I don't care how unproductive it is I can say things in Spanish that I could never say in English
It works the other way around too, and if you ever talk in Spanish instead of English you are at those moments robbed of the oppertunity of saying those things you can't say in Spanish but only in English.
Still, somehow, I suspect you survive just fine even in the face of this grave loss.
In other words, it is no loss at all, since you get as much as you give up.
This, of course, is only true if the alternative is for everyone to know both Spanish and English, but that is even more unlikely than everyone knowing English...
[...] can you imagen the damage that destroying a language, any language would do?
The gain would be as big as the loss, since new things could be said in the new language that could not be said in the old language.
But of course, some would appreciate the litterary value of some languages that would not be the universal language. In that case, I think it would be proper for those individuals to learn that language for the porpuse of literature written in the language and let the rest of us communicate unobstructed.
First of all, languages are not static but rather they evolve and change all the time. This does not destroy them, it just makes them different. Just by observing that single fact one can see how rediculus this is.
However, I woudln't mind if Spanish was removed from the face of the earth. In fact, I woudln't mind of Danish was removed from the earth (my own native tongue). The reason for this is that it's simply stupid and unproductive for everyone not to speak the same langauge. At the time, the only language that seems to have the possibility of becoming a truely universal language is English, so I hope more people will talk English.
There's nothing special about English, though; I'd much prefer a synthetic language like Esperanto that's actually thougth out and easy to learn, instead of the random suckiness inherent in natural languages. But [i]everyone[/i] learning Esperanto or anything besides English unfortunately seems rather unlikely right now.
Some would say that this would destroy culture, but if a culture is so weak it cannot survive the "loss" of its language, I'd say that people weren't really serious about it anyway.
5.1 Linux is slow
[...]
One operating system that does operations comparable to Linux is NT. Linux is well over twice as fast as NT. Mac System is consistently slower, as are most Windows programs.
Now, I like Linux as much as the next guy, but that Linux is "well over twice as fast as NT", that's just bullshit. First of all, this has to depend on what you do. Second of all, I don't have a hard time imagining Linux being substantially faster than NT for some things, but a 2x speed-up is just way over what I'm prepared to believe (ok, there might be some isolated completely unrealistic benchmark that will give this result, but aside from that).
In most of the benchmarks I've seen, NT performs really well, and Linux performs within 1% of NT.
Then there's the Mindcraft results. Sure, the deck was stacked against Linux, but none-the-less, NT completely kicked the hell out of Linux.
It's possible that the new kernel will turn around to kick the hell out of Win2000, but that has yet to be seen.
In any case, saying flat out that Linux is twice as fast as NT is completely unwarranted. It's a myth.
There have been some controversial attempts to benchmark Linux versus Windows NT, with partisans on both sides claiming "victory;" a full and fair explanation of that lies outside the scope of this document at this time.
Ok, so they did mention this. That still doesn't in any way make Linux twice as fast as NT. Talk about FUD.
I'm disappointed: this is supposed to be a Myth Dispeller website. I look at ONE entry, and I find something like this.
Actually, NASA has been tracking space debree for a long time.
At one time, they even delayed a launch around 3 months to stay clear of some objects out there in space. They weren't really going to come very close, but then I can understand how they didn't want to take the risk with that kind of hardware.
Here is another example of a Generic Algortihm put to use, this time to apparently massively improve the wiring and therefore performance of Beowulf clusters:
I happen to know for a fact that this cannot possibly be Mr. Katz writing that, as I have just recently killed him. Fooled the police into some wacky alcoholism theory they seem to believe.
I the past, I've run an E-zine for about a year. I was the editor and did all the html.
Anyway, the main complaint people was giving me was that the whole thing was loading way to slowly. I didn't know exactly how to fix this, as the thing had only ONE picture: the logo.
Anyway, I used Javascript to "compress" the html, and it worked like a charm. For example, someone sent me a raw text (ie, no formatting, just plain ASCII) file, and after having applied all the (non-trivial - lots' o' tables and the kind) formatting, the file was a bit *smaller* than the original ASCII text file...
What I did was to simply make javascript functions for things I did alot. For example, instead of writing all the html for required for a newsitem for each and every news item on the page, I had Javascript function that took as its arguments the name of the news item, the date of it, it's actual text and who contributed it.
Doing this actually makes the raw html much, much, much easier to read.
I got ONE complaint from a person who couldn't view the thing. I told him to turn on Javascript, and then it worked perfectly. After adding a "you need Javascript" note to the page, that would appear if someone had turned it off, I didn't get any complaints at all about either the use of javascript or slow loadtimes.
I wonder why no one has made a Javascript decompression script, and then you could actually compress all you pages (and have them decompressed when the user gets them), without the user ever seeing it, and you could do this with access to nothing but the raw html. This would of course require a fast Javascript implementation by the browser to make it feasible to write a decompressor in Javascript and have it run fast enough to actually give a benefit.
