I can't believe this post disappeared from this thread (but I can't find it since I reloaded - bug? Troller grudge? lost packet?), so I'm responding here:
The original post said: Jeez, that's what I really want. A product called - "You Pee 'N' Pee"
Don't knock it. An earlier version of this technology ("B.E.E.R.") has enjoyed thousands of years of popularity among geeks/early adopters, and the general/neophyte market segments. It's often one of the first protocols a student learns in college.
It has already found widespread integration with home entertainment centers (TV viewing, VCR movies, and music) and was a vital enhancement to live sports presentations even before the advent of widespread televised sports.
BEER is already widespread in the contemporary American kitchen, though underutilized in that setting. (It can take much of the tedium out of elaborate preparation, for examples) Still, would Thankgsgiving be Thanksgiving without Beer? Not in most households!
Beer is widely used for communications, so much so that some people rarely communicate without using it. It may be the most widely used peering method in modern life. I-buy-U (a beer) is one popular application and Eff-U/Eff-Me often relies on it as well.
While efforts to integrate it into automotive settings have been -er- 'disappointing', the active developer base who try every day to make this work considerable exceeds the total Linux user base. Changes to the automotive infrastructure have long been planned to make this a more secure activity.
There are, however, concerns. Integrating child protection features on the USE, PROVIDER, and SERVICE models has raised serious concerns. Tighter access controls have traditionally failed, and if you think NetNanny and CyberParent are worrisome, check out a nanny or parent on Beer.
There are many legal rights that cannot be waived. In fact, though I dislike UCITA, there are several passages in it affirming 'unconscionable terms' -- meaning that a sensible judge (if he isn't already hamstrung by a pile of bad UCITA precedents) can simply throw out an unreasonable licence condition, like a waiver of liability in the face of clear bad faith, misrepresentation, or known flaws that are not remedied or disclosed.
[I'm not saying I trust this to happen]
Also, any contract for an illegal act is void. In the example you gave: You can consent to being hit with a hammer. However, you cannot waive your right to sue if someone hits you with a hammer without your consent: hitting you *with* your consent is no crime, but hitting you without your consent is illegal. [Similarly, if your boss threatened to hit you with a hammer under this presumed waiver it would be assault, whether or not s/he believed s/he had the right - which would only be a mitigating factor.]
There are lots of 'crazy rulings' (as presented in the media) that rely on this fundamental principle -- but probably an equal number of media-described 'crazy rulings' where it was not applied, and should have been.
The Bottom Line is: a major function of a waiver is to dissuade you from trying to sue, or convince you to drop your suit. It doesn't actually have to be valid to accomplish this, so many waiver terms (and some contract terms) are not enforceable, and the company legal eagles know it.
Nope... i think people of wealth and power won't have any use for them. Though they may equip others with them.
First: there's not much advantage. The images will still be projected on the retina, which is composed of discrete sensor cells (rod and cones) of a fixed size, which is reasonably well matched to our current vision. I doubt they could consistently squeeze better than 10% sharper vision out of a pair of normal eyeballs. 'Eagle eye vision' is as much a trained processing capacity in the brain as it is a clear image on the retina.
Admittedly, one could integrate magnification into the system, but then we hit...
Second: these aren't contacts we're talking about. They'll be goggles - neither attractive nor useful for daily life. Frankly, IR vision would be more useful, and the (relatively) few peopl who own those look pathetic when they flaunt them.
(there are people with natural vision 'better than 20/20', and it's generally less useful than being double jointed)
Third: first application? Military. Count on it. Even the limited security uses will be secondary. Bausch and Lomb would love to land a DoD contract
Fourth: cultural status symbols in the long term are consistently *useless* things -- long nails, bound feet, whatever -- because the true 'status' consists of being 'important enough' that you don't need to use physical capabilities, and instead employ the capabilities of others.
'Enhanced capability' status symbols, like SUVs and HUM-Vs are generally faddish, high visibility, but almost invariably never utilized aas capabilities
Unfortunately, MS did not entirely succeed in their goals.
1) if Appeals court declined to hear the appeal, they would have been fscked (an unlikely event) Tiny victory for MS
2) If Judge Jackson decides to pass the case directly to the Supreme Court, and they agree to hear (the current constitutionally relevant portions), then the Appeals Court will be bound by those findings. Could go either way.
3) If Judge Jackson decides to pass the case directly to the Supreme Court, and they agree to hear (as above), further issues raised on appeal may be heard by the Supreme Court, but such new arguments may be unlikely, due to the nature of the appeals process. Could go either way - a possible chance for MS to reformulate (if done carefully) vs. tying their hands with what they say in the Supreme Court appeal.
4) the Supreme Court may decide to wait until the Appeals Court has ruled for reasons of simplicity. This allows MS to stall.
My assessment: a tiny victory for MS -- not nearly as big as the press made it seem. The alternative would have been for the Appeals Court to refuse to hear the appeal, since not all elements of the MS Appeals Court appeal would be Supreme Court fodder, anyway.
I disagree. There are several significant elements of the Adobe case that differ from the Ford v. Blue Oval case.
First, Ford's suit involved revelations about a product that was already sold, and had already been widely reviewed elsewhere. The Article quoted, for example, observations by Car and Driver. The documents were used to confirm and elaborate on existing, legal comments. The Apple Insider article was entirely information that could not have been obtained from any legal source.
Second, there were very germaine issues of public interests in this case, including safety issues, reliability issues, and misrepresentation of the product being sold (e.g. Ford dynamometer tests showed the engine did not develop the horsepower advertised). There is no compelling public interest in the Apple Insider case.
Thirdly, the Ford suit was directed at preventing publication, not monetary damages, etc. they may well have won a suit on different grounds (and could still bring such a suit). However, there were 'common sense' issues involved in trying to recover damages for revealing your own corporate malfeasance. Adobe would have no problem suing for damages (however difficult to assess) rather than merely 'cease and desist'.
Fourthly, despite their self-proclaimed 'victory', Blue Oval lost most of the issues in the case, which was only a preliminary injuction. The finding was titled Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Plaintiff' Motion for Preliminary Iinjunction. There were three major points, and two sub points. They won on the first count, a 'prior restraint' clause, and partly because it was a preliminary injunction and (one suspects) partly because Ford committed some egregious offenses, such as e-mailing the ISP before the petition for the TRO (Technical Restraining Order) was heard, and claiming that the site was in violation of a court order, thereby unlawfully shutting down the site for several days.
Bottom Line: Blue oval can't use the documents, and copyright/trademark infringement suits may still be broughtwithout prejudice The defendant was even ordered to preserve evidence for such a future suit (See Court findings below.) It hasn't been that long (in court terms) since this verdict, and i haven't checked - a case may have been filed already.
Make no mistake, I think Ford was wrong, wrong, wrong, to hide this info. but this case may not be the best example to bring to the defense of Apple Insider!
1) Ford's request for preliminary injunction of Lane's using, copying, or disclosing Ford's internal documents is DENIED, and Ford's request for a preliminary injunction against Lane's use of Ford's trademarks and logo is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as moot.
2) The other aspects of Ford's request for a preliminary injunction are GRANTED since Lane stipulated to the entry of a preliminary injunction as follows:
A. Lane is restrained from destroying, despoiling or electronically deleting or erasing documents in his possession originated by or for Ford Motor Company.
B. Lane is restrained from (1) committing any acts of infringement of Ford's copyrights, including unpublished works known by Lane to have been prepared by a Ford employee within the scope of his or her employment, or specially ordered or commissioned by Ford, if not an employee; and (2) interfering with Ford's contractual relationship with its employees by soliciting Ford employees to provide Ford trade secrets or other confidential information.
3) Lane is still obligated to comply with that part of the August 25, 1999 Temporary Restraining Order which required him to file with the Court, and serve upon Ford, within ten days, a sworn statement (1) identifying with particularity all documents within his possession, custody or control which were originated by or for Ford, (2) identifying the source (by name or description) of each document, and (3) providing details as to how Lane acquired each document.
I absolutely agree with your assessment of the law (the Beta Tester surely broke the license) but with one proviso:
As much as we may hate the Big Boys, I think it's *very* germaine to find out if AppleInsider knew or suspected that the license was being broken. If not, they are co-conspirators, just like you don't have to pull the trigger to be a part of a murder conspiracy. AppleInsider is hardly a naive innocent - this is their stock in trade.
Imagine someone slipped your sister a 'date-rape' drug and took various photos without her consent. If they submit those pictures to a porn site, would you argue:
a) The website didn't know. They are innocent, and can continue to host these photos.
b) The website didn't know. They are innocent, but should take the photos down.
c) Holy Haddock! Maybe they didn't they didn't know, but any reasonable person would have asked! I mean there's a naked, unconscious (possibly underage) girl in those pictures. Not asking if it was 'posed' with proper concent obtained is tantamount to "Wanton Disregard" for the law and the rights of others or "Willful Neglect" at the very least. At worst, it's a tissue-thin pretense.
d) Da Bi-yatch Axt 4 it. And biznesus suk. Fsck 'em all.
e) Regrettably, there exists no contract between the site and your sister, and the material is 'out in the public now', so the cat's out of the bag. You can prosecute the scumbag with the drug -- if you can find him, but the porn site's actions were perfectly okay, and since there are 1st Amendment (free speech and freedom of the press) issues here, the porn site doesn't even have to help locate the scumbag: he's a "protected source"
Recall, the issue here is the *pictures*, not anything else the scumbag might have done.
