Natural disasters and invading armies, that destroy infrastructure and bury goods forever. Little gremlins that slip past and thief gems and amulets. These would tend to spice up the games.
They get it for free, but they also lose it any time someone wants to take it away, for any specific domain. I personally don't like it, but I don't know if this particular avenue of attack will succeed.
(I'd still use C because I've never used Fortran).
Why don't you read the basics of Fortran syntax before you pronounce that judgement? I never said that Fortran was unusable; I said it had major structural problems in the language. It's impossible to write a complex program without using GOTOs, for instance. It's okay for quick 'n dirty, small stuff, but for long-term use it can be a maintenance nightmare.
Yeah, this is definitely a troll, but it needs to be said.
Is Fortran being held back? Perhaps. I think that's just fine; Fortran OUGHT to be held back. Anyone needing those advanced features really ought to be coding in a different language. Fortran has too many structural problems to use for major applications.
Verisign does own Internic, but they're supposed to run it as a non-profit... It'd be quite inconvenient for their cash to hemorrhage across their books into that category.
Verisign now owes money to the Internic for every domain they now effectively hold. Considering how many misspelled domains get hit, I think we're going to have plenty of cash to upgrade the root name infrastructure, don't you?
I'd have to disagree that micropayments won't work; I think micropayments do have potential, though establishing the system may take some work.
Given the choice between, say, downloading a song off Grokster for free, or paying a dime to download it directly from the artist's web site, it's true that many people will choose to grab it for free. But if the version off the web page is known good while the one on Kazaa may have glitches, that ten cents may not seem to be such a big deal. The good feeling one gets in "donating" to an artist one likes helps as well.
The bugaboo in micropayments isn't whether people will do it; it's in getting such a system emplaced. What good is being able to pay someone a nickel over the net if you've got to buy $9 worth of nickels first, with an extra buck for a transaction fee?
I suspect what we need is a "killer app". For instance, someone selling a nice, useful tangible service and ONLY accepting this micropayment as currency. An entity doing so would also need to bear the cost of sustaining this electronic currency.
I don't think a court would consider this a very good example of prior art. Consider that most any software patent would have been implementable in your favorite programming language ten years ago, if you'd thought of it. Whether the building blocks were lines of low-level code or statements in Notes is irrelevant. Now, if a copy of a Notes app that used that particular technique way back when could be found, it'd be a different story.
I strongly dislike software patents (I dislike patents, period), but that's no excuse to be sloppy in attacking one.
Minivans don't like desert roads. I know, I own one. Wound up with the A/C compressor freezing up and disabling the vehicle. I don't take my van off pavement any more.
Unless you're using your cell phone to field work calls, I strongly recommend you set your phone to block calls with restricted caller information. (Sometimes this can be set right in the phone's menu; if not, you can call your provider and ask them to turn it on.) If someone wants to talk with you badly enough, let 'em *82 and tell you who's calling.
Like the others who've replied to my original analogy, I think what you propose is certainly reasonable. Unfortunately, reality tends to take a different turn. Prosecutors pile on damages they CAN'T justify by the method you just stated; they'll get as high a number as they can manage and base the charges on it. Look at what happened to Kevin Mitnick, for instance; tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in "virtual damage" that never actually happened.
I'm not saying a transgressor shouldn't have to pay a fine for trespass, or damage to property he caused while there. I'm saying it's not fair making someone pay for security that wasn't there. As for "having the criminal ensure that he can't commit that crime again", I think again you're imposing an unfair burden on that transgressor.
Under the system you propose, you'd better keep your kids on a leash, in case they cut across the neighbor's property and therefore oblige you to build him a wall.
An interesting idea, certainly. Your system, as proposed, would mean your yard wouldn't be fenced unless and until someone did trespass on it, and was caught. Perhaps he was up to no good, or perhaps he was just taking a short cut, but until that time you didn't have a fence. What if that trespasser wasn't caught? What if he made off with your expensive antique pink flamingo lawn ornament?
What I'm saying is that retroactive security is practically useless, and if you don't guard your goodies you're a fool; and waiting for someone to foot the bill is even more foolish.
Further, what sort of fence does this transgressor owe you for? Barbed wire? Chain link? A brick wall? Who decides? Whatever happened to the idea that "the punishment should fit the crime"?
