In a discussion about not citing wikipedia or any encyclopedia, you cited wikipedia saying "wikipedia is reliable".
I actually cited wikipedia which was citing Nature which was citing an actual study
If NRA is the course, citing the source directly means the reader doesn't have to click ANYTHING to find out what the source is, and if they consider that source to be credible.
Why would you cite the NRA rather than the source they cited?
You can't screw up by leaving unclosed tags without it being very obvious at a glance.
Did I leave out any ending tags (e.g. } ] ) in that JSON code? I don't think I did, but who knows. I guess you just have to let the computer figure that out.
I have seen (too often) programs vomiting out XML that mixes the approaches depending ion which member of the team wrote the object being dumped. It seems better not to offer the ambiguity in the first place.
I hope you aren't saying this isn't a problem with JSON...
I agree with you about removing superfluous choices from programmers, but I also think giving people good choices prevents them from needing to use a hammer for everything. Maybe XML has more choices in general. Like with other languages with more power, you need to put forth some more self control when using them.
There are XML style guides just like there are C++ and java style guides. I have yet to see a language that inherently prevent people from writing bad code.
I am not in love with having 2 ways of representing data in XML (child nodes vs. attributes), but I have learned to use it in a way I find acceptable. I use attributes for anything that there should only be one of. and child nodes for anything that might be a list or has sub properties. This makes my XML code pretty attribute heavy compared with other people, but whatever.
FYI wiki is not a source, it's some random person's posting on the internet, just like this is.
No it's not a source. It's a curated aggregation of sources (which are all cited). It's an encyclopedia. If you don't want to read 100 journal articles and you want to get the gist of what's true about a topic, wikipedia is pretty much unbeatable. If you could only read 1 scientific paper on a subject or the wikipedia article, you'd probably be more knowledgeable after reading the wikipedia article.
And if you want to call wikipedia articles random postings on the internet, then you have to explain to me how random postings are just as accurate as other encyclopedias
Several studies have been done to assess the reliability of Wikipedia. A notable early study in the journal Nature said that in 2005, Wikipedia scientific articles came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors".[2] The study by Nature was disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica,[3] and later Nature replied to this refutation with both a formal response and a point-by-point rebuttal of Britannica's main objections.
What's dangerous about it? I see how it is dangerous if you are not allowed to disable it. But even if it re-enables itself in windows without user interaction, that's just annoying, and you might consider not using an OS or a configuration that does this. That doesn't mean that the TPM is inherently bad. The option of having a TPM is at worst neutral, because you don't need to use it.
If TPM becomes mandatory (i.e. not able to be disabled), then I will be the first person boycotting whoever supports it. But as long as it is optional, I just don't see the harm.
You obviously don't target constrained environments very often. It doesn't matter if there's a library for it if it dwarfs the actual application in storage and memory footprint.
I deal with all kinds of environments from embedded systems systems with almost unlimited cores and ram.
I referred to XML based crap because for every appropriate use I see, there's 9 more that are totally inappropriate.
Which kinds of programming technologies aren't misused 90% of the time?
As for HTTP, note that it is actually a fairly simple protocol based on tagged fields with a colon separator and \r\n field delimiter. That's why it took off like wildfire and works to this day. The same can be said for most of the critical protocols on the net. Not a in sight until you get to the payload.
It's not binary. It's plaintext. What difference does which characters are the delimiters?
Where there is real complexity to the data that calls for a heavier representation, I prefer JSON to XML. People find WAY too many ways to make XML ambiguous. It has the additional advantage that it grew up with realistic expectations while XML was the next great scheme to make everything automagically interoperate without even trying.
The types of data represented by JSON and xml are basically the same. If you can find a way to make XML ambiguous, then you can find a way to make JSON ambiguous too. It seems like you just prefer colons to angle brackets for some reason.
I think XML is better than JSON, but it's not because it looks prettier or anything like that. I like it better because it has better integration with other tools like XSLT, xpath, and CSS. That's the only reason. If it weren't for that, I really wouldn't care which one I used. I thought it was kind of cool that json was executable javascript when it came out, but as it turns out it's not even safe to use it like that anyway.
