+1 for this suggestion. I have a T-Mobile Blackberry 9700, and the UMA calling is its killer app.
With UMA, the phone contacts T-Mobile over WiFi whenever that's available. That means that you can get T-Mobile service on your campus in exactly the way you would if you were talking to a T-Mobile tower: voice, SMS, Blackberry Email, Data Services, etc.
It's also amazing for roaming. Are you overseas? Connect to a WiFi network and all of the sudden you're in the U.S. as far as the phone company is concerned. I travel very frequently, and this feature plus a Boingo Mobile plan and Google Voice allow essentially limitless talk for +$8/mo on top of the ordinary phone bill.
For T-Mobile UMA, you do NOT have to buy HotSpot Calling as an option. (I don't think it's offered anymore anyway.) If you don't have the HotSpot option for $x/mo, you can still use UMA, but all minutes come out of your regular voice time (note free evenings/weekends still apply). If you have the extra option, then all minutes on WiFi are free.
For the record, I submitted the review without any sort of link to the publisher (per the Slashdot book review policy). The/. editors add in those links.
And no, I don't work for the publisher. I genuinely read the book and enjoyed it.
I'm a tester, and we check all of our applications for SQL Injection as a matter of course. I've written an in-house crawler/injector that does a blind attack against a site (no, I will not give it to you, script kiddies). This is OK, but I would prefer an open source / free tool of some kind that is a bit less "user unfriendly" and a bit better maintained.
It would be nice to replace the ceramic tiles with an old-fashioned heat shield too. The tiles are fragile, fall off and have gaps between them. The old school Gemini and Apollo heat shields are just a big chunk of metal... much less can go wrong when you keep it simple.
I don't know about canada but in the US ISP's are NOT common carriers.
Telus is definitely a common carrier in Canada. In addition to being an ISP, they are also the second-largest telephone company in the country, and have a virtual monopoly over the four western provinces.
My understanding is that the credit card companies have their "zero liability" policy (consumer doesn't pay for fraudulent charges) in order to do just that. In one fell swoop, it keeps them from being sued by consumers (since they can't lose money from theft) and allows them to firmly place the burden on the processors for being responsible for the data. They dodge two bullets at once.
Personally I find that ridiculous. If you don't know the answer to a question (e.g. "how did the universe come to be") then you just say that: "I don't know". You don't make up some random nonsense and claim it to be the truth.
Absolutely. I'm an astronomy grad student. I'm sure that the Big Bang happened to an enormous level of confidence. WHY did it happen? I DON'T KNOW.
Isn't it a wonderful coincidence that all of the physical constants of the Universe are perfectly balance to allow life to happen? Isn't that the work of God?
Maybe. But maybe not. We shouldn't be surprised by these coincidences, because if they weren't true, we wouldn't be here to notice them.
If you want the views to coexist do you also argue for the Catholic pre-Copernicus view of the universe to be taught? That is equally valid in view of the scientific evidence as the intelligent designer.
Actually, the pre-Copernicus Ptolemaic system of astonomer is qualitatively different than the intelligent design point of view.
The theory is positively arcane, with all of its deferrents and epicycles and all of that stuff... it's very inelegant. However, if you use all of the machinery of the theory, you can predict the positions of the planets with reasonable accuracy. We have replaced this system, not because it is "wrong" or made bad predictions, but because a more elegant way to make better predictions (Kepler's laws, and eventually Einstein's General Relativity) provided more accurate predictions with less effort and a cleaner conceptual framework. Mathematically, you can prove that Ptolemy's system can explain any periodic motion of the planets - if you use an INFINITE number of epicycles and deferents. Ptolemy was the first step in the right direction toward a new theory. Copernicus and Kepler were better, and modern theories are better still.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, predicts nothing. It merely asserts that something happened and that no further investigation can ever take place.
Ah, but this is a contract legally because there is an exchange of something of value ("consideration" - in this case, one sandwich). The restaurant openly advertises that it charges for sandwiches on its menu.
That's true, and is why I don't believe that any OS or browser is going to save us from malware. Until the average user learns safe computing practices, they're going to continue installing stuff they later wish they hadn't; in time even if they do stop running as admin, they'll get used to typing in their admin (or root) username and password.
This isn't just a problem for the tech industry. Have a look at how many people smoke cigarettes that will kill them despite the warnings, sue large companies for spilling hot coffee on themselves, force plugs into "dummy proof" sockets, etc., etc. etc.
