Ooops! I was reading the third column from the right instead of the third column from the left! Maybe I had the U.K. on the brain and was translating for the opposite side of the road?:)
Clarification: that was smallest, as in SIZE, as opposed to smallest, as in VALUE.
For those not in the USA: There are 100 cents in a dollar; a dime is worth 10 cents, a nickle is worth 5 cents, and a penny is worth 1 cent. But, a nickle or a penny is physically larger than a dime. Has to do with the fact that at one time, a dime was made of pure silver - to make these other coins out of silver would make a coin too small to be practical, so they were made of less-valuable metals (copper, zinc, and nickle).
Either the ads will need to become as entertaining as the programs or the programs will need to contain the ads, so that they cannot be stripped out. If Jennifer Aniston wants to remain a Friend, she may need to don a T-shirt that says "Diet Coke."
Believe it. I worked on a hardware/software project which monitored a camera feed at a "sports venue" where we were doing a live broadcast. It would detect a particular advertising sign along the course, and remap it, in real time, with a selected advertisement, and THAT was what was broadcast to the TV viewers.
So, instead of virtualizing the ENTIRE stage/world with live actors, they could use blue-screen-colored products on the set. Then, the producers could acquire and transmit the coordinates (maybe in the vertical blanking interval?) The images to be placed could have been transmitted during prior VBIs.
The broadcasters would encode a default product placement on the broadcast. The TiVo box, knowing the user's preferences, and having access to the product's coordinates, could generate, in real-time, a virtual product to place there, instead.
So, depending on viewer's preferences, Jennifer Aniston 's t-shirt may say "Diet Coke" OR "Budweiser". That said, I doubt it would take long for a/.'er to create their own image files to be mapped.
Re:Details on the online voting at RPC
on
Online Voting?
·
· Score: 1
Yes, eBallot's web site provides limited detail about the system
here.
Here are some issues/concerns of mine that readily come to mind.
Authentication - Is this "voter" who they claim to be?
Security - Is my vote safe from being altered?
Privacy - Can others determine how I voted?
Usability - Besides Fat-Fingered Fred, what about, for example, the visually impaired?
Bugs - What if the system says I have ALREADY voted, but I have not... how is this handled?
Multiple Votes - How to prevent "Vote Early and Often"?
Hack-Resistance - DoS, DDos, Scr1pt K1dd13s
Impaired Voting - Can/should Joe Sixpack be allowed to vote while drunk?
Some of these have some seemingly obvious solutions; security, for example, has been adressed with encryption
for on-line purchases. e-Commerce sites are very different in that they'd like me to make more than one
purchase, but that's not such a good idea for voting <grin>.
Maybe the code should be open-sourced? Let's not go through "Security Through Obscurity" AGAIN!
I think this idea has considerable merit. I like it. I do have, however, some concerns about their ability and plans for dealing with "imitations", for lack of a better word.
Just like cyber squatting on domain names, and their similar-looking/sounding names, it seems it's only a matter of time before someone starts registering:
Britanny Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Speers
Brittle Spears
Then there's making web sites that are variations on www.fairtunes.com such as:
www.faretunes.com - Tips for cab ride muzac(tm).
www.fairtoons.com - Tips for Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, or (shudder) Barney.
Sounds like a great idea to me. I don't know if there are any laptops that could support this, now, but I could easily foresee being able to do this:
I'm on a business trip with my tv-tuner-enabled laptop. Instead of bringing up a web page to tell my HOME system to record something, I could record it, now, on THIS laptop.
Voila! A portable TV and DVR! You get some privacy, too, as nobody has to know which programs you're watching or recording.
With seti@home, if there were a mistake or a mixup, the worst that can happen is that we think there are LGM (Little Green Men) someplace where they are not (false positive), or to miss out on finding them where they actually are (false negative). Disappointing? Yes, that's for sure.
Now compare that to programs which would be used, for example, to test new drug therapies. Incorrect results, be they false positives or negatives could have potentially life-threatening consequences. So far, the risks here are basically the same as if they had run all the simulations on the company's own machines.