So Borland releases a free C++ compiler. Wehee... How exactly does this help anyone? I mean, we already have a free C/C++ compiler (gcc), and that one has source and everything, which Borland's does not.
I don't see this helping anyone, except perhaps the PR staff at Borland.
One thing that they really need to figure out is the issue of copying. I have read that you can already make bit for bit copies of DVDs. But I have also read that these copies can't play on any standard DVD since the "copy protection" part of the disk is not burned correctly on these copiers. Also, the major point the OSS is making is that the MPA is keeping them from making backup copies of their DVDs, which they are legally entitled to. The problem being they have already argued that copies can be made. They then continue to argue that DeCSS doesn't help pirates make copies of movies, which defeats the whole point of argueing that they are using DeCSS for making legal backup copies. You could back up a DVD on your harddrive, perhaps a bit more compressed. Or you could have the DVD act as the back-up, and view it from the harddisk. That way, it doens't matter so much if the film on your harddisk is obscenely large, because you can delete it again if you don't want it there anymore, as you still have the DVD. Harddisks are getting bigger and bigger, and I don't think the day that we can have a film on our harddrives in DVD Video quality without it being to draconian is that far away. However, if you want to be a pirate and actually distribute the DVDs, well, then I really don't think you'd want to distribute it on harddisks... You could do it on normal CDs, but then you get bad quality and no added content. Not much point to it then.
I hear that some people are worried that in the future, the formats we use today will be so arcane that it will be practically impossible to find out what the data we leave behind actually means.
I really do not think this will be much of a problem. Computing power is increasing exponentially, as does out knowledge of how to use that computing power.
Finding out how to read a format is essentially the same as breaking an encryption scheme, just that most formats aren't made specifically to make reading them hard, like most encryption schemes is, so the task is actually easier.
I don't know about formatting and stuff like that, but certainly, people in the future will be able to figure out what we have been sending, provided they have the data. I mean *today* we can provably reverse ingeneer todays formats, why shouldn't people in the future, with vastly greater knowledge about basically everything, not be able to do so, should they so wish?
For those who don't have time to follow the links (or are afraid it might chip away at their smug knowledge that "we're smarter than those Americans") let me offer some of the salient points:
I was trying to tell you and anyone else who found the comment title interesting enough to read exactly what "american conditions" means in Danish, which I believe I've succeded in doing rather well.
It's a not a matter of me thinking that I'm smarten than you or Americans in general, it's just that this is what Danes think of when they use the phrase in that meaning.
If that offends you, sorry, but I am not responsible for how words or phrases get defined.
Perhaps you should be a little more careful next time before you go assuming that you've heard the whole story, and that the big corporation is in the right so that the so-silly American legal system will be in the wrong.... And for God's sake, when you go backing up your assertions with such utterly disproven urban legends as the pet-in-the-microwave, you're practically asking for the phrase "Danish credulity" to come into parlance.
Do you by this mean that there is no precident on people getting ridicilus amounts of money in American law? That ridicilus lawsuits are not made, and when they are subsequently lost, that the people who filed the sort, which they must've known was ridicilus, are always made to pay the legal expenses?
If you do, well... That is certainly not the impression I have, but then I don't live in America, and you probably know better than me.
If you don't mean that, then I don't say how it can offend you that I use a few examples to illustrate the point. It really doesn't matter wheter the examples are true or not, as long as there are other examples that have the same general characteristics that I'm trying to illustrate.
And really, don't you think that it is just a wee bit weird to be made pay alot of more for serving the coffee hot?
Putting warnings on the cups really won't help; people already know coffee is hot. The steam coming out of it should be more than enough indication. Anyone trying to drink coffee that is steaming without checking the temperature first is crasy.
That being said, ok, perhaps the coffee was hotter than it should've been, but 2 million dollars? To me that is completely ridicilus, but then we live in different parts of the world and probably have a different view of things...
Covering some of the medical bills would be IMHO ok, since the coffee was to hot. But the woman spilling the coffee had some of the responsibility too, or should they have had a warning saying "don't spill all over yourself" next to the warning saying "Check temperature before drinking" ?
Well, if you speak English, you'll have a relative easy time learning Danish (notice the relative there, learning any language is of course hard). Many times, if you know an English word for something, you'll be able to come up with the Danish word for the same thing simply by pronouncing it in Danish rather than in English (this does have the sideffect of you never knowing wheter a word is actually a word, or something you made up). People in Denmark generally speak English (though most speak it pretty poorly), atleast the younger part of the population. It's something you have to have in school, and with all the movies being in English, people generally speak it will enough to have a meaningfull conversation. Oh yeah, also, we don't put Danish voices on everything like they do in Germany. Actually, I don't know how hard/easy it is for an American to immigrate to Denmark. I imagine that you having relatives in Denmark would help. It's not like we don't have problems in Denmark, though. First off, there's the very noticeable taxes that's just insane, which makes it hard to run a really successfull buisness in Denmark. You can't get rich in Denmark the way you can in other countries (ok, you can, but that's pretty theoretical). It's not like paradise on earth; we do have crime, people getting murdered, the healthcare people get is not like it is in other countries where you have a health insurance; you get the healthcare you need to be ok, like if you break a leg, that's fixed, if you get cancer, you get treatment, but the moment they can send you home to make place for someone else, they will. Also, some treatments you have to wait a very long time to get (like a few months for for some kinds of tratment; usually not that bad, though).
