It seems that every time the government issues these sorts of regs, it expands the amonunt of information it gets, at the expense of the amount of information available in the public sector.
A plan to automatically order beer at sporting events, etc.
This plan requires patrons of Beer Me!-enabled events to buy beer in containers with sensors that monitor the amount of beer remaining in the container.
When the beer level falls below a pre-determined level (say, 10% of full), the container emits a "TIDE_IS_OUT" ("TIDE_IS_OOT" in Canada) signal that is triangulated by radio transponders installed at the venue.
Upon receipt of the "TIDE_IS_OUT" signal, the larger system will cause a new beer to be poured and delivered to the patron. This process continues as long as "TIDE_IS_OUT" signals are received and the patron's credit card continues to authorize payment.
You saw it here (BURRRRRRPPPPP!) first!
E-Responses from my Representative and Senators...
on
Million E-mail March
·
· Score: 2
Cynthia McKinney always sends a generic auto-reply, with no other followup. Mind you, since I'm a net taxpayer and reflect more light than she does, I'm sure I'm not terribly interesting to her (i.e., I'm not buying *anything* she's selling, so why should she bother?)
Max Cleland never responds at all. I did see him when I was running the Peachtree Road Race (he was parked by the road trying to get votes - I mean, cheering on the runners), and asked him to answer his e-mail.
Paul Coverdell used to reply, personally, to all my e-mail. He died. I've not tried writing to his replacement, Zell Miller.
Politics in the USA? Two guys arguing over how to spend the money their armed goons are about to take from you. An advance auction of stolen goods.
From a solipsist, navel-regarding point of view, the fact that the pols aren't paying attention to Jon Katz might mean that politics don't matter. What he fails to realize is that they're not paying attention to him *just* yet*.
When Al or George's socialist utopia goes into implementation phase, Jon will realize that politics do, in fact, matter. His tax burden will make sure of that.
Actually, I think this points to a larger issue. Most Americans are on one subsidy or another, while at the same time most Americans are either off, or about to be off, the tax rolls. Hence, the politicians don't have to pay attention to the taxpayers - a voting minority - just the tax consumers they're trying to buy.
Wait for the bread and circuses to become larger and larger and more and more expensive.
Last days of politics? My ass! The games are only beginning.
I'm afraid I couldn't make head nor tail of this paragraph.
Are you really a government worker? Your studied incoherence makes me think this could be an attempt at a troll.
If you are an actual government worker and this is the best prose you can produce, well, I'd better accelerate my plans to move all my assets offshore.
5. Do black holes really exist? (It sure seems like it.) Do they really radiate energy and evaporate the way Hawking predicts? If so, what happens when, after a finite amount of time, they radiate completely away? What's left? Do black holes really violate all conservation laws except conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum and electric charge? What happens to the information contained in an object that falls into a black hole? Is it lost when the black hole evaporates? Does this require a modification of quantum mechanics?
That said, humans are fallible. What can we expect but that the artifacts they create will also be fallible? There are assuredly limits on software - limits on computability - but the limits I see here are more limits on human ability to describe solutions to problems that become larger and larger as the simpler ones are mastered.
As for technology as religion, it's not religion to me, it's a source of comfortable living.
Now, if only I could stop my VCR from blinking "12:00....12:00...."
I started playing computer games on a DEC 20, back in 1979 - "Adventure," naturally. From there it was a short hop, skip, and jump to Zork, and then to Rogue. Then I passed on the whole genre until I bought a SNES with StarFox and Doom II. That's when I noticed my tastes had changed.
I don't try to solve puzzles any more. If the game involves a puzzle, I buy the cheats. I want to see bodies explode. Whether it's shotguns or chainsaws, I don't care. I don't want thinking, I want mayhem.
I think part of what's going on is that I think all day at work, so it's the last thing I want to do at home.
Maybe what's happening (in the U.S., at any rate) is that as the economy becomes more intellectual and less physical, the intellectuals get their rocks off with virtual physicality.
