Uhm, I must be tired or something - the parent reply is completely irrelevant to your post. My apologies. The relevant reply is something like: yes, for some applications it will probably (at least initially, although I'm sure speeds will increase) be too slow, and in those cases you have a point. In others the speeds are just fine (if you can transmit a secure RSA key in reasonable time you can submit your password or bank account number or whatever directly as well).
In other words, in certain contexts it will serve best as a key distribution systems whereas in others it will do on its own (which, of course, is much better since submitting a normal cryptographic key reduces the strength of the system to that of system that uses the submitted key and the only advantage with QC is then that keys can be changed often - a rather meager improvement with all of QC's grand promises in mind). So the answer to my question in the write up (which was only posed to get the discussion going anyway) is that yes, traditional crypto will still have a place, but in very sensitive transactions that aren't huge QC will (and should) be used in its stead.
Who the hell moderated this informative? QC uses one time pads, and since one time pads are provably secure, that's that. No need for fancy cryptographic algorithms. The "quantum" bit of it merely ascertains that the pad was not read by a man in the middle by making use of the EPR paradox, but other than that, this is the same algorithm as Gilbert Vernam developed more than 80 years ago (which is why one time pads are sometimes called Vernam ciphers).
If your data is so important that you need this level of crypto, try to remember that all it takes is a very determined person to come in and steal the machine.
Unless the hard drive is encrypted, that is. Which, I suppose, is one out of many answers to my question in the write up regarding the potential future obsoleteness of traditional cryptography. QC is good for quickly passing secure messages from A to B. But sometimes, B=A, i.e. the intended recipient of the message is yourself. Then you'd probably like to decide upon the speed of delivery yourself, which is basically what a hard drive is for.
It is correct to assume that a disclaimer, or a warning, or a "terms of agreement" document such as is commonly found in software packages, is no protection against a lawsuit or a judgment against the developer. It is up to a judge or jury to decide whether the warning was adequate, whether it was relevant to the damages, and even whether it was presented to the user in a way that was likely to have actually "warned" the consumer about the use which produced the damages.
Re:Software that kills...
on
Can Software Kill?
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· Score: 4, Informative
And 64 bit integers converted to 16 bit integers kill, if not people, at least big budgets.
Do you advocate rape as a form of punishment or do you only find it funny to make elaborate jokes about it? Regardless of what, it is horrid and distasteful.
If it weren't obvious by the time stamp on your post that you didn't actually read the article, it is by the content.
The questions you talked about were raised twenty years ago. If this article does anything, it is to cast doubt on the idea that molecular manufacturing is even possible at all, leading one to wonder if the questions you talk about are very pertinent. Ironically, the only reason you're two decades behind is that you tried to be a minute ahead with your ignorant post (which, of course, got a +5 anyway, as it related to the an issue that Slashdotters for some inexplicable reason can't get enough of).
Making someone a foe also announces to all of the users in your Friends list that I am some kind of dickhead. Well, maybe I am, but who the hell are you to say so?
No, it doesn't. You put to much weight on the word "foe." It doesn't literally mean that you are my foe. It means that I am not interested in what you write. And as to "who am I to say so," I say so because I have read what you write and didn't like it. It is quite obvious, really.
You judge me for what I said, once. Or twice on the outside.
Well, you never said who you are, so how could I know this? If what you say is true, you are most certainly a very rare breed. Either you said something outrageously stupid, or I just had a bad day, but most people of my foe-list have a long history of comments unworthy of attention.
This comment of yours further suggests that you are newcomer to this community. I have been for more than five years, almost since the beginning. Might it not be a good idea for you to try see how things work around here for a year or so before going on personal crusades?
You give me no recourse to ammend or reverse my position, you irrevokeably label me as unworthy to all who would befriend you.
It is not I who give you no recourse for amendment, it is Slashcode. I'm sorry that the system is built this way, but it's most certainly not my fault. And, again, those who befriend me will, if rational, judge you from what you say and not from the color of the dot next to your name. I, for one, have never ever chosen not to read a comment because the person who wrote it was "foe of a friend," and in all honesty I will admit to not even knowing what that symbol looks like. Most people who don't take moderation too seriously (in other words, the vast majority) probably reason the same way.
And actions have consequences in life, and consequences are seldom symmetrical.
You cannot derive "ought" from "is."
First of all, it's pretty self-important of you to think what you have to say is all that important.
No, it isn't. I regard myself as a random poster with no particular insight into anything, and I regard you as a random moderator. What would happen if every random moderator would moderate any random poster on the grounds that you moderate me? The system would cease to work, that's what. Because occasionally, although, as you say, in all likelyhood not very often, I will write something that the community will want to read, and then you will deprive them of that. See what your actions mean in a larger context, and it will become apparent how they deprive the community of value.
