Everyone knows that even though it's unlikely, your home could get broken into this very night.
Not just unlikely, but improbable. Somebody broke into my mother in law's fenced-in yard. It has a brand new steel fence with a gate. So someone walked up and opened the man-sized gate, no big deal. He stole a flatbed trailer. How they got the trailer into the yard, I do not know, and how this guy got the thing out, I do not know. Obviously he did not drive a truck through the fence. The only thing I can think of is four of five guys turned it sideways and walked through the gate or passed it over the top of the fence.
My point is, thieves strike at the worst times in the most improbable ways. You never see it coming because you do not expect it to come. Always be prepared: keep your shit locked up, and make sure you have insurance. If a laptop is stolen from your house, most home insurance policies should cover the loss. Even with depreciation you should get enough to help cover the cost of a new laptop.
It locked to the security cable but the plastic hook that the cable went into was busted off quite easily accidentally one time.
Any security system is as strong as its weakest link. I would not trust a plastic hook to keep it secure. Hell, I would not trust most metal pieces either. It better take a big pair of bold cutters and arms the size of my legs to break that steel.
My boss had his work laptop stolen. Someone broke into his car while on a business trip, left the CDs, DVDs, etc. and took the computer. Despite calling to various pawn shops and computer shops, it has not turned up. It probably never will.
You are correct: an alarm is useless. If you are in a mall or store and your car alarm goes off, will you notice? Doubtful. But if your car had GPS, the police could track it down and recover it. Same with laptops.
Of course, we do not need Big Brother looking out for us, so any such system needs to have privacy measures built in, to include requiring consent of the owner (with some form of ID and proof of ownership) or a warrant from a judge to back it up.
"guys with little paste-it labels with price tags on it who would stick it on every idea on earth"
What a patronizing way to refer to people (like me) who are trying to make a living selling their own work.
That's how these guys think about anybody who doesn't drink their free-everything Kool-Aid.
I think the OP is objecting to people who want to put prices on all intellectual property, not just some of it. Even RMS thinks that not all software must be free. I agree. I think people who want to write free software (like me) should be free to do so, and companies like Microsoft that want to write non-free software should be free to do so.
The issue is when people try to sue the free software writers out of existence, e.g. SCO. They think all software should come from big companies with big licensing fees. Moderation is key. I use some non-free software. I also use plenty of free software. I do not impose my views of this on the public or the economy.
If an e-mail message were to be encoded using Enigma, does there exist any modern-era software for cracking it? Or would the US Government be forced to pull out the vacuum tubes and crack it the way they did in WWII again?
I doubt that a cracking program would have the Enigma algorithm built-in, but Enigma is suceptible to a type of brute force attack. Generally you can do heuiristic analysis on a cipher to get a good head start, then brute force a smaller subset of the data. On modern hardware this would probably take a few seconds, if that long.
An Enigma-based crypto engine for binary data might be quite the interesting modern update. Especially because a brute force guessing of a 256-byte wheel would take a long time, and three wheels on top of each other would send the probablities of guessing your way into it into the stratosphere.
Granted Enigma encryption is weak by today's standards, I think this would be interesting nonetheless. But with today's hardware, we could add arbitrarily many rotors (wheels) with negligible speed difference. I am sure even a thousand rotors would not be slow, but it would make for a stronger cipher.
Who would want an electronic version of the Enigma machine? You could just code one up in python or even write a bash script.
Yeah, but having the quasi-real *hardware* is cool, too.
Now what would be cool is to build the vacuum tube based machine the allies used to crack various codes...
I don't know about tubes, but transistors would be good (less problems, easier to replace). Either way it would be nice to have some replica hardware, just for nostalgia if nothing else. Knowing that modern computers have 10x the power of old mainframes that took up the entire first floor of my house is no good, my soviet russia wants a beowulf cluster of... nevermind:-)
Why would I want to vote for a party that manages to combine the worst elements of both the Democrats and Republicans?
The worst qualities, such as freedom of choice, freedom from government intervention in our personal lives, freedom from big government spending (and the taxes that go along with it), the freedom from pissing off arabs so bad that they blow up our buildings?
Or better yet, how about I vote republican or democrat, so I can my freedoms taken away? Be it fiscal or moral freedom, both of those parties wants to make my life miserable. It's a shame not enough people pay attention to the libertarians. This country would be much better off if they did.
I don't know where people got it into their head that a 2 party system is somehow not democratic.
Democracy is about choice. As it stands right now, the only way I have to show my displeasure in both viable options (republican and democrat) is not to vote -- which is undemocratic.
And thanks to that mentality we will ALWAYS have a 2 party system in the US, which is little better than an Oligarcy. It is my personal belief that If all Americans voted for the candiate they truly want in office elections would turn out much differently.
