This application of copyright law is properly ridiculous and wouldn't stand in a court with a sensible judge.
A definition of the word "copy" yields (New Oxford American Dictionary): 1 a thing made to be similar or identical to another 2 a single specimen of a particular book, record, or other publication or issue 3 matter to be printed
Therefore, in that context, the first definition applies. A copy of something, by definition, implies that one should be able to use it in the same ways as the original (being similar or identical). In the case of a dish, taking a picture cannot hence be considered a copy since I can eat the original, but not the picture (even less so when it's digital). What definition of similar can actually lead to consider that a picture (even more a digital one) is even remotely "similar" to plate with food in it no matter how beautifully arranged?
Likewise, merely taking a picture of a building won't provide me with a roof, and how can it be a copy?
This is somehow illustrated by Magritte's 1948 painting of a (smoking) pipe: "ceci n'est pas une pipe" http://tinyurl.com/owclu9e
To conclude, it seems that everything revolving around copyright nowadays has become lightyears more surrealistic than one of the leading surrealist painters of the twentieth century.
The symmetry in SMP does not refer to the capabilities of the processors. It refers to the relation between the processors and memory.
In symmetric multiprocessors, all processors access the same shared memory uniformly. That is, memory access delays depend neither on what memory zone nor from which processor it is being accessed.
In contrast, in NUMA architectures (non uniform memory access), each processor holds a portion of the shared memory that it can access very quickly. A processor can also access the portions of other processors but this incurs potentially large delays.
At the end of the spectrum, asymmetric multiprocessors combine processors with different capabilities. Here, asymmetric indeed most probably refers to the fact that processors are different. However, while most (all?) actual implementations using a NUMA architecture do use identical processors, they are never said to be symmetric because of the memory access.
I understand this concept, but what you're failing to properly acknowedge is that: A) The system is redundant B) The failure rate to needs to increase by orders of magnitude in order to outpace our ability to replace satellites. I highly doubt that the stastical data supports such claims.
Currently, according to the number stated in the article, the system can tolerate up to 4 defects out of 28, after what the complete coverage is lost. This is not much, but surely enough when the probability of failure of each satellite is low and these probabilities are independent (or can reasonably be assumed to be so), which is more-or-less the case during the random failure period.
The problem is that, when one reaches the wear out period, the satellites cannot be assumed to fail independently, especially if they were all built and put in service at the same time. This means that the failure rate can actually increase by several orders of magnitude in a very brief period.
Besides, even if failures could be assumed to be independent (again, this is purely hypothetical since they are not), then when the inidividual failure probability gets beyond a certain level, a redundancy of 4 out of 28 gives a global failure rate that gets higher than each individual component.
But the implication that we're only able to just keep up is false.
We're only launching that number of satellites per year because that's how many we need to provide adequate redundancy, not because it's the best we can do. We could send up more, but it would be a waste of money.
This simply shows that you have completely missed my point.
As I said, I am not in a position to know about the correctness of the assumptions. My point was about the logic of the argument. I sincerely hope that the US has done their homework and provisioned for a sudden increase in satellite loss when the system reaches the wear out period. Note though that there are two counter-arguments to your claims:
The probability of failure due to wear out cannot possibly be extrapolated from observing the failure probability during the first and second periods, because the causes are completely different.
Coping up with an increasing failure rate could easily have been thwarted by budget cuts.
Before you want to yell at me again, I must add that indeed a sufficient contingency has very possibly been prepared. Besides, I do not reckon that the loss of GPS coverage in some areas for a short period of time (i.e., until some satellites are replaced) is really a critical issue anyway, or is it?
There are gaping holes in his logic. Is it more likely that he's: A) incompetent or B) pushing an adgenda?
No, there may be gaping holes in his assumptions, but not in his logic. Previous posts were attacking his logic rather than his assumption with flawed arguments.
