Wow, I second that. I have written moderately complex programs in C++ that port beautifully, often without any modification whatsoever. Using the curses library, you can actually have rudimentary GUI programs and good interactivity without any real platform-specific code. A couple silly programs I wrote for fun (sudoku solver, medical calculator) compile on linux and PDA with minimal modification. I can rest assured knowing that they will compile on run on just about any machine in the near future.
I view programming languages as a clear continuum -- from Machine to Assembly to C to C++ to C# to Java / Python / Ruby / MATLAB / script-du-jour. Choose where on this line you want to program, trading convenience/portability for speed/low level optimization/customization.
I, for one, have been always pleasantly amazed by C++. It's low as you want to go, near to C, but you get classes and their benefits (encapsulation, overloading, etc.) that makes larger projects much more easily organized. Manual garbage collection gets to be a pain, but I view this as a little bit of a necessary pain (though I admit perhaps I have just gotten used to meticulously keeping track of memory and pointers.)
Also, I think we need a car analogy: C++ is a manual transmission car, but Python is an automatic. They just get you from place to place, but the manual is a bit more difficult, sportier, customizable for your style, and potentially more fun.
I probably didn't say it succinctly enough, but that was exactly my point. I like to think that *we* own those computers in the library. My taxes paid for the construction, maintenance, and my overdue fines (sigh) also support it.
I don't want some mildly educated librarian making the decision whether to *give* stuff to a federal official.
That decision is for judges to make. It is not the librarian's decision to make, no more than it would be mine if I were a teenager working there at the time the officials walked in. With public assets comes increased accountability, which is why laws for crimes on public property (city halls, post offices) are generally so draconian.
The librarian should be subject to a thorough questioning of her judgment, with retraining or dismissal as indicated.:)
I am far from a libertarian extremist, and this does not fly with me.
The whole reason that we have *court-ordered* warrants, elected judges, and oversight and accountability is to prevent this -- namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.
I am happy when even television shows get it right (Law and Order occasionally), and when the cops / feds do stuff like this, it comes back to jeopardize their case. Illegally seized? Now watch as you just compromised yourself and potentially let somebody go free. Before somebody retorts with the obvious extremes, of course I do think that ridiculous cases of this are ludicrous (e.g. cop didn't sign one piece of paper correctly -> murder goes free), but the case above is clear violation of due procedure and oversight in my books.
The one justification I could see is in truly emergent cases -- e.g. hard drive will purge, but need to preserve data... must... pull... plug... NOW. I would say "do it," and, according to my lawyer friends, there are judges on call that the cop / detective / agent can call that can grant emergency access / warrants shortly after the fact (within hours) to make everything legitimate. It does not appear that this was done here.
I don't want some librarian making the decision on whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority. Any smooth-talking agent can come in, reciting that it is for "terrorism / anthrax" or "the children / child porn" and the intimidated lady will just cave in. I know my friend's 60 year old mother who works as our local librarian would. She is neither lawyer nor judge, and should not function as such.
I run Debian in several capacities -- stable on my work server, and unstable on my personal machine.
A lot of people are going to (quite accurately, I guess) point out that for anybody running unstable/experimental there is not much to this. I mean, release numbers are soooo 1990's, as a simple apt-get update; apt-get upgrade brings you up to the latest packages. Even experimental seems to lag waaaay behind other bleeding edge distros though (gentoo).
Of course, the release is more important for new installs or people running stable. I have been very impressed with Debian stable, the SSH bug nonwithstanding.
As software packages and Linux get more mature, I see the definition of a "release" issue becoming even less important for the non-server / non-corporate user. Continuous upgrades are the way of the future. Even on the M$ side this seems to be true, with their MS office 200x and "automatic upgrades."
Really, really bad move. Now, instead of two years at summer camp, he will go to many more years of Federal Pound-me-in-the-a$$ Prison. It is really, really hard in today's day and age to avoid being captured, even with a lot of money if you want to live at some decent level. His best bet I think is to go to a foreign country where he could blend in, and live inconspicuously.
Even in some place like Mexico he would be quite a stand out if he flashed cash, and in the US you'd ultimately fall temptation to going to the local drugstore and risk being nabbed on camera. Any lawyers know if there are any countries which would absolutely refuse extradition? If so, he would still need to 1) get there and 2) transfer enough money to survive, and much more if he couldn't work.
Interestingly enough, I think the next play depends on how many resources the US government will put into capturing him and raising awareness among people. A stint on "Dateline" or widely watched / read program would help any possible acquaintances turn him in.
We had those growing up -- we called them BB guns.
4 pumps would not hurt a girl.
10 pumps to use on family members.
15 pumps for neighbor's kids
20 pumps for the kill.
Seriously though, I shudder with all of the implications of "nonlethal" technology in police hands. It rapidly leads to overuse. Remember the bean bag to the head that killed the girl celebrating the Red Sox victory? The current rash of taser (over)use?
Speak with a lawyer that has knowledge and interest in this situation. The fact that a successful prosecution may bring a lot of publicity to the guy may be enough to help him work for free, or the company that is losing the computers may post his retainer.
What is your relation to all of this? As with any civil case, the police are not going to be a driving force to pursue the theft; your company or the people that lost it should be making sure things get done.
I wouldn't expect police to know anything about IP, MAC addresses, login tracing, etc., but a lawyer would. Then, what a lawyer can do is go to a judge saying, "We have solid evidence that person at IP x.x.x.x which is Verizon ISP registered to address ___ main street., also cross confirming with name at myspace profile _____, is using stolen property."
