...because stability problems might be trickier. If you are using a GMRES solver for a huge matrix, for example, Funny Things(tm) might happen, and you got to be really good at it to spot them and deal effectively with them.
...because there are no decent worked out recipes for what you need. If, for example, you want to do some fluid mechanics code, forget about buying a book and implementing some examples. They invlolve too much, are just too big, and are full of devilishly subtle but highly important details. You got to be really good at it to get them right.
so basically for this sort of stuff you are looking for a cross between a good mathematician (for getting the math right), a good engeneer (for the sake of good design) and a good programmer (for the implementation). That's like the mesiah.
Teams for this sort of stuff are also pretty hopeless to form because the devil lives in the detail and these are hard to track down beneath deep oceans of lack of understanding of the other discipline.
Take a portion of a piece by Shakespeare (or anything else copyrightless) the same length of your mp3. then XOR each byte of the Shakespeare text with the corresponding byte in the mp3 file and keep the result.
Now you have a string of glibberish that when xored with the piece by Shakespeare gives you the mp3.
Now write a simple program that does this and include the glibberish as a const. Done.
In retrospect, it was only a matter of time 'till something like this happened. Programs are long numbers, and through this method you can now make any program a prime number.
Much better yet:
Theorem: For any circunvention method, there exists a prime number that encodes it.
So wellcome to the world a new class of numbers: Illegal Prime Numbers.
What I would like to see is one of the
people who *actually pirated* his work to pay for it.
I'm not sure you realize, but this people are guilty of copying a textfile!
If piracy is difficult to stop with music, and I mean almost impossible, it surely IS impossible in the case of text.
The genie is out of the bottle. If your business consisted in selling copies of a chunk of data (written word or whatever, sorry Harlan) it is a matter of time and you are out of business. It is just too simple to generate a copy of anything digital.
The simple fact is that copyright establishes ownership. It allows the artist to establish control over his work.
I think the game is over.
If your business is based on selling copies of a piece of information (like a music recording, a book, or technical & scientifical papers, for example) and a situation comes allong where copying is no problem for anyone, you are out of business.
It's as if you sold water in the desert, and suddenly someone diverts a river and solves the problem for good.
Good thing the Slashdot editors are calling non-coders "l4m3" in the
poll this week, since they're SO clear on the difference between assemblers and
compilers....
[...]
Moderators: copy/pasting text from the site a story links to isn't "Informative," it's "Redundant."
I don't know, but don't you think someone else is being really really pedantic?
they'll throw some marketing madness behind it [...]And, sadly, people will follow...
Maybe. But here in germany a pay-TV company called premiere sold a few units when they started and then did hit rock-bottom. They have spent a lot of money in marketing and they are not selling many units. People do not buy them.
I think it would be a good idea. C++ code can be very contorted and brutally obscure by it own, but usually it is so by ''accident'' (you disagree? what? Ok, that's what I thought). I would love to see what happens if the language falls in the hands of true artists.
I stopped using C++ because it was so full of rules and philosophy. I allways ended up feeling guilty (poor li'll me:) ). It really felt like the philosophy was not helping me - it was just making my life misarable. I think an Obfuscated C++ contest would be a good oportunity to approach the language with a clear mind, and maybe really unleash the power beneath.
the reason for it is to provide an incentive for companies to research genes.If there was no such thing
as a gene patent, then it would probably be much longer before we got a cure for cancer and whatever other genetic diseases there are.
Maybe we would be bether off without this incentives. Research would be more serious, and the behavior less predatory.
What I think happens is that patents are the incentive, or rather the motive, of these companies, and that they have pushed this sort of legislation and lobbyed for it because they see the possibility of making shiploads of money with this knowledge.
It is very strange, because breeding is a sort of genetic ingeneering in slow motion, and it has worked perfect throughout the history of mankind, yet nobody would come to the idea of patenting a new breed gotten through traditional methods, even though it's safer, the quallity is higher, and the acceptance of the method complete. But then again most of the modern economy is based on selling people things they don't need and whithout which they would be probably better off.
