Ehh, just because many of the women who were in the field (I'm vague here with "field", grouping all engineering fields that dealt with early computers into one) at the time left lasting impressions doesn't mean that women ever dominated the field. On the contrary, the reason that such women are remembered was because they fought such an uphill battle. I've worked with a number of old farts who worked for General Atomic long ago, and they say the industry was always dominated by men.
I remember when I was in high school trying to decide what schools to apply to and what major to apply under. A number of my friends were doing the same. College recruiters (especially student reps) seemed to, by and large, approach male students with questions about econ or engineering, and female students with comm, soc, and lit questions. When you've got negative reinforcement comming from the system, why bother looking for other reasons for the imbalance?
My sister is a geek (Aeronautical Engineering), but she made that decision on her own, and never spoke to a councellor or a recruiter. She only applied to a single college, and didn't list any alternative major choices in her application. Most of the geek girls I know fit the same profile. Many of the geek guys I know applied to college under history or literature majors and got recruited into their fields.
This can't be true. The man who sold me my computer said that Windows 2000 would make surfing the internet safer and faster than ever before. He also said that using the email with Wondows 2000 would be safe. First the lovebug and now cookie thieves! I think you people just make this stuff up.
I think that public policy should support Open Source. I mean, the government subsidizes crappy businesses all the time that have no good impact, why not subsidize something that has a beneficial impact. OK, so maybe not actually pay, but provide some method for getting a tax break. You used to be able to write off just about every charitable gesture under the sun. That would make corporate sponsoring of Open Source fairly attractive.
On second thought, then you'd get the corporate hounds bothering you to become a "registered" user so that they could claim you as a tax credit. Oh well.
As far as the regulation goes, screw that. I'd like government regulation to stay as far from open source as possible.
Don't try to get too fancy with mySQL, though. It has no concept of a foreign key, so referential integrity (RI) has to be enforced by your code. This is listed as a feature, not a bug. They claim that it gives them a tremendous speed boost not to have to check RI. A simple trial will prove that having the RDBMS suppport RI is almost always going to outperform enforcing it through PERL code, even though the PERL code is pretty darn quick. Also, you have to lock the whole table for updates that risk violating RI or simultaneous queries can execute in parallel (mySQL is very nicely multithreaded) and screw RI even when enforced on the query level. mySQL is great for databases that don't ever delete records on the fly, though. Then RI isn't an issue.
DISCLAIMER: I use mySQL extensively and am very happy with its performance capabilities. I just want everyone to be aware that there are certain design requirements that occur with mySQL that don't happen with RDBMS's that conform to standard SQL (99 or older).
IIRC, there were reports that during the Gulf war, all the GPS systems (including civilian units) suddenly became accurate to the 1cm resolution you speak of. I heard this too, but I heard that it was because the military ran out of the expensive decoders and decided to equip the troops with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS, a favorite acronym of the SBIR folk) receivers instead. It may just be urban legend, but there is a lot of pressure for the military to use COTS solutions. And yes, the sats are responsible for the "error", but it isn't error, it's encrypted bits, it just looks like error to GPS receivers that don't have the proper decoders.
Not likely in the near future, but why not?
on
Linux on the Brain
·
· Score: 3
Forward disclaimer: I am no expert in AI research.
One of the problems with neural networks (both in biological and artificial systems) is that slightly different setups can yield surprisingly different results. There have been several studies on twins (genetically equivalent), and they exhibit very different brain activity patterns (not that surprising, look how many identical twins also differ in build, personality, etc).
You can try a similar thing with simulated artificial neural networks: set up a simple back-propogation neural net with different initial conditions and give them the same training data. Now watch for subtle differences in the output. Bigger neural networks give even less subtle (ie often rather large) differences. So, the machine would have to be trained for an individual.
Just as your neural network can learn to process its own data uniquely, so should a simulated artificial neural network (See link for a good intro). Our detectors of today (NMRI) would only need to be improved by an order of magnitude (I've used a NMR machine in a lab that was very similar to Purcell's origional experiment and have seen the improvements in commercially available systems for hospitals). Our processing power would have to be improved by several orders of magnitude (I am basing this off of papers I've read on large simulated artificial neural networks ~1,000,000 nodes, which are still dwarfed in complexity by the human brain).
So, given enough training, a computer/NMR device ought to be able to learn your commands and distinguish between subconscious and conscious desires.
On the other hand, some philosophers thought that given enough training that men would eventually understand women...