Some people are just plain dumb sometimes. No amount of education can cure human stupidity.
Microsoft also says that users who applied update 835732 in Security Bulletin MS04-011 (June 15, 2004) are not affected by this issue.
Not quite. Microsoft says servers which have applied that patch are not affected. IE clients can still be infected by a compromised server regardless of their patch status. (Except XP SP2 RC2 folks... but that release is still experimental (hence the "RC2")).
Reports indicate that Web servers running Windows 2000 Server and IIS that have not applied update 835732, which was addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011, are possibly being compromised and being used to attempt to infect users of Internet Explorer with malicious code.
Security Bulletin MS04-011 was published on April 13. I, for one, would REALLY like to know which financial institutions, etc. have failed to take the 73 days available to patch their damn webservers.
Check out this article that links the Transit of Venus to the Islamic prophecies of the Black Winds of Death, an al-Qaeda plot to attack on the 1,000th day of terror and setting off a volcano in Yellowstone with a nuke.
Yes, you're right. It's a typo, sorry. I thought I had posted a follow-up to the original post, but I guess/. filtered it out as being too soon after the original.
As I'm sure everyone will be quick to point out, lightyears isn't a measure of time, rather of distance.
Well, in a Newtonian sense, yes...
Einstein will tell you that time = distance. You just have to use the proper conversion factor (c, the speed of light in a vacuum) to get your units right. In relativity work, we often use units where c = 1. Time and space then behave identically in the math and you don't have to do one thing for one dimension and something a little different for the other three.
c, by the way, is exactly 299,792,458 m/s. EXACTLY. The meter is _defined_ as the distance a photon travels in exactly one second. (The second has a much more complicated definition)
So yes, light-years measure distance. And they measure time.
So what? Everyone dies. What makes the Enterprise-C story interesting is that Garrett and her crew knew that an action they were taking would, with complete certainty, result in their deaths and yet they took it anyway.
Good stories are about people. I, for one, would be interested in those kinds of people and why they would make that kind of choice.
From Sky & Telescope's AstroAlert on the asteroid (distributed by email):
According to the orbit calculated by Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center, 2004 FH belongs to the Aten class of asteroids. It circles the Sun in just under 9 months in very nearly the same plane as Earth's orbit. At perihelion it swings well inside the orbit of Venus; at aphelion (as currently) it ranges just outside that of the Earth.
most DAs would probably rather go after child porn then something so unlikely to get there names in the paper as white collar credit card scams
Reminds me of Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore had the brilliant idea of treating white collar criminals just like the rest... Chase them through the street, tackle 'em in the street, and bump them a few times on the hood of the cruiser. Would make for entertaining TV, and every "Average Joe" would love to see his/her boss go down.
(Provided, of course, that voter anonymity is preserved, but this shouldn't be any more of an obstacle than it is with paper ballots.)
Of course, the natural response to this is to simply USE PAPER BALLOTS. Any form of electronic record stored in RAM or on magnetic media can be tampered with. And any two CD-Rs look alike... It's a hell of a lot harder to swap two big boxes full of ballots than a single CD...
The two major objections that are usually posted here are that paper ballots take too long to count, and that paper ballots are a real bitch to deal with when you're voting for lots of things at once (California, anyone?). There's nothing wronge with machine-readable paper ballots (like the ubiquitous Scantron) for speed. As for multiple issues, it'd be easy to issue multiple pieces of paper. Vote for governor on the red one, proposition X on the blue one, etc. Then sort by colour and count by hand (or machine).
The only reason to implement wholly-electronic elections is to fix the results. Nothing else that is of any use to anyone can come from it.
... or we could just drive the current rovers to where their backshells impacted. They're close by (440m for Opportunity) and have been imaged by Mars Global Surveyor. I also believe that Opportunity imaged some of its own jetissoned landing equipment as well.
Let every candidate send a scrutineer to every polling station. Let them call for a recount if they feel it's necessary. Put the folks with a vested interest in _accuracy_ in charge of that one.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 for this suggestion. I have a T-Mobile Blackberry 9700, and the UMA calling is its killer app.
With UMA, the phone contacts T-Mobile over WiFi whenever that's available. That means that you can get T-Mobile service on your campus in exactly the way you would if you were talking to a T-Mobile tower: voice, SMS, Blackberry Email, Data Services, etc.
