"Compute the Fibbonaci sequence (without solving it for x) and race your PIII with this computer - and you might win."
Or, transform the generic Fibbonaci recurrence into a dynamic programming problem an solve it in linear time:) -- this assumes of course unit time for computation so solving fib for small numbers is not very interesting. However, for arbitrarly large numbers (say 1 meg integers) you would be much better off distributing the dynamic fibbonaci program (which operates on an array: for(array[0]=1,array[1]=1,i=2; 1; printf("%i ",array[i++])) array[i]=array[i-1]+array[i-2];) and having one master computer which manages the array and the other computers would act as adders (each computer in a group would act as a sub adder and there would have to be some degree of carry lookahead).
I guess my point is that many problems that appear to be "0% verctor-optimized" actually are not.
Internet voting == BAD! There are too many security issues. Even if you could be certian that your name is not saved when you logged on, you could still be traced back vi IP address. Right now this may not be a big issue, but I spent a couple of months in Singapore and it was my understanding that they were required to vote and there name was on the ballot so the gov could see who is voting for who (if the whole block voted for the "right" canidate they would probably get some kind of perk). Even if security wasn't an issue, someone could DOS attack sites to prevent voting.
A better solution: The state (ie california, etc) could generate a private and public key. The public key could be sent to all the voting places. Each voting place has a single computer, a bunch of touch screens, and some printers. Also, each voting place generates a private and public key and it registers its public key with the state.
Voters then use the touch screens to vote for canidates/issues/etc. Up to 64 yes/no votes could be encoded on a single 64 bit number (or 128 if needed). For example, if the canidates are Gore, Bush, and Nader then a vote of 100 would be a vote for Gore. This small number (ballot) could then be encrypted using the state's public key and then signed using the polling place's private key. The ballot is then stored on the computer and batch uploaded to the central server later (or the polling place combines a bunch of unsigned ballots, signs these, and then uploads them). The state of course uses the polling places public key to verify that the ballots are valid.
For hard copy records, one printer in the back prints a bar code representation of the encoded data on a spool of paper (the data is encrypted) and one printer prints a copy out for the voter in ASCII form. At a later time, the voter could possible go online or to another outlet to verify that his or her vote actually got counted and that it was correct.
The encrypting and digital signing would mean that all the data is on the printed ballot, but it can't be changed or falsified so if a hand recount was needed (say some ballots just get "lost") people could always send in copies of their ballot.
1) War on Drugs
If the polls show that I can get the most votes by continuing the war on drugs, I will support it. Otherwise, I'll speak out passoinatly against it but I will not do anything real.
2) Minority religions
Even though these are "minority" religions, it is very popular to embrace these in today's culture so I will do so also. You will probably see me practicing various religions depending on where I am and what is popular in that area
3)Why give a tax cut?
Well...I'm not going to really, but I like to say that I am because everyone would like to keep more of their own money and the polls say I should.
4) Electoral reform
If I win the election there will be no need for electoral reform because the people will have voted for the correct canidate and we can all celibrate how wonderful democracy is. If I lose then there is obviously no democracy in America and the system must be broken or the people are just stupid so I will be forced to whine and complain until it is fixed (along with the main-stream media)
5) How do you feel about intelectual property?
I think its a good thing - I own the internet you know.
6) Encryption
Encryption should be used, but only if there is a backdoor that the goverment or other theifs can use.
7) Rising political protests
Hey, if they are getting more popular and this is shown in the polls then I'm all for them.
8) Asteroid defenses
To defend against an asteroid collision would be to interfere with the natural order of things. Just let the damn thing hit earth and I'll come out of my bunker after a few years and start working to repopulate the earth.
9) The future of the country, and of humanity
Only the polls know.
"Let there be light" **!!!! and there was light (energy/matter).
Science and the laws of science are just an abstraction that are their to allow us to somewhat function and understand God's creation. When we discover some new law about how the universe operates or how it may have been created, we are just discovering the laws that God put in place (ie the standard ways in which God works in the universe so as not to confuse us too much - what would it be like if one day there was gravity and then on some arbitrary days there was no gravity) or we are discovering how very well the universe is actually constructed (should we really be suprised at how structured our universe is?)
If you look at the order most scientists say the universe/earth/and life was created and how the earth was formed and you compare this to the account in Genisis you'll see how well the two line up (its kinda strange/cool/scary). I would say the only problem that science has with judeao-christian philosophies is macro-evolution (not micro-evolution which is what Darwin actually observed and is often misused as proof for macro-evolution).
