The AS/400 environment allows several kinds of dates, some of them with 4 digit years, but dates with 2 digit years are windowed such that 00-39 = 2000-2039. --
You sound like you need to read RFC 2550 - Y10K and Beyond.
As always the open standards process has come up with a complete and well thought out document.
An excerpt:
This specification provides a solution to the "Y10K" problem which has also been called the "YAK" problem (hex) and the "YXK" problem (Roman numerals).
But seriously, what makes the discussions absurd is the absurdity of the decisions being made by the USPTO. It is difficult to have a dignified discussion in the face of such institutionalized cabezaculoitis. --
If hemp were legal... like... no one would need to drive man, 'cause they'd be happy where they were.
But seriously. The one thing I hate worse than a large conservative theory which has flaws is a panacea. Repeat after me, hemp will not save the world. Neither will organic foods, bio-intensive argriculture, genetic engineering, representative democracies, free markets, space weapons, marxist communes, or a draconian drug policy. It is amazing to me that seemingly reasonable people will see immediately that some of the things I mentioned have flaws, but will staunchly defend others. Hardly any two people will choose the same set of dogmatic principles to defend.
Humans are simple minded creatures. Complex phenomena are difficult to explain, so we choose simple explanations. Simple explanations are invariably wrong but they allow movement (not necessarily progress). One thing that is clear from an engineering perspective, is that even with perfect information and a simple system, optimal solutions are either impossible, or so hard to find as to be worthless. So a simple, flawed explanation may be our best bet for stumbling closer to the elusive truth.
What is amazing, as any mathematician will tell you, is that science is able to do so well. QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) is able to make predictions of physical phenomena to amazing precision (11 or more significant digits IIRC) based on mathematical equations that are part logic, part art, and a lot of magic. But ask WHY things happen on the quantum scale and you will discover that those willing to speculate are drawing as much from philosophy as they are science. After all, that was the essential Bohr/Einstein debate, not the mathematics, but the philosophy.
I apologize, I got a bit far afield of the hemp issue... my mind must have wandered. --
What the Big Bang theory doesn't explain is the overall uniformity of the cosmic background radiation nor it's minute fluctuations. To explain this, the inflation theory was developed. --
There's plenty of outlets for "crackpots". Just watch a TV news magazine some night. It's just that most establishment scientists have their threshold set too high to notice. I think this is appropriate. While science is the eternal search for the truth, or, to look at it in another way, the study of disprovable ideas. It is also an iterative attempt at categorizing and managing the enormous complexity of knowledge in order to understand and predict.
Such a process is necessarily conservative for the simple reason that it is expensive to shift a consensus for any reason, particularily one that has had operational success. --
Stock buybacks are good for the stockholder mainly because they turn dividends (immediately taxable at the income tax rate) into capital gains (taxable at the time of sale at a lower tax rate). This is part of the reason that fewer and fewer companies give out a dividend. It is also part of the reason that Steve Forbes wants a flat tax and with no capital gains tax. It would mean that sufficiently rich people would never pay any income tax. --
A normal ABM defense would not protect against cruise missiles, which fly relatively short distances close to the ground. The B in ABM stands for Ballistic, as in ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). Such missiles travel a long distance in a high altitude predicable path, and hence are much easier to track and shoot down. They may, however have many separately targetable warheads, so anti ICBM defense is by no means easy. --
Well, they still do have nukes, and more importantly they have the expertise and infrastructure to produce more. They also have a veto on the Security Council, a tremendous amount of oil, and a large standing army. While some, like Jesse Helms would be more than happy to take the chance of pissing off Russia. I don't think it's a very attractive policy on the whole. --
Actually I kind of drifted into talking about Big Iron rather than supercomputers. Clearly they have different requirements, and one is willing to do much more tweaking and spend more money on a cutting edge machine. For Big Iron, one is worried about such boring things as support, uptime, reliability, cost etc. --
I was agreeing with you until: BTW, did you hear that IBM is standardizing all their desktops on Windows2000? If Linux is soooo much better why is that?
The real answer is that what is best for me is what is best for me. That could be Linux, Windows, or Xenix. Frankly the actions of IBM or SGI are not extremely important in this choice unless they demonstrate that my particular application is going to run better (according to my criteria) than another.