Our presidential election system is oligarchy. Congressional elections are not quite so bad, but close. The sad truth is, most people do not realize that there are more parties -- the republicans and democrats have dominated politics for so long that people assume they are the only ones out there. Yes, people realize there are other ones, but usually just parties like the green party that are viewed as a bunch of hippies who don't bathe. They are not to be taken seriously.
I'd like to have a "none of the above" option, abolishment of the electoral college, and multiple votes -- vote for all the guys you like, none of the ones you dislike. Whoever has the most votes gets elected. And change the ballot rules to make it easier for third parties to get on all the states' ballots.
The problem is, these changes would dimish the two-party stranglehold on elected offices, and they are the same people who would have to approve it (most likely as an amendment). That will never happen.
Re:Broadcasting dead...
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I wish I hadn't used up all my mod points, that was +1 funny... anyway, who do I talk to about donating my body to science? Seriously, my wife wants to be buried with her family, and I figure science could use my body -- how better to study the effects of alcohol on the human body than to examine my dead body?:-)
What could be better than an "I love my geek" tshirt ?
I bought this for my wife a couple years ago before we got married. Be careful if your significant other is "well endowed"... it only comes in small size and cannot accomodate larger cup sizes.
My wife burns cereal (OBSimpsons -- Homer cooking Mr. Burns breakfast when Smithers is on vacation), and is scared of touching my feet because I had foot surgery and am missing a thing or two.
Anyway, I think in the end her present to me will be to let me sleep in while she takes care of our baby son, and in return I'm cooking a nice dinner and a few... "other" favors...;-)
Hey that's cool, no hard feelings. Misunderstandings happen all the time. Several people did talk about "styrofoam," so I can understand the confusion.
Oh, but she does... "if you like it that way why don't you become gay?" Most women just don't get it... it's not about which screwhole it's supposed to go in, it's about screwing it in wherever it fits:-)
OK, could we get this straight? The tiles on the shuttles aren't styrofoam.
If you reread my original comment, I was talking about the foam on the external fuel tank, not the shuttle itself. And even that foam is not styrofoam, I don't know where you got that from.
Re:Lets hope that the result is progress
on
Google v. Microsoft
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You can actually change that setting to search at a number of different search engines, one of which is google, but because of mixed systems between the IE search and the autosearch and the system search, it's hard to find.
That's not the point. The point is that "most users" won't know how or care about changing that option.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone knows that even though it's unlikely, your home could get broken into this very night.
Not just unlikely, but improbable. Somebody broke into my mother in law's fenced-in yard. It has a brand new steel fence with a gate. So someone walked up and opened the man-sized gate, no big deal. He stole a flatbed trailer. How they got the trailer into the yard, I do not know, and how this guy got the thing out, I do not know. Obviously he did not drive a truck through the fence. The only thing I can think of is four of five guys turned it sideways and walked through the gate or passed it over the top of the fence.
My point is, thieves strike at the worst times in the most improbable ways. You never see it coming because you do not expect it to come. Always be prepared: keep your shit locked up, and make sure you have insurance. If a laptop is stolen from your house, most home insurance policies should cover the loss. Even with depreciation you should get enough to help cover the cost of a new laptop.
I just keep a laptop that isn't worth stealing.
The only laptop I have is when my wife... oh, you meant laptop computer, right?
It locked to the security cable but the plastic hook that the cable went into was busted off quite easily accidentally one time.
Any security system is as strong as its weakest link. I would not trust a plastic hook to keep it secure. Hell, I would not trust most metal pieces either. It better take a big pair of bold cutters and arms the size of my legs to break that steel.
My boss had his work laptop stolen. Someone broke into his car while on a business trip, left the CDs, DVDs, etc. and took the computer. Despite calling to various pawn shops and computer shops, it has not turned up. It probably never will.
You are correct: an alarm is useless. If you are in a mall or store and your car alarm goes off, will you notice? Doubtful. But if your car had GPS, the police could track it down and recover it. Same with laptops.
Of course, we do not need Big Brother looking out for us, so any such system needs to have privacy measures built in, to include requiring consent of the owner (with some form of ID and proof of ownership) or a warrant from a judge to back it up.
I think the OP is objecting to people who want to put prices on all intellectual property, not just some of it. Even RMS thinks that not all software must be free. I agree. I think people who want to write free software (like me) should be free to do so, and companies like Microsoft that want to write non-free software should be free to do so.
The issue is when people try to sue the free software writers out of existence, e.g. SCO. They think all software should come from big companies with big licensing fees. Moderation is key. I use some non-free software. I also use plenty of free software. I do not impose my views of this on the public or the economy.
Do they take Monopoly money?
I am trying to get through to their online store, but it looks like that server is slashdotted right now. I wonder what sort of mischief I could do...
I do plan on stuffing an envelope with Monopoly money and sending it to them. I wonder what kind of response, if any, I would get?
If an e-mail message were to be encoded using Enigma, does there exist any modern-era software for cracking it? Or would the US Government be forced to pull out the vacuum tubes and crack it the way they did in WWII again?
