Could it not be a combination of both Milankovitch cycles and the dimming of the sun?
Anything is possible. But two (completely independent) phenomenon that happen every 100,000 years, just happening to match-up, seems extremely unlikely.
It would be much more concievable if, instead, there were two phenomenon that occured every 1,000 years, and only resulted in a major event (eg. ice age) on the 1-in-100 times they happen match-up.
Leela: "Who would have thought that hell really exists? And that it would be in New Jersey?" Fry: "Actually..."
Geena Davis: Easy, sport. Got myself out of Beirut once, I think I can get out of New Jersey. Sam Jackson: Yeah, well don't be so sure. Others have tried and failed. The entire population, in fact.
"The DEA is reporting that New Jersey's heroin is the purest in the country. It's 71 percent pure. That's gotta be at least a bit embarrassing, don't you think, when your heroin is cleaner than your drinking water?"
You know, it's not considered cool anymore to just jump in random posts, split them in sentences and just say "no, it isn't" to every piece without adding anything of substance.
It is when the original has no substance to begin with...
Assertions are a perfectly valid response to other assertions.
The gas station is precisely what I was talking about. I doubt they're going to have Chemistry PhDs as attendents.
Acids are decidely more dangerous to deal with than flamable liquids. Just staying away from a sparks won't make everything safe. Even breathing some of the fumes may cause very serious health concerns.
First, I was talking about Microsoft doing this, since they have access to the source already. It's much harder for a 3rd party to reverse engineer everything.
And who said it would tilt the balance? Being able to run Windows apps on Linux won't necessarily help Linux at all.
Not to mention the significant expenses involved in development. No problem for Microsoft, but not something Novell is likely to do.
even the name, Windows, is a word stolen from the dictionary, made purely with letters stolen from the alphabet!
Copyright infringement isn't theft!!! The words and letters are still there, aren't they? This copy hasn't deprived anyone else of using that words and those letters.
On that note, there is 1 "legal" way I know of to play DVDs on Linux, and (sadly) it's via the CNR... as for no-so-legal ways... umm... Google!
In the USA, there's nothing illegal about using libdvdcss to decrypt DVDs.
Whether MPEG-2 and AC3 playback without patent licenses makes DVD playback illegal is questionable, since I've heard MPEG-LA simply won't accept direct payments from individuals who've offered to license their copies of open source software. It's also questionable whether the licenses for your (defective and discarded) DVD player could potentially be transferable to some other decoder you happen to use instead...
And you could potentially use binary DLLs from Windows, which are licensed, and available for download on websites like Microsoft.com. Probably an EULA violation, but that doesn't make it illegal.
2. How many installs are erroneously flagged as not genuine?
> Not very many,
Sadly, I have no doubt you actually believe that.
For the rest of us, the picture isn't so rosey.
From my experience, I think 22% is pretty accurate, if not underestimating the sheer number of false positives.
In my experience, something like 1/3rd of systems have a WGA problem, or develop one within a couple years. That's based on the the dozens of WinXP systems that I've seen in real use. Everything from systems where the owners swear it was working the day before, to motherboard (or other hardware) replacements which cause the OEM WinXP not to even allow the rightful owner to log-in and use his own equipment.
Breaking the EULA (NOT the law) and using tools meant to facilitate copyright infringement is the only remedy honest people have. Frankly, I see illegal copies of Windows passing the WGA check far more often than actual, legal copies.
My own full (not upgrade) retail purchased copy of Windows 2000 Pro (about $250) had such a problem. Even with a nice clean fresh install, I couldn't even use Windows update. Why? Is there some list of pirated Windows 2000 keys out there, which just happens to have mine on it? Is perhaps a scratched CD with a single corrupt system file causing it to fail? I don't know, and I don't have the inclination or patience to call up Microsoft's horrible support staff, and argue with them for several hours of my life, that I won't ever be able to get back. Meanwhile, a pirated copy of Windows 2000 Advanced Server works just fine.
