He basically points out that a blurred mosaic amounts to a form of inexact hash function. While
irreversable, if you have a small enough input space, you can exhaustively hash all possible
candidates and pick the one(s) that best match the target.
Interestingly enough, while he points out that most financial account numbers contain a degree
of error detection and correction, he chooses to use that to reduce the match set, rather
than the candidate set. I suppose this would matter if you wanted to prove a hypothesis
(if the best match yields a valid number, you have a p=[valid/total]), but if you just want to
steal someone's account info, you'd do better to reduce your processing time and just try the
best few results in order.
It saves me a lot of time to buy a suit in Second Life for 200 Linden
dollars (less than a buck) rather than make the thing myself. And the people
who sell things can then use that money for other purchases (saving
time, also, I suppose).
Saves you time for what? SL has no goal. It serves no purpose but
as a poorly rendered 3d chatroom.
It exists to waste time (or more accurately, to slowly drain your IRL bank
account while you waste time). Saving time directly contradicts its purpose.
Of course, I would say the same thing of WoW or any other game, on- or off-line.
But at least conventional games have a well-defined set of conditions (beyond
cash on hand) under which you can consider your character in some way "improved".
You get better weapons and armor, you level, you can kill more things faster.
Can you chat faster in SL if you have a $200 suit on a Poser-rendered export than
if you have a nude pennyless stick-figure as your avatar?
Um, no. In Second Life, you own the content you create. Presumably this includes one's avatar.
The content she creates, yes. The avatar, sure (as one of her creations).
But documentary footage "filmed" in a semi-public place? No. Though an easily-blurred line due
to the abstract nature of the medium, this has a clear real-world equivalent - Someone taking
pictures at a press conference.
Would the speaker at a press conference own the copyright to those pictures?
The detail about the penises doesn't matter one bit. Attribution of copyright has
nothing to do with whether or not someone heckles the speaker.
Or to put this in a different light, on the same merits by which she could claim
copyright, so too could the creator of the penises appearing in the video.
I'm entirely happy with her having that content prohibited; no one is harmed by that material
*not* being shown, which means its right and proper for her privacy and dignity to be respected.
What privacy and dignity? Something everyone involved seems to have forgotten - This doesn't
really involve her. Just an avatar in a "game". And even if it did, the content
doesn't actually belong to her, it belongs to (if anyone) Second Life. So what gives
this bink the right to go around issuing takedown notices???
It's unforunate this idea isn't part of law
Except, it does exist as part of (case) law - You only have
a reasonable expectation of privacy up until the moment you
go out in public. The only way this varies from the norm,
she can go "out" in public without leaving her computer room.
Someone played a joke on her in a public forum. Someone else captured that
joke for posterity. Nothing to see here, move along please.
If you give users a choice between two mutually exclusive
features, they will answer "yes". They will then complain
at needing to pick one at runtime (or complain that you
didn't include the other option, if you made the choice
for them).
If you ask them if they need proveably-never-used
features X, Y, and Z, they will vehemently insist
they do. They will then complain that the final product
confuses them with far too many features they don't
need.
If you ask them how they want something to work, they
will either A) Shrug their shoulders (then later complain
you didn't listen to their input); B) lie to hide their
own abusive behavior (then later complain that they can
no longer get to their por - ahem - family photos);
or C) Give a long, detailed explanation of what they
(then ask what madman came up with how the final product
works).
Should software 'just work', or are users too lazy?
Both. Software should do one task very, very well. If it
doesn't try to manage photoalbums while doing your taxes and
making coffee, it can perform its function well while not
overwhelming the user with confusing options.
At the same time, users need to realize that computers have
FAR more complexity of control than their car. In most
states, to drive a car, you need to have reached a minimum
age, pass certain tests of physical capability, take a six week
training course and pass a written test on that material,
and finally take an actual road test to prove you can handle
a vehicle - And even after all that, you usually have only a
probationary license until you've remained incident-free for
a few years. Yet software should "just work"?
Where can I sign up to sue Chrysler over my car not automatically
driving me to work (with an unannounced side trip to the grocery
store) when I get in and turn on the wipers?
Others have already posted all these points, but since you replied to me, I'll
respond.
The thing I don't like about it is that I have some fixtures that CFLs will not fit into.
Once true, but not anymore. Granted, you can't get high-wattage CFLs for all fixtures, but you
can now get the 60W-equivalent CFLs that take up less space, at every point (including the
stem), than an incandescent. My hallways, which have recessed fixtures with the bulb at an odd
angle, currently contain exactly such bulbs.
If anyone doesn't believe that there is still a delay, then put a regular
bulb in a socket next to a CFL bulb on the same switch. You'll see the delay.
If you need to do a side-by-side comparison to notice the delay, your objection
has nothing to do with the delay itself... You have a preconceived idea of how
lightbulbs "should" behave, and dislike anything contrary to that belief. Not
a "bad" or "good" thing, per se, but it does cost you money to
hold that belief.
At $0.17/KWh (my current rate, including all the various fees that basically
double your "official" rate), switching one light kept on for roughly a third
of the day, from a 60W incandescent to a 14W CF, saves $1.92 per month.