A warrant will then be issued, and the police can go to the house and retrieve the laptop, and interview the guy, who will doubtlessly say "I bought it from _____ on the street, I thought it was legit." You will surely get your computer back, and if you find a motherlode of computers, he will surely go to jail.
Well, that's more than a little simplistic and straw... The biggest application that is advertised is the safe termination of high speed chases (or high-speed joyriding, as many police departments are now thankfully stopping ground chases in favor of air or other pursuit). Currently cops will use things like PIT
to spin somebody out, but a killswitch is obviously preferable to this. I don't look at this in terms of property recovery; if somebody steals my car and goes high speed joyriding, I pretty much don't want it back. The killswitch is irrelevent to me IMHO.
Chest-thumping about 'nobody controls MY car but ME' is a bit silly; authorities already have control over how fast I go in my car, where I can go, I have to have registration, insurance, and cops can pull me over at a whim and detain me. I find these more concerning than a theoretical remote disactivation that can potentially save a lot lives.
Honestly, your car is a lot more likely to break down on the highway due to mechanical problems than have a misfire of this; and if it was activated without a warrant / inappropriately, you could sue the party that made the bad decision. I would rather have that than a confused officer ram me off the road.
As was discussed in the airplane kill switch thread, this gives new difficulties. A terrorist now just has to threaten to block communication from the plane and make it fly in a weird pattern, and then the pentagon will kill the 200+ passengers on board with an F-16 rather than the terrorists.
Regarding the Onstar system, this is known about by their company, and they are being quite responsible IMHO -- the switch has many, many security levels to be activated, and gradually starves the engine of fuel so that one would coast to a stop rather than suddenly switching off. Of course, this is a bigger problem for an airplane.
Not only did they lose focus, but their founder and insiders have no hope.
I used to be a sizable shareholder in PALM, dating back to the old US Robotics days. I made a small bit of money overall, but got out when it was clear also to me that they were doing *nothing* as far as I could tell. I think the final straw for me was when they had a big press release for the release of their new and COMPLETELY UGLY orange logo. Weren't they supposed to be a technology company?
The death of palm is really a shame. Take a look at this:
Interestingly enough, Gates could have really improved his image during his tenure at Microsoft if he let emails like that "leak" out prior to stepping down. Instead, he gives keynotes about Microsoft and its "innovation."
First, I am not sure that email is really by Gates -- from reading his writing or listening to him in the past, it really does not sound like his style. Also, "I reboot my computer... why should I have to reboot my computer?" I find it hard to realize that he wouldn't know the technical difficulties in replacing a dll while the system is running, and possible ways around this, and the current state of affairs. However, maybe I'm giving too much credit here.
Secondly, *if you can't do anything about this crap, then stop releasing it on time and FIX THE ISSUES* instead of releasing it to the world for millions of users to suffer under your monopoly. If your software sucks, fix the problems instead of using oppressive business practices to make *everybody* suffer.
Next, people complain about Linux usability? apt-get install mplayer k3b, etc? It is not harder, just different. In fact, having all of the software most people need in one place makes Linux easier for most people in many ways, specifically the way that possible-Bill rants about here.
Whenever I have listen to Gates talk or talked to him (many, many years ago now, in the late 90's) he seems more than aware of problems with his product, and I always get this vibe "I'm doing it because I can and it is really, really, really good for business and nobody is stopping me." If any of you were following the USDOJ against Microsoft way back before the Bush-era forgiveness, Microsoft was going to be split into three companies. When Bill was on the stand, he basically went "I don't remember" to every possibly incriminating statement, but was clearly aware of the bad ethics of what he was doing -- again, reading between the lines I always got the vibe of the triumphant geek saying "I'm not going to stop until you guys get your act together and make me stop."
He's not a stupid guy that way, and anybody that respects billionaires must ask themselves if they would do the same things with a company to maintain market share... Personally, I like to think I wouldn't, but that's why I am not a CEO.
Every time I read something like this I get a bit frustrated. I can't paste the whole article for copyright reasons, but I am hoping a kind AC will. Either way, the gist of the article is that when very close (some have interference "distances" of 0.1 cm) RFID active readers / transmitters may interfere with some medical equipment.
The interobserver variability in the study was high, and they defined an event very broadly, essentially as any change in the operation of a device. It is a bit aggressive -- and I fear that good technology may inadvertently be stifled for "interference" concerns...
Yes to that specific case and I agree with what you are saying, but the general process repeats itself over and over in business and technology.
Facebook? Give me a break -- look at the prior art of Friendster and even Myspace. When Facebook was being started at Harvard I thought it would not take off because of the current dominant players.
Google? Anybody old enough to remember when Altavista was the king of search? We used to always use that engine in college.
AIM? Remember ICQ? Ntalk? Otalk?
Original ideas are few, and even Gates admits he was not very original with his ideas in many, many interviews, but he did implement them well, er... market them well, and protected his monopoly with a vengeance.
Inflammatory short article to "sex things up" (pun intended); surprising for the WSJ (or maybe not.) Written by a Rebecca Buckman, quoting Emma McGrattan at database company Ingres.
Any such broad classifications such as this should be taken with a *lot* of salt.
That being said, the article reminded me of a large digital systems design project that I had back in college, writing assembly for a 6502 processor in a device we made. My lab partner was a girl (probably only 10% of the class was female) who really, really thought differently than me in a way. It was weird -- some of the things I thought were impossible or not worth doing she would code in 10 hours; and the reverse was true. It was pretty much pure synergy (forgive the cheesy phrase) and we were extremely productive and got along well.