Where does it say SGI confirms they will be using Linux in the story I see it in the Slashdot summary, but unless Hemos got on the phone to SGI, I think it's likely just a misunderstanding. --
Actually no, nobody is saying that the NSA is using a general purpose supercomputer to crack DES. Specialized hardware is clearly the way to go. Witness The DES cracker built by the EFF for US$250,000. This is a purely brute force attack. Even so, along with Distributed.net, they broke DES in 22 hours. The NSA could probably use more efficient techniques of cryptanalysis and more expensive hardware to be faster.
As far as I know, no one in the private sector has built such a beast for cracking RC5, but it could certainly be done.
The NSA would typically use a supercomputer only for the last step in certain factoring algorithms for breaking RSA or other such problems that require a single system image and huge amounts of memory. This was the technique used by a group of researchers that cracked a 512 bit RSA key. The first phase was distributed, but the last step required a single supercomputer.
All I can find in the actual article (not the/. summary) is that they confirm that they are making a bid. I can't find anything from SGI which confirms the possibility of Linux. I would be quite surprised by this if it were the case. --
No, they didn't even confirm the possibility of using Linux, unlike the Slashdot summary stated. I suspect that they will use a tried and true method that demonstrates their strengths in high end Cray and Irix technology. After all, the #1 supercomputer is not built for profit, but as an advertising tool. --
Linux is good, but it deserves to have it's triumphs accurately reported. The supercomputer in question is a bid which does not necessarily specify Linux and will not necessarily be built. Contrary to what the Slashdot summary said, SGI did not even confirm that Linux is a possibility. All they confirmed was that they made a bid. The rest is speculation and wishful thinking. --
Slashdot Mirror
The AS/400 environment allows several kinds of dates, some of them with 4 digit years, but dates with 2 digit years are windowed such that 00-39 = 2000-2039.
--
As always the open standards process has come up with a complete and well thought out document.
An excerpt:
--
No.
But seriously, what makes the discussions absurd is the absurdity of the decisions being made by the USPTO. It is difficult to have a dignified discussion in the face of such institutionalized cabezaculoitis.
--
At least not yet. But you could probably trademark it and then sue everyone that uses it in an online discussion, like some people.
Although, since there is an operation associated with the phrase, I supose that constitutes a process, and processes can certainly be patented.
I withdraw my objection, your Honor.
--
If hemp were legal ... like ... no one would need to drive man, 'cause they'd be happy where they were.
But seriously. The one thing I hate worse than a large conservative theory which has flaws is a panacea. Repeat after me, hemp will not save the world. Neither will organic foods, bio-intensive argriculture, genetic engineering, representative democracies, free markets, space weapons, marxist communes, or a draconian drug policy. It is amazing to me that seemingly reasonable people will see immediately that some of the things I mentioned have flaws, but will staunchly defend others. Hardly any two people will choose the same set of dogmatic principles to defend.
Humans are simple minded creatures. Complex phenomena are difficult to explain, so we choose simple explanations. Simple explanations are invariably wrong but they allow movement (not necessarily progress). One thing that is clear from an engineering perspective, is that even with perfect information and a simple system, optimal solutions are either impossible, or so hard to find as to be worthless. So a simple, flawed explanation may be our best bet for stumbling closer to the elusive truth.
What is amazing, as any mathematician will tell you, is that science is able to do so well. QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) is able to make predictions of physical phenomena to amazing precision (11 or more significant digits IIRC) based on mathematical equations that are part logic, part art, and a lot of magic. But ask WHY things happen on the quantum scale and you will discover that those willing to speculate are drawing as much from philosophy as they are science. After all, that was the essential Bohr/Einstein debate, not the mathematics, but the philosophy.
I apologize, I got a bit far afield of the hemp issue... my mind must have wandered.
--
Who wants an email from the average human?
--
What the Big Bang theory doesn't explain is the overall uniformity of the cosmic background radiation nor it's minute fluctuations. To explain this, the inflation theory was developed.
