"We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."
I, personally, don't have a problem with this, as long as they're targeting specific individuals, and not profiling races or other demographics.
Having worked in retail, I can tell you that 90% of the people who shoplift or try to shoplift don't end up on the wrong side of a conviction, either because they get away with their $5 book, (or $70 textbook), or for various other reasons, never go to trial, often being let off with a warning, or banishment from the store.
If I see someone attempting to shoplift from my store, or if they actually get away, I feel that I'm fully within my rights to tell them that they can't come back in my store. If I have a security system that lets me know when they try to, so much the better. If I own 200 stores and I can make sure that someone who was seen shoplifting in one of my stores doesn't get inside another, that's great.
The difference here is that I'm basing my 'block list' on my company's personal experience with the individual in question, which I have more faith in than a master list of convicted shoplifters.
I wouldn't want to block everyone some government list says is a likely shoplifter, but I want to be able to control entry to my store, blocking people I personally don't trust, or have been victimized by in the past.
To put it another way: Is there something wrong with me seeing someone steal a book, then come in the next day, and my telling them that they have to leave? Is it wrong if I have a system that will watch the doors to help me with this task? How is this more onerous than a standard security system which, in effect, is saying "I don't trust anyone."
Would a facial recognition system at the entrances and exits be a good thing if it meant that I could get rid of the security cameras along every aisle, spying on everyone, all the time?
I'd say the opposite. Mac OS X is an operating system with UNIX underpinnings, and a Mac OS personality.
After all, a personality is what gets expressed to others, not what's deep inside.
How exactly is OS X less like Unix than Mandrake? I can compile Unix binaries for it, it uses a unix kernel. Are you saying there's a UI wall where if there's too much of a non-geek front-end put onto an OS it's no longer worthy of the UNIX title? Is that the "traditional philosophy of UNIX" that it doesn't share?
Why would one assume that a city-wide wireless network would use 802.11b? Aside from the WEP encryption issues, 802.11b is such a short-range system that it would require a tremendous infrastructure to implement, and would also blanket the city with interference for people who wanted to use 802.11b for its intended LAWN (Local area wireless network) uses.
True, Ricochet failed, and 128Kbps is starting to seem paltry, but there are plenty of other wireless standards out there that are far more suitable for high-speed wide area wireless coverage, G3 being one of them.
If London is creating a new network from scratch, I would assume they'd use a current technology, and one geared specifically for their type of needs, and not create a piecemeal solution with microcells which either all have to be individually wired to the net via high-speed connection (every 100 yards) or act as repeaters (ala Ricochet) resulting in 500ms ping rates on good days.
Anyone know any other standards that would better apply to a high-speed wide-coverage omnidirectional wireless net?
Dude, I should cut you slack because you have no idea who I am? I don't thikn you'd return the favor (as you haven't from post one).
You take the mere fact that I mention C# in the same sentence as Java and C++ and say I've bent over to Microsoft.
It's not your Microsoft points or attitudes that I find fault with. It's that you repeatedly act out those aggressions on people who invoke the very names of products, whether they advocate them or not.
Here's a challenge: If you deign to reply to this one, do so:
without using the M word
by actually addressing the points I make in my posts, without taking snippets and generating a context that helps your view and
not assuming that I'm the bad guy just because I call you on what you say. Prove it with examples and intelligence.
I come here for intelligent discourse. Why do you? And I can handle hyperbole better than anyone.
I'm not asking for you to cut them some slack. I'm asking for you to cut me and everyone else who mentions Microsoft some slack, and not go assuming we're mindless sycophants. Your reply is a case-in-poiint. You didn't respond the the fact that I didn't say anything pro- or anti-microsoft, but just went off on how you deserve to be cynical...
Huh? I said "From where I sit, most coding development, be it Java, C++, or C# is written based on the context of where it will be used."
Where from that do you get the impression that I'm 'bent over to microsoft'? My argument is that whatever language is used, environment mandates technology. Some people actually use C#, so it applies. It would have applied just as well if I substituted Fortran or Assembler.
