These do _not_ produce any toxins themselves. Instead, they were modified to be resistant to Roundup, a glycophosphate based herbicide.
These are to control weeds, not insects. I fully agree that these are a very worrying idea, but spreading untruths is not helpful. In any field. The truth is scary enough.
Plants can't spread DNA to others. The worry about spreading genes is primarlily in corss polination, where pollen from modifed corn gets blown around, and lands on normal corn.
There is a theoretical risk of a virus picking up the modified genes and spreading them to other species, true - but cross pollination is a much bigger issue. --
"Welcome to Supercomputer users anonymous. I'd like to welcome our first speaker tonight, Stuart."
"Hi, my name's Stuart, and I'm a s-supercomputer user.
"I first started useing them quite recently, just six months ago. I got offered a small amount of computer time, for free. It's always the way of these things, let you use these pointless things, get you hooked.
"Anyway, I though I might just try it. You know, the first time can't hurt. Besides, I thought I w-would be able to give it up, any time I wanted.
"All I wanted to do was to get the progam to run that little bit faster. It was calculating the ground state energy of an ordered perovskite. A big job, to be sure - it took nearly 200 MB to hold the wavefunction.
"I packedged up all the code I'd got to that date. Burnt it off to a CD, just in case, you know.
"The Supercomputer sprinted through the code in thirty minutes. I just wasn't prepared for that. It was a feeling I hadn't felt before. Normally, on the RS/6000's we have ourselves, it took a few days, so I was literealy gobsmaked.
"Well, one thing lead to another, and we were offered money if we could calculated a disordered perovskite, with lithium interstitials. I didn't even think of using our own computers, my thought turned straight to the supercomputer.
"On reflection, I can see now that I wasn't thinking clearly. After all, just because it took nearly a gigabyte of disk space to hold the wave function there was no reason why an ordinary computer could have done that. With some swapping, as it needs to hold three of them in memory at once.
"And, of course, every thing the code did was a vector operation. That confused me, because I should have seen that a scaler processor was more efficent at doing vector calculations that a processor designed to do them, but that's the supercomputer addiction kicking in.
"It took a few days on the supercomputer. That's when I realised what had happened, and took my chance to return to normality.
"Fortunatly, with support, we managed to leave the supercomputer behind, and get a 24 node Beowulf of Pentium-III's.
"Just to show how unnessecary these so called 'super' computers are, the Beowulf is now running the code. We're a little concerned that they haven't produced any resulsts after three days, due to constantly swapping, but that's jsut after effects of the supercomputer. After all, the natural state of a computer is disk tharshing.
"The way the processors now take thirty times longer to do a single vecotr operation is a lot of comfort to me. I can see the light now."
Your not allowed to redistribute a GPL program, unless you agree to the liscence (Basic copyright).
If you redistribute a GPL'd binary, you have to (at leat) have the source available freely, to those who you pass the binary on to.
Does this mean that if I infect someone with the virus (deliberatly), I must give them the source, on request? (Answear: Yes)
What if I give them the binary, unwittingly?
What if I intend to give them a different program (e.g. xbill) that is infected. The source is requested, then I give them the xbill source. But that's not the source for the binary - does this mean the GPL cannot be upheld in this cricumstance?
Extremly icy ground, and prbably best handled by lawyers, (one of which I am not), but even so, food for thought.
Most of the comments I've read seem to miss this point:
The only thing that is stopping the EQ players from selling 'virtual' goods for real money is the EULA. The EULA state this quite clearly that that is not allowed.
Thus, the first step for the suit has to be for he EULa to be declared invalid. Whilst it may be feaable for only that clause to be struck down, I don't find that clause any more rediculus than most EULA clauses.
If this goes to court, this will be the EULA test case that many have been waiting for. The only way (that I can see) for the gamers to win is to have the EULA declared invalid.
Now, considering the vast number of reasons for getting EULA's struck down, I'm on the side of the gamers.