However, to reduce anything like this to gender differences is almost nonsensical. I could have been good lab partners with any number of people that thought differently than me, male or female. Personality is complex, not binary. I know many girls that code beautifully, and many more that can not code at all. This article is kind of interesting cocktail conversation, but nothing more IMHO...
Recently living on campus (you can see some of my previous posts.)
Piracy quite rampant just like any other university, and the students have rarely been served although it does happen.
I agree that they figure high-profile university lawsuits are bad publicity, and Harvard does have many young lawyers anxious for a big win, and will not be easily intimidated, which is half of what the RIAA game is about.
Several of the Harvard students I know have a method of sharing files via a VPN type construct (wasn't really heavily encrypted though, only member-authenticated IIRC), protected from the RIAA / internet. If several hundred people share their music, that is quite a collection. These "clubs" exist, and are very hard to find.
Man, I love reading about stuff like this, but this article has some serious vagueness that really leaves unanswered questions. Perhaps a true security-fluent slashdotter can offer some insight if they are familiar with this particular game:
Why does this require "custom tools" with automatic monitoring? Really, I doubt the students know the details of asymmetric security theory / Ph.D. level mathematics, and were monitoring something like (if I get a port scan from IP x.x.x.x then tell "router guys" to block IP x.x.x.x).
It seems to me that this should be something that essentially should be done automatically, and with a very well-configured system would not cause that much of a problem.
Also, the article was written for somebody who doesn't understand computers to go "whoa." "Kernel-level rootkit"? How the hell did this "unwelcome executable file" get on the box to begin with, and why was it executing in kernelspace? I assume they were required to start with a compromised system, otherwise this is something that major corporations do all day (general traffic monitoring) and is actually kind of not exciting.
I wish that Wired and magazines would write at a technical level and describe accurately what is going on - IMHO more information is always better!
Well, you've got to do a cost-benefit analysis similar to a business. In low light it is going to be difficult to get a high-quality images without extra light (obvious you are monitoring them) or a really, really expensive camera which is vulnerable to spray-painting or vandalism itself.
I was going to do something similar at a previous residence, but found that I would have to worry about people stealing the camera, or simply wearing a mask and gloves when they break in, which will really render the best camera useless. In the end, I used a hidden cheap Linksys webcam that was discreetly hidden inside my house, enough to alert me and catch a careless criminal.
I have also had good success with the D-Link products, which are very cheap.
Also, keep in mind that making your house / area "different" may actually attract more attention. Numerous cameras outside a particular residence screams "important stuff here" if you can't hide them effectively.
Medical factoid - kaolin and pectin are the substances that constitute the anti-diarrheal substance "Kaopectate" (hence the name.) Note that it doesn't really do anything but bind with water -- kind of a clay-like substance that will then give one more firm stools.
I think the modern kaopectate has modified its ingredients, but kaolin clay like substances are still available for medical use. Nice to see a new implementation of this technology, with the "nano" prefix thrown in for sexiness.
I always wondered in medical school what causes eyestrain -- your mom probably told you "don't read in poor light," but since the photons are easily sufficient to give an image on your retina, this didn't make sense to me.
It turns out that your eye muscles have a difficult time obtaining a rapid and precise focus with poor light, which gives less contrasts on the edges that are detected for sharp focus. In low light conditions, the eye muscles are rapidly focusing back and forth, and these micro-contractions can fatigue them similar to the other large muscles of your body. As an analogy, imagine walking on level ground versus on a balance beam. You are constantly contracting different adjustment muscles to walk on a balance beam, using more energy and promoting fatigue.
So, in answer to your question, you would want a high-contrast color scheme to make it easy for your eyes to focus on the letters. "Duh," I hear you say.
Next, I would recommend minimizing the difference in brightness between your monitor and the outside environment and its background. That is, in a dark office have a dark monitor, and in a bright office, a bright one. Why? Well, same reason -- your eye muscles have to dilate your pupil every time you look away from a bright monitor to a dark monitor. More contractions / adjustments -> more fatigue. Not only that, but the high brightness contrast will give ineffective normalization of light across the eye receptors and could cause headache.
Regarding your study question -- difficult to fund, and difficult to accomplish. I guess you would have to divide several hundred office workers, and try to have them work the same hours under same conditions with different fonts, and then ask a subjective question regarding symptoms. It could be done, but I am not sure of any well-performed efforts that have addressed this question.
In summary, I would just choose contrasting colors that you like or find subjectively pleasing, and then keep the brightness on your monitor appropriate for ambient lighting. Also, don't forget to focus on the numerous other ergonomic factors on your workstation. I see a *lot* of people with bad backs from the workplace, but there are a lot of 80 year old secretaries that are not blind.
Cue the contempt for expertise from the anti-intellectual crowd now.:p
Well, thanks guys. I am happy to provide the perspective of an MD in a sub-specialty. I actually paged a few of my friends that do CT surgery to ask them if they used the da Vinci system because I was curious. All of them had heard of it, and a few had been in cases with it, and again, unfortunately, all of them said it was a sideshow currently. At another major teaching hospital, the most experienced surgeon had about 100 cases with the device: far, far fewer than standard (they do 2-3 operations *per day*.) When used, they had the patient sign special forms beforehand.
On the summary it notes that the da Vinci system has been around since the 90's.
We all agreed it was important stuff though, and should continue with research / development / implementation in some areas.
Somebody said that surgeons hate to admit they are wrong -- yeah, that is generally a stereotype, along with "Americans are all fat," "girls can't do math," and "slashdotters are all virgins in their mother's basement." Sometimes true, but a bit offensive in its generalization. Yes, there are colleagues of mine that are simply arrogant and don't want to talk to patients or can't admit they are wrong, and there are balanced individuals whom I would send any family member to be a patient without hesitation.