The only thing this verification gone bad has done is to assure that I NEVER give one more dollar to Microsoft, for the rest of my life. Even if I have to pass up serious ammounts of money for not having a copy, I'll do so on principle alone. Of course, the reality is that I'm actually better off without it, and find I can do most everything BETTER with open source software and fast, reliable, consistent, and stable operating systems like FreeBSD.
The truth is they can't write an OS as secure and stable as Linux and still be backward compatible with Windows. Neither can anyone else (not that they want to).
That's pure nonsense.
First off, apps like Wine run userland on Linux, meaning they're just as "secure and stable as Linux" while running many legacy Windows apps. And that's without access to the codebase, without significant funding, without significant numbers of developers, etc.
In addition, virtualization makes it trivially easy to have a stable OS underlying an unstable but compatible ABI.
But more importantly than any of that... Even being buggy and unstable, Windows isn't backwards compatible with Windows apps. With every release, a huge number of old Windows apps cease to function. All the system drivers need to be rewritten for each successive version. etc.
Plus, with the switch to 64-bit, that decade of legacy Windows apps goes out the window. They could make the 64-bit API/ABI extremely robust, and only allow 32-bit apps to be run in a seperate space, where it would have it's compatibility layer, without polluting the base system.
Not that Microsoft should worry about speed of 32-bit apps. It's so slow to begin with, that people would hardly notice. And with the upgrade from one version to the next, people have come to expect significant slowdown anyhow.
No. The constitution says arms, nothing about guns, and nothing about JUST banning specific types of guns, while allowing others. It's too general a statement to be considered an all-out ban on weapons restrictions.
But I'll never buy a chemical battery based electric or hybrid. Why? I'm in Alaska.
Batteries work better than you think.
Unlike an engine, it's quite easy to put insulation around them, and even easier to add a tiny heating coil, which could be powered from the batteries themselves.
But more importantly, the issues with batteries in cold weather are exclusive to batteries that need large ammounts of power in an instant, such as a starter.
With sustained power draw, the chemical reaction inside the battery produces heat, meaning after a few minutes of driving, the capacity of the batteries will go up, not down.
yes, charged high-voltage capacitors can be dangerous. So can bottles of gasoline
Gasoline is relatively hard to ignite, whereas high voltage electrical just needs a tiny electrical short. Gasoline will quite slowly burn for a long time, while a capacitor will almost instantly expend all of it's energy. Gasoline requires large ammounts of oxygen to burn, which it can't get (quickly) while inside the gas tank.
If cars ran on nitro glycerine or gun powder, it would be a closer comparison.
I'll still probably be one of the first in-line to get a super-capacitor/electric car. Reasonable sheilding could ensure any potential explosion would be directed into the air, away from passengers.
These kids have never moved, never had a choice about where they live and are still much fatter.
Presumably, their parents had that choice, and the children inherited both the genetic traits and learned many of their dietary and exercise habits, from their parents.
Less walking opportunities = less energy expenditure = more stored energy
Or: Less energy expenditure == Less hunger == Less energy intake.
I have a perfect solution to the hashing problem, for verifying the data integrity between two points...
You simply have to find autistic twins. The one at the source looks through the MB file, then writes a hash, explaining that it "smells like 5 green triangles". If the twin at the destination agrees, you know you have a match.
It's nearly impossible, even to brute-force this method... I mean, you need to covertly aquire a sample of their DNA, and wait several years for the clone to mature.
Of course, this method's weakness is that it doesn't scale-up effectively. There are only so many autistic twins out there, and human cloning technology is still quite expensive.
Not unless "obscurity" has been entirely redefined, recently.
And with a public algorithm spec, it's all about whether there's a determined group to turn it inside-out and make it easy to crack.
A (mathematically) good algorithm can stand up to such scrutiny. a "determined group" wouldn't make it any weaker. They can only (potentially) expose weaknesses in the algorithm, that allow it to be circumented faster than brute-force alone.
Security is just an endless race on both sides, and will always be.
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Anything is possible. But two (completely independent) phenomenon that happen every 100,000 years, just happening to match-up, seems extremely unlikely.
