True. I looked at my contract, and it does however expliciltly state that (1) phone calls maybe monitored, and (2) that the contract is not voided by a dissatisfaction with service or pratices.
(1) is a valid point.
(2) isn't, really. The issue isn't that they have a certain practice that you disagree with and therefore wish to terminate the contract ("You guys don't do in-home wiring/don't turn the wires clockwise/aren't vegetarian?!!?").
The issue is that they are requiring something additional from you. Saying "It is our practice not to give you phone support without you giving us permission to tape it" is akin to saying "it is our practice not to give you phone support unless you give us $100"--it's requiring additional consideration, which must be secured ahead of time.
OTOH, if the contract doesn't guarantee phone support then it's perfectly reasonable for them to put conditions on it. And if your contract specifies that calls may be monitored, that's fine too.
Yes, that would mean that constitutionally police are not allowed to search your car without a warrent. They can ask, and if you are not guilty of anything it will make your life easier to just let them, but you can refuse a search (the cops will then likely detain you and get a search warrent, your denial being "probable cause" but thats another story).
1. Refusing a search is not probable cause. 2. According to the courts, you can't refuse a search of your car (at least not if it's on the public way), and they can go ahead and search it without a warrant (though locked glove compartments/trunk/etc may require consent or a warrant).
The location of my vehicle could reasonably be considered public knowledge.
I don't know. I park in my garage at home. I park in a parking garage at work (privately owned). When I lived in Maine, I frequently drove on private roads--I sometimes do so nowadays as well, though not on a daily basis.
Yes, my car is sometimes on the public way; are there safeguards to determine when it is and isn't and adjust the GPS accordingly? Do they have a right to monitor me when I'm not on the public way? Suppose I parked in a private parking lot, entering near the symphony but parking over by the strip club--do they have the right to monitor that without a warrant?
Full Disclosure is one thing... Actually posting usable exploit code or directions on how to do the exploit is another...and unacceptable. A simple "Gmail has issues with malformed headers, please beware" would have sufficed.
Again, most security experts argue that you MUST disclose working code (NOT an exploit, but code demonstrating the problem) and detailed descriptions, not simply a vague statement--that's why it's called full disclosure.
And detailed information is required. If a researcher just publishes vague statements about the vulnerability, then the vendor can claim that it's not real. If the researcher publishes scientific details without example code, then the vendor can claim that it's just theoretical. The only way to make vendors sit up and take notice is to publish details: both in human- and computer-readable form. (Microsoft is guilty of both of these practices, using their PR machine to deny and belittle vulnerabilities until they are demonstrated with actual code.) And demonstration code is the only way to verify that a vendor's vulnerability patch actually patched the vulnerability.
Because it has become standard practice in the industry to inform the vendor and give them a reasonable amount of time to come out with a patch before publically annoucing the exploit.
Key here is "reasonable amount of time", which should be no more than a couple of weeks. Even that may be too long and many vendors will threaten you with lawsuits for going public once you've privately informed them of security holes.
As Bruce Schneier (author of Applied Cryptography, creator of Blowfish/Twofish, etc) writes:
What we've learned during the past eight or so years is that full disclosure helps much more than it hurts. Since full disclosure has become the norm, the computer industry has transformed itself from a group of companies that ignores security and belittles vulnerabilities into one that fixes vulnerabilities as quickly as possible.
Note that Schneier does say:
I believe in giving the vendor advance notice. CERT took this to an extreme, sometimes giving the vendor years to fix the problem. I'd like to see the researcher tell the vendor that he will publish the vulnerability in a few weeks, and then stick to that promise.
During the early years of computers and networks, bug secrecy was the norm. When users and researchers found vulnerabilities in a software product, they would quietly alert the vendor. In theory, the vendor would then fix the vulnerability...There were incidents of vendors threatening researchers if they made their findings public, and smear campaigns against researchers who announced the existence of vulnerabilities (even if they omitted details). And so many vulnerabilities remained unfixed for years.
