Neither of these formats is going to go anywhere unless there is a way to make backup copies. This so-called "hole" is actually a feature, not a bug.
I predict that this format war will end when one of these two formats finally has a robust backup solution. At that moment in time, the other format will be dead.
Technically, paper currency is private. It is printed by the federal reserve bank, which is owned by member banks and is not a branch of the government.
Maybe (probably) I'm missing some subtlety specific to Debian/SPI, but when I compare this situation to what I encounter in my professional life, it appears that SPI is in the wrong.
I work for a corporation. In my position, I frequently negotiate deals with software vendors, and this includes negotiating the contract terms. I am not a lawyer, however, so I work with our corporate attorneys in negotiating these contracts. They are responsible for understanding and explaining the legal ramifications of the contract terms, and I am responsible for understanding and explaining the business objectives of why we are trying to license the software.
Indemnification in particular is often a sticky subject in these negotiations. We usually get the indemnification clause that makes our lawyers happy, but in rare cases we do not.
In the end, however, it is notthe lawyer's job to decide whether or not we accept the terms of any contract. It is their job to advise me (and my managers) what risk we are taking with any given contract. It is then up to management to decide of that risk outweighs the business benefits we are trying to seek.
If somehow the Debian developers have gotten themselves in the position of needing permission from their attorney to sign a contract, then something has gotten seriously screwed up in their relationship. That would be like the CEO of McDonalds needing permission from some random fry cook to enter into a legal agreement. The attorney is to be an advisor, not a decision maker.
I've been a steady member of the Wikipedia "community" since 2003. Unless anybody has missed it, Jimbo is frequently described as a "benevolent dictator".
The benevolent part is speculation, but the dictator part is 100% spot on.
While Wikipedia has many admirable attributes, a dictatorship is a dictatorship no matter what color you paint it.
Any chain of logic that leads to the conclusion that "society" has rights over the individual is in error.
As an individual, once I make the decision not to be spied upon, that decision outweighs any interest "society" has in spying upon me. Hence (as an example) strong encryption is an absolute right.
If this wiretap system has a feature that allows the individual to disable that, the the developers of the system are to be commended - even if their implementation is weak.
A better implementation would interrupt the beginning of each call with a dialogue like this:
"The conversation you are about to engage in may be monitored by outside parties. Please press '1' to confirm you permit this monitoring. To deny permission, and disable all monitoring, please press '2', or simply stay on the line."
There are three usable channels. A good engineer will put up a tower with three 120-degree antennas, and put one channel on each side. On alternating towers, arrange the overlap so you are always covering the same zone with the same channel. Ideally you create three overlapping lobes.
Under this scheme, there can be three service providers in an area, and they have to cooperate to avoid interference. The fourth provider is SOL and is on a short train to bankruptcy.
Here is the beauty of wi-fi through; it is effectively first-come, first-serve. If your system worked before, and interference from the new guy makes it stop working, you can force them off the airwaves.
Even more beautiful, once you are incorporated, and your corporation owns this prior claim, you in effect have a sellable asset. In a densely developed area, this could be a valuable asset.
It isn't foolproof though. Unfortunately, although your prior claim to those frequencies overrides any newcomer who wants to use wi-fi, there are other uses that can take priority over wi-fi altogether.
P.S. - If you want to be a complete jerk, you lay out your initial towers so every cell is covered by three lobes, one of each channel. Then there are no channels left for your competition. I bet the FCC would make you rearrange your lobes before forcing the other guy off the air, though.
I know how these "internationalists" work. First they'll form this forum or committee or whatever, that has non-binding powers. But once the committee is up and running, they'll never shut it down, and in a decade or so they'll find some excuse to start beating their drums to give it more oversight capability.
Someone needs to put their foot down firmly. While people are free to form whatever little "international internet gossip" knitting circle that they want, the message should be put out that this group will have even less insight to internet governance than the public at large, and all communications from this body will be treated as less than spam.
Do not grant the slightest bit of recognition or credibility to this thing.
Since they are a department of the government, they can simply ignore the patent and indemnify RIMM from any patent liability as far as government workers go.
Patents don't apply to the government, unless the government wants them to. By extension, they don't apply to suppliers making things for the government.
Also, some high-level controls to allow micromanagement were added. For example, workers can be grouped together and given an infinite number of sequential orders.
My computer only has finite memory, so I'm curious how they are able to take an infinite command sequence and compress it to fit? It seems like I could take two arbitrary commands, assign them to represent binary 1 and binary 0, and then encode any arbitrary binary sequence of infinite length within the game.
Where do they store this?
I see how they can trivially consume all available physical memory and disk space on the local host, and assume that once that is exhausted they begin uploading the data to some network storage. But even Google and the NSA combined don't have infinite storage, so then what?