What gets me really nervous would be to think of the impact if someone hacked the downloaded code, and intentionally returned incorrect results. For example, Peter's Perfect Pills is looking to test a new drug. Signs up with this @home service to do its computations inexpensively. But, Bluto's Big Bad Bromides has a competing drug and doesn't want to lose market share. So, they offer up a bunch of THEIR computers to the service, and intentionally return incorrect results. As soon as some of the data is compromised, all data would be suspect.
Sure, they could just encrypt everything, but then the code would be inscrutable, and the virus writers could have a field day getting their programs transmitted around the world.
If they send the source, instead, so I can be SURE there's no risk to MY system, then I have the tools in my hands to present a danger to THEIR results.
That said, I sure hope I'm wrong about this. Can we meet the needs for authenticity, security, and safety to all parties' systems AND to the accuracy of the processing's results? (Or has somebody already solved this problem? If so, I'd love to see a link or a reference.)
Now that's better, as they are now comparing the number of Licenses instead of Dollars, but what do they define as a "client"? Does a TiVObox running Linux count? What about an IBM watch? Besides, I can just as well install the server version of Linux (or NT, for that matter) on my home PC.
Again, how do they define and differentiate between servers? I'd be willing to bet that a license for Solaris on a big Sun box is not really on the same par as a 486DX66 running a Linux server, but it seems that a license is a license is a license according to these stats.
Sure, like any other new technology, there will be opportunities for good and bad; and often depends on the eye (nose?) of the beholder.
Possible applications:
Body odor - Improved deodorants
Pheremones - Perfumes
Decay - Food Processing
Environment - Air freshener
Skunk - Personal protection devices (ala mace)
I'd also like to see if there's any synergy between this and the electronic-nose-chips that I seem to recall reading about recently.
Of course, it's only a matter of time when there will be anti-smell detection devices; nanobots that dismantle the very smells this device would detect.
I realize you are using only one 20GB drive. If you can get your hands on a small extra hard disk, and dedicate it to swap, the performance benefit can be tremendous.
Why? Reduced head motion. Instead of having to slew back and forth from swap and whatever application files your using, the heads for the swap area are always near the data.
For the sizes you are talking about, even a 1GB drive would be HUGE, and you can get a really FAST DISK for relatively little money these days.
Sure sounds tempting... but I've seen that 80/20 rule bite me too many times when I'm only looking at the "easy" part. The devil IS in the details.
That said, I sure wish them the best of luck. Anything that makes setting up a solid and reliable system easier and less error-prone sure sounds like a Very Good Thing!
I'd suspect most people would be freaked out, at first. That's why I mentioned early adopters. There are some people who'd love to be the first to do anything.
Me? I'd wait until they get the bugs out, first. I'd hate to have some computer virus mess up MY inputs
Though, coupled with Bluetooth and pervasive 3rd Generation wireless (big fast pipes), "Big Brother" might just become worse than George Orwell ever imagined. What goes into YOUR implants could as easily be sent to someone ELSE to monitor. And/or manipulate before *I* get them. Yikes!
Then again, what can be transmitted to MY implants could be transmitted to someone else's implants. Could be stored, too. Just think; the most likely early adopters are going to be the average joe who wants even better pr0n!
You point is well-taken. I have a concern, though. Can the GUI tool abstract ALL of the settings in those config files? If not, we've got a potential problem in the making.
This is similar to what happens when using a code-generation tool. It works up to a point, and then I go and hand-craft some enhancements in the generated source. Unfortunately, since the generator didn't do it, and it's not in ITS files, it won't be in the code the next time I use the generator to regenerate that source.
Replace "generator" with "GUI-front end". Either the GUI tool has to know ALL the possibilities of ALL the various flavors of the config files, or it'll run into a case where it's going to cream hand-corrected settings.
Which would happen in a heartbeat when the "newbie" asks a "nerd" to help him tweak his system, and the "nerd" is unaware of the helpful.