I'm baking this kellogs pastry thingee in a toaster oven. Now I'm a veteren of many a pop-tar, but this is a variation on the theme that I'm unfamiliar with... the little bell goes off and I excitedly whip the glas door open. I rish inside to grab the tasty treat, only to overshoot, and plunge my fingers into the surface.
Now poptart frosting is made of some bizarre substance that nobody has ever quite reverse engineered. Scientists have heated it to thousands of degrees, yet it never leaves its solid form... I assumed that this pastry would behave similiar, but I erred with painful results. This frosting melted. I stuck my finger into it. It was hot. Real hot.
I yelp and begin sucking my fingers and making hurt noises as loud as can be expected considering my mouth is full of crisped fingers. The frosting tastes good, but my hands hurt. CowboyNeal laughs at me and I stick my fingers under the tap and run cool water over the pain.
Now I have burn blisters on 2 fingers. Damn pastry.
Bad Taco! On behalf of the RIAA I hereby suspend your music privilages.
Damn, I got a nasty papercut on my index finger. Now I won't be able to listen to my music for a week.
...burns, jammed fingers, scraped knuckles, fingers caught in doors, arthritis flareups, changed keyboards, same keyboard but dirty, having a few beers -- even hand lotion can make me type a little different.
There's no shortage of reasons why this won't fly.
I expect that they'd use this when passing within three miles of a US (or friendly) military ship. The friendly ship could then do the equivalent of a mail call with even pausing
I'd also expect lots of 'fake' mail calls to keep eavesdroppers from deducing actual locations. They should use a towed responder buoy, so that single source 'fake mail call' couldn't be distinguished from dual source (miles apart) 'real' mail calls.
Then again, factoring in Doppler analysis, I bet this is just demonstrator technology, and won't be used for submarine e-mail at all. Spread spectrum sonic C3I (Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence) links could have other uses like control of remote units.
Spread spectrum is definitely the way to go, if you want to hide even a short burst transmission. It should make it easier to bury your signals in the gurgle of the deep
You should be aware that under the private cogeneration provisions of PURPA (the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978) private individuals can resell their privately produced electricity back to the Public Utilities at either a) the 'new generation' cost to the utility; or b) a higher price set by the state regulatory commission to encourage private co-generation.
I actually did this back in '82 (when I was building a new house, and Carter-era tax credits made it more feasible). The power company had to install (at their eexpense) a different kind of power meter to record the power going both ways (though I haven't checked my bill in years to make sure I've been getting my earned credit... dang!)
Details vary by state, but I know NY pays 6 cents/kwh which will hardly make you rich, but helps the system pay for itself . It's pretty much set-and-forget, with an annual mop-down of the teflon-coated solar collectors (which shed snow in the winter, too)
But the real money-saver is solar hot water. It supplements my central heating, and assures that I don't run out of hot water in the morning!
The only complaint I have is that since my house is angled to catch the maximum sun on the back roof, my front yard doesn't get much direct light. The snow in my yard or driveway may not completely melt until 1-2 weeks after the rest of the houses on my street. (which suggest how much otherwise wasted power was harnessed)
I agree that sensors could be an important safety measure, but I'd strongly suggest then gas companies add a better tracer (or directly test for a component of the gas itself) The current tracers (like butyl mercaptan) were chosen because the human nose can pick them up ay extraordinary dilutions, probably near the limit of sensor resolution. (so an e-nose trying to be as sensitive than a human nose will have many false positive. Depending on who you listen to, a single drop (or ml or oz.) of butyl mercaptan would fill the AstroDome football stadium with detectable odor.
BTW I know its none of my business (and I have no idea of your step-sister's situation), but anosmia -- the loss of the sense of smell -- is absolutely no impediment to independent living. It would be a shame for someone to have their entire life molded by such a foolish misconception (Any MD will confirm that anosmics can live alone -- It's actually not an uncommon condition.)
The Olfactory nerve is actually not a nerve at all but a direct extension of the brain (a tract). The nucleus/soma (main body) of the cells in this nerve are actually in the brain itself, and the 'nerve' is just made of extensions called axons. The olfactory nerve is entirely wrapped in the same meninges as the rest of the brain
The olfactory tract extends to cover a thin, spongy, perforated region of bone (the cribiform plate) where it synapses (links to) cells that send ultra thin tendrils, often single axons through the bone to the "roof of the upper nose" (the area above the superior turbinate or concha)
A blow to the head can partially or totally detach the nerve as it passes to or through the cribiform plate. Many other things can cause temporary or permanent loss of smell, where 'temporary' may mean 'years' (BTW -- loss of the sense of smell is the first, usually unnoticed, sign of Alzheimers)
Sounds like Step-mom doesn't think step-sis is ready to live on her own (and she may be right, but using an excuse like this is inappropriate.
I'm glad you said this. It makes me feel better about the list. Still I wonder what Emmett was smoking when he wrote (on the main page):
"If you use a computer, some of these algorithms are no doubt crunching your data as you read this.
Really?? I do my share of fancy math, though I'm not in the Big Leagues, and I'd be surprised if and of these algorithms are crunching *my* numbers (except maybe in some NSA basement supercomputer, where they are just now learning that my SSN + selected other ID numbers translates into the punch line of a dirty in EBCDIC)
I really don't care for their choices at all. A lot of them are more like general approaches than algorthms, and I'm not at all sure they are the most influential. I think they are supposed to be "the cleverest of the common fancy methods"
Simple algorithms for common problems are much more widely used, and have far more impact and influence, but try telling *them* that!
I hope these links help. (Warning: many are technical) If anyone has personal favorites that are less dry than many of these, please post!.
10. 1987: Fast Multipole Method. A breakthrough in dealing with the complexity of n-body calculations, applied in problems ranging from celestial mechanics to protein folding. [Overview] [A math/visual approach]
9. 1977: Integer Relation Detection. A fast method for spotting simple equations satisfied by collections of seemingly unrelated numbers. [Nice article with links]
8. 1965: Fast Fourier Transform. Perhaps the most ubiquitous algorithm in use today, it breaks down waveforms (like sound) into periodic components. Everyone knows this one (or should) [Part II of my personal favorite FFT and wavelet tutorial]
6. 1959: QR Algorithm for Computing Eigenvalues. Another crucial matrix operation made swift and practical. [Math] [Algorithm
5. 1957: The Fortran Optimizing Compiler. Turns high-level code into efficient computer-readable code. (pretty much self-explanatory) [History and lots of info]
4. 1951: The Decompositional Approach to Matrix Computations. A suite of techniques for numerical linear algebra. [matrix decomposition theorem] [Strategies]
3. 1950: Krylov Subspace Iteration Method. A technique for rapidly solving the linear equations that abound in scientific computation. [History] [various Krylov subspace iterative methods]
1. 1946: The Metropolis Algorithm for Monte Carlo. Through the use of random processes, this algorithm offers an efficient way to stumble toward answers to problems that are too complicated to solve exactly. [English] [Code and Math] [Math explained]
I think MS-OS *will* fight to keep the APIs from being open. It is in MS-OS's best interests to have good use made of its OS, but it is not in its best interest to give that info away.
MS-OS will want to selling that info (conferring a competitive advantage on the buyer) via partnering agreements. Moreover, MS-OS won't want its current OS to be *too* useful -- or it'll have less basis to sell its next OS (remember, MS-OS will now live or die on selling licenses and upgrades. It has lost its other major revenue streams)
MS needs to turn all those copies of Win95 out there into copies of WinMe and later versions. The partnerships will undoubtedly include a promise from the App developers to create new OS versions and make them their new primary product lines ASAP after a new OS release. (This is the dark side of "release early, release often") It will also give them some leverage to forestall the Next Great Feature Set (for an app) until The Next Great OS version is ready
"no matter how you look at it msie and it's integration into windows is clearly a threat to netscape. however, it clearly poses more of a threat if it is not distributed with out windows. i guess the true question here is, why can't mircosoft simply put out a good clean tested browser."
I like NetscapeCo and I'm fairly irritated by MS, but I can't give Jim Clark this point. MS-IE is an app, not an OS or even a NOS (Network Operating System) as Clark implies when he says "The browser is to Internet services what the operating system is to (PC) applications."