You didn't read the JonKatz article today, did you? Don't you know that if you say the wrong things that your classmates might turn you in to WAVE America? Gee, stop thinking that just because it is an inalienable right that it applies to you!
Besides, as someone pointed out, Geocities has a censorship statement, and given the recent news, I wouldn't be surprised if other hosts did the same.
Gee, first the AOL Germany news and now this. Well, at least here in the US of A I can say things like *CENSORED* and not have to worry about someone taking it down. Woohoo! Free speech is absolute here, and all of you other countries can *CENSORED*!
You want to abuse the system? Hey, anyone in Santa Barbara, CA want to report me? I'm no longer in school, but I could be a serious threat. I'm a white male in his 20s who drives by Dos Pueblos High School in a red sports car every day. I must be stalking high school students. It couldn't possibly be that I live a block from the school. I am a threat. Report me early and report me often. You want the signs? Lets see:
loss of temper on a daily basis: Sure, why not?
frequent physical fighting: Ok, nobody can verify that, either
significant vandalism or property damage: I once got arrested for disturbing the peace
increase in use of drugs or alchohol: Yeah, like I could increase my alcohol consumption
increasing risk-taking behavior: Shoot, just two weeks ago I was stuck on the side of a mountain for two hours because I decided to go rock climbing with no gear! Also, I pierced my ear. Heck, when you work for a defense contractor, that is a serious risk.
detailed plans to commit acts of violence: Ok, here's the plan... I see someone that I am going to hurt and then I hurt them. More detail? I hurt them with my fist. More? On their face.
announcing threats or plans for hurting others: Ok, the person that I am going to hurt is named Jon. or Bob. Shoot, I'll just call him Al.
enjoying hurting animals: If that cat pees on my stereo one more time...
carrying a weapon: I have a stun gun in my car. Also there's some dropped weapons charges on my record.
OK, so when these guys go national, turn me in repeatedly. I have nothing to hide and I don't mind wasting the time of the Santa Barbara police (there's a reason for charges on my record being dropped. The Santa Barbara district attorney will charge you with anything to get a conviction). Also, if their program doesn't cover protecting school kids from outside threats like me, then what good is it?
The stock market is ruled by mob mentality. Given that, the tips by the experts tend to become self fullfilling prophecies. The experts are beginning to say that the "New Economy" model has come to an end (as before they said it was comming to and end). They say that investors are going to start worrying about the bottom line instead of the top line. It really shouldn't be long before people start listening.
I have my faith that the market will soon recover and that people will start rewarding business potential (aka the top line--revenue stream independent of initial operating expenses) like they did when this New Economy started. But I also imagine that the investors are going to be a little more selective in the future. Strapping a dot-com to your company name won't be enough to have a sky high stock price. And between now and then, there is going to be a time when it is bad for high tech companies to enter the market because investors will be weary of all companies that might make up the failing New Economy.
Having said that, I think that LinuxCare shelving their IPO is actually a good thing. The linux community doesn't need to see a company fail because it couldn't get enough of its needed startup funds from its IPO. On the other hand, I think that it does need to see some companies fail. But, I'd rather see a company fail because of a failed business plan, or something else that other companies can learn from. Kind of like an open source economics... Everyone else sees how everyone else operates. The good stuff rises to the top.
I'll stop now, I am reverting to straight rambling.
I'm ready for the market to fall.
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 1
I agree that a crash would be bad for the economy. However, the company I work for is not public and has no ties to large corporations. Given that I am young and just entering the market, a dip now means a more prosperous future for me. Starting to invest while the market is reaching its peak is no good. So, though the market sucks for those who already own lots of stock, for people like me, it is not so bad.
Actually, this happened to a PC board in a lab at school. The board was placed on a piece of stainless steel so that several of the pins on the back of the board were connected via a common ground. The computer was turned on an pretty soon "POP!!" The chip didn't blast off of the board, but it did rip itself into a few pieces. I've blown away a good number of ICs, though that's usually because I misread the pinout. Sometimes it smokes, sometimes it sparks, and sometimes BANG! Yep, life's a mystery.