It's also amazing for roaming. Are you overseas? Connect to a WiFi network and all of the sudden you're in the U.S. as far as the phone company is concerned. I travel very frequently, and this feature plus a Boingo Mobile plan and Google Voice allow essentially limitless talk for +$8/mo on top of the ordinary phone bill.
For T-Mobile UMA, you do NOT have to buy HotSpot Calling as an option. (I don't think it's offered anymore anyway.) If you don't have the HotSpot option for $x/mo, you can still use UMA, but all minutes come out of your regular voice time (note free evenings/weekends still apply). If you have the extra option, then all minutes on WiFi are free.
For the record, I submitted the review without any sort of link to the publisher (per the Slashdot book review policy). The /. editors add in those links.
And no, I don't work for the publisher. I genuinely read the book and enjoyed it.
I work in an American university physics department. Your comment is right on the money here: we support both operating systems - Linux and OS X.
I can't think of anyone who uses Windows at all.
So...you're saying we should charge for EVERYTHING to maintain interest?
Absolutely!
BTW, you owe me $1.25 for reading this post.
I have one too... It does 2 Tflops on the same amount of power. As long as all of the opcodes are "NOOP".
Hey /.,
I'm a tester, and we check all of our applications for SQL Injection as a matter of course. I've written an in-house crawler/injector that does a blind attack against a site (no, I will not give it to you, script kiddies). This is OK, but I would prefer an open source / free tool of some kind that is a bit less "user unfriendly" and a bit better maintained.
Does anyone know of one?
Alf
It would be nice to replace the ceramic tiles with an old-fashioned heat shield too. The tiles are fragile, fall off and have gaps between them. The old school Gemini and Apollo heat shields are just a big chunk of metal... much less can go wrong when you keep it simple.
I don't know about canada but in the US ISP's are NOT common carriers.
Telus is definitely a common carrier in Canada. In addition to being an ISP, they are also the second-largest telephone company in the country, and have a virtual monopoly over the four western provinces.
My understanding is that the credit card companies have their "zero liability" policy (consumer doesn't pay for fraudulent charges) in order to do just that. In one fell swoop, it keeps them from being sued by consumers (since they can't lose money from theft) and allows them to firmly place the burden on the processors for being responsible for the data. They dodge two bullets at once.
*grin* You've got it... but that's just a fancy name that means everything you see is possible, by definition.
Personally I find that ridiculous. If you don't know the answer to a question (e.g. "how did the universe come to be") then you just say that: "I don't know". You don't make up some random nonsense and claim it to be the truth.
Absolutely. I'm an astronomy grad student. I'm sure that the Big Bang happened to an enormous level of confidence. WHY did it happen? I DON'T KNOW.
Isn't it a wonderful coincidence that all of the physical constants of the Universe are perfectly balance to allow life to happen? Isn't that the work of God?
Maybe. But maybe not. We shouldn't be surprised by these coincidences, because if they weren't true, we wouldn't be here to notice them.
If you want the views to coexist do you also argue for the Catholic pre-Copernicus view of the universe to be taught? That is equally valid in view of the scientific evidence as the intelligent designer.
Actually, the pre-Copernicus Ptolemaic system of astonomer is qualitatively different than the intelligent design point of view.
The theory is positively arcane, with all of its deferrents and epicycles and all of that stuff... it's very inelegant. However, if you use all of the machinery of the theory, you can predict the positions of the planets with reasonable accuracy. We have replaced this system, not because it is "wrong" or made bad predictions, but because a more elegant way to make better predictions (Kepler's laws, and eventually Einstein's General Relativity) provided more accurate predictions with less effort and a cleaner conceptual framework. Mathematically, you can prove that Ptolemy's system can explain any periodic motion of the planets - if you use an INFINITE number of epicycles and deferents. Ptolemy was the first step in the right direction toward a new theory. Copernicus and Kepler were better, and modern theories are better still.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, predicts nothing. It merely asserts that something happened and that no further investigation can ever take place.
Ah, but this is a contract legally because there is an exchange of something of value ("consideration" - in this case, one sandwich). The restaurant openly advertises that it charges for sandwiches on its menu.
That's true, and is why I don't believe that any OS or browser is going to save us from malware. Until the average user learns safe computing practices, they're going to continue installing stuff they later wish they hadn't; in time even if they do stop running as admin, they'll get used to typing in their admin (or root) username and password.
This isn't just a problem for the tech industry. Have a look at how many people smoke cigarettes that will kill them despite the warnings, sue large companies for spilling hot coffee on themselves, force plugs into "dummy proof" sockets, etc., etc. etc.
