I didn't renew. The signal/noise ratio was simply too low. For example, there was an article about how to defeat MacroVision's video copy protection and the solution was to buy a product that filters it from the line. That's "making"? And they had product reviews for things like wallets and such. I just didn't get the point of that. I'm also not a big fan of the "WOW!" style of writing they use.
That's not to say there aren't good points. There were interesting articles such as how to make your own biodiesel, how to weld, as well as interviews with interesting people. As a source of "inspiration" for people that want to get their heads thinking in another direction, I think it's not bad. It did get me to buy a microcontroller programming starter kit which has been fun to play with. But beyond being a source of inspiration, there isn't a lot of meat there.
I once dropped by her office in Buffalo to pick up an older CD I couldn't find in the stores and was shown around a little and introduced to people. I talked to her lawyer and he said they are rather aggressive about going after people that infringe. Of course, I don't know that means and he didn't want to discuss it further. But it was interesting to me given what is written on her CDs about unauthorized reproduction.
I can't think of an immediate use for studying venusian volcanoes. But given the amount we're stressing our own atmosphere and how little we know about what effect that will have, letting planetary scientists study another planet in detail sounds like a very good idea to me.
I don't think the issue is whether you or I can say something childishly vulgar about the president on slashdot. Sorry, but we're rather small potatoes. What the people in power need to react to is those that can actually make a difference with their words. Like a Martin Luther King Jr. Such people will have (and have had, in fact) their doors kicked down and much worse. Who is the next MLKJ? I have no idea. But I want to make sure that our society is set up so that person can lead the movement that improves our society. And in my opinion, that is less certain in America these days. So, yes, free speech that doesn't matter much is alive and well. But it's the other free speech that I think we should be concerned with.
I used to work for a company that did market forecasting using stuff like fractal theory, etc. I remember that one of our CERN physicists (we didn't have an economists on staff) did a correlation analysis of implied volatility versus actual volatility. Implied volatility is calculated from option prices and, according to the Black-Scholes model, indicates what the market as a whole thinks the future volatility of the underlying will be. He found there was absolutely no correlation between what the market expected the volatility to be and what it actually turned out to be (using all the tools in our toolbox). Though there was correlation between the price curves themselves and the future volatility. So while the seeds of predictability were in the data, people didn't seem to have much ability to make use of it.
That is assuming/. stores password in clear text of course.
Well, it's assuming that any one web site they visit stores a non-hashed version of the password.
I once had a well respected commercial web site mail me my password. Not only was the fact that they sent it in email bad, but it was also obviously stored on their machines unhashed. And it was a password that could be used to access my credit card info that they had on record.
Of course I told them their computer security staff should be fired immediately. Never heard back. They were probably the ones that read the email.
In my observations, a vast majority of people do most of their memorable and interesting things in their 20s and 30s
Depends on what you value. Scientists, for example, seem to have their best ideas in their 20s. Yet artists and writers seem to do their best work in later years. Personally, I'm looking forward to that "mature" frame of mind (presumptuous as I may be) as much as I've enjoyed the younger frame of mind. Though, I agree, I'm not interested in living forever.
Can someone please explain to me what the point of forcing users to change their passwords every 90 days is? I mean, even if it's implemented "correctly".
On systems where this is not done, I use random strings as passwords. I know it's for long term use so I commit it to memory. On systems where this is done, I use simple patterns because I don't want to forget it while I'm on vacation. It's a dramatic reduction in security in my case and incredibly annoying. I note that many people even write them down to help their memory.
The only time I can imagine it helping is if someone breaks into your system. It means their time to do damage is limited. But not by much. On a system that requires new passwords every 90 days, I've got an average of 45 days of access before I lose it. 45 days!! Yipee!! Not much I can't do in that amount of time.
Furthermore, most of the developer documentation of your typical programmer is such that all it describes is the arguments a function takes and what is supposed to be returned, while doing nothing to explain the purpose of the function and why it might be used.
I'm working a contract with a large company that has a proprietary framework on which all the code is based. Much of the documentation is of this type. "setFormatter() - sets the formatter." Brilliant. Thank god it's Java. So I unpacked all the class files and decompiled it. Now I have source code without comments but I actually understand how things work.
I am required to use an IDE at my place of employment. I do not use an IDE at home. And, although I am as fast as my coworkers with the IDE, I am still much, much faster at home. Not to mention being the only one that can solve the problem when the IDE has a bug.
True. But the random blocks of data would have the additional restriction of being exactly the same size as a standard block. A more difficult problem.
I had a high school physics teacher that stressed creativity. His labs were always along the lines of "measure gravity". He'd always have plenty of stuff sitting around to use and he'd help people when they asked for hints. But generally he didn't care how you measured gravity as long as you did it.
Another lab came with a target and a dart gun. The target had numbers 1-10 written in concentric circles. You had to fire the dart gun from a given distance and hit the target. The number was your lab score (or at least that was the joke). You could do this by raising the dart gun and calculating the fall or by tilting the gun or whatever.
My high school grades were always barely average. But I aced that course.
