It looks to be a fairly small image, which makes sense as the spacecraft is 177 million miles away from the planet. I think it would be interesting for the spacecraft to take one such picture a day, then put them all together some years later to produce a movie of the spacecraft's mission.
I'm sure it would beat the cgi movies that have been produced of similar journeys.
My favorite version of an Adventure-type game is WARP. Unfortunately, it runs on HP-3000 Minicomputers. I can't seem to find the source for it anywhere, though I think it was available on a tape that I got many years ago as a member of a user group.
If anyone out there knows where I might obtain source to WARP, I'd appreciate an email with pointers to my_user_name_minus the "-amp" @pobox.com
Well, I've been to the Baen site and checked out several of their books. I just want to say for the record, that the idea of having books available for free in the manner that they are doing it is an absolutely evil idea.
Used to be, I could walk into a bookstore and check for new releases by the authors I'm interested in reading fairly quickly. I could generally leave without breaking the bank. No more! Since going to Baen's site, I have this huge backlog of books by authors that I'd most likely never have read that I have to buy.
They need to stop this free distribution of their books so I can save my bank account!
Re:call em information broker
on
Libraries Are 31337
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Another reason we haven't gone further in converting the dead trees to bits is because copyright is just so darn long.
99%+ of everything ever published is under copyright now that it has become pretty much perpetual.
Project Gutenberg's site has some information about this. They've also managed to scan thousands of books that existed prior to 1920. I think they are up to about 6 or 7 new books posted per month.
There are also other efforts out there doing essentially the same thing. You might want to check out the Online Books Page for even more titles.
The progress made so far in this effort despite the efforts of corporate interests to destroy the very concept of the Public Domain are really pretty astounding.
The problem as I see it is that not even DVD has the capacity to back up modern systems. The advances in hard disk capacity are vastly outstripping our ability to reasonably back them up. I have over 20GB of MP3s that I've ripped so I won't have to keep my cd collection handy. This is great, but I'm pretty much out of luck if I want to keep the stuff backed up.
Sadly, the mismatch between capacity of removable and fixed media seems to have always been the case. Years ago, I gave up trying to do periodic backups to floppy once it took 20 or so of them to do the job. Now, here I am with a CD burner with hundreds of times more capacity than those old floppy disks, and I'm still in the same boat.
I've looked at tape backup solutions, but find it hard to reconcile myself with spending twice as much (or more) on a tape drive as I did the rest of my system. If there were a decent capacity (20GB+) tape drive to be had for approximately the same price as a CD burner, I'd jump on it, and not brgrudge the costs of the tapes so much if I could reasonably expect to be able to drop a tape in the drive and have what should be essentially a reloadable volume available the next morning.
For corporate systems, DLTs and a changer is a solution of sorts if your company isn't too cheap to lay out the cash, but those kind of systems are definately not within the average home user's budget.
I still bite the bullet and do quarterly backups, but it's a major effort, mostly because I haven't found a good backup program that I can get to work for me that doesn't want a tape drive. I kinda wish BRU would introduce a version of their program that would write to CD/DVD.
I'm suprised I haven't seen more posts discussing the linked PDF. I read through the thing and really laughed my ass off.
Quote:After wetting a nger in tap water,I prepared to touch the top surface of the molten lead.I must confess that I had an assistant standing ready with rst-aid materials.I must also confess that my rst several attempts failed because my brain refused to allow this ridiculous experiment,always directing my nger to miss the lead.
He discusses performing the trick of putting liquid H2 in his mouth, then goes on to say "the last time"... and describes the nasty side effect of this experiment going bad. Kinda makes you wonder why this guy is still alive.
I'm not sure what it is that you are laughing about.
AIX has both strengths and weaknesses, as do all OSes. For stability, I've been quite happy with AIX.
At the place where I used to work, we rolled out a major OS upgrade on a bunch of AIX boxes 1190 days ago. I recently had someone check those boxes out and 90% of them have not been rebooted since!
I'd hate to be involved in another upgrade on those systems though, as they'd previously run for about 2.5 years continuously. After another 3 years of constant, uninterrupted operation, I wouldn't place bets on how many of those disks would not spin back up if they were ever stopped.