The long and the short of it is that the GUI tool presents a "language" that is an abstraction/simplification of the desired config files. It gets interpreted/compiled into the "native" language of the config files. You need a complete forward and backward translation or you're going to lose something in the translation.
If you look at the advancements in technology over the last twenty years, you'll see that it is quite substantial.
That's for sure. We regularly tote around PDAs and cell phones that have more computer power and storage than refrigeraor-sized minicomputers did 20 years ago.
It looks to me that the limits are based on the same things it has always been:
Input
Input has advanced from punch cards and teletypes to usable speech recognition and spy-sized video cameras.
Processing
Moore's law has held up so far; we're gaining two-fold increases every 18 months.
Ouput
Output devices have shrunk tremendously to the point we can easily make them so small that their images are illegible.
As for audio, Sony has shrunk an MP3 player to the size of a large pen.
Size
We continue to make amazing progress in miniaturization. Cell phones used to be
the size of a briefcase.
Especially with nanomachines coming in the foreseeable future.
Communication
Protocols and compressed streams bode well here for fat pipes to/from anywhere, too.
Blue Tooth, MP3, MP4, and 3rd Generation Wireless all come to mind.
Cost
We regularly expect, and see, more power and capabilities in computers and technology,
at a lower cost, year after year.
As I see it, the limits we are now seeing have to do with the
limits of the humans which need to interact with these devices.
It's only a matter of time until we can go no
further in size reduction. Unless, we begin using borg-like
augmentations to our human sensory network.
And much of the work is already under way:
implanted devices to help the blind to see
tiny hearing aids to help with hearing
natural language recognition software
wearable computers
My guess? In 5-10 years, implanted technology will be in the
hands (umm, well, heads) of the early adopters.
Not exactly. They found a way with NUMA to leverage Cray's technology... to get high-performance; they now just link a bunch of "Cray-ons" together! <grin>
Doing this on a NUMA box fixes all of those problems. The memory is shared.
Agreed. The memory bandwidth makes a big difference in being able to handle fine-grained parallelism. (Beowolf, OTOH, is better suited for coarse-grained parallelism.)
Using a system such as this DRAMATICALLY reduces the delay required to propagate interim results to other processors. (Memory is so much faster than disk, and, if memory serves me, shared memory greatly improves on performance-robbing cache synchronization.)
Another perfect application for this kind of system would be investigating the Human Genome. It's pattern matching on a huge scale. And, from discussions with a friend who decides on and purcahses the hardware for just such a company, his challenge is getting enough storage, and being able to get to it FAST. This looks pretty fast to me!:)
I wonder how long will it take for someone to design a nano-Carnivore that, after a suitable time-delay, wanders across a document and "eats" (or rearranges) certain KEY words.
Some day, there could be a lot more to that used-car-dealer's handshake than meets the eye!
According to recent experiments performed at the new Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in the Canadian Arctic, it has been discovered that there are Penguins on Mars!
Rep. John McHugh (R., N.Y.), chairman of the House Postal Service Subcommittee, has proposed a bill that would require the agency to spin off its Internet businesses into separate companies. The subcommittee approved it last year.
Sure, it's voluntary, now. I could easily imagine the Federal Government, at some point in the future, could pass a law that makes e-mail sent to your USPS e-mail address as legally binding as snail-mail sent to your last-known snail-mail address. So, you'd HAVE to check it periodically -- spammers would just LOVE that!
Though, in their inimitable style, the law would be trumpeted as a cost-saving, eco-friendly measure!:P
Looks like Pluto IS the LAST planet, again, as of February 11, 1999. According to this link Buie: Pluto Research:
Pluto reached perihelion (closest point to the Sun) on 1989 September 5 at 12:00 UT. At that time it was at 29.66 AU, or 4.4 billion kilometers, or 2.7 billion miles from the Sun. Pluto became the "eighth" planet on 1979 February 7 at 10:44 UT when it came to a distance from the Sun less than Neptune. It will continue in this status until 1999 February 11 at 11:22 UT when it will once again be further from the Sun than any other planet. Its status as the ninth planet will remain undisputed for the next 220 years when it will once again be approaching perihelion.
