Interesting. I suggest also reading the Bell Labs link another poster posted, and the asktog articles it also links to.
I note that your times do not include the time taken to think about which key should be pressed, while that time is included in your mouse-usage times. If you only count the "click the mouse" time, you should be getting times at least as short as.2 seconds. Don't forget that with the exception of clicking buttons, use of the mouse includes selecting text, a process that will take additional time when using the keyboard.
One key point in the articles mentioned is that users took much longer to use keystrokes because of the mental processing time involved in determining which key to press. When actual timing devices were in play you'd have users claiming "the keyboard is clearly faster" when the clocks were showing keyboard times almost twice as great as the mouse times.
Personally, I have some residual Counterstrike skills and can do the "move mouse to target pixel and click" in a fraction of a second. Not everyone has fast mousing skills, but then not everyone can type above 100 wpm. If you can type that fast, then stop sitting on your laurels and learn to use a mouse properly.
If I have to reboot to a different environment I lose access to all of my prior programs. We're talking about computers here, not gaming consoles. Being able to run multiple programs on the same desktop (plural for those with virtual desktops) is a huge benefit.
As to the idea of Virtual PC running at native speeds, I am unwilling to call this as a negative. (It sounds too much like the complaints of the buggy-whip makers.) If something becoming faster, better, etc. endangers an occupation based on compensating for that previous slowness or other faults, then it's time for that occupation to die. Let it go.
If anything, full speed VPC will help Mac adoption as the few programs which require Windows can then be used inside of OS X.
The key factor here is which of the desktops provide the better user experience. That desktop will become the dominant one, assuming that apps from either OS can be used. When that happens, it will make more sense for software houses to program for that dominant desktop.
> we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic
Interesting tradition, considering that Rome maintained its "republic" status for about twice as long as the US has been around. If you're talking about democracies that are still around, you should consider the Iroquois Confederacy, going on ~800 years. (Consider also that Iroquois were present when the Continental Congress was meeting in the summer of 1776.)
If you're launching things from orbit, you could use a big chunk of concrete or iron and have sufficient kinetic energy to kill whatever you aimed at. Meteor Crater in Arizona was caused by a nickel-iron meteorite about 150 feet across, and resulted in a 20 Megaton explosion on impact. If you're only looking to take out a building, you can use a much smaller projectile.
For your reading pleasure, I suggest Heinlein's _The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress_.
First, if you encounter something like this in the future, don't try to boot from it. (It's always possible there could be code to detect an unauthorized machine and start deleting itself.)
Next, as another poster suggested, use dd to get a copy of the disk. Make a few copies while you're at it, and write them to DVDs, DLTs, or some other media.
Finally, do the processing. Here are some ideas: Write all zeros to the drive, then put it back in the car. Drive around for set intervals of time (100 minutes, 200 minutes, etc.) then pull the data from the drive to see how much was filled up. (Hint: it's from the start of the drive to where the long string of zeros starts.) Try it with minimal noise, try it with talking, and try it with music.
Run 'file' or 'strings' on the image. Try catting it to your sound device. Plot the data in both 2D and 3D and look for any patterns. (Encrypted data shouldn't have any.)
This sounds like it would be a good idea to register GPL projects with the Copyright Office (assuming we're playing in the US), if only to open a route for statutory damages.
What I'm wondering is, how well might an argument to the public interest fly, especially if the plaintiff elects to recover statutory damages instead of actual damages? (I.e. would this make the court more likely to consider the damages from a punitive angle instead of a loss-recovery angle?)
Yes, but you actually/looked/ for the missing menu item. Most of your average users will see that the option they want is missing, and will sit there waving their flippers like a thalidomide baby until they get a half hour retraining session for that one option.
All things considered this is one of the better ways for them to do it. Otherwise, they'd just be hearing from industry lobbyists (and we all know how forthright they can be).
The books you are thinking of are _Ishmael_ and _The_Story_Of_B_. It's been a while since I read them, but the thesis is not that we should return to a hunter-gatherer culture. It's easy to mistake that for the thesis, and one might consider it to be the thesis if not for the fact that the books explicitly say that it is not.
