As someone that spent several years recently (2001 - 2004) in Russia, the location of the reactor doesn't much matter. The government in Moscow is just as corrupt as anywhere else (we bribed low level officials all the time for registration [simply put - people aren't paid enough and often turn to outside sources of income]).
I don't think any higher up (in organized government) would be dumb enough to order a hit this sloppy. The FSB, underfunded and undermanned as they are, is still very professional. They (the FSB) would have known that the radioactive elements would be traced. Personally, I'd bet this was done by some elements of government that are mafia (very common and they can afford to be sloppy since they are much harder to track). The dead guy had a long history of making enemies...
College is important. It will teach and educate you on many skills you will need in life.
However, internships and other summer jobs are the best networking opportunities that exist. They will help you get job when college is done. Please don't write them off. If you intern wisely (on your summers off), with the right people, you can walk right out of college into a nice job or have a resume that has an excellent combination of experience and education (and quite possibly earn a fair amount of money).
It all comes down to power. The ruler(s) in charge probably think that it is easier to crush / prevent / stomp out a revolt / change of venue / dissent that lacks state of the art communication. Looking at it from the top down (the ruler's pov), I'd have to say they're right.
I'm not exactly sure why they haven't tried filtering them better (I don't work in that sector - I just know how they currently do it). Until recently (last year), a fair amount of offices used to print all the emails off and hand sort them.
Government at this level is usually several years behind on technology though (there are a few offices that still haven't moved WinXP for example) and there are no plans to upgrade to Vista when they come out..
Also, there are unique concerns here with security, volume and other problems...
You might try typing it - but sign it by hand. It might get mistaken for a batch, but if you format it so it looks like something else than a form letter - it probably will get in.
E-mail ranks low on the list because it is so easy to send. People can send (and do) large batches of email (10,000's when some website organizes some campaign) that basically say the same thing (and is often incorrect on the issue), and just tack names out of the phone book on them. Also, most email has no information on / in it that allows politicians to see where it is from (location wise). That is why email / faxes weight low (you might not like it, but it is a fact of life).
Handwritten mail, that is clean and legible is important because it allows communication back with the constituent - and can create an environment in which dialogue is possible. This dialogue allows people here to communicate easier w/ people back home.
To answer some of your questions... (I work somewhere on the Hill).
Senators or at least the few that I know or have come in contact with, usually have some sort of philosophy that they follow. This philosophy or set of beliefs serves as a guide on how they will vote. Occasionally you will get someone that is easily influenced by newspapers or political lobbies, but that is in all actuallity, not as common as most people think (which is why when it happens it's big news). There are very strict rules about what kind of gifts politicians and their staff (Senate Staff is limited to 50$ for gifts at receptions) can accept and what they can't.
For the most part, legislation is not written by Senators (Rep's may write their own). Usually there is a Legislative Assistant(s) or Legislative Director in the office that will write the actual bill or ammendment. The Senator will then review it, and if he / she approves it - it will be submitted to where ever it needs to go (usually a committee of sorts). Often they are attached to other bills, since the legislative process is very slow (and attaching it to something may speed it up).
Now, as it is election time, many people that are up for re-election are submitting all sorts of things. However, they aren't trying that hard to have them get passed (thankfully - or I'd have no free time), just submitting them so they can claim to have done some work on a certain issue that they may feel their constituents care about (or more likely matches their ideas). Lame Duck session in December, is when the outgoing folks actually sit down and try to get this crap passed.
So you can assume, that this bill was introduced by someone that believes gambling is wrong. It has nothing to do with the mail that they get, the phone calls people make or the faxes that come in. They don't even see most of those - interns and other staff handle them (although a few Senators actually read a sampling of handwritten mail each week). The politician usually gets a report each week of what mail came in, what issues were popular and what was the stance of the mail (for or against). Usually batch letters (meaning large bunches of faxes / letters / postcards that are all the same ) are not included in that count (cause people often send them in without actually reading them or knowing much about the issue, and mail from someone other then a constituent (meaning outside the politicians district - exceptions being the VA and Natural Resources Committees) or someone that did not put a real mailing address (like the people that always sign with their email address) is ignored. In the event that the politican does not have an opinion on something yet, this mail report will serve to influence their opinion in addition to the research and hearings that they or their staff will conduct. However, their opinion is usually in line with their established philosophy. Long story short, this ammendment was simply so someone could satisfy a mark on their philosophy checklist (most likely), and that is why it was rejected by the Senator (who dislikes this sort of stuff) and not because of some lobbying group.
