Heheheh, you forgot the word "universal", so it's 24 or 25 bytes depending on whether or not you are counting the null terminator (since a universal turing machine is a specific type of turing machine).
I have a hard enough time finding keyboards that I like and trying to type on a table top sounds like a bad idea. I'm pretty picky about key travel (the distance that a key moves when pressed). I really like the small key travel of laptops and I searched around for weeks before finding a desktop keyboard that had an acceptable key travel. Even if you're not anal about key travel like I am, it's nice to have some sense that your keys are in the right place by having something move. I imagine it would be pretty easy to get lost trying to type on a table with no feedback from the table.
I agree with you that it is a question of morals, but I see the difficulty being what morals should be taught, how should morals be taught, and who should teach morals. These are not easy questions to answer and it seems to be something that American society is still trying to figure out.
As for the judge, I think he should be applauded for his decision. This shows the growth of our society in realizing how to deal with problems that have arose in our society. Assuming, of course, that the decision of the judge reflects that of the society.
Yes, it is the software manufacturer's fault if they make buggy software and don't ever put a hold on new features to fix bugs.
I'm not sure it's so simple. For example, what if no one knows about the bug when the software is released. Later someone finds the bug and some computers are compromised before a patch can be released. Is the manufacturer still at fault?
And this begs the question of whether or not it's possible to make bug free software in the first place. Given the complexity of software, 100% bug free software might not be a realistic goal and this seems to make it unfair to punish software companies for every bug. Making software companies liable could severely hinder software development due to the high risk involved.
It's very hard to assess liability when software fails. I haven't the solution and I imagine it'll be a while before anything concrete is determined.
I'm going to stick to the moral high ground, and never play another Blizzard game again unless it's a pirated version.
Uhm, I don't see how pirating software is sticking to the moral high ground. I can see how boycotting Blizzard products might be the moral high ground, but that doesn't justify you pirating their software. Just cause Blizzard is doing something wrong doesn't mean you can do something wrong back at them. You should probably get off your moral high horse.
To my knowledge, my school doesn't have any policies about source code. I've asked two different professors about it and they're not sure. So since I have to write programs for homework, I've started to include the BSD license on everything I write, just to be safe. Maybe it wouldn't hold up in court, but it seems like a safe thing to do in case it comes up (who knows, someone may want the tetris game I wrote for OpenGL class).
By the time you get done editing the commercials out of a 2 hour TV show -- you will finally feel like you are getting your money's worth out of that new Athlon:) In other words: It takes a steady hand and a little patience and alot of spare time to make these edits.
I would say it depends on the video format you're using. MPEG-1 files are a piece of cake to edit, I've cut commercials out of many things that I've recorded into MPEG-1 using Dazzle. VCD Cutter makes it a snap to do, the only time it takes it the time it takes to copy the data to another file, which is a hard drive limitation rather than a CPU or video card limitation.
On the other hand, I imagine editing commercials out of AVI files would be a pain.
Ah yes, and after playing or watching Grand Theft Auto 3, I always have an urge to drive on the sidewalk, beat up police officers and drive around a firetruck.
Oh wait, I had that urge before playing the game. Maybe that's why I played the game in the first place.
I daresay that if he were not disabled, he would have spent more time in social situations, with family, etc., and would have had less time to explore the universe with his mind and report the results.
Although it may be because of the additional time to spend using one's mind that has led to the success of some geeks, I find that personally if all I did was think about stuff all the time, I'd probably less successful. In my own life, I find that I'm the most successful when I lead a more balanced life. For example, if I'm working on a computer problem for a long time, my ability to come up with new ideas decreases. However, if I take a break, go outside, hang out with other people, and just stop thinking about the problem at hand, when I return to it, I have lots of good ideas.
One thing that comes to mind is a story by Richard Feynman where he was having a hard time coming up with a new idea to research, so he stopped trying to come up with a new idea. He saw someone throw a frisbee and that it wobbled a certain way. He decided to analyze the factors that influence the way that a frisbee wobbles based on rotation and other variables. This indirectly led to some more significant discoveries by Feynman (which I'm not familiar with since I'm not a physicist).