It has the additional advantage that it grew up with realistic expectations while XML was the next great scheme to make everything automagically interoperate without even trying. That promise has come and gone several times and never worked out (naturally, only a genuine AI could make that work)
I don't care what some people promised XML would be able to do. It's just an encoding for hierarchical data, with some common libraries to encode and decode it. No more, no less. You don't need to take it for more than what it is.
Executive summary: use the right tool for the right job.
Once it goes on the wire the format of data should be defined by a specification. That in itself is a design choice. Some things require an xml/json type of design to do them right.
The amount of code that *you* have to write, should be negligible no matter how you decide to do it. There are libraries that provide quick serialization and deserialization of xml data, which is why people use it.
If you are sending data over http (how most xml/html/json data gets sent), then the overhead from http will kill just about any efficiency you get from stripping the xml from a file and sending it as a binary.
Obviously you can use xml wrong. You can use *anything* wrong.
The fact that you refer to "XML based crap" leads me to wonder whether you are just biased against XML, and would never use it even if it were the best solution to a problem.
I don't think it can get re-enabled without you knowing. If it is enabled, any software that is not signed by some authority will be prevented from executing. If you find that some software you wanted to execute is not executing due to it not supporting TPM, then you would know that the TPM became active without you're approval. You could go and disable it again. This might be pretty irritating, but this isn't the sort of "disable" feature I had in mind. I am expecting an option to disable TPM until I specifically re-enble it.
Custom flyswatters are almost always more error prone than widely used sledgehammers. Yes they are more bloated, but whether that matters depends on whether you are using 1 sledgehammer to swat a fly or a billion sledge hammers to swat a billion flies.
In any case, my point was not that we should be using sledge hammers to swat flies. My 2 points were that we should be using widely (thoroughly tested) tools rather than custom solutions, and if we anticipate the possibility of needing to swat a billion flies, using a tool that efficiently swats a billion flies, even if it swats 1 fly inefficiently (i.e. I am advocating scalability)
For example: Looking up 1 item in a linkedhashmap of 2 items is inefficient compared to checking 2 items in an array, but it doesn't matter because the difference is only a few clock cycles. Even if we never add the 1 billion items we thought we might, the worst case is not that bad. If we keep the array, the best case (only 1 item) is really fast, but the worst case (a billion items) is *really* slow. In this case the bloated software is either a little slower or *way* faster depending on how many items are in the container. That's the kind of bloat I can live with (i.e. I can't live with all kinds of bloat)
I don't see a problem with it, unless it can't be disabled. If you want all the freedoms, one of those freedoms is to enable or disable a TPM when you want. Maybe the only reason you want a TPM is so you can have one to test ways to circumvent it.
It was a joke you fucking idiot. I've marched in the gay pride parade 3 times already. 4 of my gay friends got married at the last parade because it was just after prop 8 was repealed.
Got any other out of context comments I've made? Or was that really the best you could do?
Designs are only complicated when they are unique. If I write my own LinkedHashMap to store 2 values, it is overcomplicated. If I just invoke a standard java LinkedHashMap to store 2 values, then it's the same design, but since everyone knows what a java LinkedHashMap does, it is simple. Also It can be swapped out for a simple array with relative ease if the code is designed in a way that is maintainable.
Even if you are using design patterns, you should be leveraging not just the knowledge that other people have acquired, but also the APIS and routines available in libraries. This way switching your program from using a simple design to a complicated design patter is easy.
It shouldn't matter that you are using an overly fancy tool to solve a job that can be solved by a simple tool. Electrons are free. What isn't free is human time and effort. So just be sure not to design your application in a way that makes it hard to change.
Sufficient participation may not be direct control, but knowledge about the participants is certainly some sort of control.
It does seem possible to figure out who some people are in bitcoin by analyzing transactions, but I think you can also get around this by having lots of different wallets. Even in the case of real money where bank accounts all need people's names attached to them, it is hard, but not impossible, to figure out who the money belongs to, bitcoin adds one security feature beyond this in that the wallet Ids (bank account names) are anonymous.
as far as computer security goes...
