The average taxpayer gets a lot of benefit per tax dollar spent on pure research. While it may seem our fancy-ass supercolliders cost millions and millions of dollars (they do!), there just really isn't that much federal funding spent on pure research... relative to the rest of the federal budget!
All US military systems use satellite-provided technology (communications, navigation) as supplementary, not critical. We're set up to do everything as planned just fine without access to any satellites, because satellites are such an easy target.
You said facial recognition software can be fooled by smiling, which isn't true.
You didn't say facial recognition software isn't accurate enough to instantly determine a person's identity by comparison to a database of millions. I never claimed facial recognition software was a good security measure, nor that it was that accurate -- only that can be made robust against changes in lighting, expression, and many other factors.
This is by no means support for our current system, but: * plenty of chemicals of interest can't be detected by dogs * good facial recognition software is not fooled by a change in expression * putting a person with a gun (hopefully a trained person) is far from a perfect solution
A Faraday cage is an interesting approach, but it's expensive, particularly since all of the communications equipment in the plane would need to be moved outside the cage. At that point, suicide bombers or timed bombs are a much more appealing alternative -- and either one is fairly effective, so denying access to remotely-detonated explosives haven't bought you much.
A more appropriate replacement is probably the term "model". There are observations, models, and predictions. Models are based on observations. If a model makes predictions that are supported by later observations, people start calling it a law.
I have to agree with you there -- if you're nitpicking over whether to label information a "theory" or a "fact", you're probably not teaching how to differentiate the two or how the information you're learning was determined in the first place. Scientific teaching should not be a list-o-facts. There's not much you get out of that.
"Windows just isn't that bad if you know how to use a computer."
No, it isn't that bad if you're not an idiot. Once you get to the stage of knowing how to use a computer, it's bad again.
"...or at least they do once they get to a certain age when priorities become clearer."
An interesting crack at people's ages, but the majority of Linux users aren't all that young. The young have free time to waste, good for them, but the Linux following among scientists, computer professionals, et cetera is very strong. I would instead characterise Windows users as primarily people who don't care about how their computer works, as long as it roughly does what they want it to. Overall, they tend to be only partially successful in the "doing what they want it to" part. (I guess in much the same way, I drive a relatively poorly-maintained car, and pay an auto shop to do just about everything to it that needs to get done.)
So, you post is an attempt at appeal to authority without the authority?
Or, is there some other basis that allows you to say, "the only thing we know"? I'm willing to bet you're not a researcher in the field or otherwise an expert on the material.
They're not selling you software or a network connection. They're selling you a limited contract to use it. The possession of a copy of the software on a disc is irrelevant.
The non-signed contract also isn't really what you were originally getting at. If an unsigned contract couldn't hold up in court, they could certainly ask you to sign a contract. (For that matter, your ISP probably did -- and that contract probably requires that you follow the published-elsewhere terms of service.)
While I'm not sure about EULAs, there are various sorts of non-signed contracts that have been held up in courts of law in the U.S. Search, for example, for implicit contracts.
There's not actually any generally-good solution for the problem "What if the bad worm gets there first?". A sufficiently nasty worm can disable any means for correcting the problem, whether that is closing the exploit that allowed it to infect the system, disabling Microsoft updates, modifying patches as they are installed to prevent them from closing the security loophole, et cetera. For that matter, they could simply allow the "good" worm to infect the system, but prevent it from fixing the exploit. The point is, though it doesn't always come up, once malicious software is on your computer, there is no general way of fixing it, so the fact that a "good" worm couldn't do it is irrelevant.
Of course there's a legal issue. I was only addressing the practical issue. If Microsoft chooses to go through with this, I imagine their lawyers will work out the legal issue.
If counter-worm B is designed to close the security vulnerability that worm A takes advantage of and counter-worm B propagates and patches the computer via the same vulnerability, then you don't really need to worry about that. Security measures can remain blind to whether or not a worm is "good". If the counter-worm can't get in to install, then the original worm can't either.
Yeah, that's called "distributing patches via a peer-to-peer protocol". Blizzard does this with their patches (via BitTorrent). Microsoft's servers and mirrors in this case can just act as seeders.
