I find well-used capitalization improves the human readibilty of code. The last place I want sCriPt-kIDDie caps-slip is in decent code. If a language constraint makes that difficult, I applaud it.
In Java your script kiddie can define vars like IamSokoOl, IAmSoKoOl, iamSokOOl all in the same method/object and get away with it. Try reading that code!:-D
No, the compiler wouldn't object. Compilers will let you do many deliberately stupid things. #define TRUE 0 for example, is perfectly valid C.
C is a case sensitive language, I was referring to case insensitive langueages. So you are actually agreeing with me by your example:-) In a case insensitive language, such example would not compile since TRUE would clash with the keyword "true" which you are not allowed to redefine.
That's not ambiguity. Ambiguity is saying one thing which could mean several things; according to your assertion, case-sensitive languages have more than one way (Bar vs bar) to say the same thing.
...just like in the English language. It's more natural to me to expect Bar, bar and BAR to be the same variable than not. I think it's ambiguous to have two different variables which, read in English, are the same word.
English isn't case-insensitive, anyway. When you encounter a capital letter, it's telling you something (that it's the beginning of a sentence, or part of a title, or a proper noun,...).
Sure. That's why you have 2 entries for each word in dictionaries, one for capital letter words, and one for lower case words...;-) Get my point?
There is a huge difference. In the "basic" Roman alphabet (with no accents or anything, as implemented in ASCII) there is a 1-to-1 mapping between upper and lower case; this isn't always true in general.
How is this a problem? Case insensitivity means to treat letters which have upper and lower case versions indifferently. Letters which have no uppercase or lowercase are treated just like numbers (which also means that it's not true that you have a 1-1 mapping in ASCII).
Being case-sensitive also lets you compare raw byte sequences rather than canonicalising everything, which is no big deal in ASCII (just AND all letters with 0x20) but is intricate and fiddly in Unicode (hence lots of code and memory for all the esoteric rules required).
A compiler implements (at least in its libraries) the same esoteric rules. Just applying a uppercase to your tokens before compiling is not a big issue.
On a related note, I think filesystems should also be case-sensitive
So case sensitivity enforces your convention. (Though usually programmers have more sophisticated conventions). Otherwise, THISISAVARIABLE compiles. Since reading/debugging code is harder than writing it, it makes sense for the programming language to strictly require readable code.
A case sensitive compiler lets you do horrible things like having two properties of an object with the same name except for the case. Example: myObject.list and myObject.List. A case insensitive compiler won't let you have that. Readable code is a human responsibility, and can't be delegated to a mere compiler. How is it again that it "strictly requires readable code"?
About twice as long for a string comparison is what I would definitely call slower. (...) Including all interpretted scripting languages, loadable plugins, and just-in-time compiled code, the last of which being safer and (some day) faster than standard compilation?
Did you know that Java is actually compiled? All the case insensitive stuff would be sorted out when producing bytecode. You just need to sort out issues when you have statements lik "eval" where a string, created at runtime, is executed as code (which is the BAD programming practice i was referring to above).
In Java, since you have to explicitly declare variables before use, the compiler will notice that you typed Var when you meant var and complain. Your criticism is correct about, say, Python, because in Python referring to Var means a new variable Var is created. I believe Python is still case sensitive, because of speed reasons, although Python's developers would prefer case insensitivity if it had no speed cost, I suspect.
In a case insensitive compiler, there would be no error, the code would just work. And, the merit of java is having to declare variables, it has nothing to do with case-sensitivity.
Because it makes sense that all symbols are uniquely identified from a set of characters, rather than each symbol being identified by a huge set of names (var, vaR, vAr, vAR, etc). There may be a need for a "canonical name", which is it? All lowercase? All uppercase?
You define a convention and stick to it. Tipically: first word lowercase, other words uppercase first like "thisIsAVariable".
Because it makes dynamic programming and reflection even slower and/or more error-prone (I have experienced this in PHP which is case-insensitive and it bugged the hell out of me [and my program]).