Sheesh. Don't let your blind Microsoft Fury force you to tilt at windmills.
"The problem is this: Java isn't just a web page scripting language any more."
Um, Java didn't start out as a web scripting language. JSP and servlets didn't come out until Java had been out and buzzworthy for quite a while, and they've never been the dominant form of Java expression. If you think that Java Applets are at all the same as 'scripting languages' then I'd question the rest of your conclusions as well...
From where I sit, most coding development, be it Java, C++, or C# is written based on the context of where it will be used. If it's an enterprise solution, the enterprise can mandate the technology and install Java on XP machines. If it serves a global audience, then shooting itself in the foot or not, Microsoft's decision to axe Java from XP means the developer will have to use another solution.
If companies would invest one fourth of their legal budget in developing stronger encryption, we wouldn't need such strong laws to protect them.
As it is, companies are being taught that 'pretty strong encryption' and 'pretty strong laws' combine for a secure solution based on a mix of technical difficulty and fear of persecution. Maybe they should take a look at the AES and realize there are better, more community-oriented ways of creating secure solutions instead of creating half-assed systems and persecuting those who prove just how half-assed they are.
Also, isn't it interesting that when it's their encryption it's 'anti-piracy' and when it's your encryption it's 'privacy'?
I could see how the next stage would be to prosecute people who claim that they even know of a vulnerability in an encryption system.
Just think, if the laws were strong enough, you could just go back to ROT-13, because if anyone said 'Hey! That's ROT-13! That's easy to break!" then you could send them to jail.
The best part is when you follow the 'igpay atinlay' link to the prefs page, pull the language pulldown menu, and see that one of the language options is "Orkbay!, Orkbay!, Orkbay!"
A guy writes a propaganda chart, saying an L3 cache is four times as important as a floppy drive, and other dubious, yet totally subjective claims. He says, "If you don't like my results, come up with your own chart. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY."
Then some third guy (Hemos) posts the 'story' to./ and they put it up saying that the 'some guy' is flaming the outrageous claims of Apple.
The only thing newsworthy about this article is that/. actually thinks someone flaming Apple is newsworthy, and the utter lack of investigation, in thinking the referenced piece is a flame against Apple, and not some other guy's homegrown opinion.
Get a grip. There's plenty of cloning stories to post about before we let drivel like this make it to the top of the page.
On the same note, it's important to make a distinction between 'morally wrong' and 'legally wrong'. I don't believe that Sklyarov has done anything morally wrong, but it's not for me to decide whether he has done anything legaly wrong.
If he did break the law, and yet was not morally wrong, then the law needs to be fixed, and that won't happen by people like us circumventing due process by taking the trial outside of the courtroom before it even gets there.
As I understand it, he sold the program in the United States, and that is what the prosecution claims was illegal. As long as this claim holds enough credibility to warrant a trial to ascertain the veracity of it and how it applies to current US law, then he's not being unfairly imprisioned.
Two and a half years ago I found a jacket at the Gap which I haven't seen since, on the store or on a person. It was a test-market jacket made of a thick silver-grey nylon, and it has room for everything, while not seeming to be a 'cargo jacket'.
Standard fill:
Palm V in the exterior vertical zipper chest pocket
Cellphone (nokia 8290) in the left zipper pocket next to the main zipper
Digital Elph in the interior right vest pocket (velcro closure).
Leaving two deep exterior pockets at the bottom (mp3 jukebox, 20oz beverage, book, what have you, and an interior left pocket for sunglasses.
But with a game as complex as chess, for example, there is no mathematical way that the program could gather enough information over the course of a single game to make that kind of assessment.
Lose a queen and you never know what it is to not have lost a queen, for example.
What about the next person who will rot in jail? Wheat about the next Kevin, or Sklyarov, or the hundreds of people whos rights are unfairly limited? How will they be served by his release? I find your short-sightedness to be callous. Unjust laws need to be removed, unfairly imprisioned people need to be freed.