Even if CFLs had the same lifespan as incandescents, the electricity alone
would make them a pretty significant savings. And the longer you use a
given light (foyer? Living room? Kitchen? Many people keep at least one of
those turned on almost 24/7), the better the savings. Of course, I'd think
about just turning it off in the middle of the day and while asleep,
but some people dislike change, however beneficial.
At 6AM in the morning, the delay is a welcome "feature".
I think those who modded this as "funny" rather than "insightful" either
don't use CFLs, or don't get up before dawn.
As someone who does both, I have to agree fully with you. That minute or
so while the older CFLs (I don't see either the delay or the gradual
increase in brightness in newer ones) ramp up to full light really
makes getting up a lot easier on the eyes.
Before I changed over, I remember as my very first choice of the day, did
I want to stumbling around in the dark or squint for the first five minutes
after turning on the lights?
I think I will really miss that feature, once I can no longer get CFLs with
what so many people choose to call a "flaw". Jeezus, folks, not like you
need to enter a room and have enough light to perform brain surgery in under
2 seconds...
Do any musicians use built-in Windows programs for capture and editing?
Vista's DRM, as offensive we may find it, has nothing to do with how third-party
programs process their data of choice. Audacity will work just as well on Vista
as on Win2k.
Now, one word of caution - This applies to the stock codecs as well as what you
might normally consider "software". So if you use the default MS Format-X codec to
read and write files of Format-X, MS has you by the balls. If, however, you use
a (generally much better anyway) third-party codec, MS's stance on DRM has no
effect on the quality of your results. Additionally, since you most likely keep
the data in a raw format until the very last step of processing, even DRM-encumbered
codecs shouldn't matter, since you won't use any of them in the first place.
You forgot the simplest one that will defeat all attempts at timestamp fingerprinting...
Lie about the time. As long as it monotonically increases between packets, and stays within a few
seconds of accurate, everything goes smoothly (for most general-purpose data traffic - Obviously
this would completely screw up something like an NTP query).
Given the nature of the internet, will it ever be possible
to truly move to an 'online desktop'?"
Sure - As long as the server lives in my home office.
A decade ago I actually had such a setup for a
few years, until my ISP decided to actually enforce
the vague and arguably impossible "no servers" rule in
their TOS. My email went to my home machine, which I
could check by SSH'ing in from anywhere in the world. If
I needed a file, I could tunnel in, mount a share off my
home fileserver, and do whatever I wanted.
XP has actually made that more doable, in that Remote
Desktop works pretty damned well even over slow connections.
So now I have access to GUI-only information as well (yeah
yeah, I used to do VNC or remote X desktops, but even over
a broadband connection those crawl, and don't (directly)
support sharing any non-GUI resources such as files, printers,
and sound).
The problem here comes from our ISPs, who want to sell us
something then have us never use it, whether our already
meagre upstream bandwidth, or unwritten but strictly enforced
monthly caps (*cough* Verizon *cough*). Never forget,
in the heat of all the debate on the subject, that "net neutrality"
only applies to big companies who view us as consumers of content.
We small-scale end users have never enjoyed neutrality.
So to answer the question - We can truly move to an "online"
desktop just as soon as enough of us force the ISPs to let
us use the bandwidth we pay for however the hell we want.
Not before.
If you're in a HUMM-V in Iraq, do you really want to be setting
up a satellite connection just to use your laptop?
No, I don't suppose I would.
Now, sitting in that same vehicle in Iraq, why exactly
would you need to know the complete VA medical benefits
history of Frank Brown, age 84, current location (and
residence), Chelsea WI?
Offline access to (nonclassified) maps, great. Offline access to
somewhat sensitive information directly relevant to your mission,
fine. Offline access to data that has no use and should never make
it past the door of a cushy HR office somewhere inside the Pentagon?
No. No reason at all.
You've conflated all government employees (keep in mind the US government
employs over fifteen percent of the workforce) with the role of a deployed
unit's SigInt officer. When people say the government needs to fix its
IT policy to control where information goes rather than the media it
goes there on, no one means that we should let soldiers die
rather than give them encrypted laptops. But like it or not, "for the
troops" has as much validity as "for the kids". An emotional hotbutton
that can make truly absurd and ineffective changes sound appealing.
Because not every government employee has access
to high bandwidth connections, especially if they are
stationed outside the US. Disconnected operation is
essential.
If you work as a low-level US diplomat in Peru, do you
really need to carry around the complete medical records
of 20 million veterans?
Additionally, you can get a tolerable bandwidth connection
anywhere on the planet - We now have these things circling
the Earth far above, sort of artificial "satellites", if
you will. Some of them have the purpose of facilitating
bidirectional data communication between two points on the
planet - Such as a cottage in the middle of nowhere, and
a datacenter in the US.
A decent satellite net connection doesn't come cheap, but
keep in mind the target audience here - The single most
fiscally-irresponsible entity on the planet.
Those players just chose to hit the "reset" button to try again with
a new character, rather than trying to salvage their current one
with a large time penalty.
Consumer electronics do increasingly contribute to
a home's electric budget, but only by virtue of quantity.
