My eyes seem rather low res to me. When I look at my screen there's only a very very small area where I can see a period or dot on an i. I could be wrong but I don't get the impression that I have anything like 4000x3000 res in that area - if i move back and look very slightly to the side, I stop being able to see the .
But I cheat, I move that very small high res spot in each eye to refresh the image so that my brain can put together a big high res image. Yes the image is stale, but it works well enough in most cases. And eyes do some tricks as well so it'll be easier to see . by itself than distinguish the dot on an i.
Most current digital cameras don't "cheat" that way[1] - it's high res from one corner to the other corner, and it's all taken at about the same time.
[1] Some specialized cameras do though - like those Mars probe cameras.
Once you get to the gigapixel range you start to have bandwidth issues if you are going digital.
With film, you expose the film, unexpose the film, and voila, the data is now on the storage medium.
For digital you'll have to have some additional intelligence in the "retina" so that the various bits of the image can be buffered while you trickle all of it out to the less volatile storage (drive, flash or whatever).
Not a big problem, I guess but something to consider. 1 gigapixel photo, 256 levels, 3 colours = 3 gigabytes. It will take 50 seconds to write the entire picture to a 60MB/sec HDD. Add more gigapixels and you're going to need something like RAID10.
Of course 50 seconds might be faster than the time it takes to change a gigapixel film to the next one;).
I'm actually fine with electric motor cars powered by hydrocarbons aka "synthetic oil". I think it makes a lot more sense than hydrogen.
It's pretty hard for a battery to beat 34-38 Megajoules per litre - roughly the amount of energy in one hundred 7.4 volt 13000mAH laptop batteries. How much space and weight will storage of 34 megajoules of hydrogen take?
I don't see a practical US-sized (not even SUV) 4 passenger car getting much more than 80mpg anytime soon - once you add airconditioning, safety, storage, people, the weight all adds up (yes you can and should have regenerative braking, but I bet it's far from 100%). So we'll probably still need the energy equivalent of 10 litres of petrol in the car, and so far the best way to store that amount of energy still appears to be as an oil.
So might be a good idea to use nuclear power plants/algae/whatever to generate hydrocarbon fuel and then use that fuel to power electric cars (via fuel cells on car ).
You may still want a small battery/capacitor in the car for "burst" acceleration and for regenerative braking.
There will be conversion and transmission inefficiencies, but it may actually be better than the transmission losses for conventional electricity transmission + losses from charging and using batteries (remember also the batteries are heavier and take up more space).
Mercedes has actually come up with a more efficient petrol/gasoline internal combustion engine - DiesOtto. So I'm not convinced that they'll really phase out petrol/gasoline by 2015.
You should be concerned about using Truecrypt for plausible deniability when it should be clear that it has no plausible deniability until the day when a significant percentage of the population has Truecrypt installed WITH at least one encrypted partition that may or may not have a hidden partition.
Otherwise if you are in a country like the UK and don't want trouble from the RIPA, you should use crypto software that has no hidden partition feature, so that you can hand over all your passwords AND they can more easily tell that you did so.
I mean why wouldn't you hand over all your passwords? You and I have nothing to hide from our Governments right? So people like us shouldn't use TrueCrypt - the hidden partition feature is counterproductive for us.
If you really want to keep a hidden encrypted partition, you put it on a removable drive and hide it. As it is the Truecrypt hidden partition feature is a stupid idea.
I don't see that as a good argument against direct democracy.
At worst it means the blood is directly on their hands. If that's what they want then so be it. If 90% of the people vote to do some evil, it does make it a lot easier to hold them responsible for it.
For example if 90% of a country voted to declare war on your country, it sure makes it easier to justify using WMD on them (the 10% better start running). They want a war, they get a war.
The normal case is the whole nation gets dragged in even if only the leaders wanted a war.
That's why I think referendums should be held for _offensive_ wars (not defensive). And if the referendum fails to get enough votes the proposers of wars should be put on Death Row, and referendums held later to Redeem each of those on death row (not enough votes - Mr Warmonger dies).
If it turns out later that a war was justified, we can hold some ceremony and present the families of the executed ones their Purple Heart awards, cry a bit and all that.