The best way to stop these things, is to either write large amounts of handwritten mail to your senator / rep (not other peoples), or simply vote them out during elections time. Problem is -- most people aren't informed enough to actually know what's going on (or at least that is what I see from DC). It's easiest to contact your Senator / Rep at a state office also (if they have some), since most of them spend weekends and when session is out at home.
I mean more along the lines of: if you drive with a cell phone for a long time - you get more experienced with driving with one (and hopefully, the impact of a cell phone is less), whereas if you have a.08 alcohol blood level repeatedly, the effects are usually the same (unless you build tolerance really fast).
I guess I would go along this line more after reading the rather short article (which of course lacks real statistical information) because only the cell phone users hit the simulated car - and none of the drunks.
Also, I would venture a guess, that you can learn to drive w/ a cell phone whereas it is considerably tougher to learn to drive drunk. What I found was interesting was that (at least according to the article) handsfree phones were as bad as handheld - I would have thought that handsfree were much safer. It makes me wonder if people that sing along with songs on the radio are worse drivers (cause its somewhat similar to talking on a handsfree phone).
Ahh... economics. If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion. I'm fairly sure that someone will come along and predict the opposite - just in case it happens so all ends are covered.
(Gamespot is blocked from where I am ATM - so I'm going off the summary)
I don't think it will be as bad as it seems. The bill (if the text in the summary is right) uses "contemporary community standards" to make judgement. While you might have people sue over junk for a little while, it should be pretty easy for a defense attonery to produce evidence that shows the "community" at large is a big consumer of the games, and therefore - shouldn't object.
Reminds me of the defense used to keep that adult store open in Provo, Utah. (The defense was able to show that the community was a large consumer of porn - irregardless of what the people said).
The sidebars are screwy in the first one. (All messed up) The search bar (top left) in the second one is covering the logo (this is my favorite one btw). And the header in the third one is off (but he [the author] is aware of that - and is working on it, which is nice). (This one also looks really nice).
You present a unique perspective on things (that I never thought about).
That being the case, I can see why the Universities are arguing about money. Given the current deficits - it would be likely that the administration would be able to help them, and since the U's don't want to have to pay - it just might get them off the hook.
Mistyping at work today - I really need something better to do than surf/. for 8 hours (I get paid so I shouldn't really complain...) I suppose I could write a spellcheck wigdet (but that would require effort).
I find it interesting about the things the universities are concerned with. It might just be the article, but it seems the main concern is the cost of the venture est. 400 - 500 dollars a student. The next concern is hackers and the last one is freedom of speech / stifling of research.
I would think that the universities would be worried more about the free speech implications rather than the cost... I don't think the cost issue will hold up in court that well - but free speech (hopefully would).
The only other thing is that the article mentions that a negative ruleing, could force even labtops on campus to be CALEA compliant. Since I'm a student at a university that requires students going into certain majors to have a labtop (to use and plug into the campus network) - I'm wondering if that means that we as students would have to modify our personal labtops (cause they interact with the campus network).
Sadly I bet the universities will compromise on this issue - rather than go to court.
I visted a Holiday Gas Station in the middle of Minnesota (about a year ago) and while using the restroom, being astonished to see a poster with all the java classes / packages on the inside door of the restroom.
What was funnier, was that someone had updated it by drawing in a couple of new additions and other made-up classes (javax.swing.phonesex). I remember thinking - WTF? Who thinks about java while taking a dump... talk about an extreme programmer.
A couple of other interesting points..
on
P2P Now and Then
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Just some things I noticed...
P2P = 60% of All Traffic
Edonkey is gaining in popularity (and first in usage - in many locations), Bittorrent is next, then Fasttrack and lastly Gnutella
Edonkey Localized, More languages (and hence has more use) - localized versions have a large effect as seen in South Korea (Prune)
Video seems to dominate Fasttrack, eDonkey and Bittorrent as what is being shared.
Audio dominates Gnutells
Of Audio being shared, MP3 = 64%, OGG = 12%, WMA = 22% (roughly)
Of Video being shared - RM = 9%, MPEG = 15%, and they "say" that Microsoft has 75% (didn't know Xvid / Divx was an MS Product)
Of Other files types, there is a dominance of Unix file types (Linux Distros and whatnot - almost exclusively found on Bittorrent)
True, eye candy looks great, but that isn't all that Valve is trying to do.
They are trying to build a game (expansion) that will bring even the best hardware to its knees. I quote:
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is Valve's reply to a series of What If questions: what if there were no limits? What if we didn't have to make sure people with mid-range systems could enjoy our games? What if the system requirements knew no bounds?
