I really don't understand all the money they are investing in these technologies. In the end, there will ALWAYS be a way to copy static media.
I mean, worst cast, I just chop off the wires on my headphones, stick them into a high qualitiy digitizer/sound card and press record.
For video's, you could effectively do the same thing by running the SVIDEO out into the SVIDEO in on your video card, or if they figure out a way to block that using macrovision II, some bright person out there will just alergator clip the leads going to RGB guns in a television and redigitize the signal on the fly, converting it back into a useful TV signal, or just digitizing it straight to a file.
I mean, in the end, a good ol' cam corder and microphone will do the job in a pinch.
The only thing they are doing is wasting money.
The only solution to this problem which is passive is to make there be some reason for people to WANT to pay for some reason -- which for static media probably isn't possible.
The only active solution I can think of is to do what the UK does -- drive around in signal snooping vans and try to pick up missing watermarking signals in the intercepted video, or videos of substandard quality being played. Somehow I doubt the ACLU would stay quiet about such an "invasion of privacy".
Suing everyone in sight is probably the only practical thing that will ever make any difference at all... Fear is the only other motivator you really have. So far they're doing that, but they'll have to expand their efforts by 10x-100x before it really makes a dent. People just arn't afraid of a.1% risk they might have to pay $1000.
I understand the vendors position that they want the process to be easy. So here's an easy fix.
On the front of the unit, add a momentary pushbutton.
When the unit is powered up it is a fully secured mode: a random factory WEP code is in effect, the unit is password protected, all firewalls are active, and it is impossible for the user to even use the unit as is.
The user then runs a setup program on the system he'd like to use with the router. During that procedure, the program asks the user to press the button I mentioned earlier. When the button is pushed, the unit enters "automatic setup mode": It drops WEP, accepts all MACs, and communicates with the setup program to automatically configure WEP keys, add the new MAC to the accepted MAC list, sets the new computers SSID, and generally just "does it all". This procedure can be repeated for each computer to be added.
If the user is a "power user", the user can, of course, manually set up the unit after first accessing it in this manner.
This means the unit is easilly set up by newbs, but still programmable by admins.
Your average newb that is causing this problem probably has just one wireless laptop and has no idea how to even start configuring wireless networking anyway.
This way, the instructions become: Insert CD. Click "install". Press button on the front of the unit. Surf the web! How much easier does it get? (Well, how much easier does it get to have a secure router, anyway.)
In addition to this, if the user trys to clear the WEP password, a big red screen should be thrown up that says, "Danger, Will Robinson!" and then ask for the 10 digit self destruct code. (You get the idea.)
This isn't a difficult problem. I have no idea why manufacturers won't respond to it.
Re:Poker isn't (at least doesn't have to be) gambl
on
Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 1
When I said "a pair of sevens," I meant a pocket pair of sevens, giving him the boat. Rivering one more seven gives him quads for a quads over quads loser. Obviously a pair of sevens isn't anywhere near the nut.
Merely being ELECTED does not grant an official to trample on any persons -- or entities -- rights.
If the California government voted to pass a bill sensoring all the speach of Ars-Fartsica, would you say it was OK simply because they were ELECTED???? That those who don't agree with the bill (probably nobody but you) could just vote them out of office?
This bill treads the dangerous waters of restricting the activities of a person or entity, not because such activities are dangerous or harmful to themselves or others, but because they just don't LIKE what google wants to do.
The law may be unique to Californians, but all Americans have an interest in the preservation of rights and common sense all across the U.S. Any time rights are infringed, it affects everyone in the U.S. and becomes of interest to everyone. Your claim that we should just "shut up this does not affect you," is completely irrational -- such events set precidents which eventually DO effect everyone. Basically, if you don't like that were not Californian's but we still express an intreset in the issue, then you can bite us.
The government has no rights -- it is only given responsibilities by us, the people. At no time ever in our history have we given the right to the government to dictate what features they want/don't want in someone's software.
Next thing you know there'll be a rider on a "Three Strikes" type bill that prohibits Linux OSes from offering low level TCP/IP access. After all, we don't want all that packet sniffing going on.
-Chiem
Poker isn't (at least doesn't have to be) gambling
on
Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I love to play poker. I'm not the best player in the world, but I do win a little(!) bit. I think it's important to point out that poker is a very different form of gambling than 21 or craps or slots.
There are many people who don't understand this, and in fact are probably reading this right now thinking, "oh, another delusional gambler."
The thing you have to understand about poker (but not video poker) is that it is never played against the house. Instead, the house takes a small fee from each hand. In home games, there is no fee at all.
This means that whether or not you win is based not only on the raw statistics of how the cards come, but also how your opponent plays.
For example, note that before each hand of poker some or all players must play a forced bet, called a 'blind' or 'ante'. Of course, you are allowed to bet, call, raise, or fold at any time.
Now, just suppose, you are playing against a complete idiot: someone who folds every hand at every opportunity, even if he has the best possible hand.
Under these circumstances you would win 100% of the money. Every penny would be yours. Every hand you check, he says, "I don't think I can win", and he folds his hand.
Now of course, people are not that dumb, and don't play this way. But it turns out that there is a very very very wide range of possible ways to play the game between playing perfectly (which means you are somehow able to guess with 100% accuracy what cards your opponent has and know with 100% accuracy what he will do in a given situation and calculate the odds 100% correctly in your favor) -- and playing like our hypothetical moron.
This gap between ineptitude and perfection is what allows poker players to make money. The vast majority of players fall just above the moron line (believe it or not!) -- and this means there is plenty of room for people willing to learn how to play the game properly (and who have the discipline to actually do so!) to take money away from those who aren't willing.
