Put all your passwords and other data in a file. Encrypt it with your lawyer's and family members' public keys. Attach it to your will. Now they can only decrypt it together. Update it periodically with the changes.
Ownership is just microsoftspeak for access control, it's a security feature. And the idea of metadata and access control in a filesystem is not really new.
True, this would not protect against crosscontamination, only from getting out, assuming crosscontamination is already solved. Although I wonder if it could be tied to the modifications themselves somehow.
You patent a hardware implementation of an idea. Software implementations are already protected by copyright. Software patents are being used to patent the idea itself. This is not how patents are supposed to work.
This is a very biased article full of half-truthes from a man who thinks that the bigger half of the world are "anti-patent zealots".
While I agree that it could be more specific, you have to understand its scope. It's a short video made for the general public. You know, those ignorant dumb people who have 95% of the votes. They wouldn't watch through an hour long analysis of the pros a cons of the treaty. They don't understand the European bureaucracy (I don't think there is a living person who fully does), so explaining who the negotiators are would be complicated. The video needs to be short, simple, attention-grabbing, emotional and manage to get the main message through. I think it did that well. Extremely one-sided? Did you expect them to hold a debate or what? It's not Wikipedia but a political campaign of course it's not neutral. The video is only for grabbing attention, they link to a lot of pages explaining it in detail. So if you only watched "the video alone", it's not their fault.
Wouldn't it be possible to engineer plants that require a certain chemical that's not found in nature to grow? This would prevent GMO plants "escaping" to the wild.
If any real information is provided it can be get by a simple search. Policemen won't go through all the data, they will just query things like what did you do at a given time.
I did support Anonymous in the brief period of time when they had a clearly defined goal and a strict code: those who attack free speech on the Internet should be removed from it. As a free speech radical I fully aggreed with that. After all, on what basis do you call them vigilantes? Who gave nationstates the right to control the Internet? As a possible first step towards, an independent net, they could be its self-defence organization. But it's almost impossible to make an anarchistic group of people follow a strict code and only attack those who deserve it. There were more and more questionable actions, and after a while they have lost their original goals from sight.
Additionally, Anonymous is generally pretty good at remaining anonymous. The prisoner they have probably doesn't have much more information on the others than aliases, perhaps vague geographic areas.
Wrong, launching DDoS attacks is exactly the way to compromise anonymity. They already had several of their members sued.
On a side note, I think there is also a fifth unnamed object, but that doesn't matter. The difference between Charon and a moon is that Charon is not much smaller than Pluto, in fact it doesn't orbit Pluto. Rather, the two bodies orbit their common centre of mass outside of Pluto.
Well, what is your line in the sand for Pluto being "too eccentric" (e=0.249)? If you draw the line at e>0.2 (in base 10 ; why do you choose base 10?), then you exclude Mercury (e=0.206) ; if you draw the line at e>0.05 then you exclude Mars and Saturn too. Choose a line to draw, then (this is the hard bit) justify it and persuade other people that your justification is good.
You got me here, I forgot about Mercury. But Pluto's orbit is such that there are times when it gets closer to the Sun then Neptune, which would make it hard to class it as the "ninth" planet.
We can examine the inclination argument too. Here the order of increasing inclination is Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, Earth, Ceres, Pluto, which would make the Earth the next of the planets to be discounted in a countdown. I don't accept this as a valid criterion for rejecting Pluto as a planet.
You make a qualitative argument not a quantitative one. Earth's inclination is very close to the gas giants' (about 7 and 6 degrees), and very far from Pluto's (12 degrees).
Same form of argument, let's reject Mercury as a planet because it's smaller than Ganymede.
True, it's very hard to define what counts as big enough, that's why the IAU required a planet to "clean its orbit".
Your definition proposal is interesting, but I wish you have detailed the stability part instead of the spherical part. The n-body problem is not an easy one, how do you guarantee that a planet will stay in orbit for a long time? Also, a couple of orbits of the candidate is not an easy thing to wait for with Pluto.
The ability to extend it to extrasolar celestial bodies is a huge advantage. I admit most of my arguments are based on the Solar system. With the discovery of exoplanets we will likely have to redefine 'planet' more than once. But I think we shouldn't do it in advance, we only now few exoplanets now heacily biased toward big ones. I think we should wait with including them in a definition until we get the full picture.
Slashdot Mirror
The UNESCO is not a political branch of the UN. Also, almost all countries are UN members regardless of how they act.
Yeah it's like a doomsday machine but looks like it wasn't frightening enough.
Put all your passwords and other data in a file. Encrypt it with your lawyer's and family members' public keys. Attach it to your will. Now they can only decrypt it together. Update it periodically with the changes.
True, I was told not to start with C because it's too hard but it was a relief after the torture of Pascal's syntax.
While they might be new for MS these are certainly not new ideas. But at least a move in the right direction.
Ownership is just microsoftspeak for access control, it's a security feature. And the idea of metadata and access control in a filesystem is not really new.
True, this would not protect against crosscontamination, only from getting out, assuming crosscontamination is already solved. Although I wonder if it could be tied to the modifications themselves somehow.