In practice, you'd want to cryptographically sign the "list of updates" and any other metadata communication with the Microsoft server. You'd probably want a hash algorithm better than MD5. If you're using something like BitTorrent (which would be a good idea), then the whole part about comparing hashes and dumping fake files (or really, fake data blocks) is built in.:-)
No, but the dealer can say, "there are restrictions on this car; the contract is in the glove box". You, of course, could demand to see it -- likewise, you can get the EULAs for software before you open the box or buy the computer, if you insist. (Most companies that have EULAs that they really want to potentially stand up in court also offer a full refund for the software should you choose to reject the EULA.)
You do not actually own your network connection or your copy of Windows. Your ISP is leasing you access to their network resources under their conditions. "Your" copy of Windows is simply a license to use the software in the package, subject to restrictions as they state.
"Fair enough, but forgive me for not being so easily swayed by her attempts to refuse their offer in preparation for litigation. How kind of her."
If she finds the compensation they offer unacceptable, she has to refuse the offer. For all we know, Best Buy may be trying to set up the claim that she has already accepted compensation to prevent litigation.
She did, of course, present them with demands for compensation she felt reasonable before bringing a lawsuit.
There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:... * for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a single : separa-tor. * (same as the above, but copy from remote to local machine)
Note that the remote machine could alternately have an rsync server. However, this is not required -- if the remote machine does not have an rsync server, transport is done via a shell. In my experience, this often how people use rsync, and they often use ssh as the transport shell.
The person was referring to recent findings that early biogenesis on Earth may have taken place in ice, since partially-frozen ice does exactly as I described. I did mention a water-ice mixture concentrating chemicals, which suggests temperatures in the regime of the freezing point of water, not 100-200K below average Earth temperature.
No, they react in the partially-frozen water. The water component freezes, increasing the concentration of non-water molecules in the unfrozen water. Reaction rate depends both on concentration and temperature, and the increased concentration is more than enough to overcome the lower reaction rate due to temperature.
Ideally, the graphics card and all on-CPU calculations are running in parallel, so the influence of this extra work on graphics performance should be minimal. This is what they mean in TFA when they refer to situations that are not CPU-limited.
Slashdot Mirror
There's one person ultimately responsible for Al Gore's loss. That person is Al Gore.
There's also, of course, the roughly 50 million that voted for Bush that did nothing to help matters.
The average taxpayer gets a lot of benefit per tax dollar spent on pure research. While it may seem our fancy-ass supercolliders cost millions and millions of dollars (they do!), there just really isn't that much federal funding spent on pure research... relative to the rest of the federal budget!
Photons don't have rest mass. Of course, they don't rest, either. As a travelling photon has energy, it also has mass.
All US military systems use satellite-provided technology (communications, navigation) as supplementary, not critical. We're set up to do everything as planned just fine without access to any satellites, because satellites are such an easy target.
You said facial recognition software can be fooled by smiling, which isn't true.
You didn't say facial recognition software isn't accurate enough to instantly determine a person's identity by comparison to a database of millions. I never claimed facial recognition software was a good security measure, nor that it was that accurate -- only that can be made robust against changes in lighting, expression, and many other factors.
This is by no means support for our current system, but:
* plenty of chemicals of interest can't be detected by dogs
* good facial recognition software is not fooled by a change in expression
* putting a person with a gun (hopefully a trained person) is far from a perfect solution
A Faraday cage is an interesting approach, but it's expensive, particularly since all of the communications equipment in the plane would need to be moved outside the cage. At that point, suicide bombers or timed bombs are a much more appealing alternative -- and either one is fairly effective, so denying access to remotely-detonated explosives haven't bought you much.
A more appropriate replacement is probably the term "model". There are observations, models, and predictions. Models are based on observations. If a model makes predictions that are supported by later observations, people start calling it a law.
I have to agree with you there -- if you're nitpicking over whether to label information a "theory" or a "fact", you're probably not teaching how to differentiate the two or how the information you're learning was determined in the first place. Scientific teaching should not be a list-o-facts. There's not much you get out of that.
Okay. Your aptitude with English explains what the problem is. Just go ahead and keep listening to whatever pundit is informing you of the "facts".
"The total cost of ownership has just 1000%."
I suggest you get your fat ass off the damn Slashdot and get back to English class.
"Windows just isn't that bad if you know how to use a computer."
No, it isn't that bad if you're not an idiot. Once you get to the stage of knowing how to use a computer, it's bad again.
"...or at least they do once they get to a certain age when priorities become clearer."
An interesting crack at people's ages, but the majority of Linux users aren't all that young. The young have free time to waste, good for them, but the Linux following among scientists, computer professionals, et cetera is very strong. I would instead characterise Windows users as primarily people who don't care about how their computer works, as long as it roughly does what they want it to. Overall, they tend to be only partially successful in the "doing what they want it to" part. (I guess in much the same way, I drive a relatively poorly-maintained car, and pay an auto shop to do just about everything to it that needs to get done.)