I really do read your posts before modding them to oblivion.
If this is true, it makes a large difference. It also, to some extent, contradicts a lot of what you've said so far. Tell me honestly, were the five posts that you moderated redundant in a row really so?
Do most people who know you well describe you as conceited to a fault? Or do you only come off that way in your posts?
I don't understand what you're getting at. Please elaborate.
Would you believe the majority of those were M2'ed as Fair? Because with the exeception of one, they were. So Actually I'm getting positive reinforcement. And Yes, That's why I chose "Redundant'
Yes, I believe you. I had forgotten that you chose the "redundant" appellation. Most M2ers don't have time to check the context and see if posts are really only reiterating already expressed opinions or facts. But does not your admitting to trying to cheat the system by systematically choosing the "redundant" appellation mean that you either have to regard the system as faulty or that you are actively trying not to serve its users only because you have a personal axe to grind?
Again, I thank you for replying, as I must admit that you have no real reason to, except to please me and perhaps yourself. Still, I am at a complete
It's nothing really personal. I get mod points, and when they are about to expire, any I haven't used go to the first red dots I see. I just figure if you can make someone a foe for no apparent reason, than you can be modded redundant for no apparent reason.
When I made you a foe, whoever you are, I had a reason. I can't tell you which reason, since you refuse to say who you are. Most likely, it was just because I had found a lot of your comments uninteresting and wanted to save myself some time by not reading any of them in the future (which is all that is achieved by making someone a foe). Although you might have angered me, this probably isn't the case. And even if it were I fail to see why it is that you should seek vengeance because of this.
Do you consider it reasonable to try to penalize me merely because I am not interested in reading what you write? Don't you see that the situation is asymmetrical? I judge who you are from what you say, which is fine. You, on the other hand, judge what I say from who I am, which is fallicious. Furthermore, by moderating me down without a clear reason you deprive me of my ability to make myself heard, and you deprive the Slashdot community of my comments. By making you a foe, I deprive noone but myself of anything.
The little red dots insure that I don't let my precious mod points expire.
Maybe you should ask yourself if letting them expire is really worse than to use them irrationally? Is it not better not to moderate than to moderate in a way that ruins what the moderation system seeks to accomplish? Finally, don't you see the irony in that by desperately wanting to use all mod points you will, by meta-moderation, eventually remove yourself from the pool of users who are elegible for moderator status? M2 was created to prevent systematic abuse like yours, and it does work.
I don't know much about these worms, having never heard of them before, but you seem to be under the impression that just because the rules of Life are simpler than the rules these worms adhere by Life's behavior must also be less complex, or more generally, that a more complex ruleset necessarily results in more complex behavior. This is not so, and in fact demonstrating that this is not so was Conway's prime motivation for creating Life in the first place.
I don't know why you feel compelled to reiterate the rules of Life and who invented them when it is obvious that the poster you replied to already knows all this. As for why you were moderated redundant, I can only conjecture that it was because John Conway is very famous and that everybody's sick of hearing about Life in every article that mentions his name.
Actually, I agree to some extent with that sentence. The cloak of academia can be used to disseminate information that would otherwise be considered questionable.
I think that Halderman was right in publishing the information, but I don't think that your analysis demonstrates this.
So becasue some grad student discovered this in "academica" it should have been kept as a secret?
You're being disingenuous. It's the other way round. If a non-academician "discovered" this, he would not be able to publish it without expecting to be reprimanded (then one may question whether this is right or not, but that's a different matter). Why should it be different just because someone happens to go to MIT?
Yes, we all belive that what he really wanted was to commit "piracy" not to expose some stupid non-working restrictions technology.
Well, the question they are posing is of course why he wanted to expose it. They are right in that it wasn't an intellectual challenge, and his analysis provides very little insight that could be of relevance for future research in computer security. All in all, a case could be made that there is no real benefit in exposing it other than embarrassing the company and providing users with information on how to disable it. And being able to disable it indeed facilitates piracy, you cannot deny this.
As already explained, I maintain that Halderman was right to publish this, but for other reasons than those you put forth. I will not elaborate on those here, suffice to say that they are more or less mainstream in the security community.
Nevertheless, there are many part of their statement that are mindbogglingly stupid. I will quote two of them.
SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology.
Needs no comment. The robustness of a DRM device which can be circumvented by a single keypress speaks for itself.
SunnComm is taking a stand here because we believe that those who own property, whether physical or digital, have the ultimate authority over how their property is used.
