It seems totally intuitive. The only news here is that they've got documented data to back up intuition.
We can only focus on one thing at one time, therefore we can only handle one visual input. I'd venture the guess that all our I/O is serial - with quite a bit of DMA capability thrown in.
We can tune in on a single conversation in a room full of people, and switch focus from one to another, but it's real hard to keep track of more than that. We remember music sequencially, but unless we're well trained in music, we can not correctly conceptualize chord structures.
We become completely oblivious to the goings-on when we watch (and listen to) TV. We have a difficult time separating olfactory inputs - so we process those serially as well. "What is that? Lemon?... And sage, and rosemary... "
The only sense that seems parallel to me is the tactile. Though, since tactile input is the summation of very many single (bit) neurons, the parallelism we experience is probably the result of a lot of preprocessing of stimuli in the sensory nervous system and the spinal chord.
The neat thing is when we tune all the senses into the same stream of data. Remember last Christmas? The scent of the cooking goose, the sound of the Grandma Got Run Over By A Raindeer, the blinking of those damned lights and the itchy wool sweater..
With all of the senses delivering a variety of data that shares the same conceptual context, the imprint of the event is more powerful than if the serial stimuli from the different senses were reporting on events that we know are not related. This is probably why we remember better those times when all our senses are firing in parallel on the same concepts.
I'd venture the guess that as this research progresses, we will learn that we manage some pseudo-parallelism in our input processing through a similar mechanizm that we rely on for memory. Chunking, was it?
For example, if shown a group of objects, we can visually process them based on similarity (i.e. they're all read, square, whatever) so we notice more than if they were all distinctly different. Then we get lost in the volume of data that we have to take it.
As with the chunking that takes place when trying to remember more that the 7 (avg) simple items, finding commonality among the items we try to process sensually, makes it possible for us to more more data through our inputs. Sort of a lossy compression really.:)
The real reason for this, and other spooky things that have gone on lately is this (IMHO).
Job Security
Since the fall of the "evil empire" we have had lots of essoterically skilled people with nothing better to do. The government can't exactly have a layoff of people with these skills, since there are other countries - some of them adjacent to Kuwait and Iran, that would be willing to pay a lot of money for such skills.
So classifying, qualifying, quantifying and cataloguing the American public is the NSA/CIA/FBI/etc way of keeping their staff gainfully occupied with busywork. And as a side effect, the residual 'kill-a-commie' directors get another means of making a power grab later.
" "But I think it's reasonable to say that the degree I have makes me better at my job than someone who did not go through the motions and fundamentals of how it should be done in the first place."
The fact that you were intelligent, motivated, and disciplined enough to learn how it should be done is what makes you a better programmer, not the fact that you have a diploma. "
That goes without saying. The diploma, in and of itself, is a piece of paper. Much like a driver's license. It's proof of having gone through the motions of attaining a level of competency... It's the level that's up for debate though, isn't it?:)
Try asking the average CS graduate what "multiple inheritance" means; you get a lot of blank stares.
You've got to be kidding...
there are advantages to having done advanced work in fields other than CS
Oh certainly. Here I agree whole-heartedly. I may not be a steadfast believer in memetics, but I do think that ideas tend to mutate, and our field of choice benefits greatly from our, seemingly unrelated, experience.
Many times, these discussions of 'value' of a CS education, take on the angle that the education in the field is useless... I strongly disagree. However, such education is all the more valuable is buttressed with humanities, arts, or other sciences.
Thinking back to my CS courses, we started as freshmen with about a half-dozen women, had maybe 3 sophomore year, and only one finished the degree work.
Speaking as a white male, that smacks of genderism. It's about as descriminatory as saying that only girls take home-ec, and only boys take shop, which is untrue. Besides, the trophy-wives can always major in Philosophy. That way they can be assured of sitting on a couch and eating bon-bons for the rest of their life. [duck, run and hide... just joking folks]
Programming, in this day and age, certainly makes it possible to stay home while still bringing home the bacon. Best of both worlds.:)
I was mostly being facetious, but point well taken.