Slower? There's just one more pass involved (an OR in the letters) which you parse anyways. I would hardly call it slower. And that is ONLY in BAD, SELF-WRITING code. Also please explain how does case insensitivity generate bugs. It actually prevents bugs by understanding that var and Var are actually the same thing!
Because it takes fewer CPU cycles when compiling or scanning source code.
Yeah, and then forcing you to recompile because you wrote FOo instead of Foo by mistake. Big save!
Because some languages use case to indicate a different class of variable (Ruby for instance, issues a warning if you try and change a variable starting with uppercase).
That's a bad language specification. in C you cannot change a variable you declare as constant, obvious, in Ruby it is not so apparent what is constant and what is not.
Because many programmer's text editors are case-sensitive (I know, I know, chicken, egg, etc).
How can a text editor be case sensitive????
Because lowercase/uppercase could be a harder problem if you use a language which allows Unicode symbols (Perl6?). (Is this possible? I have no idea).
There is no difference, basically. And Java supports uppercase functions for unicode in any case...
Because sometimes it actually is useful to have a symbol "ID" and another one "id" in the same symbol table.
It's a very very bad programming practice! Come on you can use id1 and id2...
Because stuff like case and english language is not part of programming, programming is about precision and computers. Introducing ambiguity (whether for the compiler or the programmer) can't be good.
Case sensitivity is way more ambiguous by allowing bar and Bar to be different variables whereas in English a bar and a Bar are no different.
Because C is case-sensitive, and C is a popular language.
And polystyrene is not made of air either. Nevertheless most of the volume of these materials is air. It's like bubbles, they are made of soap and air inside it:-)
That is not a problem, the real issue is when the air is not confined in space and therefore you have a situation in which the air temperature is constantly cold, and never gets warm. The air inside the two panes gets eventually relatively stable in temperature. The effects you mentioned are there, of course, but it doesn't change the fact that aerogel is good at insulating because it's full of air, just like polistyrene (sp?).
Aerogel is a good insulator because it's made of air. If air does not circulate, it acts as a wonderful insulator. That's why double glass windows work so well. I doubt they would work better with aerogel (except being dust free...:-P)
Why should they collaborate until they are all forced by law? By cooperating they are screwing their clients and getting a bad name, without getting anything back.
And probably most of them read Slashdot anyways...:-)
Think about it, these people sell mostly digital content, as opposed to cds or dvds. So what do they do? First they separate two issue: one is the swapping of their original content (the original.avi). This can be obtained as such: - Make a master list of hashes - Before downloading or sharing, a p2p app has to check against this list (send the hash, get back response). All p2p apps should be required by law (in their view) to include this check code. At this point, p2p distribution of 1:1 copies of their works is effectively crippled. Secondly I'm sure modification of original art is not permitted by copyright law, so they can go after whoever does it and/or add new hashes to the list. It does not solve the problem, but it sure makes it a better case for them in court and it does not bother the legitimate end user with DRM and authchecks.
This article is both bogus and dangerous. It's just a 2004-revamped prophecy of the apocalypse: The apocalypse: 1) Predict utter destruction for the whole mankind 2) People freak out 3) Enforce your own agenda ("Give me your lands and you will be saved when the world ends in year 1000") 4) Profit! The church is the richest state in the world.
This FUD: 1) Predict utter destruction for the whole mankind 2) People freak out 3) Enforce your own agenda ("Give me your freedom and you will be saved when the time comes!") 4) Profit! Corporations control mankind.
It seems so obvious to me that's scary! A few points worth considering - let's dispel the FUD: - The article says that every computer has 200,000 bugs in 2010. Omits to mention that in a multi-cultured internet (different computers, OSes, software) most computers would have a different set of bugs and therefore an attack couldn't possibly take down the whole, totally redundant infrastructure. - If the internet goes down, everything (economy, electricity...) falls with it. Omits to mention that such statements should be proved. - A more rigid security system would be more secure. False, people like Kevin Mitnick have been getting inside the world's most secure servers with very little problems, by using social engineering. Now, unless you can actually program the way the mind of people works, well, there's little you can do about it. - Look who's talking. Uhm, a security expert suggesting more security - more than a little conflict of interest there...