I think it's only fair. If the leader is not willing to risk dying for the war then that leader should have no right to get soldiers and civilians of both countries killed. In the old days the kings would ride out in battle leading their soldiers. I think this is one way of doing it in spirit.
Where representative democracy works is for less important matters that can be delegated to representatives. Most voters would not want to vote every week over smaller issues - so they elect a representative to do the job (or at least not do too crappy a job;) ).
It's like me delegating cooking to a restaurant. If the food turns out to be crap later on, I might pick a different restaurant the next time. Even if I were a great cook I'm not going to stand in the kitchen and tell them how to cook something, it defeats the purpose.
Those people may also know that there are other crypto software out there that don't have the hidden volume feature, so if you are voluntarily choosing TrueCrypt, there's a significant chance that you are using the hidden volume feature.
And so the interrogation of TrueCrypt users will go on for a lot longer than non-TrueCrypt users (who can just handover all the valid passwords and have the interrogation stop).
Secondly if you are are sloppy and your O/S is configured to record access times or journal truecrypt data, your use of hidden partitions might be detected.
Or if you have made a backup for your truecrypt container and they have obtained access to both the backup and the current.
If you have made changes to the hidden partition since the backup a comparison would show them (it might even help them decrypt your data - go ask your favourite crypto guy for details)
So be careful on how you do your backups of encrypted stuff.
If Chris Jones is right, then people in the UK shouldn't be using Truecrypt either.
"MI5 are clubbing me senseless demanding to know my password. I will say "I don't know it" and they will say "we don't believe you"."
Same thing applies if the MI5 think you have a hidden partition when you don't.
Worse since you voluntarily installed Truecrypt rather than something that does not support hidden partitions.
Re:Only works if it's default install
on
TrueCrypt 6.0 Released
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Why wouldn't they interrogate you further? They can read the Truecrypt feature list for themselves.
Already a Mr Chris Jones has an issue with my proposal because he seems to think that the UK government would waterboard users in the UK if Ubuntu has a default encrypted partition they might not have a key to.
If Chris Jones is right that the UK Government would do such a thing, then they would be far more likely to waterboard you for voluntarily installing truecrypt, voluntarily creating a encrypted volume (or two) AND not handing over "all" passwords. Even if you don't even have a hidden volume.
If you have a Government willing to mistreat people for using a distro that does what I propose, they would definitely mistreat people who use Truecrypt.
So my proposal makes the most sense.
Re:Only works if it's default install
on
TrueCrypt 6.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Just change 1) in the original bug report from:
" Have crypto tools installed by default (if the user does not select the "use of encryption is illegal in my country" checkbox)."
to
" Have crypto tools installed by default (if the user does not select the "don't install encryption" checkbox)."
If the UK courts are going to jail your grandma just because she has an Ubuntu install with a container she has no key too, then I think grandma is living in the wrong country - in the old days the UK courts had the "Reasonable Man" thing, maybe now things have changed.
I see it more as a bug in the UK law than a bug in my proposal.
I believe the brain can move around a bit relative to the skull, so that could make it tricky if you fix stuff to the skull and also to the brain. Might not be easy to let it wiggle around and not kill/impair people when they bump their head.
I bet the stomach and other organs have a fair bit of say over what you like to eat.
That said, I think the brain might be able to survive artificially sustained without other organs for a number of years. But you'll need to provide all the input/sensors too, otherwise that'll be torture.
" The implants are relativley safe because there is no immunoresponse under the dura mater"
What if your head gets smacked hard at the "wrong spot", could the implants fly through your brain like a coin through jelly?
Re:Only works if it's default install
on
TrueCrypt 6.0 Released
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Get a clue.
Does Joe Sixpack's computer come with Truecrypt? Does it come with a truecrypt container preinstalled?
The answer is NO.
So if the wrong people find Truecrypt on your computer guess what happens to you. If you say "Nothing" well: "Wrong answer!". They may give up after a few days of giving you the treatment, but it still means you get the treatment.
Whereas if everybody had truecrypt AND an encrypted partition, they could a) try to waterboard everyone, b) wait till they have more evidence.
Encryption must appear to be in _use_ by default by all users, then you get safety in numbers. When even your grandma using Ubuntu has a crypto partition, things are better for the people actually using it.
All this crypto stuff only works well if it's part of the default install and config.
Otherwise users get exposed to "rubberhose cryptography".
