some life forms may be based on an atom we don't even know about yet.
That's highly unlikely. It would have to be an atom with an atom number higher than 110. Which would be way to unstable.
For instance, it has been speculated that Silicon based life may exist.
Silicon isn't exactly an atom we don't know about....
and all using our (limited) atomic charts
Limited? Well, we can make some trans uranium atoms in labs, but there's no evidence that atoms with atom numbers above 92 exist in the universe in any significant numbers.
wow... i hate to say it, but your coment trully frightens me. i mean, here we are, on the verge of a discovery of a completely and totally new system of planets, maybe a new system of life we don't even comprehend or being to understand. We are on the verge of great discoveries (or at least, we are on the verge of being on the verge.) And yet the first thing that is thought is, how will thses planets do us a service!
Ah, but not only that. On some other planet, they have discovered that around the star we call 'Sun' there's a planet in the habitational zone. And on its equivalent slashdot, someone wonders what good that planet will be for them.
Maybe we'll all end up as slaves in the Zork mines.
Then a manned trip. Who here wants to bet we can achieve some sort of faster than light (FTL) drive before the probes reach there destination? What about sending a cryo-frozen colony ship (boy, what an original idea, I should patent that one...)?
Manned trip to planets outside of our solar system are far, far away. It's just not feasible - even if we had the technology. Just look at all the manned missions to planets in our solar system. Oh, wait. Let me rephrase that. 30 years ago, man went to the moon. A handful of trips, and we never returned. Not because of the lack of technology, but it just isn't worth it. And the moon is next door.
Even a trip to Mars would be a multi-year expedition. We don't have *any* experience with long trips away from Earth. Yes, there was Mir, and that has learned us a lot, but Mir could only stay up there because it was relatively easy to shoot up a rocket with supplies/spare parts/cosmonauts. You don't want an Apollo 13 like event halfway Eart and Mars. Even if you have a quarter to phone home.
But apart from the technological problems, and ignoring the physical and psychological effects on the crew, there's the economic issue. A manned mission even to Mars will costs tens of billions of dollars, if not hundreds. While I have no doubt a high percentage of people reading Slashdot don't see a problem with that, that isn't true in general.
I'd love to see a mission to Mars. But I don't think the costs justify one. Other projects have a lower cost/benefit ratio.
As for FTL, I do not think it's very likely that will ever happen. And cryo-frozen colony ships, well, that's an interesting idea, but it hasn't worked Earth yet, nor have we been able to launch a ship of "colony size".
However, eventually, we have send probes. If we send them now, how long will it take before they get there?
Well, find out how long ago we launched the Pioneer ships, and how far out they are now. Extrapolate.
The planets in our solar system are not perfectly circular; they move in a slightly elliptical fashion
Sure, but on a large scale, and certainly compared to the newly discovered system, they are nearly circular, and very important, they are neatly stacked, with the exception of Neptune and Pluto (but their orbits are locked).
Imagine the cosmic billiards if Jupiters orbit would be highly eccentric, coming inside Earths orbit every blue moon.
As for snprintf, the problem is not so much that it's a GNU extension, but rather that sprintf is an ANSI standard function, which means that any ANSI-compliant compiler/C library can handle it, making it the 'default'.
That's a silly argument. The "problem" isn't that sprintf is a standard, the "problem" is that snprintf *isn't*.
Once you get into the habit of bounds-checking unverified data, it's not so much of a problem, but this sort of stuff is not usually taught in CS courses...
That's bullshit. It's probably even more stressed in academical environments than anywhere else.
Are you saying you can only do boundary checking by calling special functions?
Anyway, that would just prove my point. The dominant language of Unix systems is still the same as 20 years ago - GNU "extensions" don't change the language.
Because many programmers are either too lazy or too busy to bother with the bounds checking involved.
The authors of Perl, sendmail, bind, and all those other applications listen in CERT bulletins are all either too lazy or too busy? Do you really think so?
My grandma used to do the same thing when she was a kid, and she's 82 years old now, sharp as a pin, and still kicking strong!
82 year olds that are sharp as a pin and are kicking strong are a danger for society. It's a good thing they forbid leaded paint; 82 year olds should be dull, and not kick at all.
Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try our new foo paint, now with extra lead! Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money back!
Sure, just like Intel is advertising its processors as "Buy our PIII processor with its unique serial number, and be tracked to every p0rn site you visit".
You do have choice in the unix world. You can use C++, java, perl, python, sed, awk, bash, tcsh, bc, emacs lisp, vi scripts,
Just because you theoretically can, doesn't mean it's practical. Face it, the majority of the programs, specially those that are run with special privelidges aren't written in vi-macros or in bc. But in the same language they were written in 20 years ago.