However, being a knowledgable kid, with an interest in science, still carries with it the stigma of GEEK!, while computers are actually the COOL thing to be into these days...
Before my girlfriend got to know me, and what I do, she would (without knowing any better at the time) ask "can you hack?"... You really could see the italics, too.. It was like some secret thing that I could do, that was ooooh-so-scary and impressive.
Knowledge of computers is no longer a 'geek thing' in the derogatory sense, but playing with a chemistry set still is - unfortunatelly. We here know better, but we here are a minority.
We're sort of like the first black sports stars. The first black running backs and batters. We're respected for our skills and talents, but we're still part of a discriminated against minority.
Still not sure where the likes of Kernighan and Ritchie come in, but I'd give all of the Ancient Gods the benefit of the doubt, and say that they're as close to True CS as Programming can get.
Don't know how widely this is true, but where I went, pre-med was a third year commitment, up until which time, you studied general sciences.
So, in effect, pre-meds were in the same science classes as everyone else, through their second year, all the while getting their other electives (hist, engl, math) requirements out of the way, so they could hit the ground running in the pre-med classes junior year.
Just about any enterprising teen can cook up a batch of crystal meth in their sink. And if you get reasonably ood at it, the field can be quite profitable.
If a kid tries to learn about anatomy, he's likely to be put in protective custody, and told to "stop doing that". God forbid you try to dissect a dead animal out of curiosity: You're branded as morbid and taken to counseling - after all, Geoffrey Dahmer used to do just that as a kid.
An insightful kid, with an interest in how people think, is more likely to be seen as a wise-ass, and punished to being to prying, rather that encouraged to read up on Freud, Jung, Skinner and the rest.
An introspective, even brooding kid with the makings of a great writter or poet, is probably on drugs, or at least has emotional problems, and must be helped in 'dealing' with his 'issues'.
If you show an interest in physics as a child, you're likely to become an auto mechanic. Figuring out how things work, and rebuilding carbs, just doesn't impress the Dean of Admissions. Pity.
So all that's left is to dabble with computers, since while everyone thinks you're wasting time and playing games (like a normal kid), you're actually learning something useful, develop a love for it, and go to college to get the papers.
The professors teaching these courses (both faculty and grad students) would rather be doing research, or working on papers, or something else entirely.
Instead they are forced by the administration into nursing snivelling freshmen who are required to take the course, but the mojority of whom couldn't care less about the actual material.
After about a semester or two of this, they (teaching staff) give up and go through the grind, all the while taking their frustration out on the students. The few students who have potential and interest, suffer, and many turn away. The ones who didn't care to begin with, care even less.
Very few people make it through the meat grinder of introductory science courses with their spirits and interests intact. These go on to become graduate students, all the while remembering how the majority of their peers in the 100 level courses, didn't give a crap.
It's an unfortunate vicious cycle.
Interestingly, everyone is also required to take Literature, History, and the like, where classes are much smaller due to the very interactive style of teaching that must be used. You'd think that the administration would have figured out the correlation between class size and student interest by now.
In the early days of computer programming, there was no such thing as a CS degree; all programmers were self-taught. This didn't stop them from writing brilliant programs, and solving many of the major problems in computer science
True, but a vast majority of them were also engineers or scientists by discipline. They were all educated as such, and followed that ethic.
The CS curricula of most schools are not as strict as the engineering and 'hard science' disciplines, and this allows the hacks (in the derogatory sense) to squeak through. Also, it's always possible for someone to get a Ph.D. without ever having an original thought. But there is, on average and IMHO, a benefit to the formalism of education in the CS field.
Even with my CS degree, I am probably not as talented/gifted/experienced/insightful as many non-CS educated programmers out there. But I think it's reasonable to say that the degree I have makes me better at my job than someone who did not go through the motions and fundamentals of how it should be done in the first place.
Much as someone with no artistic training can go on to be a great artist on talent, but the average someone who went to art school can paint better than the average someone who didn't.
Unless of course, you're claiming that programming is so trivially easy that anyone can do it, and do it well, through self-study alone.