Hmm... I wonder what the government will do if it discovers a fatal security bug in a widely used application through this project?
I mean, if they tell everybody about it, then that really does not help them in attacking anyone...
However, if they don't tell anyone, then they have this situation:
A) There is a fatal security problem in a widely used application.
B) Knowing this gives them an advantage if they should at any time wish to be aggressive towards anyone else.
C) Software is global; People all over the world tend to use the same software, nomatter where they are physically situated.
D) If someone else knows of this problem, they will have the exact same advantage as the US army does, should this someone choose to be hostile towards american computer installations.
E) The US army knows that since they found the bug, it's possible to find this bug.
F) Any cracker/hacker in the world has a small chance of finding this fatal flaw; it's not a question of wheter this bug will be discovered by someone, it's a question of when.
-------
If all of the above is true, then by logic the below must also be true (assuming my logic is not somehow flawed, of course):
1) The US army will be witholding information that would benefit not only America as a whole, but everyone in the world that uses this software (ok, by a small degree, but still).
2) Keeping this information secret only gives the US army a transient advantage, as this bug will eventually be discovered by someone else.
3) If terroists smarten up and begin cracking instead of blowing stuff up (or behaps blowing stuff up through their cracking), then if they find this bug, they will not hesitate to exploit the possibilities this opens to them.
Imagine a terroist cracker finding a fatal flaw that works in all versions of Windows. This flaw allows him to break in and do whatever he wants to any Windows maschine.
Now, I happen to know that atleast we have an american battleship somewhere that runs windows NT... He'd have total control of this thing for atleast a few minutes, perhaps hours if he's very lucky and skilled.
Imagine what a terroist might like to do with such a ship...:(
Also, he'd probably be able to access alot of confidential information, perhaps even getting access to all the other security bugs and techniques the US army never told anyone about!
I just don't understand how people can think combat over the net can be a good thing. It leaves every country in the world very vulnerable. It opens up the possibility that one person, with enough information, acting completely on his won, can take down alot of stuff.
A group of skilled hackers could do to a country what some people thought the Y2K bug would do to the world (ok, let's say a small country:).
All that this requires is that they find enough security errors in programs in wide use, preferably an OS.
Of course, this hasn't happened yet, which would seem to indicate that it will never happen.
I don't find that argument very good, as this simply tells us that the crackers we are facing today are not really out to sabotage larger areas.
However, alot of people really, really hate (in the strongest sense possible) the US. Imagine if all fundamentalists suddenly stopped training for physical combat, and instead began learning cracking... There are alot of fundamentalists in the world, you know... And, well, fundamentalists are not known for showing restraint when they have the ability to cause harm to things and people in the USA, or anyone else they happen not to like.
Therefore, I really think what the US army should be consearned about is defending themselves. Security of computer installations is a matter of national security (for any country), and global stability.
If everyone has great defences, aggression will logically be less beneficial, and it won't be as much of a problem.
This issue will become more and more important as everyone gets more and more dependant upon technology.
Actually, now I come to think of it, there are three more possible meanings (number five actually being the most common use):
5) The complete stupidity by which the American "justice" system seems to work. If a lady in Denmark got money of off suing someone for her putting her own pet in the microwave (or spilling hot coffe all over herself at McDonalds), well, there'd be a massive protest, and if something wasn't done about suchs things being possible very quickly (as it would, believe me), whatever government we had would swiftly get a vote of no trust (translates badly into english, basically means that the opposition can force an election if they all agree) and we'd have another one in tops a month or two.
6) The notion that putting as many guns as possible into the hands of just about anyone who wants one will somehow magically result in less people getting shot.
You'd be hard pressed to find someone in Denmark who does not find the logic behind that obviously fallacious.
In Denmark, it's illegal to own a gun without you passing an exam on it, and you having some good excuse for wanting to own a gun (like, say, you hunt alot or some suchs).
7) People thinking that the government is somehow out to hurt them as much as possible.
Actually, seeing some of the laws that get passed over there, these people might be right...;) But in Denmark, the Danish state actively being against the populace at large is simply too far out for any Dane to believe.
Or, well, there is no contradiction in both encouraging privacy and freedom of information at the same time, even if it might sound that way right off the bat. "Freedom of information" does not mean "everyone should know everything about everyone and everything" "Freedom of information" is something that applies when privacy is not an issue. Like, I wouldn't want my bank to tell everyone exactly how much money I have, and where I buy stuff and the like. I would like them to tell everyone how they safeguard that secret of mine (ie, open their source). Basically, believing in freedom of information means belieaving that everyone should have access to all information, providing that everyone having access to this information does not violate the privacy of someone else in a non-trivial way.