When I bought my DVD player, it replaced the CD component in my stereo system, since it would play CDs as well as MP3s. I seriously doubt that any of these DRM schemes are going to be playable on this device.
I've got a car stereo that these things will also be useless in, as well as a portable.
So, if they manager wants to give any static, I tell them quite honestly that it won't play on my stereo, car, portable on computer. The disk is obviously damaged in the manufacturing process.
Gpasman is another alternative. I use it on my linux boxes.
I've found them invaluable for keeping track of passwords. Password Safe runs quite happily under wine, and has a tool built in to automatically generate excellent (i.e., almost unrememberable) passwords.
The problem is, most programs do not have a spec file in them. The program I pointed to use good for use with most source tarballs. I'm going to check to see if it tests for the existance for a specfile and uses it if it exists. If not, it probably should.
If you like to keep your RPM database up to date, and also would like to get a program patched immediately without waiting for the released packages, you might want to check out Checkinstall. It is a program that will automatically generate a package from the source files.
Install of a source tarball as a package is easy. Once you've extracted it...
./configure
make
checkinstall
This will install a package of your choice and a package will also be created. I've tested it on a Redhat 7.3 system to create rpms. It also
supports Slackware and debian packages.
From the readme:
'Installs a compiled program from the program's source directory using "make install" or any other command supplied on checkinstall's command line. checkinstall will create a Slackware, RPM or Debian compatible package and install it using your distribution's standard package administration utilities.'
I find it to be extremely useful for programs I'd like to test out that do not provide a package.
The paper ballot is more of an auditing tool than a counting tool. The votes are actually talleyed at the terminals and printed out at the end of the day. The reason I suggested having a paper ballot that is printed is so there would be an easy way to do recounts and to actually audit the results. If both the paper and the electronic ballots were counted at the same time, it would be fairly easy to spot descrepancies, especially if the software kept track of both more or less simultaneously.
You are correct that it is a bit of an expensive way to replace a pen and paper, but it would also have the advantage of being able to provide quicker results. This is realy a fairly trivial thing but some people seem to want it in these days of instant gratification.
Locally networked systems.
One system with dial-out capability. This is not entirely necessary, but a
possibility to aid in collating votes from the different machines and
reporting results to a central location. NO capability to dial into the
polling place. Dial out should be manual and fully logged.
Printed receipt:
Possibly use barcodes since they are both machine-readable and
somewhat readable by eyeballing. This should be printed either with a
laserjet or injet. No use of thermal paper due to its succeptability to
destruction by moderate heat.
Monitor (touchscreen?):
Probably wouldn't need more than a 14" monitor for this purpose. I
would image monochrome would work as well as color, but these days due to
low production volumes, I would imagine color is cheaper. Heck, they have
similar screens at checkout counters in grocery stores now.
Voting results would be reviewable by voter prior to printing
ballot. The system would audit and disallow double voting. Not voting in a
particular office would be allowed.
OPEN CODE.
This should be non-negotiable. The code that runs the systems must be open
and reviewable by anyone. It would probably be useful to have bouties paid
for bugs spotted by the public. Closed code generates suspicion. Open code
generates trust.
Results should be stored locally on the box in non-volatile ram or
other media. It might also be desirable for a voting machine to store
nothing at all. If a voter wants, he/she should be able to reboot the
system cold and have it initialze and be ready to use. All results would be
based on the paper ballot. The drawback to this is that the system would
serve no auditing function. I could see the following as being useful:
Immediately prior to election, all machines are zeroed out in a way that
would be verifiable. (i.e., a register dump made. All registers pertaining
to votes cast should be zero. The recipt for this is witnessed and placed
in the ballot boxes.) Voting commences, as each vote is cast, running
tallys are stored locally as well as possibly being stored in a central
device that serves as a feeder to the sealed ballot boxes. You feed your
paper ballot into the slot, and it reads and stores the vote, and the
ballot drops into a tamper-proof box. Once voting finishes, Final tallys
are printed from the individual voting booths and talleyed to verify they
match what was fed and read into the ballot boxes.
(Note: the summary talleys would be noted as well in any audit to help
prevent fraud. You wouldn't want corrupt election officials to be able to
check the totals and creat bogus ballots to make sure the 'right' guy won.