The tool that grabs certain messages today can grab all messages tomorrow.
The laws (or lack thereof) that allow encryption to happen today, can change tomorrow.
Some people have indicated encryption is the way to get around Carnivore, and that we can ignore this threat on that basis.
OK, what happens when the Government decides to make encryption illegal?
Police departments already refer to the Fourth Amendment as the "One-Fourth Amendment", because of the way seizure laws have been written. We already have the situation where police can seize cash above certain amounts on the basis that possession of large amounts of case is de facto evidence of wrongdoing. Now, think of encryption, and apply the same thinking.
You can't afford to ignore this tool. You can't afford to blow it off.
Well, I guess there's a topic that warrants discussion, but I don't think it's the compilation toolchains.
I took the time to follow the links to Mr. Sokolov's verious postings. He reminds me of me when I was much less mature: carefully argumentative, inflexible, willing to drive others to distraction rather than yield to evidence. You know, an asshole.
I'm recovering. My recovery began when I realized that my technical skills counted for little when compared with my inability to get along with other people. I mean, I was losing out on cool projects and pay raises. I'm a different person today, believe me.
Play with the Special Agent if you will. I'm more inclined to let his comments go without specific reply and let reality eventually catch up with him.
Anyway, what warrants discussion, IMHO, is how to accelerate the maturing process. Personally, I wish that someone had simply fired me (now *there's* a slap with a two-by-four), or let me know that *I* wasn't getting the cool project, or that *I* was getting the miniscule raise. Something, *anything* to let me know how the world saw me (Oh wad some power the giftie gie us...).
I'm pretty sure I saw a story about SecureBSD on/. a few days back. Submit *that* and I think you'll have the OS you're looking for.
As a complete aside, and at possible risk to my karma, I have to say that a lot of the DoD regulations about computer usage are honored more in the breach than in the observance. That's because the DoD itself is a beauraucracy - a gigantic machine operated by pygmies.
I was in the USAF, stationed at Langley AFB (1912 GSG) when the putsch came to shove C in favor of Ada. God knows, there's probably a beautiful language hiding under that elephantine bulk, but I don't think it'll ever be released. (At the time (1988), the word went out that "Ada *is* Software Engineering.") (This was the line you had to trumpet to have any chance of proceeding in your career) (I'm now a civilian.) (Someone needs to unearth Robert Firth's hilarious comparison of fire control systems written in C versus Ada.)
In any event, the push to Ada left the DoD with a language nobody else was using, skyrocketing costs for supporting *its* language of choice, and a largely-indifferent programming community. The end result is that Ada no longer occupies center stage, and the approach to development is a bit more rational (i.e., language is *not* software engineering). I think that what happened, basically, is that some 2LT somewhere woke up one day and said "The Emperor has no clothes," and everyone else went "Damn, s/he's right!"
I think this OS war will go the same way. The DoD has its regulations, the regulations make little sense, the DoD will be stymied until the regulations change, the regulations will eventually change. I think it'll take a while, though. This year's Academy grads, who probably have *some* understanding of Linux, will have to wait 20 years, or so, before they'll have the authority to change anything.
So, by about 2020 the USAF will have a few decent OSs on the list. Sigh.
A long, long time ago I was utterly taken with formal methods. I lived and breathed Z and VDM.
Then one day I read a paper about the *limits* of formal methods. The one phrase summary of the article was that once a formally-verified program meets the real world, each time it's executed is a conjecture.
The paper seemed to be an argument against formal methods and as you might guess, all the heavy hitters with PhDs and post-doctoral work to defend generated a storm of complaint, the one phrase summary of which was that while formal methods might not be perfect, they shouldn't be abandoned.
I mention this because of the author's original notion of protecting ourselves by wrapping ourselves in mathematics, and his current appearance of despair.
