Well... the the second law of thermodynamics seems to imply that even such micromachines are not possible because entropy would then be changed into the wrong direction.
As said on lectureonline.cl.msu.edu: (You can browse through the book changing the url. "These machine then violate the second law of thermodynamics, as we will see in the following, and are thus impossible to work. This is much harder to see, because the concepts are rather delicate. The book proceeds to introduce the concept of Entropy".
Ah, but don't forget that the Second Law of Thermodynamics grew out of the observation that nobody has succeeded in building a perpetual motion machine. Therefore, using it to disprove the existence of PMMs is begging the question.
The oceans are suspected of contibuting to global humidity.
Always look on the bright side ....
on
Browser Cookie Patent
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think this rampant abuse of patents is a good thing(TM). Every time I see another of these frivolous lawsuits, I have to smile. The backlash will come eventually. Every asinine lawsuit brings us closer.
If the mainstream media is starting to get clued in, that's a pretty good sign.
To be fair, though, there's lots of anime that sucks. On the flip side, though, at least there's the visual interest to it. Ghost in a Shell was BORING but it had some damn cool things to look at.
I agree there's a whole spectrum of quality in the genre. However, I think calling Ghost in the Shell boring is unfair. Admittedly it was slower paced than a lot of anime. It did explore some interesting ideas and had pretty well developed characters. The action scenes, though spaced apart, were good.
Maybe it's a matter of taste. I thought X was appropriately named because it was anime "porn". There was a ton of action but it didn't really make much sense.
Just so I don't get modded down for going too far off topic, Cowboy Bebop rules!:)
I heard about those but I don't think colloidal silver was responsible. Or, if it was, it was poorly manufactured colloidal silver. I've used it with great success and my skin tone is normal for a European American.
Colloidal silver is cheap and works better than antibiotics.
I'm an advocate of treating oneself whenever possible. I think of AMA doctors as dupes of the pharmaceutical industry. I would only go to a doctor for something I couldn't fix myself like a broken bone or something.
> Some of the scripting languages are not "real" programming languages, as they do not encourage style and discipline.
So by that logic, C isn't a real programming language.
I think trying to say what is or is not a real programming language is like trying to say what is a legitimate religion. Ultimately it's going to boil down to someone's subjective standard.
I do most of my coding in Perl and I think I write very readable and well designed programs. Good design is in the mind of the programmer, not the language.
I have to be careful here not to switch into full rant mode. I'm a big time coffee lover and I hate the idea of messing with cheap coffee. The commercial canned coffees, especially the flavored ones use cheap Vietnamese robusta beans that have been processed to hell and back. Meanwhile coffee farmers in Latin America, Indonesia and East Africa are barely living at subsistence levels because they can't get a fair price for their beans. The last thing we need is another way to make inferior coffee taste good or not as bad.
I run a bunch of Apache/mod_ssl servers for WebCT, an online course management tool. We have to disable keepalives for IE users because otherwise their connections get hosed up.
I wonder if this habit of playing fast and loose with the protocol is responsible.
I beg to differ. John Doe is way better than Firefly. I kept watching Firefly hoping it would get good like Babylon 5. It hasn't so far.
Okay, so John Doe is sort of like Pretender, but at least it's a little more high brow.
I had high hopes for Firefly because I am a Buffy fan but it just never quite got there. I won't go as far as saying it totally sucks, I enjoyed a few scenes here and there. I'm just disappointed that there wasn't much originality.
There are crackers out there and it is important to keep up with security advisories. I just have to check my Apache logs to see attempts to exploit old IIS bugs. My system logs show the occasional attempt to hit SSH as well.
Of course I use ipchains and tcpwrappers so I don't worry too much about SSH exploits but I still make the effort to keep up.
"X-Force is aware of active exploit development for this vulnerability."
Translation: X-Force is currently developing an exploit for this vulnerability. Look for it soon on a skr1pt k1dd33 site near you.
That's twice now that X-Force jumped the gun and announced exploits early. I know this was an open secret among the open SSH community but they are forcing the maintainers to rush security fixes out prematurely.
Re:Copyrights on software should be shortened
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree with this but I'd go a bit farther. Software patents should be good for 2 years. I could be persuaded that 5 years might be okay. Anything longer than that is just goal tending. With the way things change rapidly in internet time, I believe a software patent should not last longer than 2 to 5 years.
I believe other types of IP might be allowed longer life. A copyright on a piece of music or literature should not extend beyond the life of the author or composer.
Software copyrights are another matter. I'd like to see things go into the public domain after they are no longer being marketed. I think a 10 or possibly 20 year copyright should be long enough.
My point is that the people who create IP should get some benefit from their work. However, the point of copyright laws should also reflect the interests of the general public.
Most drugs and surgical techniques commonly used in Western medicine have not been tested in double-blind placebo-controlled experiments. Pick your voodoo I guess.