II think the NSA could probably hack into almost any system if they decide to target it. It does take a lot of resources to figure out which IP addresses correspond to which computers and actually break into them. OSes are constantly being patched as new vulnerabilities are discovered. People typically have at least 2 firewalls (NAT + OS). I don't think the NSA could install rootkits on everyone's computers without people finding out. They have to be selective about who they infect in order to keep their tools and methods secret and effective.
I think the government can be very effective in very specific situations due to it's large amount of resources. However it seems to be utterly incompetent 99% of the time. The only conclusion I can draw from this is, is that being competent is extremely expensive for the government. They can't pull a "seal team 6" in every situation. Most of the time they put the B or C team on the job and get mediocre results. They can't even pass a fucking budget. I think the amount of effort that they would need to spend to stop bitcoin would not be worth it to them.
I don;t even think it will ultimately matter. I think the dollar will stop being the reserve currency in the next couple decades, and at that time the US government may want something like bitcoin as a currency that is "valuable" (unlike the $), that is not able to be controlled by the Chinese.
I don't see how taking a bunch of things I said out of context makes you any less of of an idiot for believing that the US government is intentionally keeping al queda in business.
It's not even like those posts make me look bad out of the context of the conversations they were a part of. They just don't make any sense.
But I suppose as a conspiracy theory nut job, you can make sense out of just about anything.
So, how many "solutions to hard math problems" can I get in exchange for one bitcoin ? And how many units of those "solutions to hard math problems" do I need to buy an apple / how many of those "solutions to hard math problems" units go in an ounce of gold ?
Currently 1 BTC (the solution to 1 hard math problem) is worth $105. I don;t know how much gold or apples that buys, but it is some number greater than 0.
How is this any different to why gold is worth something? It took a lot of effort to get the gold. That's it.
Well in fact there are several hard math problems.
problem #1: A hard math problem whose answer proves a bitcoin was found.
problem #2: A nearly impossible math problem whose answer allows you to prove that you own a bitcoin.
You share the answer to problem #1. You keep the answer to problem #2 a secret. You don;t need to reveal the answer to problem#2 to prove that you have solved it. That's what makes it so that only 1 person can spend a bitcoin per time he/she owns it.
This wouldn't affect people living in other parts of the world, but it would mean that nobody would be able to use BTC in the US and if they wanted to trade BTC for USD or the other way around, they would have to trade for an intermediary currency.
How would forcing people to convert their bitcoins to euros before converting to dollars count as enforcing anything? They can't even do that because I could change my bitcoins straight to dollars in a foreign bank.
And they most certainly can enforce this. Anybody caught sending money to an exchange would have to substantiate where the money is going and the exchanges would probably be prevented from accepting money for US citizens.
How exactly do you catch people sending money to an exchange? Are you unaware that encryption exists?
I've wondered about this myself. Basically I agree in principle with the idea that Bitcoin is not controlled by the government, but to say it couldn't be? The government has an awful lot of processing power in the computers they do and could control.
Yes but if they did it by mining bitcoins, they aren't controlling bitcoin, they are participating in it.
When the government needs more dollars, sometimes they sell more bonds or raise taxes, but sometimes they just print more. When you can make more money with the click of a mouse, that's controlling the currency.
And yes, if we assume the NSA can hack into every single computer running every single kind of OS, then they can control the world, and not just bitcoin. But I doubt they can actually do this.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm absolutely certain that if you try to use that as an http request, it will fail (sure enough: 501 Method Not Implemented).
It was just a wikipedia json structure with whitespace removed. Not an http request.
In XML I have seen <name value='John'/> as well as <name>John</name> I don't see the JSON equivilent.
{"name" : "John"} == <name value='John'/>
{"name" : ["John"] } == <name>John</name>
In a discussion about not citing wikipedia or any encyclopedia, you cited wikipedia saying "wikipedia is reliable".
I actually cited wikipedia which was citing Nature which was citing an actual study
If NRA is the course, citing the source directly means the reader doesn't have to click ANYTHING to find out what the source is, and if they consider that source to be credible.