I think the flaw in those books is that they make assumptions about resource distribution that aren't valid. My own opinion is that capitalism is the best "resource distribution algorithm" currently available and until we can solve the whole scarcity issue it will have to do. (Like comparing a learning neural net to an expert system; a command economy "expert system" may work very well in a limited scope, but once it has to deal with enough chaos the adaptive system will be more effective.)
It's not that much of an EULA. If the courts found EULAs to be completely unenforceable the GPL would still hold.
Why? The GPL doesn't tell you what you can or can't do with the software. It simply specifies the circumstances under which you may distribute another's copyrighted material. You are free to/use/ GPLed software without agreeing to the GPL. However, distribution would be copyright infringement.
It's an important distinction, since it's neither an EULA nor a contract, and in case of a legal "failure condition", fails safe to "you may not distribute".
Companies that send data between themselves or government agencies. (Example: Pharmaceutical or Biotech Companies communicating with the FDA.) They'll say "we're sending this data over email, how can we protect it?" and then they'll look at vendor solutions.
If there's a high geek factor, OpenPGP may get used, but if Outlook is the standard client (as it is in many companies), people start looking for S/MIME certificates.
When the power is cut, the computer does not have the ability to do any deleting. I hope you aren't suggesting that someone start up the machine afterwards, because that's the one thing you should NOT do.
Proper procedure would be to carefully document anything you can see on the screen (what's running, programs in the taskbar/dock/etc.) Note that down in your notepad, take pictures if possible, but don't touch anything (no keyboard, no mouse, etc).
Then you CUT the POWER. (Yes, yanking the cord will work fine.) Take a copy of the drive, and NEVER let the original drive boot up until after you're done.
Your meter is weak. For example, the "last full capacity" reading will change as the capacity of the battery weakens. Your meter is only showing the percentage in the form of "capacity/last full capacity", which will always show 100% after a full charge.
Example: requiem@obsidian requiem $ cat/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info present: yes design capacity: 71280 mWh last full capacity: 64970 mWh
Actually, there isn't "anything else" with one-time pads. The reason they are the toughest to break is that implemented properly[0], it is provably impossible to break them.
I'm curious as to more information about the three-letter phrases; I assume Google has more info.
[0] This includes such things as never re-using the key stream, and ensuring that the data is indeed completely random.
He also could have bought a Mandrake or Debian CD for far less. The correct comparison for SuSE Pro is against XP Pro retail; both include features that are not present in the "Home" versions. Both include (theoretically) items that are not included in OEM versions, such as manuals, stickers, etc.
I believe SuSE will sell you just the CDs, if that's all you need. However, I've always been impressed with the quality of the SuSE manuals, compared to the junk that seems to come with most software these days.
SPF is supposed to identify "bad" messages, not "good" messages. Since it doesn't identify "good" messages, there is not reason SpamAssassin should be lowering the score for a PASS. The better behavior is to increase the score for a FAIL.
If you expect the military to effectively do anything but kill the enemy, be prepared to be disappointed.
I disagree. The easiest way to win a war is to prevent the other side from fighting. That means denying them access to resources while getting resources to your own side. If a tank column runs out of gas in the field, you just go around them, or pick them off at leisure. If a tank column runs out of ammunition and fuel, they are effectively dead.
Killing people may look good on the news, but destroying an enemy's factories and refineries will end a war a lot faster.
So, yes, I expect the military to be able to both build and destroy infrastructure. (You have to move your people and resources, which means building things like railroads, highways, bridges, airports, bases, etc.
You wind up with Vietnam when you try killing people. (Check out the casualty figures for Vietname sometime; killing people was not our weak point).
Don't forget, copyright is currently life+75, which means something written in 1918 could easily stay out of the public domain for a number of decades.
Quoting from http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-3/753-5.html
[1.]According to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers' ("ASCAP") electronic search database, ACE, ASCAP owns the copyrights to "God Bless America," written by Irving Berlin and "Puff The Magic Dragon," written by Peter Yarrow. ASCAP's Ace on the Web (visited Mar. 10, 1997) . In order to allow access to information on copyrighted songs, ASCAP has designed a searchable database, called ACE on the Web, located at http://www.ascap.com/ace/ACE.html. Other popular and commonly performed compositions like "Happy Birthday," "Kumbaya" and "On Top of Old Smokey" are also listed in this database.