The young man in question may not be the best choice for a poster boy for free speech. Nonetheless, the implications of the USA Patriot act are scary. If our founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Sam Adams were alive today, they would be incarcerated.
Dmitry was arrested under the DMCA for reverse engineering e-book "encryption." Since he did this work in Russia where it is legal, how can he be arrested in the US for it?
That being the case, he was arrested for giving a speech. From what I saw in his slideshow, he was giving his analysis of protection techniques, not giving out circumvention code or encouraging others to circumvent the protections. So what crime did he commit?
In a way, this may be a good thing. Now the government isn't even pretending to be of, by, and for the people anymore. Wake up Amerika, we are living in an oligarchy or a Plutocracy.
You obviously haven't been paying attention to politics. That's how our system works. Two or more candidates square off and throw mud at each other. The one who's cleanest when the bell rings gets to be president or senator or whatever.
Why would you think that web sites would behave any differently when vying for the hearts and minds of the Linux faithful? I'm not endorsing this behavior but it is understandable when our leaders set the example.
Would it be possible to start a Free database of GPS coordinates? I was thinking of storing locations and other info in a Postgresql table. If would be really great to have a map database as well. I'm not really sure what the storage requirements would be. I am willing to write code and play.
I disagree with your interpretation of the Hotmail TOS.
They are providing a link to the terms of service of other associated M$ sites. Nowhere does it say explicitly that other TOS's apply. You are inferring that they apply, but I don't believe they do.
I would like to believe that M$ as a corporation will abide by their subsidiary's TOS's. Legally, they have to. Nevertheless, you have to recognize the inherent risk in storing confidential information on publicly accessible servers.
I put together a decent system for just under $1500 with a Yamaha entry level AC-3 receiver and all Klipsch speakers. The satellites are 1.1s with the matching center channel speaker and a 120 watt subwoofer.
I think this system sounds great for music and home theater. I have my DVD wired in with a coaxial AC-3 connection. The guy at the stereo store said coax works better than optical. I haven't tried the optical connection so I don't really know.
Anyway, you can't beat Yamaha for price/performance. The Klipsch speakers weren't outrageously expensive either. I considered Infinity speakers but the ones I wanted were out of my price range.
Oh, and use good speaker wire. I used Monster Cable for the speakers and all the A/V connections. You could go to Radio Shack and just buy some heavy guage wire for the speakers instead of getting the Monster stuff but don't skimp here, it's a relatively cheap thing to do that can really improve the sound.
Slashdot Mirror
Well ... the the second law of thermodynamics seems to imply that even such micromachines are not possible because entropy would then be changed into the wrong direction.
As said on lectureonline.cl.msu.edu: (You can browse through the book changing the url. "These machine then violate the second law of thermodynamics, as we will see in the following, and are thus impossible to work. This is much harder to see, because the concepts are rather delicate. The book proceeds to introduce the concept of Entropy".
Ah, but don't forget that the Second Law of Thermodynamics grew out of the observation that nobody has succeeded in building a perpetual motion machine. Therefore, using it to disprove the existence of PMMs is begging the question.
The oceans are suspected of contibuting to global humidity.
I think this rampant abuse of patents is a good thing(TM). Every time I see another of these frivolous lawsuits, I have to smile. The backlash will come eventually. Every asinine lawsuit brings us closer.
If the mainstream media is starting to get clued in, that's a pretty good sign.
A college without Microsoft is like a fish without a bicycle.
It just has to say "I don't understand and "Where's my tea?".
Maybe it's a matter of taste. I thought X was appropriately named because it was anime "porn". There was a ton of action but it didn't really make much sense.
Just so I don't get modded down for going too far off topic, Cowboy Bebop rules!
I heard about those but I don't think colloidal silver was responsible. Or, if it was, it was poorly manufactured colloidal silver. I've used it with great success and my skin tone is normal for a European American.
Colloidal silver is cheap and works better than antibiotics.
I'm an advocate of treating oneself whenever possible. I think of AMA doctors as dupes of the pharmaceutical industry. I would only go to a doctor for something I couldn't fix myself like a broken bone or something.
> Some of the scripting languages are not "real" programming languages, as they do not encourage style and discipline.
So by that logic, C isn't a real programming language.
I think trying to say what is or is not a real programming language is like trying to say what is a legitimate religion. Ultimately it's going to boil down to someone's subjective standard.
I do most of my coding in Perl and I think I write very readable and well designed programs. Good design is in the mind of the programmer, not the language.
I have to be careful here not to switch into full rant mode. I'm a big time coffee lover and I hate the idea of messing with cheap coffee. The commercial canned coffees, especially the flavored ones use cheap Vietnamese robusta beans that have been processed to hell and back. Meanwhile coffee farmers in Latin America, Indonesia and East Africa are barely living at subsistence levels because they can't get a fair price for their beans. The last thing we need is another way to make inferior coffee taste good or not as bad.