That's not to say that there aren't risks from MSIE in MS-AP, but that those actual risks have no place in the DOJ action. The DOJ was concerned with unfair business practice, not competition by the MSIE software itself. Specifically, the OS integration you mention applies mostly to Windows OSs (which have enough problems as it is)
I'm more worried about "Embrace and extend", which will not end with the divestitute. It's difficult to fight any predominant software (and of course, Netscape itself was guilty of E+E in the days when it was the predominant browser), but MS has a history of bad security choices. Users want features and convenience; they usually pay lip service to security. We'd be foolish to pretend that most Linux installations are as tight as they should be -- and even OpenBSD installs often have unnecessary holes poked in them for convenience (even though OpenBSD users are more concerned with security from Day One)
MS script/macro/integration breaches threaten user data -- and data compromise alone is more dangerous than machine compromise ('theft of PU cycles and resources') alone
MA-AP may have a tough time giving up these poor practices, since it's staffed by the same people as before. The default settings on MSIE are heavily weighed to the Application's convenience, rather than user security. When I last saw MSIE-5, even their "high security" setting was more permissive than I considered acceptable for 'Normal' security
I've long fought the installion of any version of Office beyond Office 95. (I suppose this has cost MS a lot of business, but I've never had a single complaint from a user about lost capability - only about MS's deliberate.doc file backward incompatibility. There are acceptable converters for OFF97 for anything less than a book or complex cross-app projects (and in my experience, Off97 is little better than OFF95 for writing books) Unfortunately, Office file formats are not covered by the DOJ decree. One can only hope that this is among the information shared between MS-OS and MS-AP. MS-OS would then have the right to release them -- and might, to encourage new Windows apps [See my most optimistic projection on why MS-OS and MS-AP may be at each pther's throats early on]
Alas, we'll never see Off95 for Linux (BSD, BeOS, etc.) Ideally, I'd hope MS-AP might see the market advantage in creating a safe OFF2003 by going back to the feature set of OFF95 and reviewing the revision tree since. Certainly the feature set of their previous major cross-platform port (Mac) always lagged behind the current version of the Win version. We could be uncharitable and assume this was a effort to hinder the Mac, but perhaps it also contained a realistic assessment of the time-to-market for porting a full "bells and whistles" version vs. a substantial workable subset.
My plan was actually a little simpler than yours. It was based on the assumption that the attacker can swamp a link with packets but not read the backbone or identify/monitor/subvert privileged users (an entirely different risk)
Phase I "Public services" (web, etc.) are sacrified. They aren't a gov't priority when under DDoS attack. The front door is shut (or left open but ignored)
Specifically authorized high-priority users with a pre-existing relationship to Sandia are equipped with special software for locating/connecting to "Secret Authenticating routers" (SARs - see below)
Sandia opens the 'back doors', its first messages are advertisements to SARs. SARs don't respond to normal network requests, but only provide SAR info (dynamically assigned alternate IPs and secondary SARs) after a client rigorously authenticates itself. These clients may be DNS routers of secure.gov or.mil nodes, or special clients given to, say, key researchers at.com and.edu sites.
When one of these client finds it cannot connect via standard routing, it clicks into 'defense mode' and consults one or more SARs to open or restore its connection to Sandia via VPN to otherwise 'innocent' and distant sites.
Phase II If the VPN IPs come under attack, they are shut down or changed, and removed from the SAR list. Clients must re-query for new VPN connect IPs The list of authenticated clients is scrutinized and correlated with attacks, to identify subverted machines at trusted nodes, or attackers using trusted machines.
The topology is a "private" physical network connecting to the Internet at 'disposable' secure gateways. I presume there are many more possible gateway ISPs/IP than needed, with only a few in use at a given time. This is practical for the Gov't since the same network can protect all sites secured by this method
The DDoS fails because the attackers no longer know where to attack. The connection they initially attack never "knows" and therefore cannot reveal, the alternate routing. Dedicated hardware decoders handle any re-addressing over the private network, so compromised internal Sandia machines may not help the attacker much: they can "phone home" and reveal individual disposable outside links, but not the overall network. In the process, they also reveal themselves as suspects for compromise.
Refinements are, of course, possible ad infinitum. I estimate that the DDoS defense will be robust in proportion to the total bandwidth of all available outside gateways, and will degrade gracefully and scale without saturation until the DDoS is sufficient to bring down most of the Internet itself.
Phase III The Internet is now useless. All external gateways are cut, and the system goes to 'emergency mode', communicating over the internal network. NOTE: the system NEVER uses the internal network as a network if it is still connected to the internet (this would permit network tracing).
At this point, external DDoS is impossible, but the possibility that the Internet only *appears* to be swamped because all connections to the outside are swamped by a massive internal compromise.
A core set of top-priority internal systems (e.g. Military C3I, etc.) and connections will form a network within the network to maintain gov't functions, and identify compromised systems or subnetworks, as above, but on a smaller scale
"Backslash" is a computer term, while "slashback" is a neologism associated with K-mart Blue Light Specials; used car dealers; and newscasters reporting the massive layoffs at Digital, Wang, and other tech companies in the 80's.
Clearly the latter is more suited to what slashdot intends to become!
Please explain to me then why it hasn't happened yet. The Mac has been around for 16 years. BSD has been around in various forms just as long (and 10 years longer in its antecedents). If it's so darned easy to do, then explain where the easy to use, user friendly, robust User Interface is for Linux/BSD/etc.
1)In case you haven't noticed, Unix users generally *like* the CLI. That's why they use a primarily CLI OS. Left to themselves they write code that preserves the character of their OS.
If they wanted to be Mac-Like, they'd use a Mac.
2) However, now there are external market forces and a new focus. Apple will have done the pioneering work establishing the parameters and paradigms, and proving they work well together.
Copying is much easier han innovating. Coding is easy; solid, consistent, original thinking is hard
I wasn't slamming Apple. I was just pointing out that they have always worked in a proprietary OS that was independently derived, and primarily faced competition from another similarly independent proprietary OS. The dynamics of development and competition in an Open Source Family OS are very different.
The important thing about "science fiction" is not the "science" but the fiction, aside form the literary merit (which is an imporant factor), the "foresight factor' depends on seeing consequences.
"People stories" will always be interesting. It's a character's attitudes and quandaries, not his gadgetry, that engage us and make us think.
75-100 years ago, there was a flood of bad "SF" stories based on westerns and knights replacing 'horses' with cars ("as the hero carried the girl up the stairs to collect his due reward, his trusty auto wheeled itself over to a nearby trough, and extended its hose for a drink")
However, the changes caused by the car were far more crucial: it allowed suburbs and commuting and daily traffic jams. It created a vastly different social dynamic: you may never interact with your neighbors, the local business are less important, urban flight (and accelerated decay) and new forms of de facto geographic segregation are practical. The disruption of large regions of the country within driving range of cities. There are a thousand changes, great and subtle, but they are difficult to explain, because we've forgotten what life could be like.
What would it have been worth to Bostonians, with their cowpath roads, if only someone had paid attention to these consequences, and begun to take insightful action a century ago, forestalling the half-century of constantly failing catch-up that occurred instead?
Every change has social consequences. I have been researching how written musical notation and the printing press changed the very form of the art we call music. It was far more dramatic than MP3's!
There are no shortage of stunning insights available just by trivially comparing the 'last' revolution in any field with the next one (web, genome, nanotech, you name it)
For example, long ago, I read a fascinating tale of urban life before the telephone. In 1888 NYC, the mail was delivered six times a day, due to an elaborate social system of notes, calling cards, ettiquette, etc. required to make ordinary social and businesses work in a city of that size. Without the telephone, people 'visited' more often, but instead of getting a busy signal, the person you visitedt might not be home (they had to go out more often, simply to conduct daily life) Also a social visit has a different dynamic than a social phone call -- and 'dropping in' when someone was already visiting was much more awkward than simply clicking over to Call Waiting.
I'm describing it poorly. I hope you get the idea.
The article did point out some issues that we should keep in mind, however, it entirely glossed over a few points, primarily by projecting an imagined future MacOS (assumed to be seamless on 'PC' hardware in v1.0, a goal no existing PC OS (Win or Unix) has ever attained) against a static Linux (MS-Word never ported, GUI never improved etc.)
Based solely on the article's basic premise, I see things slightly differently (My personal premises differ from the article's, but...)
TODAY:
MS predominates in most sectors except large internet servers, sizable presence there. huge user base and slowly declining or roughly stable share depending on the sector. Users generally have little or no knowledge of other OSs and are not eager to switch
MacOS has a small but viable minority share on desktops (incl. small servers), but little usage elsewhere slowly declining or roughly stable share depending on the specific market sector. Users generally have modest to moderate knowledge of other OSs and are not eager to switch.
Linux/BSD very small share in most sectors (>1% primary OS), small-medium share in some sectors; expanding very rapidly across all market shares. Users generally have years of experience using one or more other OS as a primary OS at a higher than average skill level. Users not eager to switch, but likely to use many OSs as needed without changing their "allegiance".
Next few years:
1) MS splits. It does not disappear. Absent a totally egregious business policy, Windows will continue to predominate, but due to its huge market share, the 'leakage' causes a rebirth across all the minor OSs
2) MacOS predominates in certain populations of defecting users: non-ideologically driven; non-tech; early familiarity with Mac; scared by the geek rep of Unix; etc. MacOS blooms.
3) Linux/BSD continues explosive market growth, aided by porting of MS-Office, *and* its explosive feature and function growth. Linux changes more in a year than MacOs does in 3. From a User POV, the jump from original Mac to MacOs X (20 years) is comparable or *less* than Linux in '93-'00.
4) Not only does Linux continue its proven growth pattern, but MacOS and Windows continue theirs. FUD is smeared liberally by both Win *and* Mac as MacOS finds that being BSD-like works both ways: they borrowed a large body of work, but cannot do anything BSD cannot rapidly learn to do, due to the similarity in underlying platform.