Slashdot Mirror
Ooops! I was reading the third column from the right instead of the third column from the left! Maybe I had the U.K. on the brain and was translating for the opposite side of the road? :)
Anyway, here's the corrected info:
Please accept my apologies for the confusion.
Clarification: that was smallest, as in SIZE, as opposed to smallest, as in VALUE.
For those not in the USA: There are 100 cents in a dollar; a dime is worth 10 cents, a nickle is worth 5 cents, and a penny is worth 1 cent. But, a nickle or a penny is physically larger than a dime. Has to do with the fact that at one time, a dime was made of pure silver - to make these other coins out of silver would make a coin too small to be practical, so they were made of less-valuable metals (copper, zinc, and nickle).
Sorry for the confusion!
According to this page at the United States Mint, a dime:
Basically, it's the smallest coin currently in circulation in the United States of America.
From the article:
Either the ads will need to become as entertaining as the programs or the programs will need to contain the ads, so that they cannot be stripped out. If Jennifer Aniston wants to remain a Friend, she may need to don a T-shirt that says "Diet Coke."
Believe it. I worked on a hardware/software project which monitored a camera feed at a "sports venue" where we were doing a live broadcast. It would detect a particular advertising sign along the course, and remap it, in real time, with a selected advertisement, and THAT was what was broadcast to the TV viewers.
So, instead of virtualizing the ENTIRE stage/world with live actors, they could use blue-screen-colored products on the set. Then, the producers could acquire and transmit the coordinates (maybe in the vertical blanking interval?) The images to be placed could have been transmitted during prior VBIs.
The broadcasters would encode a default product placement on the broadcast. The TiVo box, knowing the user's preferences, and having access to the product's coordinates, could generate, in real-time, a virtual product to place there, instead.
So, depending on viewer's preferences, Jennifer Aniston 's t-shirt may say "Diet Coke" OR "Budweiser". That said, I doubt it would take long for a /.'er to create their own image files to be mapped.
Yes, eBallot's web site provides limited detail about the system here.
Here are some issues/concerns of mine that readily come to mind.
Some of these have some seemingly obvious solutions; security, for example, has been adressed with encryption for on-line purchases. e-Commerce sites are very different in that they'd like me to make more than one purchase, but that's not such a good idea for voting <grin>.
Maybe the code should be open-sourced? Let's not go through "Security Through Obscurity" AGAIN!
I think this idea has considerable merit. I like it. I do have, however, some concerns about their ability and plans for dealing with "imitations", for lack of a better word.
Just like cyber squatting on domain names, and their similar-looking/sounding names, it seems it's only a matter of time before someone starts registering:
Then there's making web sites that are variations on www.fairtunes.com such as:
Sounds like a great idea to me. I don't know if there are any laptops that could support this, now, but I could easily foresee being able to do this:
Voila! A portable TV and DVR! You get some privacy, too, as nobody has to know which programs you're watching or recording.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
I guess a better subject line for my post would be: "Dangers of Posting Late at Night Without Enough Caffeine" <grin>
With seti@home, if there were a mistake or a mixup, the worst that can happen is that we think there are LGM (Little Green Men) someplace where they are not (false positive), or to miss out on finding them where they actually are (false negative). Disappointing? Yes, that's for sure.
Now compare that to programs which would be used, for example, to test new drug therapies. Incorrect results, be they false positives or negatives could have potentially life-threatening consequences. So far, the risks here are basically the same as if they had run all the simulations on the company's own machines.
What gets me really nervous would be to think of the impact if someone hacked the downloaded code, and intentionally returned incorrect results. For example, Peter's Perfect Pills is looking to test a new drug. Signs up with this @home service to do its computations inexpensively. But, Bluto's Big Bad Bromides has a competing drug and doesn't want to lose market share. So, they offer up a bunch of THEIR computers to the service, and intentionally return incorrect results. As soon as some of the data is compromised, all data would be suspect.
