1 - This known to be finite Universe simply... started.
It's also possible that the universe goes in "cycles", and that what we perceive as the age of the universe is actually the time since the beginning of this cycle. It could very well still be an infinite universe.
2 - This known to be finite Universe was created. By whom or what, there is no proof. A finite thing being created is more plausible than a finite thing simply appearing from nothing.
It only seems more plausible because you're ignoring the question of where that creator came from. The creationist point of view requires the eternal existence or spontaneous appearance of a creator (which is surely a more complex entity than the universe it creates), and the creation of the universe. My theory (not that I can take credit for it) requires much simpler assumptions--the eternal existence or spontaneous creation of only the universe.
As for spontaneous particles in quantum mechanics, they could just be echoes of other particles at the other side of the universe, or perhaps all atoms in the universe pop from one location to another constantly. Nobody knows what they are or what they mean. The phenomenon has only been observed, not deciphered.
It was predicted by the Standard Model, and verified experimentally. There are numerous interpretations of what the mathematics of the Standard Model mean (most notably the Copenhagen Interpretation), but, for all but philosophical purposes, they're equivalent.
Spontaneous creation of particle-antiparticle pairs is allowed under certain circumstances by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle relation for energy and time. Basically, you can violate the law of conservation of energy, as long as you do it really quickly. The energy "difference" (E) times the time interval over which the particles exist (t) must be less than or equal to Planck's constant over 2, or something like that.
It has been shown that the semblance of an atom can be projected into a space without there actually being an atom there.[snip]They arranged atoms in an elipse, and placed another atom at one of the foci. What seemed to be an atom appeared at the other focus.
This is probably just an experimental effect due to the geometry of electric fields of the atoms, or something like that--no mysterious profound explanations necessarily required.
As for Occams razor, you are as close-minded and hypocritical bringing up the argument that God doesn't exist because who created Him? Can't answer it? Of course not. But it's perfectly logical to have a divide-by-zero error flow the wrong way in time for no reason and spontaneously erupt into our Universe. Come on that just sounds silly.
I'm not arguing that my point of view is undoubtably right, simpy that, being the simplest answer that explains all the facts, is the most likely to be right (or, at least, is the most scientifically useful). For all we know, the universe was created 5 minutes ago by Invisible Keebler Elves. You can't disprove the Elf theory, but it's not very useful.
It's been proven that with sufficient system resources, any Turing machine can simulate any other Turing machine not more complex than itself. Since we can build Turing machines, it means the universe is Turing-complete and therefore
There's a serious flaw in your argument here. You point out that any Turing machine can simulate a less-complex Turing machine. This does not mean that any system containing a Turing machine can be simulated by a Turing machine. There's more to life than computers, you know. Take a look at quantum mechanics for some crazy stuff that is probably beyond any Turing machine.
If you dismiss somebody else's as being ridiculous without examining your own to see if it has the same flaws, you just sound like an ass.
Maybe you should have taken a second look at your Turing argument.:-)
Every theory is just as silly as the next.
From a purely philosophical point of view, perhaps. From a scientific point of view, some theories are better than others. The markings of a good theory are as follows: a) it is falsifiable, b) it makes verifiable predictions, c) it is no more complex than necessary. Let's analyze religion from the scientific point of view. You can't disprove God, so (a) is false. Religion hasn't been particularly good at making predictions, so it's not doing too well on (b). As for (c), well, an omnipotent god is a pretty simple explanation for everything ("it is God's will..."). One out of three ain't so hot. This doesn't mean religion is wrong, simply that it's not very useful as a scientific theory.
Strawman. We're not talking about some vague "other universes", we're talking about our Universe. I too could make up a whole set of data to support my point, but that wouldn't make it valid.
You're missing the point. Just because the functions in our laws are not computable at the singularity of a black hole doesn't mean they don't still apply. We can't calculate them, true, but it doesn't matter because nature has conveniently concealed the singularity with an event horizon. His point about other universes was to demonstrate this.
As for why this Universe is simple enough for us to understand, well I think that's obvious. It was created to be so.
Oh, stop trolling. Created? By who? Who created that entity? Nobody? That entity must be pretty damn complex, then. Or I could just postulate that a simple universe came into being (or has always existed). Occam's Razor, you lose, I win.
By definition, no astronomical object other than a black hole can possess an event horizon.
Depends on your definition of black hole. I believe I've heard of some theories which suggested the existence of "cosmic strings" or something like that. Think string-like black holes, except different mechanism... Apparently, they would have an event horizon, but it might not completely conceal the singularity (oh no! a naked singularity! where's CyberPatrol when you need it).