Curiously, this seems to be the average Slashdotter's stand too. The disagreement is over who actually owns the property in question. SunnComm says they do, Slashdot says that the guy who bought the CD does. In other words, this argument only serves to undermine their point if they want to get it across to the technical readership.
Disclaimer: This post is aimed solely at my anonymous modstalker, with whom I can only communicate in this way. If you moderated this post and are not my personal modstalker, I have to question your judgment. If you considered this post redudant because you think I made the same point gidds made, you are mistaken. If you cannot see why, maybe you shouldn't moderate math that is over your head. Since nobody else makes the point I was making, it could not possibly be for some other reason either, as the "redundant" appellation would then be inappropriate. "Off-topic," "overrated," sure, but redundant it ain't. But I don't even know why I'm writing this disclaimer, as the possibility of anyone but a modstalker moderating a discussion which died this long ago is infinitesimal anyway.
Dear Modstalker, you have been following me for a while now, as attested by the numberous "redundant" moderations I randomly receive (I assume that you have chosen that particular appellation not to get into trouble in M2. Very clever, young padawan). Unfortunately for you, you are unlikely to anger me this way, as I don't care much for moderation, although I admit that it saddens me that someone should dislike me so much as to waste all of his mod points on trying to annoy me. You have, however, peaked my curiosity.
So please answer me one simply question, in whichever thread you see fit, anonymously if you wish. C'mon now, it the least you can do, given all I have done for you lately (such as providing a steady stream of posts to mod down for no apparent reason). If you do me this little favor, I will in turn promise to pretend as if this crusade of yours is successful, and as if you are inflicting severe pain on me. The question is this: What have I done to upset you so, and why, oh why, do you seek retribution in this jejune manner?
Well, with Pi being proved as infinite and non-repeating, then Lord of the Rings was actually sitting there encoded in Pi forever and would have been sitting there un-discovered had it not been for Tolkien finding it.
Nope. A number which contains every k-digit string equally often (in the asymptotic sense) is said to be normal. Whether or not pi is normal is not known (although most mathematicians suspect that to be the case). Thus it is not certain that pi contains LotR.
But even if it was known that pi was normal, in what sense could Tolkien be said to have found LotR in pi? Presumably, he could not provide us with the offset. And thus he would only know that it was in there somewhere, but not having found it anymore than anybody else.
Silly remark, of course. But your post was just as silly, so I would assume it to be warranted.
I'm not sure about the dojo scene, but I agree about your latter example. I thought that was one of the weakest scenes in the entire movie. It looked like something from Riverdance.
No? Try watching any action movie made during the last four years. Bullet time, the spinning camera - it's everywhere. Even in Charlies Angels, for Christ's sake!
Indeed, while watching the matrix 1, I was pretty disappointed (after having heard so much hype), and remember thinking that the the fight scenes were (a) derivative, and (b) generally rather clumsy.
Take the scene where Neo and Trinity enter that building with bags full of guns. Calling a scene like that derivative and clumsy is just... I don't know. Weird.
that Matrix reloaded was more about looking slick and wearing sunglasses than story? When I first saw matrix 1, they didn't need any of that to wow me.
In that case you missed much of what was great about the first movie. Sure, it had a decent story (not nearly as great as people try to pretend it was, however), but what made it so different was the mood, the atmosphere, and the sheer beauty of it. It was more like a well choreographed ballet than a movie, and the costumes, the settings, and - above all - the revolutionary fight scenes were very much a part of that.
It was cool enough seeing some "hacking stuff" going on!
A lot of movies have "hacking stuff" going on without even being watchable. I'm not sure what the hell your talking about.
Now it's all about fighting (which is abissmal compared to some Jet Li classics) and looking chic.
Don't be ridiculous - the fight scenes in the Matrix movies are arguably the most beautiful ever shot. The ones in the first movie changed our perceptions of what such scenes could be like. They have changed the course of modern cinema, and even Jet Li would tell you that. To say that they're "abissmal" [sic.] is not even funny, it's just dumb.
All this said, however, I do agree that Reloaded is of a lesser quality than the first Matrix. Besides not having a good story, it took itself way too seriously. There's no distance. When Morpheus starts going on about how Neo is the one and all that, I turn away to avoid being embarrassed. Unfortunately, it looks like Revolutions is going to be just as preachy, if not more.
Ps. Please don't write "sumthin." It's ugly and makes you look moronic.
Actually, they say that he is trapped between the real world and the machine world. Not sure it makes a difference, but let's not jump to conclusions.
As an aside, I agree with Channard. I won't deny that I'm looking forward to seeing this movie, just like I did with Reloaded. But I would have preferred if there had been no sequels in the first place.