5) Some Geeks get over themselves and create UIs that deliberately and slavishly mimick the Win and Mac UI, perhaps creating a hybrid that is not too similar to either (for legal reasons), but can be configured with a template to resemble either. They are shunned and mocked by all. They blow the doors off everyone else in the Linux market (The CLI is still available under the removable and configurable GUI) Mac and Windows are scared -- major lawsuits, but Open Source provides few targets. IP laws are critical.
Finally, my personal invention: a speculative concept that could save the world - LISTEN UP!
6) Fortunately, the "many eyes make all bugs shallow" principle is used to find prior art and legal arguments. A vaguely CVS-like 'legal argument tracking' system emerges, to permit community assistance to OpenSource legal teams. This is later expanded to create structured data and argument views of public issues in general.
Bad data can be pruned, mutually contradictory arguments indicated, etc. (maintanance and 'approval is a problem, but multi-editors can work on the same tree with their notations and emendations visible together or individually [e.g. 'Stallman view', 'Perens view', View Diff (Gore/Bush; Katz/Roblimo) etc.]
This tool is widely disparaged, except by geeks (but is used by the politically active is private) However, for all the mocking, it becomes very hard to debate these geeks. Whiny choolyard cries of "Hey, no fair using your PDA!" are heard on televised debates.
Slashdot posts transcripts computer-computer debates using different trees or tree views. For the first time, the majority of contributions on Slashdot are "insightful" because trolling a script that can logically thrash you to your skivvies in microseconds is simply no fun
Given the sensitive nature of much of their work, Sandia National Labs probably has resources that are not available to your ordinary ISP, like 'sleeping' multiply redundant bandwidth and use of the *many* Federal access points to the web, both "owned" and leased, including normal ISPs.
When a DDoS strikes, you 'wake' a normally dormanr redundant line to another backbone (possibly via direct link to a high volume ISP to hide your signature), then you identify your "known" valid users and VPN to them via the peer. You can VPN via a distant ISP/node, so the attacker won't know you're communicating with 'legitimate users' via a hidden link to the ATT backbone in Ogden Utah and emerging on the Net over the redundant bandwidth of.mil bases and co-locos all over the country.
The invaders can pound on the gates all they want. You're not using the front door anymore. You can also have secret VPN router/authenticators around the country that 'legitimate users' can connect to when the front door is slammed shut. The details could be built into key software, transparent to the legitimate users.
It's like a reverse DDoS. In a DDoS, the attacker overwhelms you with attacks from every direction, faster than you can respond. In the 'Reverse DDos' Defense, the legitimate communications links are leaking out from all over, faster than you can find them and swamp them. In DDoS attacks, the defender is trapped by converging bandwidth from 'distributed attackers'. In the Reverse DDoS defense, the 'hidden peering' lets the defender 'distribute its communication bandwidth' to emerge as barely above background blips in widely divergent locations
Well, that's how *I'd* do it, if I were the Feds. Hence the unimaginative codename "Legion" (Am I too close for comfort? My services are available for a fee, Feds.);=>
I-129 is formed in exploding supernovas (as are all elements heavier than iron) because the iron nucleus is exceptionally stable, and producing heavier elements consumes energy, rather than releasing it. *Trace amounts* may be produced in a 'living star' but not concentrations we could detect, even as Xe-129, billions of years later. The accretion disk of a black hole might have this capacity, too, but it does not affect my argument.
That means that the Iodine 129 was produced in a previous star -- and hence possibly a previous solar system (and almost certainly previous material bodies such as dust clouds and asteroids) I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn that previous solar systems may have contained water.
The age of the metorite is unknown. Even if one accepts the theory advanced in the CNN article (it is plausible, but not much more than that) the meteor is almost certainly much older than 4.6 billion. This meteor probably did not accrete in our solar system. To accrete in our solar system there would have had to have been a supernova in our vicinity within few hundred million years before our solar system accreted
If the nova had been any older, its I-139 would already have decayed before the meteor formed and would not be present in detectable quantities. Such a recent, near nova is inconsistent with the astronomic data (no gas cloud remnants, or visible effect on nearby stars) and is inconsistent with any current model of star formation and planetary accretion -- the supernova would have played hell on the proto-sun and proto-planetary gas disk, and it takes more than a few hundred million years
The English theory is just a goofy hypothesis that would knock many far more established theories out of whack, and offers no basis whatsoever to revise those theories. It is embarrassing.
The meteor is most likely *far older* -- more like 7-10 billion years than 4.6 billion
Iodine has a relatively short half-life of 15.6 Myr, and is generally considered useless for measurement on this time scale (i.e. almost 300x the half-life) After 300 half-lives, you'd expect 1 part in 2x10^90! That's one single atom left from 1.77 x 10^65 kg of I-129 - more than the mass of the universe, much less the mass of the I-29 in the universe (and, I'm willing to wager, more than the mass of the meteorite!)
The WashU Laboratory of Space Sciences has a page on isotope age determination in meteors, geologic formations and other ancient inorganic structures. Here's what they say on this very point:
Iodine-129 is now extinct in nature. Its short half-life, 15.6 million years, means that Iodine-129 has long since decayed away in a solar system that is 4.6 billion years old.
Furthermore, any radioisotope age determination is based on two things: a) a knowledge of the relative prevalence of the isotope; and b) the half-life. [If the original prevalence is not known, you can sometimes make estimates from decay products of multiple unrelated isotopes]
According to the 'standard' half-life, I-129 is not a useful isotope, but to make things worse, this sample was irradiated by the high-energy space environment for a very long time (I'm assuming millions or billions of years). Irradiation can cause accelerated decay, changing the effective half-life.
Bottom line: unknown original prevalence (somewhere in space, at some unknown time), unknown effective half-life, due to unknown but significant irradiation history, and an unsuitable isotope. Ugh. This is Scientology!
You'd get a better estimate by flipping coins for binary bits. Wait! Maybe they did! How else did they get that number at all?
----------------- Brought to you by the guy who outed Katz as a Scientologist!
I am very interested in your comment about 4K resolution being the appropriate resolution for 35mm film. However, I'd like to point out that the standard for digital radiography "x-rays" for telemedicine was 2K (a few years ago, when I was heavily involved with medical informatics). This number was determined after studies showed it was essentially as good as film for diagnostic purposes. Indeed hospitals are moving away from film altogether, due to cost, record-keeping, and other constraints.
Of course, film is a visial art that may benefit esthetically from 4K, while reading an x-ray is an art that is accustomed to working around a somwhat fuzzy image, but very little film (except the Zapruder film or a UFO/bigfoot sighting) gets the kind of up-close per-frame scrutiny that an x-ray gets. And an X-ray print is hundreds of times the size of a 35mm frame (digital X-rays are usually displayed on at least high-res 21" monitors)
Thank you, Bruce! I thought I was losing my memory.
I was immediately annoyed by the terms of the initiative: 'a donation in your name or a grant for future work for Helios, at your choice' -- if they make a donation in your name, it implies you're being rewarded for work already done (and should be allowed to pick your own charity, dammit) but if you need the cash for yourself, 'you owe them' some future work. Contradictory!
At first, I wrote it off as a lame PR stunt ("We were going to make a modest donation to an open source charity for publicity purposes, but if we can rope in a developer commitment instead, that's good too"), and I couldn't find any indication of the Foundation they mentioned on the Helios web site, but figured it was in the 'members only' developer section. Annoyingly: "For all the info you need to develop applications for the VTech-OS, click here." leads to nothing but a registration form and click-on license with terms that guarantee your work will not be GPL! (the complete license is listed at the end of this post)
Further research located a Linux/Open Source Foundation sponsoring 'groundbreaking' student competitions in Europe with 1Venture, 4linuxjobs (.co.uk,.nu,.se, etc.), but though the contest links all seemed to be 'down' or inaccessible from the US). I did find this little snippet in the archives of the Anglian Linux User Group:
"The Linux/Open Source Foundation (LOSF) is a trust with the sole purpose of supporting the development of Linux/Open Source by arranging contests and sponsoring events."
So basically the Helios contest will "donate" cash to a company that sponsors contests. Is that enough to call it a scam? Not really. However, i remembered the Helio's click-on license (which you needed to accept for any developer info) and its disturbing conditions, and I wondered if their 'contests' might not be a scam to lock up innovative but undeveloped ideas from hungry students and budding developers.
"The submissions must be used through a browser or something similar - again freely available via the Internet."
What? No e-mail submissions? How very odd. But then they'd have to supply an e-mail address, and there might be an audit trail. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but if you review the materials linked, you'll find that I left out a lot of stuff that raised questions in my mind.
I'll close with the license text I promised: ---------------------------------------------- THE HELIOS CLICK-ON LICENSE FOR DEVELOPER INFO ----------------------------------------------
Public User License Agreement
PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT IN ITS ENTIRETY. The Helio Software Development Kit contains the copyrighted and proprietary property of VTech Informations Ltd. This License Agreement is a legal contract between you and VTech Informations Ltd. that grants you certain limited rights to modify, reproduce, and use the information and software contained within the Helio Software Development Kit, in exchange for your expressly agreeing to the terms, conditions, restrictions, and waivers of warranty detailed below.
