The ping is only really annoying if the air temperature is hovering around 4 deg. The reason is simple, ice/frost can exist up to 4 deg, with consequential issues over black ice. Normally this is a good thing to be reminded of unless you really want to test your ABS.
The BIOS validates the system to be booted and any BIOS updates by the use of signatures. However, once the system is installed, it has control - full control. Now if the software is well written, only a small part of the software actually has that control and everything else sees only a part of the system (compatmentalisation).
It is clear that this is a good idea, but Microsoft has never been that good with the concept of least privilege. That is, if you find one hole, the protection system is defeated until patched. Once penetrated, any auto updates can be blocked.
Of course, if it is well implemented, the security reference monitor can be used to protect DRM so that it is impossible to access DRM protected media except through DRM as you suggest.
There are also advantages, because it would make systems more secure, but then you depend on the vendo producing good code.
Since when was a statement "(c) 2001 ACME Ripoff Printer Company" itself copyright? If that was the string checked for, then sorry, you just read part of a rom string saying that this "Is not (c)....".
I used fullscreen on a previous version and it toggled correctly, however the smaller window becomes immobile (can't be shifted around on the screen).
With the latest and greatest version, MPlayer 0.90rc2-3.2 built from the tar-ball, Fullscreen is badly broken. It shifts to fullscreen but will not change back now.
Not fine, well 'Fullscreen' mode has some weirdness asscoiated with on the latest rc, but otherwiuse it does work well. Of corse, it can and does make use of Codecs from WMP and Quicktime when needed. The former is in a slighly grey area unless you have a dual boot system.
For non-Microoft formats, then the codecs provided seem to work fine and I agree that the performance is very good.
I agree that we don't appear to operate in a totally formal way. However, it is my feeling that at one very deep level we do. Above this there are levels that we do not understand well, and then comes the 'mind', whether conscious or unconscious.
If we come back to hardware, it isn't a problem to build a machine on top of another (think of Bochs, for example, a complete x86 emulator in software). We can build representational systems that allow us to manipulate the infinite on the computer. I agree there are limits on what a machine functioning on logic can do, but there are ways of building on top of it. You mentioned fractals, and I would agree. Fractal complexity is immense, but may be derived from very simple equations in a logical symstem.
We know about neurons, axons, synapses and so on, we can even simulate them. We know also about the conscious mind and a certain amount about the aspects directly beneath it (Freud's unconscious mind). What is between is largely speculation, with a little input from neurophysiology (which is about the level of running a screwdriver across the backplane of a computer and seeing what weirdness results). From the top, psychopathology can give us glimpses of what is going on at lower levels. Unfortunately, just glimpses.
What is different now is that computer power is increasing to the point where we can emulate parts of primitive brains. Indeed, the complete neural-net of some simple creatures can now be simulated.
The last point is that I have a distrust of some of the philosophical/logical arguments against strong AI. The first argument was against the computational ability of neurons, but it disregarded feedback (which was later discovered). The argument set the field back years. The second (the Chinese Room) was against "intelligence" ebing behind the behaviour of a system. I believe the second argument to be rubbish as well, I gather I'm not alone on that one.
With the brain/mind, we are dealing with an exceptionally complex system. Whether it is ever viable to simulate the brain is one thing, but to better our understanding is necessary, if only to help cure mental illness.
How can a digital computer handle infinity as in Mathematica? It does so by having an appropriate abstraction layer. In particular, we all seem to have mechanisms to prevent infinite recursion, perhaps that is one of the issues behind autism?
Personally, I don't believe that there is anything mystical about the brain, but it is clear that the massive connectivity, and the chemical feedback mechanisms are something that are difficult to emulate.
I have a lot of O'Reilly but I have been less than happy with a couple of their books. In general, they are a safe bet whilst other publishers can be variable to say the least.
The problem is that you can't always tell by a quick leaf through in the store. It isn't until you try and do something that you start to find out what was missing. However, the editors at O'Reilly aren't bad, and it is a good bet to grab one.
However, you can miss a lot of other good books if you only buy O'Reilly.
Last year I was working on both Fortran and COBOL code. The COBOL was part of the main processing for the worlds largest electronic futures and options exchange (a major part), whilst the Fortran was for a database hacking tool used by the above. Yes, there is some new stuff written in C, but most of the regular processing (especially accounting type operatins) are written in COBOL).
I'm still told by friends in the engineering/scientific community about the piles of existing Fortran code that is tsill in use.
Neither language is dead, and whilst writing a GUI is somewhat painful, backend processing remains easy.
