sure notice when the DVD that they're downloading gets done in a couple hours vs. a couple days!

wired

GPSWorld

US Mission to the EU

How is this news? Galileo was old news years ago. Why is the blurb suggesting that it's this "new" planning thingie?

Probably because the US perceived the old Galileo proposal as a threat and had it killed off years ago.

The failure in the last couple years of one of the more promising vaccine candidates has bred some frustration. The United Nations' top HIV/AIDS official acknowledged earlier this year at a conference that it was no longer realistic to hope that the world will meet its goal of halting and reversing the spread of the pandemic by 2015. A British delegate to that conference predicted it might take 20 years before such a vaccine is created.

it's still our internet, not theirs. This is just another example of the kind of government interference the high-minded international community would do if the UN took over the administration of the internet.

Tell 2600 magazine about how much more "free" it is over here.

Hmmmmm...Is Ellen Feiss using Firefox yet?

And here, for your enjoyment, is a new Wired article with our great leader, Bobby Henderson, God/Pirate Incarnate. Merry Christmas!

Get it? I'm so funny.

Among other things, how about France's illegal trade of oil with Iraq against the UN sanctions and Oil for Food programs? Or perhaps their ongoing (since 1975) campaign to outlaw the use of English words in french advertising and government and scientific papers, like the word "email" because it's too English?

France and the french (yeah, I've been there several times on business) are a bunch of snobs who regularly thumb their noses at America, so screw 'em. There are just a few examples of how France is responsible for their own reputation over here.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,69901-0.htm l?tw=wn_tophead_2

Feel free to bash :)

The answer to this is of course to get a SUV and a can of spray-on mud! The SUV establishes the bona-fides that you actually were out in the mud off-road somewhere, and the mud just happens to coincidentially (ahem!) obscure your number plate.

Everytime one of these "big brother" posts hits slashdot, I provide a link to perhaps the single most insightful article I've seen on this subject: the "Transparent Society".

Written some 10 years ago, it laid out, for the first time, the actual problem with the non-private, cameras-are-everywhere society, and what we, as people can and should demand to keep the powers in check.

If you've not read this seminal work, I strongly recommend that you do so!

This is just the latest FUD piece from a webzine attacking wikipedia. Many in the internet media have been attacking Wikipedia because it threatens the viability of their businesses. Despite millions of denizens' acceptence and support of wikipedia, legacy webzines continue to try and paint wikipedia as this evil rogue web venture hell bent on distorting truth. This is the sixth salvo from Wired this month alone ( http://search.wired.com/wnews/default.asp?query=wi kipedia ).

As for finding it on google.com, try here.

BBC and Wired

That said, it's not necessarily true that local power lines will act as an antenna. If wires go underground, or through a metal conduit, a lot of the RF energy will stay with the wires. Likewise, in a lot of places the 240-volt or 3-phase loops are twisted around a central cable that provides mechanical support and ground.

What I'd be worried about is the garbage on the power line; you think of it as a "source" of power, but from a signalling standpoint the power-line is where everyone dumps their garbage: switching power-supplies, flourescent-light ballasts, all sorts of stuff.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,69595,00. html?tw=rss.TOP

A funny (or horrifying, depending on whom you ask) thing happened at CES. Coleco was showing off its new (and ill-fated) ADAM computer system, and had decided to use Donkey Kong as the demo game. While Coleco did own the home console rights to Donkey Kong, it was Atari that had earlier secured the computer rights. Once Atari's Ray Kassar caught wind of what was at the Coleco booth, he accused Nintendo of cheating and double-dealing behind Atari's back. Utterly furious, he threatened to cancel the Famicom deal and sue Nintendo out of existence.

Nintendo did its best to rectify the situation, and was aghast when Kassar was ousted from Atari a month later. The contracts were still unsigned, and with Kassar seemed to go all hope of getting the Famicom marketed in the US.

Honestly I am sick and tired of people ranting about '4 year degrees' from India and incompetent or unqualified programmers/workers from India. The very same people whose ideas about India are pretty much restricted to the Taj Mahal and Bangalore in spite of the fact that they could not point out both their locations on a map of India the size of the empire state building with both places marked in 2000pt arial black.

4 year degrees in India are _not_ like 2 year boot camps, they are quite focused, well designed and well executed programs, and I did not even go to an IIT or a tier 1 school in India! Education in India is quite difficult, simply because of the extreme competition every student faces from the 100 million other students, the fact that the coursework is tougher does play some part though. Parents are focused on education and education only, hence the complete insignificance of college/university level sports and/or other activities. The problem you guys face is that its too damn expensive here. My entire college expenses, including living away from home was approx. $1200. As a result almost anybody who can make the cut can afford it. So dont blame the Indian education system for the lack of a job inspite of your expensive education.