This would be an accurate description, only it's not.
If you perform the double-slit experiment with twenty humans, a canon, and segments of brick walls, you don't wind up with an interference pattern. With electrons, you do. Also, factoring with quantum computers has been successfully performed, so we know it works.
If it makes you feel better, it isn't just a matter of treating statistics as physical reality. It's more a matter of realizing that at certain small sizes, 'matter' isn't exactly matter. It's closer to energy, and has a wave behavior similar to energy. It just happens that measurable physical properties can only be said to exist when the wave function has 'collapsed'.
(I expect some QM geek will want to correct my explanation, but it's certainly more accurate than your attempt. Happy trolling!)
Well, if we started handing out small solar panels to all the families in Iraq, they just might be able to keep a small lightbulb glowing.
Solar panels aren't exactly cheap you know, and they aren't that efficient either. One estimate a saw about a year back was 20K$ for enough panels to power a smallish suburban house, with an expected lifespan of 20 years for the panels. That's about $82 dollars a month before factoring maintenance, replacing broken panels, etc. (And don't forget the power processing and storage equipment; batteries, inverters, or whatever else you're using.) The one nice thing about oil is that for the time being, it's extremely cheap compared to solar/wind/etc.
I am reminded of an article several months ago on spoofing fingerprint readers. The gelatin technique is likely the one most Slashdotters remember, but for some, it was sufficient to blow on the detector. c't has lots more fun details, but these have both been on Slashdot before.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. I suggest also reading the Bell Labs link another poster posted, and the asktog articles it also links to.
.2 seconds. Don't forget that with the exception of clicking buttons, use of the mouse includes selecting text, a process that will take additional time when using the keyboard.
I note that your times do not include the time taken to think about which key should be pressed, while that time is included in your mouse-usage times. If you only count the "click the mouse" time, you should be getting times at least as short as
One key point in the articles mentioned is that users took much longer to use keystrokes because of the mental processing time involved in determining which key to press. When actual timing devices were in play you'd have users claiming "the keyboard is clearly faster" when the clocks were showing keyboard times almost twice as great as the mouse times.
Personally, I have some residual Counterstrike skills and can do the "move mouse to target pixel and click" in a fraction of a second. Not everyone has fast mousing skills, but then not everyone can type above 100 wpm. If you can type that fast, then stop sitting on your laurels and learn to use a mouse properly.
If I have to reboot to a different environment I lose access to all of my prior programs. We're talking about computers here, not gaming consoles. Being able to run multiple programs on the same desktop (plural for those with virtual desktops) is a huge benefit.
As to the idea of Virtual PC running at native speeds, I am unwilling to call this as a negative. (It sounds too much like the complaints of the buggy-whip makers.) If something becoming faster, better, etc. endangers an occupation based on compensating for that previous slowness or other faults, then it's time for that occupation to die. Let it go.
If anything, full speed VPC will help Mac adoption as the few programs which require Windows can then be used inside of OS X.
The key factor here is which of the desktops provide the better user experience. That desktop will become the dominant one, assuming that apps from either OS can be used. When that happens, it will make more sense for software houses to program for that dominant desktop.
> we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic
Interesting tradition, considering that Rome maintained its "republic" status for about twice as long as the US has been around. If you're talking about democracies that are still around, you should consider the Iroquois Confederacy, going on ~800 years. (Consider also that Iroquois were present when the Continental Congress was meeting in the summer of 1776.)
If you're launching things from orbit, you could use a big chunk of concrete or iron and have sufficient kinetic energy to kill whatever you aimed at. Meteor Crater in Arizona was caused by a nickel-iron meteorite about 150 feet across, and resulted in a 20 Megaton explosion on impact. If you're only looking to take out a building, you can use a much smaller projectile.
For your reading pleasure, I suggest Heinlein's _The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress_.