Mind, I'm not bashing C. However, it's low levelness does make it to have errors slip in that cause buffer overflows and hence security concerns. And the C being the dominant language for Unix hasn't changed the last 20 years. Whether other languages are available or not isn't the point - they aren't used that often.
Whether other languages should be used more often is a different question. My opinion on that in a nutshell: for some projects: perhaps, but not everyone is willing to pay the price (speed). For other projects, it's unlikely you want anything else than C - at least for now.
which places its speed right between that of shell scripting and C. (think three orders of magnitude here, with shell scripting the slowest and C the fastest) But woe betide the coder who finds maintenance programming written in Perl, for that is truly evil.
Why is it that every third slashdot discussion contains a thread bashing Perl by clueless people? If you can't write well written code, blame yourself, not the language.
You can't tell me that say Unix security hasn't increased in the past 20 years can you?
I don't think it has. Most security holes are caused by buffer overflows. The dominant language for Unix (and other) platforms is still a language that easily allows for buffer overflows.
The public can only play leapfrog with the NSA to a certain point... a nanometer scale CPU is basically as small as you can get, and the only way to make a more powerful machine is to network more processors together. It's not very feasible for Joe Public to have a computer the size of a gymnasium
Perhaps you should open a computer once, and compare the size of the CPU with the size of the box. While there is certainly a relation between the size of the CPU and its speed to some extend, there isn't much relation between the size of the CPU and the size of a computer.
Remember, wannabee computer makers worry about processor speed, real computer makers worry about cooling.
The hardest problems in NP are the NP-complete problems.
Eh, for which definition of "hard" is that? NP-complete problems are problems that are P transformable into each other; hence, if one NP-complete problem can be solved in (deterministic) polynomial time, all of them can. However, there's another class, called NP-hard. Even if all NP-complete problems can be solved in deterministic polynomial time, that doesn't say anything about the NP-hard class. NP-complete problems are P transformable into NP-hard ones; but not the other way around.
If Mike spends long enough he will, by probability get the correct filter for each photon(way #1 would be him sitting there as each blocked one is resent, or #2 by pure luck he uses the cortrect filter, and he never blocks a photon, which is very unlikely, but possible).
If Mike blocks a proton, Joe isn't getting it. He tells Bob, so Joe and Bob will know the line is being eaves dropped on. Only if Joe and Bob are stupid, they will continue using the line.
A brute-force attack would be down to two steps, each of which would take a trivial amount of time: 1) generate all possible keys
I dunno, but I have a hard time visualizing this. There are about 10^80 protons in the visual part of the universe. 10^80 is less than 2^300. I would like to know how you would generate all possible keys of a 300 bit keylength in trivial amount of time.
Sure, if your business environment is unsafe or harmful to the employee, but really now, if you dont like it, quit and find another job.
From which planet are you? Quitting and finding another job is only easy for a small group of people. Usually people that aren't working in environments that are potentially damaging for their healths. A well paid programmer might be sitting behind a computer all day, (s)he often sits at an expensive chair, and might even have an adjustable desk. But there are a lot of low income jobs that don't offer that luxery.
Why in the world would you want to continue a job as a coal miner when you have Black Lung?
It must be wonderful to be 14 years old, and still have this naive image of the world.
The issue isn't something like "Linux vs. Windows" or "BSD vs. Windows" or "etc. vs. Windows" but it's free open-sourced software vs. closed-source software. and especially about freedom of choice.
I don't think the issue is as much "open-source" vs "closed-source" when it comes to Windows vs something else. Or are you suggesting Microsoft, Sun, HP, SGI, etc are all in one camp, and *BSD and Linux in another? "open-source" vs "closed-source" is just one aspect - "Unix" vs "Windows" has many aspects that aren't related to closed-source.
I can live without Linux or *BSD. I've only be using Linux just shy of 7 years. But I wouldn't be a happy camper if I had to switch to Windows. I'd choose a closed-source Unix over an open-source Windows every time.
Quality is important. Open source can improve quality, but it's neither a necessity, nor a requirement.
If one wrote an OS (in this case, the utilies, programs, and interfaces) but happened to use Linus's kernel... would they have to distribute the source to the entire OS... or just the kernel?
First of all, the GPL doesn't require you to distribute source - only to make it available upon request. Secondly, unless this person is distributing the kernel, she has no requirement to make the source of the kernel available.
The first lines of the COPYING file in the linux source tarball: NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Those that prefer the BSD license seem to be the ones taking someone elses work, changing it a little to make it theirs. Those that prefer the GPL license seem to be the ones that create something from scratch
Since the point of the GPL is to easily take someones work and change it, shouldn't the conclusion be that the BSD is better?;-)
I don't think RMS wrote the GPL with the idea all software is written from scratch.
Quake players are a avid, hard working computer user group. [.... ] I bet half of them work to further the quake community in some way.