Do we need a book on these languages? Well most of our younger COBOL coders started with modern languages and just adapted. The code they write isn't the best but it usually works. The main resource their is the COBOL language manual from the manufacturer, which is conveniently web accessible these days. My handiest document is an ancient pocket sized manual setting out the syntax skeleton for each part of the program. There are few COBOL variants around and outside the IO section, there is little that changes.
I've had less recent exposure to people learning Fortran and there are definitely more Fortran standards around which would make it difficult to be cross platform.
For annimals, Fortran would be a beaver or an ant, both natural engineers. I would agree that COBOL could be a dinosaur, - but as it still lives, shouldn't it be an animal like the crocodile? Unevolved, but quick and ruthlessly efficient.
It is interesting that Kandel brought this up. Recently a group of Nobel Laureates from a number of different fields (and countries) were interviewed and they all agreed that this is the next big thing.
Of course, the study of the biological underpinnnings of self-awareness may also help AI to take off in a big way. One of the major issues that the naysayers (such as John Searle and his Chinese Room have) is that a machine is a bundle of electronic switches without acknowledging that the brain is just a bunch of biological ones.
Re:He waived his rights.....
on
Kevin Free
·
· Score: 2
I should have said more on blaming the victim. I know of several instances of major crimes at financial insitutions where the end result is that the incident is hushed up, and frequently no corrective actions were taken.
In the case of Mitnick, a number of organisations were very upset with Mitnick, however many of the holes were not fixed. The perpetrator is definitely guilty, but what of those orgnisations who continued to use inadequate protection after he was caught?
Re:He waived his rights.....
on
Kevin Free
·
· Score: 2
Sorry for the delay on this one. I've been away from the net for a few days.
The thing is, the somewhat hostile and heavy-handed treatment of computer related crimes doesn't seem to be unique to Mitnick's case. Steve Jackson Games seems to be another. I was involved with one of his victims, Digital Equipment and he seriously upset a lot of people there. He definitely triggered a code review or two, which would have cost a *lot* of money (even though he probably couldn't have written a trojan horse himself).
However, at the time of his conviction, there had been some other cases, for example the hacking of court records which seriously upset Justice. At point, the various authorities (Justice, the Feds, etc.) were looking for suitable examples. Mitnick was a prime candidate. In reality, the real problems were being caused by improperly trained employees following inadequate proceedures.
He waived his rights.....
on
Kevin Free
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
He was threatened with all kinds of stuff amounting to indefinite detention without trial and in solitary confinement unless he waived his rights.
I forget the URL, but it was in the chapter of his book that was "lost in the edit" but ended up on the web. I forget the URL but it should come up here again during the discussion.
Personally, I believe him. He was a social engineer, not a technical hacker and very good at it too, causing no end of problems to a number of companies. However once caught, he was labeled as 'extremely dangerous' and caught up in a circus where he was first banned from using the phone as well as the computer. I don't believe he was innocent one little bit. At the same time, certain persons involved in prosecuting the case were busy trying to use him to promote themselves. Innocent, he wasn't, but he was treated badly by an incompetent justice system.
These have certainly be mentioned here before and other manufacturers produce them as well, for example during discussions on SCSI vs IDE for RAID and so on. What is interesting (and good) is to actually have a review of the things.
The problem is that they still go for about $100 in small quantities, so the question is where is the sweet point given the lower reliability of many IDE drives?
However it does make it possible to put together a SCSI based RAID for remarkably little outlay and normally although you would ditch the drive when a fault occurs, but this board is reusable.
Just thinking about all the messaging going within Counterstrike teams or whatever. As long as a terrorist gang has half a brain, they could easily assign code names for targets based on Internet games. It would then be extremely difficult to find the real terrorist amongst the game players. The terrorists would after all be in the minority.
The VAX was launched in Europe with VMS at least in 1978, maybe PHONE wasn't there then but it was definitely there by 1980. However, although it did some very nice person-to-person chatting, and over some very large networks (DEC's internal engineering network, for one).
However it didn't do "buddies", and had no way of watching out for people other than doing a directory on a node (gets a list of logged-on users with PHONE enabled). It was instant and it certainly was persistent.
After writing I did sort of remember that the ships were 'grave-goods' and I was referring to the Gokkstad ship but had forgotten about Oseberg. However, I seem to remember that at least one of these was found in a flooded area, hence being buried in mud rather than soil (which often tends to be organically more active). From what I remember, there was something about the mud having a low O2 content there too.
In LEO, there are the remenants of the earths atmosphere (a few excited particles knocking around). Further out there is the solar wind with significant numbers of charged particles. These can and most certainly transfer som of their heat. As there are not many of them, it would take some time to heat up to 5000K, but they still have that order of temperature.