Slashdot is fun, and we have EE's, MD's, and prominent programmers (John Carmack, Torvalds, etc.) on here, but also a wealth of teenagers, or their mental/emotional equivalent, that say the dumbest things because their Mom isn't around to tell them to shut up, and think that doing two internet searches is going to provide them with more perspective than a professional and make them seem smart. Not that I can't be wrong, of course, and I love to learn about new technology, but I hope I know what goes on every day at work.:)
Dude, stop being the contrarian, it does not make you sound "smart," only childish and argumentative. People will treat you better in life if you ask questions for clarification instead of trying to trap somebody into silly fallacies to "prove your point," as the first sentence in your response. Occasionally we have trainees with your style, and gradually they socialize.:)
Again, I'm not sure the name of the GI device -- I saw a tech demo of it in one of our virtual-patient labs that we have for training fellows and medical students. However, from what I saw, I would not call it "robotic surgery" any more than using any sort of other mechanical device, or using standard endoscopy to be "robotic" (some do have motorized retrieval devices, etc.) If this is all the Da Vinci system is, then, sorry, you are right by your definition.
I know intimately well what goes on in my department, and somewhat well what goes on in other departments. If you know more, share your knowledge -- I'd love to learn about some of the intricacies of the system if you have seen it in action. However, don't act like a little kid. Do you own Da Vinci stock?
>I notice that Massachusetts has nine Da Vinci robots, including ones at U Mass Memorial, Boston Children's, Boston >Medical Centre and Brigham.
You didn't list two of Harvard's biggest hospitals. Also, of course, UMass and BMC are not part of Harvard.
I guess it depends what you mean by "used clinically." These generally are technology expos as part of a clinical trial -- FDA approval allows you to use it on a person, but you can bet that the patient signed a very long form indicating he is part of a research study / nonstandard procedure. Reading a few articles about this indicates the most high volume centers have done ~100 of these "robotic procedures," and mine (a major Harvard teaching hospital) has done... zero.
I'm all for it too -- but again, I just don't see this becoming routine for 10 years. My particular procedures have little use for it (we do everything through a quarter-sized incision anyway).
Finally, most of these systems (the GI doctors in my hospital have a remote device operating through an endoscope -- I will try to find out the brand) is more of a remote control through an endoscope AFAIK rather than a "robot." Without arguing semantics, this is a servo controlling a device attached to the end of a rod, and while evolutionary, I would not call it a robotic surgery. I'm not disrespecting it in the least, but if I had to guess, this is the way things will go. There will be evolution with incremental use of mechanical tools in the OR (of now there is minimal!) and someday, relatively far off, computer guided / mechanical surgery.
I am a doctor that does surgical procedures (mainly pacemaker device implantations).
These kind of devices are very much experimental, and pop up in the news every couple of months (a slashdot search can reveal similar ideas), but quite far away from any sort of typical use. Right now heart bypass surgery is decidedly low-tech, with a surgeon viewing the beating heart with loupe glasses and very skillfully lasso-ing the coronary arteries. It is a great fantasy in the hearts of all doctors to have a machine that offsets any heart movement -- it would make things much easier if reliable. The article doesn't mention that the movement would also have to be coupled with respiratory movement, and have some sort of fail-safe in the case of patient or external movement.
However, standard surgery is still not done using these tools. There are way too many items required to make this feasible in the near future ( 10 years IMHO, although I hope I'm wrong!)
- Testing: This is literally a life-and-death situation, and any robot "error" in a real person is likely to set the technology back 5 years after it hits the press and hospital review boards. Very, very damaging PR.
- Education: Surgeons would have to essentially be re-trained to use such a system.
- Feedback: It is really, really difficult to give an operator feedback on how something "feels." Part of during surgery (no kidding) a surgeon will often run his finger along cardiac arteries -- you can almost "feel" the calcified plaque in a diseased vessel. It would be really hard to approximate anything like this with a virtual robot.
- Cost: Labor is relatively cheap compared to the capital expenditure to R&D something like this... of course, this will change as time goes by.
No, they don't. Please read up on what "sterilize" means and stop spreading misinformation.
Oh, heck, you probably would have done it by now if you were going to.
Sterilize = kill ALL bacteria. You can put something that has been sterilized in your bloodstream and not get direct infection or exposure to bacteria.
Sanitize = kill bacterial to a certain threshold or standard, or kill harmful bacteria. You can lick something that has been sanitized and probably not get sick. However, if you cultured that hospital toilet seat, you can be sure you'd get bacteria.
Bioload reduction = "We're pretty much sure that it is not covered in stool or loads of harmful bacteria, but beyond that can't say."
It is almost impossible to build something the size of Mars rovers and have it be STERILE. Anything exposed to general atmosphere for over 20 seconds or so is no longer sterile. Even in the O.R. (which has special filters and a non-recirculating atmosphere) things exposed to the air for prolonged period are considered unsterile. If any of you guys worked in a bio lab, open up a can of L.B. broth, and walk away. After 20 minutes, recap it. What happens?
I really appreciate whoever sent me the planetary protection link, and it confirmed what I thought. We are *very* concerned about bringing foreign / alien bacteria here, but it is just about impossible to keep us from spreading our own throughout the universe.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, I second that. I have written moderately complex programs in C++ that port beautifully, often without any modification whatsoever. Using the curses library, you can actually have rudimentary GUI programs and good interactivity without any real platform-specific code. A couple silly programs I wrote for fun (sudoku solver, medical calculator) compile on linux and PDA with minimal modification. I can rest assured knowing that they will compile on run on just about any machine in the near future.