Obviously the previous balance wasn't good enough because Downtown Manhattan and the Pentagon were given a serious blow.
And you believe that these extra restrictions are going to prevent terrorist attacks? If someone really wants to hijack a plane, they will. The question is will we give someone enough reason to try to hijack a plane.
Privacy is not a BORN right... it's a civil liberty...These are temporary restrictions to aid in the keeping the people safe.
Says you. I believe that privary is a basic human right. I would rather have my privacy rather than my safety provided by others. It's like saying I'd die to preserve my privacy. Perhaps if extra restrictions were providing safety (like, if it were possible to be 100% sure of one's safety), then it might be a worthwhile trade off, but I still doubt it. While the intent is good (to protect people), I believe the execution is poor and fails to do what it promises.
Some software comes with work arounds for this. For example, in Photoshop, if you hold down the shift key, your lines snap to the nearest orthogonal direction. I assume something like this could also be written into mouse drivers so that holding a combination of keys will make your mouse only move in certain directions.
It might be easy to blame the suspension, but the kid almost certainly had emotional problems, and the suspension is not to blame at all.
While it is true that the kid probably had emotional problems, this does not remove all blame from the suspension. Because had he not been suspended, he wouldn't have committed suicide. The suicide was one of the factors that contributed to his death. And if not suspending him would have saved his life, then it would have been better to have not suspended him (and found an alternative punishment).
It's easy to say that the consequences of an action are not one's responsibility, but they are. The ability to prevent someone from dying is the same as saving the individual's life. Killing and letting die are often the same thing and in this case, the school let the kid die.
Now, I'm not saying that the school was wrong to suspend the kid, but there was a lack of communication between the principal and kid. Also, the school should probably re-evaluate the current rules and punishments.
Agreed. When I was in HS, I got my first computer violation for signing someone's guestbook with an entry that automatically forwarded it to my home page (using an image and an onload tag). That was reason enough to suspend me from the computer labs because it was seen as malicious use of school computers. I later got suspended again from the computer lab because I pressed F3 in explorer and did a search for all files looking for printers (so I could print from a teacher's computer to the lab printer). I was accused to trying to hack into the system because there were logs of the search trying to get into folders that were "off limits." I never even actually got into anything, but for just accidentally attempting to access these folders, I got suspended from the labs.
You're right, the kid chose to kill himself, but that doesn't remove all blame from the principal or school for suspending him. One was still the consequence of the other. Granted, the kid knew the penalty for breaking the rules so there were no surprises, but if it caused the kid to commit suicide, I think this is reason to re-evaluate the rules and penalties.
This is a perfect example that rules should not be categorical. It should never be as simple as "you break rule x, you get punishment y." No two crimes are identical and no two people are identical. There needs to be some flexibility to handle each case based on its own unique circumstances.
I'm not sure what to be more upset at, the inability of the school principal to realize the impact he was having on Shinjan by suspending him or how Shinjan was raised to believe that following the rules is so important. Suspension from school isn't nearly as bad as taking your own life unless your parents, teachers, principal, etc are all disappointed in you. IANAP (I am not a psychologist), but I would guess that he didn't kill himself because of being suspended from school, but because all the people he valued were displeased by his actions. Didn't anyone praise him for having the knowledge to break the system? Didn't the sysadmin at the school think to ask about how he got in and if he had any suggestions about how to make the network more secure? The article makes it sound like the hack was "serious" but not mission critical.
It is common practice to produce 'estimated-will-look-like' graphics for games as the first stage of greasing the media hype machine. This is not X-Box specific, or console specific, or Microsoft specific.
Even if it is common practice, that doesn't justify it or make it 'ok.' I'm glad someone is trying to keep them honest and pointing out what could be false information. Consumers should be educated about the products they might buy.