It isn't THAT inconvenient to set up an account, and have a leg up on the AC's, is it?
I've never really been able to understand the AC thing. I'm not looking for a fight here, just curious.. Many AC posts are very worthwhile, and some of these are overlooked in moderation, so they never get seen. What keeps people from just logging in?
If Linus were to be hit by a meteor, development resources would have to be shifted. Such high-priority tasks as porting MS-Bob to the PalmPilot would have to be tabled until the relatively unsexy items such as, oh say, clotting, could be completed.
"Dear tech support, I refuse to RTFM, I don't know what I'm doing, I can't use your software. Therefore, I'm reporting you to the BBB!!!"
Yes, that's only one side of the coin, and the other is equally ugly. But...
The quality of something is defined by the perception held by the customer. People expect cars to have 'glitches'. Peeling trim, creaky doors and burning oil are all part and parcel of buying a used car. Malignant problems are not.
Many people, especially those who are not very knowledgable about the inner workings of computers or the process of programming, percieve computers as magical creatures, not far removed from unicorns. That, and their very own, household piece of rocket science. Folks who routinely do less-than-knowledgable things to their computers, and then wonder why the PC crashes without understanding the reason, walk away from the experience with the perception of poor quality.
Much like a brand new driver who slams a car into reverse while rolling forward (fast) because it works on TV... They learn that transmissions are expensive, and no complaining to the BBB will change that.
Software is much more forgiving. But one can still complain to the BBB about the computer that crashed and caused a loss of data - regardless of the fact that in all common-sense, the user could have prevented the event with informed usage.
Yes, we all know that many software developers, especially the cutting-edge, smaller than 'big' ones, cut corners severely. They need the money, so they sell the product before it's ready.
Many are more consciencious than this, but it is impossible to perform truly thorough testing. All user actions, and all software interactions, can not be anticipated. And making software bullet-proof results in either very limited use environments (embedded etc.) or piss-poor performance. So these folks, understandably, test for reasonable, average abuse. This is of course in the off-the-shelf arena.
I'm a relatively informed computer user. I use MS products as amatter of fact and need, and frankly, my computer has not crashed (blue-screened, frozen, lost data) in years. I do not beat the crap out of it, I scan over the manuals.
I change the oil and filters, I rotate the tires and do other routine maintenance, and my used car runs just fine.
Finally, yes, there are scheisters out there looking for a quick buck. They range from small time schemers, to concerted rip-off artists a'la Syncronys Softcorp. There are ignorant users out there who shout "rip-off" whenever the power goes out. If there were "lemon laws" on software, you'd have to have them on every little piece of consumer goods sold in the world. Consider the overhead.
The reason this is not necessary is the fact that consumers learn and adapt. Once burned, you're less likely to grab for the stove - and Linux is doing great because of this. This is where 'reputation' comes in, and regulation goes out. Reputation may be built on marketting at first, but it can not last without a company's inner ethic and quality control. Outside control hurts reputation.
This has been discussed ad nauseum when we talked about the value and validity of CS degrees and the concept of Software Engineering as a degree and a work title.
We came to the conclusion, that in situations where the work done may, if not done properly, endanger others (the definition of endangerment varies), then a title, a certificate, or a professional membership, is a Good Thing. Such a condition, by definition, carries with it a code of ethics (i.e. Professional Engineer).
A landscaper doesn't need to have one, nor does a small-time plumber (though often they must be INSURED for the work they do). An architect, or large-scale engineer (think bridges, highways, municipal scale work) must be licensed by the state where they practice.
With small-time software, Caveat Emptor, and long live open source!
"There is not such thing as privacy. Get over it."
I'm with Jimhotep on this one.. If they wanna watch you, they'll watch you. They might be doing it right now. Be afraid - be very afraid.
We (they, they of the NSA) can count your shoelaces and read your newspaper from 100,000 feet up. That's orbital for chrissakes.
Bouncing a laser off of a window, and measuring the reflection allows very impressive eavesdropping.
Your driver's license has your current address on it. Ever wonder why? Did you have your baby foot-printed upon birth?