Personally I do not believe that they will ever be able to harness this cancer-curing posibilities or those of gene therapy because the genes and the rules governing their expression are far too chaotic and intrincate. I think the dificulties are simmilar to those encountered when trying to predict weather for periods longer than a few days.
I think they're just bluffing, trying to get some easy cash from clueless VCs.
Nowadays they call this a ''sound business modell''.
You are right. And even if they manage to do that anywhere close to reasnonable, they will have to process an unreasonable amount of data that is also very likely to grow with the available computing power.
Would most people here agree its a pretty harsh hack of the C syntax?
Ironically, that double cross appearing in the name of the language is one of those nice little pitfalls of that C++ thing.
Postfix increment won't work the same overloaded as it does in its pur3 0r1g1n4l st4t3.:->
rmstar
Re:C++ as a teaching language/programming obscure?
on
Who's Afraid Of C++?
·
· Score: 1
No they won't.
I have seen this all in action and what you say is so right! I know a guy who has written books on C++ and writes code that is so awfull slow one can say it creeps, is so horribly difficult to read and to mantain that just forget it. And big, I mean BIG is that thing also. And worse yet, he insists on everybody using his libraries. And when you point out to him the size & speed problem he says - no kidding - ''that's a problem of the compiler''.
Guys like that are the best proof to me that C++ is evil. If you read his books you see he follows Strourtsoupcan and Mr. Booch like some the bible. And of course he is a teacher and a Big Shot(tm). I feel sorry for his students.
I think the main reason C++ has spread is because it is a nice platform for smartasses to spread their butt and tell everybody what sort of rituals to follow. The fact that it is a nice language and actually can be usefull has only played a secondary role.
I wonder what Katz means by that... because the biggest problem, at least in germany, seems to be to belong, rather than to be an individual. And corporations and government are more or less interested in you being an individual and not belonging to anything in particular, except the amorphous mass.
So you are urged to buy something that makes you special and different, while the corporate employers try to assume that you look after yourself like an autonomous identity. Furthermore, it is being encouraged to create your own business and to not depend on anyone. And of course, if you do not belong to any union much better!
The jobs we are given, and the careers we follow fracture more and more any social cohesion. If you want to belong you dont do so automatically anymore. I've heard people complain that in the USA the kind of urbanism done is having that kind of efect - I mean malls whith huge parking lots and poorly conected suburban areas with no smal stores. But I do not really know the USA so I can't say.
The individual that ends up without a group to reasure him, without default ways to comunicate and without an Identity by which to orientate himself is not a hero in my eyes (he is one if he manages to have a happy life... ). If you want to live that way - fine. But people who are forced to live that way don't usually find it funny.
...and expensive. Both in terms of money and performance. It is crap.
This all prooves MS is good for consumers!!
on
Gnutella VBS Worm
·
· Score: 1
Do you remeber the old days? If you wanted to write a worm or a virus you had to know a lot of arcane stuff and code it in assembler.
Today you use Microsoft Visual Basic, ActiveX, and use a Wizard. Ain't that nice, folks??
rmstar
patent pending for 3-click technology.
Re:It's not the knowledge, it's the hours ...
on
Too Old To Code?
·
· Score: 1
And then there is that sort of feedback loop: You spend the first hours of your day cleaning up the mess you did during late hours, and so when you start programming actually new code, you are'nt anymore 100%.
Balance is also important. If you do something else besides programming, you tend to see better your issues. If you work exclusively on a program for a week, you will be so absorbed in its maybe faulty logic that you won't be able to see the simple solutions any more.
your implication that symbols empower neo-Nazis is laughable
agree.
One of the things that empower them most is the atention they get. Other groups are probably as violent and do greater damage today (for example the Hells Angels) but since they do not use that symbolism, they are largely ignored.
1) What is going to happen in the developing world? what will happen to the lower classes in first world societies?
2) One of the aspects of the internet that some praise is the fact that you don't have to 'leave home' for X or Y activity. I don't think that this is in general a good feature. But how many will actually stay home? What will it mean?