Most of the people who play poker ARE gamblers. They call with their hands to the river hoping to get lucky and win the pot. The poker player who isn't gambling is the one who uses all available information at his disposal to calculate the odds of his winning and who only plays the game if it is to his benifit to do so.
For example, in Texas Hold'em, each player gets two cards and shares five. Suppose you are playing someone and are in the following hand:
YOU: Ah Ad
Board: Ac As 7h 5d
At this point, even with one cards still left undelt, it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose this hand. Why? There are only four aces in the deck, so your opponent can have none. The very best hand he could have at this point would be a pair of sevens. Not even a straight flush is possible at this point because there is only one card left to come. The best your opponent could hope for would be to get another seven -- and lose anyway.
When this happens in poker (it's called having the 'nuts'), every penny you bet that is matched by another player is profit. There are no odds at this point -- there is no question. You WILL win.
Good players excel at placeing themselves in this situation, while avoiding situations where they are the ones on the losing end of the deal. (If you were on the losing side of this game, the best thing you could do would be to fold and not give your opponent any more money. But most people will call you down because they "Just had to see what you had!")
If you still believe that winning or losing at poker is random, just take a look at the WSOP: Just as in golf, each year the same 20 professionals keep coming back to play, and each year it's those same 20 people who walk away with the bulk of the money. Oh, sure, every now and then someone wins the competition who probably shouldn't have, and every now and then a professional loses a lot of money. But averaged over time, in the end, it's the good players who will end up with the cash.
The only real difference is that in Golf sponsers usually pay the entrance fee, where as in poker, each player fronts his own fee.
Just something to think about when someone says, "Poker," and you think, "Slots."
I don't know what the specifics of your work is, but you probably have a huge supply of untapped workpower at your fingertips.
The students who are taking these classes could easilly be a source of tappable work hours.
See Project Gutenberg's proofreading site for an example of this type of effort. http://www.pgdp.net/c/default.php
If you could get the professors to offer a little bit of extra credit for proofreading or converting a page, the task could be much easier for you.
Envision this: You use and ADF to scan an entire stack of notes in order, but you don't worry about how the scanning goes on each page. Then you xerox the whole stack and place the copies in a binder in someone's office. The students are then offered 10 points extra credit per page translated from.TIF to word/wordperfect/Mathematica, whatever, up to three pages worth.
The points are justified since the student is in the class and learning something by carefully duplicating, analyzing, correcting, and studying the professors notes for that class. (Can you imagine a more likely way to end up accidentally committing three pages of facts to memory?)
You can place the.TIF files in a class-accessible online folder, and accept the end result in an e-mail.
If the file isn't legible, the student can check the xeroxed copy out from the binder. Since it's just a copy, you don't need to worry about losing it.
You could skip the scanning altogeather, and ask the students to return any pages they don't finish translating.
Obviously this works best for large classes where the student:pages ratio is large.
Make sure you number pages if you do anything like this.
While this is true, the type of genetic material injected tends to be limited.
Plasmids and viruses generally pick up and transmit genes which are beneficial to themselves. In addition to this, they are generally species specific.
While there are some viruses which target different species, the odds of picking up a whole gene and transfering it to another species are very slight.
Bacteria are generally even more species specific than viruses. Agrobacterium, a bacteria commonly used in genetic engineering, is highly species specific. White it occurs naturally, it must be maniuplated in the laboratory to move a gene from one plant to another.
Not true, actually. It's far more complicated that simply paring two plants with desireable characteristics, although this is how plant breeding WAS done for centuries.
For example, breeding two tall related corn plants can cause inbreeding supressions, which results in a spindly, short, sad little plant.
Plant breeding is a SCIENCE, despite popular misconceptions to the contrary.
My fiance is a Plant Breeder who graduated from Cornell and studied for a time under Susan McCouch. There is a lot of misunderstanding of traditional plant breeding, and while this article touches on some of the more non-scientific aspects of the field, it certainly is right about breeding.
To those of you who think there is no difference between G.M.ed foods and bread foods, let me give you a/.ers analogy:
Traditional plant breeding is a little bit like editing a makefile. The breeders job consists primarilly of decoding and understanding the contents of that makefile in order to eventually modify it to turn on and off certain features.
MAKEFILE for peachtree.c
# Make sure our peaches are large FRUITSIZE = HUGE # Make the shelf life long so ROTTIME = VERYLONG # Make the item pretty COLOR = PEACHY
All of these traits already exist in the target species, or at least in a species closely related enough to cross with it. At one time or another, they've all been expressed, just not at the same time. If you have enough experience with the plant, and know the plant isn't dangerous, you know you can incorporate these traits together into single plants without much worry.
Contrast this to G.M.ed food, which can best be described as a hack and slash modification to the actual source code.
#include peachoptions.h
peachcolor(fruit thisfruit) {
#ifdef PEACHY
thisfruit.color=PEACHY;
thisfruit.stem=SHORT; #endif #ifdef PASTEY
thisfruit.color=PASTEY;
thisfruit.stem=LONGER; #endif// thisfsoidahu8903w//OWI%#H lkjh// HACK AND SLASH - INSERT RED TOMATO GENE HERE
thisfruit.color=RED;
thisfruit.nutrition=TOMATOE LIKE;
thisfruit.stem=VERYLONG;// END HACK AND SLASH
thisfruit.nutrition=LOW;
if (thisfruit.color==PEACHY) thisfruit.nutrition=HIGHER;
if (thisfruit.color==PASTEY) thisfruit.nutrition=HIGH;
return; )
OK, this is all fake, but the point is, just like sticking code in software at poorly controlled places can have unintended consequences, sticking genes in to a plant's genetic sequence can also have unintended side effects.