I've never seen it done, but I'm quite convinced that the patternt on your screen and the state of your CPU can be monitored in real time, from a quarter mile away.
Anyone out there care to comment on S.Q.I.D. technology? My understanding is a bit rusty - and as I understand, that's probably a good thing.
The kicker? There's nothing we can do about any of it.
Towards the end of the overview part of the article, there is a blurb about foreign IT managers now being able to replace the weak encryption shipped (exportable) from the U.S. with strong encryption of their own choosing...
Since Windows is a U.S. product, it is subject to U.S. export regulations on strong encryption. This gaff in security may be an oversight, or it may be a way of enabling strong security usage, without torquing-off the D.O.J. any further than it already is.
Though, I don't see why M.S. would not just provide 'replacable' security.
Then again, given M.S. 'reputation' with security, it is unlikely that they would actually do something benevolent in the area. Still, something to think about... M.S. ServPack5 now allows foreign companies (in fact all users) to keep the NSA from peeking in their drawers.
Where'd I leave my old physics book? Heisenberg may not approve, since (I agree) his work was on the quantum level, but I think my invoking HUD still holds because in mapping the net we're not dealing with macroscopic physics.
My point in bringing HUD into it was that a comprehensive mapping effort would in effect be a denial-of-service, with lesser undertakings resulting in more accurate, but less precise models. It's akin to finding the bowling pins using a bowling ball. In measuring the network traffic, we displace that traffic. And in mapping the routes, there is a probability of changing them. How is this different from looking for electrons with a beam of light?
Well, we're not dealing with subatomic particles which have a wavelike location probability; but the thrust of it seems the same. We are dealing with packets, which have some probability of of taking some route between two endpoints. If we're bombarding the possible paths with our own packets (traceroute), we're bumping the observed ones onto routes they may be less likely to take if we were not making any observations.
Looks like a decent topic for a research paper, no?
I stand corrected then. While trying to get my head around your explanation, I did a little digging and found an excellent primer on HUD.
Is there a formalism to explain the effect of observation on the observed? After all, it's a serious issue even in such non-technical areas as psychology. I would think that someone would have branded it with a name. I vote we call my (mis)definition the Jabber Uncertainty Principle.:)
Hmm... Maybe I can mis-quote Newton, and apply action-reaction to sociology, in an effort to explain the partizan alignment dichodomy between the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. government. Or maybe to explain the U.S. and French revolutions as reactions to oppressive and tyrannical rulers.
But the American Dairy Council is funding the reasearch, since even though the I.Q. benefit may be small, all people who undergo the treatment will have an insatiable appetite for cheese.
Let's think about that one for a sec. If bomb sniffing dogs were any smarter, they'd realize that they're looking for bombs. That would take out the fun and put in the fear. They would know they're at risk, and wouldn't want to do it anymore.
Then we'd have to rely on all the soon to be out of work Y2K consultants to do the job.
But then again, with a little gene therapy, the BOE of Kansas might actually learn a thing or two.
Well, Rob could at least fire a warning shot across their bow. Say, send an email to the webmaster saying: " We're about to feature you on slashdot, hold on tight! You have been warned. ".. and then leave it to the webmaster to make any and all weaks.
I'm sure that would just send some of the smaller sites screaming offline for refuge for a while though.
The action of observing traffic patterns on the net changes said patterns, thereby rendering the findings inaccurate. There is an inverse relationship between the attempted precision of the observation and it's detrimental effect on the results.
In real simple terms, you can only measure network delays by adding to the traffic, thereby increasing the delay. You can only traceroute by adding to the traffic, thereby potentially causing a load-balance change in the routes.
The act of observation changes that which is being observed. Sounds a lot like the Heisenberg principle, applied more broadly, doesn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
It seems totally intuitive. The only news here is that they've got documented data to back up intuition.
... And sage, and rosemary... "
:)
We can only focus on one thing at one time, therefore we can only handle one visual input. I'd venture the guess that all our I/O is serial - with quite a bit of DMA capability thrown in.