First, it's all about supply and demand. If you could make "free" copies of food the price of food would drop to 0. Anyone with an ounce of sense would agree that this would be a very good thing. However, you can be certian that those companies that produce seeds and the farmers that supply our food would lobby the government for protection. Hell, this is already happening - the government pays some farmers not to produce in order to keep food prices high. In most intro to mico-econ books you'll find examples of how new technoligies that cause greater harvest yields actually hurt farmers by lowering food prices (ie they make less money). So the riaa==large_seed_company && artist==small_farmer. We all agree that it would be better to have free food, but in some way we would end up paying for it (ie a TAX). Also, what the RIAA is doing isn't really anything new (that doesn't make it any better though).
Second - you can walk around singing all the pop songs you want to and no one will care because very few (if any) people are going to find any satisfaction in this. However, once you start distributing free music this discourages others from buying music (ie it lowers the price because there is too much supply and not enough demand) - this is why the RIAA is pissed.
"War on drugs: Drugs win" or something like that. Does anyone remember what issue that was? I searched the archives and got lots of laughs, but didn't find it. Have a look the the following relevant news items though.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3206/winnersusedrug s.html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3001w/marijuana.htm l
try using the Library of Congress ISBN lookup - there's a lot less HTML to parse and because its gov it probably won't change very much and the URL looks fairly static
"To follow this reasoning, since the public pays for parks, if the majority of people want to censor someone promoting a certain political view in a park, they should be allowed to."
Apples and oranges - if you tried to walk around naked in your local park you would not be allowed too. In the same way, people don't want filtering to stop political views, they want it to stop "inappropriate" material (where inappropriate depends mostly on the local culture)
"And could you point to one that is free? Your solution allows freedom for the rich, but not for the poor."
Who said internet access was a right? This is new to me. Maybe having a car is a right too (after all, a car is much more usefull than internet access). How about porn - a lot of people want porn but you have to pay for it - maybe the local libraries should just carry Playboy and Penthouse:)
"Would you please explain to me what constitutional freedoms you believe we do have? I always thought that the point of the Bill of Rights was to preserve certain rights even when--nay, especially when--the majority doesn't like it that I'm excercising those rights."
True - the Bill of Rights does protect from mob rule. However, this does not mean that if a majority of people want to pass a law against the will of a few that this is in violation of the Bill of Rights (although it may be). For example, if a teacher in a public school promots a sexist or racist agenda he/she will be gladly be fired because of laws passed by the majority against a minority of people. However, if that teacher wants to distribute a manifesto detailing his/her ideas outside of work there is little the law can do. So in other words - we have freedoms, but the extent of these freedoms depend on the context of the situation. The Bill of Rights is not a blanket statement stating that we can say whatever we want where ever we want. In a similar fasion, the government should not be able to control what content is pressent on the web (sadly, it does), but governments (including local governments made up of local citizens) should be allowed to control what thier resources are being used for - including what purpose internet connections in public libraries are used for.
as a lot of posts seem to imply. Rather, its a question of democracy. Who pays for public libraries? No, not the government - tax payers, more specifically, local tax payers. Therefore, because public libraries are owned and funded by the public, the public has some say as to what does and doesn't happen in *their* libraries. So if the majority of residents think that filtering is needed, then they should have the right to have filtering. No one is saying that all internet access should be filtered, but rather those internet terminals that are being paid for by the public that pays for them. I know that this is a very unpopular view on/. and this is not flamebait. My point is that if a majority of the population wants some law that does not inhibit the rights of someone else (there are other places than the library to surf the net that have no filtering) and this request is rejected what kind of democracy is that? For example, suppose that some DMV office wanted to play racist music in the backgroud. Certainly the citizens of that county/state should have the right to put a stop to this because most people would find this offensive. In the same way, a lot of people find it offensive if their child is viewing porn on the net or if people are using all the computer time at the library looking for porn.
I personally think that filtering is a waste of time but I don't agree that these parents and others that want the filtering are out to deny us of constitutional freedoms. I do agree that that these folks have a legitamate concern, but they need to be educated in how useless filtering is.
After taking a cold war class this summer (part of my GE I've been avoiding) from a guy that has spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe and Russia two things come to mind.
1) Russia's economy is very unstable right now and this may be the result of protectionist legislation. (but we all know that protectionist legislation isn't really to protect suppliers, rather its to allow the government to have its hands in international comerce)
2) Russia has long been based on client-patron relations (ie bribes). This isn't really a bad thing (as we in the west often see it) and it happend all through the Sovient Union and even before the revolution (for example, read "War and Peace", based on real characters and events). And even after the "fall" of communism (which the USSR never really was) not a lot has changed in Russia as far as how things work (BTW - as far as "the way things work" not much has changed since before the revolution) So its very possible that Russian customs has this restriction in place to require companies that ship to Russia to appeal to a patron in Russian customs (ie bribe them) in order to get their packages through. I know this sounds foreign (but it _is_ a foreign culture) and things like this don't get documented, but they never have or will be.