Except for PCs and TVs, most products draw a pittance. For
PCs, they did draw more and more power from the mid-80s to
a year or two ago, but newer CPUs have finally addressed
that problem (and power supplies have gotten more efficient
as well). For TVs, larger means more power, but the tech has
drastically improved... A 50" plasma draws comparable to a
30" old-style CRT, and LCDs drop that by another 80% or so.
The real power-hungry devices in most homes haven't
changed in 50 years... Refridgerator, electric stove/oven, electric
clothesdryer, electric water heater, AC, electric heat (so bad
that you virtually never see it in places that actually get
cold). Simply cooking dinner every night on an electric
stovetop puts every high-tech toy in the house combined
to shame for power draw.
Of course, it's always going to be the case the key is in
memory during playback, finding the address would be the pain
Not really... Even without any better strategy, you can narrow the
potential range down QUITE a bit (within one process' address space),
and exhaustively try every machine-aligned keylength-block in just a
few seconds. And it would surprise me greatly if we can't do a whole
lot better than that
and revoke keys in future pressings and force upgrades to software
users.
Revocation accomplishes nothing (except, as with most DRM,
annoying legitimate users) if the cracker can get the key
dynamically. This problem WILL result in the eventual
blacklisting of XP for HD content, at which point the protection
of AACS will reduce to the security of Vista's kernel (ie, already
cracked).
It's all about demonstrating clear intent to violate DMCA
and take legal rather technical measures to 'deal' with the problem.
Bingo. Although it does look like they at least tried
to make it somewhat hard this time, no solution (not even
quantum) exists to the cryptography problem where "Bob" and "Carol" (the
"man-in-the-middle") count as the same entity.
So that if I have to demo something to a remote community ...
is this really practical in the modern world?
"Remote community" and "modern world" contradict one another
here.
You've hypothesized the existance of someplace that has
the technological resources to run a TV and DVD player,
but where your laptop (with far more flexible power
requirements) won't work?
Furthermore, you can always re-burn the content if you
absolutely need a physical DVD, at a cost of less than
25 cents (USD) per disc.
That said, I do appreciate your original point. The physical
media won't last forever; but that holds just as true for
analog tape-based media as it does for polycarbonate discs.
That also holds true for HDDs. So to literally answer the
original (probably rhetorical) question - No one can make
that guarantee. All current forms of media will decay
over time.
I believe the GP's point, however, relies on the ease of
transfer... Until we eventually come up with some truly
durable form of archival storage (which with the increasingly
digital nature of our culture, we must eventually do so
or risk leaving no records for the future), We have one and only
one choice for preserving such material - redundant lossless
serial copies.
Given that, it takes a lot less time and effort to
duplicate a HDD containing a hundred ripped DVDs than it
does to rip and reburn that same hundred physical discs.
it will still be several more years before the
victorious format supplants the DVD.
I will "upgrade" to the best HD format only when it counts
as an actual upgrade - Meaning I can play it, in
full resolution, on a Linux box.
Note that I don't include the word "legally" in that
condition... A broken-feature-reenabling ripper (like
DVD Decrypter used to do for region coding, macrovision,
and button lockout) will work just as well as an
authorized player.
So, which group will give me what I want first? Sony,
Toshiba, or DVD-Jon? The winner takes all.
Except, you've expressed an idea COMPLETELY incompatible with intellectual property.
You simply can't have IP in a truly free market (which we don't, and will never, have - not
even close). IP can only exist either as
closely-guarded "trade" secrets, or as a form of legal/fictional "property". Dealing
with the former explains why we have our current system of patents in the first place,
though when it actively blocks certain avenues of research, I think we can
safely say it has failed.
You forgot the HD TV they are also providing, I would assume that it's somewhere
in the 42-50" range from the press pictures I have seen. So you might want to add
another 2k-3k on top of that depending on what make and model they are using.
Yes, all the pictures show a sweet widescreen plasma TV... But not always the same
one, and the list of items that comes in this 15k package does NOT include a TV (if
you have a more comprehensive list, please provide a link?).
So sure, the buyer might want to add another 2k-3k on top of that $15k.
But I don't think they'd leave out mention of the second most expensive item in the kit
in their advertising literature.
Also from what I have read in other press articles on this they actually recommend
going with an electrician to do the electrical work.
Thus I wrote (quoting my post to which you responsed):
and installation.
Not really - They want you to have
the "hard" parts done yourself, by a privately contracted licensed electrician.
Before you mod this "redundant", at the time of this posting, no one else has actually
done the math, just guessed...
For that you get a Media Center PC
Averages around $900, but they
use the
HP z560 at $1800...
Lifeware automation software from Exceptional Innovation
This one took some work. The closest I could get to a price,
$5000, includes hardware. But it puts us at an upper limit, at least.
IP surveillance cameras
They use a pair of Panasonics (not sure of the model number), around
$380 each.
automated light switches
FTA: "five dimmers, five switches, two keypads".
Home Depot, $80.
a thermostat
Again, no model number given, but the
standard model goes for $270
and installation.
Not really - They want you to have the "hard" parts done yourself,
by a privately contracted licensed electrician.
The package costs $15,000.
Total so far, $8310 (not counting your own electrician).
So, not counting needing to hire your own electrician, that puts the cost of
their installation at roughly... $6690.