Any subsequent tally run would be logged and printed on the talley
sheet.)
The whole system should be solid state with identifying numbers
hard-coded into the system to assist in preventing fraud (as the serial
numbers would be printed on the tally sheets) This would prevent someone
from printing a tally and feeding it in more than once to the master
tally.
I'd recommend a version of embedded linux. It wouldn't need much space,
and would be completely open and auditable itself. A solid state system
would make the system more robust and less prone to failure.
Here's how I'd envision the voting experience:
Voter enters polling place.
S/He Hands ID to poll worker who verifies identity and status as
registered voter.
Poll worker points towards voting booths and tells voter to pick
one at random.
Voter enters booth, pulls curtain to hide voting process from
prying eyes.
Voter is presented with a touchscreen terminal. Each office is
presented in turn and voter selects choices. This would include any
initiatives or amendments s/he may be voting on as well. Placement of
candidate names could be programmed to rotate randomly for each voter.
(This guards against uninformed voter being told, "vote for
#3".)
Once voting is complete, the voter would be presented with the
choices s/he made and is given the opportunity to change individual votes
and/or restart fresh from the beginning if desired. When voter is satisfied
with the choices made, s/he selects "print ballot" or
something similar.
A ballot is printed for the voter.
Voter takes the ballot, opens curtain, and takes it to the official box.
Voter feeds the ballot into the box which does a final verification of
the sanity of the vote.
Voter leaves.
At the end of the day, talleys are printed from each voting machine and
fed into the ballot box which is recorded and reconciled against totals
made during the day, and a final tally printed for the polling place and is
sent to a central location. The ballot box is secured and sent to a central
location. It is not necessary to even open or otherwise tamper with the
ballot box unless a recount is required.
I'd have to agree. Textpad is an excellent windoze editor. I know a lot of folks who use UltraEdit, but I never bothered since I didn't hear about it until after I'd bought a license to textpad.
My all-time favourite editor though is 'Brief'. The macro language it contained was extremely powerful. Brief was developed by a company called UnderWare. There is a pun in there somewhere.
Anyway, with humans it's not really the number of bits packed into small spaces that's impressive, it's the amount of information packed into those bits.
Actually, I think it is both. In these days of data measured in terrabytes in some quarters, a 'mere' 750MB of data may seem to not be that incredibly much, but considering what would appear to me to be the 'fractal' way that the information contained in DNA, it is much more than one might first suppose. Your point about the amount of information packed into DNA is well taken.
when thinking of 'DNA as code' to be executed a question begs to be answered IMO. Is DNA an operating system, or is it merely a program run on a system in which the universe itself, and the laws that govern it are the basis of the OS under which we operate.
Indeed. Olde Brittannica's have tonnes of information that are of practical use in many circumstances. I have an almost complete set from 1903, and can attest that it is loaded with information that would make the modern statist's hair curl.
What I found to mbe most interesting in the article is the quote about the information density of DNA.
The researcher's prototype resembles the way nature stores data in DNA, said Himpsel. The memory structure self-assembles into the tracks. In addition, "the density and readout speed of DNA [is] quite similar to our silicon memory," he said. While DNA uses 32 atoms to store one bit using one of four base molecules, the researcher's silicon memory uses 20 atoms including the atoms between the individual atoms that store the bits, said Himpsel.
If the 32 atoms per bit is accurate, that represents some pretty dense storage. it seems that nature has developed some pretty powerful methods for storing information that we're only now able to compare with in the labs.
From what I understand, the Human Genome, though it represents a massive amount of data, is also highly redundant with huge sectons of 'legacy code' that doesn't seem to have any function or purpose. I'd be interested in knowing approximately how much actual information is functional in numerical terms. If one knew that, one could say exactly how much data it takes to create a human being.
I don't care how expensive those old unix systems were (when they were new), replacing them with ANYTHING costs more than simply continuing to use the existing machines that are already owned.
Not so at all. We have several boxes in the shop where I work that are actually more expensive to have on maintainance than it would cost to replace them with newer hardware. We're actually spending less money by buying new stuff than we would have spent if we just kept the old boxes another year on our support contracts.