Unless you have a written license agreement signed by VTech Informations Ltd. that expressly supersedes this Agreement, your downloading of the Helio Software Development Kit indicates your acceptance of the terms of this License Agreement.
1. The Licensed Development Kit This License Agreement applies to all technical information and software that is included in or distributed with the Helio Software Development Kit ("the Licensed Development Kit.") The Licensed Development Kit may include source code and/or object code forms of the VT-OS operating system, the Application Programmer Interface, drivers, sample applications, and additional code and information.
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Slashdot Mirror
I can't believe this post disappeared from this thread (but I can't find it since I reloaded - bug? Troller grudge? lost packet?), so I'm responding here:
The original post said:
Jeez, that's what I really want. A product called - "You Pee 'N' Pee"
Don't knock it. An earlier version of this technology ("B.E.E.R.") has enjoyed thousands of years of popularity among geeks/early adopters, and the general/neophyte market segments. It's often one of the first protocols a student learns in college.
It has already found widespread integration with home entertainment centers (TV viewing, VCR movies, and music) and was a vital enhancement to live sports presentations even before the advent of widespread televised sports.
BEER is already widespread in the contemporary American kitchen, though underutilized in that setting. (It can take much of the tedium out of elaborate preparation, for examples) Still, would Thankgsgiving be Thanksgiving without Beer? Not in most households!
Beer is widely used for communications, so much so that some people rarely communicate without using it. It may be the most widely used peering method in modern life. I-buy-U (a beer) is one popular application and Eff-U/Eff-Me often relies on it as well.
While efforts to integrate it into automotive settings have been -er- 'disappointing', the active developer base who try every day to make this work considerable exceeds the total Linux user base. Changes to the automotive infrastructure have long been planned to make this a more secure activity.
There are, however, concerns. Integrating child protection features on the USE, PROVIDER, and SERVICE models has raised serious concerns. Tighter access controls have traditionally failed, and if you think NetNanny and CyberParent are worrisome, check out a nanny or parent on Beer.
There are many legal rights that cannot be waived. In fact, though I dislike UCITA, there are several passages in it affirming 'unconscionable terms' -- meaning that a sensible judge (if he isn't already hamstrung by a pile of bad UCITA precedents) can simply throw out an unreasonable licence condition, like a waiver of liability in the face of clear bad faith, misrepresentation, or known flaws that are not remedied or disclosed.
[I'm not saying I trust this to happen]
Also, any contract for an illegal act is void. In the example you gave: You can consent to being hit with a hammer. However, you cannot waive your right to sue if someone hits you with a hammer without your consent: hitting you *with* your consent is no crime, but hitting you without your consent is illegal. [Similarly, if your boss threatened to hit you with a hammer under this presumed waiver it would be assault, whether or not s/he believed s/he had the right - which would only be a mitigating factor.]
There are lots of 'crazy rulings' (as presented in the media) that rely on this fundamental principle -- but probably an equal number of media-described 'crazy rulings' where it was not applied, and should have been.
The Bottom Line is: a major function of a waiver is to dissuade you from trying to sue, or convince you to drop your suit. It doesn't actually have to be valid to accomplish this, so many waiver terms (and some contract terms) are not enforceable, and the company legal eagles know it.
Nope... i think people of wealth and power won't have any use for them. Though they may equip others with them.
First: there's not much advantage. The images will still be projected on the retina, which is composed of discrete sensor cells (rod and cones) of a fixed size, which is reasonably well matched to our current vision. I doubt they could consistently squeeze better than 10% sharper vision out of a pair of normal eyeballs. 'Eagle eye vision' is as much a trained processing capacity in the brain as it is a clear image on the retina.
Admittedly, one could integrate magnification into the system, but then we hit...
Second: these aren't contacts we're talking about. They'll be goggles - neither attractive nor useful for daily life. Frankly, IR vision would be more useful, and the (relatively) few peopl who own those look pathetic when they flaunt them.
(there are people with natural vision 'better than 20/20', and it's generally less useful than being double jointed)
Third: first application? Military. Count on it. Even the limited security uses will be secondary. Bausch and Lomb would love to land a DoD contract
Fourth: cultural status symbols in the long term are consistently *useless* things -- long nails, bound feet, whatever -- because the true 'status' consists of being 'important enough' that you don't need to use physical capabilities, and instead employ the capabilities of others.
'Enhanced capability' status symbols, like SUVs and HUM-Vs are generally faddish, high visibility, but almost invariably never utilized aas capabilities
Unfortunately, MS did not entirely succeed in their goals.
1) if Appeals court declined to hear the appeal, they would have been fscked (an unlikely event)
Tiny victory for MS
2) If Judge Jackson decides to pass the case directly to the Supreme Court, and they agree to hear (the current constitutionally relevant portions), then the Appeals Court will be bound by those findings. Could go either way.
3) If Judge Jackson decides to pass the case directly to the Supreme Court, and they agree to hear (as above), further issues raised on appeal may be heard by the Supreme Court, but such new arguments may be unlikely, due to the nature of the appeals process. Could go either way - a possible chance for MS to reformulate (if done carefully) vs. tying their hands with what they say in the Supreme Court appeal.
4) the Supreme Court may decide to wait until the Appeals Court has ruled for reasons of simplicity. This allows MS to stall.
My assessment: a tiny victory for MS -- not nearly as big as the press made it seem. The alternative would have been for the Appeals Court to refuse to hear the appeal, since not all elements of the MS Appeals Court appeal would be Supreme Court fodder, anyway.
I disagree. There are several significant elements of the Adobe case that differ from the Ford v. Blue Oval case.
First, Ford's suit involved revelations about a product that was already sold, and had already been widely reviewed elsewhere. The Article quoted, for example, observations by Car and Driver. The documents were used to confirm and elaborate on existing, legal comments. The Apple Insider article was entirely information that could not have been obtained from any legal source.
Second, there were very germaine issues of public interests in this case, including safety issues, reliability issues, and misrepresentation of the product being sold (e.g. Ford dynamometer tests showed the engine did not develop the horsepower advertised). There is no compelling public interest in the Apple Insider case.
Thirdly, the Ford suit was directed at preventing publication, not monetary damages, etc. they may well have won a suit on different grounds (and could still bring such a suit). However, there were 'common sense' issues involved in trying to recover damages for revealing your own corporate malfeasance. Adobe would have no problem suing for damages (however difficult to assess) rather than merely 'cease and desist'.
Fourthly, despite their self-proclaimed 'victory', Blue Oval lost most of the issues in the case, which was only a preliminary injuction. The finding was titled Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Plaintiff' Motion for Preliminary Iinjunction. There were three major points, and two sub points. They won on the first count, a 'prior restraint' clause, and partly because it was a preliminary injunction and (one suspects) partly because Ford committed some egregious offenses, such as e-mailing the ISP before the petition for the TRO (Technical Restraining Order) was heard, and claiming that the site was in violation of a court order, thereby unlawfully shutting down the site for several days.
Bottom Line: Blue oval can't use the documents, and copyright/trademark infringement suits may still be brought without prejudice The defendant was even ordered to preserve evidence for such a future suit (See Court findings below.) It hasn't been that long (in court terms) since this verdict, and i haven't checked - a case may have been filed already.
Make no mistake, I think Ford was wrong, wrong, wrong, to hide this info. but this case may not be the best example to bring to the defense of Apple Insider!
1) Ford's request for preliminary injunction of Lane's using, copying, or disclosing Ford's internal documents is DENIED, and Ford's request for a preliminary injunction against Lane's use of Ford's trademarks and logo is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as moot.
2) The other aspects of Ford's request for a preliminary injunction are GRANTED since Lane stipulated to the entry of a preliminary injunction as follows:
A. Lane is restrained from destroying, despoiling or electronically deleting or erasing documents in his possession originated by or for Ford Motor Company.
B. Lane is restrained from (1) committing any acts of infringement of Ford's copyrights, including unpublished works known by Lane to have been prepared by a Ford employee within the scope of his or her employment, or specially ordered or commissioned by Ford, if not an employee; and (2) interfering with Ford's contractual relationship with its employees by soliciting Ford employees to provide Ford trade secrets or other confidential information.
3) Lane is still obligated to comply with that part of the August 25, 1999 Temporary Restraining Order which required him to file with the Court, and serve upon Ford, within ten days, a sworn statement (1) identifying with particularity all documents within his possession, custody or control which were originated by or for Ford, (2) identifying the source (by name or description) of each document, and (3) providing details as to how Lane acquired each document.
I absolutely agree with your assessment of the law (the Beta Tester surely broke the license) but with one proviso:
As much as we may hate the Big Boys, I think it's *very* germaine to find out if AppleInsider knew or suspected that the license was being broken. If not, they are co-conspirators, just like you don't have to pull the trigger to be a part of a murder conspiracy. AppleInsider is hardly a naive innocent - this is their stock in trade.