Add my voice to the "doesn't matter" crowd (same goes for grades). It might help you get a foot in the door for your first job interview. But the rest of your life will depend on you - how much you learn, how creative you are, etc.
If you really want to increase your chances for a better future, get involved in projects. Open source is excellent for this kind of thing. Or something cool at your school. As someone that reads resumes, I can say that I weigh a cool project 5 times higher than the person's grades or school. It shows motivation. A school shows... what exactly?
All those reasons and you forgot "it just occurred to me I could be living my life". I want a TV show that just shows people sitting around watching TV. No, scratch that... I want a whole 24 hour network that does that. Now that would be Reality TV. Needless to say, I wouldn't be featured.;-)
So what would you do with 1.6 billion? Feed the poor for a day?
Actually, it's estimated that 20 billion would eliminate half of the world's hunger. So I'd expect 1.6 billion would do much more than feed them for a day.
NNs are just a way of dividing a feature space. The real "intelligence" in NNs is in designing the feature space in the first place. That's where all the work and creativity is and that's all done by human beings. Until that's automated, I, too, will continue to consider NNs just a simple nonlinear function.
Do you realize 2.6 billion dollars isn't all that much money?
True. On the other hand, 20 billion is the number (estimated by the WHO) to solve half of the world's hunger problem. So while 2.6 billion isn't that much money, very little money is actually needed to solve some major world problems. What's lacking is the determination to do so, of course.
People are saying the selection is low. How is Apple providing two different store fronts? Are they keying on the IP address? I live in Europe but use a US credit card to buy from iTMS. Will this change if iTMS is offered in my country?
I knew someone would ask that. Unfortunately, now that I've worked around everything, I don't really have any simple examples off the top of my head.
One problem that frustrated me recently, though, was the modal window concept. When you're in a modal window, you're running in a special event loop and things like timers, network events, etc, aren't delivered. This just seems like such a kludge to me. I can't handle my networking events because a non-physical abstraction like a window is blocking it? Weird. Sure, there are work-arounds like threads but the underlying model is not what I'd expect. I'd expect something like... you have to call a method that puts the app into modal mode so that only appropriate mouse events are delivered. Then you return to the the normal event loop so all events can be handled as usual. When you're done another method is called to end modal mode.
Of course, that's a big example. There were many small ones, too.
Don't you think this is due to the fact that you know for a long time how to find the right package/class/method in java, whereas in Objective you have to learn a new way of organizing the "collection class" (frameworks) ?
I've thought about this. And I've thought maybe Java coming from Sun and me working with Sun made us have a similar way of thinking. But I don't think so. It's an interesting questions, though... whether there is a "naturally" correct interface to a class or whether it depends on the "culture" of the programmer...
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't renew. The signal/noise ratio was simply too low. For example, there was an article about how to defeat MacroVision's video copy protection and the solution was to buy a product that filters it from the line. That's "making"? And they had product reviews for things like wallets and such. I just didn't get the point of that. I'm also not a big fan of the "WOW!" style of writing they use.
That's not to say there aren't good points. There were interesting articles such as how to make your own biodiesel, how to weld, as well as interviews with interesting people. As a source of "inspiration" for people that want to get their heads thinking in another direction, I think it's not bad. It did get me to buy a microcontroller programming starter kit which has been fun to play with. But beyond being a source of inspiration, there isn't a lot of meat there.
Devon
I once dropped by her office in Buffalo to pick up an older CD I couldn't find in the stores and was shown around a little and introduced to people. I talked to her lawyer and he said they are rather aggressive about going after people that infringe. Of course, I don't know that means and he didn't want to discuss it further. But it was interesting to me given what is written on her CDs about unauthorized reproduction.
Devon
I can't think of an immediate use for studying venusian volcanoes. But given the amount we're stressing our own atmosphere and how little we know about what effect that will have, letting planetary scientists study another planet in detail sounds like a very good idea to me.
Devon
I don't think the issue is whether you or I can say something childishly vulgar about the president on slashdot. Sorry, but we're rather small potatoes. What the people in power need to react to is those that can actually make a difference with their words. Like a Martin Luther King Jr. Such people will have (and have had, in fact) their doors kicked down and much worse. Who is the next MLKJ? I have no idea. But I want to make sure that our society is set up so that person can lead the movement that improves our society. And in my opinion, that is less certain in America these days. So, yes, free speech that doesn't matter much is alive and well. But it's the other free speech that I think we should be concerned with.
Devon
I used to work for a company that did market forecasting using stuff like fractal theory, etc. I remember that one of our CERN physicists (we didn't have an economists on staff) did a correlation analysis of implied volatility versus actual volatility. Implied volatility is calculated from option prices and, according to the Black-Scholes model, indicates what the market as a whole thinks the future volatility of the underlying will be. He found there was absolutely no correlation between what the market expected the volatility to be and what it actually turned out to be (using all the tools in our toolbox). Though there was correlation between the price curves themselves and the future volatility. So while the seeds of predictability were in the data, people didn't seem to have much ability to make use of it.