So my guess would be to ask your friend about how to get the package in - he just might have to talk to some people or have it sent through a local carrier.
But take this with a grain of salt. This is based on my instructors experiance (and I'm not he) and what he taught so I'm just taking his word for it. If someone in Russia would like to confirm or reject any of this please do - I'm always glad when I can say a prof is wrong about something!
when people ask me this question is this. If you just want to do IT and you're not just out of highschool (ie you've been working for several years and going back to college isn't really an option) then learn the latest languages and technoligies and go for the job. But, at the same time I warn them that industry tech changes every 5-10 years and they are more likely to get laid-off when thier knowlege base is no longer needed (Novel anyone?)
However, if you are right out of highschool, don't let that 30k-50k job keep you from going to college. This may seem like a lot, but it isn't. Further, there is a glass ceilling that most non-graduates hit very soon (about 60k in my area). I know, I had all the experiance, worked for a major software company, worked over seas, did consulting, and know the latest tech. Yet, not having a degree always hangs over my head and its hard to get companies to take a chance on you (even with a really good resume) if you don't have a degree. The companies that do offer you jobs take the attitude that they are doing you a favor because they are willing to take that "risk" so they don't offer you as much. And, the jobs that get offered are not very interesting (tech-support, web development, IT, etc). This is why I went back to college
In college you learn how to follow and read specs, how to do quality work, you learn theory (which can be applied to almost any tech), you become more versitile, and you make contacts and inroads into the industry (employers often have job fairs - these jobs often get you started in the industry. Sometimes just getting into the industry is the hardest part). Over all, going to college makes you a well rounded person, it shows that you have people skills, it shows that you are capable of learning and following instructions, it shows that you can work with a bureaucracy, it teaches you practical skills (ie programming, budgeting, etc), and it teaches threory (which I think is often under-estimated). When I was at the JC and just wanted the job I didn't realize these things (what do I need calc for?), but now that I'm a little older I realize how important college is - theory (including calc and CS), communication skills, and a good work ethic are keys to knowlege and a long career
Yes, their buisness model is shaky - they had to know that some people would find a way to get around their software costs. But why not use this mistake for their own good. It sounds like CueCat may become very well supported under Linux - and with companies like IBM and SCO promoting Linux in places of buisness they could probably work with the Linux community to officially support the open source drivers, stop giving away their hardware and start selling it by promoting its market share, "poven reliability", and multi-platform capabilities. This could turn out very well for them. Bad publicity is better than no publicity.
Under DMCA DeCSS is illegal because it is called a 'circumvention device.' So my question is, is it legally correct to call DeCSS a device? Wouldn't DeCSS just be an idea that executes on a device (ie a computer)? Or does speech now qualify as a 'device' just as encryption is a 'munition'?
The author starts off using almost cliche words and phrase to convince us that he/she has always disliked MS and that MS is evil. But then they are convinced that the XBox is a wonderful thing, and that MS is a saviour, bla, bla. Obviously the author has approached this from an objective point of view and using reason has concluded that everyone should own an XBox. Of course, all of us, comming from a similar background should also arrive at the same conclusion and buy an XBox ASAP
(for the slow-to-catch-on slashdoter that's about ready to flame me: note the sarcasm)
Personally, I hope we never find life on another planet. Look at the past folks, science has done many great things, but it has done equally, if not more, harm. I know the science zealots on/. will flame me because this goes directly against the grain of humanism, but to put it simply - we as humans have fucked a lot of things up here on earth. Just look at nuclear weapons, we now have the ability to destroy all life on earth - wonderful! (note sarcasm) Simply put, advances in science and education will not solve all our problems and if you think so you are just as dogmatic as your typical religious zealot.
Now, suppose that we do discove life somewhere else in the universe. First we will send probes to this other location, possibly tainting and infecting their environment. Then, some screwball scientist will get it in his/her craw to bring some of that life back to earth for closer study and who knows what micro organisms or other unforseen effects that may have on our environment. Look at the effect word trade and world travel has had on earth - no one forsaw the problems that would be caused by a few rats hiding away in a few crates or even the disease that was brough to native peoples by early explorers.
From http://openoffice.org/project/www/faq.html - about half way down:
A: If I contribute code to OpenOffice.org, what am I going to be asked to do as far as licenses are concerned?
A: All contributions to the source code will require that the code is automatically available under both the GPL and the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL). We ask that developer assign the copyright to Sun so that the copyright is unified. Further, the assignation of copyright ensures that we can defend license violations if necessary. We are absolutely committed to the dual license mechanism of GPL/LGPL + SISSL and will remain so committed.
1) Can they force contributions to be under both the GPL and SISSL (ie does this contradict or nullify the GPL?) - is it legal?
2) Are their reasons (listed above) valid or is there some other motivation we should be looking for?