You patent a hardware implementation of an idea. Software implementations are already protected by copyright. Software patents are being used to patent the idea itself. This is not how patents are supposed to work.
This is a very biased article full of half-truthes from a man who thinks that the bigger half of the world are "anti-patent zealots".
While I agree that it could be more specific, you have to understand its scope. It's a short video made for the general public. You know, those ignorant dumb people who have 95% of the votes. They wouldn't watch through an hour long analysis of the pros a cons of the treaty. They don't understand the European bureaucracy (I don't think there is a living person who fully does), so explaining who the negotiators are would be complicated. The video needs to be short, simple, attention-grabbing, emotional and manage to get the main message through. I think it did that well. Extremely one-sided? Did you expect them to hold a debate or what? It's not Wikipedia but a political campaign of course it's not neutral. The video is only for grabbing attention, they link to a lot of pages explaining it in detail. So if you only watched "the video alone", it's not their fault.
The point of a trojan is that it's hiding and doing its stuff undercover. Using a VGA all the time is pretty easy to notice.
Wouldn't it be possible to engineer plants that require a certain chemical that's not found in nature to grow? This would prevent GMO plants "escaping" to the wild.
True, I wonder why they don't make GMO sterile, it wouldn't be that hard.
Maybe this will show alarmists that it's not about denial but collecting enough evidence before assuming something.
The real problem with prohibiting secure phoning is that criminals can also wiretap conversations.
But if it uses flash memory then electrons are indeed stored. It's basically a sequence of capacitors, where the right bits get charged.
If any real information is provided it can be get by a simple search. Policemen won't go through all the data, they will just query things like what did you do at a given time.
You can always use error correcting codes to reduce the randomness.
I did support Anonymous in the brief period of time when they had a clearly defined goal and a strict code: those who attack free speech on the Internet should be removed from it. As a free speech radical I fully aggreed with that. After all, on what basis do you call them vigilantes? Who gave nationstates the right to control the Internet? As a possible first step towards, an independent net, they could be its self-defence organization. But it's almost impossible to make an anarchistic group of people follow a strict code and only attack those who deserve it. There were more and more questionable actions, and after a while they have lost their original goals from sight.
Additionally, Anonymous is generally pretty good at remaining anonymous. The prisoner they have probably doesn't have much more information on the others than aliases, perhaps vague geographic areas.
Wrong, launching DDoS attacks is exactly the way to compromise anonymity. They already had several of their members sued.
When you are looking for security holes you need access to every bit of the software.
Two bodies? Not four?
On a side note, I think there is also a fifth unnamed object, but that doesn't matter. The difference between Charon and a moon is that Charon is not much smaller than Pluto, in fact it doesn't orbit Pluto. Rather, the two bodies orbit their common centre of mass outside of Pluto.
Well, what is your line in the sand for Pluto being "too eccentric" (e=0.249)? If you draw the line at e>0.2 (in base 10 ; why do you choose base 10?), then you exclude Mercury (e=0.206) ; if you draw the line at e>0.05 then you exclude Mars and Saturn too. Choose a line to draw, then (this is the hard bit) justify it and persuade other people that your justification is good.
You got me here, I forgot about Mercury. But Pluto's orbit is such that there are times when it gets closer to the Sun then Neptune, which would make it hard to class it as the "ninth" planet.
We can examine the inclination argument too. Here the order of increasing inclination is Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, Earth, Ceres, Pluto, which would make the Earth the next of the planets to be discounted in a countdown.
I don't accept this as a valid criterion for rejecting Pluto as a planet.
You make a qualitative argument not a quantitative one. Earth's inclination is very close to the gas giants' (about 7 and 6 degrees), and very far from Pluto's (12 degrees).
Same form of argument, let's reject Mercury as a planet because it's smaller than Ganymede.
True, it's very hard to define what counts as big enough, that's why the IAU required a planet to "clean its orbit".
Your definition proposal is interesting, but I wish you have detailed the stability part instead of the spherical part. The n-body problem is not an easy one, how do you guarantee that a planet will stay in orbit for a long time? Also, a couple of orbits of the candidate is not an easy thing to wait for with Pluto.
The ability to extend it to extrasolar celestial bodies is a huge advantage. I admit most of my arguments are based on the Solar system. With the discovery of exoplanets we will likely have to redefine 'planet' more than once. But I think we shouldn't do it in advance, we only now few exoplanets now heacily biased toward big ones. I think we should wait with including them in a definition until we get the full picture.
Wow, there are some elegant tricks on the page, although I'm an amateur, I don't know if a professional auditor would be able to catch those.
What about programmers with a Computer Engineering degree?
I'm normally not an OSS zealot but news like this always get me thinking. This wouldn't be possible with an OS browser.
A few problems with calling Pluto a planet is it fits better as a TNO, KBO, or both.
That's what I was saying, read back.
Besides, the chart in Titus-Bode article shows ten planets, you can't reasonably leave out Ceres if you want to call Pluto a planet.
Yes, the "ninth planet" predicted by the law is not Pluto but the asteroid belt.
It crosses Neptune's orbit and its orbital plate is at an extreme angle to the planetary disc.
It does not cross Neptune's orbit exactly because of the angle to the ecliptic. It does get sometimes closer to the Sun though.