I'm sorry, but this is not something to joke about. It is a very serious problem. Besides, the joke is so old by now as to be sickening for that reason alone.
I thought it was called "humor" - you British Imperialist slimeballs lost your linguistic dominance several hundred years ago. But no matter how you spell it, that word doesn't in any way apply to what you wrote, which was as dry as sandpaper.
I think you need to calm down too. I know it's hot, I know you're expasperated today what with nothing working properly, and dealing with that worm, and everything, but you're not being rational.
I'm a hobby etymologist, so let me just note the curious fact that the word "humor" (as well as "humour," of course) used to mean "fluid" in Middle English, and is derived from the same latin root as "humid" and similar words. Thus you indirectly accusing me of not having any sense of humor, and attributing this to the heat and my not having been drinking enough is a little serendipitous. But I digress.
Pudge, who is someone I normally respect, got rather heated about someone alleging that CNN and MSNBC were both raising the terrorism issue. A simple correction would have sufficed, but it turned into some sort of flame, that got a flame in response from some AC, who in turn was flamed back.
I see things differently. I thought Pudge's reaction was reasonable, given that the original poster was spreading FUD. He said "you're full of crap" and "stop making shit up." In my book, that's called for when someone is flat out lying. And the two posts that constitute the rest of the discussion aren't inflammatory by a long shot.
Regardless, sometimes discussions turn heated, but may be interesting nonetheless.
Now, of course, the rest of your post seems a little wierd. Does it matter what I think's important and what isn't? Of course not. I don't work for Slashdot, or VA, or an employer or collegue (to the best of my knowledge) of others embroiled in that little microflame war going on. If the three respondants had wanted to ignore me and continue flaming one another, they could have done so. I'm not going to stop them.
Now you're being completely ridiculous. Of course you don't have some God-like power to make them move away from their keyboards against their will. People usually don't have that power over eachother. Nonetheless, that doesn't prevent them from trying to shut eachother up, oftentimes by simply yelling "shut up!" but on occasion doing something a little more subtle, like writing a smug post portaying the contributors to the discussion as too emotionally engaged in a debate of no value anyway, thus discouraging them from continuing.
If you don't think anyone cares about what you have to say, why do you post at all? Just saying you wanted to make a joke doesn't cut it. You have already admitted that there was a serious component to your post.
Your comment to me sounds uncomfortably close to the "Wah, he's expressing disagreement, he must therefore be censoring me!" comments 16 year olds post to Usenet - I'm sure you've seen them and thought "I hope I never post anything like that" - I'm not saying you did, exactly, but it was damned close.
But the thing is that you weren't expressing any kind of disagreement. You were just trying to end a discussion that you didn't like, for whatever reason (too heated, too unimportant et cetera). Or, as you have suggested, even more distasteful - you didn't really care whether the discussion was worthwhile or not, but tried to end it only as a means to get yourself a +5, Funny. Trying to portray me as a raging Usenet kid is really low, as is it obvious that I wasn't saying you were actively censoring anybody. All I'm saying is that your holier-than-thou attitude and your attempt to belittle an interesting discussion are worthy of contempt, and that I stand by.
Nor really is your comment particularly applicable to what I wrote overall.
Yes it is.
My concern was the tone of the discussion over whether CNN said something or didn't, you'v
I realise it's hot up there without the AC being on and stuff, but could you two just calm down a little?
There's, ironically, nothing that gets me worked up as some asshat trying to appear calm and mature by cooling down a discussion that isn't even very heated.
It might seem important right now what CNN did or didn't say, but, seriously, it isn't.
And, what's worse, trying to portray it as unimportant and childish. Who are you to say what's important and what's not? I think it is very important, and it really does matter a great deal to me how the media handles this.
This is a discussion site. People are supposed to debate stuff. Normally they discuss unimportant trivia, like which distro is the best or whether vi or emacs is the obvious choice of the discriminating hacker. Sometimes they indulge in shameless flamefests over these things. If nobody complains about those arguably rather pointless disputes, why do you feel the need to devalue this particular discussion?
What they say now isn't as important as what we find out when the facts are in.
Perhaps not, but it could still be important. This is the first possible large scale terrorist attack since 9-11. Why do you have such a hard time understanding that its media handling might be significant? Do the media jump to conclusions? Do they try to prevent panic, or do they encourage it? How accurate is the reporting? Do they try to keep a balanced picture?
I think these are extremely interesting questions, and that this is the perfect time to search for answers to them. But for the All Knowing Squiggleslash they are nothing more than a silly waste of time, and people who debate them or present evidence that might shed light on how to answer them are puerile hotheads who would better "just relax" and "go get a beer."
