Just one quick clarification. SafeNotes can either be password protected or cleartext. I use them to store secure pieces of information such as my driver's license and license plate numbers and other important information such as registration keys for my Palm software and such.
The password manager I recommend is RoboForm. It isn't free, but It has every feature I've ever wanted. * Secure encryption * Random Password Generator * Storage of automatic logins * Storage of "SafeNotes" * Ability to fill forms with one button (CC entry, etc.) * Storage of bookmarks (import from IE/Firefox) * Storage of contacts (import from Outlook or file) * Portable version that runs from a thumbdrive. * Palm add-on
Actually, we use a method we call Attributized Bayesian Choice Modeling, and it works quite well.:)
Roughly speaking, we classify the movies based on a variety of criteria, from actual attributes such as ratings, directors, actors and such to latent attributes such as whether the movies is thought provoking or thrilling.
We then create a profile of the user's preferences for those attributes.
Finally, we recommend items matching either the preferences that the user has specifically stated *or* items with attributes that we can infer the user might like based on a collaborative approach (e.g. many users who like romantic movies also like thought-provoking ones).
At the time we actually make the recommendations, most of the calculations are simple and quick allowing us to scale quite nicely.
Our system has several advantages and optimizations that make it work well with even a tiny choiceset. Working with the attributes we use makes it slightly easier to eliminate outlier data which makes for better recommendations even if Tim Allen buys his wife that romantic comedy for Valentines Day or if you loved Rocky I, II, and III but just couldn't stand Dolph Lundgren in IV.
Anyway, as I said.. I don't know everything about the stuff. I just write code.;)
I prefer the A or B approach too, but apparantly it takes longer to build up the baysian model using that approach. I don't know the details though. That is all the science team.;)
appalled? hardly. It was a cute article. HowStuffWorks continues to be a somewhat useful resource to me. I doubt I will become incapable of determining the rare fictional articles from the real ones.
I needed that first letter thing for my DensionMP3 a while back so I wrote a java program (it's what I had at hand) that created NTFS reparse points from my normal collection Artist/Album/Track Number - Track Name to !ABC/1st Letter of Artist/Artist Worked well for me because I could rip to the more normal structure then just run the program to get my ABC folder updated.
There is this section of code specifically discussing importing of copyrighted works. (2) seems to indicate that as long as it is a single copy for personal use (not distribution) that it is exempt from the infringement declared in section (a).
That, plus the declaration by allofmp3.com and ROMS that they were licensed to distribute made me comfortable enough to buy bandwidth to download music from them.
It seems to me that the investigation currently underway pertains specifically to Russian artists (the artist organization has a current dispute with ROMS). I am not sure how that bears on the issue of distribution of foreign works.
I use a password vault called RoboForm from a company Siber Systems. It is Windows only:/ and has plugins for IE based and Mozilla based browsers (no Opera, sorry.:/). It also has a read only synchronization with your Palm or PocketPC PDA.
Most important, it has a portable version that will let you carry it around on a USB drive. You pop the USB drive into a computer and you have access to all your passwords.
It has a master password which you can use to selectively protect your login information and online purchasing information with a strong encryption.
You can also use it to keep your contact information and random notes all in one place. Again this is especially useful if you have more than one Windows box you use.
The free version has limited storage, the Pro version cost $30. Portable and PDA addons are $10, so you could easily spend $50 which might be a bit pricey for some people, but I am very happy with the functionality it provides me.
I have randomly generated passwords for all my logins, and any secure sites I have to enter my master password to access. If I unplug the USB drive, all my password information is gone from the host system automagically.
All of your points on preventing vote theft are very reasonable to me and I would certainly agree that every effort should be made to close these holes in the voting system ASAP.
In regards to your Electoral College comments, I'd like to follow up:
I concur that the winner-takes-all aspect of the EC is horrible and at the very least should be removed immediately.