As I said, the fact that he may or may not be pushing an agenda is irrelevant to the discussion. To know whether his conclusions are meaningful, one must check the validity of his assumptions and the logic of his argumentation. Or, to take the opposite viewpoint, the only way to prove that his conclusions are wrong is to invalidate either any one of his assumptions (whether explicit or implicit ones) or show a gap in the logic. Thus far, no actual gap in the logic was validly pointed out. But, the points you raised about the assumptions do actually make sense.
What several posts fail to understand (e.g., grand parent or a few posts in parallel threads) is that the failure rate of a system is not constant over time. In fact, what any introductory book on system reliability teaches is that systems reliability follows a curve with a high initial failure rate that does down very steeply (initial defects), followed by a low and flat period (period of exploitation/amortization), and after that a steep increase (wear out). See also Wikipedia on failure rate and especially the typical bath tub curve.
What the article implies is that the satellite were designed and built so that the increased failure rate due to wear out would not occur before seven 1/2 years, but that this period has passed, and that the system is showing signs that the satelittes are indeed wearing out and that the failure rate will begin to increase very signficantly soon. Thus, being able to "just keep up" with the current failure rate will not be sufficient to prevent the system from collapsing.
Based on the assumptions (wear out signs; amortizing period; no replacement plan) made by the author of the article, his conclusions are unquestionably valid. On the other hand, the counter argument that: "we have been able to cope with the current failure rate, therefore we will continue to do so" is flawed because it is based on the wrong assumption that the failure rate of systems is constant.
I am not trying to enter into the politcal side of this discussion, and I agree that the author of the article may have is own motives, but this is simply not relevant to the logic of his argumentation.
Except that recreational SCUBA diving, like the grandparent post is referring to, is designed to avoid a decompression stage; both because it is an easy thing for recreational divers to forget to do / skimp on, and because it affects the ability to deal with any emergencies that might arise while underwater.
It's safer if you maintain a dive profile that always allows you to return straight to the surface.
So the fact that this device could allow you to maintain at 30 or 60 feet for the 30+ minutes it might take to safely decompress on the way up isn't likely to change the rules for recreational diving.
In fact, according to most diving tables, it takes several hours of diving at shallow depth of less than about 10 meters, before the first decompression stop becomes mandatory.
For instance, just out of the back of my memory, the PADI diving tables were mentioning 90+ minutes of nodeco diving at 10 meters on air. These figures can even be significantly extended when using enriched air, diving at even slightly shallower depth (e.g., 7-8 meters max.), or planning multi-level dives.
In tropical places, there are already *many* very interesting things to see at these depths, and you don't want to bring untrained people deeper than about 10 meters anyway, since they can easily reach the surface on one single breath should anything bad happen (this one of the exercices for the PADI open water).
The Japanese behind the 'Godzilla' on the image is basically GO JI RA.
Yes, that's right. I was told that the name was actually created from a merge between "GO RI RA" (gorilla) and "KU JI RA" (whale), and intended as a pun for both King-Kong (the gorilla) and Moby Dick (the whale).
Consider: the nidump utility dumps out *encrypted passwords* to ANY user on the box, even 'nobody'. In other words, OSX doesn't even have the equivalent of shadow passwords!
In fact, the statement above is misleading. nidump dumps password that are stored in NetInfo, which is more-or-less the equivalent of NIS. When passwords are stored locally---that is, not through NetInfo---they are stored using shadow passwords. Now, if you compare with a Linux/Solaris/* environment using NIS, you can also obtain encrypted NIS passwords through ypcat. To avoid this situation, you would use Kerberos, which OS X also supports. Hence, your main complaint sounds rather biased to me.
This said, I agree with your complaint about filenames capitalization. However, the biggest complaint I would have about OS X Server is that, while its management tools are great as long as you stay on well charted roads, you need to circumvent them to get to tune more advanced settings. Then, it is not much different from setting/tuning a Linux box, except that file locations are slightly different.
Instead of a summary, you can read the article in
English because Daily Yomiuri runs an English version of its website, with all articles translated.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm
The article is in the "science" section.