I bet more than 99% of the quake players have never programmed a computer, and will never either, just like 99% of the people driving a Ford have never repaired a car.
I fail to why bringing quake players (or any other game) would make Linux better.
They want to play there games, let them.
Oh, I don't mind people playing their games. I just don't have any urge to lure them away from Windows (or the Mac) and onto Unix.
I can. Slashdots moderation scheme is pointless. There are a lot of dumb people posting naief, unfounded postings, and moderators are choosen from the same set of people. What do you expect?;-)
"...not able to install Red Hat"?!... I've installed Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, and Debian all quite easily
Good for you. But beside the point.
If Linux is ever going to succeed as a desktop OS then it's going to need games.
That's a pretty depressing idea. I rather see Linux succeeding as a desktop OS because it is useful, stable, and good. It can compete with Sun and HP in the desktop market (although it still has some catching up to do), why settle for competing with nintendo?
What Linux badly needs is large application producers making Linux versions of their software. To do that, it's better that Linux has a serious image than to be seen as a "gamers platform" - regardless whether it is one or not.
Slashdot Mirror
That's highly unlikely. It would have to be an atom with an atom number higher than 110. Which would be way to unstable.
For instance, it has been speculated that Silicon based life may exist.
Silicon isn't exactly an atom we don't know about....
and all using our (limited) atomic charts
Limited? Well, we can make some trans uranium atoms in labs, but there's no evidence that atoms with atom numbers above 92 exist in the universe in any significant numbers.
-- Abigail
Ah, but not only that. On some other planet, they have discovered that around the star we call 'Sun' there's a planet in the habitational zone. And on its equivalent slashdot, someone wonders what good that planet will be for them.
Maybe we'll all end up as slaves in the Zork mines.
-- Abigail
Manned trip to planets outside of our solar system are far, far away. It's just not feasible - even if we had the technology. Just look at all the manned missions to planets in our solar system. Oh, wait. Let me rephrase that. 30 years ago, man went to the moon. A handful of trips, and we never returned. Not because of the lack of technology, but it just isn't worth it. And the moon is next door.
Even a trip to Mars would be a multi-year expedition. We don't have *any* experience with long trips away from Earth. Yes, there was Mir, and that has learned us a lot, but Mir could only stay up there because it was relatively easy to shoot up a rocket with supplies/spare parts/cosmonauts. You don't want an Apollo 13 like event halfway Eart and Mars. Even if you have a quarter to phone home.
But apart from the technological problems, and ignoring the physical and psychological effects on the crew, there's the economic issue. A manned mission even to Mars will costs tens of billions of dollars, if not hundreds. While I have no doubt a high percentage of people reading Slashdot don't see a problem with that, that isn't true in general.
I'd love to see a mission to Mars. But I don't think the costs justify one. Other projects have a lower cost/benefit ratio.
As for FTL, I do not think it's very likely that will ever happen. And cryo-frozen colony ships, well, that's an interesting idea, but it hasn't worked Earth yet, nor have we been able to launch a ship of "colony size".
However, eventually, we have send probes. If we send them now, how long will it take before they get there?
Well, find out how long ago we launched the Pioneer ships, and how far out they are now. Extrapolate.
-- Abigail
Sure, but on a large scale, and certainly compared to the newly discovered system, they are nearly circular, and very important, they are neatly stacked, with the exception of Neptune and Pluto (but their orbits are locked).
Imagine the cosmic billiards if Jupiters orbit would be highly eccentric, coming inside Earths orbit every blue moon.
-- Abigail
That's a silly argument. The "problem" isn't that sprintf is a standard, the "problem" is that snprintf *isn't*.
Once you get into the habit of bounds-checking unverified data, it's not so much of a problem, but this sort of stuff is not usually taught in CS courses...
That's bullshit. It's probably even more stressed in academical environments than anywhere else.
-- Abigail
Anyway, that would just prove my point. The dominant language of Unix systems is still the same as 20 years ago - GNU "extensions" don't change the language.
-- Abigail
The authors of Perl, sendmail, bind, and all those other applications listen in CERT bulletins are all either too lazy or too busy? Do you really think so?
-- Abigail
82 year olds that are sharp as a pin and are kicking strong are a danger for society. It's a good thing they forbid leaded paint; 82 year olds should be dull, and not kick at all.
-- Abigail
Sure, just like Intel is advertising its processors as "Buy our PIII processor with its unique serial number, and be tracked to every p0rn site you visit".
-- Abigail
Just because you theoretically can, doesn't mean it's practical. Face it, the majority of the programs, specially those that are run with special privelidges aren't written in vi-macros or in bc. But in the same language they were written in 20 years ago.
Mind, I'm not bashing C. However, it's low levelness does make it to have errors slip in that cause buffer overflows and hence security concerns. And the C being the dominant language for Unix hasn't changed the last 20 years. Whether other languages are available or not isn't the point - they aren't used that often.