Regarding incompetent, inexperienced workers, well considering the large number of qualified workers produced, per the law of averages quite a few will be bad programmers, and stating that its an Indian issue, is not only unfair, its blatantly uninformed. The same statistics apply everywhere. The number of absolutely incompetent American/western programmers I have seen is quite unbelievable considering their '$100,000' education. At least Indian universities do not charge that much for a job screwed up (well some do, but they are usually reserved to educate Indians residing in the US).

Re: Only drudge work gets outsourced, of course on /. you only hear about programming/IT outsourcing, but if you actually watched some 'news' instead of relying on a bunch of bloggers alone, you might realize that its not just call centers and programming shops, a whole bunch of financial analytics work, medical diagnostic work, even Hollywood animation stuff gets outsourced to India. And oh btw re: the comment about paralegals and drudge work, find out how much a paralegal with your experience makes, and you will realize the futility of your chosen vocation to provide you with a reasonable income.

I agree that quite a few outsourcing projects failed miserably. However AFAIK in most cases they fail not because of incompetent Indian workers but simply because the it being applied to the wrong fucking problem. You cant just use a tool/process willy-nilly because its inexpensive and expect it succeed. On the other hand I know of quite a few that succeeded in spite of that. Go figure!

The comment regarding the infrastructure issues are correct, however that does not seem to have stopped organizations from delivering. BPO providers have usually figured out ways to deal with government incompetence, and will continue to do so until the Indian govt. gets off their lazy asses and does something about it. Fortunately or unfortunately we have a _real_ multi-party democracy which means things get done slowly but when they get done they get done right.

Finally you might be surprised to know that there are Americans interning in India:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/10/business/in tern.php
http://www.uh.edu/ednews/2005/nytimes/200508/20050 810india.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47435,00 .html

So before you go off on India and Indians take step back and actually bother to find out wtf you are talking about, even if you are posting on /.

Yekutiel "Kuty" Lavi, a security specialist at Bezeq International, Israel's largest telco and a frequent victim of the Badirs, angrily complains, "Every day people try to steal from us, but nobody has ever stolen from us the way the [three brothers] did. When they dial, they use the middle finger."

Here is a wired article that will explain it better than I could possibly do: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69641-0.html

Helping all the socially clueless geeks for a nominal fee.

Women make up at best 40% or market, with women over 40 being the largest segment. Women tend to play solitare, The Sims, and some "online" games. Are you seriously arguing that G4 simultaneously target very lucrative 18-35 year old males market AND the 40+ year old women market? What would this be? "G-Phoria is brought to you by Boniva."?

That's just dumb. The interesection of these two markets is pretty much empty. While some women play games, they don't play the same games as the rest of market. Sure 18-35 year old males also play The Sims, but there's no way to sell to both markets simultaneously.

Colorado: http://www.ioerror.us/2005/11/22/denver-bus-riders -forced-to-show-id-or-risk-arrest-and-prosecution/
Florida: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/28/D8E5RPBO5 .html
Nevada: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62438,00. html

Welcome to the United Soviet States of America. Right have you!

Google has been beating market analyst's expectation with absurdly high numbers again and aging [1]. And I tell you what; the demand for ads is NOT increasing at the same speed that the profits are growing. The internet economy is still growing anemically. These days it seems that you are not measuring the rate at which Google is growing, but the rate at witch the Google growth is growing =D ! It's the fact that people are getting SCAMMED. Mod me down on this if you want, paying more isn't giving you more. Paying more put you at a higher bracket, now can make more money from you That is if the theory behind Cringey's friend is correct.

Let's try this analogy: You are in New York, you decide to open up a business selling stilettos [2] but you are not getting many customers. You go to the local ad company and make a request for marketing. I'd like more women of ages 20 - 35 (or similar demographic) to be exposed to my store. Instead of giving you the price of each billboard/newspaper per month they say: You know kiddo, we have other shoe stores wanting to advertise for that same demographic, how about this: you choose a price, whatever you want for each customer that walks into your door with our ads. The more you pay, the more customers walk into your store. You give them the money, women flock to your store you are good.

Now you decide to go and open a store with a different name on another side of town. You sell the same exact merchandise same requested demographic. You you're your brother for the same negotiation with the ad agency, except you pay TEN times more for each customer. You end up getting only 20% more customers for 1000% the price. So you say screw this, I'll pay the ad agency only 4x the money. Ad company looks at you: Ah, he was paying good money but decided to downgrade... We'll show him. And your new store gets 20% less customers although paying 400% more in ads. Are you getting your money worth for it? What if that was the Military paying for ads for recruitment? A company can only earn so much (I cant' remember on top of my head it's between 10 and 20 percent profit). Halliburton is being demonized for overcharging at max 5% over quota. What if Halliburton says: We'll deliver 20% more if you pay us 1000% ? The company would be eaten alive by media scrutiny. What is Halliburton charged 400% more to the feds than the state government? Well since the states have quotas while the feds can print their money they should be charged more... eh?