3) Does this "dual license" prevent someone from making their own distribution of StarOffice which wouldn't require developers to go under the SISSL?
After reading this story, several other stories about this event, and Smith's web page (www.shameonnike.com) I think that one of 2 things actually happend.
First, notice that this page calls Nike's buisness practices "shabby" and at the bottom of the page there is a "Boycott Nike" icon. This seems to me like someone that is emotionally connected to a movement against Nike (in and of itself this is not a bad thing) - the point is that this lawsuit sounds like it is based more on a bias than facts and laws.
So I think one of two things is actually going on:
1) Smith or his freinds are responsible for the crack and their plan was to redirect people going to www.nike.com to their own web sites against nike. I went to http://212.92.192.218 (from the dns file on Smith's web page) but this address no longer hosts any web pages. This crack caused negative press for the movement against nike so Smith is trying to divert the blame
2) Smith was indeed a victom of the crackers but he is sympathetic to what they were trying to do and doesn't like nike himself so again he's trying to throw mud on nike hoping some of it will stick (I think this is the most probable)
For all of you out there that think I might be saying this because I'm a nike fan - well I'm not. I haven't purchased anything from Nike for 3-4 years (only Dr. Martins) and I don't like the way they exploit forgien labor.
BTW - I saw an Investigative Reports on A&E last night (I think that was the program) about passangers that tried to sue Amtrack for injuries that were caused by a sabatour that derailed the train. The Judge ruled that the derailment was caused by the sabatour and not Amtrack and Amtrack won the case and counter sued for legal costs and won.
Check out Enhydra - its an open source application server that has been in development since about 95 (http://www.enhydra.org) and it runs on Linux. Its also tested and used by FedEx, Huffy Sports and others so you know it must be pretty good.
"And besides that, the guy writing the article wishes us a 'Happy New Millennium'... sorry, one year too early, my friend."
I've been doing some thinking about this (hey, I was on vacation Ok) and I'm not sure that this year isn't the new millennium.
The standard argument that I hear is "there was no year 0 so the millennium isn't till 2001" However, even though there was no year 0, when have we always celebrated the new century, decade? 1800, 1900, 1980, 1990. So by the above argument, shouldn't these actually be 1801, 1901, 1981, 1991, etc (after all, a one-off error doesn't just affect the millennium). So really, a year may be "missing" but by a matter of convention this should be the new millennium. Just to take this further, if this is the new century or a new decade but not a new millennium, we'd have to say that a millennium is 10 centries plus 1 year, or 100 decades plus one year - either way its just messy. I think I would rather just have one "missing" year that's not accounted for.
your comment is more or less correct - assuming that there are no filters on the routers along the way. however, the big deal is that, according to this advisory, the OS 9 can be made to reply with a packet 37.5 times the request. If this is true, the OS 9 can be used as a "traffic amplifier." In short, if an attacker using a T1 set things up properly she/he could possibly flood a machine with ~37 T1's worth of traffic - enough to take out almost any site. It would be far better if it always replied with less data (thus becoming a deamplifier), but oh well.
Ok folks, just a few important things to consider:
1) what defines "ergonomic" - what we consider ergonomic today will probably not be ergonomic in a few short years. Who defines what ergonomic is/isn't. This may seem trivial, but it isn't. If Joe Employee is sueing Corp X because he claims damages how do we know his keyboard/chair/etc is not ergonomic - can anyone say DES (Department of Ergonomic Standards?!?!?)
2) I really appreciate what OSHA has done to make the work evironment livable and safe. However, at what point (and this often happens with organizations) does OSHA go beyond resonable policy and begin trying to justify its budget. All social programs, if effective and useful, cause change and eventually are needed less. Is is possible that OSHA is simply trying to make a case for its current budget or even an increased budget (ie "see, we can't have cutbacks, look at how many people work w/o ergonomic equipment")
3) Is it possible that the makers of ergonomic furniture/hardware have lobbied for this??? (probably not, but just a thought)
Yes, there is a secret message, and this is it: Transmeta's policy has been to remain silent about its plans until it had something to demonstrate to the world. On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate what Crusoe processors can do. Simultaneously, all of the details will go up on this Web site for everyone on the Internet to see. Crusoe will be cool hardware and software for mobile applications. Crusoe will be unconventional, which is why we wanted to let you know in advance to come look at the entire Web site in January, so that you can get the full story and have access to all of the real details as soon as they are available.
Slashdot Mirror
"Compute the Fibbonaci sequence (without solving it for x) and race your PIII with this computer - and you might win."