I have a set of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica that was published in 1903. I recall running into an article about air conditioning/refridgeration once. It was fascinating reading about this stuff when the science of it was in it's infancy.
Refridgeration has come a long way since ammonia was used as the refridgerant.
If you have any old reference books it might be interesting to check out what it has to say about it.
The obvious solution for this, when the courts are completely ignorant, and the politicians have been bought off by Big Media(TM) is to go ahead and code whatever you want and put the programs on servers overseas.
"The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.". I can't remember who said it, but it'strue for the most part. National laws are merely annoyances to the locals.
Too bad you posted as AC. You are largely correct in your writings above. I'd bump you up if I had mod points.
THe way that communism sucks the life out of a people is one of the clues that one can take to the innate evil it contains as a philosophy. Yes, I said evil. Some things are evil whether people want to believe it or not. Look at the horrors that occurred in the Ukraine. Millions starved to death at the command of Stalin. The supporters of communism will not recognise their complicity in these deaths any more than they can recognise their complicity in the deaths of millions in China during the 'Cultural Revolution' or the 'Great Leap Forward'.
For a modern example of pending death and destruction, take a look at the harvest the Angel of Death is about to reap in Zimbabwe. Here we see communists stealing the lands from farmers in the name of 'land reform'. Now we hear that the crops (what little were actually planted) are failing. Duh.
People have no sense of history whatsoever. Sometimes I think it is a way of blocking out knowledge that would otherwise leave people with a feeling of responsibility for the results of those cherished ideas of theirs.
I'm not one stupid enough to claim that there are no excesses of the free market and democracy. That is why I believe a Republican form of government with limited powers of regulation is probably the best balance between the mob (democracy), the fundamental human rights to just be left the hell alone, and the unrestrained excesses of monopolies that the free market can produce.
Slashdot Mirror
It looks to be a fairly small image, which makes sense as the spacecraft is 177 million miles away from the planet. I think it would be interesting for the spacecraft to take one such picture a day, then put them all together some years later to produce a movie of the spacecraft's mission.
I'm sure it would beat the cgi movies that have been produced of similar journeys.
My favorite version of an Adventure-type game is WARP. Unfortunately, it runs on HP-3000 Minicomputers. I can't seem to find the source for it anywhere, though I think it was available on a tape that I got many years ago as a member of a user group.
If anyone out there knows where I might obtain source to WARP, I'd appreciate an email with pointers to my_user_name_minus the "-amp" @pobox.com
Well, I've been to the Baen site and checked out several of their books. I just want to say for the record, that the idea of having books available for free in the manner that they are doing it is an absolutely evil idea.
Used to be, I could walk into a bookstore and check for new releases by the authors I'm interested in reading fairly quickly. I could generally leave without breaking the bank. No more! Since going to Baen's site, I have this huge backlog of books by authors that I'd most likely never have read that I have to buy.
They need to stop this free distribution of their books so I can save my bank account!
Another reason we haven't gone further in converting the dead trees to bits is because copyright is just so darn long.
99%+ of everything ever published is under copyright now that it has become pretty much perpetual.
Project Gutenberg's site has some information about this. They've also managed to scan thousands of books that existed prior to 1920. I think they are up to about 6 or 7 new books posted per month.
There are also other efforts out there doing essentially the same thing. You might want to check out the Online Books Page for even more titles.
The progress made so far in this effort despite the efforts of corporate interests to destroy the very concept of the Public Domain are really pretty astounding.
The problem as I see it is that not even DVD has the capacity to back up modern systems. The advances in hard disk capacity are vastly outstripping our ability to reasonably back them up. I have over 20GB of MP3s that I've ripped so I won't have to keep my cd collection handy. This is great, but I'm pretty much out of luck if I want to keep the stuff backed up.
Sadly, the mismatch between capacity of removable and fixed media seems to have always been the case. Years ago, I gave up trying to do periodic backups to floppy once it took 20 or so of them to do the job. Now, here I am with a CD burner with hundreds of times more capacity than those old floppy disks, and I'm still in the same boat.