First, if you encounter something like this in the future, don't try to boot from it. (It's always possible there could be code to detect an unauthorized machine and start deleting itself.)
Next, as another poster suggested, use dd to get a copy of the disk. Make a few copies while you're at it, and write them to DVDs, DLTs, or some other media.
Finally, do the processing. Here are some ideas:
Write all zeros to the drive, then put it back in the car. Drive around for set intervals of time (100 minutes, 200 minutes, etc.) then pull the data from the drive to see how much was filled up. (Hint: it's from the start of the drive to where the long string of zeros starts.) Try it with minimal noise, try it with talking, and try it with music.
Run 'file' or 'strings' on the image. Try catting it to your sound device. Plot the data in both 2D and 3D and look for any patterns. (Encrypted data shouldn't have any.)
This sounds like it would be a good idea to register GPL projects with the Copyright Office (assuming we're playing in the US), if only to open a route for statutory damages.
What I'm wondering is, how well might an argument to the public interest fly, especially if the plaintiff elects to recover statutory damages instead of actual damages? (I.e. would this make the court more likely to consider the damages from a punitive angle instead of a loss-recovery angle?)
Yes, but you actually /looked/ for the missing menu item. Most of your average users will see that the option they want is missing, and will sit there waving their flippers like a thalidomide baby until they get a half hour retraining session for that one option.
> I know two wrongs don't make a right, but--grrrrrrr--I HAT how these spammers work.
I fail to see the second wrong. Perhaps you are equating legality with morality?
All things considered this is one of the better ways for them to do it. Otherwise, they'd just be hearing from industry lobbyists (and we all know how forthright they can be).
The books you are thinking of are _Ishmael_ and _The_Story_Of_B_. It's been a while since I read them, but the thesis is not that we should return to a hunter-gatherer culture. It's easy to mistake that for the thesis, and one might consider it to be the thesis if not for the fact that the books explicitly say that it is not.
I think the flaw in those books is that they make assumptions about resource distribution that aren't valid. My own opinion is that capitalism is the best "resource distribution algorithm" currently available and until we can solve the whole scarcity issue it will have to do. (Like comparing a learning neural net to an expert system; a command economy "expert system" may work very well in a limited scope, but once it has to deal with enough chaos the adaptive system will be more effective.)
It's not that much of an EULA. If the courts found EULAs to be completely unenforceable the GPL would still hold.
/use/ GPLed software without agreeing to the GPL. However, distribution would be copyright infringement.
Why? The GPL doesn't tell you what you can or can't do with the software. It simply specifies the circumstances under which you may distribute another's copyrighted material. You are free to
It's an important distinction, since it's neither an EULA nor a contract, and in case of a legal "failure condition", fails safe to "you may not distribute".
Around the center of a CD, on the data side, is a raised plastic ridge. Once you realize it's there, it becomes quite simple to tell the sides apart.
Companies that send data between themselves or government agencies. (Example: Pharmaceutical or Biotech Companies communicating with the FDA.) They'll say "we're sending this data over email, how can we protect it?" and then they'll look at vendor solutions.
If there's a high geek factor, OpenPGP may get used, but if Outlook is the standard client (as it is in many companies), people start looking for S/MIME certificates.
Err... what?
When the power is cut, the computer does not have the ability to do any deleting. I hope you aren't suggesting that someone start up the machine afterwards, because that's the one thing you should NOT do.
Proper procedure would be to carefully document anything you can see on the screen (what's running, programs in the taskbar/dock/etc.) Note that down in your notepad, take pictures if possible, but don't touch anything (no keyboard, no mouse, etc).
Then you CUT the POWER. (Yes, yanking the cord will work fine.) Take a copy of the drive, and NEVER let the original drive boot up until after you're done.
1. Boot from the password reset CD that another poster linked to, and reset the admin password.
2. Now you should no problem booting from the setup CD, since the admin password will have been reset.
There's no need to copy files or move disks to other computers.
Your meter is weak. For example, the "last full capacity" reading will change as the capacity of the battery weakens. Your meter is only showing the percentage in the form of "capacity/last full capacity", which will always show 100% after a full charge.