:) -- this assumes of course unit time for computation so solving fib for small numbers is not very interesting. However, for arbitrarly large numbers (say 1 meg integers) you would be much better off distributing the dynamic fibbonaci program (which operates on an array: for(array[0]=1,array[1]=1,i=2; 1; printf("%i ",array[i++])) array[i]=array[i-1]+array[i-2];) and having one master computer which manages the array and the other computers would act as adders (each computer in a group would act as a sub adder and there would have to be some degree of carry lookahead).
Or, transform the generic Fibbonaci recurrence into a dynamic programming problem an solve it in linear time
I guess my point is that many problems that appear to be "0% verctor-optimized" actually are not.
It's nice to see so many people interested in Push Down Automata.
Internet voting == BAD! There are too many security issues. Even if you could be certian that your name is not saved when you logged on, you could still be traced back vi IP address. Right now this may not be a big issue, but I spent a couple of months in Singapore and it was my understanding that they were required to vote and there name was on the ballot so the gov could see who is voting for who (if the whole block voted for the "right" canidate they would probably get some kind of perk). Even if security wasn't an issue, someone could DOS attack sites to prevent voting.
A better solution: The state (ie california, etc) could generate a private and public key. The public key could be sent to all the voting places. Each voting place has a single computer, a bunch of touch screens, and some printers. Also, each voting place generates a private and public key and it registers its public key with the state.
Voters then use the touch screens to vote for canidates/issues/etc. Up to 64 yes/no votes could be encoded on a single 64 bit number (or 128 if needed). For example, if the canidates are Gore, Bush, and Nader then a vote of 100 would be a vote for Gore. This small number (ballot) could then be encrypted using the state's public key and then signed using the polling place's private key. The ballot is then stored on the computer and batch uploaded to the central server later (or the polling place combines a bunch of unsigned ballots, signs these, and then uploads them). The state of course uses the polling places public key to verify that the ballots are valid.
For hard copy records, one printer in the back prints a bar code representation of the encoded data on a spool of paper (the data is encrypted) and one printer prints a copy out for the voter in ASCII form. At a later time, the voter could possible go online or to another outlet to verify that his or her vote actually got counted and that it was correct.
The encrypting and digital signing would mean that all the data is on the printed ballot, but it can't be changed or falsified so if a hand recount was needed (say some ballots just get "lost") people could always send in copies of their ballot.
1) War on Drugs
If the polls show that I can get the most votes by continuing the war on drugs, I will support it. Otherwise, I'll speak out passoinatly against it but I will not do anything real.
2) Minority religions
Even though these are "minority" religions, it is very popular to embrace these in today's culture so I will do so also. You will probably see me practicing various religions depending on where I am and what is popular in that area
3)Why give a tax cut?
Well...I'm not going to really, but I like to say that I am because everyone would like to keep more of their own money and the polls say I should.
4) Electoral reform
If I win the election there will be no need for electoral reform because the people will have voted for the correct canidate and we can all celibrate how wonderful democracy is. If I lose then there is obviously no democracy in America and the system must be broken or the people are just stupid so I will be forced to whine and complain until it is fixed (along with the main-stream media)
5) How do you feel about intelectual property?
I think its a good thing - I own the internet you know.
6) Encryption
Encryption should be used, but only if there is a backdoor that the goverment or other theifs can use.
7) Rising political protests
Hey, if they are getting more popular and this is shown in the polls then I'm all for them.
8) Asteroid defenses
To defend against an asteroid collision would be to interfere with the natural order of things. Just let the damn thing hit earth and I'll come out of my bunker after a few years and start working to repopulate the earth.
9) The future of the country, and of humanity
Only the polls know.
"Let there be light" **!!!! and there was light (energy/matter).
Science and the laws of science are just an abstraction that are their to allow us to somewhat function and understand God's creation. When we discover some new law about how the universe operates or how it may have been created, we are just discovering the laws that God put in place (ie the standard ways in which God works in the universe so as not to confuse us too much - what would it be like if one day there was gravity and then on some arbitrary days there was no gravity) or we are discovering how very well the universe is actually constructed (should we really be suprised at how structured our universe is?)
If you look at the order most scientists say the universe/earth/and life was created and how the earth was formed and you compare this to the account in Genisis you'll see how well the two line up (its kinda strange/cool/scary). I would say the only problem that science has with judeao-christian philosophies is macro-evolution (not micro-evolution which is what Darwin actually observed and is often misused as proof for macro-evolution).
First, it's all about supply and demand. If you could make "free" copies of food the price of food would drop to 0. Anyone with an ounce of sense would agree that this would be a very good thing. However, you can be certian that those companies that produce seeds and the farmers that supply our food would lobby the government for protection. Hell, this is already happening - the government pays some farmers not to produce in order to keep food prices high. In most intro to mico-econ books you'll find examples of how new technoligies that cause greater harvest yields actually hurt farmers by lowering food prices (ie they make less money). So the riaa==large_seed_company && artist==small_farmer. We all agree that it would be better to have free food, but in some way we would end up paying for it (ie a TAX). Also, what the RIAA is doing isn't really anything new (that doesn't make it any better though).