As it turns out, nature can do something similar through the use of transposons: genes that randomly remove themselves from one part of a plant's genetic code and insert themselves elsewhere. However, the chance of producing a dramatic change is not as great, since the transposon gene is not being expressed in a completely different species from the one originating it.
Most of the time, the results from GMing are positive. But occasionally the results are negative, and the real issue is that we must implement safeguards specific to GM crops in order to protect our food supply.
Mother nature does not discriminate one corn plant from another, and many GM projects have the express purpose of introducing traits you would NOT want in your average corn field. Suppose he introduces a gene which turns the corn kernel flesh pink, making a great new popcorn for teens. Suppose this gene also turns out to cause the corn to be poisonous.
Because corn pollen is capable of traveling impressive distances, that corn gene, if not sufficiently isolated, could contaminate a large portion of this year's corn crop. It is important to note that the gene would not cause irretrievable contamination, as today's seed corn is produced in carefully isolated conditions away from stray pollen (both GM and non-GM). But this sort of contamination would cause major headaches for one harvest season, as the StarLink episode in South America demonstrated. We might not know about a given instance until after you've already eaten Corn Flakes contaminated with birth control hormones.
This contamination problem is similar to what would happen to Marijuana plants if industrial hemp were to
A very good point. However, I think you can even get around this by randomly picking 1% of the population that CAN check, and not alowing the other 99% to do so unless fraud is suspected. Thus, there would only be a 1% chance you could prove to the person you wold the vote to that you had voted as was requested.
If that's not good enough, the computer could spit out several fake codes which the system knows are fake (if you report to the FBI), but which the system responds to normally. You could then give this fake code to the person who bought your vote, and they couldn't tell the difference between the codes -- only you and the database know which code is the valid one.
Again, these are all good points, but I think these kinds of issues could be worked around with enough thought.
I understand your concerns, but I just can't believe that in a world of ATM machines, electronic fund transfers, internet proxies, 128 bit encryption, and countless computer privacy experts, we can't, given some time to think about it, come up with a way to get one little fact out to someone without broadcasting who recieved it to the world.
I mean, you could just set up 'vote check systems' at the local library to get around the IP number issue.
As for the paper ballot printed by computer method, it isn't any harder to hack, that's for darn sure. A little social engineering? "Oh hi, I'm Tom from Vote Count Central. I'm supposed to pick up your paper ballots. Oh that voters box in my car? It's just, um... just another districts box, yeah, that's it, just another districts box..."
I still believe the only way for voters to know for sure if their vote was counted correctly is to be able to check up on it later -- and if that presents a "security risk" to my voters anonymity, then I view that as a whole other barrel of beans to be soaked overnight.
I understand the worry some people have about hacked systems, but what I don't understand is the response to it.
Instead of being so worried about it, why not simply close the loop with the voter to make fraud detection easy?
What I mean is, suppose after I vote, I enter a password/PIN which is used to encrypt a random number used to identify my vote. The machine records both my random number and my votes, but not my pin. This encrypted information is then printed for me before I leave. When I get home, and after the votes have been counted, I hop online and download a JAVA applet which lets me decode my random identifying number in private. I can then punch this number into the net (which let's me see any vote I want since the information isn't tied to anyone) -- and tells me who I voted for. If the information doesn't match, I call 1-800-voter-fraud and turn the matter over to the FBI.
Ok, I haven't exactly fleshed out the whole thing here, because you need some way of making sure people don't claim they've been a victom of fraud when they haven't been, but I suspect given a few bright people, some public encryption algorithsm, and some time, we could probably solve that problem.
The point is, if 10% (or some other threshold) of a voting district says their vote doesn't match up correctly while the rate in the rest of the nation is 1%... you know theres a problem and can call for a revote in that district.
As a slightly off topic aside, I really wish I could vote for MULTIPLE people in the order I wanted them elected. Thus, when I vote for some third party person who is obviously not going to get elected, I can still throw my weight behind my #2 candidate who might otherwise be hindered by my real vote -- and at the same time, I get my voice heard with reguard to my true desires.
I'd love to see this a Graphical Adventure contest like this one recieve the kind of coverage and participation that the interactive games get.
It's seems so sad to me that modern games seem so devoid of creativity. I pray for the day that the immense processing power of todays gaming machines are applied toward making a truely innovative and creative game, instead of ones that simply remake the same old FPS with better graphics.
You make learning fun by making it necessary to do in order to do something that IS fun.
Example: BASIC CLASSICAL PHYSICS, FORCE/MASS
Task:
Design a water balloon launcher from common materials (pvc pipe/surgical tubing/etc) that can hit your teacher with a water ballon at 100 yards in one week. You get 3 shots, the closest one determines your grade. You must set your device acording to the the settings in your submitted white paper.
Total Week's Grade breakdown:
Hit the Teacher: 33%
Device Analysis Whitepaper: 33%
Written Exam: 33%
Hit the Teacher Grade Scale:
A+: Hit the teacher
B: Within 25 Feet
C: Not even close!
D: Show up with a non working device
F: Fail to show up, or show up without a device
Lesson plan:
MON: Force - Basic laws of physics.
Airtable demo.
TUE: Acceleration - how not to break a balloon.
Falling egg demo.
WED: Orthoganality - how far will my balloon go?
Falling monkey/plastic dart demo. (Dart shot straight at stuffed monkey from 20 feet -- monkey released at same moment trigger pulled.)
THU: Air resistance - non-ideality
Feather/Bowlingball in vaccum demo.