The reason I feel that the EC should be abolished altogether is that it completely prevents the effective implementation of any alternative election method such as Approval Voting or Condorcet Voting. I want to see one of these methods replace the current Plurality Voting because I feel that the duopoly of our current system is a "bad thing". The Electoral College upholds the duopoly, and if (and it is way too big of an if.:/ ) a minority party actually did ever become large enough to be significant in the current system, it would likely cause political instability due to vote splitting.
I feel that Condorcet is a much better system, but I would be happy with even Approval Voting as an interim solution. I want people to be able to express their preferences for a third-party, but still be able to endorse the major party candidate that they feel is an acceptable substitute.
As a prior Election Official, do you have any views on voting system reform? Questions such as switching to an approval voting system or even eventually abolishing the Electoral College and implementing a ranked voting system over a plurality voting system?
I was recently introduced to the site ElectionMethods.org which discusses election reform and I have been *extremely* interested in it.
Did you read their opinion regarding the EC? I agreed with many of the points there and I would appreciate hearing a thought out refute of it. Why the Electorial College Should be Abolished
And *I* might want to spend a little more time in Remedial Slashdot Posting.:( I did POT instead of Extrans and it ate my lt symbols.:/ The entire post should have been:
You might want to consider a bit more time in Remedial Arithmetic instead of Logic 101.
D = 10 votes L = 6 votes R = 5 votes D < L+R
Now to go into more detail on what they are trying to prove in this example:
In my example, I will use > to indicate that the voter preferred the first to the latter. (e.g. D>R means they ranked D first and R second) D>R>L = 10 people R>D>L = 5 people L>R>D = 6 people
In this example, identical to theirs, but with numbers plugged in, you can see that 11 people preferred either R to D. But, because R lost in the first round, L's votes do not count toward them but rather to D. This overrules the 11 people who preferred R to D.
You might want to consider a bit more time in Remedial Arithmetic instead of Logic 101.
D = 10 votes L = 6 votes R = 5 votes D to indicate that the voter preferred the first to the latter. (e.g. D>R means they ranked D first and R second) D>R>L = 10 people R>D>L = 5 people L>R>D = 6 people
In this example, identical to theirs, but with numbers plugged in, you can see that 11 people preferred either R to D. But, because R lost in the first round, L's votes do not count toward them but rather to D. This overrules the 11 people who preferred R to D.
Very good point. Unless/until one method for resolving ambigious results became a clearly proven superior method, there would always be dissidents who would be advocating "method x" because it might help them out. Do you feel that "method x" would always benefit the same party? Wouldn't that require all the candidates to consistently have very similar voting numbers?
Hrm. It is very possible that I misspoke here. This comment was based on the fact that all of the issues based voting assitance tools I found and used listed either only the two primary candidates or them plus Nader. I shall do more research tonight to find out who those other two are and whether they fit my vote better.
Does anyone else have any more concrete disputes with the Concordet system? I am intrigued by this and it is the first such thing I've ever felt I could put time and effort into trying to see to fruition (e.g. I'd be willing to become a political activist for something like this).
I'm going to watch this thread to see how you get modded and if you get flamed by the party goers.
I dipped into this story's comments because I wanted to comment on the "And no matter what you decide, if you can, just get out and vote tomorrow." tag line on the article. Contrary to your request that people only vote if they feel they are doing the right thing, I am actually 90% sure I'm going to go out and vote for the first time in my 30 years tomorrow. It makes me feel dirty though. I don't have faith in either of the two parties and I don't have faith in the electoral system either. I have never complained about any of the decisions of elected officials because I did not vote for or against them. When I vote tomorrow, I will vote independent even though I do not even fully agree with the only other person on the ballot. I've been told that "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" and this too makes me sad because I truly do know that whether or not it is a "vote for Bush", it is a wasted useless vote. Someone might argue that my vote will add a grain of sand to the "people who want something different" side, but honestly, even if every single person with views remotely similar to mine voted independent, I don't think it would faze the two parties in the slightest.
I am so sick of the mud slinging. When I decided to vote this year, I attempted to do research on the local candidates, and all I could find was page after page (in print and online) of slur and "shocking truth about the lies and corruption and ineptitude". Digging through all this garbage to try to find out even the simplest answer of how a candidate even *states* they feel on an issue was reinforcement to the reason I have never voted before.