Second - you can walk around singing all the pop songs you want to and no one will care because very few (if any) people are going to find any satisfaction in this. However, once you start distributing free music this discourages others from buying music (ie it lowers the price because there is too much supply and not enough demand) - this is why the RIAA is pissed.
There was an Onion article a while back-
g s.html
m l
"War on drugs: Drugs win" or something like that. Does anyone remember what issue that was? I searched the archives and got lots of laughs, but didn't find it. Have a look the the following relevant news items though.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3206/winnersusedru
http://www.theonion.com/onion3001w/marijuana.ht
try using the Library of Congress ISBN lookup - there's a lot less HTML to parse and because its gov it probably won't change very much and the URL looks fairly static
= local&PAGE=cbSearch
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB
In the search enter KISN to locate a book. For example, the Delphi 4 Developers Guild
KISN 0672312840
"To follow this reasoning, since the public pays for parks, if the majority of people want to censor someone promoting a certain political view in a park, they should be allowed to."
:)
Apples and oranges - if you tried to walk around naked in your local park you would not be allowed too. In the same way, people don't want filtering to stop political views, they want it to stop "inappropriate" material (where inappropriate depends mostly on the local culture)
"And could you point to one that is free? Your solution allows freedom for the rich, but not for the poor."
Who said internet access was a right? This is new to me. Maybe having a car is a right too (after all, a car is much more usefull than internet access). How about porn - a lot of people want porn but you have to pay for it - maybe the local libraries should just carry Playboy and Penthouse
"Would you please explain to me what constitutional freedoms you believe we do have? I always thought that the point of the Bill of Rights was to preserve certain rights even when--nay, especially when--the majority doesn't like it that I'm excercising those rights."
True - the Bill of Rights does protect from mob rule. However, this does not mean that if a majority of people want to pass a law against the will of a few that this is in violation of the Bill of Rights (although it may be). For example, if a teacher in a public school promots a sexist or racist agenda he/she will be gladly be fired because of laws passed by the majority against a minority of people. However, if that teacher wants to distribute a manifesto detailing his/her ideas outside of work there is little the law can do. So in other words - we have freedoms, but the extent of these freedoms depend on the context of the situation. The Bill of Rights is not a blanket statement stating that we can say whatever we want where ever we want. In a similar fasion, the government should not be able to control what content is pressent on the web (sadly, it does), but governments (including local governments made up of local citizens) should be allowed to control what thier resources are being used for - including what purpose internet connections in public libraries are used for.
as a lot of posts seem to imply. Rather, its a question of democracy. Who pays for public libraries? No, not the government - tax payers, more specifically, local tax payers. Therefore, because public libraries are owned and funded by the public, the public has some say as to what does and doesn't happen in *their* libraries. So if the majority of residents think that filtering is needed, then they should have the right to have filtering. No one is saying that all internet access should be filtered, but rather those internet terminals that are being paid for by the public that pays for them. I know that this is a very unpopular view on /. and this is not flamebait. My point is that if a majority of the population wants some law that does not inhibit the rights of someone else (there are other places than the library to surf the net that have no filtering) and this request is rejected what kind of democracy is that? For example, suppose that some DMV office wanted to play racist music in the backgroud. Certainly the citizens of that county/state should have the right to put a stop to this because most people would find this offensive. In the same way, a lot of people find it offensive if their child is viewing porn on the net or if people are using all the computer time at the library looking for porn.
I personally think that filtering is a waste of time but I don't agree that these parents and others that want the filtering are out to deny us of constitutional freedoms. I do agree that that these folks have a legitamate concern, but they need to be educated in how useless filtering is.
After taking a cold war class this summer (part of my GE I've been avoiding) from a guy that has spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe and Russia two things come to mind.
1) Russia's economy is very unstable right now and this may be the result of protectionist legislation. (but we all know that protectionist legislation isn't really to protect suppliers, rather its to allow the government to have its hands in international comerce)
2) Russia has long been based on client-patron relations (ie bribes). This isn't really a bad thing (as we in the west often see it) and it happend all through the Sovient Union and even before the revolution (for example, read "War and Peace", based on real characters and events). And even after the "fall" of communism (which the USSR never really was) not a lot has changed in Russia as far as how things work (BTW - as far as "the way things work" not much has changed since before the revolution) So its very possible that Russian customs has this restriction in place to require companies that ship to Russia to appeal to a patron in Russian customs (ie bribe them) in order to get their packages through. I know this sounds foreign (but it _is_ a foreign culture) and things like this don't get documented, but they never have or will be.