It appears to me that the book's more a reaction to a crisis in faith than anything else. I don't think anyone really expects security to be uncrackable - we're got history going back to the pharaohs on that one, but neither should we throw the baby out with the bath water. I mean, I think I've seen at least one reaction that uses this article to predict the *imminent* *death* *of* *the* *internet*. As if!
I've been reading news reports that indicate something like 700,000 Chinese troops are in Sudan, ready to support the Islamic government against a Chritsian insurgency.
So, perhaps we'll have Mandarin Chinese taught in African schools, sometime in the future....
By McCrum, et al., gives a great summary on why English has spread so far, and why it will continue to spread.
Given the story the book tells, I don't expect "The Queen's English" to be the world language of the future, but some evolved version of it will.
I'm originally from Ireland. I speak French and Japanese, as well as English, and can read Latin (not useful in itself, but I can usually get the gist of Romance language documents). I don't look down on Americans for only speaking one language, I congratulate them on devising a political system that has the world trying to break down the borders to get in.
You know, this is larger than English, as such. It's more a cultural thing. I mean, as a small example, this summer's movie blockbusters in France are all Hollywood-produced. This success is predicated on giving the consumers what they want, not what some self-involved, navel-regarding type thinks they need.
When people want internet services, Americans will be there to give them what they want, and payment will be negotiated in English.
Slashdot Mirror
'nuff said.
It seems that every time the government issues these sorts of regs, it expands the amonunt of information it gets, at the expense of the amount of information available in the public sector.
A plan to automatically order beer at sporting events, etc.
This plan requires patrons of Beer Me!-enabled events to buy beer in containers with sensors that monitor the amount of beer remaining in the container.
When the beer level falls below a pre-determined level (say, 10% of full), the container emits a "TIDE_IS_OUT" ("TIDE_IS_OOT" in Canada) signal that is triangulated by radio transponders installed at the venue.
Upon receipt of the "TIDE_IS_OUT" signal, the larger system will cause a new beer to be poured and delivered to the patron. This process continues as long as "TIDE_IS_OUT" signals are received and the patron's credit card continues to authorize payment.
You saw it here (BURRRRRRPPPPP!) first!
Cynthia McKinney always sends a generic auto-reply, with no other followup. Mind you, since I'm a net taxpayer and reflect more light than she does, I'm sure I'm not terribly interesting to her (i.e., I'm not buying *anything* she's selling, so why should she bother?)
Max Cleland never responds at all. I did see him when I was running the Peachtree Road Race (he was parked by the road trying to get votes - I mean, cheering on the runners), and asked him to answer his e-mail.
Paul Coverdell used to reply, personally, to all my e-mail. He died. I've not tried writing to his replacement, Zell Miller.
What's the cost of eliminating that annoying bloody paperclip?
What's the cost of deleting MSN Explorer spam?
What's the cost of understanding COM?
What's the cost of integrating with deliberately incompatible protocols?
etc., etc.
Jebus! The more I think about it, the more I think life would be so much cheaper without Microsoft.
Love Canal
Love Story
Earth in the Lurch
The Internet
Iced Tea
The Buddhist Temple un-Fundraiser
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve
and, of course,
"Bill Clinton will go down in history as one of America's Greatest Presidents."
Politics in the USA? Two guys arguing over how to spend the money their armed goons are about to take from you. An advance auction of stolen goods.
From a solipsist, navel-regarding point of view, the fact that the pols aren't paying attention to Jon Katz might mean that politics don't matter. What he fails to realize is that they're not paying attention to him *just* yet*.
When Al or George's socialist utopia goes into implementation phase, Jon will realize that politics do, in fact, matter. His tax burden will make sure of that.
Actually, I think this points to a larger issue. Most Americans are on one subsidy or another, while at the same time most Americans are either off, or about to be off, the tax rolls. Hence, the politicians don't have to pay attention to the taxpayers - a voting minority - just the tax consumers they're trying to buy.
Wait for the bread and circuses to become larger and larger and more and more expensive.
