Political activists use legitimate methods to increase their influence.
So Rosa Parks wasn't an activist when she sat on the whites-only seat on the bus? Her entire point was that what should have been legitimate wasn't. Activism isn't about increasing your influence (that's more NGO territory - lobbying for a good cause), it's about bringing public attention to your cause. Very often the most effective way of doing that is publicly defying the rules to make a point.
I read that as "Pentium 5" (as in P2, P3, P4...), and thought hey, finally proof that parallell universes do exist - and you just crossed over from one!
If that laptop doesn't have at least 8 GBs of RAM and a 1 TB 7200 RPM HD or 256 GB SSD, with a separate video card, it cannot be sold. Your company depends on repeat business, correct?
I don't disagree with your point, but I think your "minimum" specs are a little high. 1 TB 7200 rpm 2.5" HDDs don't even exist yet in the 9.5mm format that will actually fit inside most laptops. And if it has discrete graphics, then I'm not buying it. I value battery runtime over flashy graphics, and I doubt I'm the only one. And given that even the i945 integrated graphics in my five year old laptop can do flashy graphics (compiz) at 1920x1080 just fine, I doubt any modern chip couldn't. Unless you play games or run CAD software, discrete graphics are overkill.
It takes a pretty exceptional human to actually remember a useful crypto key
Not really. How hard is to remember a paragraph from your favorite novel or lyrics from a popular song. It's even better if you *mis-remember* the quote/lyrics so that you're the only one who would come up with the result even if someone tried to brute force the key by scanning all your books and listening to all your music.
I was going to comment that this doesn't make a good key because human languages have so much redundancy and therefore rather little entropy per word, but then I actually checked and came to the opposite conclusion: While an n-bit paragraph wouldn't make a good n-bit key, a much longer paragraph actually does. If we assume 7-8 bits of entropy per word (a number a quick Google search turned up), then your examples would all make for very good 256-bit keys.
The only disadvantage is that such a long passphrase is quite annoying if you have to type it often, and it's hard to type correctly at speed if you can't see what you've written on the screen.
Calling for the assassination of unelected generals who are engaged in an opposition purge as part of a counter-revolutionary strategy isn't evil or immoral.
The assumption that we have to take "the coming age of austerity" for granted is backwards. Health care and research aren't mutually exclusive. We need both, and the world has enough resources to provide both!
While it seems particularly pathetic that windows won't mount anything but a VHD out of the box (and that only in Vista and up) it's not like it's hard to come up with Daemon Tools. Microsoft intends you to burn that image to a disc in the off chance that you will keep the disc and not have to redownload, saving them some bandwidth.
Who deletes anything nowadays, when you can get 2TB hard drives for less than $100? CDs and DVDs are horribly expensive in comparison, and the cheap ones are utterly unreliable too.
Apart from the weasely "as much as"; interesting that laptops are being compared, knowing that they have much lower power consumption (on average) than desktops while requiring almost the same amount of manufacturing.
They probably compare laptops because laptop sales are higher than desktop sales. Most new computers are laptops.
A typtical desktop might have a 600W power supply (though that's probably on the high side for non-enthusiasts), but during normal use, which for a typical desktop is around 90% idle, it doesn't use anywhere near that much.
Where are the fools who always pop up under a story like this to explain to us, with great indignation, why it is no better in the West, that the West does the same thing? Whenever China, Iran, North Korea, Egypt, Zimbabwe, etc., does anything vile with human rights, I need the solace of my false equivalency fools who are always there to tell me why in the West it is exactly the same, and no better.
It's not only the absolute amount of freedom that's important, you also have to consider the time derivative. While I obviously appreciate the relatively large amount of freedom we currently enjoy, the way "the west" generally seems to be headed now, I'm not sure it will still be a place I want to live in in 10 or 20 years.
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Political activists use legitimate methods to increase their influence.
So Rosa Parks wasn't an activist when she sat on the whites-only seat on the bus? Her entire point was that what should have been legitimate wasn't. Activism isn't about increasing your influence (that's more NGO territory - lobbying for a good cause), it's about bringing public attention to your cause. Very often the most effective way of doing that is publicly defying the rules to make a point.
I read that as "Pentium 5" (as in P2, P3, P4...), and thought hey, finally proof that parallell universes do exist - and you just crossed over from one!
I think I'll just use the replicator^Wpirate bay.
And stop selling weapons to these dipshits.
That exists in real life, too. They're called consultants. If you are going to test in "real life" mode, do it. You have to allow consultants.