Following the release of Half-Life 2 worldwide on 16th November 2004, a group of programmers and artists at Valve sat down to create the ultimate level, incorporating ultra high resolution textures, models and adding High Dynamic Range Rendering (HDR) to the Source engine. Their aim was to create a technology showcase: a no-holds barred level that would set new standards in image quality and realism; something to really push even the highest of today's high-end systems.
Building stuff like this takes time... Relax, if they do it right, the majority of people won't be able to run it when it comes out (cause of the requirements).
Back in the days of the Apollo program, going to the moon was something that mankind had never done before. It was something we didn't know if we could do. Hence we were willing to accept risks. We were learning so much new stuff - it was worth it, and more importantly, the public could see that (we were gaining a lot of knowledge).
Mankind has always been willing to accept risks to explore or conquer, the unknown. A bunch of people died trying to climb Mt. Everest for example. But once it was conquered, and done safetly, then when someone died - it became a tragedy. The culture isn't any wimpier then it was back then - simply the politicians have a hard time of justifying the sacrifices to average joe - who simply knows, it was done once safetly. Why shouldn't it be 100% safe now? The general public does not hear about experiment x that went well in space anymore.
On the other hand, if it was something new and unheard of that NASA was doing - like going to another star (I assume the benefits of that would be obvious), I'm pretty sure the general public would accept the risk without much complaint.
I recall that when our school got computers, we had Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego and Number Munchers (somehow a copy of Dune 2 also made its way on the machines).
Oregon Trail was cool - because of it I know of places like Fort Walla Walla and whatnot, but the majority of time in the lab was either hunting or how fast can I kill my people (3 days - Cholera)...
Carmen Sandiego - I was too lazy to look up answers and would simply guess or get bored.
But Number Munchers... that game taught mathematics better than anything else. It was awesome - just the right amount of challenge and gameplay with learning intermixed. The games suggested by the researchers simply seem to be a little on the fun side too much.
What they need to do is build software for learning and then make it fun, not build software for entertainment and say what can we learn from this...
They may have more unique information simply futher down the result list, but since the search engines terminate the results at not quite 1k (1,000), the researchers have no way of testing that out.
All they can really show is that google returns more unique results per 1000 (which usually means that more items are indexed, but could be from Google's Pagerank also)...
Spammers could care less about the responses they get to their emails that are junk.
If 1 in a million buys something - it is worth it for them. Even if you do succeed in DDOSing one spammer out of action - it is only temporary. The spammer will simply buy a new domain.
If people really wanted to stop spam, they would complain about / to the companies that advertise in such a way. No company wants to be associated with spam. Sending thousands of emails to the company would be much more effective, especially if they sent them to customer support addresses and such where it is hard to filter out emails.
As long as businesses feel that spamming is a viable advertising option - spammers will exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdotters don't have parents. They reproduce by fission (which would mean that he did the whole design).
As someone that spent several years recently (2001 - 2004) in Russia, the location of the reactor doesn't much matter. The government in Moscow is just as corrupt as anywhere else (we bribed low level officials all the time for registration [simply put - people aren't paid enough and often turn to outside sources of income]).
I don't think any higher up (in organized government) would be dumb enough to order a hit this sloppy. The FSB, underfunded and undermanned as they are, is still very professional. They (the FSB) would have known that the radioactive elements would be traced. Personally, I'd bet this was done by some elements of government that are mafia (very common and they can afford to be sloppy since they are much harder to track). The dead guy had a long history of making enemies...
College is important. It will teach and educate you on many skills you will need in life.
However, internships and other summer jobs are the best networking opportunities that exist. They will help you get job when college is done. Please don't write them off. If you intern wisely (on your summers off), with the right people, you can walk right out of college into a nice job or have a resume that has an excellent combination of experience and education (and quite possibly earn a fair amount of money).
It all comes down to power. The ruler(s) in charge probably think that it is easier to crush / prevent / stomp out a revolt / change of venue / dissent that lacks state of the art communication. Looking at it from the top down (the ruler's pov), I'd have to say they're right.
I'm not exactly sure why they haven't tried filtering them better (I don't work in that sector - I just know how they currently do it). Until recently (last year), a fair amount of offices used to print all the emails off and hand sort them. Government at this level is usually several years behind on technology though (there are a few offices that still haven't moved WinXP for example) and there are no plans to upgrade to Vista when they come out.. Also, there are unique concerns here with security, volume and other problems...
You might try typing it - but sign it by hand. It might get mistaken for a batch, but if you format it so it looks like something else than a form letter - it probably will get in.