The full disclosure movement was born out of frustration with this process. Once a vulnerability is published, public pressures give vendors a strong incentive to fix the problem quickly. For the most part, this has worked. Today, many researchers publish vulnerabilities they discover on mailing lists such as Bugtraq. The press writes about the vulnerabilities in the computer magazines. The vendors scramble to patch these vulnerabilities as soon as they are publicized, so they can write their own press releases about how quickly and thoroughly they fixed things. The full disclosure movement is improving Internet security.
This has nothing to do with full disclosure. It is both responsible and customary to contant the developers responsible for the security hole in secret first, let them make a fix, and only then disclose the details.
That is one school of thought. The full disclosure camp normally holds that you should NOT delay public announcements, for many reasons. Those include but are not limited to: 1. By informing the public ASAP of a vulnerability, they can adjust their habits to deal with the problem (e.g. don't send sensitive data to gmail accounts now). You have no idea if the "black hats" already know about the bug, so by failing to disclose it you may be allowing real-world exploits to continue when you could abate them. 2. By making the knowledge public, corporations who might ignore or waitlist private messages will be spurred on to fix the bug quickly. 3. You do not know who is in the best position to fix a bug in open-source code, so by limiting who you give that information to you are limiting the ability to fix it.
and more. It is a complicated issue that can't be adequately examined in a couple of posts. My only point was that the first poster I responded to was taking a position that is not widely accepted by experts in the field and presenting it as though it were fact.
When you find a bug like this, you should first and foremost submit it to the party responsible for the maintenance of the code. You should at least give the responsible party the opportunity to review/respond/repair before making vulnerabilities public knowledge.
Security exploits are a serious matter, and they need to be handled properly. Throwing this kind of thing out in the open willy-nilly is, at best, irresponsible.
You state that as fact, yet full disclosure is probably the most widely accepted way of dealing with exploits--and the most widely advocated by security experts.
It's at the very least a matter that's open to a lot of debate.
You have no right to cell phone service, or cable TV, or computer tech support, or whatever. It's agreement - tit for tat.
Although arguably if I signed up for cell phone service at a rate of $xxx per month, with phone support included in the contract, then they are obliged to fulfill that contract without any further concessions from me.
In many states, if you live with someone of the opposite sex for a certain amount of time (usually 7 years I think), then you're automatically "married" in the eyes of the State.
I call BS. Name one such state.
AFAIK, there are currently 11 states (and the District of Columbia--also, New Hampshire recognizes it only for inheritance purposes) that recognize common-law marriage, but it requires a whole lot more than just living together.
The exact requirements vary, but typically you have to:
1. Live together for a significant amount of time. 2. Intend to be (currently) married 3. Represent to the community that you are married--e.g. use the words husband and wife publically to the community, actually tell people you're married, file taxes jointly, etc.
The amount of time to satisfy (1) is undefined in most places and often 3 years if specified--I have no idea where the 7 years myth started.
Some states actually require a signed statement of intent to satisfy (2). Some states don't require proof of (2) (considering (1) and (3) to be sufficient proof of (2) unless there is evidence disproving (2)).
Typical proof of (3) is the female taking the male's last name, or using "Mr and Mrs Smith" as a mailing address (even if the name hasn't been legally changed), etc.
Interestingly, being engaged is normally acceptable proof that you do NOT intend to be currently married (you wouldn't ask someone to marry you in the future if you were already married) and hence proof that you are not married under common law.
Also note that there is no such thing as a common-law divorce but in some jurisdictions there is a statute of limitations to establish the common law marriage--in such a state, a couple might satisfy (1), (2), and (3) but if they moved apart for over a year (or whatever the local jurisdiction was) and neither party brought the suit within that time period then no common-law marriage would be established.
The common-law marriage statutes are intended to help out couples who don't have access to legal marriage--they write up a letter stating their intent, change their name, and live together and they're married. They're not intended to entrap people "living in sin" into an unwanted marriage.
So you're *absolutely sure* that no killer app will show up as processors get faster?