[rant] Because of the way natural gas pipelines are (and the location of various bottlenecks), British Columbia is in essentially the same market for natural gas as California. Now, because of all your bullshit anti-nuclear legislation, you're sucking down all the natural gas in sight, and it's caused our natural gas prices to skyrocket. We had nothing to do with your stupid laws, and no control over your ridiculous policies, but we have to pay the price. We have poor old ladies freezing their asses off in our cold Canadian winter because they can't afford to heat their homes any more, and it's your fault. Assholes... [/rant]
When will you figure out that nuclear and hydro are about as good as it gets? Most of our power is hydro, which is cheap and clean... You guys could buy some CanDu nuclear reactors off us--they're quite safe. Worst case accident, the reactor overheats, the heavy water (which is the moderator) boils off, and the reaction stops because it's no longer moderated. No Chernobyls, no Three Mile Islands, no fuss, no muss.
California would be a really great state if you could only get rid of those wackos making the stupid laws...
rho's bang-on. I didn't go around vandalizing stuff and ripping people off when I was a kid. Why? Because I'm a really honest person. Maybe those teen vandals have reformed to the point where they no longer trash other people's property for fun, but the character defect that led to that behaviour is probably still present. At 16, I was old enough to understand the concepts of consequences and responsibility. Pretty much everyone is--some just choose not to.
Why do people have this idea that there shouldn't be serious consequences for reckless, destructive behaviour?
The system, as is, works fairly well. Yes, there are problems, and I'll address those. First, I'll deal with the Katzian whining:
Everyone knows that mail-order CD/comic warehouses try to rip you off. If you were stupid or greedy enough to think you could get 12 CDs for $1 or whatever and never be obligated for more, you deserve the hassle (especially since artists generally don't get royalties for CDs sold at a discount like that).
The deer guy? I lived somewhere with shitloads of deer, too (there were 19 on my lawn once), and I never hit any. To some degree, it's luck, but it's also a test of reflexes. The insurance company sees two claims in six months, and figures that either a) you suck at driving, b) you like hitting deer, or c) you drive at risky times in risky places. Consequently, you end up having to pay more for insurance. You still got insurance, it just cost more.
All the other people are being nailed for offenses they actually did commit. Drunk driving, and she only got a 60-day suspension? What the fuck? She could easily have killed someone. I wasn't that stupid when I was 16 or 18. Personally, I don't think she should be allowed to drive until she's 30. Getting turned down for a job seems like a small price to pay. Funny how everyone went nuts over Bush's DWI conviction, but it's somehow OK if you're just Joe Citizen.
The real problem here is not that these agencies exist and do what they do, but that it isn't easy enough for people to check and correct their own records. People should be notified whenever an "incident" is added to their record, and given the opportunity to dispute it. Jon Katz should be complaining about the errors, not the actual collection of the data. If you fuck up, there are consequences. Learn that, and everyone will be better off.
Maybe they're required by law (or by the credit card companies) to store the information for a certain amount of time after the transaction. Do I know? No, but neither do you. Unless you do know, shut up.
Here's my brief review of iTunes. I'm comparing it (indirectly) to other Mac MP3 players, such as SoundJam, Audion, and MACAST (formely MacAmp).
iTunes kicks ass.
Functionally, it has more cool features than most other MP3 players. The CD burning ability is really great and intuitive (just build a playlist, and hit the Burn CD button), but it unfortunately does not support my CD burner (Ricoh 7060A). The interface is very pretty, although some people may miss skin support. I haven't checked the quality of iTunes-encoded MP3s, but all the right options are there, and it of course automatically gets track info from CDDB when ripping songs from CDs.
Its "Browse" button organizes MP3s in a heirarchial fashion by Artist, Album, and Song, in a manner I haven't seen in other MP3 players.
What's missing? Support for my CD burner would be nice. It would also be good if ID3 tag info could be edited directly in the playlist window, instead of by opening a "Get Info" window for the song. Other than that, a great first version.
Now, if their security systems stopped the intruders cold, why were 7500 credit cards then used fraudulently? I think Egghead has some more explaining to do..."
They have three million credit cards in their database. They checked with the credit card companies, and in the past little while, 7,500 of them were used fradulently. That's a very small percentage, and probably typical. Nowhere does it say that this fradulent use was in any way due to Egghead. Having your credit card number stolen online is not the only way to have it used fradulently, people. That pimply kid at the gas station could be copying down your numbers, for all you know.
