And I can confirm this is real as far as he is concerned, and he's done his best to confirm its veractiy.
Who cares what he believes or what he's 'confirmed'. 'Provenance' in the art and antiques world means something - it means an expert has performed the research and certifies the item is real. For an item this important, it's a quasi legal document, signed and notarized - with a full description of the item, a full description of the research, and a full description of why the expert believes the item in question to be real. It's not a handwritten biography of the supposed subject of the provenance on a sheet of letterhead.
Mandatory disclaimer: I have been a used and rare bookseller and have dealt with provenances on a minor basis.
And such accusations without proof are libelous (being in written form), no doubt based on jealousy, not to mention is basically irrational.
To be fair - it's legally dubious to put anyone's data on any computer not directly and physically controlled by the organization charged with maintaining the data. I.E., it's not just Google.
But being honest and answering fully doesn't let you get in a gratuitous attack on the US government.
I bet if this was about Microsoft Search (or Yahoo!) doing the same thing - Slashdot would be up in arms about Microsoft's (or Yahoo!'s) horrible behavior and how web folks ought not to put up with such.
But it's Google, and as always Google gets a free pass.
It's nice that you provided a link. It would have been really nice if your link supported you claim rather than being merely a link to the original story.
it's worth considering what phyicists think of the idea
Why should I care what physicists think? I don't ask physicists for advice on medical matters (they aren't medical doctors). Why should I ask their advice on security measures?
I'd suggest running the code through a pretty printer to get consistent layout throughout the whole project.
Umm... running it through a pretty printer wipes out the very details that printing out is supposed to bring out. After pretty printing, you are no longer seeing the 'native' code - but rather you are seeing the patterns hard coded into the pretty printer.
Interesting additions: adding colour to each class and method based on how memory they allocate (or how many objects they construct); or colouring functions relating to their position in the call graph, or their in-degree.
Careful, down that path lies dragons. Adding too much detail not only raises the temptation to waste time by fiddling with the presentation, it also risks turning your 'visible display' from simple line art into a pointillist painting, where you can not only no longer see the broad details - but also where the eye can fool you into seeing something that isn't there. KISS.
That is the main assumption - and an utterly unfounded one. Because unless there are skeletons hidden there - there practically isn't anything there that isn't already public information or trivially available for the purposes you list. This isn't news at all, but a puff piece disguises as news - and many Slashdot readers either lack the critical thinking skills to tell the difference or simply don't care.
Like the author of the Ars Technica piece, you've substituted handwaving, smokescreens, and "won't anyone think of the children" for facts and actual thought - because the piece panders to your biases. And, as I said, Slashdot will let any crap slide onto the front page so long as it panders to their biases - while castigating other news sources for being equally biased.
Even though you don't have any actual experience in the field. That folks with experience in the field are willing to spend 10 million pounds on the machine, plus more for a dedicated (and new build) support vessel should tell you something.
It might be useful for smaller, brown-water cables where you need the protection but can't afford to hire a ship to plow the trench, but the big ocean-spanning cables probably won't use this robot.
With your complete lack of knowledge in the field, you probably don't know that "brown water" and "ocean-spanning" are two ends of a spectrum - with quite a large amount of room in between them.
Current undersea trenching is done using plows pulled by ships.
Sure, except for all the undersea trenching that isn't done by plows - which is quite a bit of it actually. This is merely the largest such trenching ROV, not the first, not by a long shot.
Somebody who turns to Ask Slashdot rather than doing his own research into MIT's financial aid packages (trivially done using Google) isn't ready for college. He's barely ready for high school.
I could spell out the political potential inherent in the executive branch's massive domestic surveillance program by drawing parallels to the government's Vietnam-era spying on anti-war protesters and civil rights leaders like MLK, but I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.
Translation: Utterly and completely without cause I'll put in some unrelated hot-button stuff and then try to pretend I didn't.