Not because I think that what they do is right (personally, they're a bunch of whining kids), nor proper (it spoils the game, and removes immersion in the environment), but because this, if it goes to court, could be the downfall of EULAs. --
Without looking deeply, there are at least three forks of Linux.
rtlinux - A realtime, low latency kernel
uclinux - Designed / designing for microcontrollers
ELKS - For embeded devices --
Re:I would've asked about automation of analysis..
on
Theo de Raadt Responds
·
· Score: 2
I would disagree.
Automated code modification would lead to a situation where the developers would just sit around and think of vunerabilites.
Rather than haveing to look over the same code 14 times, and get to know it. There is something to be said for forcing yourself to pore over every line, every bracket, every semicolon of the code, and check everything.
From what Theo said, it sounds like while they are fixing one sloppy piece of code, they note another bit when they are part way through.
This makes lots of sense.
Where are they going to find new mistakes from if they don't go through all the code.
This is not just of the top of my head, btw. I write scientific code that has to be correct, where there is no way of testing the output. It's amazing how often subtle bugs are missed. --
What I was meaning was that the linked page is not requesting comments on UCITA, which was what Hemos [0] implied it to be on.
Writing a detailed criticisim of UCITA would probably damage credability of everything you said, because it's not what they're asking for. They're asking for more general warrenty related stuff, and that's what any comments sent there should refelect.
7. What developments are underway by private or public entities at the international, national, state, or local levels that would have an impact on consumers's rights in the context of transactions involving software or other computer information products and services?
a. How would the proposed Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) affect consumers?
In other words, ONE part of this (7a, out of 16) is requesting comments of UCITA.
If your comment only talks on of subquestion, then it's worth is 'obviously' less than one that address most of the points they will comments on.
Well, I've got a BSc in Chemistry and Physics, and (almst) a masters in Materials Science.
I just turned down a job writing code (for a games company). Ok, that's my choice (I want to go academic. But he fact that I had the degree got me the (unsolicited) offer.
So, on to the why.
The company in question is hurting for people. Not for bottom rung programmers, (It's situated with 10 universites within commuting distance), but for people who understand the real world, on an algorithmic level.
For example, they had a CS graduate, who wrote a bunch of code, which they binned. It was very elegant, implemented the design algorithm to the letter, but was too slow, and the guy didn't know how to simplyfy the algorithm.
Skipping collage may get you a job punching code. It will not get you a job doing design. You know, the really lucrative area.
The catalogs are not postcode separated. I know this because we get a list of addresses, in a particular location. These span multiple postcodes, and the whole range of areas, right from really scummy parts up to veritable mansion houses.
The catalogs were then collected from large pallets of catalogs stacked at one side, and one delivered per address.
Each catalog did _not_ have a specifc address.
There was no way of making certain catalogs targeted to certain area. [0]
[0] There _were_ differnt catalogs target at different markets, but that's very different from the topic at hand.
So, for people in my situation, (doing scientific research) who _need_ CD-R's, we're expected to give most of our grant over to computer games companies?
For background, I'm working on an electrical ceramic. I generate lots of data, as most of it can only be sensible captured in picture form (1Meg per picture), and processed down later. In two days on the microscope, I managed to fill a blank Zip disk (100 Meg) [0].
I get two days a week for data collection, so this means that over the past six weeks, I've got 1 CD full of raw data. Were I to continue this work for a full PhD, I make that 24 CD's full. Or 820 pounds (just under 1/3 of the research grant) to him. Because I might be priateing games.
To him, I say, get a life.
[0] Ok, particulry productive day, normally it's about 60 Meg.
Cos right after the beta announcement, I got sound quality comparable to MP3, at the same encoding rate.
That's across my entire music collection, much of which is the 'nightmare' scenario - acappella, or simple acoustic perfromances.
Yes, it takes a long time. That is true. No one has ever tried to deny that. It takes about 10 times longer than MP3 to encode, and about twice as much porcessor power as MP3 to decode. Or, 6% in my case.