We can tune in on a single conversation in a room full of people, and switch focus from one to another, but it's real hard to keep track of more than that. We remember music sequencially, but unless we're well trained in music, we can not correctly conceptualize chord structures.
We become completely oblivious to the goings-on when we watch (and listen to) TV. We have a difficult time separating olfactory inputs - so we process those serially as well. "What is that? Lemon?
The only sense that seems parallel to me is the tactile. Though, since tactile input is the summation of very many single (bit) neurons, the parallelism we experience is probably the result of a lot of preprocessing of stimuli in the sensory nervous system and the spinal chord.
The neat thing is when we tune all the senses into the same stream of data. Remember last Christmas? The scent of the cooking goose, the sound of the Grandma Got Run Over By A Raindeer, the blinking of those damned lights and the itchy wool sweater..
With all of the senses delivering a variety of data that shares the same conceptual context, the imprint of the event is more powerful than if the serial stimuli from the different senses were reporting on events that we know are not related. This is probably why we remember better those times when all our senses are firing in parallel on the same concepts.
I'd venture the guess that as this research progresses, we will learn that we manage some pseudo-parallelism in our input processing through a similar mechanizm that we rely on for memory. Chunking, was it?
For example, if shown a group of objects, we can visually process them based on similarity (i.e. they're all read, square, whatever) so we notice more than if they were all distinctly different. Then we get lost in the volume of data that we have to take it.
As with the chunking that takes place when trying to remember more that the 7 (avg) simple items, finding commonality among the items we try to process sensually, makes it possible for us to more more data through our inputs. Sort of a lossy compression really.
The real reason for this, and other spooky things that have gone on lately is this (IMHO).
Job Security
Since the fall of the "evil empire" we have had lots of essoterically skilled people with nothing better to do. The government can't exactly have a layoff of people with these skills, since there are other countries - some of them adjacent to Kuwait and Iran, that would be willing to pay a lot of money for such skills.
So classifying, qualifying, quantifying and cataloguing the American public is the NSA/CIA/FBI/etc way of keeping their staff gainfully occupied with busywork. And as a side effect, the residual 'kill-a-commie' directors get another means of making a power grab later.
"
:)
"But I think it's reasonable to say that the degree I have makes me better at my job than someone who did not go through the motions and fundamentals of how it should be done in the first place."
The fact that you were intelligent, motivated, and disciplined enough to learn how it should be done is what makes you a better programmer, not the fact that you have a diploma.
"
That goes without saying. The diploma, in and of itself, is a piece of paper. Much like a driver's license. It's proof of having gone through the motions of attaining a level of competency... It's the level that's up for debate though, isn't it?
Try asking the average CS graduate what "multiple inheritance" means; you get a lot of blank stares.
You've got to be kidding...
there are advantages to having done advanced work in fields other than CS
Oh certainly. Here I agree whole-heartedly. I may not be a steadfast believer in memetics, but I do think that ideas tend to mutate, and our field of choice benefits greatly from our, seemingly unrelated, experience.
Many times, these discussions of 'value' of a CS education, take on the angle that the education in the field is useless... I strongly disagree. However, such education is all the more valuable is buttressed with humanities, arts, or other sciences.
It is true...
Thinking back to my CS courses, we started as freshmen with about a half-dozen women, had maybe 3 sophomore year, and only one finished the degree work.
Here's a somewhat off-topic cnn blurb about the slashdot response to the hotmail crack.
It's quite a compliment when cnn gets it's news by reading slashdot. Tee-Hee!!
Speaking as a white male, that smacks of genderism. It's about as descriminatory as saying that only girls take home-ec, and only boys take shop, which is untrue. Besides, the trophy-wives can always major in Philosophy. That way they can be assured of sitting on a couch and eating bon-bons for the rest of their life. [duck, run and hide... just joking folks]
:)
Programming, in this day and age, certainly makes it possible to stay home while still bringing home the bacon. Best of both worlds.
I was mostly being facetious, but point well taken.
However, being a knowledgable kid, with an interest in science, still carries with it the stigma of GEEK!, while computers are actually the COOL thing to be into these days...