Nope. But I am sure that until it does, consumers will put more emphasis on other features than on CPU speed--and that will cause people like Intel to focus more on things like low power CPUs, wireless chipsets, etc that have higher demand. Even Intel couldn't manufacture demand for MMX when no killer apps required it--demand existed only in those niches where it was really useful.
I'm not saying CPU isn't a factor at all these days. But for a lot of people--I'd venture to say most--it's slipped well behind other features that they need in a new machine. That's largely because for a lot of people, machines are fast enough to do the things they want to do--and have been for years now. If/when that changes, CPU demand will spike again.
Re:Engineering within limits brings great results
on
Where's My 10 Ghz PC?
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· Score: 1
I do find it entertaining that as soon as we started taking ever-increasing speed gains for granted, they stopped coming so fast...
We started taking them for granted when we ceased really caring about them--when the need for speed affected our daily work, we looking forward to the faster CPUs with great anticipation, bought machines more often to get more speed, and were willing to pay a premium for it. When CPUs got fast enough for us, we started taking speed increases for granted.
Not coincidentally, when the demand for faster CPUs dropped, manufacturers switched to giving us things we wanted more.
That said, the rate of CPU speed increases hasn't actually tailed off too much.
Re:Engineering within limits brings great results
on
Where's My 10 Ghz PC?
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· Score: 1
These days we have processors hundreds times faster than 5, 10 or 20 years ago, we have thousands times more memory than we had yore... But, do our apps feel faster? Yes, dramatically.
20 years ago I was waiting minutes for programs to load off of tape and routinely typing in programs that overflowed the machine's RAM despite being as minimalist as BASIC allowed. Just drawing the screen was visibly slow even at low resolutions.
15 years ago I was waiting over a minute for my word processor to load off of disk before I could do anything, waiting a long time to save, and couldn't open more than one document at once (aside from maybe looking at a calendar in Sidekick if I was feeling adventerous). The games I played had major visible slowdowns even with low-res CGA sprites.
10 years ago I was swapping like crazy if I opened two windows in netscape, and it was honestly faster for me to run my copy of netscape on my rooomate's computer (and vice-versa) so that the X server and Netscape were taking advantage of each other's CPU and RAM (despite the network latency of 10BaseT). Running Emacs and Netscape at the same time was a major problem, I'd have to wait for visible repaints if I flipped between virtual desktops running the two.
When mp3 playing became prevalent (a little less than 10 years ago for me), it was a major adventure to find a setup that would allow me to listen while I worked with only a little skipping--I definitely picked certain editors and compiler options to help with that.
Now I have 16 tabs open in my browser, a half dozen terminals, 4 graphical editor windows, a compile running, an instant messenger client, tons of little doohickeys in my control panel, an OpenOffice spreadsheet, and an mp3 player going. And yet it feels FAR faster than that machine I had just ten years ago--I can click buttons and see them respond immediately, flip around between virtual desktops as though they were virtual consoles, listen to music without problems, etc.
Computers on the desks of normal people has only been a reality for fifteen or twenty years. In that time we've moved from "A Typewriter With Pre-Print Proofreading" to "A machine that can do realtime interactive full motion video".
...and then stopped. 5 years ago. If we buy the 20 years figure, the last 25% of the PC era has had no need for faster processer speeds.
And until someone somes up with another must-have reason (a "killer app"), the demand for higher speeds simply isn't there. Somewhere around 200-500 Mhz, machines simply got "fast enough"--I remember the bad old days before then, when everyone I knew got a new machine every couple of years (or even every year). And it actually helped you with your everyday word processing, music listening, web surfing, spreadsheets, etc. But the last thing I needed a faster CPU for was DVD playback, and that hasn't been a problem for years.
Seriously, I'm a full-time programmer who does real-time music visualization as a major hobby,I'm enough of a geek to have run Linux exclusively for (literally) over a decade now on my desktop, and even I don't see a reason to upgrade my machine's CPU. For the majority of the public, the ever-faster CPU craze has been replaced by other needs. Lower power consumption, wireless, better peripherals/displays, handheld/music devices, etc.