I logically understand why we are a republic. I understand that the lack of desire on the masses part to become informed on individual matters combined with the improbable logistics of accurately and quickly collecting votes from all our citizens on each individual issue make a true democracy a near impossibility. Logically understanding it doesn't make me content about it though.
I'm sure I'll be flamed to one end and back again for this. People will spout the age old adage spouted against people who are dissatisfied with the system (Love it or leave it you commie!). I do love America. I'm a tech loving geek and I aspire to become rich and live even more comfortably than I do now, and I hope that things in our country get better rather than worse. I am just a bit dispirited when I think about the (supposed) fact that my voting tomorrow will not help or hinder those things I'm hoping for.
Unless the son made the mistake of recently switching his mother over to Firefox and Thunderbird when she *really* could have used Google Desktop Search.:( I hope they support Mozilla soon.
The problem I have with this reasoning is that less than one percent of Blizzard's users are concerned with things like bnetd, fair use, and first sale. So the loss of these few people would not be enough to make Blizzard about-face the way you describe. The ninety-nine percent of their common users would continue clicking through on the EULA and our rights will continue to deteriorate. By the time the common masses realize that they don't have the rights they expect or desire anymore, there will be a long history of cases establishing the right of the manufacturer over the end user.
Ahah.. I didn't read the/. article about Coral. Finding out what it was made me do some research. The Coral Wiki has a FAQ entry regarding the fact that Windows 2000 DNS server is incompatible with Coral. Bummer.
I'm surprised there was so little feedback on your article. I thought it was interesting and I've enjoyed playing around with it.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Just one quick clarification.
SafeNotes can either be password protected or cleartext. I use them to store secure pieces of information such as my driver's license and license plate numbers and other important information such as registration keys for my Palm software and such.
The password manager I recommend is RoboForm. It isn't free, but It has every feature I've ever wanted.
* Secure encryption
* Random Password Generator
* Storage of automatic logins
* Storage of "SafeNotes"
* Ability to fill forms with one button (CC entry, etc.)
* Storage of bookmarks (import from IE/Firefox)
* Storage of contacts (import from Outlook or file)
* Portable version that runs from a thumbdrive.
* Palm add-on
Quite nice.
Your parent was correct. .625 MB
5 Mb = 640 KB
5Mb =
625 MB = 5000 Mb
::shudder:: ::marks young Canadian girls off of my chat list:: ;)
Actually, we use a method we call Attributized Bayesian Choice Modeling, and it works quite well. :)
;)
Roughly speaking, we classify the movies based on a variety of criteria, from actual attributes such as ratings, directors, actors and such to latent attributes such as whether the movies is thought provoking or thrilling.
We then create a profile of the user's preferences for those attributes.
Finally, we recommend items matching either the preferences that the user has specifically stated *or* items with attributes that we can infer the user might like based on a collaborative approach (e.g. many users who like romantic movies also like thought-provoking ones).
At the time we actually make the recommendations, most of the calculations are simple and quick allowing us to scale quite nicely.
Our system has several advantages and optimizations that make it work well with even a tiny choiceset. Working with the attributes we use makes it slightly easier to eliminate outlier data which makes for better recommendations even if Tim Allen buys his wife that romantic comedy for Valentines Day or if you loved Rocky I, II, and III but just couldn't stand Dolph Lundgren in IV.
Anyway, as I said.. I don't know everything about the stuff. I just write code.
I prefer the A or B approach too, but apparantly it takes longer to build up the baysian model using that approach. I don't know the details though. That is all the science team. ;)
appalled? hardly. It was a cute article. HowStuffWorks continues to be a somewhat useful resource to me. I doubt I will become incapable of determining the rare fictional articles from the real ones.
I needed that first letter thing for my DensionMP3 a while back so I wrote a java program (it's what I had at hand) that created NTFS reparse points from my normal collection
Artist/Album/Track Number - Track Name
to
!ABC/1st Letter of Artist/Artist
Worked well for me because I could rip to the more normal structure then just run the program to get my ABC folder updated.