Whether other languages should be used more often is a different question. My opinion on that in a nutshell: for some projects: perhaps, but not everyone is willing to pay the price (speed). For other projects, it's unlikely you want anything else than C - at least for now.
-- Abigail
If it's that simple, why does it happen over and over again?
-- Abigail
But woe betide the coder who finds maintenance programming written in Perl, for that is truly evil.
Why is it that every third slashdot discussion contains a thread bashing Perl by clueless people?
If you can't write well written code, blame yourself, not the language.
-- Abigail
I don't think it has. Most security holes are caused by buffer overflows. The dominant language for Unix (and other) platforms is still a language that easily allows for buffer overflows.
Nothing has changed to prevent this.
-- Abigail
Perhaps you should open a computer once, and compare the size of the CPU with the size of the box. While there is certainly a relation between the size of the CPU and its speed to some extend, there isn't much relation between the size of the CPU and the size of a computer.
Remember, wannabee computer makers worry about processor speed, real computer makers worry about cooling.
-- Abigail
Eh, for which definition of "hard" is that? NP-complete problems are problems that are P transformable into each other; hence, if one NP-complete problem can be solved in (deterministic) polynomial time, all of them can. However, there's another class, called NP-hard. Even if all NP-complete problems can be solved in deterministic polynomial time, that doesn't say anything about the NP-hard class. NP-complete problems are P transformable into NP-hard ones; but not the other way around.
-- Abigail
If Mike blocks a proton, Joe isn't getting it. He tells Bob, so Joe and Bob will know the line is being eaves dropped on. Only if Joe and Bob are stupid, they will continue using the line.
-- Abigail
I dunno, but I have a hard time visualizing this. There are about 10^80 protons in the visual part of the universe. 10^80 is less than 2^300. I would like to know how you would generate all possible keys of a 300 bit keylength in trivial amount of time.
-- Abigail
Friends call me more appropriately:
-- Abigail
So, the geek that's a nerd is not a geek at the same time?
-- Abigail
From which planet are you? Quitting and finding another job is only easy for a small group of people. Usually people that aren't working in environments that are potentially damaging for their healths. A well paid programmer might be sitting behind a computer all day, (s)he often sits at an expensive chair, and might even have an adjustable desk. But there are a lot of low income jobs that don't offer that luxery.
Why in the world would you want to continue a job as a coal miner when you have Black Lung?
It must be wonderful to be 14 years old, and still have this naive image of the world.
-- Abigail
I don't think the issue is as much "open-source" vs "closed-source" when it comes to Windows vs something else. Or are you suggesting Microsoft, Sun, HP, SGI, etc are all in one camp, and *BSD and Linux in another? "open-source" vs "closed-source" is just one aspect - "Unix" vs "Windows" has many aspects that aren't related to closed-source.
I can live without Linux or *BSD. I've only be using Linux just shy of 7 years. But I wouldn't be a happy camper if I had to switch to Windows. I'd choose a closed-source Unix over an open-source Windows every time.
Quality is important. Open source can improve quality, but it's neither a necessity, nor a requirement.
-- Abigail
First of all, the GPL doesn't require you to distribute source - only to make it available upon request. Secondly, unless this person is distributing the kernel, she has no requirement to make the source of the kernel available.
The first lines of the COPYING file in the linux source tarball:
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
-- Abigail
Since the point of the GPL is to easily take someones work and change it, shouldn't the conclusion be that the BSD is better? ;-)
I don't think RMS wrote the GPL with the idea all software is written from scratch.
-- Abigail
I bet more than 99% of the quake players have never programmed a computer, and will never either, just like 99% of the people driving a Ford have never repaired a car.
I fail to why bringing quake players (or any other game) would make Linux better.
They want to play there games, let them.
Oh, I don't mind people playing their games. I just don't have any urge to lure them away from Windows (or the Mac) and onto Unix.
As Tom would say, "The Computer *is* the Game".
-- Abigail
I can. Slashdots moderation scheme is pointless. There are a lot of dumb people posting naief, unfounded postings, and moderators are choosen from the same set of people. What do you expect? ;-)
"...not able to install Red Hat"?! ... I've installed Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, and Debian all quite easily
Good for you. But beside the point.
If Linux is ever going to succeed as a desktop OS then it's going to need games.
That's a pretty depressing idea. I rather see Linux succeeding as a desktop OS because it is useful, stable, and good. It can compete with Sun and HP in the desktop market (although it still has some catching up to do), why settle for competing with nintendo?
What Linux badly needs is large application producers making Linux versions of their software. To do that, it's better that Linux has a serious image than to be seen as a "gamers platform" - regardless whether it is one or not.
-- Abigail