Yes, it is about time that a judge makes a ruling that makes sense. Unfortunately, I thought that the ticketmaster case had the most merit of any of the web lawsuits (which is not to say that it had a lot of merit, it is to say that I wish the other crappy suites were resolved with happier endings faster). Though I don't have any qualms about sticking it to ticketmaster (1-800-MONOPOLY, or, did you hear the one about ticketmaster changing it's toll free line to a 900 number? They figured that since they butt-rape you anyway...), I can understand why a company that makes revenues off of ads might want to have their content behind an advertising shield and be upset when people use deep linking so that other people's ad revenues can increase by using their content. Of course, on the other hand, it isn't hard to protect against if they set up their site differently. I mean, let's face it, even the government DoD SBIR proposals are constructed so that you can't link to them without going through a legal mumbo jumbo page (they use asp pages with a session ID that gets passed from page to page. You can do the exact same thing with perl/CGI pages). Given that a trivial technological fix exists, I do think that the lawsuit ended correctly, but I still see why they sued: Implementing a technological fix before litigation is illogical. It makes no sense! It's crazy. It's un-American!
Since you feel the need to criticize others for minor problems with physical interpretation, I'll bite. A centrifugal force and a coriolis force are both perfectly acceptable forces, they are just non-physical (which is of course what you mean when you say there is no such thing). As seen from a non-inertial reference frame (like the Earth), bodies appear to accelerate in funky ways. It is convenient (and by convenient I mean "a little bit of trig") to express such funky accelerations as being caused by non-physical forces. So, the origional poster was almost right. Turn such shielding on and you will be thrown from the Earth by the centrifugal force, and you will also deflect a little due to the coriolis force. Or, at least it will appear that way to those of us still stuck on this rotating rock.
As far as the topic of shielding things gravitationally: Imagine a diffraction grating. You have areas where there are bright and dark spots due to the disruption of photons. If you can figure out a way to do the same thing with gravitons, you would have roughly the desired effect. But, given that we currently can't even detect a graviton, any motivation to shield against them seems a bit silly. However, this guy does seem somewhat clever, but here's my problem with his theoretical model. The coupling of a ship to a gravitational field implies a whole lot of gravitons. The paths the gravitons take are probabilistic, and in trying to shield against them, you constrain the paths they take but cannot eliminate all paths--a graviton cannot be absorbed by a photon without being re-radiated. This is analogous to shielding against photons: if you absorb a photon, you either re-radiate it (like a mirror or an atom falling back to its ground state) or you increase your kinetic energy. The later isn't an option for a gravity shield because the increase in energy means an increase in gravity.
Disclaimer: Quantum Geo Dynamics (my favorite term for quantum gravity) is not something I understand well (no kidding). However, nobody else understands it well either. Try doing a literature search for things written by Hartle, Penrose, or Hawking. They are generally more practical (though still sound like science fiction to most), and have much more scientific merit.
You know, it is true that violent minor crimes is at a low (in recent history). However, the demographics are diverse now as opposed to centered around poor neighborhoods. Yeah, I have to give my friend Ron credit. It's like he says: We only really care about it now that wealthy white kids are blowing each other away.
Actually, my take on it is a little different. The death counts of specific incidents are larger now than in past years. The speed with which the news travels and the coverage it receives are also much greater. People do look for the government to provide a solution. People are a bit more paranoid now because it isn't like the possibility of "moving to a better neighborhood" means that you can eventually let your guard down (though I never have my guard "up"). And the news reports just keep reminding us of our vulnerability.
Marketing off of the fears of others has always been a big thing. Security companies of all sorts thrive off of this. But until recently, most of those have been about providing piece of mind by protecting an individual (or property), not attacking possible (or as they would market, probable) sources of danger. You would be mistaken if you think that it isn't going to get worse. If marketing works, it only escalates.
I remember a talk that a teacher (Mr. Stimson) in high school gave us. It's been several years, so I doubt I am doing him justice. It was a physics class, so we were all a bunch of nerds. As such, the teacher probably felt it was his civic duty to give us the talk. He said that suicide was proabably the most stupid thing that an individual could do. The "You'll wish you treated me better when I'm gone," mentality doesn't work if people don't like to have you around anyway. He also warned against gunning down our classmates. "Fear and respect are two different things. If you want to use violence to gain respect, stick up for yourself by beating someone barefisted. Any idiot can pull a trigger, and there's no reason to respect any idiot." You know, I have to agree with him.
Now I must sit and ask myself how many rights and liberties people are willing to sacrifice to the government to have it protect us and do our thinking for us. What did Jello Biafra say? "America, love it or leave it. Beat the shit out of those who care enough to criticize it."
Not with knowledgable customers - or knowledgable potential employees
Here's a newsflash for you. Some of the best and most loyal customers are not always the most knowledgeable. In those cases, a certification does help. There are a good number of employers that want to see certification as well.
In this market, skilled employees can move almost anywhere they want anytime, with or without certification.