Sure, they could just encrypt everything, but then the code would be inscrutable, and the virus writers could have a field day getting their programs transmitted around the world. If they send the source, instead, so I can be SURE there's no risk to MY system, then I have the tools in my hands to present a danger to THEIR results.
That said, I sure hope I'm wrong about this. Can we meet the needs for authenticity, security, and safety to all parties' systems AND to the accuracy of the processing's results? (Or has somebody already solved this problem? If so, I'd love to see a link or a reference.)
Interesting article, but there's some comparisons going on here that aren't quite as clear-cut as they seem at first glance.
Figure 1 - Worldwide, 1999 Client and Server Operating Environment Revenues by Platform ($B)
Well, DUH! Ain't much revenue for an "Operating Environment" that can be downloaded for free, so no wonder Linux lags behind 32-bit windows.
Figure 2- Worldwide Client Operating Environment New License Shipment Shares 1999 and Shipment Growth 1999-2004
Now that's better, as they are now comparing the number of Licenses instead of Dollars, but what do they define as a "client"? Does a TiVObox running Linux count? What about an IBM watch? Besides, I can just as well install the server version of Linux (or NT, for that matter) on my home PC.
Figure 3 - Worldwide Server Operating Environment New License Shipment Shares 1999 and Shipment Growth 1999-2004
Again, how do they define and differentiate between servers? I'd be willing to bet that a license for Solaris on a big Sun box is not really on the same par as a 486DX66 running a Linux server, but it seems that a license is a license is a license according to these stats.
Sure, like any other new technology, there will be opportunities for good and bad; and often depends on the eye (nose?) of the beholder.
Possible applications:
I'd also like to see if there's any synergy between this and the electronic-nose-chips that I seem to recall reading about recently.
Of course, it's only a matter of time when there will be anti-smell detection devices; nanobots that dismantle the very smells this device would detect.
I realize you are using only one 20GB drive. If you can get your hands on a small extra hard disk, and dedicate it to swap, the performance benefit can be tremendous.
Why? Reduced head motion. Instead of having to slew back and forth from swap and whatever application files your using, the heads for the swap area are always near the data.
For the sizes you are talking about, even a 1GB drive would be HUGE, and you can get a really FAST DISK for relatively little money these days.
Sure sounds tempting... but I've seen that 80/20 rule bite me too many times when I'm only looking at the "easy" part. The devil IS in the details.
That said, I sure wish them the best of luck. Anything that makes setting up a solid and reliable system easier and less error-prone sure sounds like a Very Good Thing!
I'd suspect most people would be freaked out, at first. That's why I mentioned early adopters. There are some people who'd love to be the first to do anything.
Me? I'd wait until they get the bugs out, first. I'd hate to have some computer virus mess up MY inputs
Though, coupled with Bluetooth and pervasive 3rd Generation wireless (big fast pipes), "Big Brother" might just become worse than George Orwell ever imagined. What goes into YOUR implants could as easily be sent to someone ELSE to monitor. And/or manipulate before *I* get them. Yikes!
Then again, what can be transmitted to MY implants could be transmitted to someone else's implants. Could be stored, too. Just think; the most likely early adopters are going to be the average joe who wants even better pr0n!
You point is well-taken. I have a concern, though. Can the GUI tool abstract ALL of the settings in those config files? If not, we've got a potential problem in the making.
This is similar to what happens when using a code-generation tool. It works up to a point, and then I go and hand-craft some enhancements in the generated source. Unfortunately, since the generator didn't do it, and it's not in ITS files, it won't be in the code the next time I use the generator to regenerate that source.
Replace "generator" with "GUI-front end". Either the GUI tool has to know ALL the possibilities of ALL the various flavors of the config files, or it'll run into a case where it's going to cream hand-corrected settings. Which would happen in a heartbeat when the "newbie" asks a "nerd" to help him tweak his system, and the "nerd" is unaware of the helpful.