I view programming languages as a clear continuum -- from Machine to Assembly to C to C++ to C# to Java / Python / Ruby / MATLAB / script-du-jour. Choose where on this line you want to program, trading convenience/portability for speed/low level optimization/customization.
I, for one, have been always pleasantly amazed by C++. It's low as you want to go, near to C, but you get classes and their benefits (encapsulation, overloading, etc.) that makes larger projects much more easily organized. Manual garbage collection gets to be a pain, but I view this as a little bit of a necessary pain (though I admit perhaps I have just gotten used to meticulously keeping track of memory and pointers.)
Also, I think we need a car analogy: C++ is a manual transmission car, but Python is an automatic. They just get you from place to place, but the manual is a bit more difficult, sportier, customizable for your style, and potentially more fun.
I probably didn't say it succinctly enough, but that was exactly my point. I like to think that *we* own those computers in the library. My taxes paid for the construction, maintenance, and my overdue fines (sigh) also support it.
I don't want some mildly educated librarian making the decision whether to *give* stuff to a federal official.
That decision is for judges to make. It is not the librarian's decision to make, no more than it would be mine if I were a teenager working there at the time the officials walked in. With public assets comes increased accountability, which is why laws for crimes on public property (city halls, post offices) are generally so draconian.
The librarian should be subject to a thorough questioning of her judgment, with retraining or dismissal as indicated. :)
I am far from a libertarian extremist, and this does not fly with me.
The whole reason that we have *court-ordered* warrants, elected judges, and oversight and accountability is to prevent this -- namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.
I am happy when even television shows get it right (Law and Order occasionally), and when the cops / feds do stuff like this, it comes back to jeopardize their case. Illegally seized? Now watch as you just compromised yourself and potentially let somebody go free. Before somebody retorts with the obvious extremes, of course I do think that ridiculous cases of this are ludicrous (e.g. cop didn't sign one piece of paper correctly -> murder goes free), but the case above is clear violation of due procedure and oversight in my books.
The one justification I could see is in truly emergent cases -- e.g. hard drive will purge, but need to preserve data... must... pull... plug... NOW. I would say "do it," and, according to my lawyer friends, there are judges on call that the cop / detective / agent can call that can grant emergency access / warrants shortly after the fact (within hours) to make everything legitimate. It does not appear that this was done here.
I don't want some librarian making the decision on whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority. Any smooth-talking agent can come in, reciting that it is for "terrorism / anthrax" or "the children / child porn" and the intimidated lady will just cave in. I know my friend's 60 year old mother who works as our local librarian would. She is neither lawyer nor judge, and should not function as such.
I run Debian in several capacities -- stable on my work server, and unstable on my personal machine.
A lot of people are going to (quite accurately, I guess) point out that for anybody running unstable/experimental there is not much to this. I mean, release numbers are soooo 1990's, as a simple apt-get update; apt-get upgrade brings you up to the latest packages. Even experimental seems to lag waaaay behind other bleeding edge distros though (gentoo).
Of course, the release is more important for new installs or people running stable. I have been very impressed with Debian stable, the SSH bug nonwithstanding.
As software packages and Linux get more mature, I see the definition of a "release" issue becoming even less important for the non-server / non-corporate user. Continuous upgrades are the way of the future. Even on the M$ side this seems to be true, with their MS office 200x and "automatic upgrades."
Thoughts?
Really, really bad move. Now, instead of two years at summer camp, he will go to many more years of Federal Pound-me-in-the-a$$ Prison. It is really, really hard in today's day and age to avoid being captured, even with a lot of money if you want to live at some decent level. His best bet I think is to go to a foreign country where he could blend in, and live inconspicuously.
Even in some place like Mexico he would be quite a stand out if he flashed cash, and in the US you'd ultimately fall temptation to going to the local drugstore and risk being nabbed on camera. Any lawyers know if there are any countries which would absolutely refuse extradition? If so, he would still need to 1) get there and 2) transfer enough money to survive, and much more if he couldn't work.
Interestingly enough, I think the next play depends on how many resources the US government will put into capturing him and raising awareness among people. A stint on "Dateline" or widely watched / read program would help any possible acquaintances turn him in.
We had those growing up -- we called them BB guns.
4 pumps would not hurt a girl.
10 pumps to use on family members.
15 pumps for neighbor's kids
20 pumps for the kill.
Seriously though, I shudder with all of the implications of "nonlethal" technology in police hands. It rapidly leads to overuse. Remember the bean bag to the head that killed the girl celebrating the Red Sox victory? The current rash of taser (over)use?
Speak with a lawyer that has knowledge and interest in this situation. The fact that a successful prosecution may bring a lot of publicity to the guy may be enough to help him work for free, or the company that is losing the computers may post his retainer.
What is your relation to all of this? As with any civil case, the police are not going to be a driving force to pursue the theft; your company or the people that lost it should be making sure things get done.
I wouldn't expect police to know anything about IP, MAC addresses, login tracing, etc., but a lawyer would. Then, what a lawyer can do is go to a judge saying, "We have solid evidence that person at IP x.x.x.x which is Verizon ISP registered to address ___ main street., also cross confirming with name at myspace profile _____, is using stolen property."
A warrant will then be issued, and the police can go to the house and retrieve the laptop, and interview the guy, who will doubtlessly say "I bought it from _____ on the street, I thought it was legit." You will surely get your computer back, and if you find a motherlode of computers, he will surely go to jail.