Imagine someone slipped your sister a 'date-rape' drug and took various photos without her consent. If they submit those pictures to a porn site, would you argue:
a) The website didn't know. They are innocent, and can continue to host these photos.
b) The website didn't know. They are innocent, but should take the photos down.
c) Holy Haddock! Maybe they didn't they didn't know, but any reasonable person would have asked! I mean there's a naked, unconscious (possibly underage) girl in those pictures. Not asking if it was 'posed' with proper concent obtained is tantamount to "Wanton Disregard" for the law and the rights of others or "Willful Neglect" at the very least. At worst, it's a tissue-thin pretense.
d) Da Bi-yatch Axt 4 it. And biznesus suk. Fsck 'em all.
e) Regrettably, there exists no contract between the site and your sister, and the material is 'out in the public now', so the cat's out of the bag. You can prosecute the scumbag with the drug -- if you can find him, but the porn site's actions were perfectly okay, and since there are 1st Amendment (free speech and freedom of the press) issues here, the porn site doesn't even have to help locate the scumbag: he's a "protected source"
Recall, the issue here is the *pictures*, not anything else the scumbag might have done.
Speak'o'the devil. This is the second most recent article on CmdrTaco's page: TacoHell
I'm baking this kellogs pastry thingee in a toaster oven. Now I'm a veteren of many a pop-tar, but this is a variation on the theme that I'm unfamiliar with... the little bell goes off and I excitedly whip the glas door open. I rish inside to grab the tasty treat, only to overshoot, and plunge my fingers into the surface.
Now poptart frosting is made of some bizarre substance that nobody has ever quite reverse engineered. Scientists have heated it to thousands of degrees, yet it never leaves its solid form... I assumed that this pastry would behave similiar, but I erred with painful results. This frosting melted. I stuck my finger into it. It was hot. Real hot.
I yelp and begin sucking my fingers and making hurt noises as loud as can be expected considering my mouth is full of crisped fingers. The frosting tastes good, but my hands hurt. CowboyNeal laughs at me and I stick my fingers under the tap and run cool water over the pain.
Now I have burn blisters on 2 fingers. Damn pastry.
Bad Taco! On behalf of the RIAA I hereby suspend your music privilages.
Damn, I got a nasty papercut on my index finger. Now I won't be able to listen to my music for a week.
...burns, jammed fingers, scraped knuckles, fingers caught in doors, arthritis flareups, changed keyboards, same keyboard but dirty, having a few beers -- even hand lotion can make me type a little different.
There's no shortage of reasons why this won't fly.
I expect that they'd use this when passing within three miles of a US (or friendly) military ship. The friendly ship could then do the equivalent of a mail call with even pausing
I'd also expect lots of 'fake' mail calls to keep eavesdroppers from deducing actual locations. They should use a towed responder buoy, so that single source 'fake mail call' couldn't be distinguished from dual source (miles apart) 'real' mail calls.
Then again, factoring in Doppler analysis, I bet this is just demonstrator technology, and won't be used for submarine e-mail at all. Spread spectrum sonic C3I (Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence) links could have other uses like control of remote units.
Spread spectrum is definitely the way to go, if you want to hide even a short burst transmission. It should make it easier to bury your signals in the gurgle of the deep
You should be aware that under the private cogeneration provisions of PURPA (the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978) private individuals can resell their privately produced electricity back to the Public Utilities at either a) the 'new generation' cost to the utility; or b) a higher price set by the state regulatory commission to encourage private co-generation.
I actually did this back in '82 (when I was building a new house, and Carter-era tax credits made it more feasible). The power company had to install (at their eexpense) a different kind of power meter to record the power going both ways (though I haven't checked my bill in years to make sure I've been getting my earned credit... dang!)
Details vary by state, but I know NY pays 6 cents/kwh which will hardly make you rich, but helps the system pay for itself . It's pretty much set-and-forget, with an annual mop-down of the teflon-coated solar collectors (which shed snow in the winter, too)
But the real money-saver is solar hot water. It supplements my central heating, and assures that I don't run out of hot water in the morning!
The only complaint I have is that since my house is angled to catch the maximum sun on the back roof, my front yard doesn't get much direct light. The snow in my yard or driveway may not completely melt until 1-2 weeks after the rest of the houses on my street. (which suggest how much otherwise wasted power was harnessed)
I agree that sensors could be an important safety measure, but I'd strongly suggest then gas companies add a better tracer (or directly test for a component of the gas itself) The current tracers (like butyl mercaptan) were chosen because the human nose can pick them up ay extraordinary dilutions, probably near the limit of sensor resolution. (so an e-nose trying to be as sensitive than a human nose will have many false positive. Depending on who you listen to, a single drop (or ml or oz.) of butyl mercaptan would fill the AstroDome football stadium with detectable odor.
BTW I know its none of my business (and I have no idea of your step-sister's situation), but anosmia -- the loss of the sense of smell -- is absolutely no impediment to independent living. It would be a shame for someone to have their entire life molded by such a foolish misconception (Any MD will confirm that anosmics can live alone -- It's actually not an uncommon condition.)
The Olfactory nerve is actually not a nerve at all but a direct extension of the brain (a tract). The nucleus/soma (main body) of the cells in this nerve are actually in the brain itself, and the 'nerve' is just made of extensions called axons. The olfactory nerve is entirely wrapped in the same meninges as the rest of the brain
The olfactory tract extends to cover a thin, spongy, perforated region of bone (the cribiform plate) where it synapses (links to) cells that send ultra thin tendrils, often single axons through the bone to the "roof of the upper nose" (the area above the superior turbinate or concha)
A blow to the head can partially or totally detach the nerve as it passes to or through the cribiform plate. Many other things can cause temporary or permanent loss of smell, where 'temporary' may mean 'years' (BTW -- loss of the sense of smell is the first, usually unnoticed, sign of Alzheimers)
Sounds like Step-mom doesn't think step-sis is ready to live on her own (and she may be right, but using an excuse like this is inappropriate.
I'm glad you said this. It makes me feel better about the list. Still I wonder what Emmett was smoking when he wrote (on the main page):
"If you use a computer, some of these algorithms are no doubt crunching your data as you read this.
Really?? I do my share of fancy math, though I'm not in the Big Leagues, and I'd be surprised if and of these algorithms are crunching *my* numbers (except maybe in some NSA basement supercomputer, where they are just now learning that my SSN + selected other ID numbers translates into the punch line of a dirty in EBCDIC)
I really don't care for their choices at all. A lot of them are more like general approaches than algorthms, and I'm not at all sure they are the most influential. I think they are supposed to be "the cleverest of the common fancy methods"
Simple algorithms for common problems are much more widely used, and have far more impact and influence, but try telling *them* that!
I hope these links help. (Warning: many are technical) If anyone has personal favorites that are less dry than many of these, please post!.
10. 1987: Fast Multipole Method. A breakthrough in dealing with the complexity of n-body calculations, applied in problems ranging from celestial mechanics to protein folding. [Overview] [A math/visual approach]
9. 1977: Integer Relation Detection. A fast method for spotting simple equations satisfied by collections of seemingly unrelated numbers. [Nice article with links]
8. 1965: Fast Fourier Transform. Perhaps the most ubiquitous algorithm in use today, it breaks down waveforms (like sound) into periodic components. Everyone knows this one (or should) [Part II of my personal favorite FFT and wavelet tutorial]
7. 1962: Quicksort Algorithms for Sorting. For the efficient handling of large databases. [Definition][Basic Method][Mathworld][More technical explanation][A lecture with animations and simulations]
6. 1959: QR Algorithm for Computing Eigenvalues. Another crucial matrix operation made swift and practical. [Math] [Algorithm
5. 1957: The Fortran Optimizing Compiler. Turns high-level code into efficient computer-readable code. (pretty much self-explanatory) [History and lots of info]
4. 1951: The Decompositional Approach to Matrix Computations. A suite of techniques for numerical linear algebra. [matrix decomposition theorem] [Strategies]
3. 1950: Krylov Subspace Iteration Method. A technique for rapidly solving the linear equations that abound in scientific computation. [History] [various Krylov subspace iterative methods]
2. 1947: Simplex Method for Linear Programming. An elegant solution to a common problem in planning and decision-making. [English} [Explanation with Java simulator] [An interactive teaching tool
1. 1946: The Metropolis Algorithm for Monte Carlo. Through the use of random processes, this algorithm offers an efficient way to stumble toward answers to problems that are too complicated to solve exactly. [English] [Code and Math] [Math explained]
I think MS-OS *will* fight to keep the APIs from being open. It is in MS-OS's best interests to have good use made of its OS, but it is not in its best interest to give that info away.
MS-OS will want to selling that info (conferring a competitive advantage on the buyer) via partnering agreements. Moreover, MS-OS won't want its current OS to be *too* useful -- or it'll have less basis to sell its next OS (remember, MS-OS will now live or die on selling licenses and upgrades. It has lost its other major revenue streams)
MS needs to turn all those copies of Win95 out there into copies of WinMe and later versions. The partnerships will undoubtedly include a promise from the App developers to create new OS versions and make them their new primary product lines ASAP after a new OS release. (This is the dark side of "release early, release often") It will also give them some leverage to forestall the Next Great Feature Set (for an app) until The Next Great OS version is ready
"no matter how you look at it msie and it's integration into windows is clearly a threat to netscape. however, it clearly poses more of a threat if it is not distributed with out windows. i guess the true question here is, why can't mircosoft simply put out a good clean tested browser."