Get your beer somewhere else. If you're not interested in listening to what people have to say, just ignore them. Don't try to shut them up.
Slashdot Mirror
And what principles might that be?
Uhm, I must be tired or something - the parent reply is completely irrelevant to your post. My apologies. The relevant reply is something like: yes, for some applications it will probably (at least initially, although I'm sure speeds will increase) be too slow, and in those cases you have a point. In others the speeds are just fine (if you can transmit a secure RSA key in reasonable time you can submit your password or bank account number or whatever directly as well).
In other words, in certain contexts it will serve best as a key distribution systems whereas in others it will do on its own (which, of course, is much better since submitting a normal cryptographic key reduces the strength of the system to that of system that uses the submitted key and the only advantage with QC is then that keys can be changed often - a rather meager improvement with all of QC's grand promises in mind). So the answer to my question in the write up (which was only posed to get the discussion going anyway) is that yes, traditional crypto will still have a place, but in very sensitive transactions that aren't huge QC will (and should) be used in its stead.
Who the hell moderated this informative? QC uses one time pads, and since one time pads are provably secure, that's that. No need for fancy cryptographic algorithms. The "quantum" bit of it merely ascertains that the pad was not read by a man in the middle by making use of the EPR paradox, but other than that, this is the same algorithm as Gilbert Vernam developed more than 80 years ago (which is why one time pads are sometimes called Vernam ciphers).
If your data is so important that you need this level of crypto, try to remember that all it takes is a very determined person to come in and steal the machine.
Unless the hard drive is encrypted, that is. Which, I suppose, is one out of many answers to my question in the write up regarding the potential future obsoleteness of traditional cryptography. QC is good for quickly passing secure messages from A to B. But sometimes, B=A, i.e. the intended recipient of the message is yourself. Then you'd probably like to decide upon the speed of delivery yourself, which is basically what a hard drive is for.
And 64 bit integers converted to 16 bit integers kill, if not people, at least big budgets.
My kingdom for some mod points.
Do you advocate rape as a form of punishment or do you only find it funny to make elaborate jokes about it? Regardless of what, it is horrid and distasteful.
If it weren't obvious by the time stamp on your post that you didn't actually read the article, it is by the content.
The questions you talked about were raised twenty years ago. If this article does anything, it is to cast doubt on the idea that molecular manufacturing is even possible at all, leading one to wonder if the questions you talk about are very pertinent. Ironically, the only reason you're two decades behind is that you tried to be a minute ahead with your ignorant post (which, of course, got a +5 anyway, as it related to the an issue that Slashdotters for some inexplicable reason can't get enough of).
Hello again.
Making someone a foe also announces to all of the users in your Friends list that I am some kind of dickhead. Well, maybe I am, but who the hell are you to say so?
No, it doesn't. You put to much weight on the word "foe." It doesn't literally mean that you are my foe. It means that I am not interested in what you write. And as to "who am I to say so," I say so because I have read what you write and didn't like it. It is quite obvious, really.
You judge me for what I said, once. Or twice on the outside.
Well, you never said who you are, so how could I know this? If what you say is true, you are most certainly a very rare breed. Either you said something outrageously stupid, or I just had a bad day, but most people of my foe-list have a long history of comments unworthy of attention.
This comment of yours further suggests that you are newcomer to this community. I have been for more than five years, almost since the beginning. Might it not be a good idea for you to try see how things work around here for a year or so before going on personal crusades?
You give me no recourse to ammend or reverse my position, you irrevokeably label me as unworthy to all who would befriend you.
It is not I who give you no recourse for amendment, it is Slashcode. I'm sorry that the system is built this way, but it's most certainly not my fault. And, again, those who befriend me will, if rational, judge you from what you say and not from the color of the dot next to your name. I, for one, have never ever chosen not to read a comment because the person who wrote it was "foe of a friend," and in all honesty I will admit to not even knowing what that symbol looks like. Most people who don't take moderation too seriously (in other words, the vast majority) probably reason the same way.
And actions have consequences in life, and consequences are seldom symmetrical.
You cannot derive "ought" from "is."
First of all, it's pretty self-important of you to think what you have to say is all that important.
No, it isn't. I regard myself as a random poster with no particular insight into anything, and I regard you as a random moderator. What would happen if every random moderator would moderate any random poster on the grounds that you moderate me? The system would cease to work, that's what. Because occasionally, although, as you say, in all likelyhood not very often, I will write something that the community will want to read, and then you will deprive them of that. See what your actions mean in a larger context, and it will become apparent how they deprive the community of value.
I really do read your posts before modding them to oblivion.
If this is true, it makes a large difference. It also, to some extent, contradicts a lot of what you've said so far. Tell me honestly, were the five posts that you moderated redundant in a row really so?