Now, I know Egghead is a Corporation, and thus obviously guilty of the incredibly heinous act of trying to make money, but couldn't we at least stop trying to make shit up?
Maybe--just maybe--eBay is telling the truth, and there was some kind of error that corrupted the preferences of some of their users. They set them back to default, and emailed them to let them know. They also instituted a grace period so that you would have time to change the preferences before being deluged with spam. A few people here have stated that they didn't receive the email, even though they had the "No spam" options selected. That kind of supports the limited preferences corruption theory.
It's also possible that they're doing this as an experiment with a limited section of their customer base, to see how people react.
Unfortunately, you don't know, so, until you do, don't overreact. Email them to find out why, instead of going nuts on them...
Disclaimer: I'm a computer science and physics student (combined honours). This means I know more than nothing about this, but not a whole lot more.
Most of the claims in the article are exaggerated. The "consumes no energy" thing is really just theoretical. There are hard minimum limits on how much energy classical computations consume, but no such limits on quantum computations, creating the theoretical possibilty of "free" (from the energy point of view) computations. Of course, you do have to expend energy to read the answer, as someone else pointed out...
The "obviates all encryption" claim has some validity. Quantum computing reduces the complexity of certain computations. For instance, a linear seach that is O(n) on a classical computer becomes O(sqrt[n]) on a Q.C. Likewise, cracking RSA-style public key encryption changes from an exponential-time problem to one that can be solved in sub-exponential time. That's not to say it would be trivial to crack a 4096-bit key, but it would be possible to do so within some non-insane timespan.
As for quantum computing doing infinite computations in a second, this is also a misinterpretation. A slighly better (but still not perfect) way to think of things is that quantum computers do things in a massively parallel way. Maybe you want to think about them as non-deterministic finite automata. That's about the best I can come up with in terms of classical analogies.
I might have mentioned cold fusion, except that I believe that cold fusion is more likely than quantum computing.
Quantum computing is solidly based on widely-accepted theories. More importantly, a working (simple) quantum computer has already been built. With both strong experimental and theoretical support in place, I don't see why you have trouble believing in it. The only question is when it will become practical... As for AI, and natural language processing, QC may just be the technology that enables those things. Read Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" for more info...
First of all, libertarians are not far-right. It's more of a "north of center" philosophy. In some issues, libertarians agree with conservatives, in others, with liberals. Politics isn't one-dimensional.
As for why there are so many libertarians, I don't see why you think it's so disproportionate. The Naderites and the libertarians roughly balance here. Yes, the mainstream parties are underrepresented, but that's because most people on Slashdot are more aware, and thus tend to take stronger stands on issues, whereas the mainstream parties go for the lowest common denominator...
Does it bother you that you're being exposed to other political ideologies? Would you rather just hear a whole bunch of people agreeing with you?
Re:The question is not whether there is a problem
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Information Poisoning
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Saying that the Government can't solve a problem is saying that WE can't solve the problem, because ultimately WE DO control the government.
I hope to god this is a troll. Most problems are better solved through private enterprise and individual action. Government sucks pretty badly at solving problems, but society as a whole is quite good at it. Just because we control the government doesn't mean that governmental regulation is the best answer to everything.
Try to name a problem government has solved:
Crime? No. Homelessness? Definitely not. Poverty? Drugs? Unemployment? Education? No, no, no, no...
If you don't consume Company X's product, nor own shares in X, why should you be able to sway that company? It's really none of your business, pardon the pun.
I see only one reason--if they're violating your property rights (pollution, etc.) In that case, your recourse is through the courts.
Just so you know, Mac OS X is binary-compatible with LinuxPPC (i.e. you can run LinuxPPC binaries on MOSX, but not the other way around). This ability comes from BSD's heritage of Linux binary compatibility, and may make MOSX the most compatible OS in the world (it runs Linux, BSD, MOSX, Mac 8/9, and Windows* apps) One more reason for people to switch back...
*With the MOSX version of VirtualPC that I think is on the way.
Hardly anyone is actually talking about the movie--everyone here is just bashing the War on Drugs.
I saw the movie, and didn't think it was that great. Of course, Katz calls it "One of the best of the year", which is trivially true, since we're only 7 days into 2001, but misleading.
After the first third of the movie, I knew how each of the three sub-plots was going to end. Yes, the War on Drugs doesn't work, and we all know that Hollywood loves to tell us that, so it was pretty easy to see where it was all going.
The cinematography was interesting, and there was nothing really wrong with the movie, but it wasn't brilliant or anything. Michael Douglas's character was straight formula, with little depth and only what character development was absolutely required by the plot.