This is totally unoptimised code. The bleeding edge CVS is starting to optimise, so watch the processor use tumble.
[Yes this is slightly OT. But it's still science.]
"Polymeric" is just a fancy way to say "plastic"
Actually, polymeric does not mean plastic.
Plastic, strictly, means that you can shape the material by squeezeing it into shape. (As opposed to elastic, like a rubber band, that will go back to it's original shape when you stop squeezing it).
Polymeric means built up from lots of reapeating units. What are commonly called plastics (Polyethylene for example) are polymeric. But so are proteins. And lots of other things, that are't plastics.
To get marginally back on topic, just because this is made using a polymer does _not_ mean that it will be flexable. Perspex (Polymethylmethacrylate), the ploymer used in windows, is not flexable. Given that semiconductors require a crystaline structure, I don't think that these polymers will be plastic.
You can get flexable polymers that can do this sort of thing, but they are not semiconductors, they are called elecroluminescent polymers.
They patents have been filled - not granted. The company that filled the patents was incoporated in 1998. Thus these patents cannot be older than that.
Hmm. Well, first of, they only give the names of the patents, so it;s very difficult to comment fully on the content (as name of a patent does not nessecerilly mean much [it's ment to, but that's another point]).
However, here's the list of the patents they claim to have filed. So, if they are overbroad, they may be caught by the patent offic and not be granted [0].
Flash Vos Super O/S- Virtual Flash Based Operating System
The flash based part here I think is critical. Rembeber that patents are very specific. A flip down mouthpeice on a phone is not the same as a flip up ear piece. Thus, this seems to restrict it to using flash only. Precisly what innovation it has (other than standard viruliasation and journalling) I'm not certain of, but I don't belive that this will be a problem.
System Virtualization and Virtual Table of Contents
Um, lost on the techincal bits of virtualisation on this one. It sounds fairly over broad.
Restrictive Partitioning of Secondary Storage Devices (SCSI and IDE)
Not certain what they mean by restrictive partioning, as apposed to 'ordinary' partioning. Google is confused on it too.
Super O/S Graphic User Interface
Super O/S Remote OS Load and Set up
These say they are OS specific. Shouldn't be a problem.
Following on from previous situations, where companies have gone bankrupt, and sold customer data [0], this is hardly a surprise. Has Amazon turned a profit yet?
However, this is an interesting case. In the UK (and Eurpoe generally) there is greater protection on what companies can, and can't, do with your personal data.
This means that the privacy policy for amazon.co.uk is different from amazon.com.
Arn't they the same company? Isn't this a little schitzophrenic?
No, it's not a smart card. It's a conventional magnetic card.
It contains your bank details, and when it's used, the computer in the supermarket contacts the computer in the bank, and the money is transferred from one account to the other.
No 'cash' is stored on the card.
My point was that the overhead in direct electronic funds transfer is now so low, you can use it for any amount.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. Monsanto produces "Roundup ready" plants.
These do _not_ produce any toxins themselves. Instead, they were modified to be resistant to Roundup, a glycophosphate based herbicide.
These are to control weeds, not insects. I fully agree that these are a very worrying idea, but spreading untruths is not helpful. In any field. The truth is scary enough.
Plants can't spread DNA to others. The worry about spreading genes is primarlily in corss polination, where pollen from modifed corn gets blown around, and lands on normal corn.
There is a theoretical risk of a virus picking up the modified genes and spreading them to other species, true - but cross pollination is a much bigger issue.
--
"Welcome to Supercomputer users anonymous. I'd like to welcome our first speaker tonight, Stuart."
"Hi, my name's Stuart, and I'm a s-supercomputer user.
"I first started useing them quite recently, just six months ago. I got offered a small amount of computer time, for free. It's always the way of these things, let you use these pointless things, get you hooked.
"Anyway, I though I might just try it. You know, the first time can't hurt. Besides, I thought I w-would be able to give it up, any time I wanted.