I've made some pretty damned good wages doing contract work, but
over $6k for less than a day's work? Wow, talk about a dream
job...
Anyone that wants this system - Hunt me down for contact info. I'll
do it for a third less (you pay airfair outside the continental US, and
though I know how to work safely with home AC systems , you'll probably
still need a licensed electrician to do this legally in most places).
The BBC describe his death very differerntly from the wsws by the way
VERY differently. Although they do paint a picture making suicide sound more
likely, they leave out the key detail, the size of the entry wound.
Even taking the lower end of the coroner's range, the physically-possible (for
suicide) two feet away... People just don't shoot themselves from arm's length.
And they rarely shoot themselves in the temple in the first place, generally
opting to "eat lead". At the farther end of the range... Well, can you
hold something three feet away from your head? My arms only measure 2'6", to
the fingertips (meaning I couldn't actually hold something at
that distance).
You know, if you suspect that the current administration murdered someone,
why aren't you out finding proof
Because people just don't care. Every week, we learn about new violations
of US law, the geneva convention, the US constitution, basic human rights,
and no one cares.
We get an update on the administration's body count every morning on
the news. "Six killed in a car bomb in Mosul yesterday", "fifteen dead
and dozens wounded in an attack on a Mosque in Basra", "Baghdad police
brought fifty-six bodies to the morgue this morning"... How much more
could I do, if the US public just brushes that off?
And before you say the US government has nothing to do with that,
ask yourself if the semi-democratically elected government we
overthrew, for no good reason, managed to keep all those
dogs under control...
like Woodward and Bernstein did
As soon as my own personal "Deep Throat" provides me with undisputable
proof of Bush's misdeeds...
rather than linking to dodgy conspiracy sites like the Worldwide Socialist Web Site?
I did consider linking to a different site, due to the somewhat questionable
bent on that one, but I that one had (IMO) the most meaningful detail from the coroner's
report, even ignoring the rest of the tinfoil content.
But the author would be found shot dead in his car a few months later.
You mean kinda like Cliff Baxter,
the Enron guy who agreed to talk not only about Lay and Skilling, but also about the private "consultations"
between Enron and Dick Cheney?
Funny how someone can commit "suicide" by shooting themself in the head from "two to three feet away".
That takes some serious talent.
But hey, we've forgotten all about that little blemish. Why squabble over illegal manipulation of
the energy market when we have a WAR on TERRORISM to fight, in a completely unrelated country formerly
run by a secular semi-democratically-elected leader, that coincidentally happens to contain the second
largest oil reserves on the planet.
Except that they're not the defendants in this case.
I don't know - What about the counterclaims? SCO may have bankrupted itself
fighting this battle, but IBM still plans to rape the corpse.
Which is too bad since their twisted and distorted delusional
logic would certainly support such an argument.
Fortunately, I don't think corporations can plead insanity.
I say "fortunately", because by their very raison d'etre,
corporations very much exhibit antisocial PD (what people normally
mean by the phrase "criminally insane"), as defined by the DSM-IV
(having three or more of the following traits):
Failure to
conform to social norms (have no meaning to a corporation)
Deceitfulness, manipulativeness (if they can get away with something...)
Impulsivity, failure to plan ahead (beyond the next quarter's earnings)
Irritability, aggressiveness (if threatened, sue)
Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others (OSHA exists for a reason...)
Consistent irresponsibility (...so does Sarbanes-Oxley)
Lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person (pay 'em off and call it a day)
Letting corporations plead insanity would amount to giving them carte blanche to
rape, pillage, murder, and burn the planet.
You can blame people for things that are not their fault.
That only makes sense if you don't really believe that
people lack free will. If you accept that they do not, then no,
you cannot blame them. You can't blame anything
without first ascribing to it the power to choose.
Would you blame the bullet for killing JFK? Would you blame
the asphault for killing Diana Spencer? Would you blame the
ocean for killing countless sailors throughout history?
Actually, having written it, that last point seems the most
telling - Various cultures have blamed the ocean for
those it takes, but they always attribute free will to it
(in the form of some deity o' the seas) for that purpose.
When not "Neptune's vengeance", the ocean simply acts as an
impersonal and blameless force of nature.
As a sort of middle ground, would you blame a dog for eating
a steak (formerly your future supper) left unattended and
within reach? if you say "yes", then has the dog acted
purely on preprogrammed instinct, or made a choice to do
something it knew would bring it pleasure but displease you?
You paid for a disc, a license to use the game software
Sorry, I don't play the "only bought a license, but we'll
make you repay 100% of the licensing fee for replacement media"
semantics game. Nor, for that matter, does anyone else. I say,
without hesitation or shame, that I BUY, not "license",
such things. If you want to use the RIAA's doublespeak, have a
ball; but don't expect me to go along for the ride.
When I buy a CD, I BUY a CD and the
right (even if only ethically, not legally) to do just about anything
I want with it short of making copies for others (and even then,
within reason). When I buy a book, I buy the right to read it,
remember it, tell others about it, and... Well, mass piracy doesn't
really apply to a physical book, I guess.