In my opinion, "What Women Want" (which I saw the day after Traffic) was better, simply because it was less ambitious (and thus managed to accomplish all its goal--namely, making the audience laugh).
Since everyone else is using this as an excuse to talk about the War on Drugs, I'm going to play devil's advocate. Everyone talks about the "European Approach" to drugs--decriminalization, lots of free rehab, free needles, etc. Nobody talks about the Asian approach, i.e., very harsh punishments, strong family values, etc. Neither Asia nor Europe has the same kind of drug problem the US has, because they both have consistent drug policies (though these policies are on opposite ends of the spectrum).
The real problem with the US War on Drugs is that it's inconsistent and hypocritical. The US gives unreasonably harsh prison sentances to drug users (as compared with sentances for violent crimes), while giving the Whitehouse keys to other drug users. Marijuana is illegal, but tobacco and alcohol are legal.
Another hypocrisy I'd like to point out: tons of people here say that drug use should be legal because it's a victimless crime, but, in the same breath, they say we need free treatment centres for addicts. Who do you think pays for those treatment centres? The rest of society. Unless it's drug users paying for their own treatment, they are victimizing everyone who has to pay for their rehabilitation.
My solution? Make drugs legal, tax them, fund treatment centres with the tax revenues... Use the rest of the tax revenue for drug education programs. Show kids in schools videos of addicts their own age passed out in their own bodily fluids. Show them real footage of addicts overdosing. Tell them it's their choice.
Oh, and please don't give me that crap about people not chosing to become addicts, etc. Maybe they didn't choose to become addicts, but they did choose to take that first toke/hit/pill. Sometimes mistakes have harsh consequences. People have to learn that they are responsible for the consequences of their own actions, and that they can't always count on a second chance. When people learn this, they'll become more responsible.
A government of people and by people should move towards the common good. Thats all. It is nothing about a government knowing whats best for the people.
WTF? How can you move towards the "common good" unless you think you know what that is (i.e., think you know what's best for your people)?
Generally, governments that assume they know the needs of their people better than their people are tyrannical.
...that deserves to be overthrown, preferably with much bloodshed among its leaders.
Not that I really need to repeat it for the/. crowd, but censorship is evil. The government of the "People's Republic of" China routinely practices censorship, sometimes by such barbaric methods as sending tanks into crowds of peaceful student protestors.
Sneaking "subversive" data past this firewall is a good cause, worthy of the efforts of the Rubberhose Project and other open source initiatives designed to increase personal privacy and freedom. To all of those developers out there who are working on encryption or steganography software, these (Chinese citizens) are the people who really need your help.
A quote from the Xinhua report:
The current one by itself... is incapable of satisfying the needs of the Chinese government and companies as they enter the digital age.
Notice that the needs of the people are not mentioned. The only legitimate purpose of government is to serve its people.
Not that it's directly relevant, but I just have to suggest Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, as it deals with (neo) Victorians and (micro) mechanical computers, both of which you mentioned. Hemos also mentioned Cryptonomicon in the/. story, which is one of Stephenson's other books... Damn, he's a good writer.
...electronic digital computer... Let's not be platform-biased.
Don't forget the work of Charles Babbage, such as his Difference Engine. I'm sure there were other computers before this one that still work (I think one of Babbage's still does).
Normally, the "tag" (informative|offtopic|flamebait|etc) is set to whatever the last moderator modded the comment. However, Overrated and Underrated do not change the tag. What may have happened in this case is that Klerck posted his crap at 1, somebody gave it +1, Informative, then three different moderators gave it Overrated.
Why overrated and not Flamebait, Troll, or Offtopic? Because the moderators are all cowards, and we don't want to lose karma in meta-moderation to some rogue meta-moderator. Moderation, meta-moderation, etc, only work if the majority of users are not trolls. Unfortunately, they are mostly trolls on Slashdot...
Web bugs are more evil than your average URL link because you have to click on the link, whereas a web bug (and the potential attached evil code) gets loaded automatically if you have an HTML-enabled mail viewer. Stuff like this is why I have intentionally avoided HTML-enabled mail clients. Automatically executing code from a remote, untrusted source is bad, kids.
Why Hemos went on a rant, I don't know. Yes, the article doesn't mention URLs in spam, but that's because they're less insidious than web bugs. Presumably, if you click a spam link, you get what you deserve.
Like so many other films these days (Sixth Day, for instance), this one was filmed, at least in part, in Vancouver. The huge toy-like scultures of computer parts and the cyllindrical building were all filmed on campus at the University of British Columbia.