Do most people who know you well describe you as conceited to a fault? Or do you only come off that way in your posts?
I don't understand what you're getting at. Please elaborate.
Would you believe the majority of those were M2'ed as Fair? Because with the exeception of one, they were. So Actually I'm getting positive reinforcement. And Yes, That's why I chose "Redundant'
Yes, I believe you. I had forgotten that you chose the "redundant" appellation. Most M2ers don't have time to check the context and see if posts are really only reiterating already expressed opinions or facts. But does not your admitting to trying to cheat the system by systematically choosing the "redundant" appellation mean that you either have to regard the system as faulty or that you are actively trying not to serve its users only because you have a personal axe to grind?
Again, I thank you for replying, as I must admit that you have no real reason to, except to please me and perhaps yourself. Still, I am at a complete
Thank you for replying in such honesty.
It's nothing really personal. I get mod points, and when they are about to expire, any I haven't used go to the first red dots I see. I just figure if you can make someone a foe for no apparent reason, than you can be modded redundant for no apparent reason.
When I made you a foe, whoever you are, I had a reason. I can't tell you which reason, since you refuse to say who you are. Most likely, it was just because I had found a lot of your comments uninteresting and wanted to save myself some time by not reading any of them in the future (which is all that is achieved by making someone a foe). Although you might have angered me, this probably isn't the case. And even if it were I fail to see why it is that you should seek vengeance because of this.
Do you consider it reasonable to try to penalize me merely because I am not interested in reading what you write? Don't you see that the situation is asymmetrical? I judge who you are from what you say, which is fine. You, on the other hand, judge what I say from who I am, which is fallicious. Furthermore, by moderating me down without a clear reason you deprive me of my ability to make myself heard, and you deprive the Slashdot community of my comments. By making you a foe, I deprive noone but myself of anything.
The little red dots insure that I don't let my precious mod points expire.
Maybe you should ask yourself if letting them expire is really worse than to use them irrationally? Is it not better not to moderate than to moderate in a way that ruins what the moderation system seeks to accomplish? Finally, don't you see the irony in that by desperately wanting to use all mod points you will, by meta-moderation, eventually remove yourself from the pool of users who are elegible for moderator status? M2 was created to prevent systematic abuse like yours, and it does work.
I don't know much about these worms, having never heard of them before, but you seem to be under the impression that just because the rules of Life are simpler than the rules these worms adhere by Life's behavior must also be less complex, or more generally, that a more complex ruleset necessarily results in more complex behavior. This is not so, and in fact demonstrating that this is not so was Conway's prime motivation for creating Life in the first place.
I don't know why you feel compelled to reiterate the rules of Life and who invented them when it is obvious that the poster you replied to already knows all this. As for why you were moderated redundant, I can only conjecture that it was because John Conway is very famous and that everybody's sick of hearing about Life in every article that mentions his name.
I think that Halderman was right in publishing the information, but I don't think that your analysis demonstrates this.
So becasue some grad student discovered this in "academica" it should have been kept as a secret?
You're being disingenuous. It's the other way round. If a non-academician "discovered" this, he would not be able to publish it without expecting to be reprimanded (then one may question whether this is right or not, but that's a different matter). Why should it be different just because someone happens to go to MIT?
Yes, we all belive that what he really wanted was to commit "piracy" not to expose some stupid non-working restrictions technology.
Well, the question they are posing is of course why he wanted to expose it. They are right in that it wasn't an intellectual challenge, and his analysis provides very little insight that could be of relevance for future research in computer security. All in all, a case could be made that there is no real benefit in exposing it other than embarrassing the company and providing users with information on how to disable it. And being able to disable it indeed facilitates piracy, you cannot deny this.
As already explained, I maintain that Halderman was right to publish this, but for other reasons than those you put forth. I will not elaborate on those here, suffice to say that they are more or less mainstream in the security community.
Nevertheless, there are many part of their statement that are mindbogglingly stupid. I will quote two of them.
- SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology.
Needs no comment. The robustness of a DRM device which can be circumvented by a single keypress speaks for itself.- SunnComm is taking a stand here because we believe that those who own property, whether physical or digital, have the ultimate authority over how their property is used.