As far as US copyright law goes...d e17/usc_sec_17_00000602----000-.html/
US CODE: Title 17,602. Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords
http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usco
There is this section of code specifically discussing importing of copyrighted works.
(2) seems to indicate that as long as it is a single copy for personal use (not distribution) that it is exempt from the infringement declared in section (a).
That, plus the declaration by allofmp3.com and ROMS that they were licensed to distribute made me comfortable enough to buy bandwidth to download music from them.
It seems to me that the investigation currently underway pertains specifically to Russian artists (the artist organization has a current dispute with ROMS). I am not sure how that bears on the issue of distribution of foreign works.
Any idea how many is "many"?
I'm a bit concerned because I've been running with pipelining for a while. pipelining was defined as an RFC wasn't it?
I use a password vault called RoboForm from a company Siber Systems. It is Windows only :/ and has plugins for IE based and Mozilla based browsers (no Opera, sorry. :/). It also has a read only synchronization with your Palm or PocketPC PDA.
Most important, it has a portable version that will let you carry it around on a USB drive. You pop the USB drive into a computer and you have access to all your passwords.
It has a master password which you can use to selectively protect your login information and online purchasing information with a strong encryption.
You can also use it to keep your contact information and random notes all in one place. Again this is especially useful if you have more than one Windows box you use.
The free version has limited storage, the Pro version cost $30. Portable and PDA addons are $10, so you could easily spend $50 which might be a bit pricey for some people, but I am very happy with the functionality it provides me.
I have randomly generated passwords for all my logins, and any secure sites I have to enter my master password to access. If I unplug the USB drive, all my password information is gone from the host system automagically.
All of your points on preventing vote theft are very reasonable to me and I would certainly agree that every effort should be made to close these holes in the voting system ASAP.
:/ ) a minority party actually did ever become large enough to be significant in the current system, it would likely cause political instability due to vote splitting.
In regards to your Electoral College comments, I'd like to follow up:
I concur that the winner-takes-all aspect of the EC is horrible and at the very least should be removed immediately.
The reason I feel that the EC should be abolished altogether is that it completely prevents the effective implementation of any alternative election method such as Approval Voting or Condorcet Voting. I want to see one of these methods replace the current Plurality Voting because I feel that the duopoly of our current system is a "bad thing". The Electoral College upholds the duopoly, and if (and it is way too big of an if.
I feel that Condorcet is a much better system, but I would be happy with even Approval Voting as an interim solution. I want people to be able to express their preferences for a third-party, but still be able to endorse the major party candidate that they feel is an acceptable substitute.
As a prior Election Official, do you have any views on voting system reform? Questions such as switching to an approval voting system or even eventually abolishing the Electoral College and implementing a ranked voting system over a plurality voting system?
I was recently introduced to the site ElectionMethods.org which discusses election reform and I have been *extremely* interested in it.
Yep, so unfortunately, I was right, the NH ballot only had three people on it.
Did you read their opinion regarding the EC? I agreed with many of the points there and I would appreciate hearing a thought out refute of it.
Why the Electorial College Should be Abolished
Also, here is their opinion of the complexity of the system in regards to the layman:
Is Condorcet Voting Too Complicated?
And *I* might want to spend a little more time in Remedial Slashdot Posting. :( I did POT instead of Extrans and it ate my lt symbols. :/ The entire post should have been:
You might want to consider a bit more time in Remedial Arithmetic instead of Logic 101.
D = 10 votes
L = 6 votes
R = 5 votes
D < L+R
Now to go into more detail on what they are trying to prove in this example:
In my example, I will use > to indicate that the voter preferred the first to the latter. (e.g. D>R means they ranked D first and R second)
D>R>L = 10 people
R>D>L = 5 people
L>R>D = 6 people
In this example, identical to theirs, but with numbers plugged in, you can see that 11 people preferred either R to D. But, because R lost in the first round, L's votes do not count toward them but rather to D. This overrules the 11 people who preferred R to D.
You might want to consider a bit more time in Remedial Arithmetic instead of Logic 101.