.doc file backward incompatibility. There are acceptable converters for OFF97 for anything less than a book or complex cross-app projects (and in my experience, Off97 is little better than OFF95 for writing books) Unfortunately, Office file formats are not covered by the DOJ decree. One can only hope that this is among the information shared between MS-OS and MS-AP. MS-OS would then have the right to release them -- and might, to encourage new Windows apps [See my most optimistic projection on why MS-OS and MS-AP may be at each pther's throats early on]
I like NetscapeCo and I'm fairly irritated by MS, but I can't give Jim Clark this point. MS-IE is an app, not an OS or even a NOS (Network Operating System) as Clark implies when he says "The browser is to Internet services what the operating system is to (PC) applications."
That's not to say that there aren't risks from MSIE in MS-AP, but that those actual risks have no place in the DOJ action. The DOJ was concerned with unfair business practice, not competition by the MSIE software itself. Specifically, the OS integration you mention applies mostly to Windows OSs (which have enough problems as it is)
I'm more worried about "Embrace and extend", which will not end with the divestitute. It's difficult to fight any predominant software (and of course, Netscape itself was guilty of E+E in the days when it was the predominant browser), but MS has a history of bad security choices. Users want features and convenience; they usually pay lip service to security. We'd be foolish to pretend that most Linux installations are as tight as they should be -- and even OpenBSD installs often have unnecessary holes poked in them for convenience (even though OpenBSD users are more concerned with security from Day One)
MS script/macro/integration breaches threaten user data -- and data compromise alone is more dangerous than machine compromise ('theft of PU cycles and resources') alone
MA-AP may have a tough time giving up these poor practices, since it's staffed by the same people as before. The default settings on MSIE are heavily weighed to the Application's convenience, rather than user security. When I last saw MSIE-5, even their "high security" setting was more permissive than I considered acceptable for 'Normal' security
I've long fought the installion of any version of Office beyond Office 95. (I suppose this has cost MS a lot of business, but I've never had a single complaint from a user about lost capability - only about MS's deliberate
Alas, we'll never see Off95 for Linux (BSD, BeOS, etc.) Ideally, I'd hope MS-AP might see the market advantage in creating a safe OFF2003 by going back to the feature set of OFF95 and reviewing the revision tree since. Certainly the feature set of their previous major cross-platform port (Mac) always lagged behind the current version of the Win version. We could be uncharitable and assume this was a effort to hinder the Mac, but perhaps it also contained a realistic assessment of the time-to-market for porting a full "bells and whistles" version vs. a substantial workable subset.
My plan was actually a little simpler than yours. It was based on the assumption that the attacker can swamp a link with packets but not read the backbone or identify/monitor/subvert privileged users (an entirely different risk)
.gov or .mil nodes, or special clients given to, say, key researchers at .com and .edu sites.
Phase I
"Public services" (web, etc.) are sacrified. They aren't a gov't priority when under DDoS attack. The front door is shut (or left open but ignored)
Specifically authorized high-priority users with a pre-existing relationship to Sandia are equipped with special software for locating/connecting to "Secret Authenticating routers" (SARs - see below)
Sandia opens the 'back doors', its first messages are advertisements to SARs. SARs don't respond to normal network requests, but only provide SAR info (dynamically assigned alternate IPs and secondary SARs) after a client rigorously authenticates itself. These clients may be DNS routers of secure
When one of these client finds it cannot connect via standard routing, it clicks into 'defense mode' and consults one or more SARs to open or restore its connection to Sandia via VPN to otherwise 'innocent' and distant sites.
Phase II
If the VPN IPs come under attack, they are shut down or changed, and removed from the SAR list. Clients must re-query for new VPN connect IPs The list of authenticated clients is scrutinized and correlated with attacks, to identify subverted machines at trusted nodes, or attackers using trusted machines.
The topology is a "private" physical network connecting to the Internet at 'disposable' secure gateways. I presume there are many more possible gateway ISPs/IP than needed, with only a few in use at a given time. This is practical for the Gov't since the same network can protect all sites secured by this method
The DDoS fails because the attackers no longer know where to attack. The connection they initially attack never "knows" and therefore cannot reveal, the alternate routing. Dedicated hardware decoders handle any re-addressing over the private network, so compromised internal Sandia machines may not help the attacker much: they can "phone home" and reveal individual disposable outside links, but not the overall network. In the process, they also reveal themselves as suspects for compromise.
Refinements are, of course, possible ad infinitum. I estimate that the DDoS defense will be robust in proportion to the total bandwidth of all available outside gateways, and will degrade gracefully and scale without saturation until the DDoS is sufficient to bring down most of the Internet itself.
Phase III
The Internet is now useless. All external gateways are cut, and the system goes to 'emergency mode', communicating over the internal network. NOTE: the system NEVER uses the internal network as a network if it is still connected to the internet (this would permit network tracing).
At this point, external DDoS is impossible, but the possibility that the Internet only *appears* to be swamped because all connections to the outside are swamped by a massive internal compromise.
A core set of top-priority internal systems (e.g. Military C3I, etc.) and connections will form a network within the network to maintain gov't functions, and identify compromised systems or subnetworks, as above, but on a smaller scale
Don't be silly!
"Backslash" is a computer term, while "slashback" is a neologism associated with K-mart Blue Light Specials; used car dealers; and newscasters reporting the massive layoffs at Digital, Wang, and other tech companies in the 80's.
Clearly the latter is more suited to what slashdot intends to become!
Please explain to me then why it hasn't happened yet. The Mac has been around for 16 years. BSD has been around in various forms just as long (and 10 years longer in its antecedents). If it's so darned easy to do, then explain where the easy to use, user friendly, robust User Interface is for Linux/BSD/etc.
1)In case you haven't noticed, Unix users generally *like* the CLI. That's why they use a primarily CLI OS. Left to themselves they write code that preserves the character of their OS.
If they wanted to be Mac-Like, they'd use a Mac.
2) However, now there are external market forces and a new focus. Apple will have done the pioneering work establishing the parameters and paradigms, and proving they work well together.
Copying is much easier han innovating. Coding is easy; solid, consistent, original thinking is hard
I wasn't slamming Apple. I was just pointing out that they have always worked in a proprietary OS that was independently derived, and primarily faced competition from another similarly independent proprietary OS. The dynamics of development and competition in an Open Source Family OS are very different.
The important thing about "science fiction" is not the "science" but the fiction, aside form the literary merit (which is an imporant factor), the "foresight factor' depends on seeing consequences.
"People stories" will always be interesting. It's a character's attitudes and quandaries, not his gadgetry, that engage us and make us think.
75-100 years ago, there was a flood of bad "SF" stories based on westerns and knights replacing 'horses' with cars ("as the hero carried the girl up the stairs to collect his due reward, his trusty auto wheeled itself over to a nearby trough, and extended its hose for a drink")
However, the changes caused by the car were far more crucial: it allowed suburbs and commuting and daily traffic jams. It created a vastly different social dynamic: you may never interact with your neighbors, the local business are less important, urban flight (and accelerated decay) and new forms of de facto geographic segregation are practical. The disruption of large regions of the country within driving range of cities. There are a thousand changes, great and subtle, but they are difficult to explain, because we've forgotten what life could be like.
What would it have been worth to Bostonians, with their cowpath roads, if only someone had paid attention to these consequences, and begun to take insightful action a century ago, forestalling the half-century of constantly failing catch-up that occurred instead?
Every change has social consequences. I have been researching how written musical notation and the printing press changed the very form of the art we call music. It was far more dramatic than MP3's!
There are no shortage of stunning insights available just by trivially comparing the 'last' revolution in any field with the next one (web, genome, nanotech, you name it)
For example, long ago, I read a fascinating tale of urban life before the telephone. In 1888 NYC, the mail was delivered six times a day, due to an elaborate social system of notes, calling cards, ettiquette, etc. required to make ordinary social and businesses work in a city of that size.
Without the telephone, people 'visited' more often, but instead of getting a busy signal, the person you visitedt might not be home (they had to go out more often, simply to conduct daily life) Also a social visit has a different dynamic than a social phone call -- and 'dropping in' when someone was already visiting was much more awkward than simply clicking over to Call Waiting.
I'm describing it poorly. I hope you get the idea.
Based solely on the article's basic premise, I see things slightly differently (My personal premises differ from the article's, but...)
TODAY:
Next few years:
1) MS splits. It does not disappear. Absent a totally egregious business policy, Windows will continue to predominate, but due to its huge market share, the 'leakage' causes a rebirth across all the minor OSs
2) MacOS predominates in certain populations of defecting users: non-ideologically driven; non-tech; early familiarity with Mac; scared by the geek rep of Unix; etc. MacOS blooms.
3) Linux/BSD continues explosive market growth, aided by porting of MS-Office, *and* its explosive feature and function growth. Linux changes more in a year than MacOs does in 3. From a User POV, the jump from original Mac to MacOs X (20 years) is comparable or *less* than Linux in '93-'00.