It would be much more concievable if, instead, there were two phenomenon that occured every 1,000 years, and only resulted in a major event (eg. ice age) on the 1-in-100 times they happen match-up.
Insert Jersey Joke:
Leela: "Who would have thought that hell really exists? And that it would be in New Jersey?"
Fry: "Actually..."
Geena Davis: Easy, sport. Got myself out of Beirut once, I think I can get out of New Jersey.
Sam Jackson: Yeah, well don't be so sure. Others have tried and failed. The entire population, in fact.
"The DEA is reporting that New Jersey's heroin is the purest in the country. It's 71 percent pure. That's gotta be at least a bit embarrassing, don't you think, when your heroin is cleaner than your drinking water?"
I'm pointing out that there is a huge difference.
The Attorney General has no basis in reality for his conclusion. You can't possibly discount it as a "loophole". It's much, much worse than that.
So was mine. (Woosh!)
Saying "copyright infringement IS theft" doesn't make it so.
It is when the original has no substance to begin with...
Assertions are a perfectly valid response to other assertions.
The gas station is precisely what I was talking about. I doubt they're going to have Chemistry PhDs as attendents.
Acids are decidely more dangerous to deal with than flamable liquids. Just staying away from a sparks won't make everything safe. Even breathing some of the fumes may cause very serious health concerns.
And then, there are going to be car accidents...
First, I was talking about Microsoft doing this, since they have access to the source already. It's much harder for a 3rd party to reverse engineer everything.
And who said it would tilt the balance? Being able to run Windows apps on Linux won't necessarily help Linux at all.
Not to mention the significant expenses involved in development. No problem for Microsoft, but not something Novell is likely to do.
At high voltages, you're sure to get a large arc if something (like a small short) is there to set it off.
It works perfectly well with Firefox 2. I may have to revoke your geek license for not being able to master installing of a browser add-on.
Who ever suggested that it could be used with just "any browser"?
It's not perfect, but it works damn well. Faster, easier, etc., than Microsoft's W.U.
Copyright infringement isn't theft!!! The words and letters are still there, aren't they? This copy hasn't deprived anyone else of using that words and those letters.
In the USA, there's nothing illegal about using libdvdcss to decrypt DVDs.
Whether MPEG-2 and AC3 playback without patent licenses makes DVD playback illegal is questionable, since I've heard MPEG-LA simply won't accept direct payments from individuals who've offered to license their copies of open source software. It's also questionable whether the licenses for your (defective and discarded) DVD player could potentially be transferable to some other decoder you happen to use instead...
And you could potentially use binary DLLs from Windows, which are licensed, and available for download on websites like Microsoft.com. Probably an EULA violation, but that doesn't make it illegal.
Sadly, I have no doubt you actually believe that.
For the rest of us, the picture isn't so rosey.
From my experience, I think 22% is pretty accurate, if not underestimating the sheer number of false positives.
In my experience, something like 1/3rd of systems have a WGA problem, or develop one within a couple years. That's based on the the dozens of WinXP systems that I've seen in real use. Everything from systems where the owners swear it was working the day before, to motherboard (or other hardware) replacements which cause the OEM WinXP not to even allow the rightful owner to log-in and use his own equipment.
Breaking the EULA (NOT the law) and using tools meant to facilitate copyright infringement is the only remedy honest people have. Frankly, I see illegal copies of Windows passing the WGA check far more often than actual, legal copies.
My own full (not upgrade) retail purchased copy of Windows 2000 Pro (about $250) had such a problem. Even with a nice clean fresh install, I couldn't even use Windows update. Why? Is there some list of pirated Windows 2000 keys out there, which just happens to have mine on it? Is perhaps a scratched CD with a single corrupt system file causing it to fail? I don't know, and I don't have the inclination or patience to call up Microsoft's horrible support staff, and argue with them for several hours of my life, that I won't ever be able to get back. Meanwhile, a pirated copy of Windows 2000 Advanced Server works just fine.