Curiously, this seems to be the average Slashdotter's stand too. The disagreement is over who actually owns the property in question. SunnComm says they do, Slashdot says that the guy who bought the CD does. In other words, this argument only serves to undermine their point if they want to get it across to the technical readership.Disclaimer: This post is aimed solely at my anonymous modstalker, with whom I can only communicate in this way. If you moderated this post and are not my personal modstalker, I have to question your judgment. If you considered this post redudant because you think I made the same point gidds made, you are mistaken. If you cannot see why, maybe you shouldn't moderate math that is over your head. Since nobody else makes the point I was making, it could not possibly be for some other reason either, as the "redundant" appellation would then be inappropriate. "Off-topic," "overrated," sure, but redundant it ain't. But I don't even know why I'm writing this disclaimer, as the possibility of anyone but a modstalker moderating a discussion which died this long ago is infinitesimal anyway.
Dear Modstalker, you have been following me for a while now, as attested by the numberous "redundant" moderations I randomly receive (I assume that you have chosen that particular appellation not to get into trouble in M2. Very clever, young padawan). Unfortunately for you, you are unlikely to anger me this way, as I don't care much for moderation, although I admit that it saddens me that someone should dislike me so much as to waste all of his mod points on trying to annoy me. You have, however, peaked my curiosity.
So please answer me one simply question, in whichever thread you see fit, anonymously if you wish. C'mon now, it the least you can do, given all I have done for you lately (such as providing a steady stream of posts to mod down for no apparent reason). If you do me this little favor, I will in turn promise to pretend as if this crusade of yours is successful, and as if you are inflicting severe pain on me. The question is this: What have I done to upset you so, and why, oh why, do you seek retribution in this jejune manner?
Thank you for your time, and happy stalking!
Well, with Pi being proved as infinite and non-repeating, then Lord of the Rings was actually sitting there encoded in Pi forever and would have been sitting there un-discovered had it not been for Tolkien finding it.
Nope. A number which contains every k-digit string equally often (in the asymptotic sense) is said to be normal. Whether or not pi is normal is not known (although most mathematicians suspect that to be the case). Thus it is not certain that pi contains LotR.
But even if it was known that pi was normal, in what sense could Tolkien be said to have found LotR in pi? Presumably, he could not provide us with the offset. And thus he would only know that it was in there somewhere, but not having found it anymore than anybody else.
Silly remark, of course. But your post was just as silly, so I would assume it to be warranted.
Hey, it's my dreams! I decide what those girls look like!
Lots of geek girls dressing up as Niobe.
In your dreams, pal. But that's ok. In my dreams they're dressed up as Trinity.
I'm not sure about the dojo scene, but I agree about your latter example. I thought that was one of the weakest scenes in the entire movie. It looked like something from Riverdance.
Oh please, they have not.
No? Try watching any action movie made during the last four years. Bullet time, the spinning camera - it's everywhere. Even in Charlies Angels, for Christ's sake!
Indeed, while watching the matrix 1, I was pretty disappointed (after having heard so much hype), and remember thinking that the the fight scenes were (a) derivative, and (b) generally rather clumsy.
Take the scene where Neo and Trinity enter that building with bags full of guns. Calling a scene like that derivative and clumsy is just... I don't know. Weird.
that Matrix reloaded was more about looking slick and wearing sunglasses than story? When I first saw matrix 1, they didn't need any of that to wow me.
In that case you missed much of what was great about the first movie. Sure, it had a decent story (not nearly as great as people try to pretend it was, however), but what made it so different was the mood, the atmosphere, and the sheer beauty of it. It was more like a well choreographed ballet than a movie, and the costumes, the settings, and - above all - the revolutionary fight scenes were very much a part of that.
It was cool enough seeing some "hacking stuff" going on!
A lot of movies have "hacking stuff" going on without even being watchable. I'm not sure what the hell your talking about.
Now it's all about fighting (which is abissmal compared to some Jet Li classics) and looking chic.
Don't be ridiculous - the fight scenes in the Matrix movies are arguably the most beautiful ever shot. The ones in the first movie changed our perceptions of what such scenes could be like. They have changed the course of modern cinema, and even Jet Li would tell you that. To say that they're "abissmal" [sic.] is not even funny, it's just dumb.
All this said, however, I do agree that Reloaded is of a lesser quality than the first Matrix. Besides not having a good story, it took itself way too seriously. There's no distance. When Morpheus starts going on about how Neo is the one and all that, I turn away to avoid being embarrassed. Unfortunately, it looks like Revolutions is going to be just as preachy, if not more.
Ps. Please don't write "sumthin." It's ugly and makes you look moronic.
Actually, they say that he is trapped between the real world and the machine world. Not sure it makes a difference, but let's not jump to conclusions.
As an aside, I agree with Channard. I won't deny that I'm looking forward to seeing this movie, just like I did with Reloaded. But I would have preferred if there had been no sequels in the first place.
I'm sorry, but this is not something to joke about. It is a very serious problem. Besides, the joke is so old by now as to be sickening for that reason alone.
No.