3) Another feature some poeple like is that you can decide which information you get, and, more importantly, which you won't get. Isn't this a licence to create an alternative reality? is this supposed to be good?
Slashdot Mirror
...because stability problems might be trickier. If you are using a GMRES solver for a huge matrix, for example, Funny Things(tm) might happen, and you got to be really good at it to spot them and deal effectively with them.
...because there are no decent worked out recipes for what you need. If, for example, you want to do some fluid mechanics code, forget about buying a book and implementing some examples. They invlolve too much, are just too big, and are full of devilishly subtle but highly important details. You got to be really good at it to get them right.
so basically for this sort of stuff you are looking for a cross between a good mathematician (for getting the math right), a good engeneer (for the sake of good design) and a good programmer (for the implementation). That's like the mesiah.
Teams for this sort of stuff are also pretty hopeless to form because the devil lives in the detail and these are hard to track down beneath deep oceans of lack of understanding of the other discipline.
rmstar
Actually, this is trivial.
Take a portion of a piece by Shakespeare (or anything else copyrightless) the same length of your mp3. then XOR each byte of the Shakespeare text with the corresponding byte in the mp3 file and keep the result.
Now you have a string of glibberish that when xored with the piece by Shakespeare gives you the mp3.
Now write a simple program that does this and include the glibberish as a const. Done.
rmstar
In retrospect, it was only a matter of time 'till something like this happened. Programs are long numbers, and through this method you can now make any program a prime number.
Much better yet:
Theorem: For any circunvention method, there exists a prime number that encodes it.
So wellcome to the world a new class of numbers: Illegal Prime Numbers.
It's a great day for math!
cheers!
rmstar
I'm not sure you realize, but this people are guilty of copying a textfile!
If piracy is difficult to stop with music, and I mean almost impossible, it surely IS impossible in the case of text.
The genie is out of the bottle. If your business consisted in selling copies of a chunk of data (written word or whatever, sorry Harlan) it is a matter of time and you are out of business. It is just too simple to generate a copy of anything digital.
rmstar
I think the game is over.
If your business is based on selling copies of a piece of information (like a music recording, a book, or technical & scientifical papers, for example) and a situation comes allong where copying is no problem for anyone, you are out of business.
It's as if you sold water in the desert, and suddenly someone diverts a river and solves the problem for good.
rmstar
[...]
Moderators: copy/pasting text from the site a story links to isn't "Informative," it's "Redundant."
I don't know, but don't you think someone else is being really really pedantic?
Maybe. But here in germany a pay-TV company called premiere sold a few units when they started and then did hit rock-bottom. They have spent a lot of money in marketing and they are not selling many units. People do not buy them.
rmstar
What's a malaise, a woman from Malaysia?
Duh,
rmstar
I think it would be a good idea. C++ code can be very contorted and brutally obscure by it own, but usually it is so by ''accident'' (you disagree? what? Ok, that's what I thought). I would love to see what happens if the language falls in the hands of true artists.
I stopped using C++ because it was so full of rules and philosophy. I allways ended up feeling guilty (poor li'll me :) ). It really felt like the philosophy was not helping me - it was just making my life misarable. I think an Obfuscated C++ contest would be a good oportunity to approach the language with a clear mind, and maybe really unleash the power beneath.
rmstar
Fair use? Archival copies?
How about: Nothing?
Maybe we would be bether off without this incentives. Research would be more serious, and the behavior less predatory.
What I think happens is that patents are the incentive, or rather the motive, of these companies, and that they have pushed this sort of legislation and lobbyed for it because they see the possibility of making shiploads of money with this knowledge.
It is very strange, because breeding is a sort of genetic ingeneering in slow motion, and it has worked perfect throughout the history of mankind, yet nobody would come to the idea of patenting a new breed gotten through traditional methods, even though it's safer, the quallity is higher, and the acceptance of the method complete. But then again most of the modern economy is based on selling people things they don't need and whithout which they would be probably better off.