"All I wanted to do was to get the progam to run that little bit faster. It was calculating the ground state energy of an ordered perovskite. A big job, to be sure - it took nearly 200 MB to hold the wavefunction.
"I packedged up all the code I'd got to that date. Burnt it off to a CD, just in case, you know.
"The Supercomputer sprinted through the code in thirty minutes. I just wasn't prepared for that. It was a feeling I hadn't felt before. Normally, on the RS/6000's we have ourselves, it took a few days, so I was literealy gobsmaked.
"Well, one thing lead to another, and we were offered money if we could calculated a disordered perovskite, with lithium interstitials. I didn't even think of using our own computers, my thought turned straight to the supercomputer.
"On reflection, I can see now that I wasn't thinking clearly. After all, just because it took nearly a gigabyte of disk space to hold the wave function there was no reason why an ordinary computer could have done that. With some swapping, as it needs to hold three of them in memory at once.
"And, of course, every thing the code did was a vector operation. That confused me, because I should have seen that a scaler processor was more efficent at doing vector calculations that a processor designed to do them, but that's the supercomputer addiction kicking in.
"It took a few days on the supercomputer. That's when I realised what had happened, and took my chance to return to normality.
"Fortunatly, with support, we managed to leave the supercomputer behind, and get a 24 node Beowulf of Pentium-III's.
"Just to show how unnessecary these so called 'super' computers are, the Beowulf is now running the code. We're a little concerned that they haven't produced any resulsts after three days, due to constantly swapping, but that's jsut after effects of the supercomputer. After all, the natural state of a computer is disk tharshing.
"The way the processors now take thirty times longer to do a single vecotr operation is a lot of comfort to me. I can see the light now."
--
Slightly OT, but just had a thought.
Your not allowed to redistribute a GPL program, unless you agree to the liscence (Basic copyright).
If you redistribute a GPL'd binary, you have to (at leat) have the source available freely, to those who you pass the binary on to.
Does this mean that if I infect someone with the virus (deliberatly), I must give them the source, on request? (Answear: Yes)
What if I give them the binary, unwittingly?
What if I intend to give them a different program (e.g. xbill) that is infected. The source is requested, then I give them the xbill source. But that's not the source for the binary - does this mean the GPL cannot be upheld in this cricumstance?
Extremly icy ground, and prbably best handled by lawyers, (one of which I am not), but even so, food for thought.
Stuey!
--
Most of the comments I've read seem to miss this point:
The only thing that is stopping the EQ players from selling 'virtual' goods for real money is the EULA. The EULA state this quite clearly that that is not allowed.
Thus, the first step for the suit has to be for he EULa to be declared invalid. Whilst it may be feaable for only that clause to be struck down, I don't find that clause any more rediculus than most EULA clauses.
If this goes to court, this will be the EULA test case that many have been waiting for. The only way (that I can see) for the gamers to win is to have the EULA declared invalid.
Now, considering the vast number of reasons for getting EULA's struck down, I'm on the side of the gamers.
Not because I think that what they do is right (personally, they're a bunch of whining kids), nor proper (it spoils the game, and removes immersion in the environment), but because this, if it goes to court, could be the downfall of EULAs.
--
Without looking deeply, there are at least three forks of Linux.
rtlinux - A realtime, low latency kernel
uclinux - Designed / designing for microcontrollers
ELKS - For embeded devices
--
I would disagree.
Automated code modification would lead to a situation where the developers would just sit around and think of vunerabilites.
Rather than haveing to look over the same code 14 times, and get to know it. There is something to be said for forcing yourself to pore over every line, every bracket, every semicolon of the code, and check everything.
From what Theo said, it sounds like while they are fixing one sloppy piece of code, they note another bit when they are part way through.
This makes lots of sense.
Where are they going to find new mistakes from if they don't go through all the code.
This is not just of the top of my head, btw. I write scientific code that has to be correct, where there is no way of testing the output. It's amazing how often subtle bugs are missed.
--
I'm sorry, you seem to miss the point.