Re:The value of getting a PH.D
on
The DeCSS Haiku
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· Score: 1
True, there is certain status and respect you receive from getting a PHD, but don't underestimate how much power or control you can have without a PHD. The actions of those without PHDs can still be significant. Sure, Dr. Touretzky probably does have a better in the courts and the media, but enough of "us scruffy hacks" working together can also cause change. It's easy to attack a few individuals, but if enough people speak up about DeCSS and mirror copies of it, there's nothing the MPAA can do to stop the masses. Numbers have the power to undermine the power of corporations, and you don't need a PHD.
What you say is true about poorer people being rational, but this does highlight another problem: how this gives more power to those who are well off. That is it makes it easier for those who are wealthy to "afford" privacy. The system discriminates against those who are poorer. You might argue that it's not an additional cost to poorer people, that it's a discount they choose to take themselves, but if privacy is a basic human right, it shouldn't be something that can be bought or sold. That is, people shouldn't have to prosititue their privacy for a savings.
What exactly constitutes academic achievement? A high GPA? Because I would guess that it depends a lot on the subject matter. For example, a creative writing major could probably be terrible at strategy video games but easily excel at writing. I would think that it would be interesting to see the correlation between video game skills and the GPA of science, math, and perhaps business majors, but I don't think that the strategic thought needed for video games is a type of thinking needed in all fields. Also, I know plenty of smart people that never played video games as a child and are terrible at all games. So in your sample, you should probably check to see how long the individual has been playing games, even if it's a different game than the one used in the test. People who have played Starcraft or other RTS games have little trouble picking up a new RTS games. At least, they'll pick it up faster than someone who has never played an RTS before.
I admit, he was trolling in his comment by asking if anyone actually visits microsoft.com. But, I think he was also being completely honest when he said it's the "least interesting story in months." For him, this is probably true. Remember, interest depends on the individual, just because you find something interesting doesn't mean CmdrTaco does (or should for that matter). And other than the troll comments about others visiting microsoft.com and the service packs every few minutes, he was just telling his personal usage of microsoft.com. So to him, it's not important.
On a side note, notice that he did post it anyway, even though he didn't find it interesting. And he did it because enough readers considered it to be important. So I'm not exactly sure what you're all criticizing.
Not using a piece of software just because it is from Microsoft just shows ignorance. Use what works.
This depends on what you mean by ignorant. I would agree that it is "ignorant" with regards to the economics of the situation. That is, if it works and it's cheap, there's good economic reason to use it. However, some people are concerned about more than just the economic implications of using a product, possibly the social, moral, or civic implications. I can think of plenty of moral reason to not use it simply because it is Microsoft (they screw the user for more money). And notice that the story never said it was bad software, the individual just said he/she didn't like it. That's seems like a good enough reason to me for him/her to not use the product (someone shouldn't be forced to use it because it's a good product, let him/her decide on his/her own.)
Capitalism, materialism, and profit maximization are overrated.
There is only one body that can prevent such a thing from happening, and its not the government. It's the people; frankly, most people don't care. They would rather watch their movies in Digital Surround Sound and Digital Image Quality in trade for their rights of fair use then boycott the whole damn thing and demand better from these companies.
I agree with you that "the people" need to speak up against this. And not just geeks or techies, there needs to be support from the general population. But I wouldn't say that the reason most people don't speak out against this isn't because they don't care, but a large part of it is that most people don't know about it. It's not exactly front page news (ok in a sense, this means people don't care because if people did, the media would place it on the front page). Anyway, my point is that if you really want to help the cause, educate the people. Tell people what's going on, explain how they're losing rights and why they should care about DeCSS. Once people understand the implications and how it's about more than just DVDs but the future of media in general, I think that you will start to get the support of the general population.
Then again, maybe I'm just a silly idealist that puts too much faith in people . . . but even that being the case, I still think I should try to help people understand.
Slashdot Mirror
"Universal Turing Machine"
Heheheh, you forgot the word "universal", so it's 24 or 25 bytes depending on whether or not you are counting the null terminator (since a universal turing machine is a specific type of turing machine).