I find it rather sad that someone would moderate this as "funny" or as "flamebait", as this correctly identifies the emotions alot of people have about the USA, which the moderators somehow find "funny".
This is completely serious, and we have a phrase alot like it in Denmark.
A moderation of "interesting" or "informative" would be alot more appropiate, I think.
In Denmark, it's called "amerikanske tilstande", which directly translates to "American conditions".
It's used primarily to refer to these things:
1) Not caring about/helping the poor or otherwise disadvantaged people (basically, in Denmark, we have none to very few homeless people (it's hard to do something about the homelesness of people being on drugs and the like...), and all people without jobs are given enough money that they should be able to live reasonably comfortably (actually, people get enough money of off this that taking some very low-paying jobs will result in the jobless person getting *less* money). They may be forced by the state to take a job after a certain period of inactivity, though)
2) The state not providing free healtcare for everyone (you are entitled to treatment in Denmark payed by the state, nomatter who you are and nomatter the cost (you sometimes have to wait a while to get this treatment, though)).
3) People going amok and shooting alot of people, terrorism, high crime rates and generally any very brutal crime (we haven't had terrorism in denmark for, hmm, as long as I've lived, I believe. I actually don't know how the crime rates compare USA/Denmark, so I don't know if there's any basis there)
4) Things being extremely big, as in big corporations, big cars, big hotels etc. etc. + any physical thing taken completely out of proportion (Denmark is alot smaller than the USA, so naturally, we will also tend to have smaller corporations etc.)
If you think after reading this that Denmark must be a very good country, well... I can't say I disagree, but you should know that it's really easy to get to pay 50+% of your income in taxes, and our cars, gasoline (anything polluting) is ALOT more expensive here (like double/triple the cost).
I find it rather sad that someone would moderate this as "funny" or as "flamebait", as this correctly identifies the emotions alot of people have about the USA, which the moderators somehow find "funny". This is completely serious, and we have a phrase alot like it in Denmark. A moderation of "interesting" or "informative" would be alot more appropiate, I think. In Denmark, it's called "amerikanske tilstande", which directly translates to "American conditions". It's used primarily to refer to these things: 1) Not caring about/helping the poor or otherwise disadvantaged people (basically, in Denmark, we have none to very few homeless people (it's hard to do something about the homelesness of people being on drugs and the like...), and all people without jobs are given enough money that they should be able to live reasonably comfortably (actually, people get enough money of off this that taking some very low-paying jobs will result in the jobless person getting *less* money). They may be forced by the state to take a job after a certain period of inactivity, though) 2) The state not providing free healtcare for everyone (you are entitled to treatment in Denmark payed by the state, nomatter the cost). 3) People going amok and shooting alot of people, terrorism, high crime rates and generally any very brutal crime (we haven't had terrorism in denmark for, hmm, as long as I've lived, I believe. I actually don't know how the crime rates compare USA/Denmark, so I don't know if there's any basis there) 4) Things being extremely big, as in big corporations, big cars, big hotels etc. etc. + any physical thing taken completely out of proportion (Denmark is alot smaller than the USA, so naturally, we will also tend to have smaller corporations etc.) If you think after reading this that Denmark must be a very good country, well... I can't say I disagree, but you should know that it's really easy to get to pay 50+% of your income in taxes, and our cars, gasoline (anything polluting) is ALOT more expensive here (like double/triple the cost).
This is one of the main fallacy of religion: the need for a first cause. Here we have a common misconception. There need not be anything before God, because there is no before God. How exactly do you differentiate between an intelligent agent suchs as that you call "God", and an unintelligent "something" that sets in motion this time-illusion we humans have so much trouble understanding the real nature of? Of course, in the above, I didn't take into account that my argument is completely nonsense, as is yours. You are correct that religion does not need a first cause no more than an atheist needs one. If the world can be forever, so can that which you call "God". Obviously. However, intelligence, in any way that I am able to think of the meaning of that word, is dependent upon time to make any sense. Intelligence is to initiate actions or thougths and respond to your environment. Without time, there can be no "initiating", no "stream of thougth" and certainly there can be no action, since action clearly implies "doing something", and in order to do that, you clearly need to have something to differentiate one moment form the other. Before time, you have just one single moment, in which no action can be made. There can be no desire, no will, nothing that is dependant upon action or thougth, actually, we can't have anything that is dependant upon anything, as being dependant upon something implies something happening differently based on wheter that which is being depended upon is there or not, and we can't have stuff like that without time. Notice that, of course, creation, be it done by that which you call "God" or some fundamental law of the universe, is an action. I wouldn't mind being wrong here. Somebody please show me:)
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I don't care how unproductive it is I can say things in Spanish that I could never say in English
It works the other way around too, and if you ever talk in Spanish instead of English you are at those moments robbed of the oppertunity of saying those things you can't say in Spanish but only in English.
Still, somehow, I suspect you survive just fine even in the face of this grave loss.