Personally I do not believe that they will ever be able to harness this cancer-curing posibilities or those of gene therapy because the genes and the rules governing their expression are far too chaotic and intrincate. I think the dificulties are simmilar to those encountered when trying to predict weather for periods longer than a few days.
rmstar
Nowadays they call this a ''sound business modell''.
You are right. And even if they manage to do that anywhere close to reasnonable, they will have to process an unreasonable amount of data that is also very likely to grow with the available computing power.
Or something like this.
rmstar
Thanx for the nickel. But einstein didn't like the idea of people using atom bombs to kill people :O)
rmstar.
P.S: Take it easy.
Right. What if this software becomes standard among kiddy-porn traders? Would the guys at ZK find that funny?
Same old story.
Iocaine itself.
Just add Iocaine as one of the predicting strategies. I think it would work.
rmstar
I contend that one should not have to deal with these kinds of details when programming; they have absolutely nothing to do with the problem in hand
excuseme, but that is programming.
''I dont want to bother about motor oil, nor about gear shifting, nor about gas. It has nothing to do with where I want to go''
I mean...
rmstar
Ironically, that double cross appearing in the name of the language is one of those nice little pitfalls of that C++ thing.
Postfix increment won't work the same overloaded as it does in its pur3 0r1g1n4l st4t3. :->
rmstar
I have seen this all in action and what you say is so right! I know a guy who has written books on C++ and writes code that is so awfull slow one can say it creeps, is so horribly difficult to read and to mantain that just forget it. And big, I mean BIG is that thing also. And worse yet, he insists on everybody using his libraries. And when you point out to him the size & speed problem he says - no kidding - ''that's a problem of the compiler''.
Guys like that are the best proof to me that C++ is evil. If you read his books you see he follows Strourtsoupcan and Mr. Booch like some the bible. And of course he is a teacher and a Big Shot(tm). I feel sorry for his students.
I think the main reason C++ has spread is because it is a nice platform for smartasses to spread their butt and tell everybody what sort of rituals to follow. The fact that it is a nice language and actually can be usefull has only played a secondary role.
rmstar.
So you are urged to buy something that makes you special and different, while the corporate employers try to assume that you look after yourself like an autonomous identity. Furthermore, it is being encouraged to create your own business and to not depend on anyone. And of course, if you do not belong to any union much better!
The jobs we are given, and the careers we follow fracture more and more any social cohesion. If you want to belong you dont do so automatically anymore. I've heard people complain that in the USA the kind of urbanism done is having that kind of efect - I mean malls whith huge parking lots and poorly conected suburban areas with no smal stores. But I do not really know the USA so I can't say.
The individual that ends up without a group to reasure him, without default ways to comunicate and without an Identity by which to orientate himself is not a hero in my eyes (he is one if he manages to have a happy life ... ). If you want to live that way - fine. But people who are forced to live that way don't usually find it funny.
So what about that individualism, Katz?
rmstar
...and expensive. Both in terms of money and performance. It is crap.
Do you remeber the old days? If you wanted to write a worm or a virus you had to know a lot of arcane stuff and code it in assembler.
Today you use Microsoft Visual Basic, ActiveX, and use a Wizard. Ain't that nice, folks??
rmstar
patent pending for 3-click technology.
Balance is also important. If you do something else besides programming, you tend to see better your issues. If you work exclusively on a program for a week, you will be so absorbed in its maybe faulty logic that you won't be able to see the simple solutions any more.
rmstar
Patent pending for 3-click technology
agree.
One of the things that empower them most is the atention they get. Other groups are probably as violent and do greater damage today (for example the Hells Angels) but since they do not use that symbolism, they are largely ignored.
rmstar
Yes, there are. They're just extremely laid back and calm. :)
1) What is going to happen in the developing world? what will happen to the lower classes in first world societies?
2) One of the aspects of the internet that some praise is the fact that you don't have to 'leave home' for X or Y activity. I don't think that this is in general a good feature. But how many will actually stay home? What will it mean?
3) Another feature some poeple like is that you can decide which information you get, and, more importantly, which you won't get. Isn't this a licence to create an alternative reality? is this supposed to be good?
rmstar