I'm sure there are many more loopholes in this article, I leave to the reader the task of finding them:-)
By the way, if someone told you "You're gonna die tomorrow! Do as I say and you will be spared!", how would you regard him/her?
I can't remember which MP3 I downloaded first, but I do remember having a great time with Audiogalaxy. It was the best MP3 download system ever, since it let me queue up MP3s (many legal ones too!) via a Web interface, and the application would fetch this list and get it for me. In simple words, choose at home and have it done in the morning at work. At those times I only had V90 at home, but Fiber at work...:-)
My band is an official contributor to Audiogalaxy, you can still get 3 songs for free! Sorry for the shameless plug (do I smell karma burning? =)
Very interesting, but what do you mean in practice? Looking at some (albeit preliminary) screenshots it seems to me that it's very similar to a distributed chat client. What is this parallel universe made of (files, sites, shards)? Which kind of data is contained in it? How is it different from VRML? How and what does a user contribute to it?
I'm not sure and I could be grossly mistaken, but a RF shield would sure be enough. I cite from Wikipedia: "RF shielding is the protection of sensitive electrical equipment from external radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic radiation by enclosing it in a conducting material. RF shielding is a refinement of the principle of the Faraday cage, which protects equipment from electric fields such as those from electrostatic discharges."
For those who don't want to register at NYT...
on
Universal Goo
·
· Score: 5, Informative
From the article: "AKLAND, Calif., Jan. 13 -- At least three advanced diagnostic tests suggest that an experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory has cracked open protons and neutrons like subatomic eggs to create a primordial form of matter that last existed when the universe was roughly one-millionth of a second old, scientists said here on Tuesday.
The hot, dense substance, called a quark-gluon plasma, has managed to generate intense disputes in the 15 years or so in which scientists have pursued it. In 2000, a major European laboratory claimed that it had, for the first time, liberated particles called quarks from where they are normally trapped in protons and neutrons, a big step on the way to creating the plasma.
Possibly seeking to avoid the outpouring of criticism that followed, Brookhaven scientists at the meeting here recited a series of striking new measurements from their particle accelerator in Upton on Long Island, but refused to say that they had actually produced the plasma.
Creating such a plasma would fulfill some of scientists' biggest dreams, because it would enable them to study the earliest moments of the Big Bang, the colossal explosion that is believed to have been the birth of the entire universe.
"I think the most economical explanation of what we're seeing is a quark-gluon plasma," said Dr. William Zajz, a Columbia University physicist who is the spokesman for an experiment, Phenix. "But we're holding ourselves to rigorous, very scientific standards, precisely to distinguish it from previous claims."
Other scientists here said it was clear that the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider had achieved a milestone.
"The evidence for the quark-gluon plasma is overwhelming," said Miklos Gyulassy, a theorist at Columbia.
Each of the 197 protons and neutrons that make up a gold nucleus has three quarks and a handful of other particles called gluons that transmit the strong force that holds the quarks together. By the strange rules of subatomic physics, swarms of other quarks and gluons flit into and out of existence in each nucleus.
Physicists would like to study the quarks individually, but the force carried by the gluons is something like a rubber band that never loses its elasticity. So a given quark can never escape the embrace of another quark and roam free. The lone exception -- theoretically, at least -- should occur when a collection of ordinary particles becomes so hot and dense that their innards can spill out and form a kind of quark soup, the quark-gluon plasma.
That is the state that the universe is thought to have been in a few millionths of a second after the start of the Big Bang, before the zoo of ordinary particles like protons and neutrons and pions and kaons had coalesced from the primordial soup. A speck of that soup is what the Brookhaven collider seeks to generate, by smashing together gold nuclei at close to the speed of light.
