Testing a conjecture numerically does nothing to bring one closer to a proof. However, it can sometimes tell a mathematician when pursuing a proof would be pointless by providing counterexamples, but that's only if the mathematician is lucky. The computer can be used as a heuristic to weed out some of the false ideas, but that's about all (as things currently stand; improvements in deduction systems may change this).
Ok, here's an explanation that's not formally correct but gives the general idea. The method is basically to find the derivatives of x with respect to the constant term and then use these derivatives to form a Taylor series expansion of x in terms of the constant term. In other words, the author finds the root x as a function of the constant term, effectively reintroducing that term in the end.
Censorship does not neccesarily have to be performed by the government. Technically, any suppression of content/information is censorship. That's not to say that, for example, preventing someone from publishing a database of other peoples' account and PIN numbers is wrong, but it is censorship. Thus there are situations in which censorship is neccesary in order to protect people from those who would do them harm. Censorship is not itself wrong; it is a tool that, like any tool, can be used either for good or for evil.
But it can, and very frequently is, used to further the interests of those in power (which includes corporations), to the detriment of the common people. The terms NBC insisted on are an example of this. The IOC does not deserve the blame for these terms, for they really had no choice. Any of the networks would have insisted on the same terms, and simply deciding not to broadcast on a major American network is not an option for them.
A peculiarity I've observed about all this is that CBC has its own coverage of the Olympics, which is available on cable in the US. It's a lot harder for them to keep CBC from broadcasting their Olympic coverage in the US, though.
This whole "X had it coming" thing is a really lousy argument. It ammounts to an attempt to pass off unrelated information as if it were not unrelated. What the hell does the fact that he's a spammer and scammer have to do with this case? Yes, it reflects on his character, which can sometimes be relevant in evaluating testimony and such, but the fact that the guy is a SOB doesn't mean he should be convicted of trademark infringement.
This is not to say that I think the court's ruling was wrong. I don't know if it was or not. But his other activities don't make it so he "had it coming."
Some of which can reach the speed of light? Ok, I'll resist the urge to ask what you're smoking and instead give you the benefit of the doubt and ask: Huh? Could you explain that, please?
Well here's how a hypothetical system of this sort might work:
Each voter is assigned an asymmetric cryptographic keypair. The public keys would be stored in a database, while the voter has the only copy of the private key (say on a card). The database does NOT associate the public keys with their owners, but does keep track of who has already been given a key so as to avoid giving two keys to one person. Some sort of mechanism to allow replacement keys must be introduced but this is doable. When someone casts their vote it is signed with their key. Then the complete list of votes with their signatures (which are anonymous and verifiable) and the list of registered keys are published on the web. Voters then can (although they are not required to) verify that their vote is in fact there and correct, and third parties can verify the official count.
This system is pretty straightforward and could also integrate some of the ideas given elsewhere (i.e. paper trails, although this would be less neccesary with such a system). It keeps the votes anonymous and verifiable, and allows the public to count the votes themselves.
There are a few details that would need to be worked out, like how replacement keypairs are issued, but there are similar issues to be dealt with in more conventional systems and these have not proven to be insurmountable.
Not if you've been raised from birth to believe that the result of said action will be that you'll go to heaven and get seven virgins. What seems stupid to us is not neccesarily stupid to others, and there's probably plenty that is not the least bit stupid to us but the rest of the world sees as incredibly stupid (I'm sure you can all think of examples).
If you're so concerned about privacy then just wipe RFIDs on stuff after you buy it. Also consider that RFID has a fairly short range. Perhaps it's just lack of imagination, but I find it hard to imagine how RFIDs could pose a serious privacy threat unless RFID readers are placed everywhere, with some way of determining who it is that is carying any given item that is read.
I'm a strong advocate of privacy but, until the government starts requiring us to have implanted RFIDs, this is just paranoia.
Well at the moment electromagnetic waves are the only way we're aware of for transmitting data over such great distances. That's not to say there isn't some other way, but at the moment radio is all we have to work with. So, regardless of whether it's the right track or not, it's the only track available to us. The best we can do is hope that the aliens want to be found and are sending out radio signals for primitive races like us to pick up.
He never said he doesn't like copyright. According to the article he feels copyright is neccesary and important but is taken too far.
He doesn't own it but the company that does own it has said they won't go after filesharers, thus implicitly backing Moore's approval of filesharing of his movie.
Once Mozilla gains sufficiently market shares, we will see exploits for that browser more and more often. And yes - there will be exploits. IE is not compromised so often just because it's poorly written, but because it's so popular that hordes of script kiddies are trying out every possible hack. [emphasis mine]
No, it's not just because IE is poorly written, although that is a big factor. There are several fundamental differences between IE and Moz that make IE more vulnerable (well, there's more than just these , but these are the important ones):
First of all, when an exploit is discovered in Moz we can fix it right away. When an exploit is discovered in IE we're told not to click on any hyperlinks for the next few months.
Second, Mozilla will never truly take over the market while IE is bundled with 'doze and 'doze rules the desktop. Too many people will simply use what's already there.