Before my girlfriend got to know me, and what I do, she would (without knowing any better at the time) ask "can you hack?"... You really could see the italics, too.. It was like some secret thing that I could do, that was ooooh-so-scary and impressive.
Knowledge of computers is no longer a 'geek thing' in the derogatory sense, but playing with a chemistry set still is - unfortunatelly. We here know better, but we here are a minority.
We're sort of like the first black sports stars. The first black running backs and batters. We're respected for our skills and talents, but we're still part of a discriminated against minority.
In fact, people who do true CS could still do their job without writing a line of code.
True CS:_________Not True CS:
Knuth..........................Me
Negroponte.................CmdrTaco
Dijkstra.......................Gates
Date.............................Jobs
Turing..........................Torvalds
...
Still not sure where the likes of Kernighan and Ritchie come in, but I'd give all of the Ancient Gods the benefit of the doubt, and say that they're as close to True CS as Programming can get.
Don't know how widely this is true, but where I went, pre-med was a third year commitment, up until which time, you studied general sciences.
So, in effect, pre-meds were in the same science classes as everyone else, through their second year, all the while getting their other electives (hist, engl, math) requirements out of the way, so they could hit the ground running in the pre-med classes junior year.
Not entirely true,
Just about any enterprising teen can cook up a batch of crystal meth in their sink. And if you get reasonably ood at it, the field can be quite profitable.
If a kid tries to learn about anatomy, he's likely to be put in protective custody, and told to "stop doing that". God forbid you try to dissect a dead animal out of curiosity: You're branded as morbid and taken to counseling - after all, Geoffrey Dahmer used to do just that as a kid.
An insightful kid, with an interest in how people think, is more likely to be seen as a wise-ass, and punished to being to prying, rather that encouraged to read up on Freud, Jung, Skinner and the rest.
An introspective, even brooding kid with the makings of a great writter or poet, is probably on drugs, or at least has emotional problems, and must be helped in 'dealing' with his 'issues'.
If you show an interest in physics as a child, you're likely to become an auto mechanic. Figuring out how things work, and rebuilding carbs, just doesn't impress the Dean of Admissions. Pity.
So all that's left is to dabble with computers, since while everyone thinks you're wasting time and playing games (like a normal kid), you're actually learning something useful, develop a love for it, and go to college to get the papers.
I doubt that this is truly the intention. But...
The professors teaching these courses (both faculty and grad students) would rather be doing research, or working on papers, or something else entirely.
Instead they are forced by the administration into nursing snivelling freshmen who are required to take the course, but the mojority of whom couldn't care less about the actual material.
After about a semester or two of this, they (teaching staff) give up and go through the grind, all the while taking their frustration out on the students. The few students who have potential and interest, suffer, and many turn away. The ones who didn't care to begin with, care even less.
Very few people make it through the meat grinder of introductory science courses with their spirits and interests intact. These go on to become graduate students, all the while remembering how the majority of their peers in the 100 level courses, didn't give a crap.
It's an unfortunate vicious cycle.
Interestingly, everyone is also required to take Literature, History, and the like, where classes are much smaller due to the very interactive style of teaching that must be used. You'd think that the administration would have figured out the correlation between class size and student interest by now.
In the early days of computer programming, there was no such thing as a CS degree; all programmers were self-taught. This didn't stop them from writing brilliant programs, and solving many of the major problems in computer science
True, but a vast majority of them were also engineers or scientists by discipline. They were all educated as such, and followed that ethic.
The CS curricula of most schools are not as strict as the engineering and 'hard science' disciplines, and this allows the hacks (in the derogatory sense) to squeak through. Also, it's always possible for someone to get a Ph.D. without ever having an original thought. But there is, on average and IMHO, a benefit to the formalism of education in the CS field.
Even with my CS degree, I am probably not as talented/gifted/experienced/insightful as many non-CS educated programmers out there. But I think it's reasonable to say that the degree I have makes me better at my job than someone who did not go through the motions and fundamentals of how it should be done in the first place.
Much as someone with no artistic training can go on to be a great artist on talent, but the average someone who went to art school can paint better than the average someone who didn't.