Slashdot Mirror
1 - This known to be finite Universe simply... started.
It's also possible that the universe goes in "cycles", and that what we perceive as the age of the universe is actually the time since the beginning of this cycle. It could very well still be an infinite universe.
2 - This known to be finite Universe was created. By whom or what, there is no proof. A finite thing being created is more plausible than a finite thing simply appearing from nothing.
It only seems more plausible because you're ignoring the question of where that creator came from. The creationist point of view requires the eternal existence or spontaneous appearance of a creator (which is surely a more complex entity than the universe it creates), and the creation of the universe. My theory (not that I can take credit for it) requires much simpler assumptions--the eternal existence or spontaneous creation of only the universe.
As for spontaneous particles in quantum mechanics, they could just be echoes of other particles at the other side of the universe, or perhaps all atoms in the universe pop from one location to another constantly. Nobody knows what they are or what they mean. The phenomenon has only been observed, not deciphered.
It was predicted by the Standard Model, and verified experimentally. There are numerous interpretations of what the mathematics of the Standard Model mean (most notably the Copenhagen Interpretation), but, for all but philosophical purposes, they're equivalent.
Spontaneous creation of particle-antiparticle pairs is allowed under certain circumstances by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle relation for energy and time. Basically, you can violate the law of conservation of energy, as long as you do it really quickly. The energy "difference" (E) times the time interval over which the particles exist (t) must be less than or equal to Planck's constant over 2, or something like that.
It has been shown that the semblance of an atom can be projected into a space without there actually being an atom there.[snip]They arranged atoms in an elipse, and placed another atom at one of the foci. What seemed to be an atom appeared at the other focus.
This is probably just an experimental effect due to the geometry of electric fields of the atoms, or something like that--no mysterious profound explanations necessarily required.
As for Occams razor, you are as close-minded and hypocritical bringing up the argument that God doesn't exist because who created Him? Can't answer it? Of course not. But it's perfectly logical to have a divide-by-zero error flow the wrong way in time for no reason and spontaneously erupt into our Universe. Come on that just sounds silly.
:-)
I'm not arguing that my point of view is undoubtably right, simpy that, being the simplest answer that explains all the facts, is the most likely to be right (or, at least, is the most scientifically useful). For all we know, the universe was created 5 minutes ago by Invisible Keebler Elves. You can't disprove the Elf theory, but it's not very useful.
It's been proven that with sufficient system resources, any Turing machine can simulate any other Turing machine not more complex than itself. Since we can build Turing machines, it means the universe is Turing-complete and therefore
There's a serious flaw in your argument here. You point out that any Turing machine can simulate a less-complex Turing machine. This does not mean that any system containing a Turing machine can be simulated by a Turing machine. There's more to life than computers, you know. Take a look at quantum mechanics for some crazy stuff that is probably beyond any Turing machine.
If you dismiss somebody else's as being ridiculous without examining your own to see if it has the same flaws, you just sound like an ass.
Maybe you should have taken a second look at your Turing argument.
Every theory is just as silly as the next.
From a purely philosophical point of view, perhaps. From a scientific point of view, some theories are better than others. The markings of a good theory are as follows: a) it is falsifiable, b) it makes verifiable predictions, c) it is no more complex than necessary. Let's analyze religion from the scientific point of view. You can't disprove God, so (a) is false. Religion hasn't been particularly good at making predictions, so it's not doing too well on (b). As for (c), well, an omnipotent god is a pretty simple explanation for everything ("it is God's will..."). One out of three ain't so hot. This doesn't mean religion is wrong, simply that it's not very useful as a scientific theory.
Strawman. We're not talking about some vague "other universes", we're talking about our Universe. I too could make up a whole set of data to support my point, but that wouldn't make it valid.
You're missing the point. Just because the functions in our laws are not computable at the singularity of a black hole doesn't mean they don't still apply. We can't calculate them, true, but it doesn't matter because nature has conveniently concealed the singularity with an event horizon. His point about other universes was to demonstrate this.
As for why this Universe is simple enough for us to understand, well I think that's obvious. It was created to be so.
Oh, stop trolling. Created? By who? Who created that entity? Nobody? That entity must be pretty damn complex, then. Or I could just postulate that a simple universe came into being (or has always existed). Occam's Razor, you lose, I win.
By definition, no astronomical object other than a black hole can possess an event horizon.