FRI: HIT THE TEACHER! +
whitepaper due +
weekly writen exam
When I was in school, and even when at Cornell, I was always irritated because I never got to play in the Chemistry lab much. Oh sure, I got to do a few titrations, a PChem lab that involved copper recovery... but we never got to make or see Thermite demonstrated. We never got to make our own polymers. It's really irritated me that there were probably kids in the 50's that got more chemistry lab experience than I did because a favorite aunt bought them a childs Chemistry lab with "1001 Chemistry Experiments!" -- no longer available due to concerns about poisoning, no doubt.
Every subject can be made fun in this way, though for some subjects it's not immediately obvious -- and not everything has to involve building something or spending money.
Computer science is more fun if you're making a game -- combine this with English and write an interactive adventure. Math is more fun if you are analyzing baseball. Learning unit conversions and how to work with fractions is a blast if you are making a cake using directions that have units of cubic miles instead of cups for flour, light years instead of inches for pan size, and millenia instead of minutes for bake times.
The tricky part is being creative enough: Most people can make one or two of these lesson plans, but enough for an entire basic education?
To solve this problem, I've actually wanted to start a new education program of my own. Call it the Basic Education WikiBook. The book would be world-contributable, reader editable, and would contain one or more creative lesson plans for every subject from K-12.
If every person that worked with the BEWB contributed one really good lesson plan, one really good nemonic, or one really good web/java based lesson, the end result would be one of the world's best basic education textbooks.
Well, maybe after I'm done working on one of my many other inventions and have made my own million bucks. I wouldn't be at all disappointed if someone stole my idea though... (hint, hint!)
A couple of years ago at Christmas my brother needed a new CD-ROM drive. After looking around, I settled on a new 52x drive from Lite-On and a new game to use in it.
On christmas day we installed the drive and played the game for a few hours. The drive was fast, but it sounded a bit too much like a jet preparing for takeoff. The game would occasionally lock up briefly - something we thought was due to the software, until eventually we heard a funny whining noise followed by a very frightening vibration succeeded by one second of loud banging terminating in one VERY loud explosion. The front of the CD drive was bent down, and bits of flying plastic shot across the room.
We couldn't believe it. Talk about pounding hearts! The drive door wouldn't open, and it was apparant the new drive was toast. I collected the fragments of CD, uninstalled the new drive (which now made a nice "rain stick" rattling noise when shaken), and returned both the game and the drive to CompUSA telling them of our experience. We told them that the fragments flew all the way across the room AFTER ripping open the front of the drive - and still made marks on the wall!
We warned them that the drives were extremely dangerous. Our computer just happens to be mounted at eye level - and my brother just happened to have just moved his chair from that location. The legal implicaitons were clear... After rattling the drive for them and showing the bits and pieces of the game CD, they hapilly refunded the purchase price of both.
An e-mail was sent to technical support explaining what happened, along with the serial number of the drive we had purchased.
We never did get a reply from the manufacturer, but we did return a week later to CompUSA and found the drives had been mysteriously withdrawn from the shelves without so much as a whisper.
We opted to spend the money on a Yamaha multi-pickup drive instead. It was extremely quiet, faster than the 52x drive I purchased originally, and best of all - it didn't throw cd fragment across the room at alarming speeds.
Knowingly intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire communication
Since the information they are aquiring is information which is sent out over the web, (I.E. a URL, albeit represented in a slightly different form) this kind of suit should stick.
This kind of behaviour sticks of wiretapping to me. Please sue.
I am one of the poeple you seek, but, unfortunately for you, I'm not for hire!
I know exactly what your problem is. I actually started out as as a bright computer hacker who could work magic at the keyboard. I thought myself capable of meeting any computing chalenge. I would have jumped at the opportunities you speak of because I considered my self quite talented at math and loved science! But I later was later humbled when I transfered into Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University.
What I can tell you now is that there is a big three-way misunderstanding between scientists, CS people, and hackers.
You see, CS people and hackers (me too, before AEP!) have this idea that "good math skills" means you have had core calculus plus differential equations and maybe linear algebra. But scientists have a very different idea of "good math skills." They often want Mathematical Physics too, or maybe group theory, or maybe... one of a hundred other things. When I left my prior university, I had already "taken all of my math requirements." But after getting to Cornell, I found myself suddenly being forced to/prove/ the orthogonality of the Fourier series. Suddenly, lookup tables for Laplace transforms weren't good enough. We had to integrate them directly in complex space using Resuide theory. And that was just my first math class after arriving, and now I can say, with confidence, that I actually really SUCK at math.
Conversely, many scientists think that good computing skills means that you can code in C or Java and make words print out on the screen. They often have no understanding of the art and talent that goes into the marriage between an idea and the machine it gets implemented on. They strugle with "those darn pointers" and stick to basic reference texts they picked up in, "Introduction to Computing for Scientists and Engineers."
Finally, many CS people are confined to the relm of formal computing and analysis. They lack the soft squishy "i talk computereeze" part. On the other hand, hackers often lack the discipline necessary to ensure working code!
How do you find people who have all of the traits rolled into one?
You pray. Then you write a request to places where hackers hang out, but you make it clear that you are looking for someone who has the specific math and science skills you need. But most of all, you ASK SOMEONE who already has the talent you are looking for to name OTHER PEOPLE who fit the bill. Off the top of my head, I can name only two other people who have all of these talents - even after knowing many people in the CS department at Cornell!
You then call them, and ask them, and... ok you get the idea. I know of no other way to find such talent.
Finally you go to places like Cornell and MIT and Caltech. You go to the Applied Physics departments. You go to the Applied Math departments. You go to the places where the MATH is taught, and hunt down the people who also LOVE computers. (Ususally you can just ask any of the students and they will point you in the right direction!)