If all you wanted was an encoding format, you can get that - eg here.
If what you want is the music, then fine, you can get that too.
If you want your music in MP3 format, you can by the CD and encode it, or get it here.
If you _don't_ want the music, then cool, no problem.
But, just because you have to change it from the format it's sold in, to the format you want to use it in does _not_ give you the right to steal.
Ever copied a CD to tape, to play in the car, or on a walkman? Amounts to the same thing.
By the CD, and use this.
The RIAA sued over MP3.com distributing RIAA members music (right ot wrong, not relevent here).
Notice that all the other online music labels have not been sued for being such. (For example Vorbisonic, which even uses a free [speech and beer] music format).
MP3.com is still distributing music, and selling CD's. Nothing stopping it.
So, it's Potato, and Woody.
Not Espy then.
Shows how much the community cares.
What I was meaning was that the linked page is not requesting comments on UCITA, which was what Hemos [0] implied it to be on.
Writing a detailed criticisim of UCITA would probably damage credability of everything you said, because it's not what they're asking for. They're asking for more general warrenty related stuff, and that's what any comments sent there should refelect.
[0] Pot-kettle thing. Sorry Taco.
I quote:
7. What developments are underway by private or public entities at the international, national, state, or local levels that would have an impact on consumers's rights in the context of transactions involving software or other computer information products and services?
a. How would the proposed Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) affect consumers?
In other words, ONE part of this (7a, out of 16) is requesting comments of UCITA.
If your comment only talks on of subquestion, then it's worth is 'obviously' less than one that address most of the points they will comments on.
READ the article. (That goes for Taco too)
Well, I've got a BSc in Chemistry and Physics, and (almst) a masters in Materials Science.
I just turned down a job writing code (for a games company). Ok, that's my choice (I want to go academic. But he fact that I had the degree got me the (unsolicited) offer.
So, on to the why.
The company in question is hurting for people. Not for bottom rung programmers, (It's situated with 10 universites within commuting distance), but for people who understand the real world, on an algorithmic level.
For example, they had a CS graduate, who wrote a bunch of code, which they binned. It was very elegant, implemented the design algorithm to the letter, but was too slow, and the guy didn't know how to simplyfy the algorithm.
Skipping collage may get you a job punching code. It will not get you a job doing design. You know, the really lucrative area.
The catalogs are not postcode separated. I know this because we get a list of addresses, in a particular location. These span multiple postcodes, and the whole range of areas, right from really scummy parts up to veritable mansion houses.
The catalogs were then collected from large pallets of catalogs stacked at one side, and one delivered per address.
Each catalog did _not_ have a specifc address.
There was no way of making certain catalogs targeted to certain area. [0]
[0] There _were_ differnt catalogs target at different markets, but that's very different from the topic at hand.
Right...
So, for people in my situation, (doing scientific research) who _need_ CD-R's, we're expected to give most of our grant over to computer games companies?
For background, I'm working on an electrical ceramic. I generate lots of data, as most of it can only be sensible captured in picture form (1Meg per picture), and processed down later. In two days on the microscope, I managed to fill a blank Zip disk (100 Meg) [0].
I get two days a week for data collection, so this means that over the past six weeks, I've got 1 CD full of raw data. Were I to continue this work for a full PhD, I make that 24 CD's full. Or 820 pounds (just under 1/3 of the research grant) to him. Because I might be priateing games.
To him, I say, get a life.
[0] Ok, particulry productive day, normally it's about 60 Meg.
Not in the UK
In the UK the major home shopping catalouge firms are all part of the Littlewoods group (Though not all).
A summer job as a delivery driver for that group demonstrates quite clearly that the catalouges are all the same.
OK, want to quantifify _when_ you tried ogg?
Cos right after the beta announcement, I got sound quality comparable to MP3, at the same encoding rate.
That's across my entire music collection, much of which is the 'nightmare' scenario - acappella, or simple acoustic perfromances.