The only thing this verification gone bad has done is to assure that I NEVER give one more dollar to Microsoft, for the rest of my life. Even if I have to pass up serious ammounts of money for not having a copy, I'll do so on principle alone. Of course, the reality is that I'm actually better off without it, and find I can do most everything BETTER with open source software and fast, reliable, consistent, and stable operating systems like FreeBSD.
That's pure nonsense.
First off, apps like Wine run userland on Linux, meaning they're just as "secure and stable as Linux" while running many legacy Windows apps. And that's without access to the codebase, without significant funding, without significant numbers of developers, etc.
In addition, virtualization makes it trivially easy to have a stable OS underlying an unstable but compatible ABI.
But more importantly than any of that... Even being buggy and unstable, Windows isn't backwards compatible with Windows apps. With every release, a huge number of old Windows apps cease to function. All the system drivers need to be rewritten for each successive version. etc.
Plus, with the switch to 64-bit, that decade of legacy Windows apps goes out the window. They could make the 64-bit API/ABI extremely robust, and only allow 32-bit apps to be run in a seperate space, where it would have it's compatibility layer, without polluting the base system.
Not that Microsoft should worry about speed of 32-bit apps. It's so slow to begin with, that people would hardly notice. And with the upgrade from one version to the next, people have come to expect significant slowdown anyhow.
No. The constitution says arms, nothing about guns, and nothing about JUST banning specific types of guns, while allowing others. It's too general a statement to be considered an all-out ban on weapons restrictions.
No, that's actually has some reason behind it... There could possibly be some sort of misunderstanding with such a statement.
What Gonzales said, however, made NO sense AT ALL.
Well that's a problem of your own imagination, because the profit is definately there.
There have been numerous examples in the past of that type of business.
Batteries work better than you think.
Unlike an engine, it's quite easy to put insulation around them, and even easier to add a tiny heating coil, which could be powered from the batteries themselves.
But more importantly, the issues with batteries in cold weather are exclusive to batteries that need large ammounts of power in an instant, such as a starter.
With sustained power draw, the chemical reaction inside the battery produces heat, meaning after a few minutes of driving, the capacity of the batteries will go up, not down.
That would be fun... Now you have people regularly transporting and pumping large quantities of highly acidic liquid.
I certainly don't think so. At least not for the relative ammount of work it does.
As it's only really used to start the vehicle, it gets very little use, and then often dies in less than 5 years.
Strange. My laptop battery is only about as expensive as my car battery, does far, far more, lasts longer than 5 years, and just works.
Gasoline is relatively hard to ignite, whereas high voltage electrical just needs a tiny electrical short. Gasoline will quite slowly burn for a long time, while a capacitor will almost instantly expend all of it's energy. Gasoline requires large ammounts of oxygen to burn, which it can't get (quickly) while inside the gas tank.
If cars ran on nitro glycerine or gun powder, it would be a closer comparison.
I'll still probably be one of the first in-line to get a super-capacitor/electric car. Reasonable sheilding could ensure any potential explosion would be directed into the air, away from passengers.
Presumably, their parents had that choice, and the children inherited both the genetic traits and learned many of their dietary and exercise habits, from their parents.
Or:
Less energy expenditure == Less hunger == Less energy intake.
I have a perfect solution to the hashing problem, for verifying the data integrity between two points...
You simply have to find autistic twins. The one at the source looks through the MB file, then writes a hash, explaining that it "smells like 5 green triangles". If the twin at the destination agrees, you know you have a match.
It's nearly impossible, even to brute-force this method... I mean, you need to covertly aquire a sample of their DNA, and wait several years for the clone to mature.
Of course, this method's weakness is that it doesn't scale-up effectively. There are only so many autistic twins out there, and human cloning technology is still quite expensive.
Not unless "obscurity" has been entirely redefined, recently.
A (mathematically) good algorithm can stand up to such scrutiny. a "determined group" wouldn't make it any weaker. They can only (potentially) expose weaknesses in the algorithm, that allow it to be circumented faster than brute-force alone.
No, it isn't.
Bad Slashdotter! Do NOT eat the tourists! BAD!