Previous measurements have shown that the lump of material at the center of that collision is from 10 to 100 times as dense as normal nuclear matter. Its temperature is more than a trillion degrees.
The new data, from particle detectors known by their acronyms -- Brahms, Star, Phenix and Phobos -- showed that this searing goo had a remarkable number of properties expected from the plasma.
One finding focused on the almond-shape region, possibly filled with plasma, created when two spherical gold nuclei strike each other, but not quite head on. Theory predicts that fast particles trying to escape the region should become hung up in the gooey plasma and sometimes stopped completely.
That general effect, called jet quenching, had been seen before. But observations by Star have shown for the first time that particles escaping down the long dimension of the almond are more likely to be stopped than those escaping along the short dimension, where there is less plasma to travel through.
"This is demonstrating, if you will, that our unders
Is owning uranium 'a matter of principle and of freedom'? And if not, why not. Where do you draw the line?
Owning uranium is a different problem. Uranium is not useful in itself, and it's a poison - therefore its possession is rightly regulated for our own good. Also, it's perfectly possible and legal to use uranium for civil purposes (energy production, radiotherapy...). So I don't see your point, actually. The problem is still the same, the use you make of technology.
I don't understand what you're asking here.
I thought you were referring to the previous comments in the thread (at least I was). We were writing about the US law against reproduction of banknotes (different from counterfeiting).
Right and genetic engineering is really just implementing darwinian evolution in an expedited manner - no new moral issue there.
I know you are being sarcastic, but there's actually no new moral issue there at all. Genetic engineering is just an improvement of a tecnique which is used since ancient times to create new plants. Of course not all uses of GE are morally acceptable, but how is it different from knives, for example? They are dangerous alright, but also very useful if used properly. So is GE.
But they're small in number, and one could make the argument that battling counterfeiting takes precedence in this case.
It's not a matter of numbers it's a matter of principle and of freedom. Also, please explain in what way does this ban help avoiding counterfeiting money (since that's illegal anyway). How is the image of, say, a 100$ bill going to help counterfeiters (who are going to use an original anyways)?
It used to be US Treasury department policy that any representation or image of US currency was illegal. This included printing photos (in newspapers for example) of people holding money, or using real money in TV shows or movies.
I know, but it's still a totally silly and unuseful law. Also, Photoshop is sold worldwide and I can assure you that reproducing bills is not illegal everywhere... Obviously counterfeiting is illegal, hehehe...
It seems that it will be invoked every time you open an image or paste an image into the editor.
Not at all, it checks only "acquired" images (i.e. live feeds from the scanner). You can circumvent the protection by cutting & pasting. So basically the inclusion was just a matter of adding an "include" and an "if", and they even scrwed that up. I don't think it counts towards the price tag at all.
I just don't understand what the poster is talking about. 1) Apple now sells software which used to be free beforehand. 2) Poster asks for explanation from Apple 3) Answer explains why they sell the software in a suit as opposed to single apps, but now why they are now selling what used to be free 4) Story gets on Slashdot
So why is Apple charging for these products? Where's the news here?
From the article: The inner workings of the counterfeit deterrence system are so secret that not even Adobe is privy to them. The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group provides the software as a black box without revealing its precise inner workings, Connor said.
So Adobe just plugged in an OCX in their program or something similarly easy. It's not this "feature" that bloats the price tag, I'm afraid.
Also, why all this secrecy on the "inner workings" of the software, when it's so easily circumvented (e.g. copy and paste from another app)? Why should scanning money be illegal? It's ridiculous - it's like banning knives because they could be dangerous. It's not the technology, it's the use you make of it. I don't understand why politicians fail to understand this simple concept: technology is not evil or good, it does not pose new moral problems. It's always the same problems, just with a different twist in the details.
Slashdot Mirror
I find well-used capitalization improves the human readibilty of code. The last place I want sCriPt-kIDDie caps-slip is in decent code. If a language constraint makes that difficult, I applaud it.