As I've reported previously, the major problem with Real ID is that local DMV and law enforcement officials will have access to an unprecedented amount of sensitive information on anyone with a Real ID--scanned copies of any documents used to establish identity, like birth certificates, bank statements, pay stubs, property tax bills, and so on, not to mention driving histories from other states. Now imagine all of that data in the hands of a crooked sheriff who's fighting off a reformist challenger in a hotly contested election. Do you really want to live in that world?
Translation: Utterly and completely without cause I'll put in some unrelated hot-button stuff and invoke scary scenarios forwarding my own agenda.
Etc... Etc...
And really, that's the whole point of this [Ars Technica] 'news' story - not to tell the news, but to slant it and spin it until it is no longer recognizable and then to attach editorial comments unrelated to main story. If Faux News, CNN, or one of the other big networks did this, Slashdot and the rest of the blogosphere would be up in arms about such journalistic misbehavior.
Great. When I was in high school, my school was (...hits Google Earth...) five miles away as the crow flies - much further by road. (You couldn't go as the crow flies.) Almost all of it alongside highways or busy roads without sidewalks. Then and now only about 10% of the student body drives to and from school. How in the hell was I supposed to get home? (Not to mention that compared with the area my school covered I lived practically in the parking lot.) Not to mention the horrendous traffic jams caused as the students tried to leave in a panic and the police and fire departments tried to get to the school - along the two roads that lead to the school.
My instincts on this are more of "how would a criminal or terrorist" behave in this setting" because I grew up in a law enforcement family (both parents plus extended family).
You my believe this, but it's bullshit.
One example comes from high school when the school shootings were just starting to disappear from the news.
The problem is - your example is one of 'how a Hollywood scriptwriter thinks a terrorist or criminal would think' or 'an inexperienced teens fantasy world where he tries to kill all his classmates in the most spectacular, attention grabbing, and unrealistic manner'. Not how criminal and terrorists in the real world behave.
I'd have called in the buses, and shipped everyone off property to be safe right away.
Yep. An elaborate teen fantasy on how to get a free afternoon away from school and add excitement to another boring day. I had 'em too when I was a kid.
You can get a port-a-potty delivered without ever providing positive identification. You don't even have to pay for it until it shows up, and they'll happily deliver while you're at work.
If Crypto-gram wasn't a mix of technical information and the self aggrandizement the grandparent refers to - you'd have a point. The simple fact is, Bruce has been using his fame (for doing something unrelated[1]) to push his political agenda for some years now. It probably doesn't hurt his consulting business either to get so many column inches and electrons either.
[1] Yes, cryptography is unrelated to security - one can be an expert on one without knowing anything about the other. (In the same way an architect can do his job without knowing much more than the average Joe about the detailed chemical processes involved in making steel - or your average IT geek without knowing a great deal about how IC chips are made beyond what he saw on Modern Marvels last night.) They are in the same field, but they aren't the same thing, Bruce trades on people not knowing that.
"Is there life on Titan? Probably not. It's cold down there! 94 Kelvin is the same as -179 Celsius, or -290 Fahrenheit. And yet . . . life is persistent. It's been found in Antarctic ice and in boiling water in submarine volcanic vents."
As usual, telling half the truth - a pretty important half. In both those places, life (as we understand it, which the life found was) cannot evolve, the conditions are too extreme. The life found there almost certainly evolved somewhere else and then adapted to those extreme environments.
Science needs to talk about science and not political agendas.
Yup. The real problem isn't the public, it's the scientists who have used their 'authority' as a basis for pushing their own political agenda and tainted the well thereby.
Does AT&T get charged with a crime when someone downloads illegal material over their network?
No - because AT&T is "common carrier" and legally protected. The great grandparent? Isn't. (Which is why 'stuff like this' gets modded up. Not everyone on Slashdot is ignorant of the law. Not that being ignorant about a topic ever stopped a Slashdotter from holding forth anyhow.)
Everywhere I've lived I've paid a fixed rate for internet connectivity. I pay the same if I use it or not, and so I keep my wireless completely open for anyone to use.
Ah yes, the old "well, I leave my car keys in the ignition and the door unlocked with my wallet on the seat" argument.
Need a car analogy? Ok. this is a stretch.