Yes, it takes a long time. That is true. No one has ever tried to deny that. It takes about 10 times longer than MP3 to encode, and about twice as much porcessor power as MP3 to decode. Or, 6% in my case.
This is totally unoptimised code. The bleeding edge CVS is starting to optimise, so watch the processor use tumble.
Um, sorry try again. Most polymers are not bendable.
Most polymers you will meet are, but that's not the same thing.
This stuff works by semiconducting polymers - that means they need to be crystaline polymers - a small subgroup - that are not 'bendy'.
You can get bendy screens, byt using polymers, but that's an entirely different group of polymers.
[Yes this is slightly OT. But it's still science.]
"Polymeric" is just a fancy way to say "plastic"
Actually, polymeric does not mean plastic.
Plastic, strictly, means that you can shape the material by squeezeing it into shape. (As opposed to elastic, like a rubber band, that will go back to it's original shape when you stop squeezing it).
Polymeric means built up from lots of reapeating units. What are commonly called plastics (Polyethylene for example) are polymeric. But so are proteins. And lots of other things, that are't plastics.
To get marginally back on topic, just because this is made using a polymer does _not_ mean that it will be flexable. Perspex (Polymethylmethacrylate), the ploymer used in windows, is not flexable. Given that semiconductors require a crystaline structure, I don't think that these polymers will be plastic.
You can get flexable polymers that can do this sort of thing, but they are not semiconductors, they are called elecroluminescent polymers.
Different thing entierly
Nice idea, but...
Isin't it normal practice for the company to give the hardware to the person writing the driver, _before_ he writes it.
So that, like, he knows if it works or not?
Makes it difficult to call it a competition.
Yep, it depends on when.
They patents have been filled - not granted. The company that filled the patents was incoporated in 1998. Thus these patents cannot be older than that.
Nuff said.
However, here's the list of the patents they claim to have filed. So, if they are overbroad, they may be caught by the patent offic and not be granted [0].
The flash based part here I think is critical. Rembeber that patents are very specific. A flip down mouthpeice on a phone is not the same as a flip up ear piece. Thus, this seems to restrict it to using flash only. Precisly what innovation it has (other than standard viruliasation and journalling) I'm not certain of, but I don't belive that this will be a problem.
Um, lost on the techincal bits of virtualisation on this one. It sounds fairly over broad.
Not certain what they mean by restrictive partioning, as apposed to 'ordinary' partioning. Google is confused on it too.
These say they are OS specific. Shouldn't be a problem.
[0] Yeah, right.
Following on from previous situations, where companies have gone bankrupt, and sold customer data [0], this is hardly a surprise. Has Amazon turned a profit yet?
However, this is an interesting case. In the UK (and Eurpoe generally) there is greater protection on what companies can, and can't, do with your personal data.
This means that the privacy policy for amazon.co.uk is different from amazon.com.
Arn't they the same company? Isn't this a little schitzophrenic?
No, it's not a smart card. It's a conventional magnetic card.
It contains your bank details, and when it's used, the computer in the supermarket contacts the computer in the bank, and the money is transferred from one account to the other.
No 'cash' is stored on the card.
My point was that the overhead in direct electronic funds transfer is now so low, you can use it for any amount.
I know I do.
One better than that.
I was just in my local supermarket, getting the usual qunatity of caffenated drinks. The person in front of me was purchasing a pair of onions.
That's a total cost of 15 pence (About 25 cents).
He paid by Switch. Switch is a form of electronic fund transfer (A debit card).
No cash. No cheque. No delay. Who needs PayPal?
I haven't written a cheque. Actually, I take that back, I wrote one, once. 5 years ago. Switch rocks. Largely.
There's a very clear way of showing this.
They are not copying. They are imitating.
To copy requires permission. To imitate (unless it's patented) does not.
Think Coka-cola and Pepsi. One _imitated_ the other. They are not identical.
It's the same way that FVWM95 is legal. It imitates (as closely as possable) the MS Windows GUI. It doesn't copy - that would be illegal.