Why would you cite the NRA rather than the source they cited?
You can't mush it all together so that it looks like line noise without breaking it.
{"firstName":"John","lastName":"Smith","age": 25,"address": {"streetAddress": "21 2nd Street","city":"New York","state": "NY","postalCode": 10021},"phoneNumbers": [{"type": "home","number": "212 555-1234"},{"type": "fax","number": "646 555-4567"}]}
You can't screw up by leaving unclosed tags without it being very obvious at a glance.
Did I leave out any ending tags (e.g. } ] ) in that JSON code? I don't think I did, but who knows. I guess you just have to let the computer figure that out.
I have seen (too often) programs vomiting out XML that mixes the approaches depending ion which member of the team wrote the object being dumped. It seems better not to offer the ambiguity in the first place.
I hope you aren't saying this isn't a problem with JSON...
I agree with you about removing superfluous choices from programmers, but I also think giving people good choices prevents them from needing to use a hammer for everything. Maybe XML has more choices in general. Like with other languages with more power, you need to put forth some more self control when using them.
There are XML style guides just like there are C++ and java style guides. I have yet to see a language that inherently prevent people from writing bad code.
I am not in love with having 2 ways of representing data in XML (child nodes vs. attributes), but I have learned to use it in a way I find acceptable. I use attributes for anything that there should only be one of. and child nodes for anything that might be a list or has sub properties. This makes my XML code pretty attribute heavy compared with other people, but whatever.
FYI wiki is not a source, it's some random person's posting on the internet, just like this is.
No it's not a source. It's a curated aggregation of sources (which are all cited). It's an encyclopedia. If you don't want to read 100 journal articles and you want to get the gist of what's true about a topic, wikipedia is pretty much unbeatable. If you could only read 1 scientific paper on a subject or the wikipedia article, you'd probably be more knowledgeable after reading the wikipedia article.
And if you want to call wikipedia articles random postings on the internet, then you have to explain to me how random postings are just as accurate as other encyclopedias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
Several studies have been done to assess the reliability of Wikipedia. A notable early study in the journal Nature said that in 2005, Wikipedia scientific articles came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors".[2] The study by Nature was disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica,[3] and later Nature replied to this refutation with both a formal response and a point-by-point rebuttal of Britannica's main objections.
What's dangerous about it? I see how it is dangerous if you are not allowed to disable it. But even if it re-enables itself in windows without user interaction, that's just annoying, and you might consider not using an OS or a configuration that does this. That doesn't mean that the TPM is inherently bad. The option of having a TPM is at worst neutral, because you don't need to use it.
If TPM becomes mandatory (i.e. not able to be disabled), then I will be the first person boycotting whoever supports it. But as long as it is optional, I just don't see the harm.
You obviously don't target constrained environments very often. It doesn't matter if there's a library for it if it dwarfs the actual application in storage and memory footprint.
I deal with all kinds of environments from embedded systems systems with almost unlimited cores and ram.
I referred to XML based crap because for every appropriate use I see, there's 9 more that are totally inappropriate.
Which kinds of programming technologies aren't misused 90% of the time?
As for HTTP, note that it is actually a fairly simple protocol based on tagged fields with a colon separator and \r\n field delimiter. That's why it took off like wildfire and works to this day. The same can be said for most of the critical protocols on the net. Not a in sight until you get to the payload.
It's not binary. It's plaintext. What difference does which characters are the delimiters?
Where there is real complexity to the data that calls for a heavier representation, I prefer JSON to XML. People find WAY too many ways to make XML ambiguous. It has the additional advantage that it grew up with realistic expectations while XML was the next great scheme to make everything automagically interoperate without even trying.
The types of data represented by JSON and xml are basically the same. If you can find a way to make XML ambiguous, then you can find a way to make JSON ambiguous too. It seems like you just prefer colons to angle brackets for some reason.
I think XML is better than JSON, but it's not because it looks prettier or anything like that. I like it better because it has better integration with other tools like XSLT, xpath, and CSS. That's the only reason. If it weren't for that, I really wouldn't care which one I used. I thought it was kind of cool that json was executable javascript when it came out, but as it turns out it's not even safe to use it like that anyway.