:-D
In Java your script kiddie can define vars like IamSokoOl, IAmSoKoOl, iamSokOOl all in the same method/object and get away with it. Try reading that code!
No, the compiler wouldn't object. Compilers will let you do many deliberately stupid things.
:-)
#define TRUE 0
for example, is perfectly valid C.
C is a case sensitive language, I was referring to case insensitive langueages. So you are actually agreeing with me by your example
In a case insensitive language, such example would not compile since TRUE would clash with the keyword "true" which you are not allowed to redefine.
That's not ambiguity. Ambiguity is saying one thing which could mean several things; according to your assertion, case-sensitive languages have more than one way (Bar vs bar) to say the same thing.
...).
;-) Get my point?
...just like in the English language. It's more natural to me to expect Bar, bar and BAR to be the same variable than not. I think it's ambiguous to have two different variables which, read in English, are the same word.
English isn't case-insensitive, anyway. When you encounter a capital letter, it's telling you something (that it's the beginning of a sentence, or part of a title, or a proper noun,
Sure. That's why you have 2 entries for each word in dictionaries, one for capital letter words, and one for lower case words...
There is a huge difference. In the "basic" Roman alphabet (with no accents or anything, as implemented in ASCII) there is a 1-to-1 mapping between upper and lower case; this isn't always true in general.
How is this a problem? Case insensitivity means to treat letters which have upper and lower case versions indifferently. Letters which have no uppercase or lowercase are treated just like numbers (which also means that it's not true that you have a 1-1 mapping in ASCII).
Being case-sensitive also lets you compare raw byte sequences rather than canonicalising everything, which is no big deal in ASCII (just AND all letters with 0x20) but is intricate and fiddly in Unicode (hence lots of code and memory for all the esoteric rules required).
A compiler implements (at least in its libraries) the same esoteric rules. Just applying a uppercase to your tokens before compiling is not a big issue.
On a related note, I think filesystems should also be case-sensitive
I find it wierd too.
So case sensitivity enforces your convention. (Though usually programmers have more sophisticated conventions). Otherwise, THISISAVARIABLE compiles. Since reading /debugging code is harder than writing it, it makes sense for the programming language to strictly require readable code.
A case sensitive compiler lets you do horrible things like having two properties of an object with the same name except for the case. Example: myObject.list and myObject.List. A case insensitive compiler won't let you have that.
Readable code is a human responsibility, and can't be delegated to a mere compiler.
How is it again that it "strictly requires readable code"?
About twice as long for a string comparison is what I would definitely call slower.
(...)
Including all interpretted scripting languages, loadable plugins, and just-in-time compiled code, the last of which being safer and (some day) faster than standard compilation?
Did you know that Java is actually compiled? All the case insensitive stuff would be sorted out when producing bytecode. You just need to sort out issues when you have statements lik "eval" where a string, created at runtime, is executed as code (which is the BAD programming practice i was referring to above).
In Java, since you have to explicitly declare variables before use, the compiler will notice that you typed Var when you meant var and complain. Your criticism is correct about, say, Python, because in Python referring to Var means a new variable Var is created. I believe Python is still case sensitive, because of speed reasons, although Python's developers would prefer case insensitivity if it had no speed cost, I suspect.
In a case insensitive compiler, there would be no error, the code would just work. And, the merit of java is having to declare variables, it has nothing to do with case-sensitivity.
Because it makes sense that all symbols are uniquely identified from a set of characters, rather than each symbol being identified by a huge set of names (var, vaR, vAr, vAR, etc). There may be a need for a "canonical name", which is it? All lowercase? All uppercase?
You define a convention and stick to it. Tipically: first word lowercase, other words uppercase first like "thisIsAVariable".
Because it makes dynamic programming and reflection even slower and/or more error-prone (I have experienced this in PHP which is case-insensitive and it bugged the hell out of me [and my program]).
Slower? There's just one more pass involved (an OR in the letters) which you parse anyways. I would hardly call it slower. And that is ONLY in BAD, SELF-WRITING code.