I went from a 4 mhz 8088-> 20 mhz 386 -> 66 mhz 486 -> 200 mhz PPro. And you know what? I don't remember how fast the machines I've had since then are--my current one is a 1.3 or 1.4 ghz P4, I honestly don't know--because that's when I stopped caring. It just doesn't matter any more.
I think 1997 was the last time I bought a machine where I gave much thought at all to CPU speed. I haven't bought a new desktop machine in 4 years, and I don't foresee getting one in the next couple--but I have gotten handhelds, mp3 devices, etc. Indeed, the only reason I bought the last one was that my old one was very noisy, so I built a silent PC.
They both are behind firewalls and are both very stable (you don't have to reboot for every windows update, just stop and restart the services the same way you do in Unix-based OSes).
Stopping and restarting a service for any OS update other than a new kernel is basically unacceptable in production.
Hell, I can even upgrade my application server to a new version in the middle of the day, when it's handling 600+ requests per second, (or update the version of libc its using, networking libraries, etc) without dropping any connections--the old version passes off those network connections to the new version (before it stops) without closing them down, and it's seamless to the other end of the connection.
I have the B&W DM302, which has been replaced by the newer and (it is my understanding) equally good DM303. They aren't much to look at (just simple bookshelf speakers) but man do they sound incredible.
I've heard better speakers (the aforementioned vandies and maggies, along with some of the better B&W gear and the hales) but not at anywhere near the price point.
I have tried various vegetarian cheeses and sausages, and found them sorely lacking in the taste and texture departments
Vegetarian (as opposed to vegan) cheeses are basically indistinguishable from "normal" cheeses, since the only difference is where they get their rennet from (and a lot of soft cheeses are naturally vegetarian). They are real cheese.
Vegan "cheeses"--usually soy curd or something similar--are definitely an inferior beast. Same deal for vegetarian "sausage".
If you're going to be vegetarian/vegan, I don't understand the urge to imitate animal products badly rather than just eat tasty vegetable products.
A vegan won't eat dairy (or eggs, or other animal products) at all. The rennet issue affects many vegetarians' choice of cheese(though some choose to ignore it)--they generally have no problems with milk, yogurt, eggs, etc.
Basically, cheese is made by coagulating milk. Most of it uses rennet to coagulate the milk, traditionally made from the stomachs of calves (hence it's not vegetarian-friendly). Vegetarian rennet is available (from fungal or bacterial sources) and is used to make vegetarian cheeses.
Betamax was technically far superior to the alternative
This is one of those myths that has been repeated so often that people believe it. Betamax was at most very slightly ahead of VHS on picture quality, but even that is arguable (though certainly there were brief windows where one or the other would debut a new technology that gave it an edge). See, for instance, http://tafkac.org/products/beta_vs_vhs.html (which has many source references, including independent comparisons published at the time); here's an excerpt: Technologically, the two formats were each other's equal. True, except for the recording length, Sony pioneered most of the improvements over the years, but the VHS manufacturers caught up to each improvement, usually in less than a year. So, for instance, within a month of Sony's announcement of Beta Hi-Fi, JVC and Panasonsic announced VHS Hi-Fi formats. Interestingly, the two VHS formats were incompatible with each other. [7]
Comparisons between VCRs with similar features showed no significant differences in performance. In fact, most of the differences could only be seen with sensitive instruments, and likely would never show up on most consumer grade television sets. [5] In particular, the qualitative differences between the two formats were less than the differences between any two samples from the same manufacturer.
B&W has good values in truly great speakers--you can get brilliant sound for $300 or so (and when I say brilliant, I mean even Stereophile and places like that rate it very high, AND it just plain sound great). Or Hale, or Paradigm.
If you really want to spend thousands, look at the Magnaplanar 1.6Q or the Vandersteen 2ce signature.
If there are simple systems that are complete and complex systems that are not complete, and we can add to the complexity of a simple system by adding rules, where is the point at which systems become incomplete?
There isn't a progression--there are also simple systems that are incomplete. Euclidean geometry (modern formulations thereof) is complete, but delete any single axiom and it becomes incomplete.