So my guess would be to ask your friend about how to get the package in - he just might have to talk to some people or have it sent through a local carrier.
But take this with a grain of salt. This is based on my instructors experiance (and I'm not he) and what he taught so I'm just taking his word for it. If someone in Russia would like to confirm or reject any of this please do - I'm always glad when I can say a prof is wrong about something!
when people ask me this question is this. If you just want to do IT and you're not just out of highschool (ie you've been working for several years and going back to college isn't really an option) then learn the latest languages and technoligies and go for the job. But, at the same time I warn them that industry tech changes every 5-10 years and they are more likely to get laid-off when thier knowlege base is no longer needed (Novel anyone?)
However, if you are right out of highschool, don't let that 30k-50k job keep you from going to college. This may seem like a lot, but it isn't. Further, there is a glass ceilling that most non-graduates hit very soon (about 60k in my area). I know, I had all the experiance, worked for a major software company, worked over seas, did consulting, and know the latest tech. Yet, not having a degree always hangs over my head and its hard to get companies to take a chance on you (even with a really good resume) if you don't have a degree. The companies that do offer you jobs take the attitude that they are doing you a favor because they are willing to take that "risk" so they don't offer you as much. And, the jobs that get offered are not very interesting (tech-support, web development, IT, etc). This is why I went back to college
In college you learn how to follow and read specs, how to do quality work, you learn theory (which can be applied to almost any tech), you become more versitile, and you make contacts and inroads into the industry (employers often have job fairs - these jobs often get you started in the industry. Sometimes just getting into the industry is the hardest part). Over all, going to college makes you a well rounded person, it shows that you have people skills, it shows that you are capable of learning and following instructions, it shows that you can work with a bureaucracy, it teaches you practical skills (ie programming, budgeting, etc), and it teaches threory (which I think is often under-estimated). When I was at the JC and just wanted the job I didn't realize these things (what do I need calc for?), but now that I'm a little older I realize how important college is - theory (including calc and CS), communication skills, and a good work ethic are keys to knowlege and a long career
Yes, their buisness model is shaky - they had to know that some people would find a way to get around their software costs. But why not use this mistake for their own good. It sounds like CueCat may become very well supported under Linux - and with companies like IBM and SCO promoting Linux in places of buisness they could probably work with the Linux community to officially support the open source drivers, stop giving away their hardware and start selling it by promoting its market share, "poven reliability", and multi-platform capabilities. This could turn out very well for them. Bad publicity is better than no publicity.
Under DMCA DeCSS is illegal because it is called a 'circumvention device.' So my question is, is it legally correct to call DeCSS a device? Wouldn't DeCSS just be an idea that executes on a device (ie a computer)? Or does speech now qualify as a 'device' just as encryption is a 'munition'?
The author starts off using almost cliche words and phrase to convince us that he/she has always disliked MS and that MS is evil. But then they are convinced that the XBox is a wonderful thing, and that MS is a saviour, bla, bla. Obviously the author has approached this from an objective point of view and using reason has concluded that everyone should own an XBox. Of course, all of us, comming from a similar background should also arrive at the same conclusion and buy an XBox ASAP
(for the slow-to-catch-on slashdoter that's about ready to flame me: note the sarcasm)
Personally, I hope we never find life on another planet. Look at the past folks, science has done many great things, but it has done equally, if not more, harm. I know the science zealots on /. will flame me because this goes directly against the grain of humanism, but to put it simply - we as humans have fucked a lot of things up here on earth. Just look at nuclear weapons, we now have the ability to destroy all life on earth - wonderful! (note sarcasm) Simply put, advances in science and education will not solve all our problems and if you think so you are just as dogmatic as your typical religious zealot.
Now, suppose that we do discove life somewhere else in the universe. First we will send probes to this other location, possibly tainting and infecting their environment. Then, some screwball scientist will get it in his/her craw to bring some of that life back to earth for closer study and who knows what micro organisms or other unforseen effects that may have on our environment. Look at the effect word trade and world travel has had on earth - no one forsaw the problems that would be caused by a few rats hiding away in a few crates or even the disease that was brough to native peoples by early explorers.
From http://openoffice.org/project/www/faq.html - about half way down:
A: If I contribute code to OpenOffice.org, what am I going to be asked to do as far as licenses are concerned?
A: All contributions to the source code will require that the code is automatically available under both the GPL and the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL). We ask that developer assign the copyright to Sun so that the copyright is unified. Further, the assignation of copyright ensures that we can defend license violations if necessary. We are absolutely committed to the dual license mechanism of GPL/LGPL + SISSL and will remain so committed.
1) Can they force contributions to be under both the GPL and SISSL (ie does this contradict or nullify the GPL?) - is it legal?
2) Are their reasons (listed above) valid or is there some other motivation we should be looking for?