Almost is the key word there. In some places, the job market is competitive. Some employers are real sticklers for exerience, and many are willing to waive some of their requirments if you show them a certification.
I have worked professionally on several different platforms. My *NIX clients never asked about any kind of certification. They were happy enough to find a developer that understood their system at all. My Win* clients had a bigger market to choose from. The certification served as a decent tool. I don't think that having a certification makes me more qualified than before. But now that I am certified, I know what I can expect certified individuals to know. I also know what I need to ask to gauge whether or not they can be useful developers.
Certifications have their uses. Wall ornements and toilet paper are only two uses, and probably not the best.
Yeah, I agree. The interview was very informative. Especially that part about short term memory:
The Slashdot audience may not fully appreciate the problem of having to keep items in short-term memory since you only become a programmer if you... dang! What were we just talking about?
(I was just sooooo eager to get a first post) If all of my current devices (PDA and Cell Phone) have IrDA ports, then how does this help me at all? There is no mention in the press release if the Notebook PC will even support IrDA. Also, wasn't there supposed to be a problem with the FAA and Bluetooth? I thought they said that instead of just takeoff and landing, bluetooth-enabled notebooks would have to remain off for the duration of the flight, just like cell phones.
Does anyone know where I can find real (non-National Semiconductor) information?
You'll provide me with more ways to waste time on slashdot while I wait for my current software project to compile? That's fantastic! Hmmm, I feel a "Rebuild All" comming on... Heck yeah, I'm all for puzzlers.
I conceed your first point.
on
A New DeCSS
·
· Score: 1
Hah! You've proved ol' Boss Hogg's original point!
Yes, I agree with you that posting a bunch of different files all named DeCSS makes it harder to find the origional. That is why I think my idea of also repackaging the origional DeCSS with comment buffers is important. If you could boost the mirrors of DeCSS by a factor of ten (with variations in file size), then the random noise of different DeCSS files (for Cascading Style Sheets or other) is less annoying. Or, if someone just rewrote the darn thing, that would probably make for a very different looking file.
I really don't thing that the MPAA are "clever swindlers" I asked my favorite non-techie (my mother) about her opinion on the lawsuit. She was more appalled that a little boy and his father were arrested overseas than anything else. That was before I tainted her opinion about how the code was cleverly reverse engineered and not stolen through some secret underground channels. After I explained things in detail, she was outraged. Given that her interpretation of what was going on was centered against the MPAA, I don't think that the MPAA is doing a good job with their FUD campaign. Note: my mother is paranoid of the spooky hackers as portrayed in the media (there was no sympathy for Mitnick), so if the MPAA can't make my mother side with them, they rank as idiots--not clever swindlers--in my book.
Slashdot Mirror
My sister is a geek (Aeronautical Engineering), but she made that decision on her own, and never spoke to a councellor or a recruiter. She only applied to a single college, and didn't list any alternative major choices in her application. Most of the geek girls I know fit the same profile. Many of the geek guys I know applied to college under history or literature majors and got recruited into their fields.
On second thought, then you'd get the corporate hounds bothering you to become a "registered" user so that they could claim you as a tax credit. Oh well.
As far as the regulation goes, screw that. I'd like government regulation to stay as far from open source as possible.
Don't try to get too fancy with mySQL, though. It has no concept of a foreign key, so referential integrity (RI) has to be enforced by your code. This is listed as a feature, not a bug. They claim that it gives them a tremendous speed boost not to have to check RI. A simple trial will prove that having the RDBMS suppport RI is almost always going to outperform enforcing it through PERL code, even though the PERL code is pretty darn quick. Also, you have to lock the whole table for updates that risk violating RI or simultaneous queries can execute in parallel (mySQL is very nicely multithreaded) and screw RI even when enforced on the query level. mySQL is great for databases that don't ever delete records on the fly, though. Then RI isn't an issue.
DISCLAIMER: I use mySQL extensively and am very happy with its performance capabilities. I just want everyone to be aware that there are certain design requirements that occur with mySQL that don't happen with RDBMS's that conform to standard SQL (99 or older).
One of the problems with neural networks (both in biological and artificial systems) is that slightly different setups can yield surprisingly different results. There have been several studies on twins (genetically equivalent), and they exhibit very different brain activity patterns (not that surprising, look how many identical twins also differ in build, personality, etc).
You can try a similar thing with simulated artificial neural networks: set up a simple back-propogation neural net with different initial conditions and give them the same training data. Now watch for subtle differences in the output. Bigger neural networks give even less subtle (ie often rather large) differences. So, the machine would have to be trained for an individual.