He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" and I said, "Litterin'"' . . . . And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till I said, "And creatin' a nuisance . . . " And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench talkin' about crime, mother-stabbin', father-rapin', . . . all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench, and everything was fine.
Well, the whole point of logic is that if you follow the rules, and your premises are valid, you can only arrive at valid conclusions, right?
So now Gödel demonstrates that this is not necessarily so. In other words, starting from valid premises and following the rules, you could still reach invalid conclusions.
No, you are conflating consistency and completeness. Godel's theorem is about completeness: he demonstrates that (in a sufficiently complex logical system) there are statements that cannot be proven true or false. (e.g. the Axiom of Choice is independent of ZF set )
He does not show that there are false statements which are provable or that there are true statements which are disprovable.
Also note that Godel's theorem only applies to logical systems that satisfy a number of prerequisites. Simple enough logical systems can be complete.
It's also a Bradford if it's shaken, not a martini.
I would think the use of Lillet in place of vermouth and the addition of vodka would be more problematic to a purist. (In the first book, it's 3 measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Keena lillet.)
Later on it's a medium dry vodka martini, shaken not stirred, with a twist of lemon.
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True. I looked at my contract, and it does however expliciltly state that (1) phone calls maybe monitored, and (2) that the contract is not voided by a dissatisfaction with service or pratices.
(1) is a valid point.
(2) isn't, really. The issue isn't that they have a certain practice that you disagree with and therefore wish to terminate the contract ("You guys don't do in-home wiring/don't turn the wires clockwise/aren't vegetarian?!!?").
The issue is that they are requiring something additional from you. Saying "It is our practice not to give you phone support without you giving us permission to tape it" is akin to saying "it is our practice not to give you phone support unless you give us $100"--it's requiring additional consideration, which must be secured ahead of time.
OTOH, if the contract doesn't guarantee phone support then it's perfectly reasonable for them to put conditions on it. And if your contract specifies that calls may be monitored, that's fine too.
1. Refusing a search is not probable cause.
2. According to the courts, you can't refuse a search of your car (at least not if it's on the public way), and they can go ahead and search it without a warrant (though locked glove compartments/trunk/etc may require consent or a warrant).
The location of my vehicle could reasonably be considered public knowledge.
I don't know. I park in my garage at home. I park in a parking garage at work (privately owned). When I lived in Maine, I frequently drove on private roads--I sometimes do so nowadays as well, though not on a daily basis.
Yes, my car is sometimes on the public way; are there safeguards to determine when it is and isn't and adjust the GPS accordingly? Do they have a right to monitor me when I'm not on the public way? Suppose I parked in a private parking lot, entering near the symphony but parking over by the strip club--do they have the right to monitor that without a warrant?
Again, most security experts argue that you MUST disclose working code (NOT an exploit, but code demonstrating the problem) and detailed descriptions, not simply a vague statement--that's why it's called full disclosure.
Bruce Schneier, e.g., writes in http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0111.html:
Key here is "reasonable amount of time", which should be no more than a couple of weeks. Even that may be too long and many vendors will threaten you with lawsuits for going public once you've privately informed them of security holes.
As Bruce Schneier (author of Applied Cryptography, creator of Blowfish/Twofish, etc) writes:
Note that Schneier does say:
Also from the same article:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0111.html
This has nothing to do with full disclosure. It is both responsible and customary to contant the developers responsible for the security hole in secret first, let them make a fix, and only then disclose the details.
That is one school of thought. The full disclosure camp normally holds that you should NOT delay public announcements, for many reasons. Those include but are not limited to:
1. By informing the public ASAP of a vulnerability, they can adjust their habits to deal with the problem (e.g. don't send sensitive data to gmail accounts now). You have no idea if the "black hats" already know about the bug, so by failing to disclose it you may be allowing real-world exploits to continue when you could abate them.
2. By making the knowledge public, corporations who might ignore or waitlist private messages will be spurred on to fix the bug quickly.