It has the additional advantage that it grew up with realistic expectations while XML was the next great scheme to make everything automagically interoperate without even trying. That promise has come and gone several times and never worked out (naturally, only a genuine AI could make that work)
I don't care what some people promised XML would be able to do. It's just an encoding for hierarchical data, with some common libraries to encode and decode it. No more, no less. You don't need to take it for more than what it is.
Executive summary: use the right tool for the right job.
amen to that
Once it goes on the wire the format of data should be defined by a specification. That in itself is a design choice. Some things require an xml/json type of design to do them right.
The amount of code that *you* have to write, should be negligible no matter how you decide to do it. There are libraries that provide quick serialization and deserialization of xml data, which is why people use it.
If you are sending data over http (how most xml/html/json data gets sent), then the overhead from http will kill just about any efficiency you get from stripping the xml from a file and sending it as a binary.
Obviously you can use xml wrong. You can use *anything* wrong.
The fact that you refer to "XML based crap" leads me to wonder whether you are just biased against XML, and would never use it even if it were the best solution to a problem.
I don't think it can get re-enabled without you knowing. If it is enabled, any software that is not signed by some authority will be prevented from executing. If you find that some software you wanted to execute is not executing due to it not supporting TPM, then you would know that the TPM became active without you're approval. You could go and disable it again. This might be pretty irritating, but this isn't the sort of "disable" feature I had in mind. I am expecting an option to disable TPM until I specifically re-enble it.
Custom flyswatters are almost always more error prone than widely used sledgehammers. Yes they are more bloated, but whether that matters depends on whether you are using 1 sledgehammer to swat a fly or a billion sledge hammers to swat a billion flies.
In any case, my point was not that we should be using sledge hammers to swat flies. My 2 points were that we should be using widely (thoroughly tested) tools rather than custom solutions, and if we anticipate the possibility of needing to swat a billion flies, using a tool that efficiently swats a billion flies, even if it swats 1 fly inefficiently (i.e. I am advocating scalability)
For example: Looking up 1 item in a linkedhashmap of 2 items is inefficient compared to checking 2 items in an array, but it doesn't matter because the difference is only a few clock cycles. Even if we never add the 1 billion items we thought we might, the worst case is not that bad. If we keep the array, the best case (only 1 item) is really fast, but the worst case (a billion items) is *really* slow. In this case the bloated software is either a little slower or *way* faster depending on how many items are in the container. That's the kind of bloat I can live with (i.e. I can't live with all kinds of bloat)
I don't see a problem with it, unless it can't be disabled. If you want all the freedoms, one of those freedoms is to enable or disable a TPM when you want. Maybe the only reason you want a TPM is so you can have one to test ways to circumvent it.
It was a joke. Read the title.
It was a joke you fucking idiot. I've marched in the gay pride parade 3 times already. 4 of my gay friends got married at the last parade because it was just after prop 8 was repealed.
Got any other out of context comments I've made? Or was that really the best you could do?
Designs are only complicated when they are unique. If I write my own LinkedHashMap to store 2 values, it is overcomplicated. If I just invoke a standard java LinkedHashMap to store 2 values, then it's the same design, but since everyone knows what a java LinkedHashMap does, it is simple. Also It can be swapped out for a simple array with relative ease if the code is designed in a way that is maintainable.
Even if you are using design patterns, you should be leveraging not just the knowledge that other people have acquired, but also the APIS and routines available in libraries. This way switching your program from using a simple design to a complicated design patter is easy.
It shouldn't matter that you are using an overly fancy tool to solve a job that can be solved by a simple tool. Electrons are free. What isn't free is human time and effort. So just be sure not to design your application in a way that makes it hard to change.
Sufficient participation may not be direct control, but knowledge about the participants is certainly some sort of control.