Reasonable enough; yet that's usually not what prosecutors value the intrusion at. They'll roll in the expense of putting on those super-duper-high-security locks on top of those costs, just so they could sensationalize the crime.
It's by no means a perfect analogy, but it's better than the one alluded to by the "hacking" label. If I took a fire axe to your front door, then by all means, I should owe restitution to replace the door, on top of whatever actual damage I did. But if you took that opportunity to demand I pay for an expensive solid-steel door when the one I smashed was cheap, hollow wood, then you would, in my opinion, be taking unfair advantage of the situation.
In this case, not even a hollow door was "hacked apart". Security was bypassed, not destroyed. No vulnerabilities were induced that weren't already present, and which would have persisted if the attack hadn't taken place. So how is it right to demand he pay for upgrading that security?
Ahem. The link goes to an experimental design that would require a lot less money to perform, since it's smaller and needs fewer materials; it also eliminates the problem of trying to calculate how much heat you're putting into the experiment by running a current between the electrodes and determining the amount of "excess heat", which would be a couple orders of magnitude lower. It's a serious design, not a "troll".
One sleepless night I pondered the set-up everyone's been using to test cold fusion, with all its failings, and came up with a new experimental test to try and isolate the effect. After toying with the idea for a few weeks, I decided I'd never build it myself, and published it. I sent emails to a few places that do such research, and never heard back.
To match the fidelity of a DAT recorder, you'd need a laptop and a USB audio adapter, and record the raw audio input (no compression). A palmtop with an auxiliary battery and Microdrive might work as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Natural disasters and invading armies, that destroy infrastructure and bury goods forever. Little gremlins that slip past and thief gems and amulets. These would tend to spice up the games.
They get it for free, but they also lose it any time someone wants to take it away, for any specific domain. I personally don't like it, but I don't know if this particular avenue of attack will succeed.
If we lived on a gas giant, we'd be dead; humans can't survive in that environment.
* "Get it right, you're a star. Get it half right, you're a gas giant." -- Spider Robinson
(I'd still use C because I've never used Fortran).
Why don't you read the basics of Fortran syntax before you pronounce that judgement? I never said that Fortran was unusable; I said it had major structural problems in the language. It's impossible to write a complex program without using GOTOs, for instance. It's okay for quick 'n dirty, small stuff, but for long-term use it can be a maintenance nightmare.
That should be:
:-P
20 CONTINUE
25 C++ faster than Fortran
Remember, jumping to a line number that's not on a CONTINUE statement can break things.
Yeah, this is definitely a troll, but it needs to be said.
Is Fortran being held back? Perhaps. I think that's just fine; Fortran OUGHT to be held back. Anyone needing those advanced features really ought to be coding in a different language. Fortran has too many structural problems to use for major applications.
Verisign does own Internic, but they're supposed to run it as a non-profit... It'd be quite inconvenient for their cash to hemorrhage across their books into that category.
Verisign now owes money to the Internic for every domain they now effectively hold. Considering how many misspelled domains get hit, I think we're going to have plenty of cash to upgrade the root name infrastructure, don't you?
Use a voice modem and call the person's cell phone.
"Help! Help! The power went out!"
"Help! Help! Someone is stealing the router!"
Hopefully, your techs won't think it's Stephen Hawking who needs assistance...
I'd have to disagree that micropayments won't work; I think micropayments do have potential, though establishing the system may take some work.
Given the choice between, say, downloading a song off Grokster for free, or paying a dime to download it directly from the artist's web site, it's true that many people will choose to grab it for free. But if the version off the web page is known good while the one on Kazaa may have glitches, that ten cents may not seem to be such a big deal. The good feeling one gets in "donating" to an artist one likes helps as well.
The bugaboo in micropayments isn't whether people will do it; it's in getting such a system emplaced. What good is being able to pay someone a nickel over the net if you've got to buy $9 worth of nickels first, with an extra buck for a transaction fee?
I suspect what we need is a "killer app". For instance, someone selling a nice, useful tangible service and ONLY accepting this micropayment as currency. An entity doing so would also need to bear the cost of sustaining this electronic currency.