This is not even an auction. Halliburton would burned at the stake for this behaviour. It has been said and let me repeat it, Google may strive to be non evil but IT CAN NOT. They are a public company and by definition they must work to earn more money. It's the law!

But you say: I'm a consumer, I don't buy ads, why should this bother me? Ah but the more each company pays for ads the more they must earn... and you are their revenue.

[1]a - http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-4 5-20050421GoogleBeatsAbsurdlyHighExpectations.html
[1]b - http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69291, 00.html
[2] Women's high heel shoes. Women wearing these seem to exist in real life, not just movies. I'm still looking for hard proof.

If the banks actually beef things up, the next wave of attacks will likley be pharming, as it allows the bad guys to circumvent the bank's methods:

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,66853,00.ht ml

Are there any better pictures than the ones in the article?
This one is looking spooky, like she just got a facelift, or saw a ghost.
She's got that Real Doll look.

This one has a cheap looking hair-weave. She's also looking a bit angry.

Are there any better pictures than the ones in the article?
This one is looking spooky, like she just got a facelift, or saw a ghost.
She's got that Real Doll look.

This one has a cheap looking hair-weave. She's also looking a bit angry.

No, you've not been entirely confused. The catch is that not all of Australia is involved - this wired article talks about A.C.T. using electronic voting in the federal elections.

(For other readers: this is only a single one of Australia's eight states and territories, and it's one of the smaller states.)

You'll be glad to know that, due to the PS3's extensive Wifi capabilities, Sony will be able to install copy protection on every computer in your house the moment the PS3 is powered up. Sony plans to include Linux and OSX exploits for those of you who try to be clever about it. The installed software will cause any computer to crash immediately, which Sony hails as a great technological breakthrough since their last technology, which could only destroy OSX but not Windows or Linux. And as for what happens if you try to copy a Blu-Ray disc...let's just say it's not so much "managed" copy as it is "melted" copy.

Tell me, what major sites have been build using Ruby?

I can list several very high volume sites/applications that use Perl.

I wonder what it would cost to put together an open-source consortium to design the thing from the ground up.

$125,000 and 6 months to develop and implement, including ballots in 12 languages or English audio for vision-impaired and illiterate voters.

But it would be pretty silly to start a project from the ground up when you can simply download the sourcecode. (Warning: 696 KB zip file)

By the way... does anyone have a figure for how much Diebold has billed the various state and local governments, combined? I'm concerned that it might be somewhat more than $125,000.

-

A hundred years ago, the average life span (.pdf) in the United States was around 50 years. Now, thanks to advances in medical technology, an overall improvement in working conditions and a better understanding of how nutrition and exercise affect longevity, the average biped can reasonably expect to hang around for 80 years or more.
But 80 years is a trifle. Why not live 150 years? Why not 200? Why not forever?

The link in the story is wrong. Go to http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/neopets.h tml

Check out this story on Wired about Sony's latest guerilla marketing ploy. Sony has hired graffitti artists to paint buildings in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Miami with graffitti showing people playing with the PSP. NOt everyone is happy with this. I know if they painted MY building (assuming I had one), I'd be suing them.

Holding down the Shift key stopped AutoRun and prevented the software from being installed. Halderman wrote about the software, and the "infamous Shift key attack," in an academic paper and posted it online. Within 24 hours, SunnComm was threatening a $10 million lawsuit, and vowing to refer Halderman to authorities for allegedly committing a felony under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

By the next day, the company had backed down in the face of public outrage. Looking back, Halderman says, "The whole experience was a whirlwind.... The response was way bigger than (anything I'd) expected."

Source: Wired News: Music Man Cracks DRM Schemes, 7th December 2005.

Man, if I was a terrorist I'd write some code that earased the bios of all those Cisco routers on the backbone. Do it from the edge in so you wouldn't just be chopping up the 'Net into small pieces but actually damaging every link globally. Think of how much economic damage alone this would cause. Seriously, the US has spent what, 250bn?, on Iraq so far, imagine losing just as much in a single day while CNN reports the economy is in chaos.

• Plenty of RAM half gig minimum
• fast disk (especially if RAM is cramped)
• Access to fast network

• cpu doesn't seem to matter
• running 2/3 streams on 600hz server

I disagree with the review about the ...same quality on the PC.....

• the DAC is very high quality - I have similar in my high end stereo
• if FLAC, or high bitrate ogg is used the quality matches very expensive kit

IMHO Wired http://www.wired.com/news/technology/audiophiles/0 ,2934,68891,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html have the sense of it, vinyl will survive - it's the CD format that will go - it's too compromised between quality and convenience.

Some interesting experiment done on actual monkeys and a typewriter:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58790,00. html

and their publication:
http://www.vivaria.net/experiments/notes/publicati on/NOTES_EN.pdf