The plain fact is that Sklyarov may have broken the law as it exists and the answer to that isn't to release him, but to fix the law. Having a wife and children isn't a basis for pleading for someone to be released from incarceration. I have no wife. I have no children. Am I therefore more socially acceptable to have behind bars?
The mistake is having a law that we feel is wrong. We feel it is wrong, but it does exist. If we want ot not to exist then we have to break the law, then have the law broken. Trying to get exceptions based on pity and whining about how they're political prisoners isn't the way to affect social change. It's not a conspiracy: It's the law. We thikn the law is bad, but letting him out won't fix it.
The first question that popped into my head was "How do we know what the opponents move means?"
I was under the misconception that at each turn in the game, the judge will inform the player of all possible moves (as in chess, checkers, or the like) but looking at the specification, it seems that the moves are detailed at the outset of the game, and then are available to each player at each stage in the game.
now the odd thing to me is the measure of 'state' in the game. Is the score that's returned after each move the current cumulative score, the score for that move alone, or what? Also, what is the goal of the game? It would be short-sighted to assume it's to amass the highest score. In effect, the score is just another input variable, along with the opponents move, which may or may not be useful for judging what is a good move or a bad move.
For example, if you were trying to make an algorithm to solve the A8 puzzle (the 'sliding tile puzzle' with 15 tiles and 16 spots), and the computer judged your score by totalling up manhattan distances to the goal state, that may or may not be a fair scale of how many moves away you are from winning in an ideal case.
The system is still underspecified. Without knowing what 'score' means, and whether it is an estimate or a deterministic function, then the project is pretty much a game of luck, and coding is not an effort of skill.
Sklyarov should not be summarily released. Yes, I said it.
Why? Because the DMCA is fatally flawed. Its concepts make dangerous and possibly unconstitutional precedent, and criminalize the rights of invention ('freedom to innovate') in ways previously relegated to dark-future fiction.
Will Congress repeal the DMCA? Unlikely. Political pressure from lobbyists is far greater to keep it in place, and that's where the money is.
Will the president do anything about it? This president? Not likely. (Besides, he's going on vacation for a month.)
The courts are the only arena where the DMCA will be chipped away until it falls apart, but that can't happen if we stage 'free hacker-x' demonstrations every time the DMCA is to be put on trial.
This case is perfect. It's highly public, it hits upon the core of the DMCA, and it's one where the victimized party (Adobe) also feels that the defendant should not be prosecuted. If there's another test case that stands a better chance of chinking the DMCA's multi-platinum armor, I don't know what it is.
But none of this can happen if we don't push the trial through. Look at the big picture. Free Sklyarov, and next month there will be another Sklyarov in his place (anyone want to publish a paper on DeCSS?), but break the DMCA in court, and all Sklyarovs will be free.
A lot of people are playing fast and loose with the word 'random' today. The value of Pi, in whole or of any one digit, isn't random at all. It's entirely deterministic, defined rigidly by a simple formula. No matter how many times or ways that formula is interpreted, the value of Pi is the same, and not random.
What can be said to be 'random' (really pseudorandom or, in the parlance of mathematicians, 'random enough') is an arbitrary digit or sequence of digits from pi, given that the starting decimal place N is also random, or at least non-repeating. The randomness of pi is that each succeeding digit of Pi has no correlation to the preceding digit.
Of course we all know this inherently, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little clearer in these posts about exactly what is random (or not) about Pi.
The whole premise of quantum encryption is that each photon is vital to the message. Saying a satellite system 'broadcasts' quantum crypto is nonsensical, as you could have multiple receivers, one of which assesses the 'polarity bit' and another that gets the 'info bit' which would render the encryption useless.
Quantum Crypto, such as it is in current theory, is purely a single point to single point system. Not to say that you can't use a satellite, but the language used to describe it needs to be chosen more carefully.
Slashdot Mirror
"We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."
I, personally, don't have a problem with this, as long as they're targeting specific individuals, and not profiling races or other demographics.