Unless of course, you're claiming that programming is so trivially easy that anyone can do it, and do it well, through self-study alone.
It isn't THAT inconvenient to set up an account, and have a leg up on the AC's, is it?
I've never really been able to understand the AC thing. I'm not looking for a fight here, just curious.. Many AC posts are very worthwhile, and some of these are overlooked in moderation, so they never get seen. What keeps people from just logging in?
If Linus were to be hit by a meteor, development resources would have to be shifted. Such high-priority tasks as porting MS-Bob to the PalmPilot would have to be tabled until the relatively unsexy items such as, oh say, clotting, could be completed.
After that, life would go on. Not to worry.
"Dear tech support,
I refuse to RTFM, I don't know what I'm doing, I can't use your software.
Therefore, I'm reporting you to the BBB!!!"
Yes, that's only one side of the coin, and the other is equally ugly. But...
The quality of something is defined by the perception held by the customer. People expect cars to have 'glitches'. Peeling trim, creaky doors and burning oil are all part and parcel of buying a used car. Malignant problems are not.
Many people, especially those who are not very knowledgable about the inner workings of computers or the process of programming, percieve computers as magical creatures, not far removed from unicorns. That, and their very own, household piece of rocket science. Folks who routinely do less-than-knowledgable things to their computers, and then wonder why the PC crashes without understanding the reason, walk away from the experience with the perception of poor quality.
Much like a brand new driver who slams a car into reverse while rolling forward (fast) because it works on TV... They learn that transmissions are expensive, and no complaining to the BBB will change that.
Software is much more forgiving. But one can still complain to the BBB about the computer that crashed and caused a loss of data - regardless of the fact that in all common-sense, the user could have prevented the event with informed usage.
Yes, we all know that many software developers, especially the cutting-edge, smaller than 'big' ones, cut corners severely. They need the money, so they sell the product before it's ready.
Many are more consciencious than this, but it is impossible to perform truly thorough testing. All user actions, and all software interactions, can not be anticipated. And making software bullet-proof results in either very limited use environments (embedded etc.) or piss-poor performance. So these folks, understandably, test for reasonable, average abuse. This is of course in the off-the-shelf arena.
I'm a relatively informed computer user. I use MS products as amatter of fact and need, and frankly, my computer has not crashed (blue-screened, frozen, lost data) in years. I do not beat the crap out of it, I scan over the manuals.
I change the oil and filters, I rotate the tires and do other routine maintenance, and my used car runs just fine.
Finally, yes, there are scheisters out there looking for a quick buck. They range from small time schemers, to concerted rip-off artists a'la Syncronys Softcorp. There are ignorant users out there who shout "rip-off" whenever the power goes out. If there were "lemon laws" on software, you'd have to have them on every little piece of consumer goods sold in the world. Consider the overhead.
The reason this is not necessary is the fact that consumers learn and adapt. Once burned, you're less likely to grab for the stove - and Linux is doing great because of this. This is where 'reputation' comes in, and regulation goes out. Reputation may be built on marketting at first, but it can not last without a company's inner ethic and quality control. Outside control hurts reputation.
Ow! I've now got blisters on my fingers!
This has been discussed ad nauseum when we talked about the value and validity of CS degrees and the concept of Software Engineering as a degree and a work title.
We came to the conclusion, that in situations where the work done may, if not done properly, endanger others (the definition of endangerment varies), then a title, a certificate, or a professional membership, is a Good Thing. Such a condition, by definition, carries with it a code of ethics (i.e. Professional Engineer).
A landscaper doesn't need to have one, nor does a small-time plumber (though often they must be INSURED for the work they do). An architect, or large-scale engineer (think bridges, highways, municipal scale work) must be licensed by the state where they practice.
With small-time software, Caveat Emptor, and long live open source!
"There is not such thing as privacy. Get over it."
I'm with Jimhotep on this one..
If they wanna watch you, they'll watch you. They might be doing it right now. Be afraid - be very afraid.
We (they, they of the NSA) can count your shoelaces and read your newspaper from 100,000 feet up. That's orbital for chrissakes.