Imagine you have to buy car rental package each month. There is one that lets you drive 56k miles and one that lets you drive 122864k miles (15Mbps, what I get). You have to get the bigger package even though it's much too big because the 56k package is too small. Why *wouldn't* you let other people use the extra miles you've already purchased and are going to just throw away?
Want to guess who is potentially liable if the car is in an accident? Or used in a criminal enterprise? Etc... Etc...?
If you guessed "the guy whose signature is on the dotted line" - go to the head of the class.
Ah yes, the naive locals - so unsophisticated that it would never occur to them on their own to increase the attractiveness of their locale to increase business.
Do they even need to be taking information off premises?
To some degree, yes. To lawyer's offices to discuss a case or cases. To doctor's offices or the hospital to discuss a case or cases. To civil or criminal court... To other state agencies... Etc... Etc...
It's either carry a thumb drive or equally vulnerable heaps o' paper.
It looks like it could deal with some dodgey street conditions as well - and that'll be important because peak oil == peak asphalt.
That would be important if 98%+ of the asphalt laid (in the US) wasn't recycled from old asphalt and other materials like tires. It would also be important if asphalt were the only reasonable road building material.
Slashdot Mirror
Who cares what he believes or what he's 'confirmed'. 'Provenance' in the art and antiques world means something - it means an expert has performed the research and certifies the item is real. For an item this important, it's a quasi legal document, signed and notarized - with a full description of the item, a full description of the research, and a full description of why the expert believes the item in question to be real. It's not a handwritten biography of the supposed subject of the provenance on a sheet of letterhead.
Mandatory disclaimer: I have been a used and rare bookseller and have dealt with provenances on a minor basis.
Wrong on all three counts.
To be fair - it's legally dubious to put anyone's data on any computer not directly and physically controlled by the organization charged with maintaining the data. I.E., it's not just Google.
But being honest and answering fully doesn't let you get in a gratuitous attack on the US government.
I bet if this was about Microsoft Search (or Yahoo!) doing the same thing - Slashdot would be up in arms about Microsoft's (or Yahoo!'s) horrible behavior and how web folks ought not to put up with such.
But it's Google, and as always Google gets a free pass.
It's nice that you provided a link. It would have been really nice if your link supported you claim rather than being merely a link to the original story.
Why should I care what physicists think? I don't ask physicists for advice on medical matters (they aren't medical doctors). Why should I ask their advice on security measures?
I agree, it's not a black a white an choice. I was only pointing out that the pretty printer can hide flaws, as you point out that it can reveal them.
Umm... running it through a pretty printer wipes out the very details that printing out is supposed to bring out. After pretty printing, you are no longer seeing the 'native' code - but rather you are seeing the patterns hard coded into the pretty printer.
Careful, down that path lies dragons. Adding too much detail not only raises the temptation to waste time by fiddling with the presentation, it also risks turning your 'visible display' from simple line art into a pointillist painting, where you can not only no longer see the broad details - but also where the eye can fool you into seeing something that isn't there. KISS.
That is the main assumption - and an utterly unfounded one. Because unless there are skeletons hidden there - there practically isn't anything there that isn't already public information or trivially available for the purposes you list. This isn't news at all, but a puff piece disguises as news - and many Slashdot readers either lack the critical thinking skills to tell the difference or simply don't care.
Like the author of the Ars Technica piece, you've substituted handwaving, smokescreens, and "won't anyone think of the children" for facts and actual thought - because the piece panders to your biases. And, as I said, Slashdot will let any crap slide onto the front page so long as it panders to their biases - while castigating other news sources for being equally biased.
Even though you don't have any actual experience in the field. That folks with experience in the field are willing to spend 10 million pounds on the machine, plus more for a dedicated (and new build) support vessel should tell you something.
With your complete lack of knowledge in the field, you probably don't know that "brown water" and "ocean-spanning" are two ends of a spectrum - with quite a large amount of room in between them.
Sure, except for all the undersea trenching that isn't done by plows - which is quite a bit of it actually. This is merely the largest such trenching ROV, not the first, not by a long shot.