So, you post is an attempt at appeal to authority without the authority?
Or, is there some other basis that allows you to say, "the only thing we know"? I'm willing to bet you're not a researcher in the field or otherwise an expert on the material.
"Trust me on this one..."
Faith in Russ Nelson is much more reliable than faith in environmentalism.
All of that is readily teachable to a reasonable level within the scope of a high-school level science class.
They're not selling you software or a network connection. They're selling you a limited contract to use it. The possession of a copy of the software on a disc is irrelevant.
The non-signed contract also isn't really what you were originally getting at. If an unsigned contract couldn't hold up in court, they could certainly ask you to sign a contract. (For that matter, your ISP probably did -- and that contract probably requires that you follow the published-elsewhere terms of service.)
While I'm not sure about EULAs, there are various sorts of non-signed contracts that have been held up in courts of law in the U.S. Search, for example, for implicit contracts.
There's not actually any generally-good solution for the problem "What if the bad worm gets there first?". A sufficiently nasty worm can disable any means for correcting the problem, whether that is closing the exploit that allowed it to infect the system, disabling Microsoft updates, modifying patches as they are installed to prevent them from closing the security loophole, et cetera. For that matter, they could simply allow the "good" worm to infect the system, but prevent it from fixing the exploit. The point is, though it doesn't always come up, once malicious software is on your computer, there is no general way of fixing it, so the fact that a "good" worm couldn't do it is irrelevant.
Of course there's a legal issue. I was only addressing the practical issue. If Microsoft chooses to go through with this, I imagine their lawyers will work out the legal issue.
If counter-worm B is designed to close the security vulnerability that worm A takes advantage of and counter-worm B propagates and patches the computer via the same vulnerability, then you don't really need to worry about that. Security measures can remain blind to whether or not a worm is "good". If the counter-worm can't get in to install, then the original worm can't either.
Yeah, that's called "distributing patches via a peer-to-peer protocol". Blizzard does this with their patches (via BitTorrent). Microsoft's servers and mirrors in this case can just act as seeders.
:-)
In practice, you'd want to cryptographically sign the "list of updates" and any other metadata communication with the Microsoft server. You'd probably want a hash algorithm better than MD5. If you're using something like BitTorrent (which would be a good idea), then the whole part about comparing hashes and dumping fake files (or really, fake data blocks) is built in.
No, but the dealer can say, "there are restrictions on this car; the contract is in the glove box". You, of course, could demand to see it -- likewise, you can get the EULAs for software before you open the box or buy the computer, if you insist. (Most companies that have EULAs that they really want to potentially stand up in court also offer a full refund for the software should you choose to reject the EULA.)
You do not actually own your network connection or your copy of Windows. Your ISP is leasing you access to their network resources under their conditions. "Your" copy of Windows is simply a license to use the software in the package, subject to restrictions as they state.
"Fair enough, but forgive me for not being so easily swayed by her attempts to refuse their offer in preparation for litigation. How kind of her."
If she finds the compensation they offer unacceptable, she has to refuse the offer. For all we know, Best Buy may be trying to set up the claim that she has already accepted compensation to prevent litigation.
She did, of course, present them with demands for compensation she felt reasonable before bringing a lawsuit.
From "man rsync":
...
There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
* for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a single : separa-tor.
* (same as the above, but copy from remote to local machine)
Note that the remote machine could alternately have an rsync server. However, this is not required -- if the remote machine does not have an rsync server, transport is done via a shell. In my experience, this often how people use rsync, and they often use ssh as the transport shell.
The person was referring to recent findings that early biogenesis on Earth may have taken place in ice, since partially-frozen ice does exactly as I described. I did mention a water-ice mixture concentrating chemicals, which suggests temperatures in the regime of the freezing point of water, not 100-200K below average Earth temperature.
No, they react in the partially-frozen water. The water component freezes, increasing the concentration of non-water molecules in the unfrozen water. Reaction rate depends both on concentration and temperature, and the increased concentration is more than enough to overcome the lower reaction rate due to temperature.
Ideally, the graphics card and all on-CPU calculations are running in parallel, so the influence of this extra work on graphics performance should be minimal. This is what they mean in TFA when they refer to situations that are not CPU-limited.
Forever.