3. You do not know who is in the best position to fix a bug in open-source code, so by limiting who you give that information to you are limiting the ability to fix it.
and more. It is a complicated issue that can't be adequately examined in a couple of posts. My only point was that the first poster I responded to was taking a position that is not widely accepted by experts in the field and presenting it as though it were fact.
When you find a bug like this, you should first and foremost submit it to the party responsible for the maintenance of the code. You should at least give the responsible party the opportunity to review/respond/repair before making vulnerabilities public knowledge.
Security exploits are a serious matter, and they need to be handled properly. Throwing this kind of thing out in the open willy-nilly is, at best, irresponsible.
You state that as fact, yet full disclosure is probably the most widely accepted way of dealing with exploits--and the most widely advocated by security experts.
It's at the very least a matter that's open to a lot of debate.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/238
What's the dilemna?
You have no right to cell phone service, or cable TV, or computer tech support, or whatever. It's agreement - tit for tat.
Although arguably if I signed up for cell phone service at a rate of $xxx per month, with phone support included in the contract, then they are obliged to fulfill that contract without any further concessions from me.
In many states, if you live with someone of the opposite sex for a certain amount of time (usually 7 years I think), then you're automatically "married" in the eyes of the State.
I call BS. Name one such state.
AFAIK, there are currently 11 states (and the District of Columbia--also, New Hampshire recognizes it only for inheritance purposes) that recognize common-law marriage, but it requires a whole lot more than just living together.
The exact requirements vary, but typically you have to:
1. Live together for a significant amount of time.
2. Intend to be (currently) married
3. Represent to the community that you are married--e.g. use the words husband and wife publically to the community, actually tell people you're married, file taxes jointly, etc.
The amount of time to satisfy (1) is undefined in most places and often 3 years if specified--I have no idea where the 7 years myth started.
Some states actually require a signed statement of intent to satisfy (2). Some states don't require proof of (2) (considering (1) and (3) to be sufficient proof of (2) unless there is evidence disproving (2)).
Typical proof of (3) is the female taking the male's last name, or using "Mr and Mrs Smith" as a mailing address (even if the name hasn't been legally changed), etc.
Interestingly, being engaged is normally acceptable proof that you do NOT intend to be currently married (you wouldn't ask someone to marry you in the future if you were already married) and hence proof that you are not married under common law.
Also note that there is no such thing as a common-law divorce but in some jurisdictions there is a statute of limitations to establish the common law marriage--in such a state, a couple might satisfy (1), (2), and (3) but if they moved apart for over a year (or whatever the local jurisdiction was) and neither party brought the suit within that time period then no common-law marriage would be established.
The common-law marriage statutes are intended to help out couples who don't have access to legal marriage--they write up a letter stating their intent, change their name, and live together and they're married. They're not intended to entrap people "living in sin" into an unwanted marriage.
So you're *absolutely sure* that no killer app will show up as processors get faster?
Nope. But I am sure that until it does, consumers will put more emphasis on other features than on CPU speed--and that will cause people like Intel to focus more on things like low power CPUs, wireless chipsets, etc that have higher demand. Even Intel couldn't manufacture demand for MMX when no killer apps required it--demand existed only in those niches where it was really useful.
I'm not saying CPU isn't a factor at all these days. But for a lot of people--I'd venture to say most--it's slipped well behind other features that they need in a new machine. That's largely because for a lot of people, machines are fast enough to do the things they want to do--and have been for years now. If/when that changes, CPU demand will spike again.
I do find it entertaining that as soon as we started taking ever-increasing speed gains for granted, they stopped coming so fast...
We started taking them for granted when we ceased really caring about them--when the need for speed affected our daily work, we looking forward to the faster CPUs with great anticipation, bought machines more often to get more speed, and were willing to pay a premium for it. When CPUs got fast enough for us, we started taking speed increases for granted.
Not coincidentally, when the demand for faster CPUs dropped, manufacturers switched to giving us things we wanted more.
That said, the rate of CPU speed increases hasn't actually tailed off too much.