E-mail ranks low on the list because it is so easy to send. People can send (and do) large batches of email (10,000's when some website organizes some campaign) that basically say the same thing (and is often incorrect on the issue), and just tack names out of the phone book on them. Also, most email has no information on / in it that allows politicians to see where it is from (location wise). That is why email / faxes weight low (you might not like it, but it is a fact of life).
Handwritten mail, that is clean and legible is important because it allows communication back with the constituent - and can create an environment in which dialogue is possible. This dialogue allows people here to communicate easier w/ people back home.
To answer some of your questions... (I work somewhere on the Hill).
Senators or at least the few that I know or have come in contact with, usually have some sort of philosophy that they follow. This philosophy or set of beliefs serves as a guide on how they will vote. Occasionally you will get someone that is easily influenced by newspapers or political lobbies, but that is in all actuallity, not as common as most people think (which is why when it happens it's big news). There are very strict rules about what kind of gifts politicians and their staff (Senate Staff is limited to 50$ for gifts at receptions) can accept and what they can't.
For the most part, legislation is not written by Senators (Rep's may write their own). Usually there is a Legislative Assistant(s) or Legislative Director in the office that will write the actual bill or ammendment. The Senator will then review it, and if he / she approves it - it will be submitted to where ever it needs to go (usually a committee of sorts). Often they are attached to other bills, since the legislative process is very slow (and attaching it to something may speed it up).
Now, as it is election time, many people that are up for re-election are submitting all sorts of things. However, they aren't trying that hard to have them get passed (thankfully - or I'd have no free time), just submitting them so they can claim to have done some work on a certain issue that they may feel their constituents care about (or more likely matches their ideas). Lame Duck session in December, is when the outgoing folks actually sit down and try to get this crap passed.
So you can assume, that this bill was introduced by someone that believes gambling is wrong. It has nothing to do with the mail that they get, the phone calls people make or the faxes that come in. They don't even see most of those - interns and other staff handle them (although a few Senators actually read a sampling of handwritten mail each week). The politician usually gets a report each week of what mail came in, what issues were popular and what was the stance of the mail (for or against). Usually batch letters (meaning large bunches of faxes / letters / postcards that are all the same ) are not included in that count (cause people often send them in without actually reading them or knowing much about the issue, and mail from someone other then a constituent (meaning outside the politicians district - exceptions being the VA and Natural Resources Committees) or someone that did not put a real mailing address (like the people that always sign with their email address) is ignored. In the event that the politican does not have an opinion on something yet, this mail report will serve to influence their opinion in addition to the research and hearings that they or their staff will conduct. However, their opinion is usually in line with their established philosophy. Long story short, this ammendment was simply so someone could satisfy a mark on their philosophy checklist (most likely), and that is why it was rejected by the Senator (who dislikes this sort of stuff) and not because of some lobbying group.
The best way to stop these things, is to either write large amounts of handwritten mail to your senator / rep (not other peoples), or simply vote them out during elections time. Problem is -- most people aren't informed enough to actually know what's going on (or at least that is what I see from DC). It's easiest to contact your Senator / Rep at a state office also (if they have some), since most of them spend weekends and when session is out at home.
Good point - I missed that.
.08 alcohol blood level repeatedly, the effects are usually the same (unless you build tolerance really fast).
I mean more along the lines of: if you drive with a cell phone for a long time - you get more experienced with driving with one (and hopefully, the impact of a cell phone is less), whereas if you have a
I guess I would go along this line more after reading the rather short article (which of course lacks real statistical information) because only the cell phone users hit the simulated car - and none of the drunks.
Also, I would venture a guess, that you can learn to drive w/ a cell phone whereas it is considerably tougher to learn to drive drunk. What I found was interesting was that (at least according to the article) handsfree phones were as bad as handheld - I would have thought that handsfree were much safer. It makes me wonder if people that sing along with songs on the radio are worse drivers (cause its somewhat similar to talking on a handsfree phone).
Ahh... economics. If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion. I'm fairly sure that someone will come along and predict the opposite - just in case it happens so all ends are covered.
(Gamespot is blocked from where I am ATM - so I'm going off the summary)
I don't think it will be as bad as it seems. The bill (if the text in the summary is right) uses "contemporary community standards" to make judgement. While you might have people sue over junk for a little while, it should be pretty easy for a defense attonery to produce evidence that shows the "community" at large is a big consumer of the games, and therefore - shouldn't object.
Reminds me of the defense used to keep that adult store open in Provo, Utah. (The defense was able to show that the community was a large consumer of porn - irregardless of what the people said).
Each of them has css problems in IE 7 Beta 2.
The sidebars are screwy in the first one. (All messed up)
The search bar (top left) in the second one is covering the logo (this is my favorite one btw).