You know, a joke. It's called humour.
I thought it was called "humor" - you British Imperialist slimeballs lost your linguistic dominance several hundred years ago. But no matter how you spell it, that word doesn't in any way apply to what you wrote, which was as dry as sandpaper.
I think you need to calm down too. I know it's hot, I know you're expasperated today what with nothing working properly, and dealing with that worm, and everything, but you're not being rational.
I'm a hobby etymologist, so let me just note the curious fact that the word "humor" (as well as "humour," of course) used to mean "fluid" in Middle English, and is derived from the same latin root as "humid" and similar words. Thus you indirectly accusing me of not having any sense of humor, and attributing this to the heat and my not having been drinking enough is a little serendipitous. But I digress.
Pudge, who is someone I normally respect, got rather heated about someone alleging that CNN and MSNBC were both raising the terrorism issue. A simple correction would have sufficed, but it turned into some sort of flame, that got a flame in response from some AC, who in turn was flamed back.
I see things differently. I thought Pudge's reaction was reasonable, given that the original poster was spreading FUD. He said "you're full of crap" and "stop making shit up." In my book, that's called for when someone is flat out lying. And the two posts that constitute the rest of the discussion aren't inflammatory by a long shot.
Regardless, sometimes discussions turn heated, but may be interesting nonetheless.
Now, of course, the rest of your post seems a little wierd. Does it matter what I think's important and what isn't? Of course not. I don't work for Slashdot, or VA, or an employer or collegue (to the best of my knowledge) of others embroiled in that little microflame war going on. If the three respondants had wanted to ignore me and continue flaming one another, they could have done so. I'm not going to stop them.
Now you're being completely ridiculous. Of course you don't have some God-like power to make them move away from their keyboards against their will. People usually don't have that power over eachother. Nonetheless, that doesn't prevent them from trying to shut eachother up, oftentimes by simply yelling "shut up!" but on occasion doing something a little more subtle, like writing a smug post portaying the contributors to the discussion as too emotionally engaged in a debate of no value anyway, thus discouraging them from continuing.
If you don't think anyone cares about what you have to say, why do you post at all? Just saying you wanted to make a joke doesn't cut it. You have already admitted that there was a serious component to your post.
Your comment to me sounds uncomfortably close to the "Wah, he's expressing disagreement, he must therefore be censoring me!" comments 16 year olds post to Usenet - I'm sure you've seen them and thought "I hope I never post anything like that" - I'm not saying you did, exactly, but it was damned close.
But the thing is that you weren't expressing any kind of disagreement. You were just trying to end a discussion that you didn't like, for whatever reason (too heated, too unimportant et cetera). Or, as you have suggested, even more distasteful - you didn't really care whether the discussion was worthwhile or not, but tried to end it only as a means to get yourself a +5, Funny. Trying to portray me as a raging Usenet kid is really low, as is it obvious that I wasn't saying you were actively censoring anybody. All I'm saying is that your holier-than-thou attitude and your attempt to belittle an interesting discussion are worthy of contempt, and that I stand by.
Nor really is your comment particularly applicable to what I wrote overall.
Yes it is.
My concern was the tone of the discussion over whether CNN said something or didn't, you'v
I realise it's hot up there without the AC being on and stuff, but could you two just calm down a little?
There's, ironically, nothing that gets me worked up as some asshat trying to appear calm and mature by cooling down a discussion that isn't even very heated.
It might seem important right now what CNN did or didn't say, but, seriously, it isn't.
And, what's worse, trying to portray it as unimportant and childish. Who are you to say what's important and what's not? I think it is very important, and it really does matter a great deal to me how the media handles this.
This is a discussion site. People are supposed to debate stuff. Normally they discuss unimportant trivia, like which distro is the best or whether vi or emacs is the obvious choice of the discriminating hacker. Sometimes they indulge in shameless flamefests over these things. If nobody complains about those arguably rather pointless disputes, why do you feel the need to devalue this particular discussion?
What they say now isn't as important as what we find out when the facts are in.
Perhaps not, but it could still be important. This is the first possible large scale terrorist attack since 9-11. Why do you have such a hard time understanding that its media handling might be significant? Do the media jump to conclusions? Do they try to prevent panic, or do they encourage it? How accurate is the reporting? Do they try to keep a balanced picture?
I think these are extremely interesting questions, and that this is the perfect time to search for answers to them. But for the All Knowing Squiggleslash they are nothing more than a silly waste of time, and people who debate them or present evidence that might shed light on how to answer them are puerile hotheads who would better "just relax" and "go get a beer."
Get your beer somewhere else. If you're not interested in listening to what people have to say, just ignore them. Don't try to shut them up.