These days we have processors hundreds times faster than 5, 10 or 20 years ago, we have thousands times more memory than we had yore... But, do our apps feel faster?
Yes, dramatically.
20 years ago I was waiting minutes for programs to load off of tape and routinely typing in programs that overflowed the machine's RAM despite being as minimalist as BASIC allowed. Just drawing the screen was visibly slow even at low resolutions.
15 years ago I was waiting over a minute for my word processor to load off of disk before I could do anything, waiting a long time to save, and couldn't open more than one document at once (aside from maybe looking at a calendar in Sidekick if I was feeling adventerous). The games I played had major visible slowdowns even with low-res CGA sprites.
10 years ago I was swapping like crazy if I opened two windows in netscape, and it was honestly faster for me to run my copy of netscape on my rooomate's computer (and vice-versa) so that the X server and Netscape were taking advantage of each other's CPU and RAM (despite the network latency of 10BaseT). Running Emacs and Netscape at the same time was a major problem, I'd have to wait for visible repaints if I flipped between virtual desktops running the two.
When mp3 playing became prevalent (a little less than 10 years ago for me), it was a major adventure to find a setup that would allow me to listen while I worked with only a little skipping--I definitely picked certain editors and compiler options to help with that.
Now I have 16 tabs open in my browser, a half dozen terminals, 4 graphical editor windows, a compile running, an instant messenger client, tons of little doohickeys in my control panel, an OpenOffice spreadsheet, and an mp3 player going. And yet it feels FAR faster than that machine I had just ten years ago--I can click buttons and see them respond immediately, flip around between virtual desktops as though they were virtual consoles, listen to music without problems, etc.
And until someone somes up with another must-have reason (a "killer app"), the demand for higher speeds simply isn't there. Somewhere around 200-500 Mhz, machines simply got "fast enough"--I remember the bad old days before then, when everyone I knew got a new machine every couple of years (or even every year). And it actually helped you with your everyday word processing, music listening, web surfing, spreadsheets, etc. But the last thing I needed a faster CPU for was DVD playback, and that hasn't been a problem for years.
Seriously, I'm a full-time programmer who does real-time music visualization as a major hobby,I'm enough of a geek to have run Linux exclusively for (literally) over a decade now on my desktop, and even I don't see a reason to upgrade my machine's CPU. For the majority of the public, the ever-faster CPU craze has been replaced by other needs. Lower power consumption, wireless, better peripherals/displays, handheld/music devices, etc.
I went from a 4 mhz 8088-> 20 mhz 386 -> 66 mhz 486 -> 200 mhz PPro. And you know what? I don't remember how fast the machines I've had since then are--my current one is a 1.3 or 1.4 ghz P4, I honestly don't know--because that's when I stopped caring. It just doesn't matter any more.
I think 1997 was the last time I bought a machine where I gave much thought at all to CPU speed. I haven't bought a new desktop machine in 4 years, and I don't foresee getting one in the next couple--but I have gotten handhelds, mp3 devices, etc. Indeed, the only reason I bought the last one was that my old one was very noisy, so I built a silent PC.
They both are behind firewalls and are both very stable (you don't have to reboot for every windows update, just stop and restart the services the same way you do in Unix-based OSes).
Stopping and restarting a service for any OS update other than a new kernel is basically unacceptable in production.
Hell, I can even upgrade my application server to a new version in the middle of the day, when it's handling 600+ requests per second, (or update the version of libc its using, networking libraries, etc) without dropping any connections--the old version passes off those network connections to the new version (before it stops) without closing them down, and it's seamless to the other end of the connection.
I have the B&W DM302, which has been replaced by the newer and (it is my understanding) equally good DM303. They aren't much to look at (just simple bookshelf speakers) but man do they sound incredible.
I've heard better speakers (the aforementioned vandies and maggies, along with some of the better B&W gear and the hales) but not at anywhere near the price point.
I have tried various vegetarian cheeses and sausages, and found them sorely lacking in the taste and texture departments
Vegetarian (as opposed to vegan) cheeses are basically indistinguishable from "normal" cheeses, since the only difference is where they get their rennet from (and a lot of soft cheeses are naturally vegetarian). They are real cheese.