I doubt that a cracking program would have the Enigma algorithm built-in, but Enigma is suceptible to a type of brute force attack. Generally you can do heuiristic analysis on a cipher to get a good head start, then brute force a smaller subset of the data. On modern hardware this would probably take a few seconds, if that long.
I wonder if the real Nazi Enigma machines also had Java.lang.NullPointerException errors...
If you're not going to do the real thing, why not just make a software replica?
What kind of geek are you? Don't you find it cool to have tons of useless hardware laying around???
An Enigma-based crypto engine for binary data might be quite the interesting modern update. Especially because a brute force guessing of a 256-byte wheel would take a long time, and three wheels on top of each other would send the probablities of guessing your way into it into the stratosphere.
Granted Enigma encryption is weak by today's standards, I think this would be interesting nonetheless. But with today's hardware, we could add arbitrarily many rotors (wheels) with negligible speed difference. I am sure even a thousand rotors would not be slow, but it would make for a stronger cipher.
Who would want an electronic version of the Enigma machine? You could just code one up in python or even write a bash script.
Yeah, but having the quasi-real *hardware* is cool, too.
Now what would be cool is to build the vacuum tube based machine the allies used to crack various codes...
I don't know about tubes, but transistors would be good (less problems, easier to replace). Either way it would be nice to have some replica hardware, just for nostalgia if nothing else. Knowing that modern computers have 10x the power of old mainframes that took up the entire first floor of my house is no good, my soviet russia wants a beowulf cluster of... nevermind :-)
I wonder if there is anywhere to get original Nazi Enigma messages to decode.
And what about Doom, the greatest game of all time?
ZDoom source port
Doomworld
Usenet group
my Doom site
The worst qualities, such as freedom of choice, freedom from government intervention in our personal lives, freedom from big government spending (and the taxes that go along with it), the freedom from pissing off arabs so bad that they blow up our buildings?
Or better yet, how about I vote republican or democrat, so I can my freedoms taken away? Be it fiscal or moral freedom, both of those parties wants to make my life miserable. It's a shame not enough people pay attention to the libertarians. This country would be much better off if they did.
Democracy is about choice. As it stands right now, the only way I have to show my displeasure in both viable options (republican and democrat) is not to vote -- which is undemocratic.
Our presidential election system is oligarchy. Congressional elections are not quite so bad, but close. The sad truth is, most people do not realize that there are more parties -- the republicans and democrats have dominated politics for so long that people assume they are the only ones out there. Yes, people realize there are other ones, but usually just parties like the green party that are viewed as a bunch of hippies who don't bathe. They are not to be taken seriously.
I'd like to have a "none of the above" option, abolishment of the electoral college, and multiple votes -- vote for all the guys you like, none of the ones you dislike. Whoever has the most votes gets elected. And change the ballot rules to make it easier for third parties to get on all the states' ballots.
The problem is, these changes would dimish the two-party stranglehold on elected offices, and they are the same people who would have to approve it (most likely as an amendment). That will never happen.
I wish I hadn't used up all my mod points, that was +1 funny... anyway, who do I talk to about donating my body to science? Seriously, my wife wants to be buried with her family, and I figure science could use my body -- how better to study the effects of alcohol on the human body than to examine my dead body? :-)
I thought all goverment programs were automatically uncopyrighted, not even public domain? Like they were completely outside of the copyright system.
What could be better than an "I love my geek" tshirt ?
I bought this for my wife a couple years ago before we got married. Be careful if your significant other is "well endowed"... it only comes in small size and cannot accomodate larger cup sizes.
In any case, as a geek I can say that if I had a girlfriend all I'd want is left alone. The nagging is just too much to endure.
I hope you never get married or have children. I've almost died from nagging several times. "Talk your ear off" isn't just an expression.
How about making him dinner and rubbing his feet?
My wife burns cereal (OBSimpsons -- Homer cooking Mr. Burns breakfast when Smithers is on vacation), and is scared of touching my feet because I had foot surgery and am missing a thing or two.
Anyway, I think in the end her present to me will be to let me sleep in while she takes care of our baby son, and in return I'm cooking a nice dinner and a few... "other" favors... ;-)
Hey that's cool, no hard feelings. Misunderstandings happen all the time. Several people did talk about "styrofoam," so I can understand the confusion.
Hey, if she doesn't complain...
Oh, but she does... "if you like it that way why don't you become gay?" Most women just don't get it... it's not about which screwhole it's supposed to go in, it's about screwing it in wherever it fits :-)
OK, could we get this straight? The tiles on the shuttles aren't styrofoam.
If you reread my original comment, I was talking about the foam on the external fuel tank, not the shuttle itself. And even that foam is not styrofoam, I don't know where you got that from.
You can actually change that setting to search at a number of different search engines, one of which is google, but because of mixed systems between the IE search and the autosearch and the system search, it's hard to find.
That's not the point. The point is that "most users" won't know how or care about changing that option.