Just as your neural network can learn to process its own data uniquely, so should a simulated artificial neural network (See link for a good intro). Our detectors of today (NMRI) would only need to be improved by an order of magnitude (I've used a NMR machine in a lab that was very similar to Purcell's origional experiment and have seen the improvements in commercially available systems for hospitals). Our processing power would have to be improved by several orders of magnitude (I am basing this off of papers I've read on large simulated artificial neural networks ~1,000,000 nodes, which are still dwarfed in complexity by the human brain).
So, given enough training, a computer/NMR device ought to be able to learn your commands and distinguish between subconscious and conscious desires.
On the other hand, some philosophers thought that given enough training that men would eventually understand women...
Besides, as someone pointed out, Geocities has a censorship statement, and given the recent news, I wouldn't be surprised if other hosts did the same.
loss of temper on a daily basis: Sure, why not?
frequent physical fighting: Ok, nobody can verify that, either
significant vandalism or property damage: I once got arrested for disturbing the peace
increase in use of drugs or alchohol: Yeah, like I could increase my alcohol consumption
increasing risk-taking behavior: Shoot, just two weeks ago I was stuck on the side of a mountain for two hours because I decided to go rock climbing with no gear! Also, I pierced my ear. Heck, when you work for a defense contractor, that is a serious risk.
detailed plans to commit acts of violence: Ok, here's the plan... I see someone that I am going to hurt and then I hurt them. More detail? I hurt them with my fist. More? On their face.
announcing threats or plans for hurting others: Ok, the person that I am going to hurt is named Jon. or Bob. Shoot, I'll just call him Al.
enjoying hurting animals: If that cat pees on my stereo one more time...
carrying a weapon: I have a stun gun in my car. Also there's some dropped weapons charges on my record.
OK, so when these guys go national, turn me in repeatedly. I have nothing to hide and I don't mind wasting the time of the Santa Barbara police (there's a reason for charges on my record being dropped. The Santa Barbara district attorney will charge you with anything to get a conviction). Also, if their program doesn't cover protecting school kids from outside threats like me, then what good is it?
I have my faith that the market will soon recover and that people will start rewarding business potential (aka the top line--revenue stream independent of initial operating expenses) like they did when this New Economy started. But I also imagine that the investors are going to be a little more selective in the future. Strapping a dot-com to your company name won't be enough to have a sky high stock price. And between now and then, there is going to be a time when it is bad for high tech companies to enter the market because investors will be weary of all companies that might make up the failing New Economy.
Having said that, I think that LinuxCare shelving their IPO is actually a good thing. The linux community doesn't need to see a company fail because it couldn't get enough of its needed startup funds from its IPO. On the other hand, I think that it does need to see some companies fail. But, I'd rather see a company fail because of a failed business plan, or something else that other companies can learn from. Kind of like an open source economics... Everyone else sees how everyone else operates. The good stuff rises to the top.
I'll stop now, I am reverting to straight rambling.
Yes, it is about time that a judge makes a ruling that makes sense. Unfortunately, I thought that the ticketmaster case had the most merit of any of the web lawsuits (which is not to say that it had a lot of merit, it is to say that I wish the other crappy suites were resolved with happier endings faster). Though I don't have any qualms about sticking it to ticketmaster (1-800-MONOPOLY, or, did you hear the one about ticketmaster changing it's toll free line to a 900 number? They figured that since they butt-rape you anyway...), I can understand why a company that makes revenues off of ads might want to have their content behind an advertising shield and be upset when people use deep linking so that other people's ad revenues can increase by using their content. Of course, on the other hand, it isn't hard to protect against if they set up their site differently. I mean, let's face it, even the government DoD SBIR proposals are constructed so that you can't link to them without going through a legal mumbo jumbo page (they use asp pages with a session ID that gets passed from page to page. You can do the exact same thing with perl/CGI pages). Given that a trivial technological fix exists, I do think that the lawsuit ended correctly, but I still see why they sued: Implementing a technological fix before litigation is illogical. It makes no sense! It's crazy. It's un-American!