Depends on your definition of black hole. I believe I've heard of some theories which suggested the existence of "cosmic strings" or something like that. Think string-like black holes, except different mechanism... Apparently, they would have an event horizon, but it might not completely conceal the singularity (oh no! a naked singularity! where's CyberPatrol when you need it).
[rant] Because of the way natural gas pipelines are (and the location of various bottlenecks), British Columbia is in essentially the same market for natural gas as California. Now, because of all your bullshit anti-nuclear legislation, you're sucking down all the natural gas in sight, and it's caused our natural gas prices to skyrocket. We had nothing to do with your stupid laws, and no control over your ridiculous policies, but we have to pay the price. We have poor old ladies freezing their asses off in our cold Canadian winter because they can't afford to heat their homes any more, and it's your fault. Assholes... [/rant]
When will you figure out that nuclear and hydro are about as good as it gets? Most of our power is hydro, which is cheap and clean... You guys could buy some CanDu nuclear reactors off us--they're quite safe. Worst case accident, the reactor overheats, the heavy water (which is the moderator) boils off, and the reaction stops because it's no longer moderated. No Chernobyls, no Three Mile Islands, no fuss, no muss.
California would be a really great state if you could only get rid of those wackos making the stupid laws...
rho's bang-on. I didn't go around vandalizing stuff and ripping people off when I was a kid. Why? Because I'm a really honest person. Maybe those teen vandals have reformed to the point where they no longer trash other people's property for fun, but the character defect that led to that behaviour is probably still present. At 16, I was old enough to understand the concepts of consequences and responsibility. Pretty much everyone is--some just choose not to.
Why do people have this idea that there shouldn't be serious consequences for reckless, destructive behaviour?
The system, as is, works fairly well. Yes, there are problems, and I'll address those. First, I'll deal with the Katzian whining:
Everyone knows that mail-order CD/comic warehouses try to rip you off. If you were stupid or greedy enough to think you could get 12 CDs for $1 or whatever and never be obligated for more, you deserve the hassle (especially since artists generally don't get royalties for CDs sold at a discount like that).
The deer guy? I lived somewhere with shitloads of deer, too (there were 19 on my lawn once), and I never hit any. To some degree, it's luck, but it's also a test of reflexes. The insurance company sees two claims in six months, and figures that either a) you suck at driving, b) you like hitting deer, or c) you drive at risky times in risky places. Consequently, you end up having to pay more for insurance. You still got insurance, it just cost more.
All the other people are being nailed for offenses they actually did commit. Drunk driving, and she only got a 60-day suspension? What the fuck? She could easily have killed someone. I wasn't that stupid when I was 16 or 18. Personally, I don't think she should be allowed to drive until she's 30. Getting turned down for a job seems like a small price to pay. Funny how everyone went nuts over Bush's DWI conviction, but it's somehow OK if you're just Joe Citizen.
The real problem here is not that these agencies exist and do what they do, but that it isn't easy enough for people to check and correct their own records. People should be notified whenever an "incident" is added to their record, and given the opportunity to dispute it. Jon Katz should be complaining about the errors, not the actual collection of the data. If you fuck up, there are consequences. Learn that, and everyone will be better off.
Maybe they're required by law (or by the credit card companies) to store the information for a certain amount of time after the transaction. Do I know? No, but neither do you. Unless you do know, shut up.
Here's my brief review of iTunes. I'm comparing it (indirectly) to other Mac MP3 players, such as SoundJam, Audion, and MACAST (formely MacAmp).
iTunes kicks ass.
Functionally, it has more cool features than most other MP3 players. The CD burning ability is really great and intuitive (just build a playlist, and hit the Burn CD button), but it unfortunately does not support my CD burner (Ricoh 7060A). The interface is very pretty, although some people may miss skin support. I haven't checked the quality of iTunes-encoded MP3s, but all the right options are there, and it of course automatically gets track info from CDDB when ripping songs from CDs.
Its "Browse" button organizes MP3s in a heirarchial fashion by Artist, Album, and Song, in a manner I haven't seen in other MP3 players.
What's missing? Support for my CD burner would be nice. It would also be good if ID3 tag info could be edited directly in the playlist window, instead of by opening a "Get Info" window for the song. Other than that, a great first version.
Now, if their security systems stopped the intruders cold, why were 7500 credit cards then used fraudulently? I think Egghead has some more explaining to do..."
They have three million credit cards in their database. They checked with the credit card companies, and in the past little while, 7,500 of them were used fradulently. That's a very small percentage, and probably typical. Nowhere does it say that this fradulent use was in any way due to Egghead. Having your credit card number stolen online is not the only way to have it used fradulently, people. That pimply kid at the gas station could be copying down your numbers, for all you know.