Finally, a substantial portion of those looking for exploits will continue to look for them in IE for the two reasons given above and because Microsoft is somewhat dispised and, I'm guessing, attacking Microsoft is more "prestigious" among crackers than attacking Mozilla. "Oh, you found a vulnerability in Mozilla. Add it to the bug tracker." vs "Wow! Another vulnerability in IE! Dude! u r l33t!"
The growth rate of the human population is currently declining and is expected to continue declining. In fact, there is increasing optimism that the worl population will stabilize at about 9 billion fifty years from now.
Ok first of all, that's clearly not at all what the parent post is saying. It is saying that these problems are fundamental and will never go away (unless the entire human race is destroyed, anyway). It is saying that just waiting around until those problems are solved (which they never will be) is foolish. It is saying that if we colonize space then at least some seed of humanity might survive (although in light of the previous point perhaps that's not a good thing).
Second, early on resources might be harder to obtain, but there will also be a much smaller population and thus less demand for resources. Eventually the infrastructure for harvesting space and Mars-bound resources will be built and it will become increasingly easy to harvest these resources. Yes, resources will be scarce, but they always are, here on Earth and elsewhere.
Third, "necessity is the mother of invention." The scarcity you mention will force the colonists to develop ways of dealing with it, ways that could be applicable here on Earth. For example, it would finally force us to stop depending on oil, and at the same time provide alternatives (e.g. orbital solar collectors or something we havn't thought of yet).
In conclusion, colonizing Mars will not give us a "utopia," but getting off this rock is the only viable way forward.
I think this is analogous to those cell deals where you get a free phone when you sign up for service, especially if they're going for the subscription-based model.
Apparently you're not aware that it takes non-zero time for a human to respond. I'd suggest taking a psychology class; they usually have a few sections on reflexes.
My comment was not so much about the settlement in Germany as the general principle. It was in response to a comment that seems to be suggesting that the US courts should gag SCO (admittedly, the parent comment could perhaps be interpreted somewhat differently but it did say that the US _courts_ should do this).
Also, what the heck is redundant about my previous post? I don't mean to whine about the moderation but really would like to know what that was about.
Slashdot Mirror
Testing a conjecture numerically does nothing to bring one closer to a proof. However, it can sometimes tell a mathematician when pursuing a proof would be pointless by providing counterexamples, but that's only if the mathematician is lucky. The computer can be used as a heuristic to weed out some of the false ideas, but that's about all (as things currently stand; improvements in deduction systems may change this).
Ok, here's an explanation that's not formally correct but gives the general idea. The method is basically to find the derivatives of x with respect to the constant term and then use these derivatives to form a Taylor series expansion of x in terms of the constant term. In other words, the author finds the root x as a function of the constant term, effectively reintroducing that term in the end.
Censorship does not neccesarily have to be performed by the government. Technically, any suppression of content/information is censorship. That's not to say that, for example, preventing someone from publishing a database of other peoples' account and PIN numbers is wrong, but it is censorship. Thus there are situations in which censorship is neccesary in order to protect people from those who would do them harm. Censorship is not itself wrong; it is a tool that, like any tool, can be used either for good or for evil.
But it can, and very frequently is, used to further the interests of those in power (which includes corporations), to the detriment of the common people. The terms NBC insisted on are an example of this. The IOC does not deserve the blame for these terms, for they really had no choice. Any of the networks would have insisted on the same terms, and simply deciding not to broadcast on a major American network is not an option for them.
A peculiarity I've observed about all this is that CBC has its own coverage of the Olympics, which is available on cable in the US. It's a lot harder for them to keep CBC from broadcasting their Olympic coverage in the US, though.
This whole "X had it coming" thing is a really lousy argument. It ammounts to an attempt to pass off unrelated information as if it were not unrelated. What the hell does the fact that he's a spammer and scammer have to do with this case? Yes, it reflects on his character, which can sometimes be relevant in evaluating testimony and such, but the fact that the guy is a SOB doesn't mean he should be convicted of trademark infringement.
This is not to say that I think the court's ruling was wrong. I don't know if it was or not. But his other activities don't make it so he "had it coming."
Some of which can reach the speed of light? Ok, I'll resist the urge to ask what you're smoking and instead give you the benefit of the doubt and ask: Huh? Could you explain that, please?
I think the idea is that some "hacker" sets all the votes to Mr. Evil to demonstrate how flawed the system is.
Well here's how a hypothetical system of this sort might work:
Each voter is assigned an asymmetric cryptographic keypair. The public keys would be stored in a database, while the voter has the only copy of the private key (say on a card). The database does NOT associate the public keys with their owners, but does keep track of who has already been given a key so as to avoid giving two keys to one person. Some sort of mechanism to allow replacement keys must be introduced but this is doable. When someone casts their vote it is signed with their key. Then the complete list of votes with their signatures (which are anonymous and verifiable) and the list of registered keys are published on the web. Voters then can (although they are not required to) verify that their vote is in fact there and correct, and third parties can verify the official count.
This system is pretty straightforward and could also integrate some of the ideas given elsewhere (i.e. paper trails, although this would be less neccesary with such a system). It keeps the votes anonymous and verifiable, and allows the public to count the votes themselves.