In other words, it is no loss at all, since you get as much as you give up.
This, of course, is only true if the alternative is for everyone to know both Spanish and English, but that is even more unlikely than everyone knowing English...
[...] can you imagen the damage that destroying a language, any language would do?
The gain would be as big as the loss, since new things could be said in the new language that could not be said in the old language.
But of course, some would appreciate the litterary value of some languages that would not be the universal language. In that case, I think it would be proper for those individuals to learn that language for the porpuse of literature written in the language and let the rest of us communicate unobstructed.
First of all, languages are not static but rather they evolve and change all the time. This does not destroy them, it just makes them different. Just by observing that single fact one can see how rediculus this is.
However, I woudln't mind if Spanish was removed from the face of the earth. In fact, I woudln't mind of Danish was removed from the earth (my own native tongue). The reason for this is that it's simply stupid and unproductive for everyone not to speak the same langauge. At the time, the only language that seems to have the possibility of becoming a truely universal language is English, so I hope more people will talk English.
There's nothing special about English, though; I'd much prefer a synthetic language like Esperanto that's actually thougth out and easy to learn, instead of the random suckiness inherent in natural languages. But [i]everyone[/i] learning Esperanto or anything besides English unfortunately seems rather unlikely right now.
Some would say that this would destroy culture, but if a culture is so weak it cannot survive the "loss" of its language, I'd say that people weren't really serious about it anyway.
Here's a quote:
5.1 Linux is slow [...] One operating system that does operations comparable to Linux is NT. Linux is well over twice as fast as NT. Mac System is consistently slower, as are most Windows programs.
Now, I like Linux as much as the next guy, but that Linux is "well over twice as fast as NT", that's just bullshit. First of all, this has to depend on what you do. Second of all, I don't have a hard time imagining Linux being substantially faster than NT for some things, but a 2x speed-up is just way over what I'm prepared to believe (ok, there might be some isolated completely unrealistic benchmark that will give this result, but aside from that).
In most of the benchmarks I've seen, NT performs really well, and Linux performs within 1% of NT.
Then there's the Mindcraft results. Sure, the deck was stacked against Linux, but none-the-less, NT completely kicked the hell out of Linux.
It's possible that the new kernel will turn around to kick the hell out of Win2000, but that has yet to be seen.
In any case, saying flat out that Linux is twice as fast as NT is completely unwarranted. It's a myth.
There have been some controversial attempts to benchmark Linux versus Windows NT, with partisans on both sides claiming "victory;" a full and fair explanation of that lies outside the scope of this document at this time.
Ok, so they did mention this. That still doesn't in any way make Linux twice as fast as NT. Talk about FUD.
I'm disappointed: this is supposed to be a Myth Dispeller website. I look at ONE entry, and I find something like this.
Actually, NASA has been tracking space debree for a long time.
At one time, they even delayed a launch around 3 months to stay clear of some objects out there in space. They weren't really going to come very close, but then I can understand how they didn't want to take the risk with that kind of hardware.
Here is an introduction to Genetic Algorithms:
http://cs.felk.cvut.cz/~xobitko/ga/
Here is another example of a Generic Algortihm put to use, this time to apparently massively improve the wiring and therefore performance of Beowulf clusters:
http://www.arstechnica.com/c pu/2q00/klat2/klat2-1.html
The way I understood it, the article only said that he started each generation with a population of 5.
Those 5 then mutated, interbred and so on, some of them dying, untill there were to many, and all but 5 was killed. And so on.
I happen to know for a fact that this cannot possibly be Mr. Katz writing that, as I have just recently killed him. Fooled the police into some wacky alcoholism theory they seem to believe.
(picks up phone)
What d' ya' mean I got the wrong guy!?!
Read the story over at Wired.
I the past, I've run an E-zine for about a year. I was the editor and did all the html.
Anyway, the main complaint people was giving me was that the whole thing was loading way to slowly. I didn't know exactly how to fix this, as the thing had only ONE picture: the logo.
Anyway, I used Javascript to "compress" the html, and it worked like a charm. For example, someone sent me a raw text (ie, no formatting, just plain ASCII) file, and after having applied all the (non-trivial - lots' o' tables and the kind) formatting, the file was a bit *smaller* than the original ASCII text file...
What I did was to simply make javascript functions for things I did alot. For example, instead of writing all the html for required for a newsitem for each and every news item on the page, I had Javascript function that took as its arguments the name of the news item, the date of it, it's actual text and who contributed it.
Doing this actually makes the raw html much, much, much easier to read.
I got ONE complaint from a person who couldn't view the thing. I told him to turn on Javascript, and then it worked perfectly. After adding a "you need Javascript" note to the page, that would appear if someone had turned it off, I didn't get any complaints at all about either the use of javascript or slow loadtimes.
I wonder why no one has made a Javascript decompression script, and then you could actually compress all you pages (and have them decompressed when the user gets them), without the user ever seeing it, and you could do this with access to nothing but the raw html. This would of course require a fast Javascript implementation by the browser to make it feasible to write a decompressor in Javascript and have it run fast enough to actually give a benefit.