Having worked in retail, I can tell you that 90% of the people who shoplift or try to shoplift don't end up on the wrong side of a conviction, either because they get away with their $5 book, (or $70 textbook), or for various other reasons, never go to trial, often being let off with a warning, or banishment from the store.
If I see someone attempting to shoplift from my store, or if they actually get away, I feel that I'm fully within my rights to tell them that they can't come back in my store. If I have a security system that lets me know when they try to, so much the better. If I own 200 stores and I can make sure that someone who was seen shoplifting in one of my stores doesn't get inside another, that's great.
The difference here is that I'm basing my 'block list' on my company's personal experience with the individual in question, which I have more faith in than a master list of convicted shoplifters.
I wouldn't want to block everyone some government list says is a likely shoplifter, but I want to be able to control entry to my store, blocking people I personally don't trust, or have been victimized by in the past.
To put it another way: Is there something wrong with me seeing someone steal a book, then come in the next day, and my telling them that they have to leave? Is it wrong if I have a system that will watch the doors to help me with this task? How is this more onerous than a standard security system which, in effect, is saying "I don't trust anyone."
Would a facial recognition system at the entrances and exits be a good thing if it meant that I could get rid of the security cameras along every aisle, spying on everyone, all the time?
Got tired of losing at chess?
"an operating system with a UNIX personality"
I'd say the opposite. Mac OS X is an operating system with UNIX underpinnings, and a Mac OS personality.
After all, a personality is what gets expressed to others, not what's deep inside.
How exactly is OS X less like Unix than Mandrake? I can compile Unix binaries for it, it uses a unix kernel. Are you saying there's a UI wall where if there's too much of a non-geek front-end put onto an OS it's no longer worthy of the UNIX title? Is that the "traditional philosophy of UNIX" that it doesn't share?
Why would one assume that a city-wide wireless network would use 802.11b? Aside from the WEP encryption issues, 802.11b is such a short-range system that it would require a tremendous infrastructure to implement, and would also blanket the city with interference for people who wanted to use 802.11b for its intended LAWN (Local area wireless network) uses.
True, Ricochet failed, and 128Kbps is starting to seem paltry, but there are plenty of other wireless standards out there that are far more suitable for high-speed wide area wireless coverage, G3 being one of them.
If London is creating a new network from scratch, I would assume they'd use a current technology, and one geared specifically for their type of needs, and not create a piecemeal solution with microcells which either all have to be individually wired to the net via high-speed connection (every 100 yards) or act as repeaters (ala Ricochet) resulting in 500ms ping rates on good days.
Anyone know any other standards that would better apply to a high-speed wide-coverage omnidirectional wireless net?
You take the mere fact that I mention C# in the same sentence as Java and C++ and say I've bent over to Microsoft.
It's not your Microsoft points or attitudes that I find fault with. It's that you repeatedly act out those aggressions on people who invoke the very names of products, whether they advocate them or not.
Here's a challenge: If you deign to reply to this one, do so:
- without using the M word
- by actually addressing the points I make in my posts, without taking snippets and generating a context that helps your view
- not assuming that I'm the bad guy just because I call you on what you say. Prove it with examples and intelligence.
I come here for intelligent discourse. Why do you? And I can handle hyperbole better than anyone.and
I'm not asking for you to cut them some slack. I'm asking for you to cut me and everyone else who mentions Microsoft some slack, and not go assuming we're mindless sycophants. Your reply is a case-in-poiint. You didn't respond the the fact that I didn't say anything pro- or anti-microsoft, but just went off on how you deserve to be cynical...
Huh? I said "From where I sit, most coding development, be it Java, C++, or C# is written based on the context of where it will be used."
Where from that do you get the impression that I'm 'bent over to microsoft'? My argument is that whatever language is used, environment mandates technology. Some people actually use C#, so it applies. It would have applied just as well if I substituted Fortran or Assembler.
Sheesh. Don't let your blind Microsoft Fury force you to tilt at windmills.
"The problem is this: Java isn't just a web page scripting language any more."