4) Not only does Linux continue its proven growth pattern, but MacOS and Windows continue theirs. FUD is smeared liberally by both Win *and* Mac as MacOS finds that being BSD-like works both ways: they borrowed a large body of work, but cannot do anything BSD cannot rapidly learn to do, due to the similarity in underlying platform.
5) Some Geeks get over themselves and create UIs that deliberately and slavishly mimick the Win and Mac UI, perhaps creating a hybrid that is not too similar to either (for legal reasons), but can be configured with a template to resemble either. They are shunned and mocked by all. They blow the doors off everyone else in the Linux market (The CLI is still available under the removable and configurable GUI) Mac and Windows are scared -- major lawsuits, but Open Source provides few targets. IP laws are critical.
Finally, my personal invention: a speculative concept that could save the world - LISTEN UP!
6) Fortunately, the "many eyes make all bugs shallow" principle is used to find prior art and legal arguments. A vaguely CVS-like 'legal argument tracking' system emerges, to permit community assistance to OpenSource legal teams. This is later expanded to create structured data and argument views of public issues in general.
Bad data can be pruned, mutually contradictory arguments indicated, etc. (maintanance and 'approval is a problem, but multi-editors can work on the same tree with their notations and emendations visible together or individually [e.g. 'Stallman view', 'Perens view', View Diff (Gore/Bush; Katz/Roblimo) etc.]
This tool is widely disparaged, except by geeks (but is used by the politically active is private) However, for all the mocking, it becomes very hard to debate these geeks. Whiny choolyard cries of "Hey, no fair using your PDA!" are heard on televised debates.
Slashdot posts transcripts computer-computer debates using different trees or tree views. For the first time, the majority of contributions on Slashdot are "insightful" because trolling a script that can logically thrash you to your skivvies in microseconds is simply no fun
Given the sensitive nature of much of their work, Sandia National Labs probably has resources that are not available to your ordinary ISP, like 'sleeping' multiply redundant bandwidth and use of the *many* Federal access points to the web, both "owned" and leased, including normal ISPs.
.mil bases and co-locos all over the country.
;=>
When a DDoS strikes, you 'wake' a normally dormanr redundant line to another backbone (possibly via direct link to a high volume ISP to hide your signature), then you identify your "known" valid users and VPN to them via the peer. You can VPN via a distant ISP/node, so the attacker won't know you're communicating with 'legitimate users' via a hidden link to the ATT backbone in Ogden Utah and emerging on the Net over the redundant bandwidth of
The invaders can pound on the gates all they want. You're not using the front door anymore. You can also have secret VPN router/authenticators around the country that 'legitimate users' can connect to when the front door is slammed shut. The details could be built into key software, transparent to the legitimate users.
It's like a reverse DDoS. In a DDoS, the attacker overwhelms you with attacks from every direction, faster than you can respond. In the 'Reverse DDos' Defense, the legitimate communications links are leaking out from all over, faster than you can find them and swamp them. In DDoS attacks, the defender is trapped by converging bandwidth from 'distributed attackers'. In the Reverse DDoS defense, the 'hidden peering' lets the defender 'distribute its communication bandwidth' to emerge as barely above background blips in widely divergent locations
Well, that's how *I'd* do it, if I were the Feds. Hence the unimaginative codename "Legion"
(Am I too close for comfort? My services are available for a fee, Feds.)
It's still a terrible argument.
I-129 is formed in exploding supernovas (as are all elements heavier than iron) because the iron nucleus is exceptionally stable, and producing heavier elements consumes energy, rather than releasing it. *Trace amounts* may be produced in a 'living star' but not concentrations we could detect, even as Xe-129, billions of years later. The accretion disk of a black hole might have this capacity, too, but it does not affect my argument.
That means that the Iodine 129 was produced in a previous star -- and hence possibly a previous solar system (and almost certainly previous material bodies such as dust clouds and asteroids) I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn that previous solar systems may have contained water.
The age of the metorite is unknown. Even if one accepts the theory advanced in the CNN article (it is plausible, but not much more than that) the meteor is almost certainly much older than 4.6 billion. This meteor probably did not accrete in our solar system. To accrete in our solar system there would have had to have been a supernova in our vicinity within few hundred million years before our solar system accreted
If the nova had been any older, its I-139 would already have decayed before the meteor formed and would not be present in detectable quantities. Such a recent, near nova is inconsistent with the astronomic data (no gas cloud remnants, or visible effect on nearby stars) and is inconsistent with any current model of star formation and planetary accretion -- the supernova would have played hell on the proto-sun and proto-planetary gas disk, and it takes more than a few hundred million years
The English theory is just a goofy hypothesis that would knock many far more established theories out of whack, and offers no basis whatsoever to revise those theories. It is embarrassing.
The meteor is most likely *far older* -- more like 7-10 billion years than 4.6 billion
Iodine has a relatively short half-life of 15.6 Myr, and is generally considered useless for measurement on this time scale (i.e. almost 300x the half-life) After 300 half-lives, you'd expect 1 part in 2x10^90! That's one single atom left from 1.77 x 10^65 kg of I-129 - more than the mass of the universe, much less the mass of the I-29 in the universe (and, I'm willing to wager, more than the mass of the meteorite!)
The WashU Laboratory of Space Sciences has a page on isotope age determination in meteors, geologic formations and other ancient inorganic structures. Here's what they say on this very point:
Iodine-129 is now extinct in nature. Its short half-life, 15.6 million years, means that Iodine-129 has long since decayed away in a solar system that is 4.6 billion years old.
Furthermore, any radioisotope age determination is based on two things: a) a knowledge of the relative prevalence of the isotope; and b) the half-life. [If the original prevalence is not known, you can sometimes make estimates from decay products of multiple unrelated isotopes]
According to the 'standard' half-life, I-129 is not a useful isotope, but to make things worse, this sample was irradiated by the high-energy space environment for a very long time (I'm assuming millions or billions of years). Irradiation can cause accelerated decay, changing the effective half-life.
Bottom line: unknown original prevalence (somewhere in space, at some unknown time), unknown effective half-life, due to unknown but significant irradiation history, and an unsuitable isotope. Ugh. This is Scientology!
You'd get a better estimate by flipping coins for binary bits. Wait! Maybe they did! How else did they get that number at all?
-----------------
Brought to you by the guy who outed Katz as a Scientologist!
I am very interested in your comment about 4K resolution being the appropriate resolution for 35mm film. However, I'd like to point out that the standard for digital radiography "x-rays" for telemedicine was 2K (a few years ago, when I was heavily involved with medical informatics). This number was determined after studies showed it was essentially as good as film for diagnostic purposes. Indeed hospitals are moving away from film altogether, due to cost, record-keeping, and other constraints.
Of course, film is a visial art that may benefit esthetically from 4K, while reading an x-ray is an art that is accustomed to working around a somwhat fuzzy image, but very little film (except the Zapruder film or a UFO/bigfoot sighting) gets the kind of up-close per-frame scrutiny that an x-ray gets. And an X-ray print is hundreds of times the size of a 35mm frame (digital X-rays are usually displayed on at least high-res 21" monitors)
Thank you, Bruce! I thought I was losing my memory.
.nu, .se, etc.), but though the contest links all seemed to be 'down' or inaccessible from the US). I did find this little snippet in the archives of the Anglian Linux User Group:
I was immediately annoyed by the terms of the initiative: 'a donation in your name or a grant for future work for Helios, at your choice' -- if they make a donation in your name, it implies you're being rewarded for work already done (and should be allowed to pick your own charity, dammit) but if you need the cash for yourself, 'you owe them' some future work. Contradictory!
At first, I wrote it off as a lame PR stunt ("We were going to make a modest donation to an open source charity for publicity purposes, but if we can rope in a developer commitment instead, that's good too"), and I couldn't find any indication of the Foundation they mentioned on the Helios web site, but figured it was in the 'members only' developer section. Annoyingly: "For all the info you need to develop applications for the VTech-OS, click here." leads to nothing but a registration form and click-on license with terms that guarantee your work will not be GPL! (the complete license is listed at the end of this post)
Further research located a Linux/Open Source Foundation sponsoring 'groundbreaking' student competitions in Europe with 1Venture, 4linuxjobs (.co.uk,
"The Linux/Open Source Foundation (LOSF) is a trust with the sole purpose of supporting the development of Linux/Open Source by arranging contests and sponsoring events."
This Linux/Open Source Foundation also"placed 50,000 ord shares [in 1venture.co.uk] with institutional & other clients of JM Finn & Co @ 50p" -- whatever that implies.
So basically the Helios contest will "donate" cash to a company that sponsors contests. Is that enough to call it a scam? Not really. However, i remembered the Helio's click-on license (which you needed to accept for any developer info) and its disturbing conditions, and I wondered if their 'contests' might not be a scam to lock up innovative but undeveloped ideas from hungry students and budding developers.
"The submissions must be used through a browser or something similar - again freely available via the Internet."
What? No e-mail submissions? How very odd. But then they'd have to supply an e-mail address, and there might be an audit trail. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but if you review the materials linked, you'll find that I left out a lot of stuff that raised questions in my mind.
I'll close with the license text I promised:
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