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
Example:
requiem@obsidian requiem $ cat
present: yes
design capacity: 71280 mWh
last full capacity: 64970 mWh
Actually, there isn't "anything else" with one-time pads. The reason they are the toughest to break is that implemented properly[0], it is provably impossible to break them.
I'm curious as to more information about the three-letter phrases; I assume Google has more info.
[0] This includes such things as never re-using the key stream, and ensuring that the data is indeed completely random.
He also could have bought a Mandrake or Debian CD for far less. The correct comparison for SuSE Pro is against XP Pro retail; both include features that are not present in the "Home" versions. Both include (theoretically) items that are not included in OEM versions, such as manuals, stickers, etc.
I believe SuSE will sell you just the CDs, if that's all you need. However, I've always been impressed with the quality of the SuSE manuals, compared to the junk that seems to come with most software these days.
SPF is supposed to identify "bad" messages, not "good" messages. Since it doesn't identify "good" messages, there is not reason SpamAssassin should be lowering the score for a PASS. The better behavior is to increase the score for a FAIL.
If you expect the military to effectively do anything but kill the enemy, be prepared to be disappointed.
I disagree. The easiest way to win a war is to prevent the other side from fighting. That means denying them access to resources while getting resources to your own side. If a tank column runs out of gas in the field, you just go around them, or pick them off at leisure. If a tank column runs out of ammunition and fuel, they are effectively dead.
Killing people may look good on the news, but destroying an enemy's factories and refineries will end a war a lot faster.
So, yes, I expect the military to be able to both build and destroy infrastructure. (You have to move your people and resources, which means building things like railroads, highways, bridges, airports, bases, etc.
You wind up with Vietnam when you try killing people. (Check out the casualty figures for Vietname sometime; killing people was not our weak point).
I agree with the other poster; it would be cool to see more information on this.
Thanks!
Don't forget, copyright is currently life+75, which means something written in 1918 could easily stay out of the public domain for a number of decades.
Quoting from http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-3/753-5.html
[1.]According to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers' ("ASCAP") electronic search database, ACE, ASCAP owns the copyrights to "God Bless America," written by Irving Berlin and "Puff The Magic Dragon," written by Peter Yarrow. ASCAP's Ace on the Web (visited Mar. 10, 1997) . In order to allow access to information on copyrighted songs, ASCAP has designed a searchable database, called ACE on the Web, located at http://www.ascap.com/ace/ACE.html. Other popular and commonly performed compositions like "Happy Birthday," "Kumbaya" and "On Top of Old Smokey" are also listed in this database.
*SMACK*
This would be an accurate description, only it's not.
If you perform the double-slit experiment with twenty humans, a canon, and segments of brick walls, you don't wind up with an interference pattern. With electrons, you do. Also, factoring with quantum computers has been successfully performed, so we know it works.
If it makes you feel better, it isn't just a matter of treating statistics as physical reality. It's more a matter of realizing that at certain small sizes, 'matter' isn't exactly matter. It's closer to energy, and has a wave behavior similar to energy. It just happens that measurable physical properties can only be said to exist when the wave function has 'collapsed'.
(I expect some QM geek will want to correct my explanation, but it's certainly more accurate than your attempt. Happy trolling!)
Well, if we started handing out small solar panels to all the families in Iraq, they just might be able to keep a small lightbulb glowing.
Solar panels aren't exactly cheap you know, and they aren't that efficient either. One estimate a saw about a year back was 20K$ for enough panels to power a smallish suburban house, with an expected lifespan of 20 years for the panels. That's about $82 dollars a month before factoring maintenance, replacing broken panels, etc. (And don't forget the power processing and storage equipment; batteries, inverters, or whatever else you're using.) The one nice thing about oil is that for the time being, it's extremely cheap compared to solar/wind/etc.
Do you remember to wipe the sensor after use?
I am reminded of an article several months ago on spoofing fingerprint readers. The gelatin technique is likely the one most Slashdotters remember, but for some, it was sufficient to blow on the detector. c't has lots more fun details, but these have both been on Slashdot before.