As far as the topic of shielding things gravitationally: Imagine a diffraction grating. You have areas where there are bright and dark spots due to the disruption of photons. If you can figure out a way to do the same thing with gravitons, you would have roughly the desired effect. But, given that we currently can't even detect a graviton, any motivation to shield against them seems a bit silly. However, this guy does seem somewhat clever, but here's my problem with his theoretical model. The coupling of a ship to a gravitational field implies a whole lot of gravitons. The paths the gravitons take are probabilistic, and in trying to shield against them, you constrain the paths they take but cannot eliminate all paths--a graviton cannot be absorbed by a photon without being re-radiated. This is analogous to shielding against photons: if you absorb a photon, you either re-radiate it (like a mirror or an atom falling back to its ground state) or you increase your kinetic energy. The later isn't an option for a gravity shield because the increase in energy means an increase in gravity.
Disclaimer: Quantum Geo Dynamics (my favorite term for quantum gravity) is not something I understand well (no kidding). However, nobody else understands it well either. Try doing a literature search for things written by Hartle, Penrose, or Hawking. They are generally more practical (though still sound like science fiction to most), and have much more scientific merit.
Actually, my take on it is a little different. The death counts of specific incidents are larger now than in past years. The speed with which the news travels and the coverage it receives are also much greater. People do look for the government to provide a solution. People are a bit more paranoid now because it isn't like the possibility of "moving to a better neighborhood" means that you can eventually let your guard down (though I never have my guard "up"). And the news reports just keep reminding us of our vulnerability.
Marketing off of the fears of others has always been a big thing. Security companies of all sorts thrive off of this. But until recently, most of those have been about providing piece of mind by protecting an individual (or property), not attacking possible (or as they would market, probable) sources of danger. You would be mistaken if you think that it isn't going to get worse. If marketing works, it only escalates.
I remember a talk that a teacher (Mr. Stimson) in high school gave us. It's been several years, so I doubt I am doing him justice. It was a physics class, so we were all a bunch of nerds. As such, the teacher probably felt it was his civic duty to give us the talk. He said that suicide was proabably the most stupid thing that an individual could do. The "You'll wish you treated me better when I'm gone," mentality doesn't work if people don't like to have you around anyway. He also warned against gunning down our classmates. "Fear and respect are two different things. If you want to use violence to gain respect, stick up for yourself by beating someone barefisted. Any idiot can pull a trigger, and there's no reason to respect any idiot." You know, I have to agree with him.
Now I must sit and ask myself how many rights and liberties people are willing to sacrifice to the government to have it protect us and do our thinking for us. What did Jello Biafra say? "America, love it or leave it. Beat the shit out of those who care enough to criticize it."
Here's a newsflash for you. Some of the best and most loyal customers are not always the most knowledgeable. In those cases, a certification does help. There are a good number of employers that want to see certification as well.
In this market, skilled employees can move almost anywhere they want anytime, with or without certification.
Almost is the key word there. In some places, the job market is competitive. Some employers are real sticklers for exerience, and many are willing to waive some of their requirments if you show them a certification.
I have worked professionally on several different platforms. My *NIX clients never asked about any kind of certification. They were happy enough to find a developer that understood their system at all. My Win* clients had a bigger market to choose from. The certification served as a decent tool. I don't think that having a certification makes me more qualified than before. But now that I am certified, I know what I can expect certified individuals to know. I also know what I need to ask to gauge whether or not they can be useful developers.
Certifications have their uses. Wall ornements and toilet paper are only two uses, and probably not the best.
The Slashdot audience may not fully appreciate the problem of having to keep items in short-term memory since you only become a programmer if you... dang! What were we just talking about?
Does anyone know where I can find real (non-National Semiconductor) information?
Me? I am just posting for the sake of driving this to be the most active story. Seeking HOF, baby!!
Yes, I agree with you that posting a bunch of different files all named DeCSS makes it harder to find the origional. That is why I think my idea of also repackaging the origional DeCSS with comment buffers is important. If you could boost the mirrors of DeCSS by a factor of ten (with variations in file size), then the random noise of different DeCSS files (for Cascading Style Sheets or other) is less annoying. Or, if someone just rewrote the darn thing, that would probably make for a very different looking file.
I really don't thing that the MPAA are "clever swindlers" I asked my favorite non-techie (my mother) about her opinion on the lawsuit. She was more appalled that a little boy and his father were arrested overseas than anything else. That was before I tainted her opinion about how the code was cleverly reverse engineered and not stolen through some secret underground channels. After I explained things in detail, she was outraged. Given that her interpretation of what was going on was centered against the MPAA, I don't think that the MPAA is doing a good job with their FUD campaign. Note: my mother is paranoid of the spooky hackers as portrayed in the media (there was no sympathy for Mitnick), so if the MPAA can't make my mother side with them, they rank as idiots--not clever swindlers--in my book.