I have a hard enough time finding keyboards that I like and trying to type on a table top sounds like a bad idea. I'm pretty picky about key travel (the distance that a key moves when pressed). I really like the small key travel of laptops and I searched around for weeks before finding a desktop keyboard that had an acceptable key travel. Even if you're not anal about key travel like I am, it's nice to have some sense that your keys are in the right place by having something move. I imagine it would be pretty easy to get lost trying to type on a table with no feedback from the table.
I agree with you that it is a question of morals, but I see the difficulty being what morals should be taught, how should morals be taught, and who should teach morals. These are not easy questions to answer and it seems to be something that American society is still trying to figure out.
As for the judge, I think he should be applauded for his decision. This shows the growth of our society in realizing how to deal with problems that have arose in our society. Assuming, of course, that the decision of the judge reflects that of the society.
And this begs the question of whether or not it's possible to make bug free software in the first place. Given the complexity of software, 100% bug free software might not be a realistic goal and this seems to make it unfair to punish software companies for every bug. Making software companies liable could severely hinder software development due to the high risk involved.
It's very hard to assess liability when software fails. I haven't the solution and I imagine it'll be a while before anything concrete is determined.
You can download StarOffice 6.0 Beta here
To my knowledge, my school doesn't have any policies about source code. I've asked two different professors about it and they're not sure. So since I have to write programs for homework, I've started to include the BSD license on everything I write, just to be safe. Maybe it wouldn't hold up in court, but it seems like a safe thing to do in case it comes up (who knows, someone may want the tetris game I wrote for OpenGL class).
I would say it depends on the video format you're using. MPEG-1 files are a piece of cake to edit, I've cut commercials out of many things that I've recorded into MPEG-1 using Dazzle. VCD Cutter makes it a snap to do, the only time it takes it the time it takes to copy the data to another file, which is a hard drive limitation rather than a CPU or video card limitation.
On the other hand, I imagine editing commercials out of AVI files would be a pain.
Ah yes, and after playing or watching Grand Theft Auto 3, I always have an urge to drive on the sidewalk, beat up police officers and drive around a firetruck.
Oh wait, I had that urge before playing the game. Maybe that's why I played the game in the first place.
One thing that comes to mind is a story by Richard Feynman where he was having a hard time coming up with a new idea to research, so he stopped trying to come up with a new idea. He saw someone throw a frisbee and that it wobbled a certain way. He decided to analyze the factors that influence the way that a frisbee wobbles based on rotation and other variables. This indirectly led to some more significant discoveries by Feynman (which I'm not familiar with since I'm not a physicist).
Obviously the previous balance wasn't good enough because Downtown Manhattan and the Pentagon were given a serious blow.
And you believe that these extra restrictions are going to prevent terrorist attacks? If someone really wants to hijack a plane, they will. The question is will we give someone enough reason to try to hijack a plane.
Privacy is not a BORN right... it's a civil liberty...These are temporary restrictions to aid in the keeping the people safe.
Says you. I believe that privary is a basic human right. I would rather have my privacy rather than my safety provided by others. It's like saying I'd die to preserve my privacy. Perhaps if extra restrictions were providing safety (like, if it were possible to be 100% sure of one's safety), then it might be a worthwhile trade off, but I still doubt it. While the intent is good (to protect people), I believe the execution is poor and fails to do what it promises.
Some software comes with work arounds for this. For example, in Photoshop, if you hold down the shift key, your lines snap to the nearest orthogonal direction. I assume something like this could also be written into mouse drivers so that holding a combination of keys will make your mouse only move in certain directions.
It's easy to say that the consequences of an action are not one's responsibility, but they are. The ability to prevent someone from dying is the same as saving the individual's life. Killing and letting die are often the same thing and in this case, the school let the kid die.
Now, I'm not saying that the school was wrong to suspend the kid, but there was a lack of communication between the principal and kid. Also, the school should probably re-evaluate the current rules and punishments.