And the header in the third one is off (but he [the author] is aware of that - and is working on it, which is nice). (This one also looks really nice).
Hmmm...
You present a unique perspective on things (that I never thought about).
That being the case, I can see why the Universities are arguing about money. Given the current deficits - it would be likely that the administration would be able to help them, and since the U's don't want to have to pay - it just might get them off the hook.
Hope it works.
Meh,
/. for 8 hours (I get paid so I shouldn't really complain...) I suppose I could write a spellcheck wigdet (but that would require effort).
Mistyping at work today - I really need something better to do than surf
Should have been laptop.
Yawn...
I find it interesting about the things the universities are concerned with. It might just be the article, but it seems the main concern is the cost of the venture est. 400 - 500 dollars a student. The next concern is hackers and the last one is freedom of speech / stifling of research.
I would think that the universities would be worried more about the free speech implications rather than the cost... I don't think the cost issue will hold up in court that well - but free speech (hopefully would).
The only other thing is that the article mentions that a negative ruleing, could force even labtops on campus to be CALEA compliant. Since I'm a student at a university that requires students going into certain majors to have a labtop (to use and plug into the campus network) - I'm wondering if that means that we as students would have to modify our personal labtops (cause they interact with the campus network).
Sadly I bet the universities will compromise on this issue - rather than go to court.
Problem with this is, it requires "International Cooperation".
I'm simply not sure how much cooperation you are liable to get from countries like Russia, China, and others where a lot of these people operate from.
For those wondering, pernicious means: highly injurious or destructive.
I've heard Rosetta works fairly well. It's not cheap though.
Rosetta Stone
I visted a Holiday Gas Station in the middle of Minnesota (about a year ago) and while using the restroom, being astonished to see a poster with all the java classes / packages on the inside door of the restroom.
What was funnier, was that someone had updated it by drawing in a couple of new additions and other made-up classes (javax.swing.phonesex). I remember thinking - WTF? Who thinks about java while taking a dump... talk about an extreme programmer.
Just some things I noticed...
True, eye candy looks great, but that isn't all that Valve is trying to do. They are trying to build a game (expansion) that will bring even the best hardware to its knees. I quote:
Building stuff like this takes time... Relax, if they do it right, the majority of people won't be able to run it when it comes out (cause of the requirements).
Back in the days of the Apollo program, going to the moon was something that mankind had never done before. It was something we didn't know if we could do. Hence we were willing to accept risks. We were learning so much new stuff - it was worth it, and more importantly, the public could see that (we were gaining a lot of knowledge).
Mankind has always been willing to accept risks to explore or conquer, the unknown. A bunch of people died trying to climb Mt. Everest for example. But once it was conquered, and done safetly, then when someone died - it became a tragedy. The culture isn't any wimpier then it was back then - simply the politicians have a hard time of justifying the sacrifices to average joe - who simply knows, it was done once safetly. Why shouldn't it be 100% safe now? The general public does not hear about experiment x that went well in space anymore.
On the other hand, if it was something new and unheard of that NASA was doing - like going to another star (I assume the benefits of that would be obvious), I'm pretty sure the general public would accept the risk without much complaint.
I recall that when our school got computers, we had Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego and Number Munchers (somehow a copy of Dune 2 also made its way on the machines).
Oregon Trail was cool - because of it I know of places like Fort Walla Walla and whatnot, but the majority of time in the lab was either hunting or how fast can I kill my people (3 days - Cholera)...
Carmen Sandiego - I was too lazy to look up answers and would simply guess or get bored.
But Number Munchers... that game taught mathematics better than anything else. It was awesome - just the right amount of challenge and gameplay with learning intermixed. The games suggested by the researchers simply seem to be a little on the fun side too much.
What they need to do is build software for learning and then make it fun, not build software for entertainment and say what can we learn from this...
Yahoo returns a lot of dupes.
They may have more unique information simply futher down the result list, but since the search engines terminate the results at not quite 1k (1,000), the researchers have no way of testing that out.
All they can really show is that google returns more unique results per 1000 (which usually means that more items are indexed, but could be from Google's Pagerank also)...
Spammers could care less about the responses they get to their emails that are junk.
If 1 in a million buys something - it is worth it for them. Even if you do succeed in DDOSing one spammer out of action - it is only temporary. The spammer will simply buy a new domain.
If people really wanted to stop spam, they would complain about / to the companies that advertise in such a way. No company wants to be associated with spam. Sending thousands of emails to the company would be much more effective, especially if they sent them to customer support addresses and such where it is hard to filter out emails.
As long as businesses feel that spamming is a viable advertising option - spammers will exist.