Now, I know Egghead is a Corporation, and thus obviously guilty of the incredibly heinous act of trying to make money, but couldn't we at least stop trying to make shit up?
Maybe--just maybe--eBay is telling the truth, and there was some kind of error that corrupted the preferences of some of their users. They set them back to default, and emailed them to let them know. They also instituted a grace period so that you would have time to change the preferences before being deluged with spam. A few people here have stated that they didn't receive the email, even though they had the "No spam" options selected. That kind of supports the limited preferences corruption theory.
It's also possible that they're doing this as an experiment with a limited section of their customer base, to see how people react.
Unfortunately, you don't know, so, until you do, don't overreact. Email them to find out why, instead of going nuts on them...
Disclaimer: I'm a computer science and physics student (combined honours). This means I know more than nothing about this, but not a whole lot more.
Most of the claims in the article are exaggerated. The "consumes no energy" thing is really just theoretical. There are hard minimum limits on how much energy classical computations consume, but no such limits on quantum computations, creating the theoretical possibilty of "free" (from the energy point of view) computations. Of course, you do have to expend energy to read the answer, as someone else pointed out...
The "obviates all encryption" claim has some validity. Quantum computing reduces the complexity of certain computations. For instance, a linear seach that is O(n) on a classical computer becomes O(sqrt[n]) on a Q.C. Likewise, cracking RSA-style public key encryption changes from an exponential-time problem to one that can be solved in sub-exponential time. That's not to say it would be trivial to crack a 4096-bit key, but it would be possible to do so within some non-insane timespan.
As for quantum computing doing infinite computations in a second, this is also a misinterpretation. A slighly better (but still not perfect) way to think of things is that quantum computers do things in a massively parallel way. Maybe you want to think about them as non-deterministic finite automata. That's about the best I can come up with in terms of classical analogies.
I might have mentioned cold fusion, except that I believe that cold fusion is more likely than quantum computing.
Quantum computing is solidly based on widely-accepted theories. More importantly, a working (simple) quantum computer has already been built. With both strong experimental and theoretical support in place, I don't see why you have trouble believing in it. The only question is when it will become practical... As for AI, and natural language processing, QC may just be the technology that enables those things. Read Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" for more info...
First of all, libertarians are not far-right. It's more of a "north of center" philosophy. In some issues, libertarians agree with conservatives, in others, with liberals. Politics isn't one-dimensional.
As for why there are so many libertarians, I don't see why you think it's so disproportionate. The Naderites and the libertarians roughly balance here. Yes, the mainstream parties are underrepresented, but that's because most people on Slashdot are more aware, and thus tend to take stronger stands on issues, whereas the mainstream parties go for the lowest common denominator...
Does it bother you that you're being exposed to other political ideologies? Would you rather just hear a whole bunch of people agreeing with you?
Saying that the Government can't solve a problem is saying that WE can't solve the problem, because ultimately WE DO control the government.
I hope to god this is a troll. Most problems are better solved through private enterprise and individual action. Government sucks pretty badly at solving problems, but society as a whole is quite good at it. Just because we control the government doesn't mean that governmental regulation is the best answer to everything.
Try to name a problem government has solved:
Crime? No. Homelessness? Definitely not. Poverty? Drugs? Unemployment? Education? No, no, no, no...
If you don't consume Company X's product, nor own shares in X, why should you be able to sway that company? It's really none of your business, pardon the pun.
I see only one reason--if they're violating your property rights (pollution, etc.) In that case, your recourse is through the courts.
Just so you know, Mac OS X is binary-compatible with LinuxPPC (i.e. you can run LinuxPPC binaries on MOSX, but not the other way around). This ability comes from BSD's heritage of Linux binary compatibility, and may make MOSX the most compatible OS in the world (it runs Linux, BSD, MOSX, Mac 8/9, and Windows* apps) One more reason for people to switch back...
*With the MOSX version of VirtualPC that I think is on the way.
Hardly anyone is actually talking about the movie--everyone here is just bashing the War on Drugs.
I saw the movie, and didn't think it was that great. Of course, Katz calls it "One of the best of the year", which is trivially true, since we're only 7 days into 2001, but misleading.
After the first third of the movie, I knew how each of the three sub-plots was going to end. Yes, the War on Drugs doesn't work, and we all know that Hollywood loves to tell us that, so it was pretty easy to see where it was all going.
The cinematography was interesting, and there was nothing really wrong with the movie, but it wasn't brilliant or anything. Michael Douglas's character was straight formula, with little depth and only what character development was absolutely required by the plot.