Last days of politics? My ass! The games are only beginning.
Money is never worthless. Currency often is.
already cornered that market via his main redistribution center in Mena, AR.
I'm afraid I couldn't make head nor tail of this paragraph.
Are you really a government worker? Your studied incoherence makes me think this could be an attempt at a troll.
If you are an actual government worker and this is the best prose you can produce, well, I'd better accelerate my plans to move all my assets offshore.
Lacan, Foucault, de Man, and the rest of that Parisian trash pit.
Since you're an Anonymous Coward, I don't know for sure if you're being serious.
If you are, well you've little basis upon which to offer any criticism of Katz. If not, well, I applaud you for a brilliant piece of academy-speak.
Isn't this the guy who had no hope to offer us?
5. Do black holes really exist? (It sure seems like it.) Do they really radiate energy and evaporate the way Hawking predicts? If so, what happens when, after a finite amount of time, they radiate completely away? What's left? Do black holes really violate all conservation laws except conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum and electric charge? What happens to the information contained in an object that falls into a black hole? Is it lost when the black hole evaporates? Does this require a modification of quantum mechanics?
...that a competent personal injury lawyer can't completely destroy.
First, thanks for the review.
That said, humans are fallible. What can we expect but that the artifacts they create will also be fallible? There are assuredly limits on software - limits on computability - but the limits I see here are more limits on human ability to describe solutions to problems that become larger and larger as the simpler ones are mastered.
As for technology as religion, it's not religion to me, it's a source of comfortable living.
Now, if only I could stop my VCR from blinking "12:00....12:00...."
I started playing computer games on a DEC 20, back in 1979 - "Adventure," naturally. From there it was a short hop, skip, and jump to Zork, and then to Rogue. Then I passed on the whole genre until I bought a SNES with StarFox and Doom II. That's when I noticed my tastes had changed.
I don't try to solve puzzles any more. If the game involves a puzzle, I buy the cheats. I want to see bodies explode. Whether it's shotguns or chainsaws, I don't care. I don't want thinking, I want mayhem.
I think part of what's going on is that I think all day at work, so it's the last thing I want to do at home.
Maybe what's happening (in the U.S., at any rate) is that as the economy becomes more intellectual and less physical, the intellectuals get their rocks off with virtual physicality.
http://www.agendacomputing.com/
The tool that grabs certain messages today can grab all messages tomorrow.
The laws (or lack thereof) that allow encryption to happen today, can change tomorrow.
Some people have indicated encryption is the way to get around Carnivore, and that we can ignore this threat on that basis.
OK, what happens when the Government decides to make encryption illegal?
Police departments already refer to the Fourth Amendment as the "One-Fourth Amendment", because of the way seizure laws have been written. We already have the situation where police can seize cash above certain amounts on the basis that possession of large amounts of case is de facto evidence of wrongdoing. Now, think of encryption, and apply the same thinking.
You can't afford to ignore this tool. You can't afford to blow it off.
Well, I guess there's a topic that warrants discussion, but I don't think it's the compilation toolchains.
I took the time to follow the links to Mr. Sokolov's verious postings. He reminds me of me when I was much less mature: carefully argumentative, inflexible, willing to drive others to distraction rather than yield to evidence. You know, an asshole.
I'm recovering. My recovery began when I realized that my technical skills counted for little when compared with my inability to get along with other people. I mean, I was losing out on cool projects and pay raises. I'm a different person today, believe me.
Play with the Special Agent if you will. I'm more inclined to let his comments go without specific reply and let reality eventually catch up with him.
Anyway, what warrants discussion, IMHO, is how to accelerate the maturing process. Personally, I wish that someone had simply fired me (now *there's* a slap with a two-by-four), or let me know that *I* wasn't getting the cool project, or that *I* was getting the miniscule raise. Something, *anything* to let me know how the world saw me (Oh wad some power the giftie gie us...).