There are a few details that would need to be worked out, like how replacement keypairs are issued, but there are similar issues to be dealt with in more conventional systems and these have not proven to be insurmountable.
Two ears good, four ears better, eh?
Not if you've been raised from birth to believe that the result of said action will be that you'll go to heaven and get seven virgins. What seems stupid to us is not neccesarily stupid to others, and there's probably plenty that is not the least bit stupid to us but the rest of the world sees as incredibly stupid (I'm sure you can all think of examples).
If you're so concerned about privacy then just wipe RFIDs on stuff after you buy it. Also consider that RFID has a fairly short range. Perhaps it's just lack of imagination, but I find it hard to imagine how RFIDs could pose a serious privacy threat unless RFID readers are placed everywhere, with some way of determining who it is that is carying any given item that is read.
I'm a strong advocate of privacy but, until the government starts requiring us to have implanted RFIDs, this is just paranoia.
You're better off doing addition in your head than with a sliderule. Sliderules are best suited to multiplication (although they can do other things).
It may be that what they are saying is that interstellar dust and such limits radio communication to 1k ly.
Well at the moment electromagnetic waves are the only way we're aware of for transmitting data over such great distances. That's not to say there isn't some other way, but at the moment radio is all we have to work with. So, regardless of whether it's the right track or not, it's the only track available to us. The best we can do is hope that the aliens want to be found and are sending out radio signals for primitive races like us to pick up.
These people are not likely to be the ones who are interested in such documents in the first place :)
http://www.angelsacolyte.com/epguides2/18deadend.h tml
He never said he doesn't like copyright. According to the article he feels copyright is neccesary and important but is taken too far.
He doesn't own it but the company that does own it has said they won't go after filesharers, thus implicitly backing Moore's approval of filesharing of his movie.
I'm using Firefox right now and Slashdot is rendering fine.
Once Mozilla gains sufficiently market shares, we will see exploits for that browser more and more often. And yes - there will be exploits. IE is not compromised so often just because it's poorly written, but because it's so popular that hordes of script kiddies are trying out every possible hack. [emphasis mine]
No, it's not just because IE is poorly written, although that is a big factor. There are several fundamental differences between IE and Moz that make IE more vulnerable (well, there's more than just these , but these are the important ones):
First of all, when an exploit is discovered in Moz we can fix it right away. When an exploit is discovered in IE we're told not to click on any hyperlinks for the next few months.
Second, Mozilla will never truly take over the market while IE is bundled with 'doze and 'doze rules the desktop. Too many people will simply use what's already there.
Finally, a substantial portion of those looking for exploits will continue to look for them in IE for the two reasons given above and because Microsoft is somewhat dispised and, I'm guessing, attacking Microsoft is more "prestigious" among crackers than attacking Mozilla. "Oh, you found a vulnerability in Mozilla. Add it to the bug tracker." vs "Wow! Another vulnerability in IE! Dude! u r l33t!"
The growth rate of the human population is currently declining and is expected to continue declining. In fact, there is increasing optimism that the worl population will stabilize at about 9 billion fifty years from now.
c ators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Populatio n_Growth.htm P ages/P/Populations.html#Predicting_Future_Populati on_Size a tch_3421.asp
http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Edu
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/Biology
http://www.enn.com/features/1999/05/052799/worldw
Ok first of all, that's clearly not at all what the parent post is saying. It is saying that these problems are fundamental and will never go away (unless the entire human race is destroyed, anyway). It is saying that just waiting around until those problems are solved (which they never will be) is foolish. It is saying that if we colonize space then at least some seed of humanity might survive (although in light of the previous point perhaps that's not a good thing).
Second, early on resources might be harder to obtain, but there will also be a much smaller population and thus less demand for resources. Eventually the infrastructure for harvesting space and Mars-bound resources will be built and it will become increasingly easy to harvest these resources. Yes, resources will be scarce, but they always are, here on Earth and elsewhere.
Third, "necessity is the mother of invention." The scarcity you mention will force the colonists to develop ways of dealing with it, ways that could be applicable here on Earth. For example, it would finally force us to stop depending on oil, and at the same time provide alternatives (e.g. orbital solar collectors or something we havn't thought of yet).
In conclusion, colonizing Mars will not give us a "utopia," but getting off this rock is the only viable way forward.
I think this is analogous to those cell deals where you get a free phone when you sign up for service, especially if they're going for the subscription-based model.
Apparently you're not aware that it takes non-zero time for a human to respond. I'd suggest taking a psychology class; they usually have a few sections on reflexes.
Woohoo! LAN party!
Unfortunately the only people slimy enough to actually want the job are precisely those who we do not want to give it to.
My comment was not so much about the settlement in Germany as the general principle. It was in response to a comment that seems to be suggesting that the US courts should gag SCO (admittedly, the parent comment could perhaps be interpreted somewhat differently but it did say that the US _courts_ should do this).
Also, what the heck is redundant about my previous post? I don't mean to whine about the moderation but really would like to know what that was about.