Undisturbed, wrecks can last a very long time. Look at the the Mary Rose or the Vasa. Both ships predate the declaration of independence in the US. There is also a Viking longship in Norway.
Raising the ships was difficult. Preserving the ships after they were raised has been a major effort (costing a small fortune) and requiring many thousands of man hours. It is wonderful that the wrecks were raised, but I don't think either the UK or Sweden could have coped with more than one every ten years or so.
Steel and iron ships are actually harder than wood to raise once they are over a certain page where the hull is substantially oxidised and what you end up with is almost impossible to treat (iron oxide crumbles).
This is an example of the back story that Tolkein was master of. Given the number of notes in the LOTR and the cross referencing, this is crying out for hyper-linking.
I guess we shall have to wait for a while though (maybe until the LOTR comes out of copyright).
Not in Germany or the Netherlands
on
DSL Rising
·
· Score: 2
In Germany and the Netherlands, there is a fairly good cable system available in cities and towns (even in some villages). Regrettably, in Germany at least, there is no data on the cable (and relatively few channels of cable TV, about 32 or so).
DSL is working now quite well, but the problem is that DSL comes down the phone line and in Germany, the cable operator IESY is still somewhat related hence the reluctance to move to cable, however they are starting slowly and at a price similiar to DSL.
Slashdot Mirror
The ping is only really annoying if the air temperature is hovering around 4 deg. The reason is simple, ice/frost can exist up to 4 deg, with consequential issues over black ice. Normally this is a good thing to be reminded of unless you really want to test your ABS.
It is clear that this is a good idea, but Microsoft has never been that good with the concept of least privilege. That is, if you find one hole, the protection system is defeated until patched. Once penetrated, any auto updates can be blocked.
Of course, if it is well implemented, the security reference monitor can be used to protect DRM so that it is impossible to access DRM protected media except through DRM as you suggest.
There are also advantages, because it would make systems more secure, but then you depend on the vendo producing good code.
Since when was a statement "(c) 2001 ACME Ripoff Printer Company" itself copyright? If that was the string checked for, then sorry, you just read part of a rom string saying that this "Is not (c)....".
With the latest and greatest version, MPlayer 0.90rc2-3.2 built from the tar-ball, Fullscreen is badly broken. It shifts to fullscreen but will not change back now.
Not fine, well 'Fullscreen' mode has some weirdness asscoiated with on the latest rc, but otherwiuse it does work well. Of corse, it can and does make use of Codecs from WMP and Quicktime when needed. The former is in a slighly grey area unless you have a dual boot system.
For non-Microoft formats, then the codecs provided seem to work fine and I agree that the performance is very good.
If we come back to hardware, it isn't a problem to build a machine on top of another (think of Bochs, for example, a complete x86 emulator in software). We can build representational systems that allow us to manipulate the infinite on the computer. I agree there are limits on what a machine functioning on logic can do, but there are ways of building on top of it. You mentioned fractals, and I would agree. Fractal complexity is immense, but may be derived from very simple equations in a logical symstem.
We know about neurons, axons, synapses and so on, we can even simulate them. We know also about the conscious mind and a certain amount about the aspects directly beneath it (Freud's unconscious mind). What is between is largely speculation, with a little input from neurophysiology (which is about the level of running a screwdriver across the backplane of a computer and seeing what weirdness results). From the top, psychopathology can give us glimpses of what is going on at lower levels. Unfortunately, just glimpses.
What is different now is that computer power is increasing to the point where we can emulate parts of primitive brains. Indeed, the complete neural-net of some simple creatures can now be simulated.
The last point is that I have a distrust of some of the philosophical/logical arguments against strong AI. The first argument was against the computational ability of neurons, but it disregarded feedback (which was later discovered). The argument set the field back years. The second (the Chinese Room) was against "intelligence" ebing behind the behaviour of a system. I believe the second argument to be rubbish as well, I gather I'm not alone on that one.
With the brain/mind, we are dealing with an exceptionally complex system. Whether it is ever viable to simulate the brain is one thing, but to better our understanding is necessary, if only to help cure mental illness.
Personally, I don't believe that there is anything mystical about the brain, but it is clear that the massive connectivity, and the chemical feedback mechanisms are something that are difficult to emulate.
Guilty as charged, I have both, and the COFF book......
The problem is that you can't always tell by a quick leaf through in the store. It isn't until you try and do something that you start to find out what was missing. However, the editors at O'Reilly aren't bad, and it is a good bet to grab one.
However, you can miss a lot of other good books if you only buy O'Reilly.
I'm still told by friends in the engineering/scientific community about the piles of existing Fortran code that is tsill in use.