Somebody who turns to Ask Slashdot rather than doing his own research into MIT's financial aid packages (trivially done using Google) isn't ready for college. He's barely ready for high school.
Translation: Utterly and completely without cause I'll put in some unrelated hot-button stuff and then try to pretend I didn't.
Translation: Utterly and completely without cause I'll put in some unrelated hot-button stuff and invoke scary scenarios forwarding my own agenda.
Etc... Etc...
And really, that's the whole point of this [Ars Technica] 'news' story - not to tell the news, but to slant it and spin it until it is no longer recognizable and then to attach editorial comments unrelated to main story. If Faux News, CNN, or one of the other big networks did this, Slashdot and the rest of the blogosphere would be up in arms about such journalistic misbehavior.
And no Buckyballs will ever be released in accidents? (Industrial or automotive?)
Great. When I was in high school, my school was (...hits Google Earth...) five miles away as the crow flies - much further by road. (You couldn't go as the crow flies.) Almost all of it alongside highways or busy roads without sidewalks. Then and now only about 10% of the student body drives to and from school. How in the hell was I supposed to get home? (Not to mention that compared with the area my school covered I lived practically in the parking lot.) Not to mention the horrendous traffic jams caused as the students tried to leave in a panic and the police and fire departments tried to get to the school - along the two roads that lead to the school.
You my believe this, but it's bullshit.
The problem is - your example is one of 'how a Hollywood scriptwriter thinks a terrorist or criminal would think' or 'an inexperienced teens fantasy world where he tries to kill all his classmates in the most spectacular, attention grabbing, and unrealistic manner'. Not how criminal and terrorists in the real world behave.
Yep. An elaborate teen fantasy on how to get a free afternoon away from school and add excitement to another boring day. I had 'em too when I was a kid.
Maybe where you live. Not here.
If Crypto-gram wasn't a mix of technical information and the self aggrandizement the grandparent refers to - you'd have a point. The simple fact is, Bruce has been using his fame (for doing something unrelated[1]) to push his political agenda for some years now. It probably doesn't hurt his consulting business either to get so many column inches and electrons either.
[1] Yes, cryptography is unrelated to security - one can be an expert on one without knowing anything about the other. (In the same way an architect can do his job without knowing much more than the average Joe about the detailed chemical processes involved in making steel - or your average IT geek without knowing a great deal about how IC chips are made beyond what he saw on Modern Marvels last night.) They are in the same field, but they aren't the same thing, Bruce trades on people not knowing that.
As usual, telling half the truth - a pretty important half. In both those places, life (as we understand it, which the life found was) cannot evolve, the conditions are too extreme. The life found there almost certainly evolved somewhere else and then adapted to those extreme environments.
Yup. The real problem isn't the public, it's the scientists who have used their 'authority' as a basis for pushing their own political agenda and tainted the well thereby.
No - because AT&T is "common carrier" and legally protected. The great grandparent? Isn't. (Which is why 'stuff like this' gets modded up. Not everyone on Slashdot is ignorant of the law. Not that being ignorant about a topic ever stopped a Slashdotter from holding forth anyhow.)
Ah yes, the old "well, I leave my car keys in the ignition and the door unlocked with my wallet on the seat" argument.
Want to guess who is potentially liable if the car is in an accident? Or used in a criminal enterprise? Etc... Etc...?
If you guessed "the guy whose signature is on the dotted line" - go to the head of the class.
*That* is why my connection is locked down.
Says the guy who doesn't read enough SF to know the difference between Clarke and Asimov.
Ah yes, the naive locals - so unsophisticated that it would never occur to them on their own to increase the attractiveness of their locale to increase business.
To some degree, yes. To lawyer's offices to discuss a case or cases. To doctor's offices or the hospital to discuss a case or cases. To civil or criminal court... To other state agencies... Etc... Etc...
It's either carry a thumb drive or equally vulnerable heaps o' paper.
That would be important if 98%+ of the asphalt laid (in the US) wasn't recycled from old asphalt and other materials like tires. It would also be important if asphalt were the only reasonable road building material.