--
There's plenty of outlets for "crackpots". Just watch a TV news magazine some night. It's just that most establishment scientists have their threshold set too high to notice. I think this is appropriate. While science is the eternal search for the truth, or, to look at it in another way, the study of disprovable ideas. It is also an iterative attempt at categorizing and managing the enormous complexity of knowledge in order to understand and predict.
Such a process is necessarily conservative for the simple reason that it is expensive to shift a consensus for any reason, particularily one that has had operational success.
--
So what process should there be to separate the shit from the gems other than peer review?
--
Just let them read Borges. That should cure them of such simplistic analogies.
--
I don't think Greenspan has much power over disclosure, that is the balliwick of the SEC and the FASB.
--
Stock buybacks are good for the stockholder mainly because they turn dividends (immediately taxable at the income tax rate) into capital gains (taxable at the time of sale at a lower tax rate). This is part of the reason that fewer and fewer companies give out a dividend. It is also part of the reason that Steve Forbes wants a flat tax and with no capital gains tax. It would mean that sufficiently rich people would never pay any income tax.
--
A normal ABM defense would not protect against cruise missiles, which fly relatively short distances close to the ground. The B in ABM stands for Ballistic, as in ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). Such missiles travel a long distance in a high altitude predicable path, and hence are much easier to track and shoot down. They may, however have many separately targetable warheads, so anti ICBM defense is by no means easy.
--
Well, they still do have nukes, and more importantly they have the expertise and infrastructure to produce more. They also have a veto on the Security Council, a tremendous amount of oil, and a large standing army. While some, like Jesse Helms would be more than happy to take the chance of pissing off Russia. I don't think it's a very attractive policy on the whole.
--
The VAX must be Rasputin (hairy, strange, but suprisingly hard to kill)
--
Hard Drives are sealed and high quality. Floppy disks are unsealed and floppy drives are crappy.
--
Since it's a static page you could pregenerate it. Flat makes understanding threads difficult.
--
This seems to have been fixed, at least for me.
--
Actually I kind of drifted into talking about Big Iron rather than supercomputers. Clearly they have different requirements, and one is willing to do much more tweaking and spend more money on a cutting edge machine. For Big Iron, one is worried about such boring things as support, uptime, reliability, cost etc.
--
I was agreeing with you until:
BTW, did you hear that IBM is standardizing all their desktops on Windows2000? If Linux is soooo much better why is that?
The real answer is that what is best for me is what is best for me. That could be Linux, Windows, or Xenix. Frankly the actions of IBM or SGI are not extremely important in this choice unless they demonstrate that my particular application is going to run better (according to my criteria) than another.
--
Where does it say SGI confirms they will be using Linux in the story I see it in the Slashdot summary, but unless Hemos got on the phone to SGI, I think it's likely just a misunderstanding.
--
Actually no, nobody is saying that the NSA is using a general purpose supercomputer to crack DES. Specialized hardware is clearly the way to go. Witness The DES cracker built by the EFF for US$250,000. This is a purely brute force attack. Even so, along with Distributed.net, they broke DES in 22 hours. The NSA could probably use more efficient techniques of cryptanalysis and more expensive hardware to be faster.
As far as I know, no one in the private sector has built such a beast for cracking RC5, but it could certainly be done.
The NSA would typically use a supercomputer only for the last step in certain factoring algorithms for breaking RSA or other such problems that require a single system image and huge amounts of memory. This was the technique used by a group of researchers that cracked a 512 bit RSA key. The first phase was distributed, but the last step required a single supercomputer.
--
All I can find in the actual article (not the /. summary) is that they confirm that they are making a bid. I can't find anything from SGI which confirms the possibility of Linux. I would be quite surprised by this if it were the case.
--
No, they didn't even confirm the possibility of using Linux, unlike the Slashdot summary stated. I suspect that they will use a tried and true method that demonstrates their strengths in high end Cray and Irix technology. After all, the #1 supercomputer is not built for profit, but as an advertising tool.
--
Linux is good, but it deserves to have it's triumphs accurately reported. The supercomputer in question is a bid which does not necessarily specify Linux and will not necessarily be built. Contrary to what the Slashdot summary said, SGI did not even confirm that Linux is a possibility. All they confirmed was that they made a bid. The rest is speculation and wishful thinking.
--