For games, we have two possibilities. In the non-online variation, see
the preceeding paragraphs - I buy the right to play the game however
the hell I want. I can rip it to my harddrive and apply a no-CD
crack. I can cheat at it (not much point in that, though). I can
play it using third-party strategy guides even if they publisher
throws a hissy-fit about that. I can change the underlying files
so I can get some "hot coffee".
And for the other possibility...
The advertisers are paying for the servers, server software, and
bandwidth through which your computer communicates with those of
other players.
If they gave me the disc and let me play online for free, sure. Whatever
they say, goes.
If I either had to pay for the game up-front, or
pay a monthly subscription (or more common, both), please re-read
my previous post on the subject.
Slashdot Mirror
He basically points out that a blurred mosaic amounts to a form of inexact hash function. While irreversable, if you have a small enough input space, you can exhaustively hash all possible candidates and pick the one(s) that best match the target.
Interestingly enough, while he points out that most financial account numbers contain a degree of error detection and correction, he chooses to use that to reduce the match set, rather than the candidate set. I suppose this would matter if you wanted to prove a hypothesis (if the best match yields a valid number, you have a p=[valid/total]), but if you just want to steal someone's account info, you'd do better to reduce your processing time and just try the best few results in order.
It saves me a lot of time to buy a suit in Second Life for 200 Linden dollars (less than a buck) rather than make the thing myself. And the people who sell things can then use that money for other purchases (saving time, also, I suppose).
Saves you time for what? SL has no goal. It serves no purpose but as a poorly rendered 3d chatroom.
It exists to waste time (or more accurately, to slowly drain your IRL bank account while you waste time). Saving time directly contradicts its purpose.
Of course, I would say the same thing of WoW or any other game, on- or off-line. But at least conventional games have a well-defined set of conditions (beyond cash on hand) under which you can consider your character in some way "improved". You get better weapons and armor, you level, you can kill more things faster. Can you chat faster in SL if you have a $200 suit on a Poser-rendered export than if you have a nude pennyless stick-figure as your avatar?
Um, no. In Second Life, you own the content you create. Presumably this includes one's avatar.
The content she creates, yes. The avatar, sure (as one of her creations).
But documentary footage "filmed" in a semi-public place? No. Though an easily-blurred line due to the abstract nature of the medium, this has a clear real-world equivalent - Someone taking pictures at a press conference.
Would the speaker at a press conference own the copyright to those pictures?
The detail about the penises doesn't matter one bit. Attribution of copyright has nothing to do with whether or not someone heckles the speaker.
Or to put this in a different light, on the same merits by which she could claim copyright, so too could the creator of the penises appearing in the video.
I'm entirely happy with her having that content prohibited; no one is harmed by that material *not* being shown, which means its right and proper for her privacy and dignity to be respected.
What privacy and dignity? Something everyone involved seems to have forgotten - This doesn't really involve her . Just an avatar in a "game". And even if it did, the content doesn't actually belong to her, it belongs to (if anyone) Second Life. So what gives this bink the right to go around issuing takedown notices???
It's unforunate this idea isn't part of law
Except, it does exist as part of (case) law - You only have a reasonable expectation of privacy up until the moment you go out in public. The only way this varies from the norm, she can go "out" in public without leaving her computer room.
Someone played a joke on her in a public forum. Someone else captured that joke for posterity. Nothing to see here, move along please.
(IANALBIRGL)
Users don't know what they want.
No frickin' kidding.
If you give users a choice between two mutually exclusive features, they will answer "yes". They will then complain at needing to pick one at runtime (or complain that you didn't include the other option, if you made the choice for them).
If you ask them if they need proveably-never-used features X, Y, and Z, they will vehemently insist they do. They will then complain that the final product confuses them with far too many features they don't need.
If you ask them how they want something to work, they will either A) Shrug their shoulders (then later complain you didn't listen to their input); B) lie to hide their own abusive behavior (then later complain that they can no longer get to their por - ahem - family photos); or C) Give a long, detailed explanation of what they (then ask what madman came up with how the final product works).
Should software 'just work', or are users too lazy?
Both. Software should do one task very, very well. If it doesn't try to manage photoalbums while doing your taxes and making coffee, it can perform its function well while not overwhelming the user with confusing options.
At the same time, users need to realize that computers have FAR more complexity of control than their car. In most states, to drive a car, you need to have reached a minimum age, pass certain tests of physical capability, take a six week training course and pass a written test on that material, and finally take an actual road test to prove you can handle a vehicle - And even after all that, you usually have only a probationary license until you've remained incident-free for a few years. Yet software should "just work"?
Where can I sign up to sue Chrysler over my car not automatically driving me to work (with an unannounced side trip to the grocery store) when I get in and turn on the wipers?
Others have already posted all these points, but since you replied to me, I'll respond.
The thing I don't like about it is that I have some fixtures that CFLs will not fit into.
Once true, but not anymore. Granted, you can't get high-wattage CFLs for all fixtures, but you can now get the 60W-equivalent CFLs that take up less space, at every point (including the stem), than an incandescent. My hallways, which have recessed fixtures with the bulb at an odd angle, currently contain exactly such bulbs.
If anyone doesn't believe that there is still a delay, then put a regular bulb in a socket next to a CFL bulb on the same switch. You'll see the delay.