So Borland releases a free C++ compiler. Wehee... How exactly does this help anyone? I mean, we already have a free C/C++ compiler (gcc), and that one has source and everything, which Borland's does not.
I don't see this helping anyone, except perhaps the PR staff at Borland.
One thing that they really need to figure out is the issue of copying. I have read that you can already make bit for bit copies of DVDs. But I have also read that these copies can't play on any standard DVD since the "copy protection" part of the disk is not burned correctly on these copiers. Also, the major point the OSS is making is that the MPA is keeping them from making backup copies of their DVDs, which they are legally entitled to. The problem being they have already argued that copies can be made. They then continue to argue that DeCSS doesn't help pirates make copies of movies, which defeats the whole point of argueing that they are using DeCSS for making legal backup copies. You could back up a DVD on your harddrive, perhaps a bit more compressed. Or you could have the DVD act as the back-up, and view it from the harddisk. That way, it doens't matter so much if the film on your harddisk is obscenely large, because you can delete it again if you don't want it there anymore, as you still have the DVD. Harddisks are getting bigger and bigger, and I don't think the day that we can have a film on our harddrives in DVD Video quality without it being to draconian is that far away. However, if you want to be a pirate and actually distribute the DVDs, well, then I really don't think you'd want to distribute it on harddisks... You could do it on normal CDs, but then you get bad quality and no added content. Not much point to it then.
I hear that some people are worried that in the future, the formats we use today will be so arcane that it will be practically impossible to find out what the data we leave behind actually means.
I really do not think this will be much of a problem. Computing power is increasing exponentially, as does out knowledge of how to use that computing power.
Finding out how to read a format is essentially the same as breaking an encryption scheme, just that most formats aren't made specifically to make reading them hard, like most encryption schemes is, so the task is actually easier.
I don't know about formatting and stuff like that, but certainly, people in the future will be able to figure out what we have been sending, provided they have the data. I mean *today* we can provably reverse ingeneer todays formats, why shouldn't people in the future, with vastly greater knowledge about basically everything, not be able to do so, should they so wish?
For those who don't have time to follow the links (or are afraid it might chip away at their smug knowledge that "we're smarter than those Americans") let me offer some of the salient points:
... And for God's sake, when you go backing up your assertions with such utterly disproven urban legends as the pet-in-the-microwave, you're practically asking for the phrase "Danish credulity" to come into parlance.
I was trying to tell you and anyone else who found the comment title interesting enough to read exactly what "american conditions" means in Danish, which I believe I've succeded in doing rather well.
It's a not a matter of me thinking that I'm smarten than you or Americans in general, it's just that this is what Danes think of when they use the phrase in that meaning.
If that offends you, sorry, but I am not responsible for how words or phrases get defined.
Perhaps you should be a little more careful next time before you go assuming that you've heard the whole story, and that the big corporation is in the right so that the so-silly American legal system will be in the wrong.
Do you by this mean that there is no precident on people getting ridicilus amounts of money in American law? That ridicilus lawsuits are not made, and when they are subsequently lost, that the people who filed the sort, which they must've known was ridicilus, are always made to pay the legal expenses?
If you do, well... That is certainly not the impression I have, but then I don't live in America, and you probably know better than me.
If you don't mean that, then I don't say how it can offend you that I use a few examples to illustrate the point. It really doesn't matter wheter the examples are true or not, as long as there are other examples that have the same general characteristics that I'm trying to illustrate.
And really, don't you think that it is just a wee bit weird to be made pay alot of more for serving the coffee hot?
Putting warnings on the cups really won't help; people already know coffee is hot. The steam coming out of it should be more than enough indication. Anyone trying to drink coffee that is steaming without checking the temperature first is crasy.
That being said, ok, perhaps the coffee was hotter than it should've been, but 2 million dollars? To me that is completely ridicilus, but then we live in different parts of the world and probably have a different view of things...
Covering some of the medical bills would be IMHO ok, since the coffee was to hot. But the woman spilling the coffee had some of the responsibility too, or should they have had a warning saying "don't spill all over yourself" next to the warning saying "Check temperature before drinking" ?
Well, if you speak English, you'll have a relative easy time learning Danish (notice the relative there, learning any language is of course hard). Many times, if you know an English word for something, you'll be able to come up with the Danish word for the same thing simply by pronouncing it in Danish rather than in English (this does have the sideffect of you never knowing wheter a word is actually a word, or something you made up). People in Denmark generally speak English (though most speak it pretty poorly), atleast the younger part of the population. It's something you have to have in school, and with all the movies being in English, people generally speak it will enough to have a meaningfull conversation. Oh yeah, also, we don't put Danish voices on everything like they do in Germany. Actually, I don't know how hard/easy it is for an American to immigrate to Denmark. I imagine that you having relatives in Denmark would help. It's not like we don't have problems in Denmark, though. First off, there's the very noticeable taxes that's just insane, which makes it hard to run a really successfull buisness in Denmark. You can't get rich in Denmark the way you can in other countries (ok, you can, but that's pretty theoretical). It's not like paradise on earth; we do have crime, people getting murdered, the healthcare people get is not like it is in other countries where you have a health insurance; you get the healthcare you need to be ok, like if you break a leg, that's fixed, if you get cancer, you get treatment, but the moment they can send you home to make place for someone else, they will. Also, some treatments you have to wait a very long time to get (like a few months for for some kinds of tratment; usually not that bad, though).
thanks
Hmm... I wonder what the government will do if it discovers a fatal security bug in a widely used application through this project?