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I really don't understand all the money they are investing in these technologies. In the end, there will ALWAYS be a way to copy static media.
.1% risk they might have to pay $1000.
I mean, worst cast, I just chop off the wires on my headphones, stick them into a high qualitiy digitizer/sound card and press record.
For video's, you could effectively do the same thing by running the SVIDEO out into the SVIDEO in on your video card, or if they figure out a way to block that using macrovision II, some bright person out there will just alergator clip the leads going to RGB guns in a television and redigitize the signal on the fly, converting it back into a useful TV signal, or just digitizing it straight to a file.
I mean, in the end, a good ol' cam corder and microphone will do the job in a pinch.
The only thing they are doing is wasting money.
The only solution to this problem which is passive is to make there be some reason for people to WANT to pay for some reason -- which for static media probably isn't possible.
The only active solution I can think of is to do what the UK does -- drive around in signal snooping vans and try to pick up missing watermarking signals in the intercepted video, or videos of substandard quality being played. Somehow I doubt the ACLU would stay quiet about such an "invasion of privacy".
Suing everyone in sight is probably the only practical thing that will ever make any difference at all... Fear is the only other motivator you really have. So far they're doing that, but they'll have to expand their efforts by 10x-100x before it really makes a dent. People just arn't afraid of a
I understand the vendors position that they want the process to be easy. So here's an easy fix.
On the front of the unit, add a momentary pushbutton.
When the unit is powered up it is a fully secured mode: a random factory WEP code is in effect, the unit is password protected, all firewalls are active, and it is impossible for the user to even use the unit as is.
The user then runs a setup program on the system he'd like to use with the router. During that procedure, the program asks the user to press the button I mentioned earlier. When the button is pushed, the unit enters "automatic setup mode": It drops WEP, accepts all MACs, and communicates with the setup program to automatically configure WEP keys, add the new MAC to the accepted MAC list, sets the new computers SSID, and generally just "does it all". This procedure can be repeated for each computer to be added.
If the user is a "power user", the user can, of course, manually set up the unit after first accessing it in this manner.
This means the unit is easilly set up by newbs, but still programmable by admins.
Your average newb that is causing this problem probably has just one wireless laptop and has no idea how to even start configuring wireless networking anyway.
This way, the instructions become: Insert CD. Click "install". Press button on the front of the unit. Surf the web! How much easier does it get? (Well, how much easier does it get to have a secure router, anyway.)
In addition to this, if the user trys to clear the WEP password, a big red screen should be thrown up that says, "Danger, Will Robinson!" and then ask for the 10 digit self destruct code. (You get the idea.)
This isn't a difficult problem. I have no idea why manufacturers won't respond to it.
When I said "a pair of sevens," I meant a pocket pair of sevens, giving him the boat. Rivering one more seven gives him quads for a quads over quads loser. Obviously a pair of sevens isn't anywhere near the nut.
Merely being ELECTED does not grant an official to trample on any persons -- or entities -- rights.
If the California government voted to pass a bill sensoring all the speach of Ars-Fartsica, would you say it was OK simply because they were ELECTED???? That those who don't agree with the bill (probably nobody but you) could just vote them out of office?
This bill treads the dangerous waters of restricting the activities of a person or entity, not because such activities are dangerous or harmful to themselves or others, but because they just don't LIKE what google wants to do.
The law may be unique to Californians, but all Americans have an interest in the preservation of rights and common sense all across the U.S. Any time rights are infringed, it affects everyone in the U.S. and becomes of interest to everyone. Your claim that we should just "shut up this does not affect you," is completely irrational -- such events set precidents which eventually DO effect everyone. Basically, if you don't like that were not Californian's but we still express an intreset in the issue, then you can bite us.
The government has no rights -- it is only given responsibilities by us, the people. At no time ever in our history have we given the right to the government to dictate what features they want/don't want in someone's software.
Next thing you know there'll be a rider on a "Three Strikes" type bill that prohibits Linux OSes from offering low level TCP/IP access. After all, we don't want all that packet sniffing going on.
-Chiem
I love to play poker. I'm not the best player in the world, but I do win a little(!) bit. I think it's important to point out that poker is a very different form of gambling than 21 or craps or slots.
There are many people who don't understand this, and in fact are probably reading this right now thinking, "oh, another delusional gambler."
The thing you have to understand about poker (but not video poker) is that it is never played against the house. Instead, the house takes a small fee from each hand. In home games, there is no fee at all.
This means that whether or not you win is based not only on the raw statistics of how the cards come, but also how your opponent plays.
For example, note that before each hand of poker some or all players must play a forced bet, called a 'blind' or 'ante'. Of course, you are allowed to bet, call, raise, or fold at any time.
Now, just suppose, you are playing against a complete idiot: someone who folds every hand at every opportunity, even if he has the best possible hand.
Under these circumstances you would win 100% of the money. Every penny would be yours. Every hand you check, he says, "I don't think I can win", and he folds his hand.
Now of course, people are not that dumb, and don't play this way. But it turns out that there is a very very very wide range of possible ways to play the game between playing perfectly (which means you are somehow able to guess with 100% accuracy what cards your opponent has and know with 100% accuracy what he will do in a given situation and calculate the odds 100% correctly in your favor) -- and playing like our hypothetical moron.
This gap between ineptitude and perfection is what allows poker players to make money. The vast majority of players fall just above the moron line (believe it or not!) -- and this means there is plenty of room for people willing to learn how to play the game properly (and who have the discipline to actually do so!) to take money away from those who aren't willing.
Most of the people who play poker ARE gamblers. They call with their hands to the river hoping to get lucky and win the pot. The poker player who isn't gambling is the one who uses all available information at his disposal to calculate the odds of his winning and who only plays the game if it is to his benifit to do so.