I've looked at tape backup solutions, but find it hard to reconcile myself with spending twice as much (or more) on a tape drive as I did the rest of my system. If there were a decent capacity (20GB+) tape drive to be had for approximately the same price as a CD burner, I'd jump on it, and not brgrudge the costs of the tapes so much if I could reasonably expect to be able to drop a tape in the drive and have what should be essentially a reloadable volume available the next morning.
For corporate systems, DLTs and a changer is a solution of sorts if your company isn't too cheap to lay out the cash, but those kind of systems are definately not within the average home user's budget.
I still bite the bullet and do quarterly backups, but it's a major effort, mostly because I haven't found a good backup program that I can get to work for me that doesn't want a tape drive. I kinda wish BRU would introduce a version of their program that would write to CD/DVD.
My two cents. Let the moderation begin!
Remember folks, crypto is only for people who don't staple cash to postcards with their credit card number on it when they mail in their payments!
I'm suprised I haven't seen more posts discussing the linked PDF. I read through the thing and really laughed my ass off.
Quote:After wetting a nger in tap water,I prepared to touch the top surface of the molten lead.I must confess that I had an assistant standing ready with rst-aid materials.I must also confess that my rst several attempts failed because my brain refused to allow this ridiculous experiment,always directing my nger to miss the lead.
He discusses performing the trick of putting liquid H2 in his mouth, then goes on to say "the last time"... and describes the nasty side effect of this experiment going bad. Kinda makes you wonder why this guy is still alive.
I'm not sure what it is that you are laughing about.
AIX has both strengths and weaknesses, as do all OSes. For stability, I've been quite happy with AIX.
At the place where I used to work, we rolled out a major OS upgrade on a bunch of AIX boxes 1190 days ago. I recently had someone check those boxes out and 90% of them have not been rebooted since!
I'd hate to be involved in another upgrade on those systems though, as they'd previously run for about 2.5 years continuously. After another 3 years of constant, uninterrupted operation, I wouldn't place bets on how many of those disks would not spin back up if they were ever stopped.
My question for Cerf...
So, how do you like working for a criminal enterprise?
I didn't, which is why I left almost 2 years ago. Saw the writing on the wall.
No need to use technobabble.
When I bought my DVD player, it replaced the CD component in my stereo system, since it would play CDs as well as MP3s. I seriously doubt that any of these DRM schemes are going to be playable on this device.
I've got a car stereo that these things will also be useless in, as well as a portable.
So, if they manager wants to give any static, I tell them quite honestly that it won't play on my stereo, car, portable on computer. The disk is obviously damaged in the manufacturing process.
There are two excellent tools that I use pretty regularly to keep track of passwords on websites and other services.
Password Safe was origionally developed by Bruce Schneier of . It is open source now.
Gpasman is another alternative. I use it on my linux boxes.
I've found them invaluable for keeping track of passwords. Password Safe runs quite happily under wine, and has a tool built in to automatically generate excellent (i.e., almost unrememberable) passwords.
That's useful. Thanks.
The problem is, most programs do not have a spec file in them. The program I pointed to use good for use with most source tarballs. I'm going to check to see if it tests for the existance for a specfile and uses it if it exists. If not, it probably should.
If you like to keep your RPM database up to date, and also would like to get a program patched immediately without waiting for the released packages, you might want to check out Checkinstall. It is a program that will automatically generate a package from the source files.
Install of a source tarball as a package is easy. Once you've extracted it...
./configure
make
checkinstall
This will install a package of your choice and a package will also be created. I've tested it on a Redhat 7.3 system to create rpms. It also supports Slackware and debian packages.
From the readme: 'Installs a compiled program from the program's source directory using "make install" or any other command supplied on checkinstall's command line. checkinstall will create a Slackware, RPM or Debian compatible package and install it using your distribution's standard package administration utilities.'
I find it to be extremely useful for programs I'd like to test out that do not provide a package.
The paper ballot is more of an auditing tool than a counting tool. The votes are actually talleyed at the terminals and printed out at the end of the day. The reason I suggested having a paper ballot that is printed is so there would be an easy way to do recounts and to actually audit the results. If both the paper and the electronic ballots were counted at the same time, it would be fairly easy to spot descrepancies, especially if the software kept track of both more or less simultaneously.