I run a bunch of Apache/mod_ssl servers for WebCT, an online course management tool. We have to disable keepalives for IE users because otherwise their connections get hosed up.
I wonder if this habit of playing fast and loose with the protocol is responsible.
Yet another solution in search of a problem.
The creepy all-seeing eye logo from John Poindexter and the Total Information Awareness project is suddenly missing from the TIA web site.
How about a pentagram with a goat's head?
I beg to differ. John Doe is way better than Firefly. I kept watching Firefly hoping it would get good like Babylon 5. It hasn't so far.
Okay, so John Doe is sort of like Pretender, but at least it's a little more high brow.
I had high hopes for Firefly because I am a Buffy fan but it just never quite got there. I won't go as far as saying it totally sucks, I enjoyed a few scenes here and there. I'm just disappointed that there wasn't much originality.
There are crackers out there and it is important to keep up with security advisories. I just have to check my Apache logs to see attempts to exploit old IIS bugs. My system logs show the occasional attempt to hit SSH as well.
Of course I use ipchains and tcpwrappers so I don't worry too much about SSH exploits but I still make the effort to keep up.
"X-Force is aware of active exploit development for this vulnerability."
Translation: X-Force is currently developing an exploit for this vulnerability. Look for it soon on a skr1pt k1dd33 site near you.
That's twice now that X-Force jumped the gun and announced exploits early. I know this was an open secret among the open SSH community but they are forcing the maintainers to rush security fixes out prematurely.
I agree with this but I'd go a bit farther. Software patents should be good for 2 years. I could be persuaded that 5 years might be okay. Anything longer than that is just goal tending. With the way things change rapidly in internet time, I believe a software patent should not last longer than 2 to 5 years.
I believe other types of IP might be allowed longer life. A copyright on a piece of music or literature should not extend beyond the life of the author or composer.
Software copyrights are another matter. I'd like to see things go into the public domain after they are no longer being marketed. I think a 10 or possibly 20 year copyright should be long enough.
My point is that the people who create IP should get some benefit from their work. However, the point of copyright laws should also reflect the interests of the general public.
Most drugs and surgical techniques commonly used in Western medicine have not been tested in double-blind placebo-controlled experiments. Pick your voodoo I guess.
It wouldn't work. You wouldn't be able to tell irony from reality.
The young man in question may not be the best choice for a poster boy for free speech. Nonetheless, the implications of the USA Patriot act are scary. If our founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Sam Adams were alive today, they would be incarcerated.
Dmitry was arrested under the DMCA for reverse engineering e-book "encryption." Since he did this work in Russia where it is legal, how can he be arrested in the US for it?
That being the case, he was arrested for giving a speech. From what I saw in his slideshow, he was giving his analysis of protection techniques, not giving out circumvention code or encouraging others to circumvent the protections. So what crime did he commit?
In a way, this may be a good thing. Now the government isn't even pretending to be of, by, and for the people anymore. Wake up Amerika, we are living in an oligarchy or a Plutocracy.
You obviously haven't been paying attention to politics. That's how our system works. Two or more candidates square off and throw mud at each other. The one who's cleanest when the bell rings gets to be president or senator or whatever.
Why would you think that web sites would behave any differently when vying for the hearts and minds of the Linux faithful? I'm not endorsing this behavior but it is understandable when our leaders set the example.
Would it be possible to start a Free database of GPS coordinates? I was thinking of storing locations and other info in a Postgresql table. If would be really great to have a map database as well. I'm not really sure what the storage requirements would be. I am willing to write code and play.
Ideas? Suggestions? Helpful criticism?
I disagree with your interpretation of the Hotmail TOS.
They are providing a link to the terms of service of other associated M$ sites. Nowhere does it say explicitly that other TOS's apply. You are inferring that they apply, but I don't believe they do.
I would like to believe that M$ as a corporation will abide by their subsidiary's TOS's. Legally, they have to. Nevertheless, you have to recognize the inherent risk in storing confidential information on publicly accessible servers.
I put together a decent system for just under $1500 with a Yamaha entry level AC-3 receiver and all Klipsch speakers. The satellites are 1.1s with the matching center channel speaker and a 120 watt subwoofer.
I think this system sounds great for music and home theater. I have my DVD wired in with a coaxial AC-3 connection. The guy at the stereo store said coax works better than optical. I haven't tried the optical connection so I don't really know.
Anyway, you can't beat Yamaha for price/performance. The Klipsch speakers weren't outrageously expensive either. I considered Infinity speakers but the ones I wanted were out of my price range.
Oh, and use good speaker wire. I used Monster Cable for the speakers and all the A/V connections. You could go to Radio Shack and just buy some heavy guage wire for the speakers instead of getting the Monster stuff but don't skimp here, it's a relatively cheap thing to do that can really improve the sound.