Slashdot Mirror
This application of copyright law is properly ridiculous and wouldn't stand in a court with a sensible judge.
A definition of the word "copy" yields (New Oxford American Dictionary):
1 a thing made to be similar or identical to another
2 a single specimen of a particular book, record, or other publication or issue
3 matter to be printed
Therefore, in that context, the first definition applies. A copy of something, by definition, implies that one should be able to use it in the same ways as the original (being similar or identical).
In the case of a dish, taking a picture cannot hence be considered a copy since I can eat the original, but not the picture (even less so when it's digital). What definition of similar can actually lead to consider that a picture (even more a digital one) is even remotely "similar" to plate with food in it no matter how beautifully arranged?
Likewise, merely taking a picture of a building won't provide me with a roof, and how can it be a copy?
This is somehow illustrated by Magritte's 1948 painting of a (smoking) pipe: "ceci n'est pas une pipe"
http://tinyurl.com/owclu9e
To conclude, it seems that everything revolving around copyright nowadays has become lightyears more surrealistic than one of the leading surrealist painters of the twentieth century.
This is almost that, but still off the mark.
The symmetry in SMP does not refer to the capabilities of the processors. It refers to the relation between the processors and memory.
In symmetric multiprocessors, all processors access the same shared memory uniformly. That is, memory access delays depend neither on what memory zone nor from which processor it is being accessed.
In contrast, in NUMA architectures (non uniform memory access), each processor holds a portion of the shared memory that it can access very quickly. A processor can also access the portions of other processors but this incurs potentially large delays.
At the end of the spectrum, asymmetric multiprocessors combine processors with different capabilities. Here, asymmetric indeed most probably refers to the fact that processors are different. However, while most (all?) actual implementations using a NUMA architecture do use identical processors, they are never said to be symmetric because of the memory access.
I understand this concept, but what you're failing to properly acknowedge is that:
A) The system is redundant
B) The failure rate to needs to increase by orders of magnitude in order to outpace our ability to replace satellites.
I highly doubt that the stastical data supports such claims.
Currently, according to the number stated in the article, the system can tolerate up to 4 defects out of 28, after what the complete coverage is lost. This is not much, but surely enough when the probability of failure of each satellite is low and these probabilities are independent (or can reasonably be assumed to be so), which is more-or-less the case during the random failure period.
The problem is that, when one reaches the wear out period, the satellites cannot be assumed to fail independently, especially if they were all built and put in service at the same time. This means that the failure rate can actually increase by several orders of magnitude in a very brief period.
Besides, even if failures could be assumed to be independent (again, this is purely hypothetical since they are not), then when the inidividual failure probability gets beyond a certain level, a redundancy of 4 out of 28 gives a global failure rate that gets higher than each individual component.
But the implication that we're only able to just keep up is false.
We're only launching that number of satellites per year because that's how many we need to provide adequate redundancy, not because it's the best we can do. We could send up more, but it would be a waste of money.
This simply shows that you have completely missed my point.
As I said, I am not in a position to know about the correctness of the assumptions. My point was about the logic of the argument. I sincerely hope that the US has done their homework and provisioned for a sudden increase in satellite loss when the system reaches the wear out period.
Note though that there are two counter-arguments to your claims:
Before you want to yell at me again, I must add that indeed a sufficient contingency has very possibly been prepared. Besides, I do not reckon that the loss of GPS coverage in some areas for a short period of time (i.e., until some satellites are replaced) is really a critical issue anyway, or is it?
There are gaping holes in his logic. Is it more likely that he's:
A) incompetent
or
B) pushing an adgenda?
No, there may be gaping holes in his assumptions, but not in his logic. Previous posts were attacking his logic rather than his assumption with flawed arguments.