Vegan "cheeses"--usually soy curd or something similar--are definitely an inferior beast. Same deal for vegetarian "sausage".
If you're going to be vegetarian/vegan, I don't understand the urge to imitate animal products badly rather than just eat tasty vegetable products.
Try googling "vegetarian parmesan"P arm.htm
e.g.
http://www.belgioioso.com/Veggie
I am not a vegetarian, but...
A vegan won't eat dairy (or eggs, or other animal products) at all. The rennet issue affects many vegetarians' choice of cheese(though some choose to ignore it)--they generally have no problems with milk, yogurt, eggs, etc.
Basically, cheese is made by coagulating milk. Most of it uses rennet to coagulate the milk, traditionally made from the stomachs of calves (hence it's not vegetarian-friendly). Vegetarian rennet is available (from fungal or bacterial sources) and is used to make vegetarian cheeses.
This is one of those myths that has been repeated so often that people believe it. Betamax was at most very slightly ahead of VHS on picture quality, but even that is arguable (though certainly there were brief windows where one or the other would debut a new technology that gave it an edge). See, for instance, http://tafkac.org/products/beta_vs_vhs.html (which has many source references, including independent comparisons published at the time); here's an excerpt:
Technologically, the two formats were each other's equal. True, except for the recording length, Sony pioneered most of the improvements over the years, but the VHS manufacturers caught up to each improvement, usually in less than a year. So, for instance, within a month of Sony's announcement of Beta Hi-Fi, JVC and Panasonsic announced VHS Hi-Fi formats. Interestingly, the two VHS formats were incompatible with each other. [7]
Comparisons between VCRs with similar features showed no significant differences in performance. In fact, most of the differences could only be seen with sensitive instruments, and likely would never show up on most consumer grade television sets. [5] In particular, the qualitative differences between the two formats were less than the differences between any two samples from the same manufacturer.
Pay attention to the people warning against Bose.
B&W has good values in truly great speakers--you can get brilliant sound for $300 or so (and when I say brilliant, I mean even Stereophile and places like that rate it very high, AND it just plain sound great). Or Hale, or Paradigm.
If you really want to spend thousands, look at the Magnaplanar 1.6Q or the Vandersteen 2ce signature.
If there are simple systems that are complete and complex systems that are not complete, and we can add to the complexity of a simple system by adding rules, where is the point at which systems become incomplete?
There isn't a progression--there are also simple systems that are incomplete. Euclidean geometry (modern formulations thereof) is complete, but delete any single axiom and it becomes incomplete.
He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" and I said, "Litterin'"' . . . . And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till I said, "And creatin' a nuisance . . . " And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench talkin' about crime, mother-stabbin', father-rapin', . . . all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench, and everything was fine.
(Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant).
Well, the whole point of logic is that if you follow the rules, and your premises are valid, you can only arrive at valid conclusions, right?
So now Gödel demonstrates that this is not necessarily so. In other words, starting from valid premises and following the rules, you could still reach invalid conclusions.
No, you are conflating consistency and completeness. Godel's theorem is about completeness: he demonstrates that (in a sufficiently complex logical system) there are statements that cannot be proven true or false. (e.g. the Axiom of Choice is independent of ZF set )
He does not show that there are false statements which are provable or that there are true statements which are disprovable.
Also note that Godel's theorem only applies to logical systems that satisfy a number of prerequisites. Simple enough logical systems can be complete.
It's also a Bradford if it's shaken, not a martini.
I would think the use of Lillet in place of vermouth and the addition of vodka would be more problematic to a purist. (In the first book, it's 3 measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Keena lillet.)
Later on it's a medium dry vodka martini, shaken not stirred, with a twist of lemon.
Shaking makes sense for vodka.
No, only a couple of the listed films have Travolta. The second half of the quote I made was:
And I avoid any movie with a rap artist
Three Kings, as far as I remember, has 2 of them in major roles (Marky Mark and Ice Cube).