The number N is defined as the size of the information, so factoring by trial division takes at most 10^(N/2), if you're using decimal notation. -----------
5. SONY releases the PS2. It is awesome, and gamers buy lots of PS2 games. The Game Cube is ignored, because everybody tied up too much money in sony. -----------
I've only heard of a single anime DVD, Princess Mononoke, that's dub-only. Well: Card Captors will have separate sub & dub releases. Devilman, Dog of Flanders (which also has 10 min. cut), Dragonball Z (up to vol. 17), Eight Man After, Fist of the North Star, Lupin III: Mystery of Mamo, Monster Rancher, Ogenki Clinic, Pokemon, Street Fighter II, and Venus 5 were all released dub only on dvd. There are also a few that have a Japanese track but no subtitles, but I can't remember any. -----------
Given a choice between someone with the ability of , say, Anthony Hopkins, speaking in a language I didn't understand, and someone with the ability of, say, Keanu Reaves, speaking in a language I did understand, I'd choose the former any day. (For example, compare the dubbed and subbed releases of Utena.) -----------
Actually, somebody did something very much like that... It's called FooM, and adapted the first level of DooM.
To get it, look in ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/ for foom, and look in ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/tads/ and get an interpreter for your favorite platform.
Run foom with the interpreter chosen.
(Addresses from memory; you may have to look around.) -----------
Look at what else has become collectables--old vinyl audio discs, old cars, books. Why should software be any different? I could see spending a good amount of money personally on something like a mint box of the original Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Apple ][ edition--the plastic bag of pocket fluff and the peril sensitive sunglasses would be worth it alone.
Well, I heard that a copy of Infocom's Starcross, frisbee-style case, in shrinkwrap, went for $2000, so that's quite possible. -----------
<< I thought that parodies were protected by law...hence the reason Wierd Al isn't getting sued by everybody. I'm sure the author wouldn't mind you paying the fee though:P.>>
Actually, Weird Al always gets permision from the original artist, so he doesn't need the protection provided for parodies. -----------
Not necessarily; Alaska has enough income from its oil resources that it doesn't need federal funding, and I think it ignored those laws completely. I think the nat. gov't uses the same strategies to set a drinking age of 21 (states have the right to set that by the 21st amendment); at least one state found that income from under 21 drinkers was more than the fed. funding withheld. -----------
Some villain on "The Tick" was trying to write his name on the moon, but was stopped after writing the first three letters. In every episode after that, whenever they showed the moon, it had "CHA" written on it. -----------
There was a car that had a computer attached which could 'slow your reflexes' so that it would be like driving drunk. (Slogan: This car drives drunk, to make sure you won't ever.) -----------
Well, if you're using a text-editor, it doesn't matter whether the editor gets 10ms CPU time every 100 ms or 20 ms every 200 ms, it's the same average, as long as it can keep up with your typing. If some other program has a sudden surge of CPU usage and it doesn't get any CPU time for a few seconds, it doesn't matter.
Now, say, that program is controlling the flight of an airplane, and the computer has to make 10 ms of corrections every second or the plane crashes.
Now, there is a big difference between getting 14 ms every second and 50 ms every 2 seconds; in the latter case it will crash, even though it gets better average CPU time. If a program other than the flight control has a burst of CPU usage....
In other words, it's more important to have a guaranteed rate of computation than a high average rate.
A real-time OS is one where a program can be started and told "Make sure this program gets at least -- CPU time every -- real time", and the OS will only run it if the program if it can guarantee giving it that much CPU time.
<< hmmm - maybe my windows calculator is faulty (eeek pentium divide error), but last time i checked 1/2 inch =.5 inch 17/32 inch =.53125 9/16 inch =.5625 >>
.5,.53125?.5625? What're those? Around here, we only use 1's and 0's. -----------
Well, frequently people will write their code to make it into a picture of some sort; one person wrote an English->Pig Latin translator shaped like a pig. Another person wrote a program that would input text, and then flip it along the diagonal, and formatted the program so that it could pass through itself unchanged. In another program, (spinellis) the bulk of the text was whitespace, and... well, run it yourself. -----------
Try running an medium-size ftp server while you do that. My copy of xmms frequently skips, even if I run it with rt priority, though not as badly in that case. And this is on locally stored files. -----------
< /. is just such a one; it's the posters who create 95% of the value).>>
This reminds me of one of the articles on selfpromotion.com (disclaimer: I am not affiliated with said site in any way.) The author described his experiences with various kinds of internet advertising, and found that 'random' advertising gathered lousy clickthroughs, while advertisements on sites with related subjects did better. -----------
That's not much good. After all, the MPAA could just as easily spread the MD5 hash numbers for the false code just as easily.