Some people are just plain dumb sometimes. No amount of education can cure human stupidity.
Not quite. Microsoft says servers which have applied that patch are not affected. IE clients can still be infected by a compromised server regardless of their patch status. (Except XP SP2 RC2 folks... but that release is still experimental (hence the "RC2")).
What if it is a Zero day exploit on IIS
Well, if it was then you'd be absolutely correct. It isn't, however. From Microsoft's page on this issue:
Reports indicate that Web servers running Windows 2000 Server and IIS that have not applied update 835732, which was addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011, are possibly being compromised and being used to attempt to infect users of Internet Explorer with malicious code.
Security Bulletin MS04-011 was published on April 13. I, for one, would REALLY like to know which financial institutions, etc. have failed to take the 73 days available to patch their damn webservers.
Sadly, no.
Check out this article that links the Transit of Venus to the Islamic prophecies of the Black Winds of Death, an al-Qaeda plot to attack on the 1,000th day of terror and setting off a volcano in Yellowstone with a nuke.
I'd say that pretty much defines "lunatic."
Yes, you're right. It's a typo, sorry. I thought I had posted a follow-up to the original post, but I guess /. filtered it out as being too soon after the original.
Thanks for the correction!
As I'm sure everyone will be quick to point out, lightyears isn't a measure of time, rather of distance.
Well, in a Newtonian sense, yes...
Einstein will tell you that time = distance. You just have to use the proper conversion factor (c, the speed of light in a vacuum) to get your units right. In relativity work, we often use units where c = 1. Time and space then behave identically in the math and you don't have to do one thing for one dimension and something a little different for the other three.
c, by the way, is exactly 299,792,458 m/s. EXACTLY. The meter is _defined_ as the distance a photon travels in exactly one second. (The second has a much more complicated definition)
So yes, light-years measure distance. And they measure time.
So what? Everyone dies. What makes the Enterprise-C story interesting is that Garrett and her crew knew that an action they were taking would, with complete certainty, result in their deaths and yet they took it anyway.
Good stories are about people. I, for one, would be interested in those kinds of people and why they would make that kind of choice.
From Sky & Telescope's AstroAlert on the asteroid (distributed by email):
According to the orbit calculated by Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center, 2004 FH belongs to the Aten class of asteroids. It circles the Sun in just under 9 months in very nearly the same plane as Earth's orbit. At perihelion it swings well inside the orbit of Venus; at aphelion (as currently) it ranges just outside that of the Earth.
Emphasis is mine.
most DAs would probably rather go after child porn then something so unlikely to get there names in the paper as white collar credit card scams
Reminds me of Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore had the brilliant idea of treating white collar criminals just like the rest... Chase them through the street, tackle 'em in the street, and bump them a few times on the hood of the cruiser. Would make for entertaining TV, and every "Average Joe" would love to see his/her boss go down.
(Provided, of course, that voter anonymity is preserved, but this shouldn't be any more of an obstacle than it is with paper ballots.)
Of course, the natural response to this is to simply USE PAPER BALLOTS. Any form of electronic record stored in RAM or on magnetic media can be tampered with. And any two CD-Rs look alike... It's a hell of a lot harder to swap two big boxes full of ballots than a single CD...
The two major objections that are usually posted here are that paper ballots take too long to count, and that paper ballots are a real bitch to deal with when you're voting for lots of things at once (California, anyone?). There's nothing wronge with machine-readable paper ballots (like the ubiquitous Scantron) for speed. As for multiple issues, it'd be easy to issue multiple pieces of paper. Vote for governor on the red one, proposition X on the blue one, etc. Then sort by colour and count by hand (or machine).
The only reason to implement wholly-electronic elections is to fix the results. Nothing else that is of any use to anyone can come from it.
... or we could just drive the current rovers to where their backshells impacted. They're close by (440m for Opportunity) and have been imaged by Mars Global Surveyor. I also believe that Opportunity imaged some of its own jetissoned landing equipment as well.
See MGS Images of Parachute and Backshell and Opportunity's image of its own parachutes and backshell.
While this surely isn't a 500-pound high-speed impact, it certainly did kick up some dirt and has the HUGE advantage of already having been launched.
Let every candidate send a scrutineer to every polling station. Let them call for a recount if they feel it's necessary. Put the folks with a vested interest in _accuracy_ in charge of that one.