:(
:).
I mean, if they tell everybody about it, then that really does not help them in attacking anyone...
However, if they don't tell anyone, then they have this situation:
A) There is a fatal security problem in a widely used application.
B) Knowing this gives them an advantage if they should at any time wish to be aggressive towards anyone else.
C) Software is global; People all over the world tend to use the same software, nomatter where they are physically situated.
D) If someone else knows of this problem, they will have the exact same advantage as the US army does, should this someone choose to be hostile towards american computer installations.
E) The US army knows that since they found the bug, it's possible to find this bug.
F) Any cracker/hacker in the world has a small chance of finding this fatal flaw; it's not a question of wheter this bug will be discovered by someone, it's a question of when.
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If all of the above is true, then by logic the below must also be true (assuming my logic is not somehow flawed, of course):
1) The US army will be witholding information that would benefit not only America as a whole, but everyone in the world that uses this software (ok, by a small degree, but still).
2) Keeping this information secret only gives the US army a transient advantage, as this bug will eventually be discovered by someone else.
3) If terroists smarten up and begin cracking instead of blowing stuff up (or behaps blowing stuff up through their cracking), then if they find this bug, they will not hesitate to exploit the possibilities this opens to them.
Imagine a terroist cracker finding a fatal flaw that works in all versions of Windows. This flaw allows him to break in and do whatever he wants to any Windows maschine.
Now, I happen to know that atleast we have an american battleship somewhere that runs windows NT... He'd have total control of this thing for atleast a few minutes, perhaps hours if he's very lucky and skilled.
Imagine what a terroist might like to do with such a ship...
Also, he'd probably be able to access alot of confidential information, perhaps even getting access to all the other security bugs and techniques the US army never told anyone about!
I just don't understand how people can think combat over the net can be a good thing. It leaves every country in the world very vulnerable. It opens up the possibility that one person, with enough information, acting completely on his won, can take down alot of stuff.
A group of skilled hackers could do to a country what some people thought the Y2K bug would do to the world (ok, let's say a small country
All that this requires is that they find enough security errors in programs in wide use, preferably an OS.
Of course, this hasn't happened yet, which would seem to indicate that it will never happen.
I don't find that argument very good, as this simply tells us that the crackers we are facing today are not really out to sabotage larger areas.
However, alot of people really, really hate (in the strongest sense possible) the US. Imagine if all fundamentalists suddenly stopped training for physical combat, and instead began learning cracking... There are alot of fundamentalists in the world, you know... And, well, fundamentalists are not known for showing restraint when they have the ability to cause harm to things and people in the USA, or anyone else they happen not to like.
Therefore, I really think what the US army should be consearned about is defending themselves. Security of computer installations is a matter of national security (for any country), and global stability.
If everyone has great defences, aggression will logically be less beneficial, and it won't be as much of a problem.
This issue will become more and more important as everyone gets more and more dependant upon technology.
Sorry! It'd be nice if someone could moderate it down. I really only remember pressing the submit button once. Hmm... Guess my memory is wrong...
Actually, now I come to think of it, there are three more possible meanings (number five actually being the most common use):
;) But in Denmark, the Danish state actively being against the populace at large is simply too far out for any Dane to believe.
5) The complete stupidity by which the American "justice" system seems to work. If a lady in Denmark got money of off suing someone for her putting her own pet in the microwave (or spilling hot coffe all over herself at McDonalds), well, there'd be a massive protest, and if something wasn't done about suchs things being possible very quickly (as it would, believe me), whatever government we had would swiftly get a vote of no trust (translates badly into english, basically means that the opposition can force an election if they all agree) and we'd have another one in tops a month or two.
6) The notion that putting as many guns as possible into the hands of just about anyone who wants one will somehow magically result in less people getting shot.
You'd be hard pressed to find someone in Denmark who does not find the logic behind that obviously fallacious.
In Denmark, it's illegal to own a gun without you passing an exam on it, and you having some good excuse for wanting to own a gun (like, say, you hunt alot or some suchs).
7) People thinking that the government is somehow out to hurt them as much as possible.
Actually, seeing some of the laws that get passed over there, these people might be right...