For example, in Texas Hold'em, each player gets two cards and shares five. Suppose you are playing someone and are in the following hand:
YOU: Ah Ad
Board: Ac As 7h 5d
At this point, even with one cards still left undelt, it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose this hand. Why? There are only four aces in the deck, so your opponent can have none. The very best hand he could have at this point would be a pair of sevens. Not even a straight flush is possible at this point because there is only one card left to come. The best your opponent could hope for would be to get another seven -- and lose anyway.
When this happens in poker (it's called having the 'nuts'), every penny you bet that is matched by another player is profit. There are no odds at this point -- there is no question. You WILL win.
Good players excel at placeing themselves in this situation, while avoiding situations where they are the ones on the losing end of the deal. (If you were on the losing side of this game, the best thing you could do would be to fold and not give your opponent any more money. But most people will call you down because they "Just had to see what you had!")
If you still believe that winning or losing at poker is random, just take a look at the WSOP: Just as in golf, each year the same 20 professionals keep coming back to play, and each year it's those same 20 people who walk away with the bulk of the money. Oh, sure, every now and then someone wins the competition who probably shouldn't have, and every now and then a professional loses a lot of money. But averaged over time, in the end, it's the good players who will end up with the cash.
The only real difference is that in Golf sponsers usually pay the entrance fee, where as in poker, each player fronts his own fee.
Just something to think about when someone says, "Poker," and you think, "Slots."
-Chiem
I don't know what the specifics of your work is, but you probably have a huge supply of untapped workpower at your fingertips.
.TIF to word/wordperfect/Mathematica, whatever, up to three pages worth.
.TIF files in a class-accessible online folder, and accept the end result in an e-mail.
The students who are taking these classes could easilly be a source of tappable work hours.
See Project Gutenberg's proofreading site for an example of this type of effort. http://www.pgdp.net/c/default.php
If you could get the professors to offer a little bit of extra credit for proofreading or converting a page, the task could be much easier for you.
Envision this: You use and ADF to scan an entire stack of notes in order, but you don't worry about how the scanning goes on each page. Then you xerox the whole stack and place the copies in a binder in someone's office. The students are then offered 10 points extra credit per page translated from
The points are justified since the student is in the class and learning something by carefully duplicating, analyzing, correcting, and studying the professors notes for that class. (Can you imagine a more likely way to end up accidentally committing three pages of facts to memory?)
You can place the
If the file isn't legible, the student can check the xeroxed copy out from the binder. Since it's just a copy, you don't need to worry about losing it.
You could skip the scanning altogeather, and ask the students to return any pages they don't finish translating.
Obviously this works best for large classes where the student:pages ratio is large.
Make sure you number pages if you do anything like this.
While this is true, the type of genetic material injected tends to be limited.
Plasmids and viruses generally pick up and transmit genes which are beneficial to themselves. In addition to this, they are generally species specific.
While there are some viruses which target different species, the odds of picking up a whole gene and transfering it to another species are very slight.
Bacteria are generally even more species specific than viruses. Agrobacterium, a bacteria commonly used in genetic engineering, is highly species specific. White it occurs naturally, it must be maniuplated in the laboratory to move a gene from one plant to another.
-Chiem
Not true, actually. It's far more complicated that simply paring two plants with desireable characteristics, although this is how plant breeding WAS done for centuries.
For example, breeding two tall related corn plants can cause inbreeding supressions, which results in a spindly, short, sad little plant.
Plant breeding is a SCIENCE, despite popular misconceptions to the contrary.
My fiance is a Plant Breeder who graduated from Cornell and studied for a time under Susan McCouch. There is a lot of misunderstanding of traditional plant breeding, and while this article touches on some of the more non-scientific aspects of the field, it certainly is right about breeding.
/.ers analogy:
// thisfsoidahu8903w //OWI%#H lkjh // HACK AND SLASH - INSERT RED TOMATO GENE HERE // END HACK AND SLASH
To those of you who think there is no difference between G.M.ed foods and bread foods, let me give you a
Traditional plant breeding is a little bit like editing a makefile. The breeders job consists primarilly of decoding and understanding the contents of that makefile in order to eventually modify it to turn on and off certain features.
MAKEFILE for peachtree.c
# Make sure our peaches are large
FRUITSIZE = HUGE
# Make the shelf life long so
ROTTIME = VERYLONG
# Make the item pretty
COLOR = PEACHY
All of these traits already exist in the target species, or at least in a species closely related enough to cross with it. At one time or another, they've all been expressed, just not at the same time. If you have enough experience with the plant, and know the plant isn't dangerous, you know you can incorporate these traits together into single plants without much worry.
Contrast this to G.M.ed food, which can best be described as a hack and slash modification to the actual source code.
#include peachoptions.h
peachcolor(fruit thisfruit) {
#ifdef PEACHY
thisfruit.color=PEACHY;
thisfruit.stem=SHORT;
#endif
#ifdef PASTEY
thisfruit.color=PASTEY;
thisfruit.stem=LONGER;
#endif
thisfruit.color=RED;
thisfruit.nutrition=TOMATOE LIKE;
thisfruit.stem=VERYLONG;
thisfruit.nutrition=LOW;
if (thisfruit.color==PEACHY) thisfruit.nutrition=HIGHER;
if (thisfruit.color==PASTEY) thisfruit.nutrition=HIGH;
return;
)
OK, this is all fake, but the point is, just like sticking code in software at poorly controlled places can have unintended consequences, sticking genes in to a plant's genetic sequence can also have unintended side effects.