Um, Java didn't start out as a web scripting language. JSP and servlets didn't come out until Java had been out and buzzworthy for quite a while, and they've never been the dominant form of Java expression. If you think that Java Applets are at all the same as 'scripting languages' then I'd question the rest of your conclusions as well...
From where I sit, most coding development, be it Java, C++, or C# is written based on the context of where it will be used. If it's an enterprise solution, the enterprise can mandate the technology and install Java on XP machines. If it serves a global audience, then shooting itself in the foot or not, Microsoft's decision to axe Java from XP means the developer will have to use another solution.
If companies would invest one fourth of their legal budget in developing stronger encryption, we wouldn't need such strong laws to protect them.
As it is, companies are being taught that 'pretty strong encryption' and 'pretty strong laws' combine for a secure solution based on a mix of technical difficulty and fear of persecution. Maybe they should take a look at the AES and realize there are better, more community-oriented ways of creating secure solutions instead of creating half-assed systems and persecuting those who prove just how half-assed they are.
Also, isn't it interesting that when it's their encryption it's 'anti-piracy' and when it's your encryption it's 'privacy'?
I could see how the next stage would be to prosecute people who claim that they even know of a vulnerability in an encryption system.
Just think, if the laws were strong enough, you could just go back to ROT-13, because if anyone said 'Hey! That's ROT-13! That's easy to break!" then you could send them to jail.
Vs lbh'er ernqvat guvf, ynj rasbeprzrag jvyy neevir fubegyl. Erznva pnyz naq chg lbhe jrncba (vr, zbhfr) qbja.
The best part is when you follow the 'igpay atinlay' link to the prefs page, pull the language pulldown menu, and see that one of the language options is "Orkbay!, Orkbay!, Orkbay!"
I said that where?
A guy writes a propaganda chart, saying an L3 cache is four times as important as a floppy drive, and other dubious, yet totally subjective claims. He says, "If you don't like my results, come up with your own chart. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY."
./ and they put it up saying that the 'some guy' is flaming the outrageous claims of Apple.
/. actually thinks someone flaming Apple is newsworthy, and the utter lack of investigation, in thinking the referenced piece is a flame against Apple, and not some other guy's homegrown opinion.
Then, some other guy writes a piece saying how wrong he feels this post is.
Then some third guy (Hemos) posts the 'story' to
The only thing newsworthy about this article is that
Get a grip. There's plenty of cloning stories to post about before we let drivel like this make it to the top of the page.
I've had >50 karma for years, and though it's gradually falling to 50, I still never found any superpowers.
Wait, what's this glowing green stick?
They just got the patent. They filed it three years ago.
It's not too heavy of a jacket, and it even has zippers that run under the armpits to the elbows for optional ventilation...
If it's really how, I just wear shorts with deep or multiple pockets...
On the same note, it's important to make a distinction between 'morally wrong' and 'legally wrong'. I don't believe that Sklyarov has done anything morally wrong, but it's not for me to decide whether he has done anything legaly wrong.
If he did break the law, and yet was not morally wrong, then the law needs to be fixed, and that won't happen by people like us circumventing due process by taking the trial outside of the courtroom before it even gets there.
As I understand it, he sold the program in the United States, and that is what the prosecution claims was illegal. As long as this claim holds enough credibility to warrant a trial to ascertain the veracity of it and how it applies to current US law, then he's not being unfairly imprisioned.
Standard fill:
- Palm V in the exterior vertical zipper chest pocket
- Cellphone (nokia 8290) in the left zipper pocket next to the main zipper
- Digital Elph in the interior right vest pocket (velcro closure).
Leaving two deep exterior pockets at the bottom (mp3 jukebox, 20oz beverage, book, what have you, and an interior left pocket for sunglasses.But with a game as complex as chess, for example, there is no mathematical way that the program could gather enough information over the course of a single game to make that kind of assessment.
Lose a queen and you never know what it is to not have lost a queen, for example.
What about the next person who will rot in jail? Wheat about the next Kevin, or Sklyarov, or the hundreds of people whos rights are unfairly limited? How will they be served by his release? I find your short-sightedness to be callous. Unjust laws need to be removed, unfairly imprisioned people need to be freed.