Also please explain how does case insensitivity generate bugs. It actually prevents bugs by understanding that var and Var are actually the same thing!
Because it takes fewer CPU cycles when compiling or scanning source code.
Yeah, and then forcing you to recompile because you wrote FOo instead of Foo by mistake. Big save!
Because some languages use case to indicate a different class of variable (Ruby for instance, issues a warning if you try and change a variable starting with uppercase).
That's a bad language specification. in C you cannot change a variable you declare as constant, obvious, in Ruby it is not so apparent what is constant and what is not.
Because many programmer's text editors are case-sensitive (I know, I know, chicken, egg, etc).
How can a text editor be case sensitive????
Because lowercase/uppercase could be a harder problem if you use a language which allows Unicode symbols (Perl6?). (Is this possible? I have no idea).
There is no difference, basically. And Java supports uppercase functions for unicode in any case...
Because sometimes it actually is useful to have a symbol "ID" and another one "id" in the same symbol table.
It's a very very bad programming practice! Come on you can use id1 and id2...
Because stuff like case and english language is not part of programming, programming is about precision and computers. Introducing ambiguity (whether for the compiler or the programmer) can't be good.
Case sensitivity is way more ambiguous by allowing
bar and Bar to be different variables whereas in English a bar and a Bar are no different.
Because C is case-sensitive, and C is a popular language.
And so?
And polystyrene is not made of air either. Nevertheless most of the volume of these materials is air. It's like bubbles, they are made of soap and air inside it :-)
That is not a problem, the real issue is when the air is not confined in space and therefore you have a situation in which the air temperature is constantly cold, and never gets warm. The air inside the two panes gets eventually relatively stable in temperature.
The effects you mentioned are there, of course, but it doesn't change the fact that aerogel is good at insulating because it's full of air, just like polistyrene (sp?).
Or perhaps to insulate between windowpanes?
:-P)
Aerogel is a good insulator because it's made of air. If air does not circulate, it acts as a wonderful insulator.
That's why double glass windows work so well. I doubt they would work better with aerogel (except being dust free...
Why should they collaborate until they are all forced by law? By cooperating they are screwing their clients and getting a bad name, without getting anything back.
:-)
And probably most of them read Slashdot anyways...
Think about it, these people sell mostly digital content, as opposed to cds or dvds. So what do they do? First they separate two issue: one is the swapping of their original content (the original .avi). This can be obtained as such:
- Make a master list of hashes
- Before downloading or sharing, a p2p app has to check against this list (send the hash, get back response).
All p2p apps should be required by law (in their view) to include this check code. At this point, p2p distribution of 1:1 copies of their works is effectively crippled.
Secondly I'm sure modification of original art is not permitted by copyright law, so they can go after whoever does it and/or add new hashes to the list.
It does not solve the problem, but it sure makes it a better case for them in court and it does not bother the legitimate end user with DRM and authchecks.
This article is both bogus and dangerous. It's just a 2004-revamped prophecy of the apocalypse:
:-)
The apocalypse:
1) Predict utter destruction for the whole mankind
2) People freak out
3) Enforce your own agenda ("Give me your lands and you will be saved when the world ends in year 1000")
4) Profit! The church is the richest state in the world.
This FUD:
1) Predict utter destruction for the whole mankind
2) People freak out
3) Enforce your own agenda ("Give me your freedom and you will be saved when the time comes!")
4) Profit! Corporations control mankind.
It seems so obvious to me that's scary! A few points worth considering - let's dispel the FUD:
- The article says that every computer has 200,000 bugs in 2010. Omits to mention that in a multi-cultured internet (different computers, OSes, software) most computers would have a different set of bugs and therefore an attack couldn't possibly take down the whole, totally redundant infrastructure.
- If the internet goes down, everything (economy, electricity...) falls with it. Omits to mention that such statements should be proved.
- A more rigid security system would be more secure. False, people like Kevin Mitnick have been getting inside the world's most secure servers with very little problems, by using social engineering. Now, unless you can actually program the way the mind of people works, well, there's little you can do about it.