As it turns out, nature can do something similar through the use of transposons: genes that randomly remove themselves from one part of a plant's genetic code and insert themselves elsewhere. However, the chance of producing a dramatic change is not as great, since the transposon gene is not being expressed in a completely different species from the one originating it.
Most of the time, the results from GMing are positive. But occasionally the results are negative, and the real issue is that we must implement safeguards specific to GM crops in order to protect our food supply.
Mother nature does not discriminate one corn plant from another, and many GM projects have the express purpose of introducing traits you would NOT want in your average corn field. Suppose he introduces a gene which turns the corn kernel flesh pink, making a great new popcorn for teens. Suppose this gene also turns out to cause the corn to be poisonous.
Because corn pollen is capable of traveling impressive distances, that corn gene, if not sufficiently isolated, could contaminate a large portion of this year's corn crop. It is important to note that the gene would not cause irretrievable contamination, as today's seed corn is produced in carefully isolated conditions away from stray pollen (both GM and non-GM). But this sort of contamination would cause major headaches for one harvest season, as the StarLink episode in South America demonstrated. We might not know about a given instance until after you've already eaten Corn Flakes contaminated with birth control hormones.
This contamination problem is similar to what would happen to Marijuana plants if industrial hemp were to
A very good point. However, I think you can even get around this by randomly picking 1% of the population that CAN check, and not alowing the other 99% to do so unless fraud is suspected. Thus, there would only be a 1% chance you could prove to the person you wold the vote to that you had voted as was requested.
If that's not good enough, the computer could spit out several fake codes which the system knows are fake (if you report to the FBI), but which the system responds to normally. You could then give this fake code to the person who bought your vote, and they couldn't tell the difference between the codes -- only you and the database know which code is the valid one.
Again, these are all good points, but I think these kinds of issues could be worked around with enough thought.
I understand your concerns, but I just can't believe that in a world of ATM machines, electronic fund transfers, internet proxies, 128 bit encryption, and countless computer privacy experts, we can't, given some time to think about it, come up with a way to get one little fact out to someone without broadcasting who recieved it to the world.
I mean, you could just set up 'vote check systems' at the local library to get around the IP number issue.
As for the paper ballot printed by computer method, it isn't any harder to hack, that's for darn sure. A little social engineering? "Oh hi, I'm Tom from Vote Count Central. I'm supposed to pick up your paper ballots. Oh that voters box in my car? It's just, um... just another districts box, yeah, that's it, just another districts box..."
I still believe the only way for voters to know for sure if their vote was counted correctly is to be able to check up on it later -- and if that presents a "security risk" to my voters anonymity, then I view that as a whole other barrel of beans to be soaked overnight.
I understand the worry some people have about hacked systems, but what I don't understand is the response to it.
Instead of being so worried about it, why not simply close the loop with the voter to make fraud detection easy?
What I mean is, suppose after I vote, I enter a password/PIN which is used to encrypt a random number used to identify my vote. The machine records both my random number and my votes, but not my pin. This encrypted information is then printed for me before I leave. When I get home, and after the votes have been counted, I hop online and download a JAVA applet which lets me decode my random identifying number in private. I can then punch this number into the net (which let's me see any vote I want since the information isn't tied to anyone) -- and tells me who I voted for. If the information doesn't match, I call 1-800-voter-fraud and turn the matter over to the FBI.
Ok, I haven't exactly fleshed out the whole thing here, because you need some way of making sure people don't claim they've been a victom of fraud when they haven't been, but I suspect given a few bright people, some public encryption algorithsm, and some time, we could probably solve that problem.
The point is, if 10% (or some other threshold) of a voting district says their vote doesn't match up correctly while the rate in the rest of the nation is 1%... you know theres a problem and can call for a revote in that district.
As a slightly off topic aside, I really wish I could vote for MULTIPLE people in the order I wanted them elected. Thus, when I vote for some third party person who is obviously not going to get elected, I can still throw my weight behind my #2 candidate who might otherwise be hindered by my real vote -- and at the same time, I get my voice heard with reguard to my true desires.
-Chiem
I'd love to see this a Graphical Adventure contest like this one recieve the kind of coverage and participation that the interactive games get.
It's seems so sad to me that modern games seem so devoid of creativity. I pray for the day that the immense processing power of todays gaming machines are applied toward making a truely innovative and creative game, instead of ones that simply remake the same old FPS with better graphics.
Example: BASIC CLASSICAL PHYSICS, FORCE/MASS
Task:
Design a water balloon launcher from common materials (pvc pipe/surgical tubing/etc) that can hit your teacher with a water ballon at 100 yards in one week. You get 3 shots, the closest one determines your grade. You must set your device acording to the the settings in your submitted white paper.
Total Week's Grade breakdown:
Hit the Teacher: 33%
Device Analysis Whitepaper: 33%
Written Exam: 33%
Hit the Teacher Grade Scale:
A+: Hit the teacher
B: Within 25 Feet
C: Not even close!
D: Show up with a non working device
F: Fail to show up, or show up without a device
Lesson plan:
MON: Force - Basic laws of physics.
Airtable demo.
TUE: Acceleration - how not to break a balloon.
Falling egg demo.
WED: Orthoganality - how far will my balloon go?
Falling monkey/plastic dart demo. (Dart shot straight at stuffed monkey from 20 feet -- monkey released at same moment trigger pulled.)
THU: Air resistance - non-ideality
Feather/Bowlingball in vaccum demo.
FRI: HIT THE TEACHER! +
whitepaper due +
weekly writen exam
When I was in school, and even when at Cornell, I was always irritated because I never got to play in the Chemistry lab much. Oh sure, I got to do a few titrations, a PChem lab that involved copper recovery... but we never got to make or see Thermite demonstrated. We never got to make our own polymers. It's really irritated me that there were probably kids in the 50's that got more chemistry lab experience than I did because a favorite aunt bought them a childs Chemistry lab with "1001 Chemistry Experiments!" -- no longer available due to concerns about poisoning, no doubt.