You are correct that it is a bit of an expensive way to replace a pen and paper, but it would also have the advantage of being able to provide quicker results. This is realy a fairly trivial thing but some people seem to want it in these days of instant gratification.
A Proposal For An Electronic Voting Machine
Locally networked systems.
One system with dial-out capability. This is not entirely necessary, but a possibility to aid in collating votes from the different machines and reporting results to a central location. NO capability to dial into the polling place. Dial out should be manual and fully logged.
Printed receipt:
Possibly use barcodes since they are both machine-readable and somewhat readable by eyeballing. This should be printed either with a laserjet or injet. No use of thermal paper due to its succeptability to destruction by moderate heat.
Monitor (touchscreen?):
Probably wouldn't need more than a 14" monitor for this purpose. I would image monochrome would work as well as color, but these days due to low production volumes, I would imagine color is cheaper. Heck, they have similar screens at checkout counters in grocery stores now.
Voting results would be reviewable by voter prior to printing ballot. The system would audit and disallow double voting. Not voting in a particular office would be allowed.
OPEN CODE.
This should be non-negotiable. The code that runs the systems must be open and reviewable by anyone. It would probably be useful to have bouties paid for bugs spotted by the public. Closed code generates suspicion. Open code generates trust.
Results should be stored locally on the box in non-volatile ram or other media. It might also be desirable for a voting machine to store nothing at all. If a voter wants, he/she should be able to reboot the system cold and have it initialze and be ready to use. All results would be based on the paper ballot. The drawback to this is that the system would serve no auditing function. I could see the following as being useful: Immediately prior to election, all machines are zeroed out in a way that would be verifiable. (i.e., a register dump made. All registers pertaining to votes cast should be zero. The recipt for this is witnessed and placed in the ballot boxes.) Voting commences, as each vote is cast, running tallys are stored locally as well as possibly being stored in a central device that serves as a feeder to the sealed ballot boxes. You feed your paper ballot into the slot, and it reads and stores the vote, and the ballot drops into a tamper-proof box. Once voting finishes, Final tallys are printed from the individual voting booths and talleyed to verify they match what was fed and read into the ballot boxes.
(Note: the summary talleys would be noted as well in any audit to help prevent fraud. You wouldn't want corrupt election officials to be able to check the totals and creat bogus ballots to make sure the 'right' guy won. Any subsequent tally run would be logged and printed on the talley sheet.)
The whole system should be solid state with identifying numbers hard-coded into the system to assist in preventing fraud (as the serial numbers would be printed on the tally sheets) This would prevent someone from printing a tally and feeding it in more than once to the master tally.
I'd recommend a version of embedded linux. It wouldn't need much space, and would be completely open and auditable itself. A solid state system would make the system more robust and less prone to failure.
Here's how I'd envision the voting experience:
Voter enters polling place.
S/He Hands ID to poll worker who verifies identity and status as registered voter.
Poll worker points towards voting booths and tells voter to pick one at random.
Voter enters booth, pulls curtain to hide voting process from prying eyes.
Voter is presented with a touchscreen terminal. Each office is presented in turn and voter selects choices. This would include any initiatives or amendments s/he may be voting on as well. Placement of candidate names could be programmed to rotate randomly for each voter. (This guards against uninformed voter being told, "vote for #3".)
Once voting is complete, the voter would be presented with the choices s/he made and is given the opportunity to change individual votes and/or restart fresh from the beginning if desired. When voter is satisfied with the choices made, s/he selects "print ballot" or something similar.
A ballot is printed for the voter.
Voter takes the ballot, opens curtain, and takes it to the official box.
Voter feeds the ballot into the box which does a final verification of the sanity of the vote.
Voter leaves.
At the end of the day, talleys are printed from each voting machine and fed into the ballot box which is recorded and reconciled against totals made during the day, and a final tally printed for the polling place and is sent to a central location. The ballot box is secured and sent to a central location. It is not necessary to even open or otherwise tamper with the ballot box unless a recount is required.
I'd have to agree. Textpad is an excellent windoze editor. I know a lot of folks who use UltraEdit, but I never bothered since I didn't hear about it until after I'd bought a license to textpad.