- Look who's talking. Uhm, a security expert suggesting more security - more than a little conflict of interest there...
I'm sure there are many more loopholes in this article, I leave to the reader the task of finding them
By the way, if someone told you "You're gonna die tomorrow! Do as I say and you will be spared!", how would you regard him/her?
I can't remember which MP3 I downloaded first, but I do remember having a great time with Audiogalaxy. It was the best MP3 download system ever, since it let me queue up MP3s (many legal ones too!) via a Web interface, and the application would fetch this list and get it for me. In simple words, choose at home and have it done in the morning at work. At those times I only had V90 at home, but Fiber at work... :-)
My band is an official contributor to Audiogalaxy, you can still get 3 songs for free! Sorry for the shameless plug (do I smell karma burning? =)
Very interesting, but what do you mean in practice? Looking at some (albeit preliminary) screenshots it seems to me that it's very similar to a distributed chat client.
What is this parallel universe made of (files, sites, shards)? Which kind of data is contained in it? How is it different from VRML? How and what does a user contribute to it?
I'm not sure and I could be grossly mistaken, but a RF shield would sure be enough. I cite from Wikipedia:
"RF shielding is the protection of sensitive electrical equipment from external radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic radiation by enclosing it in a conducting material. RF shielding is a refinement of the principle of the Faraday cage, which protects equipment from electric fields such as those from electrostatic discharges."
From the article: "AKLAND, Calif., Jan. 13 -- At least three advanced diagnostic tests suggest that an experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory has cracked open protons and neutrons like subatomic eggs to create a primordial form of matter that last existed when the universe was roughly one-millionth of a second old, scientists said here on Tuesday.
The hot, dense substance, called a quark-gluon plasma, has managed to generate intense disputes in the 15 years or so in which scientists have pursued it. In 2000, a major European laboratory claimed that it had, for the first time, liberated particles called quarks from where they are normally trapped in protons and neutrons, a big step on the way to creating the plasma.
Possibly seeking to avoid the outpouring of criticism that followed, Brookhaven scientists at the meeting here recited a series of striking new measurements from their particle accelerator in Upton on Long Island, but refused to say that they had actually produced the plasma.
Creating such a plasma would fulfill some of scientists' biggest dreams, because it would enable them to study the earliest moments of the Big Bang, the colossal explosion that is believed to have been the birth of the entire universe.
"I think the most economical explanation of what we're seeing is a quark-gluon plasma," said Dr. William Zajz, a Columbia University physicist who is the spokesman for an experiment, Phenix. "But we're holding ourselves to rigorous, very scientific standards, precisely to distinguish it from previous claims."
Other scientists here said it was clear that the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider had achieved a milestone.
"The evidence for the quark-gluon plasma is overwhelming," said Miklos Gyulassy, a theorist at Columbia.
Each of the 197 protons and neutrons that make up a gold nucleus has three quarks and a handful of other particles called gluons that transmit the strong force that holds the quarks together. By the strange rules of subatomic physics, swarms of other quarks and gluons flit into and out of existence in each nucleus.
Physicists would like to study the quarks individually, but the force carried by the gluons is something like a rubber band that never loses its elasticity. So a given quark can never escape the embrace of another quark and roam free. The lone exception -- theoretically, at least -- should occur when a collection of ordinary particles becomes so hot and dense that their innards can spill out and form a kind of quark soup, the quark-gluon plasma.
That is the state that the universe is thought to have been in a few millionths of a second after the start of the Big Bang, before the zoo of ordinary particles like protons and neutrons and pions and kaons had coalesced from the primordial soup. A speck of that soup is what the Brookhaven collider seeks to generate, by smashing together gold nuclei at close to the speed of light.
Previous measurements have shown that the lump of material at the center of that collision is from 10 to 100 times as dense as normal nuclear matter. Its temperature is more than a trillion degrees.