Well, that's more than a little simplistic and straw... The biggest application that is advertised is the safe termination of high speed chases (or high-speed joyriding, as many police departments are now thankfully stopping ground chases in favor of air or other pursuit). Currently cops will use things like PIT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIT_maneuver
to spin somebody out, but a killswitch is obviously preferable to this. I don't look at this in terms of property recovery; if somebody steals my car and goes high speed joyriding, I pretty much don't want it back. The killswitch is irrelevent to me IMHO.
Chest-thumping about 'nobody controls MY car but ME' is a bit silly; authorities already have control over how fast I go in my car, where I can go, I have to have registration, insurance, and cops can pull me over at a whim and detain me. I find these more concerning than a theoretical remote disactivation that can potentially save a lot lives.
Honestly, your car is a lot more likely to break down on the highway due to mechanical problems than have a misfire of this; and if it was activated without a warrant / inappropriately, you could sue the party that made the bad decision. I would rather have that than a confused officer ram me off the road.
As was discussed in the airplane kill switch thread, this gives new difficulties. A terrorist now just has to threaten to block communication from the plane and make it fly in a weird pattern, and then the pentagon will kill the 200+ passengers on board with an F-16 rather than the terrorists.
Regarding the Onstar system, this is known about by their company, and they are being quite responsible IMHO -- the switch has many, many security levels to be activated, and gradually starves the engine of fuel so that one would coast to a stop rather than suddenly switching off. Of course, this is a bigger problem for an airplane.
Not only did they lose focus, but their founder and insiders have no hope.
I used to be a sizable shareholder in PALM, dating back to the old US Robotics days. I made a small bit of money overall, but got out when it was clear also to me that they were doing *nothing* as far as I could tell. I think the final straw for me was when they had a big press release for the release of their new and COMPLETELY UGLY orange logo. Weren't they supposed to be a technology company?
The death of palm is really a shame. Take a look at this:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/insider/trans.asp?symbol=palm
Not pretty.
Interestingly enough, Gates could have really improved his image during his tenure at Microsoft if he let emails like that "leak" out prior to stepping down. Instead, he gives keynotes about Microsoft and its "innovation."
First, I am not sure that email is really by Gates -- from reading his writing or listening to him in the past, it really does not sound like his style. Also, "I reboot my computer ... why should I have to reboot my computer?" I find it hard to realize that he wouldn't know the technical difficulties in replacing a dll while the system is running, and possible ways around this, and the current state of affairs. However, maybe I'm giving too much credit here.
Secondly, *if you can't do anything about this crap, then stop releasing it on time and FIX THE ISSUES* instead of releasing it to the world for millions of users to suffer under your monopoly. If your software sucks, fix the problems instead of using oppressive business practices to make *everybody* suffer.
Next, people complain about Linux usability? apt-get install mplayer k3b, etc? It is not harder, just different. In fact, having all of the software most people need in one place makes Linux easier for most people in many ways, specifically the way that possible-Bill rants about here.
Whenever I have listen to Gates talk or talked to him (many, many years ago now, in the late 90's) he seems more than aware of problems with his product, and I always get this vibe "I'm doing it because I can and it is really, really, really good for business and nobody is stopping me." If any of you were following the USDOJ against Microsoft way back before the Bush-era forgiveness, Microsoft was going to be split into three companies. When Bill was on the stand, he basically went "I don't remember" to every possibly incriminating statement, but was clearly aware of the bad ethics of what he was doing -- again, reading between the lines I always got the vibe of the triumphant geek saying "I'm not going to stop until you guys get your act together and make me stop."
He's not a stupid guy that way, and anybody that respects billionaires must ask themselves if they would do the same things with a company to maintain market share... Personally, I like to think I wouldn't, but that's why I am not a CEO.
Interesting -- Slashdot has talked about this kind of thing before and I remember responding:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234315&cid=19078365
Every time I read something like this I get a bit frustrated. I can't paste the whole article for copyright reasons, but I am hoping a kind AC will. Either way, the gist of the article is that when very close (some have interference "distances" of 0.1 cm) RFID active readers / transmitters may interfere with some medical equipment.
The interobserver variability in the study was high, and they defined an event very broadly, essentially as any change in the operation of a device. It is a bit aggressive -- and I fear that good technology may inadvertently be stifled for "interference" concerns...
Yes to that specific case and I agree with what you are saying, but the general process repeats itself over and over in business and technology.
Facebook? Give me a break -- look at the prior art of Friendster and even Myspace. When Facebook was being started at Harvard I thought it would not take off because of the current dominant players.
Google? Anybody old enough to remember when Altavista was the king of search? We used to always use that engine in college.
AIM? Remember ICQ? Ntalk? Otalk?
Original ideas are few, and even Gates admits he was not very original with his ideas in many, many interviews, but he did implement them well, er... market them well, and protected his monopoly with a vengeance.
Inflammatory short article to "sex things up" (pun intended); surprising for the WSJ (or maybe not.) Written by a Rebecca Buckman, quoting Emma McGrattan at database company Ingres.
Any such broad classifications such as this should be taken with a *lot* of salt.
That being said, the article reminded me of a large digital systems design project that I had back in college, writing assembly for a 6502 processor in a device we made. My lab partner was a girl (probably only 10% of the class was female) who really, really thought differently than me in a way. It was weird -- some of the things I thought were impossible or not worth doing she would code in 10 hours; and the reverse was true. It was pretty much pure synergy (forgive the cheesy phrase) and we were extremely productive and got along well.