3) Does this "dual license" prevent someone from making their own distribution of StarOffice which wouldn't require developers to go under the SISSL?
After reading this story, several other stories about this event, and Smith's web page (www.shameonnike.com) I think that one of 2 things actually happend.
First, notice that this page calls Nike's buisness practices "shabby" and at the bottom of the page there is a "Boycott Nike" icon. This seems to me like someone that is emotionally connected to a movement against Nike (in and of itself this is not a bad thing) - the point is that this lawsuit sounds like it is based more on a bias than facts and laws.
So I think one of two things is actually going on:
1) Smith or his freinds are responsible for the crack and their plan was to redirect people going to www.nike.com to their own web sites against nike. I went to http://212.92.192.218 (from the dns file on Smith's web page) but this address no longer hosts any web pages. This crack caused negative press for the movement against nike so Smith is trying to divert the blame
2) Smith was indeed a victom of the crackers but he is sympathetic to what they were trying to do and doesn't like nike himself so again he's trying to throw mud on nike hoping some of it will stick (I think this is the most probable)
For all of you out there that think I might be saying this because I'm a nike fan - well I'm not. I haven't purchased anything from Nike for 3-4 years (only Dr. Martins) and I don't like the way they exploit forgien labor.
BTW - I saw an Investigative Reports on A&E last night (I think that was the program) about passangers that tried to sue Amtrack for injuries that were caused by a sabatour that derailed the train. The Judge ruled that the derailment was caused by the sabatour and not Amtrack and Amtrack won the case and counter sued for legal costs and won.
"you can never add one and one and get three."
Sure you can: if 5+5=15 then 1+1=3 (well ok...
that still doesn't make 1+1=3 true but the
statement as a whole is true)
Check out Enhydra - its an open source application server that has been in development since about 95 (http://www.enhydra.org) and it runs on Linux. Its also tested and used by FedEx, Huffy Sports and others so you know it must be pretty good.
"And besides that, the guy writing the article wishes us a 'Happy New Millennium'... sorry, one year too early, my friend."
I've been doing some thinking about this (hey, I was on vacation Ok) and I'm not sure that this year isn't the new millennium.
The standard argument that I hear is "there was no year 0 so the millennium isn't till 2001" However, even though there was no year 0, when have we always celebrated the new century, decade? 1800, 1900, 1980, 1990. So by the above argument, shouldn't these actually be 1801, 1901, 1981, 1991, etc (after all, a one-off error doesn't just affect the millennium). So really, a year may be "missing" but by a matter of convention this should be the new millennium. Just to take this further, if this is the new century or a new decade but not a new millennium, we'd have to say that a millennium is 10 centries plus 1 year, or 100 decades plus one year - either way its just messy. I think I would rather just have one "missing" year that's not accounted for.
Any thoughts?
your comment is more or less correct - assuming that there are no filters on the routers along the way. however, the big deal is that, according to this advisory, the OS 9 can be made to reply with a packet 37.5 times the request. If this is true, the OS 9 can be used as a "traffic amplifier." In short, if an attacker using a T1 set things up properly she/he could possibly flood a machine with ~37 T1's worth of traffic - enough to take out almost any site. It would be far better if it always replied with less data (thus becoming a deamplifier), but oh well.
Ok folks, just a few important things to consider:
1) what defines "ergonomic" - what we consider ergonomic today will probably not be ergonomic in a few short years. Who defines what ergonomic is/isn't. This may seem trivial, but it isn't. If Joe Employee is sueing Corp X because he claims damages how do we know his keyboard/chair/etc is not ergonomic - can anyone say DES (Department of Ergonomic Standards?!?!?)
2) I really appreciate what OSHA has done to make the work evironment livable and safe. However, at what point (and this often happens with organizations) does OSHA go beyond resonable policy and begin trying to justify its budget. All social programs, if effective and useful, cause change and eventually are needed less. Is is possible that OSHA is simply trying to make a case for its current budget or even an increased budget (ie "see, we can't have cutbacks, look at how many people work w/o ergonomic equipment")
3) Is it possible that the makers of ergonomic furniture/hardware have lobbied for this??? (probably not, but just a thought)
Hmmm...that message is very secret
Yes, there is a secret message, and this is it:
Transmeta's policy has been to remain silent about its plans
until it had something to demonstrate to the world.
On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate
what Crusoe processors can do.
Simultaneously, all of the details will go up on this Web site
for everyone on the Internet to see.
Crusoe will be cool hardware and software for mobile applications.
Crusoe will be unconventional, which is why we wanted
to let you know in advance to come look at the entire Web site
in January, so that you can get the full story and have access to all
of the real details as soon as they are available.
They seem to have updated their "secret message" in the HTML source as well:
Though I suppose none of this is "secret"