Basically if all users even Joe Sixpack get an encrypted partition by default, then people using crypto will be safe - they have plausible deniability.
"jurors are instructed to weigh testimony equally with physical evidence"
Equally? Wow. I don't trust most people to remember things right - there are so many people out there where when they don't know stuff their brain makes things up AND they don't know they are making things up. They actually believe what they are saying is true. I know so many people who are unreliable that way (they may be reliable and competent in other ways).
To me testimony has very very low weight unless backed by physical evidence. Or backed by evidence that the person testifying is likely to be telling truth - the sort of person with good memory, pays attention to detail, has integrity and an obsession for telling the truth (e.g. if they murdered somebody and were asked if they did, they'd rather admit to it than tell a lie).
I've had enough evidence over the years that most people's brains and consciences don't work well enough for me to risk some accused person's life on their "testimony".
Physical evidence in itself often isn't good enough to know what happened - it depends on what the evidence is.
Basically if a video recording shows A shooting B, and witnesses who aren't aware of what the video camera said (and thus aren't biased) are also sure that A shot B. Then I'll believe A shot B. But whether A shot B _first_ (which would be interesting for a "self defense" excuse), that could be hard to tell just from witnesses (forensics could help - if the B's gun was not fired recently, then A shot B first).
Fraud = deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage. See: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fraud
If you are making up fake members just so that your site might attract real members and make money, then I call it fraud.
You can call it patriotic service to the nation or "sensationalist jargon".
Slashdot Mirror
Just turn off javascript for Yahoo Mail and it switches to the "old mode".
Some stuff doesn't work - you can't flag spam as spam (you can still delete them).
But overall that's the version I've been using and it's fine for my purposes.
In fact Gmail originally did not have a "no javascript" UI - they only added that later.
You should brainwash your kids the way you want (about sex and other stuff) before they become teens. MTV and friends already target preteens.
:).
I learnt about sex when I was 8 or so from science books my parents let me read (and also a few of those sci fi books).
But wait... I'm one of those virgin slashdotters, erm nevermind then
My eyes seem rather low res to me. When I look at my screen there's only a very very small area where I can see a period or dot on an i. I could be wrong but I don't get the impression that I have anything like 4000x3000 res in that area - if i move back and look very slightly to the side, I stop being able to see the .
But I cheat, I move that very small high res spot in each eye to refresh the image so that my brain can put together a big high res image. Yes the image is stale, but it works well enough in most cases. And eyes do some tricks as well so it'll be easier to see . by itself than distinguish the dot on an i.
Most current digital cameras don't "cheat" that way[1] - it's high res from one corner to the other corner, and it's all taken at about the same time.
[1] Some specialized cameras do though - like those Mars probe cameras.
Once you get to the gigapixel range you start to have bandwidth issues if you are going digital.
;).
With film, you expose the film, unexpose the film, and voila, the data is now on the storage medium.
For digital you'll have to have some additional intelligence in the "retina" so that the various bits of the image can be buffered while you trickle all of it out to the less volatile storage (drive, flash or whatever).
Not a big problem, I guess but something to consider. 1 gigapixel photo, 256 levels, 3 colours = 3 gigabytes. It will take 50 seconds to write the entire picture to a 60MB/sec HDD. Add more gigapixels and you're going to need something like RAID10.
Of course 50 seconds might be faster than the time it takes to change a gigapixel film to the next one
I'm actually fine with electric motor cars powered by hydrocarbons aka "synthetic oil". I think it makes a lot more sense than hydrogen.
It's pretty hard for a battery to beat 34-38 Megajoules per litre - roughly the amount of energy in one hundred 7.4 volt 13000mAH laptop batteries. How much space and weight will storage of 34 megajoules of hydrogen take?
I don't see a practical US-sized (not even SUV) 4 passenger car getting much more than 80mpg anytime soon - once you add airconditioning, safety, storage, people, the weight all adds up (yes you can and should have regenerative braking, but I bet it's far from 100%). So we'll probably still need the energy equivalent of 10 litres of petrol in the car, and so far the best way to store that amount of energy still appears to be as an oil.
So might be a good idea to use nuclear power plants/algae/whatever to generate hydrocarbon fuel and then use that fuel to power electric cars (via fuel cells on car ).