It does seem possible to figure out who some people are in bitcoin by analyzing transactions, but I think you can also get around this by having lots of different wallets. Even in the case of real money where bank accounts all need people's names attached to them, it is hard, but not impossible, to figure out who the money belongs to, bitcoin adds one security feature beyond this in that the wallet Ids (bank account names) are anonymous.
as far as computer security goes...
II think the NSA could probably hack into almost any system if they decide to target it. It does take a lot of resources to figure out which IP addresses correspond to which computers and actually break into them. OSes are constantly being patched as new vulnerabilities are discovered. People typically have at least 2 firewalls (NAT + OS). I don't think the NSA could install rootkits on everyone's computers without people finding out. They have to be selective about who they infect in order to keep their tools and methods secret and effective.
I think the government can be very effective in very specific situations due to it's large amount of resources. However it seems to be utterly incompetent 99% of the time. The only conclusion I can draw from this is, is that being competent is extremely expensive for the government. They can't pull a "seal team 6" in every situation. Most of the time they put the B or C team on the job and get mediocre results. They can't even pass a fucking budget. I think the amount of effort that they would need to spend to stop bitcoin would not be worth it to them.
I don;t even think it will ultimately matter. I think the dollar will stop being the reserve currency in the next couple decades, and at that time the US government may want something like bitcoin as a currency that is "valuable" (unlike the $), that is not able to be controlled by the Chinese.
Just my 2 cents
I don't see how taking a bunch of things I said out of context makes you any less of of an idiot for believing that the US government is intentionally keeping al queda in business.
It's not even like those posts make me look bad out of the context of the conversations they were a part of. They just don't make any sense.
But I suppose as a conspiracy theory nut job, you can make sense out of just about anything.
Gold is useful? Is that why we store it in vaults rather than using it?
So, how many "solutions to hard math problems" can I get in exchange for one bitcoin ? And how many units of those "solutions to hard math problems" do I need to buy an apple / how many of those "solutions to hard math problems" units go in an ounce of gold ?
Currently 1 BTC (the solution to 1 hard math problem) is worth $105. I don;t know how much gold or apples that buys, but it is some number greater than 0.
How is this any different to why gold is worth something? It took a lot of effort to get the gold. That's it.
Well in fact there are several hard math problems. problem #1: A hard math problem whose answer proves a bitcoin was found. problem #2: A nearly impossible math problem whose answer allows you to prove that you own a bitcoin. You share the answer to problem #1. You keep the answer to problem #2 a secret. You don;t need to reveal the answer to problem#2 to prove that you have solved it. That's what makes it so that only 1 person can spend a bitcoin per time he /she owns it.
Driving while having a conversation = safe
Driving with only one hand on the wheel (e.g. stick shift) = safe
Driving with with one hand up near your head and having a conversation = unsafe
Everybody knows that.
Or maybe it shows that having any kind of conversation (on the phone or to the person next to you) while driving is equally dangerous.
Maybe the Xbox factory is just a front for drugs or something.
This is what happens when you let gays in the military.
Oh I see. You're crazy conspiracy nut job.
This wouldn't affect people living in other parts of the world, but it would mean that nobody would be able to use BTC in the US and if they wanted to trade BTC for USD or the other way around, they would have to trade for an intermediary currency.
How would forcing people to convert their bitcoins to euros before converting to dollars count as enforcing anything? They can't even do that because I could change my bitcoins straight to dollars in a foreign bank.
And they most certainly can enforce this. Anybody caught sending money to an exchange would have to substantiate where the money is going and the exchanges would probably be prevented from accepting money for US citizens.
How exactly do you catch people sending money to an exchange? Are you unaware that encryption exists?
I've wondered about this myself. Basically I agree in principle with the idea that Bitcoin is not controlled by the government, but to say it couldn't be? The government has an awful lot of processing power in the computers they do and could control.
Yes but if they did it by mining bitcoins, they aren't controlling bitcoin, they are participating in it.
When the government needs more dollars, sometimes they sell more bonds or raise taxes, but sometimes they just print more. When you can make more money with the click of a mouse, that's controlling the currency.
And yes, if we assume the NSA can hack into every single computer running every single kind of OS, then they can control the world, and not just bitcoin. But I doubt they can actually do this.