Bouncing a laser off of a window, and measuring the reflection allows very impressive eavesdropping.
Your driver's license has your current address on it. Ever wonder why? Did you have your baby foot-printed upon birth?
I've never seen it done, but I'm quite convinced that the patternt on your screen and the state of your CPU can be monitored in real time, from a quarter mile away.
Anyone out there care to comment on S.Q.I.D. technology? My understanding is a bit rusty - and as I understand, that's probably a good thing.
The kicker? There's nothing we can do about any of it.
Towards the end of the overview part of the article, there is a blurb about foreign IT managers now being able to replace the weak encryption shipped (exportable) from the U.S. with strong encryption of their own choosing...
Since Windows is a U.S. product, it is subject to U.S. export regulations on strong encryption. This gaff in security may be an oversight, or it may be a way of enabling strong security usage, without torquing-off the D.O.J. any further than it already is.
Though, I don't see why M.S. would not just provide 'replacable' security.
Then again, given M.S. 'reputation' with security, it is unlikely that they would actually do something benevolent in the area. Still, something to think about... M.S. ServPack5 now allows foreign companies (in fact all users) to keep the NSA from peeking in their drawers.
Where'd I leave my old physics book? Heisenberg may not approve, since (I agree) his work was on the quantum level, but I think my invoking HUD still holds because in mapping the net we're not dealing with macroscopic physics.
My point in bringing HUD into it was that a comprehensive mapping effort would in effect be a denial-of-service, with lesser undertakings resulting in more accurate, but less precise models. It's akin to finding the bowling pins using a bowling ball. In measuring the network traffic, we displace that traffic. And in mapping the routes, there is a probability of changing them. How is this different from looking for electrons with a beam of light?
Well, we're not dealing with subatomic particles which have a wavelike location probability; but the thrust of it seems the same. We are dealing with packets, which have some probability of of taking some route between two endpoints. If we're bombarding the possible paths with our own packets (traceroute), we're bumping the observed ones onto routes they may be less likely to take if we were not making any observations.
Looks like a decent topic for a research paper, no?
I stand corrected then. While trying to get my head around your explanation, I did a little digging and found an excellent primer on HUD.
:)
Is there a formalism to explain the effect of observation on the observed? After all, it's a serious issue even in such non-technical areas as psychology. I would think that someone would have branded it with a name. I vote we call my (mis)definition the Jabber Uncertainty Principle.
Hmm... Maybe I can mis-quote Newton, and apply action-reaction to sociology, in an effort to explain the partizan alignment dichodomy between the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. government. Or maybe to explain the U.S. and French revolutions as reactions to oppressive and tyrannical rulers.
CNN.COM has graced it's homepage with this news. It has information, and a bit'o'lore.
But the American Dairy Council is funding the reasearch, since even though the I.Q. benefit may be small, all people who undergo the treatment will have an insatiable appetite for cheese.
Let's think about that one for a sec.
If bomb sniffing dogs were any smarter, they'd realize that they're looking for bombs. That would take out the fun and put in the fear. They would know they're at risk, and wouldn't want to do it anymore.
Then we'd have to rely on all the soon to be out of work Y2K consultants to do the job.
But then again, with a little gene therapy, the BOE of Kansas might actually learn a thing or two.
Well, Rob could at least fire a warning shot across their bow. Say, send an email to the webmaster saying: " We're about to feature you on slashdot, hold on tight! You have been warned. ".. and then leave it to the webmaster to make any and all weaks.
I'm sure that would just send some of the smaller sites screaming offline for refuge for a while though.
Very funny. How about stating it this way...
The action of observing traffic patterns on the net changes said patterns, thereby rendering the findings inaccurate. There is an inverse relationship between the attempted precision of the observation and it's detrimental effect on the results.
In real simple terms, you can only measure network delays by adding to the traffic, thereby increasing the delay. You can only traceroute by adding to the traffic, thereby potentially causing a load-balance change in the routes.
The act of observation changes that which is being observed. Sounds a lot like the Heisenberg principle, applied more broadly, doesn't it?