I'm pretty sure I saw a story about SecureBSD on /. a few days back. Submit *that* and I think you'll have the OS you're looking for.
As a complete aside, and at possible risk to my karma, I have to say that a lot of the DoD regulations about computer usage are honored more in the breach than in the observance. That's because the DoD itself is a beauraucracy - a gigantic machine operated by pygmies.
I was in the USAF, stationed at Langley AFB (1912 GSG) when the putsch came to shove C in favor of Ada. God knows, there's probably a beautiful language hiding under that elephantine bulk, but I don't think it'll ever be released. (At the time (1988), the word went out that "Ada *is* Software Engineering.") (This was the line you had to trumpet to have any chance of proceeding in your career) (I'm now a civilian.) (Someone needs to unearth Robert Firth's hilarious comparison of fire control systems written in C versus Ada.)
In any event, the push to Ada left the DoD with a language nobody else was using, skyrocketing costs for supporting *its* language of choice, and a largely-indifferent programming community. The end result is that Ada no longer occupies center stage, and the approach to development is a bit more rational (i.e., language is *not* software engineering). I think that what happened, basically, is that some 2LT somewhere woke up one day and said "The Emperor has no clothes," and everyone else went "Damn, s/he's right!"
I think this OS war will go the same way. The DoD has its regulations, the regulations make little sense, the DoD will be stymied until the regulations change, the regulations will eventually change. I think it'll take a while, though. This year's Academy grads, who probably have *some* understanding of Linux, will have to wait 20 years, or so, before they'll have the authority to change anything.
So, by about 2020 the USAF will have a few decent OSs on the list. Sigh.
A long, long time ago I was utterly taken with formal methods. I lived and breathed Z and VDM.
Then one day I read a paper about the *limits* of formal methods. The one phrase summary of the article was that once a formally-verified program meets the real world, each time it's executed is a conjecture.
The paper seemed to be an argument against formal methods and as you might guess, all the heavy hitters with PhDs and post-doctoral work to defend generated a storm of complaint, the one phrase summary of which was that while formal methods might not be perfect, they shouldn't be abandoned.
I mention this because of the author's original notion of protecting ourselves by wrapping ourselves in mathematics, and his current appearance of despair.
It appears to me that the book's more a reaction to a crisis in faith than anything else. I don't think anyone really expects security to be uncrackable - we're got history going back to the pharaohs on that one, but neither should we throw the baby out with the bath water. I mean, I think I've seen at least one reaction that uses this article to predict the *imminent* *death* *of* *the* *internet*. As if!
...is it lost forever?
t ions.html
If you drop a copy of the WinNT source code into a black hole, will *all* copies of WinNT source code disappear? Ditto for Linux.
Now, *that's* an OS war.
Ref:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/open_ques
As I understand it, the Kursk's mission was to take out U.S. carrier battle groups.
It would normally be armed with 24 supersonic cruise missiles, each with a nuclear warhead in the half-megaton range.
I've been reading news reports that indicate something like 700,000 Chinese troops are in Sudan, ready to support the Islamic government against a Chritsian insurgency.
So, perhaps we'll have Mandarin Chinese taught in African schools, sometime in the future....
By McCrum, et al., gives a great summary on why English has spread so far, and why it will continue to spread.
Given the story the book tells, I don't expect "The Queen's English" to be the world language of the future, but some evolved version of it will.
I'm originally from Ireland. I speak French and Japanese, as well as English, and can read Latin (not useful in itself, but I can usually get the gist of Romance language documents). I don't look down on Americans for only speaking one language, I congratulate them on devising a political system that has the world trying to break down the borders to get in.
You know, this is larger than English, as such. It's more a cultural thing. I mean, as a small example, this summer's movie blockbusters in France are all Hollywood-produced. This success is predicated on giving the consumers what they want, not what some self-involved, navel-regarding type thinks they need.
When people want internet services, Americans will be there to give them what they want, and payment will be negotiated in English.