As I said, the fact that he may or may not be pushing an agenda is irrelevant to the discussion. To know whether his conclusions are meaningful, one must check the validity of his assumptions and the logic of his argumentation. Or, to take the opposite viewpoint, the only way to prove that his conclusions are wrong is to invalidate either any one of his assumptions (whether explicit or implicit ones) or show a gap in the logic. Thus far, no actual gap in the logic was validly pointed out. But, the points you raised about the assumptions do actually make sense.
Someone should mod the parent up.
What several posts fail to understand (e.g., grand parent or a few posts in parallel threads) is that the failure rate of a system is not constant over time. In fact, what any introductory book on system reliability teaches is that systems reliability follows a curve with a high initial failure rate that does down very steeply (initial defects), followed by a low and flat period (period of exploitation/amortization), and after that a steep increase (wear out).
See also Wikipedia on failure rate and especially the typical bath tub curve.
What the article implies is that the satellite were designed and built so that the increased failure rate due to wear out would not occur before seven 1/2 years, but that this period has passed, and that the system is showing signs that the satelittes are indeed wearing out and that the failure rate will begin to increase very signficantly soon. Thus, being able to "just keep up" with the current failure rate will not be sufficient to prevent the system from collapsing.
Based on the assumptions (wear out signs; amortizing period; no replacement plan) made by the author of the article, his conclusions are unquestionably valid. On the other hand, the counter argument that:
"we have been able to cope with the current failure rate, therefore we will continue to do so"
is flawed because it is based on the wrong assumption that the failure rate of systems is constant.
I am not trying to enter into the politcal side of this discussion, and I agree that the author of the article may have is own motives, but this is simply not relevant to the logic of his argumentation.
Except that recreational SCUBA diving, like the grandparent post is referring to, is designed to avoid a decompression stage; both because it is an easy thing for recreational divers to forget to do / skimp on, and because it affects the ability to deal with any emergencies that might arise while underwater.
It's safer if you maintain a dive profile that always allows you to return straight to the surface.
So the fact that this device could allow you to maintain at 30 or 60 feet for the 30+ minutes it might take to safely decompress on the way up isn't likely to change the rules for recreational diving.
In fact, according to most diving tables, it takes several hours of diving at shallow depth of less than about 10 meters, before the first decompression stop becomes mandatory.
For instance, just out of the back of my memory, the PADI diving tables were mentioning 90+ minutes of nodeco diving at 10 meters on air. These figures can even be significantly extended when using enriched air, diving at even slightly shallower depth (e.g., 7-8 meters max.), or planning multi-level dives.
In tropical places, there are already *many* very interesting things to see at these depths, and you don't want to bring untrained people deeper than about 10 meters anyway, since they can easily reach the surface on one single breath should anything bad happen (this one of the exercices for the PADI open water).
Yes, that's right.
I was told that the name was actually created from a merge between "GO RI RA" (gorilla) and "KU JI RA" (whale), and intended as a pun for both King-Kong (the gorilla) and Moby Dick (the whale).
Consider: the nidump utility dumps out *encrypted passwords* to ANY user on the box, even 'nobody'. In other words, OSX doesn't even have the equivalent of shadow passwords!
In fact, the statement above is misleading. nidump dumps password that are stored in NetInfo, which is more-or-less the equivalent of NIS. When passwords are stored locally---that is, not through NetInfo---they are stored using shadow passwords. Now, if you compare with a Linux/Solaris/* environment using NIS, you can also obtain encrypted NIS passwords through ypcat. To avoid this situation, you would use Kerberos, which OS X also supports. Hence, your main complaint sounds rather biased to me.
This said, I agree with your complaint about filenames capitalization. However, the biggest complaint I would have about OS X Server is that, while its management tools are great as long as you stay on well charted roads, you need to circumvent them to get to tune more advanced settings. Then, it is not much different from setting/tuning a Linux box, except that file locations are slightly different.
Words fail me.
Hopefuly, you can recover now.
Instead of a summary, you can read the article in
English because Daily Yomiuri runs an English version of its website, with all articles translated.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm
The article is in the "science" section.
Yoroshiku