Agreed. When I was in HS, I got my first computer violation for signing someone's guestbook with an entry that automatically forwarded it to my home page (using an image and an onload tag). That was reason enough to suspend me from the computer labs because it was seen as malicious use of school computers. I later got suspended again from the computer lab because I pressed F3 in explorer and did a search for all files looking for printers (so I could print from a teacher's computer to the lab printer). I was accused to trying to hack into the system because there were logs of the search trying to get into folders that were "off limits." I never even actually got into anything, but for just accidentally attempting to access these folders, I got suspended from the labs.
You're right, the kid chose to kill himself, but that doesn't remove all blame from the principal or school for suspending him. One was still the consequence of the other. Granted, the kid knew the penalty for breaking the rules so there were no surprises, but if it caused the kid to commit suicide, I think this is reason to re-evaluate the rules and penalties.
This is a perfect example that rules should not be categorical. It should never be as simple as "you break rule x, you get punishment y." No two crimes are identical and no two people are identical. There needs to be some flexibility to handle each case based on its own unique circumstances.
I'm not sure what to be more upset at, the inability of the school principal to realize the impact he was having on Shinjan by suspending him or how Shinjan was raised to believe that following the rules is so important. Suspension from school isn't nearly as bad as taking your own life unless your parents, teachers, principal, etc are all disappointed in you. IANAP (I am not a psychologist), but I would guess that he didn't kill himself because of being suspended from school, but because all the people he valued were displeased by his actions. Didn't anyone praise him for having the knowledge to break the system? Didn't the sysadmin at the school think to ask about how he got in and if he had any suggestions about how to make the network more secure? The article makes it sound like the hack was "serious" but not mission critical.
True, there is certain status and respect you receive from getting a PHD, but don't underestimate how much power or control you can have without a PHD. The actions of those without PHDs can still be significant. Sure, Dr. Touretzky probably does have a better in the courts and the media, but enough of "us scruffy hacks" working together can also cause change. It's easy to attack a few individuals, but if enough people speak up about DeCSS and mirror copies of it, there's nothing the MPAA can do to stop the masses. Numbers have the power to undermine the power of corporations, and you don't need a PHD.
What you say is true about poorer people being rational, but this does highlight another problem: how this gives more power to those who are well off. That is it makes it easier for those who are wealthy to "afford" privacy. The system discriminates against those who are poorer. You might argue that it's not an additional cost to poorer people, that it's a discount they choose to take themselves, but if privacy is a basic human right, it shouldn't be something that can be bought or sold. That is, people shouldn't have to prosititue their privacy for a savings.
On a future note, if anyone wants to read an artice on nytimes.com, just change the "www" in the address to "partners" (e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/technology/29CAP .html becomes http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/technology/ 29CAP.html).
What exactly constitutes academic achievement? A high GPA? Because I would guess that it depends a lot on the subject matter. For example, a creative writing major could probably be terrible at strategy video games but easily excel at writing. I would think that it would be interesting to see the correlation between video game skills and the GPA of science, math, and perhaps business majors, but I don't think that the strategic thought needed for video games is a type of thinking needed in all fields. Also, I know plenty of smart people that never played video games as a child and are terrible at all games. So in your sample, you should probably check to see how long the individual has been playing games, even if it's a different game than the one used in the test. People who have played Starcraft or other RTS games have little trouble picking up a new RTS games. At least, they'll pick it up faster than someone who has never played an RTS before.
I admit, he was trolling in his comment by asking if anyone actually visits microsoft.com. But, I think he was also being completely honest when he said it's the "least interesting story in months." For him, this is probably true. Remember, interest depends on the individual, just because you find something interesting doesn't mean CmdrTaco does (or should for that matter). And other than the troll comments about others visiting microsoft.com and the service packs every few minutes, he was just telling his personal usage of microsoft.com. So to him, it's not important.
On a side note, notice that he did post it anyway, even though he didn't find it interesting. And he did it because enough readers considered it to be important. So I'm not exactly sure what you're all criticizing.
Capitalism, materialism, and profit maximization are overrated.
Then again, maybe I'm just a silly idealist that puts too much faith in people . . . but even that being the case, I still think I should try to help people understand.