In my opinion, "What Women Want" (which I saw the day after Traffic) was better, simply because it was less ambitious (and thus managed to accomplish all its goal--namely, making the audience laugh).
Since everyone else is using this as an excuse to talk about the War on Drugs, I'm going to play devil's advocate. Everyone talks about the "European Approach" to drugs--decriminalization, lots of free rehab, free needles, etc. Nobody talks about the Asian approach, i.e., very harsh punishments, strong family values, etc. Neither Asia nor Europe has the same kind of drug problem the US has, because they both have consistent drug policies (though these policies are on opposite ends of the spectrum).
The real problem with the US War on Drugs is that it's inconsistent and hypocritical. The US gives unreasonably harsh prison sentances to drug users (as compared with sentances for violent crimes), while giving the Whitehouse keys to other drug users. Marijuana is illegal, but tobacco and alcohol are legal.
Another hypocrisy I'd like to point out: tons of people here say that drug use should be legal because it's a victimless crime, but, in the same breath, they say we need free treatment centres for addicts. Who do you think pays for those treatment centres? The rest of society. Unless it's drug users paying for their own treatment, they are victimizing everyone who has to pay for their rehabilitation.
My solution? Make drugs legal, tax them, fund treatment centres with the tax revenues... Use the rest of the tax revenue for drug education programs. Show kids in schools videos of addicts their own age passed out in their own bodily fluids. Show them real footage of addicts overdosing. Tell them it's their choice.
Oh, and please don't give me that crap about people not chosing to become addicts, etc. Maybe they didn't choose to become addicts, but they did choose to take that first toke/hit/pill. Sometimes mistakes have harsh consequences. People have to learn that they are responsible for the consequences of their own actions, and that they can't always count on a second chance. When people learn this, they'll become more responsible.
A government of people and by people should move towards the common good. Thats all. It is nothing about a government knowing whats best for the people.
WTF? How can you move towards the "common good" unless you think you know what that is (i.e., think you know what's best for your people)?
Generally, governments that assume they know the needs of their people better than their people are tyrannical.
Not that I really need to repeat it for the
Sneaking "subversive" data past this firewall is a good cause, worthy of the efforts of the Rubberhose Project and other open source initiatives designed to increase personal privacy and freedom. To all of those developers out there who are working on encryption or steganography software, these (Chinese citizens) are the people who really need your help.
A quote from the Xinhua report:
Notice that the needs of the people are not mentioned. The only legitimate purpose of government is to serve its people.
Not that it's directly relevant, but I just have to suggest Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, as it deals with (neo) Victorians and (micro) mechanical computers, both of which you mentioned. Hemos also mentioned Cryptonomicon in the /. story, which is one of Stephenson's other books... Damn, he's a good writer.
...electronic digital computer... Let's not be platform-biased.
Don't forget the work of Charles Babbage, such as his Difference Engine. I'm sure there were other computers before this one that still work (I think one of Babbage's still does).
Wow, which API call tells viruses if the user is an idiot? As far as I know, that was the Love Bug's only significant system requirement.
:-)
Easy, you just check to see if they're running Windows.
(That was a requirement for the virus, so this isn't totally flamebait...)
Normally, the "tag" (informative|offtopic|flamebait|etc) is set to whatever the last moderator modded the comment. However, Overrated and Underrated do not change the tag. What may have happened in this case is that Klerck posted his crap at 1, somebody gave it +1, Informative, then three different moderators gave it Overrated.
Why overrated and not Flamebait, Troll, or Offtopic? Because the moderators are all cowards, and we don't want to lose karma in meta-moderation to some rogue meta-moderator. Moderation, meta-moderation, etc, only work if the majority of users are not trolls. Unfortunately, they are mostly trolls on Slashdot...
Web bugs are more evil than your average URL link because you have to click on the link, whereas a web bug (and the potential attached evil code) gets loaded automatically if you have an HTML-enabled mail viewer. Stuff like this is why I have intentionally avoided HTML-enabled mail clients. Automatically executing code from a remote, untrusted source is bad, kids.
Why Hemos went on a rant, I don't know. Yes, the article doesn't mention URLs in spam, but that's because they're less insidious than web bugs. Presumably, if you click a spam link, you get what you deserve.
Like so many other films these days (Sixth Day, for instance), this one was filmed, at least in part, in Vancouver. The huge toy-like scultures of computer parts and the cyllindrical building were all filmed on campus at the University of British Columbia.
:-)
Chalk up another point for Hollywood North.