The new data, from particle detectors known by their acronyms -- Brahms, Star, Phenix and Phobos -- showed that this searing goo had a remarkable number of properties expected from the plasma.
One finding focused on the almond-shape region, possibly filled with plasma, created when two spherical gold nuclei strike each other, but not quite head on. Theory predicts that fast particles trying to escape the region should become hung up in the gooey plasma and sometimes stopped completely.
That general effect, called jet quenching, had been seen before. But observations by Star have shown for the first time that particles escaping down the long dimension of the almond are more likely to be stopped than those escaping along the short dimension, where there is less plasma to travel through.
"This is demonstrating, if you will, that our unders
Is owning uranium 'a matter of principle and of freedom'? And if not, why not. Where do you draw the line?
Owning uranium is a different problem. Uranium is not useful in itself, and it's a poison - therefore its possession is rightly regulated for our own good. Also, it's perfectly possible and legal to use uranium for civil purposes (energy production, radiotherapy...). So I don't see your point, actually. The problem is still the same, the use you make of technology.
I don't understand what you're asking here.
I thought you were referring to the previous comments in the thread (at least I was). We were writing about the US law against reproduction of banknotes (different from counterfeiting).
In the USA, the corporations control everything. It remains to be seen which is better for the end-user.
:-O
Actaully the Italian PM is also Italy's biggest enterpreneur, so in Italy the government IS a corporation!
Right and genetic engineering is really just implementing darwinian evolution in an expedited manner - no new moral issue there.
I know you are being sarcastic, but there's actually no new moral issue there at all. Genetic engineering is just an improvement of a tecnique which is used since ancient times to create new plants. Of course not all uses of GE are morally acceptable, but how is it different from knives, for example? They are dangerous alright, but also very useful if used properly. So is GE.
But they're small in number, and one could make the argument that battling counterfeiting takes precedence in this case.
It's not a matter of numbers it's a matter of principle and of freedom. Also, please explain in what way does this ban help avoiding counterfeiting money (since that's illegal anyway). How is the image of, say, a 100$ bill going to help counterfeiters (who are going to use an original anyways)?
They were also unable to copy and then paste it
I haven't tried myself but the article says just the opposite.
It used to be US Treasury department policy that any representation or image of US currency was illegal. This included printing photos (in newspapers for example) of people holding money, or using real money in TV shows or movies.
I know, but it's still a totally silly and unuseful law. Also, Photoshop is sold worldwide and I can assure you that reproducing bills is not illegal everywhere... Obviously counterfeiting is illegal, hehehe...
It seems that it will be invoked every time you open an image or paste an image into the editor.
Not at all, it checks only "acquired" images (i.e. live feeds from the scanner). You can circumvent the protection by cutting & pasting.
So basically the inclusion was just a matter of adding an "include" and an "if", and they even scrwed that up. I don't think it counts towards the price tag at all.
I just don't understand what the poster is talking about.
1) Apple now sells software which used to be free beforehand.
2) Poster asks for explanation from Apple
3) Answer explains why they sell the software in a suit as opposed to single apps, but now why they are now selling what used to be free
4) Story gets on Slashdot
So why is Apple charging for these products? Where's the news here?
From the article: The inner workings of the counterfeit deterrence system are so secret that not even Adobe is privy to them. The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group provides the software as a black box without revealing its precise inner workings, Connor said.
So Adobe just plugged in an OCX in their program or something similarly easy. It's not this "feature" that bloats the price tag, I'm afraid.
Also, why all this secrecy on the "inner workings" of the software, when it's so easily circumvented (e.g. copy and paste from another app)? Why should scanning money be illegal? It's ridiculous - it's like banning knives because they could be dangerous. It's not the technology, it's the use you make of it. I don't understand why politicians fail to understand this simple concept: technology is not evil or good, it does not pose new moral problems. It's always the same problems, just with a different twist in the details.
It is a C/C++ compiler, the most used for games/multimedia until the advent of directX in the mid-90s.