If you need to do a side-by-side comparison to notice the delay, your objection has nothing to do with the delay itself... You have a preconceived idea of how lightbulbs "should" behave, and dislike anything contrary to that belief. Not a "bad" or "good" thing, per se, but it does cost you money to hold that belief.
At $0.17/KWh (my current rate, including all the various fees that basically double your "official" rate), switching one light kept on for roughly a third of the day, from a 60W incandescent to a 14W CF, saves $1.92 per month. Even if CFLs had the same lifespan as incandescents, the electricity alone would make them a pretty significant savings. And the longer you use a given light (foyer? Living room? Kitchen? Many people keep at least one of those turned on almost 24/7), the better the savings. Of course, I'd think about just turning it off in the middle of the day and while asleep, but some people dislike change, however beneficial.
At 6AM in the morning, the delay is a welcome "feature".
I think those who modded this as "funny" rather than "insightful" either don't use CFLs, or don't get up before dawn.
As someone who does both, I have to agree fully with you. That minute or so while the older CFLs (I don't see either the delay or the gradual increase in brightness in newer ones) ramp up to full light really makes getting up a lot easier on the eyes.
Before I changed over, I remember as my very first choice of the day, did I want to stumbling around in the dark or squint for the first five minutes after turning on the lights?
I think I will really miss that feature, once I can no longer get CFLs with what so many people choose to call a "flaw". Jeezus, folks, not like you need to enter a room and have enough light to perform brain surgery in under 2 seconds...
How do others deal with these issues?
Do any musicians use built-in Windows programs for capture and editing?
Vista's DRM, as offensive we may find it, has nothing to do with how third-party programs process their data of choice. Audacity will work just as well on Vista as on Win2k.
Now, one word of caution - This applies to the stock codecs as well as what you might normally consider "software". So if you use the default MS Format-X codec to read and write files of Format-X, MS has you by the balls. If, however, you use a (generally much better anyway) third-party codec, MS's stance on DRM has no effect on the quality of your results. Additionally, since you most likely keep the data in a raw format until the very last step of processing, even DRM-encumbered codecs shouldn't matter, since you won't use any of them in the first place.
There are several defenses.
You forgot the simplest one that will defeat all attempts at timestamp fingerprinting...
Lie about the time. As long as it monotonically increases between packets, and stays within a few seconds of accurate, everything goes smoothly (for most general-purpose data traffic - Obviously this would completely screw up something like an NTP query).
Given the nature of the internet, will it ever be possible to truly move to an 'online desktop'?"
Sure - As long as the server lives in my home office.
A decade ago I actually had such a setup for a few years, until my ISP decided to actually enforce the vague and arguably impossible "no servers" rule in their TOS. My email went to my home machine, which I could check by SSH'ing in from anywhere in the world. If I needed a file, I could tunnel in, mount a share off my home fileserver, and do whatever I wanted.
XP has actually made that more doable, in that Remote Desktop works pretty damned well even over slow connections. So now I have access to GUI-only information as well (yeah yeah, I used to do VNC or remote X desktops, but even over a broadband connection those crawl, and don't (directly) support sharing any non-GUI resources such as files, printers, and sound).
The problem here comes from our ISPs, who want to sell us something then have us never use it, whether our already meagre upstream bandwidth, or unwritten but strictly enforced monthly caps (*cough* Verizon *cough*). Never forget, in the heat of all the debate on the subject, that "net neutrality" only applies to big companies who view us as consumers of content. We small-scale end users have never enjoyed neutrality.
So to answer the question - We can truly move to an "online" desktop just as soon as enough of us force the ISPs to let us use the bandwidth we pay for however the hell we want. Not before.
If you're in a HUMM-V in Iraq, do you really want to be setting up a satellite connection just to use your laptop?
No, I don't suppose I would.
Now, sitting in that same vehicle in Iraq, why exactly would you need to know the complete VA medical benefits history of Frank Brown, age 84, current location (and residence), Chelsea WI?
Offline access to (nonclassified) maps, great. Offline access to somewhat sensitive information directly relevant to your mission, fine. Offline access to data that has no use and should never make it past the door of a cushy HR office somewhere inside the Pentagon? No. No reason at all.
You've conflated all government employees (keep in mind the US government employs over fifteen percent of the workforce) with the role of a deployed unit's SigInt officer. When people say the government needs to fix its IT policy to control where information goes rather than the media it goes there on, no one means that we should let soldiers die rather than give them encrypted laptops. But like it or not, "for the troops" has as much validity as "for the kids". An emotional hotbutton that can make truly absurd and ineffective changes sound appealing.
Because not every government employee has access to high bandwidth connections, especially if they are stationed outside the US. Disconnected operation is essential.
If you work as a low-level US diplomat in Peru, do you really need to carry around the complete medical records of 20 million veterans?
Additionally, you can get a tolerable bandwidth connection anywhere on the planet - We now have these things circling the Earth far above, sort of artificial "satellites", if you will. Some of them have the purpose of facilitating bidirectional data communication between two points on the planet - Such as a cottage in the middle of nowhere, and a datacenter in the US.
A decent satellite net connection doesn't come cheap, but keep in mind the target audience here - The single most fiscally-irresponsible entity on the planet.