I don't think a court would consider this a very good example of prior art. Consider that most any software patent would have been implementable in your favorite programming language ten years ago, if you'd thought of it. Whether the building blocks were lines of low-level code or statements in Notes is irrelevant. Now, if a copy of a Notes app that used that particular technique way back when could be found, it'd be a different story.
I strongly dislike software patents (I dislike patents, period), but that's no excuse to be sloppy in attacking one.
Minivans don't like desert roads. I know, I own one. Wound up with the A/C compressor freezing up and disabling the vehicle. I don't take my van off pavement any more.
Not everyone lives in an area where all the roads are paved.
(For that matter, paving roads with asphalt produces plenty of pollution, too.)
Unless you're using your cell phone to field work calls, I strongly recommend you set your phone to block calls with restricted caller information. (Sometimes this can be set right in the phone's menu; if not, you can call your provider and ask them to turn it on.) If someone wants to talk with you badly enough, let 'em *82 and tell you who's calling.
Like the others who've replied to my original analogy, I think what you propose is certainly reasonable. Unfortunately, reality tends to take a different turn. Prosecutors pile on damages they CAN'T justify by the method you just stated; they'll get as high a number as they can manage and base the charges on it. Look at what happened to Kevin Mitnick, for instance; tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in "virtual damage" that never actually happened.
I'm not saying a transgressor shouldn't have to pay a fine for trespass, or damage to property he caused while there. I'm saying it's not fair making someone pay for security that wasn't there. As for "having the criminal ensure that he can't commit that crime again", I think again you're imposing an unfair burden on that transgressor.
Under the system you propose, you'd better keep your kids on a leash, in case they cut across the neighbor's property and therefore oblige you to build him a wall.
An interesting idea, certainly. Your system, as proposed, would mean your yard wouldn't be fenced unless and until someone did trespass on it, and was caught. Perhaps he was up to no good, or perhaps he was just taking a short cut, but until that time you didn't have a fence. What if that trespasser wasn't caught? What if he made off with your expensive antique pink flamingo lawn ornament?
What I'm saying is that retroactive security is practically useless, and if you don't guard your goodies you're a fool; and waiting for someone to foot the bill is even more foolish.
Further, what sort of fence does this transgressor owe you for? Barbed wire? Chain link? A brick wall? Who decides? Whatever happened to the idea that "the punishment should fit the crime"?
No, and the transgressor should pay for removing the graffiti; that's damage he caused.
Reasonable enough; yet that's usually not what prosecutors value the intrusion at. They'll roll in the expense of putting on those super-duper-high-security locks on top of those costs, just so they could sensationalize the crime.
It's by no means a perfect analogy, but it's better than the one alluded to by the "hacking" label. If I took a fire axe to your front door, then by all means, I should owe restitution to replace the door, on top of whatever actual damage I did. But if you took that opportunity to demand I pay for an expensive solid-steel door when the one I smashed was cheap, hollow wood, then you would, in my opinion, be taking unfair advantage of the situation.
In this case, not even a hollow door was "hacked apart". Security was bypassed, not destroyed. No vulnerabilities were induced that weren't already present, and which would have persisted if the attack hadn't taken place. So how is it right to demand he pay for upgrading that security?
Just because you catch me strolling across your yard doesn't mean I should pay for having it fenced.
Ahem. The link goes to an experimental design that would require a lot less money to perform, since it's smaller and needs fewer materials; it also eliminates the problem of trying to calculate how much heat you're putting into the experiment by running a current between the electrodes and determining the amount of "excess heat", which would be a couple orders of magnitude lower. It's a serious design, not a "troll".
One sleepless night I pondered the set-up everyone's been using to test cold fusion, with all its failings, and came up with a new experimental test to try and isolate the effect. After toying with the idea for a few weeks, I decided I'd never build it myself, and published it. I sent emails to a few places that do such research, and never heard back.
http://www.shambala.net/misc/hoffmancell.gif
If anyone wishes to play with this design, please do; I'd even be interested if you tried and didn't find anything.
To match the fidelity of a DAT recorder, you'd need a laptop and a USB audio adapter, and record the raw audio input (no compression). A palmtop with an auxiliary battery and Microdrive might work as well.
That's "Vogonity".