Every subject can be made fun in this way, though for some subjects it's not immediately obvious -- and not everything has to involve building something or spending money.
Computer science is more fun if you're making a game -- combine this with English and write an interactive adventure. Math is more fun if you are analyzing baseball. Learning unit conversions and how to work with fractions is a blast if you are making a cake using directions that have units of cubic miles instead of cups for flour, light years instead of inches for pan size, and millenia instead of minutes for bake times.
The tricky part is being creative enough: Most people can make one or two of these lesson plans, but enough for an entire basic education?
To solve this problem, I've actually wanted to start a new education program of my own. Call it the Basic Education WikiBook. The book would be world-contributable, reader editable, and would contain one or more creative lesson plans for every subject from K-12.
If every person that worked with the BEWB contributed one really good lesson plan, one really good nemonic, or one really good web/java based lesson, the end result would be one of the world's best basic education textbooks.
Well, maybe after I'm done working on one of my many other inventions and have made my own million bucks. I wouldn't be at all disappointed if someone stole my idea though... (hint, hint!)
-Chiem Ma cwm9@cornell.edu
A couple of years ago at Christmas my brother needed a new CD-ROM drive. After looking around, I settled on a new 52x drive from Lite-On and a new game to use in it.
On christmas day we installed the drive and played the game for a few hours. The drive was fast, but it sounded a bit too much like a jet preparing for takeoff. The game would occasionally lock up briefly - something we thought was due to the software, until eventually we heard a funny whining noise followed by a very frightening vibration succeeded by one second of loud banging terminating in one VERY loud explosion. The front of the CD drive was bent down, and bits of flying plastic shot across the room.
We couldn't believe it. Talk about pounding hearts! The drive door wouldn't open, and it was apparant the new drive was toast. I collected the fragments of CD, uninstalled the new drive (which now made a nice "rain stick" rattling noise when shaken), and returned both the game and the drive to CompUSA telling them of our experience. We told them that the fragments flew all the way across the room AFTER ripping open the front of the drive - and still made marks on the wall!
We warned them that the drives were extremely dangerous. Our computer just happens to be mounted at eye level - and my brother just happened to have just moved his chair from that location. The legal implicaitons were clear... After rattling the drive for them and showing the bits and pieces of the game CD, they hapilly refunded the purchase price of both.
An e-mail was sent to technical support explaining what happened, along with the serial number of the drive we had purchased.
We never did get a reply from the manufacturer, but we did return a week later to CompUSA and found the drives had been mysteriously withdrawn from the shelves without so much as a whisper.
We opted to spend the money on a Yamaha multi-pickup drive instead. It was extremely quiet, faster than the 52x drive I purchased originally, and best of all - it didn't throw cd fragment across the room at alarming speeds.
-cwm9
Someone PLEASE sue these jerks for wiretapping.
It's defined as someone who:
Knowingly intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire communication
Since the information they are aquiring is information which is sent out over the web, (I.E. a URL, albeit represented in a slightly different form) this kind of suit should stick.
This kind of behaviour sticks of wiretapping to me. Please sue.
-me
I am one of the poeple you seek, but, unfortunately for you, I'm not for hire!
/prove/ the orthogonality of the Fourier series. Suddenly, lookup tables for Laplace transforms weren't good enough. We had to integrate them directly in complex space using Resuide theory. And that was just my first math class after arriving, and now I can say, with confidence, that I actually really SUCK at math.
I know exactly what your problem is. I actually started out as as a bright computer hacker who could work magic at the keyboard. I thought myself capable of meeting any computing chalenge. I would have jumped at the opportunities you speak of because I considered my self quite talented at math and loved science! But I later was later humbled when I transfered into Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University.
What I can tell you now is that there is a big three-way misunderstanding between scientists, CS people, and hackers.
You see, CS people and hackers (me too, before AEP!) have this idea that "good math skills" means you have had core calculus plus differential equations and maybe linear algebra. But scientists have a very different idea of "good math skills." They often want Mathematical Physics too, or maybe group theory, or maybe... one of a hundred other things. When I left my prior university, I had already "taken all of my math requirements." But after getting to Cornell, I found myself suddenly being forced to
Conversely, many scientists think that good computing skills means that you can code in C or Java and make words print out on the screen. They often have no understanding of the art and talent that goes into the marriage between an idea and the machine it gets implemented on. They strugle with "those darn pointers" and stick to basic reference texts they picked up in, "Introduction to Computing for Scientists and Engineers."
Finally, many CS people are confined to the relm of formal computing and analysis. They lack the soft squishy "i talk computereeze" part. On the other hand, hackers often lack the discipline necessary to ensure working code!
How do you find people who have all of the traits rolled into one?
You pray. Then you write a request to places where hackers hang out, but you make it clear that you are looking for someone who has the specific math and science skills you need. But most of all, you ASK SOMEONE who already has the talent you are looking for to name OTHER PEOPLE who fit the bill. Off the top of my head, I can name only two other people who have all of these talents - even after knowing many people in the CS department at Cornell!
You then call them, and ask them, and... ok you get the idea. I know of no other way to find such talent.
Finally you go to places like Cornell and MIT and Caltech. You go to the Applied Physics departments. You go to the Applied Math departments. You go to the places where the MATH is taught, and hunt down the people who also LOVE computers. (Ususally you can just ask any of the students and they will point you in the right direction!)
Anyway, that is my two cents worth.