D = 10 votes
L = 6 votes
R = 5 votes
D to indicate that the voter preferred the first to the latter. (e.g. D>R means they ranked D first and R second)
D>R>L = 10 people
R>D>L = 5 people
L>R>D = 6 people
In this example, identical to theirs, but with numbers plugged in, you can see that 11 people preferred either R to D. But, because R lost in the first round, L's votes do not count toward them but rather to D. This overrules the 11 people who preferred R to D.
Very good point. Unless/until one method for resolving ambigious results became a clearly proven superior method, there would always be dissidents who would be advocating "method x" because it might help them out. Do you feel that "method x" would always benefit the same party? Wouldn't that require all the candidates to consistently have very similar voting numbers?
Hrm. It is very possible that I misspoke here. This comment was based on the fact that all of the issues based voting assitance tools I found and used listed either only the two primary candidates or them plus Nader. I shall do more research tonight to find out who those other two are and whether they fit my vote better.
Does anyone else have any more concrete disputes with the Concordet system? I am intrigued by this and it is the first such thing I've ever felt I could put time and effort into trying to see to fruition (e.g. I'd be willing to become a political activist for something like this).
Mmmm.. thanks fellow NHerite. Interesting site.
I'm going to watch this thread to see how you get modded and if you get flamed by the party goers.
I dipped into this story's comments because I wanted to comment on the "And no matter what you decide, if you can, just get out and vote tomorrow." tag line on the article. Contrary to your request that people only vote if they feel they are doing the right thing, I am actually 90% sure I'm going to go out and vote for the first time in my 30 years tomorrow. It makes me feel dirty though. I don't have faith in either of the two parties and I don't have faith in the electoral system either. I have never complained about any of the decisions of elected officials because I did not vote for or against them. When I vote tomorrow, I will vote independent even though I do not even fully agree with the only other person on the ballot. I've been told that "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" and this too makes me sad because I truly do know that whether or not it is a "vote for Bush", it is a wasted useless vote. Someone might argue that my vote will add a grain of sand to the "people who want something different" side, but honestly, even if every single person with views remotely similar to mine voted independent, I don't think it would faze the two parties in the slightest.
I am so sick of the mud slinging. When I decided to vote this year, I attempted to do research on the local candidates, and all I could find was page after page (in print and online) of slur and "shocking truth about the lies and corruption and ineptitude". Digging through all this garbage to try to find out even the simplest answer of how a candidate even *states* they feel on an issue was reinforcement to the reason I have never voted before.
I logically understand why we are a republic. I understand that the lack of desire on the masses part to become informed on individual matters combined with the improbable logistics of accurately and quickly collecting votes from all our citizens on each individual issue make a true democracy a near impossibility. Logically understanding it doesn't make me content about it though.
I'm sure I'll be flamed to one end and back again for this. People will spout the age old adage spouted against people who are dissatisfied with the system (Love it or leave it you commie!). I do love America. I'm a tech loving geek and I aspire to become rich and live even more comfortably than I do now, and I hope that things in our country get better rather than worse. I am just a bit dispirited when I think about the (supposed) fact that my voting tomorrow will not help or hinder those things I'm hoping for.
Unless the son made the mistake of recently switching his mother over to Firefox and Thunderbird when she *really* could have used Google Desktop Search. :( I hope they support Mozilla soon.
The problem I have with this reasoning is that less than one percent of Blizzard's users are concerned with things like bnetd, fair use, and first sale. So the loss of these few people would not be enough to make Blizzard about-face the way you describe. The ninety-nine percent of their common users would continue clicking through on the EULA and our rights will continue to deteriorate. By the time the common masses realize that they don't have the rights they expect or desire anymore, there will be a long history of cases establishing the right of the manufacturer over the end user.
Ahah.. I didn't read the /. article about Coral. Finding out what it was made me do some research. The Coral Wiki has a FAQ entry regarding the fact that Windows 2000 DNS server is incompatible with Coral. Bummer.
:)
I'm surprised there was so little feedback on your article. I thought it was interesting and I've enjoyed playing around with it.