I think the best thing to do is for some person to do is:
1) Get a copy of the source that you are certain is genuine (got it directly from the original announcement, and have carefully tested it with many dvd's.
2) Find some significant person with a 'big name' who has a PGP signature already in the system. (Perhaps Torvalds, Hubbard, de Raadt, Stallman, ESR, Perens, or some high member of the EFF would work.) It should be a significant enough name that people will have confidence in this person.
3) Have this person PGP sign the source.
I don't think any court action would be able to get a person's PGP public key removed from the system, or to get a fake public key in. And being able to check the source's authenticity ("just make sure it's the one signed by RMS") would prevent the spread of false code by the unwitting accomplices I mentioned above. -----------
Many people have been advocating the strategy of downloading a copy, and putting up a mirror site. But I haven't seen anybody discussing authentication.
I think the MPAA could do the following:
Take the DeCSS code, and change a few characters. (I recall the source had several big arrays. Modify a few digits in there and nobody would notice.) Make a bunch of different pseudo-DeCSS programs.
Next, an MPAA shill makes a mirror site with one of the fakes, and then posts to slashdot (New mirror here!) giving the address of the fake code. Some more slashdotters happen to grab that code, and set up their own mirror sites, unwittingly spreading the errors. At the same time, the MPAA continues their attack on any server that gets the correct code.
The MPAA repeats the above several times so that there is as much bad code as good. Yes, the DeCSS code is still available, but it's impossible to find in the midst of all the fake stuff.
(If you set up a mirror site, ask yourself where you got your copy, and if you tried to verify its accuracy.) Have there been any copies signed by someone who checked the source?
Again, in all the discussion, I haven't seen these points brought up anywhere, so I'd like to see what others think of the same subject. -----------
Slashdot Mirror
The number N is defined as the size of the information, so factoring by trial division takes at most 10^(N/2), if you're using decimal notation.
-----------
How about this:
5. SONY releases the PS2. It is awesome, and gamers buy lots of PS2 games. The Game Cube is ignored, because everybody tied up too much money in sony.
-----------
Actually, I think that, in the case of Post-its, the patent may be on the specific adhesive, which definitely is original.
-----------
Actually, I think that MS did port NT to the mac, but it never sold well.
-----------
Except that I've heard that last few scenes of TMIL2 were actually repeats of the last few scenes of Tenchi Universe.
-----------
I've only heard of a single anime DVD, Princess Mononoke, that's dub-only. Well: Card Captors will have separate sub & dub releases. Devilman, Dog of Flanders (which also has 10 min. cut), Dragonball Z (up to vol. 17), Eight Man After, Fist of the North Star, Lupin III: Mystery of Mamo, Monster Rancher, Ogenki Clinic, Pokemon, Street Fighter II, and Venus 5 were all released dub only on dvd. There are also a few that have a Japanese track but no subtitles, but I can't remember any.
-----------
It would make sense for to block out calls to the driver, but there's no problem with passengers getting calls.
-----------
Given a choice between someone with the ability of , say, Anthony Hopkins, speaking in a language I didn't understand, and someone with the ability of, say, Keanu Reaves, speaking in a language I did understand, I'd choose the former any day. (For example, compare the dubbed and subbed releases of Utena.)
-----------
To get it, look in ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/ for foom, and look in ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/tads/ and get an interpreter for your favorite platform.
Run foom with the interpreter chosen.
(Addresses from memory; you may have to look around.)
-----------
Well, I heard that a copy of Infocom's Starcross, frisbee-style case, in shrinkwrap, went for $2000, so that's quite possible.
-----------
Actually, Weird Al always gets permision from the original artist, so he doesn't need the protection provided for parodies.