However, to reduce anything like this to gender differences is almost nonsensical. I could have been good lab partners with any number of people that thought differently than me, male or female. Personality is complex, not binary. I know many girls that code beautifully, and many more that can not code at all. This article is kind of interesting cocktail conversation, but nothing more IMHO...
I really should preview.
I meant it does happen.
Recently living on campus (you can see some of my previous posts.)
Piracy quite rampant just like any other university, and the students have rarely been served although it does happen.
I agree that they figure high-profile university lawsuits are bad publicity, and Harvard does have many young lawyers anxious for a big win, and will not be easily intimidated, which is half of what the RIAA game is about.
Several of the Harvard students I know have a method of sharing files via a VPN type construct (wasn't really heavily encrypted though, only member-authenticated IIRC), protected from the RIAA / internet. If several hundred people share their music, that is quite a collection. These "clubs" exist, and are very hard to find.
Man, I love reading about stuff like this, but this article has some serious vagueness that really leaves unanswered questions. Perhaps a true security-fluent slashdotter can offer some insight if they are familiar with this particular game:
Why does this require "custom tools" with automatic monitoring? Really, I doubt the students know the details of asymmetric security theory / Ph.D. level mathematics, and were monitoring something like (if I get a port scan from IP x.x.x.x then tell "router guys" to block IP x.x.x.x).
It seems to me that this should be something that essentially should be done automatically, and with a very well-configured system would not cause that much of a problem.
Also, the article was written for somebody who doesn't understand computers to go "whoa." "Kernel-level rootkit"? How the hell did this "unwelcome executable file" get on the box to begin with, and why was it executing in kernelspace? I assume they were required to start with a compromised system, otherwise this is something that major corporations do all day (general traffic monitoring) and is actually kind of not exciting.
I wish that Wired and magazines would write at a technical level and describe accurately what is going on - IMHO more information is always better!
Well, you've got to do a cost-benefit analysis similar to a business. In low light it is going to be difficult to get a high-quality images without extra light (obvious you are monitoring them) or a really, really expensive camera which is vulnerable to spray-painting or vandalism itself.
I was going to do something similar at a previous residence, but found that I would have to worry about people stealing the camera, or simply wearing a mask and gloves when they break in, which will really render the best camera useless. In the end, I used a hidden cheap Linksys webcam that was discreetly hidden inside my house, enough to alert me and catch a careless criminal.
I have also had good success with the D-Link products, which are very cheap.
http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=60&sec=0
Also, keep in mind that making your house / area "different" may actually attract more attention. Numerous cameras outside a particular residence screams "important stuff here" if you can't hide them effectively.
Medical factoid - kaolin and pectin are the substances that constitute the anti-diarrheal substance "Kaopectate" (hence the name.) Note that it doesn't really do anything but bind with water -- kind of a clay-like substance that will then give one more firm stools.
I think the modern kaopectate has modified its ingredients, but kaolin clay like substances are still available for medical use. Nice to see a new implementation of this technology, with the "nano" prefix thrown in for sexiness.
I'll chime in as a physician.
:p
I always wondered in medical school what causes eyestrain -- your mom probably told you "don't read in poor light," but since the photons are easily sufficient to give an image on your retina, this didn't make sense to me.
It turns out that your eye muscles have a difficult time obtaining a rapid and precise focus with poor light, which gives less contrasts on the edges that are detected for sharp focus. In low light conditions, the eye muscles are rapidly focusing back and forth, and these micro-contractions can fatigue them similar to the other large muscles of your body. As an analogy, imagine walking on level ground versus on a balance beam. You are constantly contracting different adjustment muscles to walk on a balance beam, using more energy and promoting fatigue.
So, in answer to your question, you would want a high-contrast color scheme to make it easy for your eyes to focus on the letters. "Duh," I hear you say.
Next, I would recommend minimizing the difference in brightness between your monitor and the outside environment and its background. That is, in a dark office have a dark monitor, and in a bright office, a bright one. Why? Well, same reason -- your eye muscles have to dilate your pupil every time you look away from a bright monitor to a dark monitor. More contractions / adjustments -> more fatigue. Not only that, but the high brightness contrast will give ineffective normalization of light across the eye receptors and could cause headache.
Regarding your study question -- difficult to fund, and difficult to accomplish. I guess you would have to divide several hundred office workers, and try to have them work the same hours under same conditions with different fonts, and then ask a subjective question regarding symptoms. It could be done, but I am not sure of any well-performed efforts that have addressed this question.
In summary, I would just choose contrasting colors that you like or find subjectively pleasing, and then keep the brightness on your monitor appropriate for ambient lighting. Also, don't forget to focus on the numerous other ergonomic factors on your workstation. I see a *lot* of people with bad backs from the workplace, but there are a lot of 80 year old secretaries that are not blind.
Cue the contempt for expertise from the anti-intellectual crowd now.
Well, thanks guys. I am happy to provide the perspective of an MD in a sub-specialty. I actually paged a few of my friends that do CT surgery to ask them if they used the da Vinci system because I was curious. All of them had heard of it, and a few had been in cases with it, and again, unfortunately, all of them said it was a sideshow currently. At another major teaching hospital, the most experienced surgeon had about 100 cases with the device: far, far fewer than standard (they do 2-3 operations *per day*.) When used, they had the patient sign special forms beforehand.
:)
On the summary it notes that the da Vinci system has been around since the 90's.
We all agreed it was important stuff though, and should continue with research / development / implementation in some areas.