Or in some industries, your life.
Oh, don't sound so pessimistic!
Those players just chose to hit the "reset" button to try again with a new character, rather than trying to salvage their current one with a large time penalty.
This article has COMPLETELY missed the point.
Consumer electronics do increasingly contribute to a home's electric budget, but only by virtue of quantity. Except for PCs and TVs, most products draw a pittance. For PCs, they did draw more and more power from the mid-80s to a year or two ago, but newer CPUs have finally addressed that problem (and power supplies have gotten more efficient as well). For TVs, larger means more power, but the tech has drastically improved... A 50" plasma draws comparable to a 30" old-style CRT, and LCDs drop that by another 80% or so.
The real power-hungry devices in most homes haven't changed in 50 years... Refridgerator, electric stove/oven, electric clothesdryer, electric water heater, AC, electric heat (so bad that you virtually never see it in places that actually get cold). Simply cooking dinner every night on an electric stovetop puts every high-tech toy in the house combined to shame for power draw.
Of course, it's always going to be the case the key is in memory during playback, finding the address would be the pain
Not really... Even without any better strategy, you can narrow the potential range down QUITE a bit (within one process' address space), and exhaustively try every machine-aligned keylength-block in just a few seconds. And it would surprise me greatly if we can't do a whole lot better than that
and revoke keys in future pressings and force upgrades to software users.
Revocation accomplishes nothing (except, as with most DRM, annoying legitimate users) if the cracker can get the key dynamically. This problem WILL result in the eventual blacklisting of XP for HD content, at which point the protection of AACS will reduce to the security of Vista's kernel (ie, already cracked).
It's all about demonstrating clear intent to violate DMCA and take legal rather technical measures to 'deal' with the problem.
Bingo. Although it does look like they at least tried to make it somewhat hard this time, no solution (not even quantum) exists to the cryptography problem where "Bob" and "Carol" (the "man-in-the-middle") count as the same entity.
So that if I have to demo something to a remote community
...
is this really practical in the modern world?
"Remote community" and "modern world" contradict one another here.
You've hypothesized the existance of someplace that has the technological resources to run a TV and DVD player, but where your laptop (with far more flexible power requirements) won't work?
Furthermore, you can always re-burn the content if you absolutely need a physical DVD, at a cost of less than 25 cents (USD) per disc.
That said, I do appreciate your original point. The physical media won't last forever; but that holds just as true for analog tape-based media as it does for polycarbonate discs. That also holds true for HDDs. So to literally answer the original (probably rhetorical) question - No one can make that guarantee. All current forms of media will decay over time.
I believe the GP's point, however, relies on the ease of transfer... Until we eventually come up with some truly durable form of archival storage (which with the increasingly digital nature of our culture, we must eventually do so or risk leaving no records for the future), We have one and only one choice for preserving such material - redundant lossless serial copies.
Given that, it takes a lot less time and effort to duplicate a HDD containing a hundred ripped DVDs than it does to rip and reburn that same hundred physical discs.
it will still be several more years before the victorious format supplants the DVD.
I will "upgrade" to the best HD format only when it counts as an actual upgrade - Meaning I can play it, in full resolution, on a Linux box.
Note that I don't include the word "legally" in that condition... A broken-feature-reenabling ripper (like DVD Decrypter used to do for region coding, macrovision, and button lockout) will work just as well as an authorized player.
So, which group will give me what I want first? Sony, Toshiba, or DVD-Jon? The winner takes all.
Let the free market decide.
Except, you've expressed an idea COMPLETELY incompatible with intellectual property. You simply can't have IP in a truly free market (which we don't, and will never, have - not even close). IP can only exist either as closely-guarded "trade" secrets, or as a form of legal/fictional "property". Dealing with the former explains why we have our current system of patents in the first place, though when it actively blocks certain avenues of research, I think we can safely say it has failed.
Yes, all the pictures show a sweet widescreen plasma TV... But not always the same one, and the list of items that comes in this 15k package does NOT include a TV (if you have a more comprehensive list, please provide a link?).
So sure, the buyer might want to add another 2k-3k on top of that $15k. But I don't think they'd leave out mention of the second most expensive item in the kit in their advertising literature.
Also from what I have read in other press articles on this they actually recommend going with an electrician to do the electrical work.
Thus I wrote (quoting my post to which you responsed):
Before you mod this "redundant", at the time of this posting, no one else has actually done the math, just guessed...
... $6690.
For that you get a Media Center PC
Averages around $900, but they use the HP z560 at $1800...
Lifeware automation software from Exceptional Innovation
This one took some work. The closest I could get to a price, $5000, includes hardware. But it puts us at an upper limit, at least.
an Xbox 360
The easiest to find, at $400
IP surveillance cameras
They use a pair of Panasonics (not sure of the model number), around $380 each.
automated light switches
FTA: "five dimmers, five switches, two keypads". Home Depot, $80.
a thermostat
Again, no model number given, but the standard model goes for $270
and installation.
Not really - They want you to have the "hard" parts done yourself, by a privately contracted licensed electrician.
The package costs $15,000.
Total so far, $8310 (not counting your own electrician).