-----------
Like "Tuxissa"? (from segfault)
-----------
Not necessarily; Alaska has enough income from its oil resources that it doesn't need federal funding, and I think it ignored those laws completely. I think the nat. gov't uses the same strategies to set a drinking age of 21 (states have the right to set that by the 21st amendment); at least one state found that income from under 21 drinkers was more than the fed. funding withheld.
-----------
Some villain on "The Tick" was trying to write his name on the moon, but was stopped after writing the first three letters. In every episode after that, whenever they showed the moon, it had "CHA" written on it.
-----------
There was a car that had a computer attached which could 'slow your reflexes' so that it would be like driving drunk. (Slogan: This car drives drunk, to make sure you won't ever.)
-----------
Now, say, that program is controlling the flight of an airplane, and the computer has to make 10 ms of corrections every second or the plane crashes.
Now, there is a big difference between getting 14 ms every second and 50 ms every 2 seconds; in the latter case it will crash, even though it gets better average CPU time. If a program other than the flight control has a burst of CPU usage....
In other words, it's more important to have a guaranteed rate of computation than a high average rate.
A real-time OS is one where a program can be started and told "Make sure this program gets at least -- CPU time every -- real time", and the OS will only run it if the program if it can guarantee giving it that much CPU time.
-----------
<< hmmm - maybe my windows calculator is faulty (eeek pentium divide error), but last time i checked .5 inch .53125 .5625 >>
.5, .53125? .5625? What're those? Around here, we only use 1's and 0's.
1/2 inch =
17/32 inch =
9/16 inch =
-----------
DVD encryption wasn't patented.
-----------
Galileo officially recanted, and was allowed to live.
-----------
Well, frequently people will write their code to make it into a picture of some sort; one person wrote an English->Pig Latin translator shaped like a pig. Another person wrote a program that would input text, and then flip it along the diagonal, and formatted the program so that it could pass through itself unchanged. In another program, (spinellis) the bulk of the text was whitespace, and ... well, run it yourself.
-----------
Try running an medium-size ftp server while you do that. My copy of xmms frequently skips, even if I run it with rt priority, though not as badly in that case. And this is on locally stored files.
-----------
This reminds me of one of the articles on selfpromotion.com (disclaimer: I am not affiliated with said site in any way.) The author described his experiences with various kinds of internet advertising, and found that 'random' advertising gathered lousy clickthroughs, while advertisements on sites with related subjects did better.
-----------
I think the best thing to do is for some person to do is:
1) Get a copy of the source that you are certain is genuine (got it directly from the original announcement, and have carefully tested it with many dvd's.
2) Find some significant person with a 'big name' who has a PGP signature already in the system. (Perhaps Torvalds, Hubbard, de Raadt, Stallman, ESR, Perens, or some high member of the EFF would work.) It should be a significant enough name that people will have confidence in this person.
3) Have this person PGP sign the source.
I don't think any court action would be able to get a person's PGP public key removed from the system, or to get a fake public key in. And being able to check the source's authenticity ("just make sure it's the one signed by RMS") would prevent the spread of false code by the unwitting accomplices I mentioned above.
-----------
Many people have been advocating the strategy of downloading a copy, and putting up a mirror site. But I haven't seen anybody discussing authentication.
I think the MPAA could do the following:
Take the DeCSS code, and change a few characters. (I recall the source had several big arrays. Modify a few digits in there and nobody would notice.) Make a bunch of different pseudo-DeCSS programs.
Next, an MPAA shill makes a mirror site with one of the fakes, and then posts to slashdot (New mirror here!) giving the address of the fake code. Some more slashdotters happen to grab that code, and set up their own mirror sites, unwittingly spreading the errors. At the same time, the MPAA continues their attack on any server that gets the correct code.
The MPAA repeats the above several times so that there is as much bad code as good. Yes, the DeCSS code is still available, but it's impossible to find in the midst of all the fake stuff.
(If you set up a mirror site, ask yourself where you got your copy, and if you tried to verify its accuracy.) Have there been any copies signed by someone who checked the source?
Again, in all the discussion, I haven't seen these points brought up anywhere, so I'd like to see what others think of the same subject.
-----------
I've occasionally wanted that feature when moderating; I wanted to see if any of the low-rated posts were worth being moderated up.
-----------