Devon
Well, it's assuming that any one web site they visit stores a non-hashed version of the password.
I once had a well respected commercial web site mail me my password. Not only was the fact that they sent it in email bad, but it was also obviously stored on their machines unhashed. And it was a password that could be used to access my credit card info that they had on record.
Of course I told them their computer security staff should be fired immediately. Never heard back. They were probably the ones that read the email.
Devon
Depends on what you value. Scientists, for example, seem to have their best ideas in their 20s. Yet artists and writers seem to do their best work in later years. Personally, I'm looking forward to that "mature" frame of mind (presumptuous as I may be) as much as I've enjoyed the younger frame of mind. Though, I agree, I'm not interested in living forever.
Devon
http://www.letstalkstars.com/l
http://www.planetary.org/audio/planetaryradio.htm
Both are hit and miss. Depends on the guest. But they're worth a look. And then, of course, there's NPR's Science Friday:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/
Devon
Can someone please explain to me what the point of forcing users to change their passwords every 90 days is? I mean, even if it's implemented "correctly".
On systems where this is not done, I use random strings as passwords. I know it's for long term use so I commit it to memory. On systems where this is done, I use simple patterns because I don't want to forget it while I'm on vacation. It's a dramatic reduction in security in my case and incredibly annoying. I note that many people even write them down to help their memory.
The only time I can imagine it helping is if someone breaks into your system. It means their time to do damage is limited. But not by much. On a system that requires new passwords every 90 days, I've got an average of 45 days of access before I lose it. 45 days!! Yipee!! Not much I can't do in that amount of time.
Devon
Uh... no. So you believe there were only "simple and small" projects until IDEs were invented? IDEs haven't been around all that long.
Devon
I'm working a contract with a large company that has a proprietary framework on which all the code is based. Much of the documentation is of this type. "setFormatter() - sets the formatter." Brilliant. Thank god it's Java. So I unpacked all the class files and decompiled it. Now I have source code without comments but I actually understand how things work.
Devon
I am required to use an IDE at my place of employment. I do not use an IDE at home. And, although I am as fast as my coworkers with the IDE, I am still much, much faster at home. Not to mention being the only one that can solve the problem when the IDE has a bug.
Devon
True. But the random blocks of data would have the additional restriction of being exactly the same size as a standard block. A more difficult problem.
Devon
I had a high school physics teacher that stressed creativity. His labs were always along the lines of "measure gravity". He'd always have plenty of stuff sitting around to use and he'd help people when they asked for hints. But generally he didn't care how you measured gravity as long as you did it.
Another lab came with a target and a dart gun. The target had numbers 1-10 written in concentric circles. You had to fire the dart gun from a given distance and hit the target. The number was your lab score (or at least that was the joke). You could do this by raising the dart gun and calculating the fall or by tilting the gun or whatever.
My high school grades were always barely average. But I aced that course.
Devon
Exactly. In the case of statesmen, we are trying to prevent them from being too effective.
Devon
If you really want to increase your chances for a better future, get involved in projects. Open source is excellent for this kind of thing. Or something cool at your school. As someone that reads resumes, I can say that I weigh a cool project 5 times higher than the person's grades or school. It shows motivation. A school shows... what exactly?
Devon
Devon
Actually, it's estimated that 20 billion would eliminate half of the world's hunger. So I'd expect 1.6 billion would do much more than feed them for a day.
Devon
Devon
NNs are just a way of dividing a feature space. The real "intelligence" in NNs is in designing the feature space in the first place. That's where all the work and creativity is and that's all done by human beings. Until that's automated, I, too, will continue to consider NNs just a simple nonlinear function.
Devon
True. On the other hand, 20 billion is the number (estimated by the WHO) to solve half of the world's hunger problem. So while 2.6 billion isn't that much money, very little money is actually needed to solve some major world problems. What's lacking is the determination to do so, of course.
Devon
Devon
People are saying the selection is low. How is Apple providing two different store fronts? Are they keying on the IP address? I live in Europe but use a US credit card to buy from iTMS. Will this change if iTMS is offered in my country?
Devon
I knew someone would ask that. Unfortunately, now that I've worked around everything, I don't really have any simple examples off the top of my head.
One problem that frustrated me recently, though, was the modal window concept. When you're in a modal window, you're running in a special event loop and things like timers, network events, etc, aren't delivered. This just seems like such a kludge to me. I can't handle my networking events because a non-physical abstraction like a window is blocking it? Weird. Sure, there are work-arounds like threads but the underlying model is not what I'd expect. I'd expect something like... you have to call a method that puts the app into modal mode so that only appropriate mouse events are delivered. Then you return to the the normal event loop so all events can be handled as usual. When you're done another method is called to end modal mode.
Of course, that's a big example. There were many small ones, too.
Devon
I've thought about this. And I've thought maybe Java coming from Sun and me working with Sun made us have a similar way of thinking. But I don't think so. It's an interesting questions, though... whether there is a "naturally" correct interface to a class or whether it depends on the "culture" of the programmer...
Devon