Neither language is dead, and whilst writing a GUI is somewhat painful, backend processing remains easy.
Do we need a book on these languages? Well most of our younger COBOL coders started with modern languages and just adapted. The code they write isn't the best but it usually works. The main resource their is the COBOL language manual from the manufacturer, which is conveniently web accessible these days. My handiest document is an ancient pocket sized manual setting out the syntax skeleton for each part of the program. There are few COBOL variants around and outside the IO section, there is little that changes.
I've had less recent exposure to people learning Fortran and there are definitely more Fortran standards around which would make it difficult to be cross platform.
For annimals, Fortran would be a beaver or an ant, both natural engineers. I would agree that COBOL could be a dinosaur, - but as it still lives, shouldn't it be an animal like the crocodile? Unevolved, but quick and ruthlessly efficient.
Of course, the study of the biological underpinnnings of self-awareness may also help AI to take off in a big way. One of the major issues that the naysayers (such as John Searle and his Chinese Room have) is that a machine is a bundle of electronic switches without acknowledging that the brain is just a bunch of biological ones.
In the case of Mitnick, a number of organisations were very upset with Mitnick, however many of the holes were not fixed. The perpetrator is definitely guilty, but what of those orgnisations who continued to use inadequate protection after he was caught?
The thing is, the somewhat hostile and heavy-handed treatment of computer related crimes doesn't seem to be unique to Mitnick's case. Steve Jackson Games seems to be another. I was involved with one of his victims, Digital Equipment and he seriously upset a lot of people there. He definitely triggered a code review or two, which would have cost a *lot* of money (even though he probably couldn't have written a trojan horse himself).
However, at the time of his conviction, there had been some other cases, for example the hacking of court records which seriously upset Justice. At point, the various authorities (Justice, the Feds, etc.) were looking for suitable examples. Mitnick was a prime candidate. In reality, the real problems were being caused by improperly trained employees following inadequate proceedures.
I forget the URL, but it was in the chapter of his book that was "lost in the edit" but ended up on the web. I forget the URL but it should come up here again during the discussion.
Personally, I believe him. He was a social engineer, not a technical hacker and very good at it too, causing no end of problems to a number of companies. However once caught, he was labeled as 'extremely dangerous' and caught up in a circus where he was first banned from using the phone as well as the computer. I don't believe he was innocent one little bit. At the same time, certain persons involved in prosecuting the case were busy trying to use him to promote themselves. Innocent, he wasn't, but he was treated badly by an incompetent justice system.
Um not trolling, this is Astroturfing!!!!!
The problem is that they still go for about $100 in small quantities, so the question is where is the sweet point given the lower reliability of many IDE drives?
However it does make it possible to put together a SCSI based RAID for remarkably little outlay and normally although you would ditch the drive when a fault occurs, but this board is reusable.
Just thinking about all the messaging going within Counterstrike teams or whatever. As long as a terrorist gang has half a brain, they could easily assign code names for targets based on Internet games. It would then be extremely difficult to find the real terrorist amongst the game players. The terrorists would after all be in the minority.
I think some layered packages used in academia used this for packaging up messages and files that must transit multiple network types.
However it didn't do "buddies", and had no way of watching out for people other than doing a directory on a node (gets a list of logged-on users with PHONE enabled). It was instant and it certainly was persistent.
I agree though that an electronically transmitted virus would spread very quickly, however only to people who indulge in cybrsex.
After writing I did sort of remember that the ships were 'grave-goods' and I was referring to the Gokkstad ship but had forgotten about Oseberg. However, I seem to remember that at least one of these was found in a flooded area, hence being buried in mud rather than soil (which often tends to be organically more active). From what I remember, there was something about the mud having a low O2 content there too.
In LEO, there are the remenants of the earths atmosphere (a few excited particles knocking around). Further out there is the solar wind with significant numbers of charged particles. These can and most certainly transfer som of their heat. As there are not many of them, it would take some time to heat up to 5000K, but they still have that order of temperature.
Raising the ships was difficult. Preserving the ships after they were raised has been a major effort (costing a small fortune) and requiring many thousands of man hours. It is wonderful that the wrecks were raised, but I don't think either the UK or Sweden could have coped with more than one every ten years or so.
Steel and iron ships are actually harder than wood to raise once they are over a certain page where the hull is substantially oxidised and what you end up with is almost impossible to treat (iron oxide crumbles).
I guess we shall have to wait for a while though (maybe until the LOTR comes out of copyright).
DSL is working now quite well, but the problem is that DSL comes down the phone line and in Germany, the cable operator IESY is still somewhat related hence the reluctance to move to cable, however they are starting slowly and at a price similiar to DSL.