My all-time favourite editor though is 'Brief'. The macro language it contained was extremely powerful. Brief was developed by a company called UnderWare. There is a pun in there somewhere.
THere are 2 things that I hate about VIM.
Anyway, with humans it's not really the number of bits packed into small spaces that's impressive, it's the amount of information packed into those bits.
Actually, I think it is both. In these days of data measured in terrabytes in some quarters, a 'mere' 750MB of data may seem to not be that incredibly much, but considering what would appear to me to be the 'fractal' way that the information contained in DNA, it is much more than one might first suppose. Your point about the amount of information packed into DNA is well taken.
when thinking of 'DNA as code' to be executed a question begs to be answered IMO. Is DNA an operating system, or is it merely a program run on a system in which the universe itself, and the laws that govern it are the basis of the OS under which we operate.
Indeed. Olde Brittannica's have tonnes of information that are of practical use in many circumstances. I have an almost complete set from 1903, and can attest that it is loaded with information that would make the modern statist's hair curl.
What I found to mbe most interesting in the article is the quote about the information density of DNA.
The researcher's prototype resembles the way nature stores data in DNA, said Himpsel. The memory structure self-assembles into the tracks. In addition, "the density and readout speed of DNA [is] quite similar to our silicon memory," he said. While DNA uses 32 atoms to store one bit using one of four base molecules, the researcher's silicon memory uses 20 atoms including the atoms between the individual atoms that store the bits, said Himpsel.
If the 32 atoms per bit is accurate, that represents some pretty dense storage. it seems that nature has developed some pretty powerful methods for storing information that we're only now able to compare with in the labs.
From what I understand, the Human Genome, though it represents a massive amount of data, is also highly redundant with huge sectons of 'legacy code' that doesn't seem to have any function or purpose. I'd be interested in knowing approximately how much actual information is functional in numerical terms. If one knew that, one could say exactly how much data it takes to create a human being.
Just a thought
I don't care how expensive those old unix systems were (when they were new), replacing them with ANYTHING costs more than simply continuing to use the existing machines that are already owned.
Not so at all. We have several boxes in the shop where I work that are actually more expensive to have on maintainance than it would cost to replace them with newer hardware. We're actually spending less money by buying new stuff than we would have spent if we just kept the old boxes another year on our support contracts.
I wish I'd have seen this when I was at home.
I have a set of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica that was published in 1903. I recall running into an article about air conditioning/refridgeration once. It was fascinating reading about this stuff when the science of it was in it's infancy.
Refridgeration has come a long way since ammonia was used as the refridgerant.
If you have any old reference books it might be interesting to check out what it has to say about it.
...and amazingly enough, they are even spelled differently!
The obvious solution for this, when the courts are completely ignorant, and the politicians have been bought off by Big Media(TM) is to go ahead and code whatever you want and put the programs on servers overseas.
"The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.". I can't remember who said it, but it'strue for the most part. National laws are merely annoyances to the locals.
Too bad you posted as AC. You are largely correct in your writings above. I'd bump you up if I had mod points.
THe way that communism sucks the life out of a people is one of the clues that one can take to the innate evil it contains as a philosophy. Yes, I said evil. Some things are evil whether people want to believe it or not. Look at the horrors that occurred in the Ukraine. Millions starved to death at the command of Stalin. The supporters of communism will not recognise their complicity in these deaths any more than they can recognise their complicity in the deaths of millions in China during the 'Cultural Revolution' or the 'Great Leap Forward'.
For a modern example of pending death and destruction, take a look at the harvest the Angel of Death is about to reap in Zimbabwe. Here we see communists stealing the lands from farmers in the name of 'land reform'. Now we hear that the crops (what little were actually planted) are failing. Duh.
People have no sense of history whatsoever. Sometimes I think it is a way of blocking out knowledge that would otherwise leave people with a feeling of responsibility for the results of those cherished ideas of theirs.
I'm not one stupid enough to claim that there are no excesses of the free market and democracy. That is why I believe a Republican form of government with limited powers of regulation is probably the best balance between the mob (democracy), the fundamental human rights to just be left the hell alone, and the unrestrained excesses of monopolies that the free market can produce.