Somebody said that surgeons hate to admit they are wrong -- yeah, that is generally a stereotype, along with "Americans are all fat," "girls can't do math," and "slashdotters are all virgins in their mother's basement." Sometimes true, but a bit offensive in its generalization. Yes, there are colleagues of mine that are simply arrogant and don't want to talk to patients or can't admit they are wrong, and there are balanced individuals whom I would send any family member to be a patient without hesitation.
Slashdot is fun, and we have EE's, MD's, and prominent programmers (John Carmack, Torvalds, etc.) on here, but also a wealth of teenagers, or their mental/emotional equivalent, that say the dumbest things because their Mom isn't around to tell them to shut up, and think that doing two internet searches is going to provide them with more perspective than a professional and make them seem smart. Not that I can't be wrong, of course, and I love to learn about new technology, but I hope I know what goes on every day at work.
Your attitude is why I don't post here much.
:)
:)
Dude, stop being the contrarian, it does not make you sound "smart," only childish and argumentative. People will treat you better in life if you ask questions for clarification instead of trying to trap somebody into silly fallacies to "prove your point," as the first sentence in your response. Occasionally we have trainees with your style, and gradually they socialize.
Again, I'm not sure the name of the GI device -- I saw a tech demo of it in one of our virtual-patient labs that we have for training fellows and medical students. However, from what I saw, I would not call it "robotic surgery" any more than using any sort of other mechanical device, or using standard endoscopy to be "robotic" (some do have motorized retrieval devices, etc.) If this is all the Da Vinci system is, then, sorry, you are right by your definition.
I know intimately well what goes on in my department, and somewhat well what goes on in other departments. If you know more, share your knowledge -- I'd love to learn about some of the intricacies of the system if you have seen it in action. However, don't act like a little kid. Do you own Da Vinci stock?
>I notice that Massachusetts has nine Da Vinci robots, including ones at U Mass Memorial, Boston Children's, Boston
>Medical Centre and Brigham.
You didn't list two of Harvard's biggest hospitals. Also, of course, UMass and BMC are not part of Harvard.
Over and out.
I guess it depends what you mean by "used clinically." These generally are technology expos as part of a clinical trial -- FDA approval allows you to use it on a person, but you can bet that the patient signed a very long form indicating he is part of a research study / nonstandard procedure. Reading a few articles about this indicates the most high volume centers have done ~100 of these "robotic procedures," and mine (a major Harvard teaching hospital) has done... zero.
I'm all for it too -- but again, I just don't see this becoming routine for 10 years. My particular procedures have little use for it (we do everything through a quarter-sized incision anyway).
Finally, most of these systems (the GI doctors in my hospital have a remote device operating through an endoscope -- I will try to find out the brand) is more of a remote control through an endoscope AFAIK rather than a "robot." Without arguing semantics, this is a servo controlling a device attached to the end of a rod, and while evolutionary, I would not call it a robotic surgery. I'm not disrespecting it in the least, but if I had to guess, this is the way things will go. There will be evolution with incremental use of mechanical tools in the OR (of now there is minimal!) and someday, relatively far off, computer guided / mechanical surgery.
I am a doctor that does surgical procedures (mainly pacemaker device implantations).
These kind of devices are very much experimental, and pop up in the news every couple of months (a slashdot search can reveal similar ideas), but quite far away from any sort of typical use. Right now heart bypass surgery is decidedly low-tech, with a surgeon viewing the beating heart with loupe glasses and very skillfully lasso-ing the coronary arteries. It is a great fantasy in the hearts of all doctors to have a machine that offsets any heart movement -- it would make things much easier if reliable. The article doesn't mention that the movement would also have to be coupled with respiratory movement, and have some sort of fail-safe in the case of patient or external movement.
However, standard surgery is still not done using these tools. There are way too many items required to make this feasible in the near future ( 10 years IMHO, although I hope I'm wrong!)
- Testing: This is literally a life-and-death situation, and any robot "error" in a real person is likely to set the technology back 5 years after it hits the press and hospital review boards. Very, very damaging PR.
- Education: Surgeons would have to essentially be re-trained to use such a system.
- Feedback: It is really, really difficult to give an operator feedback on how something "feels." Part of during surgery (no kidding) a surgeon will often run his finger along cardiac arteries -- you can almost "feel" the calcified plaque in a diseased vessel. It would be really hard to approximate anything like this with a virtual robot.
- Cost: Labor is relatively cheap compared to the capital expenditure to R&D something like this... of course, this will change as time goes by.
Exciting news, but incremental technology.
>>NASA does not sterilize probes it sends.
> Yes, they do.
No, they don't. Please read up on what "sterilize" means and stop spreading misinformation.
Oh, heck, you probably would have done it by now if you were going to.
Sterilize = kill ALL bacteria. You can put something that has been sterilized in your bloodstream and not get direct infection or exposure to bacteria.
Sanitize = kill bacterial to a certain threshold or standard, or kill harmful bacteria. You can lick something that has been sanitized and probably not get sick. However, if you cultured that hospital toilet seat, you can be sure you'd get bacteria.
Bioload reduction = "We're pretty much sure that it is not covered in stool or loads of harmful bacteria, but beyond that can't say."
It is almost impossible to build something the size of Mars rovers and have it be STERILE. Anything exposed to general atmosphere for over 20 seconds or so is no longer sterile. Even in the O.R. (which has special filters and a non-recirculating atmosphere) things exposed to the air for prolonged period are considered unsterile. If any of you guys worked in a bio lab, open up a can of L.B. broth, and walk away. After 20 minutes, recap it. What happens?
I really appreciate whoever sent me the planetary protection link, and it confirmed what I thought. We are *very* concerned about bringing foreign / alien bacteria here, but it is just about impossible to keep us from spreading our own throughout the universe.