Consultants are what, $150 an hour?
Rich student: Just $150 to pass this test without studying? Sure!
Poor student: $150? That's half of what I have to live on this month! No way!
He didn't say "no outsourcing", did he?
pressurise the moron who doesn't understand what the DMCA is for.
I think he understands that very well - harrassing inconvenient competition.
Guttenberg doesn't write biology books, he copies them!
If that laptop doesn't have at least 8 GBs of RAM and a 1 TB 7200 RPM HD or 256 GB SSD, with a separate video card, it cannot be sold. Your company depends on repeat business, correct?
I don't disagree with your point, but I think your "minimum" specs are a little high. 1 TB 7200 rpm 2.5" HDDs don't even exist yet in the 9.5mm format that will actually fit inside most laptops. And if it has discrete graphics, then I'm not buying it. I value battery runtime over flashy graphics, and I doubt I'm the only one. And given that even the i945 integrated graphics in my five year old laptop can do flashy graphics (compiz) at 1920x1080 just fine, I doubt any modern chip couldn't. Unless you play games or run CAD software, discrete graphics are overkill.
It takes a pretty exceptional human to actually remember a useful crypto key
Not really. How hard is to remember a paragraph from your favorite novel or lyrics from a popular song. It's even better if you *mis-remember* the quote/lyrics so that you're the only one who would come up with the result even if someone tried to brute force the key by scanning all your books and listening to all your music.
I was going to comment that this doesn't make a good key because human languages have so much redundancy and therefore rather little entropy per word, but then I actually checked and came to the opposite conclusion: While an n-bit paragraph wouldn't make a good n-bit key, a much longer paragraph actually does. If we assume 7-8 bits of entropy per word (a number a quick Google search turned up), then your examples would all make for very good 256-bit keys.
The only disadvantage is that such a long passphrase is quite annoying if you have to type it often, and it's hard to type correctly at speed if you can't see what you've written on the screen.
I for one am holding out for 3.11. I heard it will be for Workgroups!
So that's your ingenious business model!
1. Produce adult film
2. Preach abstinence
3. Profit!
Huh? The slash works fine here (Firefox 5.0). Must be your settings.
Calling for the assassination of unelected generals who are engaged in an opposition purge as part of a counter-revolutionary strategy isn't evil or immoral.
There, FTFY.
Don't be so hard on them. They're just trying to pass the candidate requirements!
The assumption that we have to take "the coming age of austerity" for granted is backwards. Health care and research aren't mutually exclusive. We need both, and the world has enough resources to provide both!
Funny how you call it a "free market of ideas", when the main mechanism at work seems to be cooperation rather than competition, isn't it?
You can't fix slavery with a law that punishes the slaves instead of the slaveowners.
In related news, they are making more on Android sales than on Windows Phone 7.
While it seems particularly pathetic that windows won't mount anything but a VHD out of the box (and that only in Vista and up) it's not like it's hard to come up with Daemon Tools. Microsoft intends you to burn that image to a disc in the off chance that you will keep the disc and not have to redownload, saving them some bandwidth.
Who deletes anything nowadays, when you can get 2TB hard drives for less than $100? CDs and DVDs are horribly expensive in comparison, and the cheap ones are utterly unreliable too.
Apart from the weasely "as much as"; interesting that laptops are being compared, knowing that they have much lower power consumption (on average) than desktops while requiring almost the same amount of manufacturing.
They probably compare laptops because laptop sales are higher than desktop sales. Most new computers are laptops.
A typtical desktop might have a 600W power supply (though that's probably on the high side for non-enthusiasts), but during normal use, which for a typical desktop is around 90% idle, it doesn't use anywhere near that much.
The sound of this thing going completely over my head.
Good thing we have three space dimensions now, otherwise it would have gone right into your head.
No mention of the i7 2600K that is 1/3d price for pretty much the same performance minus a few very thread oriented tests.
It does seem to get pretty hot if it lives up to its name though.
Where are the fools who always pop up under a story like this to explain to us, with great indignation, why it is no better in the West, that the West does the same thing? Whenever China, Iran, North Korea, Egypt, Zimbabwe, etc., does anything vile with human rights, I need the solace of my false equivalency fools who are always there to tell me why in the West it is exactly the same, and no better.
It's not only the absolute amount of freedom that's important, you also have to consider the time derivative. While I obviously appreciate the relatively large amount of freedom we currently enjoy, the way "the west" generally seems to be headed now, I'm not sure it will still be a place I want to live in in 10 or 20 years.