You may still want a small battery/capacitor in the car for "burst" acceleration and for regenerative braking.
There will be conversion and transmission inefficiencies, but it may actually be better than the transmission losses for conventional electricity transmission + losses from charging and using batteries (remember also the batteries are heavier and take up more space).
Mercedes has actually come up with a more efficient petrol/gasoline internal combustion engine - DiesOtto. So I'm not convinced that they'll really phase out petrol/gasoline by 2015.
Maybe he's the sort who likes starting his car by walking to the front and winding the crank a few times and hoping it works.
But where's the money coming from?
IIRC the article mentioned thousands of servers at one point.
You should be concerned about using Truecrypt for plausible deniability when it should be clear that it has no plausible deniability until the day when a significant percentage of the population has Truecrypt installed WITH at least one encrypted partition that may or may not have a hidden partition.
Otherwise if you are in a country like the UK and don't want trouble from the RIPA, you should use crypto software that has no hidden partition feature, so that you can hand over all your passwords AND they can more easily tell that you did so.
I mean why wouldn't you hand over all your passwords? You and I have nothing to hide from our Governments right? So people like us shouldn't use TrueCrypt - the hidden partition feature is counterproductive for us.
If you really want to keep a hidden encrypted partition, you put it on a removable drive and hide it. As it is the Truecrypt hidden partition feature is a stupid idea.
Mod parent up.
I don't see that as a good argument against direct democracy.
;) ).
At worst it means the blood is directly on their hands. If that's what they want then so be it. If 90% of the people vote to do some evil, it does make it a lot easier to hold them responsible for it.
For example if 90% of a country voted to declare war on your country, it sure makes it easier to justify using WMD on them (the 10% better start running). They want a war, they get a war.
The normal case is the whole nation gets dragged in even if only the leaders wanted a war.
That's why I think referendums should be held for _offensive_ wars (not defensive). And if the referendum fails to get enough votes the proposers of wars should be put on Death Row, and referendums held later to Redeem each of those on death row (not enough votes - Mr Warmonger dies).
If it turns out later that a war was justified, we can hold some ceremony and present the families of the executed ones their Purple Heart awards, cry a bit and all that.
I think it's only fair. If the leader is not willing to risk dying for the war then that leader should have no right to get soldiers and civilians of both countries killed. In the old days the kings would ride out in battle leading their soldiers. I think this is one way of doing it in spirit.
Where representative democracy works is for less important matters that can be delegated to representatives. Most voters would not want to vote every week over smaller issues - so they elect a representative to do the job (or at least not do too crappy a job
It's like me delegating cooking to a restaurant. If the food turns out to be crap later on, I might pick a different restaurant the next time. Even if I were a great cook I'm not going to stand in the kitchen and tell them how to cook something, it defeats the purpose.
Those people may also know that there are other crypto software out there that don't have the hidden volume feature, so if you are voluntarily choosing TrueCrypt, there's a significant chance that you are using the hidden volume feature.
And so the interrogation of TrueCrypt users will go on for a lot longer than non-TrueCrypt users (who can just handover all the valid passwords and have the interrogation stop).
Secondly if you are are sloppy and your O/S is configured to record access times or journal truecrypt data, your use of hidden partitions might be detected.
Or if you have made a backup for your truecrypt container and they have obtained access to both the backup and the current.
If you have made changes to the hidden partition since the backup a comparison would show them (it might even help them decrypt your data - go ask your favourite crypto guy for details)
So be careful on how you do your backups of encrypted stuff.
If Chris Jones is right, then people in the UK shouldn't be using Truecrypt either.
"MI5 are clubbing me senseless demanding to know my password. I will say "I don't know it" and they will say "we don't believe you"."
Same thing applies if the MI5 think you have a hidden partition when you don't.
Worse since you voluntarily installed Truecrypt rather than something that does not support hidden partitions.
Why wouldn't they interrogate you further? They can read the Truecrypt feature list for themselves.
Already a Mr Chris Jones has an issue with my proposal because he seems to think that the UK government would waterboard users in the UK if Ubuntu has a default encrypted partition they might not have a key to.
If Chris Jones is right that the UK Government would do such a thing, then they would be far more likely to waterboard you for voluntarily installing truecrypt, voluntarily creating a encrypted volume (or two) AND not handing over "all" passwords. Even if you don't even have a hidden volume.