Or, well, there is no contradiction in both encouraging privacy and freedom of information at the same time, even if it might sound that way right off the bat. "Freedom of information" does not mean "everyone should know everything about everyone and everything" "Freedom of information" is something that applies when privacy is not an issue. Like, I wouldn't want my bank to tell everyone exactly how much money I have, and where I buy stuff and the like. I would like them to tell everyone how they safeguard that secret of mine (ie, open their source). Basically, believing in freedom of information means belieaving that everyone should have access to all information, providing that everyone having access to this information does not violate the privacy of someone else in a non-trivial way.
I find it rather sad that someone would moderate this as "funny" or as "flamebait", as this correctly identifies the emotions alot of people have about the USA, which the moderators somehow find "funny".
This is completely serious, and we have a phrase alot like it in Denmark.
A moderation of "interesting" or "informative" would be alot more appropiate, I think.
In Denmark, it's called "amerikanske tilstande", which directly translates to "American conditions".
It's used primarily to refer to these things:
1) Not caring about/helping the poor or otherwise disadvantaged people (basically, in Denmark, we have none to very few homeless people (it's hard to do something about the homelesness of people being on drugs and the like...), and all people without jobs are given enough money that they should be able to live reasonably comfortably (actually, people get enough money of off this that taking some very low-paying jobs will result in the jobless person getting *less* money). They may be forced by the state to take a job after a certain period of inactivity, though)
2) The state not providing free healtcare for everyone (you are entitled to treatment in Denmark payed by the state, nomatter who you are and nomatter the cost (you sometimes have to wait a while to get this treatment, though)).
3) People going amok and shooting alot of people, terrorism, high crime rates and generally any very brutal crime (we haven't had terrorism in denmark for, hmm, as long as I've lived, I believe. I actually don't know how the crime rates compare USA/Denmark, so I don't know if there's any basis there)
4) Things being extremely big, as in big corporations, big cars, big hotels etc. etc. + any physical thing taken completely out of proportion (Denmark is alot smaller than the USA, so naturally, we will also tend to have smaller corporations etc.)
If you think after reading this that Denmark must be a very good country, well... I can't say I disagree, but you should know that it's really easy to get to pay 50+% of your income in taxes, and our cars, gasoline (anything polluting) is ALOT more expensive here (like double/triple the cost).
I find it rather sad that someone would moderate this as "funny" or as "flamebait", as this correctly identifies the emotions alot of people have about the USA, which the moderators somehow find "funny". This is completely serious, and we have a phrase alot like it in Denmark. A moderation of "interesting" or "informative" would be alot more appropiate, I think. In Denmark, it's called "amerikanske tilstande", which directly translates to "American conditions". It's used primarily to refer to these things: 1) Not caring about/helping the poor or otherwise disadvantaged people (basically, in Denmark, we have none to very few homeless people (it's hard to do something about the homelesness of people being on drugs and the like...), and all people without jobs are given enough money that they should be able to live reasonably comfortably (actually, people get enough money of off this that taking some very low-paying jobs will result in the jobless person getting *less* money). They may be forced by the state to take a job after a certain period of inactivity, though) 2) The state not providing free healtcare for everyone (you are entitled to treatment in Denmark payed by the state, nomatter the cost). 3) People going amok and shooting alot of people, terrorism, high crime rates and generally any very brutal crime (we haven't had terrorism in denmark for, hmm, as long as I've lived, I believe. I actually don't know how the crime rates compare USA/Denmark, so I don't know if there's any basis there) 4) Things being extremely big, as in big corporations, big cars, big hotels etc. etc. + any physical thing taken completely out of proportion (Denmark is alot smaller than the USA, so naturally, we will also tend to have smaller corporations etc.) If you think after reading this that Denmark must be a very good country, well... I can't say I disagree, but you should know that it's really easy to get to pay 50+% of your income in taxes, and our cars, gasoline (anything polluting) is ALOT more expensive here (like double/triple the cost).
This is one of the main fallacy of religion: the need for a first cause. Here we have a common misconception. There need not be anything before God, because there is no before God. How exactly do you differentiate between an intelligent agent suchs as that you call "God", and an unintelligent "something" that sets in motion this time-illusion we humans have so much trouble understanding the real nature of? Of course, in the above, I didn't take into account that my argument is completely nonsense, as is yours. You are correct that religion does not need a first cause no more than an atheist needs one. If the world can be forever, so can that which you call "God". Obviously. However, intelligence, in any way that I am able to think of the meaning of that word, is dependent upon time to make any sense. Intelligence is to initiate actions or thougths and respond to your environment. Without time, there can be no "initiating", no "stream of thougth" and certainly there can be no action, since action clearly implies "doing something", and in order to do that, you clearly need to have something to differentiate one moment form the other. Before time, you have just one single moment, in which no action can be made. There can be no desire, no will, nothing that is dependant upon action or thougth, actually, we can't have anything that is dependant upon anything, as being dependant upon something implies something happening differently based on wheter that which is being depended upon is there or not, and we can't have stuff like that without time. Notice that, of course, creation, be it done by that which you call "God" or some fundamental law of the universe, is an action. I wouldn't mind being wrong here. Somebody please show me :)