So, not counting needing to hire your own electrician, that puts the cost of their installation at roughly
I've made some pretty damned good wages doing contract work, but over $6k for less than a day's work? Wow, talk about a dream job...
Anyone that wants this system - Hunt me down for contact info. I'll do it for a third less (you pay airfair outside the continental US, and though I know how to work safely with home AC systems , you'll probably still need a licensed electrician to do this legally in most places).
The BBC describe his death very differerntly from the wsws by the way
VERY differently. Although they do paint a picture making suicide sound more likely, they leave out the key detail, the size of the entry wound.
Even taking the lower end of the coroner's range, the physically-possible (for suicide) two feet away... People just don't shoot themselves from arm's length. And they rarely shoot themselves in the temple in the first place, generally opting to "eat lead". At the farther end of the range... Well, can you hold something three feet away from your head? My arms only measure 2'6", to the fingertips (meaning I couldn't actually hold something at that distance).
You know, if you suspect that the current administration murdered someone, why aren't you out finding proof
Because people just don't care. Every week, we learn about new violations of US law, the geneva convention, the US constitution, basic human rights, and no one cares.
We get an update on the administration's body count every morning on the news. "Six killed in a car bomb in Mosul yesterday", "fifteen dead and dozens wounded in an attack on a Mosque in Basra", "Baghdad police brought fifty-six bodies to the morgue this morning"... How much more could I do, if the US public just brushes that off?
And before you say the US government has nothing to do with that, ask yourself if the semi-democratically elected government we overthrew, for no good reason, managed to keep all those dogs under control...
like Woodward and Bernstein did
As soon as my own personal "Deep Throat" provides me with undisputable proof of Bush's misdeeds...
rather than linking to dodgy conspiracy sites like the Worldwide Socialist Web Site?
I did consider linking to a different site, due to the somewhat questionable bent on that one, but I that one had (IMO) the most meaningful detail from the coroner's report, even ignoring the rest of the tinfoil content.
But the author would be found shot dead in his car a few months later.
You mean kinda like Cliff Baxter, the Enron guy who agreed to talk not only about Lay and Skilling, but also about the private "consultations" between Enron and Dick Cheney?
Funny how someone can commit "suicide" by shooting themself in the head from "two to three feet away". That takes some serious talent.
But hey, we've forgotten all about that little blemish. Why squabble over illegal manipulation of the energy market when we have a WAR on TERRORISM to fight, in a completely unrelated country formerly run by a secular semi-democratically-elected leader, that coincidentally happens to contain the second largest oil reserves on the planet.
I don't know - What about the counterclaims? SCO may have bankrupted itself fighting this battle, but IBM still plans to rape the corpse.
Which is too bad since their twisted and distorted delusional logic would certainly support such an argument.
Fortunately, I don't think corporations can plead insanity.
I say "fortunately", because by their very raison d'etre, corporations very much exhibit antisocial PD (what people normally mean by the phrase "criminally insane"), as defined by the DSM-IV (having three or more of the following traits):
Letting corporations plead insanity would amount to giving them carte blanche to rape, pillage, murder, and burn the planet.
You can blame people for things that are not their fault.
That only makes sense if you don't really believe that people lack free will. If you accept that they do not, then no, you cannot blame them. You can't blame anything without first ascribing to it the power to choose.
Would you blame the bullet for killing JFK? Would you blame the asphault for killing Diana Spencer? Would you blame the ocean for killing countless sailors throughout history?
Actually, having written it, that last point seems the most telling - Various cultures have blamed the ocean for those it takes, but they always attribute free will to it (in the form of some deity o' the seas) for that purpose. When not "Neptune's vengeance", the ocean simply acts as an impersonal and blameless force of nature.
As a sort of middle ground, would you blame a dog for eating a steak (formerly your future supper) left unattended and within reach? if you say "yes", then has the dog acted purely on preprogrammed instinct, or made a choice to do something it knew would bring it pleasure but displease you?
You paid for a disc, a license to use the game software
Sorry, I don't play the "only bought a license, but we'll make you repay 100% of the licensing fee for replacement media" semantics game. Nor, for that matter, does anyone else. I say, without hesitation or shame, that I BUY, not "license", such things. If you want to use the RIAA's doublespeak, have a ball; but don't expect me to go along for the ride.
When I buy a CD, I BUY a CD and the right (even if only ethically, not legally) to do just about anything I want with it short of making copies for others (and even then, within reason). When I buy a book, I buy the right to read it, remember it, tell others about it, and... Well, mass piracy doesn't really apply to a physical book, I guess.
For games, we have two possibilities. In the non-online variation, see the preceeding paragraphs - I buy the right to play the game however the hell I want. I can rip it to my harddrive and apply a no-CD crack. I can cheat at it (not much point in that, though). I can play it using third-party strategy guides even if they publisher throws a hissy-fit about that. I can change the underlying files so I can get some "hot coffee".
And for the other possibility...
The advertisers are paying for the servers, server software, and bandwidth through which your computer communicates with those of other players.
If they gave me the disc and let me play online for free, sure. Whatever they say, goes.
If I either had to pay for the game up-front, or pay a monthly subscription (or more common, both), please re-read my previous post on the subject.