If you have a Government willing to mistreat people for using a distro that does what I propose, they would definitely mistreat people who use Truecrypt.
So my proposal makes the most sense.
Just change 1) in the original bug report from:
" Have crypto tools installed by default (if the user does not select the "use of encryption is illegal in my country" checkbox)."
to
" Have crypto tools installed by default (if the user does not select the "don't install encryption" checkbox)."
If the UK courts are going to jail your grandma just because she has an Ubuntu install with a container she has no key too, then I think grandma is living in the wrong country - in the old days the UK courts had the "Reasonable Man" thing, maybe now things have changed.
I see it more as a bug in the UK law than a bug in my proposal.
I believe the brain can move around a bit relative to the skull, so that could make it tricky if you fix stuff to the skull and also to the brain. Might not be easy to let it wiggle around and not kill/impair people when they bump their head.
I bet the stomach and other organs have a fair bit of say over what you like to eat.
That said, I think the brain might be able to survive artificially sustained without other organs for a number of years. But you'll need to provide all the input/sensors too, otherwise that'll be torture.
Humans have more than 5 senses.
" The implants are relativley safe because there is no immunoresponse under the dura mater"
What if your head gets smacked hard at the "wrong spot", could the implants fly through your brain like a coin through jelly?
Get a clue.
Does Joe Sixpack's computer come with Truecrypt? Does it come with a truecrypt container preinstalled?
The answer is NO.
So if the wrong people find Truecrypt on your computer guess what happens to you. If you say "Nothing" well: "Wrong answer!". They may give up after a few days of giving you the treatment, but it still means you get the treatment.
Whereas if everybody had truecrypt AND an encrypted partition, they could a) try to waterboard everyone, b) wait till they have more evidence.
And that is why I reported this bug/feature request: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/148440
Encryption must appear to be in _use_ by default by all users, then you get safety in numbers. When even your grandma using Ubuntu has a crypto partition, things are better for the people actually using it.
You don't mind exposing your secrets to a machine you don't have control over (and thus should not trust)? I don't recommend it.
You should copy the files that you don't mind exposing, to the unencrypted partition of the USB key or a different no crypto USB drive.
All this crypto stuff only works well if it's part of the default install and config.
Otherwise users get exposed to "rubberhose cryptography".
Basically if all users even Joe Sixpack get an encrypted partition by default, then people using crypto will be safe - they have plausible deniability.
I think the current best way to save someone from hypothermia is to have them hold one of those gloves mentioned here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore_pr.html
And have it set on "heat" rather than "cool". See the last bit.
Lastly without ex Nazis the USA's aerospace and nuclear tech would not have advanced as fast.
Those scientists were humans (with good and bad) as well as good tools (good scientists and engineers) used for both good and evil.
Hmm, that sounds like a minus to me.
"jurors are instructed to weigh testimony equally with physical evidence"
Equally? Wow. I don't trust most people to remember things right - there are so many people out there where when they don't know stuff their brain makes things up AND they don't know they are making things up. They actually believe what they are saying is true. I know so many people who are unreliable that way (they may be reliable and competent in other ways).
To me testimony has very very low weight unless backed by physical evidence. Or backed by evidence that the person testifying is likely to be telling truth - the sort of person with good memory, pays attention to detail, has integrity and an obsession for telling the truth (e.g. if they murdered somebody and were asked if they did, they'd rather admit to it than tell a lie).
I've had enough evidence over the years that most people's brains and consciences don't work well enough for me to risk some accused person's life on their "testimony".
Physical evidence in itself often isn't good enough to know what happened - it depends on what the evidence is.
Basically if a video recording shows A shooting B, and witnesses who aren't aware of what the video camera said (and thus aren't biased) are also sure that A shot B. Then I'll believe A shot B. But whether A shot B _first_ (which would be interesting for a "self defense" excuse), that could be hard to tell just from witnesses (forensics could help - if the B's gun was not fired recently, then A shot B first).
OKOK! You win, you win!
Fraud = deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage. See: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fraud
If you are making up fake members just so that your site might attract real members and make money, then I call it fraud.
You can call it patriotic service to the nation or "sensationalist jargon".
I'll still call it fraud.