The plain fact is that Sklyarov may have broken the law as it exists and the answer to that isn't to release him, but to fix the law. Having a wife and children isn't a basis for pleading for someone to be released from incarceration. I have no wife. I have no children. Am I therefore more socially acceptable to have behind bars?
The mistake is having a law that we feel is wrong. We feel it is wrong, but it does exist. If we want ot not to exist then we have to break the law, then have the law broken. Trying to get exceptions based on pity and whining about how they're political prisoners isn't the way to affect social change. It's not a conspiracy: It's the law. We thikn the law is bad, but letting him out won't fix it.
The first question that popped into my head was "How do we know what the opponents move means?"
I was under the misconception that at each turn in the game, the judge will inform the player of all possible moves (as in chess, checkers, or the like) but looking at the specification, it seems that the moves are detailed at the outset of the game, and then are available to each player at each stage in the game.
now the odd thing to me is the measure of 'state' in the game. Is the score that's returned after each move the current cumulative score, the score for that move alone, or what? Also, what is the goal of the game? It would be short-sighted to assume it's to amass the highest score. In effect, the score is just another input variable, along with the opponents move, which may or may not be useful for judging what is a good move or a bad move.
For example, if you were trying to make an algorithm to solve the A8 puzzle (the 'sliding tile puzzle' with 15 tiles and 16 spots), and the computer judged your score by totalling up manhattan distances to the goal state, that may or may not be a fair scale of how many moves away you are from winning in an ideal case.
The system is still underspecified. Without knowing what 'score' means, and whether it is an estimate or a deterministic function, then the project is pretty much a game of luck, and coding is not an effort of skill.
Sklyarov should not be summarily released. Yes, I said it.
Why? Because the DMCA is fatally flawed. Its concepts make dangerous and possibly unconstitutional precedent, and criminalize the rights of invention ('freedom to innovate') in ways previously relegated to dark-future fiction.
Will Congress repeal the DMCA? Unlikely. Political pressure from lobbyists is far greater to keep it in place, and that's where the money is.
Will the president do anything about it? This president? Not likely. (Besides, he's going on vacation for a month.)
The courts are the only arena where the DMCA will be chipped away until it falls apart, but that can't happen if we stage 'free hacker-x' demonstrations every time the DMCA is to be put on trial.
This case is perfect. It's highly public, it hits upon the core of the DMCA, and it's one where the victimized party (Adobe) also feels that the defendant should not be prosecuted. If there's another test case that stands a better chance of chinking the DMCA's multi-platinum armor, I don't know what it is.
But none of this can happen if we don't push the trial through. Look at the big picture. Free Sklyarov, and next month there will be another Sklyarov in his place (anyone want to publish a paper on DeCSS?), but break the DMCA in court, and all Sklyarovs will be free.
A lot of people are playing fast and loose with the word 'random' today. The value of Pi, in whole or of any one digit, isn't random at all. It's entirely deterministic, defined rigidly by a simple formula. No matter how many times or ways that formula is interpreted, the value of Pi is the same, and not random.
What can be said to be 'random' (really pseudorandom or, in the parlance of mathematicians, 'random enough') is an arbitrary digit or sequence of digits from pi, given that the starting decimal place N is also random, or at least non-repeating. The randomness of pi is that each succeeding digit of Pi has no correlation to the preceding digit.
Of course we all know this inherently, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little clearer in these posts about exactly what is random (or not) about Pi.
Kevin Fox
--
The whole premise of quantum encryption is that each photon is vital to the message. Saying a satellite system 'broadcasts' quantum crypto is nonsensical, as you could have multiple receivers, one of which assesses the 'polarity bit' and another that gets the 'info bit' which would render the encryption useless.
Quantum Crypto, such as it is in current theory, is purely a single point to single point system. Not to say that you can't use a satellite, but the language used to describe it needs to be chosen more carefully.
Kevin Fox
--