How do they encode data once they have exceeded the total capacity of all mass storage ever produced by humans?
Where does the data go once they have surpassed the storage capacity of the Universe?
This "infinite command sequence" is the most amazing thing I've ever heard come out of Firaxis, I've got to know more!
Like there is a big surprise here. The U.S. built the internet, so why should anybody else control it?
If the rest of the world doesn't like it, let them build their own internet with their own namespace and put their own DNS system on it. Since, AFAIK, the internet as we know it has grown by continual attachment to the U.S. developed core, nobody has a right to ask that the U.S. give up control.
In the golden days, all content on the internet was free.
Then came Mosaic, then came the profiteers, and then came paid content. This is a historical aberration.
In the future, content will return to the natural state - free. Only the smallest wedge will remain "for fee", and that will primarily be for early access to information destined to be free.
RAW doesn't really refer to any single file format. RAW refers to pulling the unprocessed (raw) sensor data out of a digital camera. The actual layout of the bits varies from brand to brand, and often from model to model.
Why do photographers want access to the raw data anyway?
Many professional/prosumer photographers like to archive the version of their work that contains as much of the originally captured information as possible. In the professional film world, this meant processed slides (for consumers, this meant processed negatives). In the digital world, the RAW file contains all the data captured by the camera, before some data is lost by compression and other data is added through interpolation.
Can't they just pull a lossless image out of the camera and be happy?
No. The very act of converting the raw data into an image involves lossful processing of the data. Out of gamut color data is discarded, and CCD color data is interpolated to fill surrounding pixels.
It seems like most of the focus is on how universites and companies aren't doing enough to secure this data, and that somehow if they try hard enough identity theft will go away.
That is completely the wrong problem to solve.
The true problem is that we have developed a system where knowing somebody's identifying information (name, address, SSN, DOB, etc) gives you power. Instead of approaching the impossible task of keeping this information secure, we should instead approach the solvable task of dismantling the system that gives this information so much power.
Imagine that the "master tape" of SSNs for every citizen in the United States had been publicly leaked, and that it was being openly shared on P2P networks. How would we put the cat back in the bag? If you can solve that question, then you are on the right path.
One idea: pass a law prohibiting anyone, governmental or non-governmental, from using the SSN for any purpose other than administrating social security taxes. Take the power away from that number. Since nobody would ask for it, or care what it was, for anything except your social security taxes, no harm could come from sharing it.
It sounds like you are trying to hang in there. There is no disgrace in moving on. I was at HP for twelve years and thought I would be a lifer. I finally realized that enough is enough. I walked out the door and haven't looked back.
The "secret targets" for bonuses was absolutely mind-boggling. The only time I saw a bonus from that scheme was the quarter before the merger, when she tried to buy our votes.
Under Bill and Dave, profit sharing was "profit sharing". Any person with half a brain could look at a quarterly statement, pull out their calculator, and find out what there bonus would be to the penny.
I don't swear lightly, but Carly can rot in hell for what she has done to what was once a flagship of engineering capability. One has to wonder what she has on the board, because they should have cut her goldbricking ass free years ago.
To show how much concern the new HP has for the brand, it was announced just a few days ago that my new company has purchased the right to bring certain products to market and ship them under the HP name. We will design, manufacture, package, distribute, and market something that the consumer will only know as "HP". The old HP would have seen hell freeze over before selling the rigth to control of the quality of products bearing their name.
wrong controllers
on
Mechanical Pong
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This is not pong.
Pong was a game played with two "paddle" controllers, another word for variable resistors. The speed your paddle moved was controlled by the speed you moved the paddle. It was fundamentally an analog input.
This thing uses joysticks for controllers, as digital inputs. The speed the paddle moves is not controllable by the player.
This "Pongmechanik" thing is another game altogether, and not Pong at all. Nonetheless, a beowulf cluster of them would be intriguing.
Slashdot Mirror
Neither of these formats is going to go anywhere unless there is a way to make backup copies. This so-called "hole" is actually a feature, not a bug.
I predict that this format war will end when one of these two formats finally has a robust backup solution. At that moment in time, the other format will be dead.
I have found that if you respect the police, they will respect you.
Listen to the recordings of Lester Siler being tortured by the police and then tell me how respectful the police are.
Technically, paper currency is private. It is printed by the federal reserve bank, which is owned by member banks and is not a branch of the government.
Maybe (probably) I'm missing some subtlety specific to Debian/SPI, but when I compare this situation to what I encounter in my professional life, it appears that SPI is in the wrong.