The long and the short of it is that the GUI tool presents a "language" that is an abstraction/simplification of the desired config files. It gets interpreted/compiled into the "native" language of the config files. You need a complete forward and backward translation or you're going to lose something in the translation.
That's for sure. We regularly tote around PDAs and cell phones that have more computer power and storage than refrigeraor-sized minicomputers did 20 years ago.
It looks to me that the limits are based on the same things it has always been:
Input has advanced from punch cards and teletypes to usable speech recognition and spy-sized video cameras.
Moore's law has held up so far; we're gaining two-fold increases every 18 months.
Output devices have shrunk tremendously to the point we can easily make them so small that their images are illegible. As for audio, Sony has shrunk an MP3 player to the size of a large pen.
We continue to make amazing progress in miniaturization. Cell phones used to be the size of a briefcase. Especially with nanomachines coming in the foreseeable future.
Protocols and compressed streams bode well here for fat pipes to/from anywhere, too. Blue Tooth, MP3, MP4, and 3rd Generation Wireless all come to mind.
We regularly expect, and see, more power and capabilities in computers and technology, at a lower cost, year after year.
As I see it, the limits we are now seeing have to do with the limits of the humans which need to interact with these devices. It's only a matter of time until we can go no further in size reduction. Unless, we begin using borg-like augmentations to our human sensory network. And much of the work is already under way:
My guess? In 5-10 years, implanted technology will be in the hands (umm, well, heads) of the early adopters.
Not exactly. They found a way with NUMA to leverage Cray's technology... to get high-performance; they now just link a bunch of "Cray-ons" together! <grin>
Nah. See if we can get them to run a simple little Java program on Netscape! <grin>
cf: Java Security Hole Makes Netscape Into Web Server
Agreed. The memory bandwidth makes a big difference in being able to handle fine-grained parallelism. (Beowolf, OTOH, is better suited for coarse-grained parallelism.)
Using a system such as this DRAMATICALLY reduces the delay required to propagate interim results to other processors. (Memory is so much faster than disk, and, if memory serves me, shared memory greatly improves on performance-robbing cache synchronization.)
Another perfect application for this kind of system would be investigating the Human Genome. It's pattern matching on a huge scale. And, from discussions with a friend who decides on and purcahses the hardware for just such a company, his challenge is getting enough storage, and being able to get to it FAST. This looks pretty fast to me! :)
I wonder how long will it take for someone to design a nano-Carnivore that, after a suitable time-delay, wanders across a document and "eats" (or rearranges) certain KEY words.
Some day, there could be a lot more to that used-car-dealer's handshake than meets the eye!
According to recent experiments performed at the new Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in the Canadian Arctic, it has been discovered that there are Penguins on Mars!
It's already in progress... From the article:
Sure, it's voluntary, now. I could easily imagine the Federal Government, at some point in the future, could pass a law that makes e-mail sent to your USPS e-mail address as legally binding as snail-mail sent to your last-known snail-mail address. So, you'd HAVE to check it periodically -- spammers would just LOVE that!
Though, in their inimitable style, the law would be trumpeted as a cost-saving, eco-friendly measure! :P
Pluto reached perihelion (closest point to the Sun) on 1989 September 5 at 12:00 UT. At that time it was at 29.66 AU, or 4.4 billion kilometers, or 2.7 billion miles from the Sun. Pluto became the "eighth" planet on 1979 February 7 at 10:44 UT when it came to a distance from the Sun less than Neptune. It will continue in this status until 1999 February 11 at 11:22 UT when it will once again be further from the Sun than any other planet. Its status as the ninth planet will remain undisputed for the next 220 years when it will once again be approaching perihelion.
Crunch, crunch; chew, chew; crow. Pttui! <g>
Pluto's orbit is so elliptical that Pluto is currently INSIDE Neptune's orbit; Neptune is really the LAST planet, now.