I work for a corporation. In my position, I frequently negotiate deals with software vendors, and this includes negotiating the contract terms. I am not a lawyer, however, so I work with our corporate attorneys in negotiating these contracts. They are responsible for understanding and explaining the legal ramifications of the contract terms, and I am responsible for understanding and explaining the business objectives of why we are trying to license the software.
Indemnification in particular is often a sticky subject in these negotiations. We usually get the indemnification clause that makes our lawyers happy, but in rare cases we do not.
In the end, however, it is notthe lawyer's job to decide whether or not we accept the terms of any contract. It is their job to advise me (and my managers) what risk we are taking with any given contract. It is then up to management to decide of that risk outweighs the business benefits we are trying to seek.
If somehow the Debian developers have gotten themselves in the position of needing permission from their attorney to sign a contract, then something has gotten seriously screwed up in their relationship. That would be like the CEO of McDonalds needing permission from some random fry cook to enter into a legal agreement. The attorney is to be an advisor, not a decision maker.
I've been a steady member of the Wikipedia "community" since 2003. Unless anybody has missed it, Jimbo is frequently described as a "benevolent dictator".
The benevolent part is speculation, but the dictator part is 100% spot on.
While Wikipedia has many admirable attributes, a dictatorship is a dictatorship no matter what color you paint it.
"root" is my preferred email address on all machines that I can have it. I don't see any reason why I should do things differently.
Ultimately, only the Supreme Court of the US can determine what actions are legal or illegal for the US military to engage in.
Treaties are nice, but all treaties the US enters into are ultimately adjucated by the Supreme Court under Article III, Section 2.
Is this a good use of our money in 2005? After all, didn't Pauly Shore do all the investigation we need back in 1996?
On the other hand, if it gets Joey Lauren Adams more screen time, then I'm all for it!
Any chain of logic that leads to the conclusion that "society" has rights over the individual is in error.
As an individual, once I make the decision not to be spied upon, that decision outweighs any interest "society" has in spying upon me. Hence (as an example) strong encryption is an absolute right.
If this wiretap system has a feature that allows the individual to disable that, the the developers of the system are to be commended - even if their implementation is weak.
A better implementation would interrupt the beginning of each call with a dialogue like this:
"The conversation you are about to engage in may be monitored by outside parties. Please press '1' to confirm you permit this monitoring. To deny permission, and disable all monitoring, please press '2', or simply stay on the line."
There are three usable channels. A good engineer will put up a tower with three 120-degree antennas, and put one channel on each side. On alternating towers, arrange the overlap so you are always covering the same zone with the same channel. Ideally you create three overlapping lobes.
Under this scheme, there can be three service providers in an area, and they have to cooperate to avoid interference. The fourth provider is SOL and is on a short train to bankruptcy.
Here is the beauty of wi-fi through; it is effectively first-come, first-serve. If your system worked before, and interference from the new guy makes it stop working, you can force them off the airwaves.
Even more beautiful, once you are incorporated, and your corporation owns this prior claim, you in effect have a sellable asset. In a densely developed area, this could be a valuable asset.
It isn't foolproof though. Unfortunately, although your prior claim to those frequencies overrides any newcomer who wants to use wi-fi, there are other uses that can take priority over wi-fi altogether.
P.S. - If you want to be a complete jerk, you lay out your initial towers so every cell is covered by three lobes, one of each channel. Then there are no channels left for your competition. I bet the FCC would make you rearrange your lobes before forcing the other guy off the air, though.
I know how these "internationalists" work. First they'll form this forum or committee or whatever, that has non-binding powers. But once the committee is up and running, they'll never shut it down, and in a decade or so they'll find some excuse to start beating their drums to give it more oversight capability.
Someone needs to put their foot down firmly. While people are free to form whatever little "international internet gossip" knitting circle that they want, the message should be put out that this group will have even less insight to internet governance than the public at large, and all communications from this body will be treated as less than spam.
Do not grant the slightest bit of recognition or credibility to this thing.
Since they are a department of the government, they can simply ignore the patent and indemnify RIMM from any patent liability as far as government workers go.
Patents don't apply to the government, unless the government wants them to. By extension, they don't apply to suppliers making things for the government.
Assume that:
1= Build Road
0= Destroy Road
Then all you've encoded above is 10101010101010...
What if you want to encode Pi to a trillion digits? What if you want to encode the entire cache of google, along with daily diffs to that cache?
This comment by Soren really caught my eye:
Also, some high-level controls to allow micromanagement were added. For example, workers can be grouped together and given an infinite number of sequential orders.
My computer only has finite memory, so I'm curious how they are able to take an infinite command sequence and compress it to fit? It seems like I could take two arbitrary commands, assign them to represent binary 1 and binary 0, and then encode any arbitrary binary sequence of infinite length within the game.
Where do they store this?
I see how they can trivially consume all available physical memory and disk space on the local host, and assume that once that is exhausted they begin uploading the data to some network storage. But even Google and the NSA combined don't have infinite storage, so then what?
How do they encode data once they have exceeded the total capacity of all mass storage ever produced by humans?
Where does the data go once they have surpassed the storage capacity of the Universe?
This "infinite command sequence" is the most amazing thing I've ever heard come out of Firaxis, I've got to know more!
Soren, please answer!
Like there is a big surprise here. The U.S. built the internet, so why should anybody else control it?
If the rest of the world doesn't like it, let them build their own internet with their own namespace and put their own DNS system on it. Since, AFAIK, the internet as we know it has grown by continual attachment to the U.S. developed core, nobody has a right to ask that the U.S. give up control.
It is not the purpose of my computer to make the job of someone spying on me easier.
The purpose of my computer is to organize and manipulate data, exactly how I want, and encrypt and obfuscate that data, exactly how I want.
This is like saying that the invention of curtains makes it too hard to look into windows.
n?T
In the golden days of the internet, all content was free.
Content today has been encumbered by costs. One of those is the cost of being bombarded with advertising.
By removing advertisments, the content is restored to the free state.
The future of the internet is the same as the past. All content will be free.
In the golden days, all content on the internet was free.
Then came Mosaic, then came the profiteers, and then came paid content. This is a historical aberration.
In the future, content will return to the natural state - free. Only the smallest wedge will remain "for fee", and that will primarily be for early access to information destined to be free.
What is this "RAW" format?
RAW doesn't really refer to any single file format. RAW refers to pulling the unprocessed (raw) sensor data out of a digital camera. The actual layout of the bits varies from brand to brand, and often from model to model.
Why do photographers want access to the raw data anyway?
Many professional/prosumer photographers like to archive the version of their work that contains as much of the originally captured information as possible. In the professional film world, this meant processed slides (for consumers, this meant processed negatives). In the digital world, the RAW file contains all the data captured by the camera, before some data is lost by compression and other data is added through interpolation.
Can't they just pull a lossless image out of the camera and be happy?
No. The very act of converting the raw data into an image involves lossful processing of the data. Out of gamut color data is discarded, and CCD color data is interpolated to fill surrounding pixels.
It seems like most of the focus is on how universites and companies aren't doing enough to secure this data, and that somehow if they try hard enough identity theft will go away.
That is completely the wrong problem to solve.
The true problem is that we have developed a system where knowing somebody's identifying information (name, address, SSN, DOB, etc) gives you power. Instead of approaching the impossible task of keeping this information secure, we should instead approach the solvable task of dismantling the system that gives this information so much power.
Imagine that the "master tape" of SSNs for every citizen in the United States had been publicly leaked, and that it was being openly shared on P2P networks. How would we put the cat back in the bag? If you can solve that question, then you are on the right path.
One idea: pass a law prohibiting anyone, governmental or non-governmental, from using the SSN for any purpose other than administrating social security taxes. Take the power away from that number. Since nobody would ask for it, or care what it was, for anything except your social security taxes, no harm could come from sharing it.
Canada? I think I've heard of it. Isn't it located in the Southern Arctic?
A black apple? Nothing new here, they did this back in the 1980's:
Black Apple
I think these are pretty collectable today.
Hey AuMatar,
It sounds like you are trying to hang in there. There is no disgrace in moving on. I was at HP for twelve years and thought I would be a lifer. I finally realized that enough is enough. I walked out the door and haven't looked back.
The "secret targets" for bonuses was absolutely mind-boggling. The only time I saw a bonus from that scheme was the quarter before the merger, when she tried to buy our votes.
Under Bill and Dave, profit sharing was "profit sharing". Any person with half a brain could look at a quarterly statement, pull out their calculator, and find out what there bonus would be to the penny.
I don't swear lightly, but Carly can rot in hell for what she has done to what was once a flagship of engineering capability. One has to wonder what she has on the board, because they should have cut her goldbricking ass free years ago.
To show how much concern the new HP has for the brand, it was announced just a few days ago that my new company has purchased the right to bring certain products to market and ship them under the HP name. We will design, manufacture, package, distribute, and market something that the consumer will only know as "HP". The old HP would have seen hell freeze over before selling the rigth to control of the quality of products bearing their name.
This is not pong.
Pong was a game played with two "paddle" controllers, another word for variable resistors. The speed your paddle moved was controlled by the speed you moved the paddle. It was fundamentally an analog input.
This thing uses joysticks for controllers, as digital inputs. The speed the paddle moves is not controllable by the player.
This "Pongmechanik" thing is another game altogether, and not Pong at all. Nonetheless, a beowulf cluster of them would be intriguing.