I've been doing a little bit of work in this area--it seems that the VisMod group at MIT released a simple face recognition system about 10 years ago. It uses the eigenface method, which is generally considered the standard (though there have been other models proposed).
I've ported the code to Linux and BSD, and it works all right, though it takes a lot of configuring, and uses a strange format for the images. I'll get around to making a HOWTO at some point, but until then, if anyone wants to play around with the program, they can grab the source for Linux and BSD.
Since these are open source, and the method is fairly easy to understand (there are docs all around about it), I hope that some OSS programmers will take some time to improve on this.
No way. I get a few channels in my apartment via rabbit-ear and UHF loop antenna reception - they're pretty weak, but on a good day and in the absence of major interference, I can watch Ally McBeal. I'm also a longtime notebook computer user, mostly Apple Powerbooks. The TFT LCD screen specifically interferes with the lower-numbered VHF channels on my TV, which also happen to be more poorly propagated at my location. The CPU and motherboard also interfere, but the screen is by far the worst and can't be within twenty feet and/or two interior walls of the antennae without substantial, patterned interference. And this is a low-power laptop with a relatively small 10" screen (800x600, 60Hz refresh), using under seven watts including the 180MHz CPU. Shutting off the screen independently of the rest of the machine greatly reduces the interference.
And if it's causing interference, it's giving out a signal, most likely one that can be intercepted and read. The best solution is to buy TEMPEST certified products.
I've installed debian personally on a wide variety of low end machines:
Our main school server, colby.tjs.org, a P133, 64M of RAM, newer 20G HD. This runs DNS, POP3, SSH, Telnet, and Web without a hiccup. We came across a cheap IDE RAID card, and we're adding that in now.
A Pentium 75 which recently died from flaky hardware.
A Pentium 75 with all the spare SIMMS we could cram into it.
A 386, specs forgotten since I accidentally killed it (oops!)
In fact, the computers I work with most are all below the level of a Pentium 150. It doesn't take that much to get linux on them, just be smart about what you choose to install.
Of course, that said, I also have to admit that it would be pretty nice if I didn't have to choose my packages carefully, because the defaults were ultra-slim. It does sometimes take a bit of work if the HD or RAM is too small (one of the funnier error messages I've ever gotten is "Memory size too small to load kernel--2M").
So, props to these guys, and I'll give it a spin sometime, but for now, debian works wonders, and it's pretty well up to date.
Think about this for a second: the iPod has a ludicrous amount of memory (32M--as much as the *storage* space on the original Rio. Enough that you could whack it repeatedly on the ground with no skipping), it works as a portable hard drive, it has a general CPU (not just an mp3-decoding chip, upgradable firmware (meaning you ogg freaks;) will probably be supported in the near future), and a screen that looks like it could do quite a bit more than text.
Now, you have this powerful, software-upgradeable machine with a good screen and a good interface. Is *anyone* else thinking that Apple might eventually release a "PDA" upgrade to this thing, once it's gotten a foothold among the MP3 crowd? I think that Jobs is positioning this to be much more than just an MP3 player, but rather an extensible part of his "digital hub". Even the name, iPod, has no musical connotations whatsoever.
Reacting to errors is a vital part of any good code. A user kills off a random task that Word depends on? Word should pop up an error message, allow the user the chance to save his work, and then close if it is unable to continue. Crashing is not a good way of dealing with problems.
I also assume that when he says "crashes repeatedly," he's talking about the application itself, and not the OS in general--hence cracked codecs, odd drivers, and the like shouldn't be messing with Word at all. (I realize that I'm speaking from a dream world where all applications have their own, protected memory, but that's not the user's fault).
I don't quite understand the original poster's reluctance to use TeX or LaTeX; there's a good, easy to use editor (LyX) available, and with minimal effort I've been able to make documents look a lot better than I could have in MS Word. TeX was also designed to convert to a whole mess of different formats, and it (or rather, a helper program) can convert to nearly any end format you desire.
Er. Not at all the same thing. The basis of Lessig's argument is the fact that all notions of copyright (those in the Constitution, at least) are based on the idea of public good. The only reason copyright exists at all is to provide an incentive for the creation of new works by giving the author a TIME LIMITED monopoly. After a certain period of time, it is a very good idea to put the work into the public domain so that derivative works can be created, and the "state of the art" can be further advanced.
The examples you give are things completely useless to the public good. No one gives a fuck about (for example) your PIN, your PGP key, or your diary (unless that diary has already been released under normal copyright). You can keep them a secret for as long as you like because they don't benefit anyone else. Is it reasonable to say that someone should be allowed to retain an indefinite monopoly on something like a cancer cure, for example?
It would be nice if people would try to understand arguments before they refute them... and before moderators score that refutation at 4:p/p
Hell, if you're feeling saucy, you might even teach her how to make perfect debian packages out of the MPlayer source. It's really very easy, especially since they've been kind enough to provide the scripts...
Some of the questions in the FAQ do come across as a bit testy, yes. However, this is understandable, because the person who wrote it (Gabucino) is the one who gets ALL the newbie questions. So, yes, he can get annoyed;) However, everyone I've ever talked to on the mailing list is consistently friendly and helpful.
The only reason that anyone could really call MPlayer controversial is because they had some lisencing issues a while back, because of incompatible lisences in (if I remember right) the OpenDivX portion of the program.
On a slightly more serious note, it seems you can also put HTML into that caption, which opens up the possibility of all sorts of nasty JS exploits. Silly CGI designers...
This is a completely irrelevant side note, but has anyone else noticed that Space.com's picture-presenting cgi feeds the caption in the URL? Silly way of doing things, but provides the opportunity for some fun.
I've seen quite a few comments along the lines of "you don't need a server running to send e-mail!" While this is technically true, the fact of the matter is that this worm does (if I'm reading what's here correctly), in fact, run its own SMTP server. Therefore, in this specific instance at least, the worm's impact would be minimized by denying non-admins access to low ports.
Look at the context. He's talking about opening a port in order to run an SMTP server. Using "open" in this case probably isn't technically correct (the function is named bind(), not open() ), but you're really just nitpicking.
Geez, don't people place meaning before semantics here?;P
Incorrect. The Elastic Clause (also known as the "neccessary and proper" clause) only allows Congress (NOT the President; that's the executive, not legislative branch) to enact laws that help it execute its other powers defined in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8).
Here's the actual Elastic Clause (Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 18):
[The Congress shall have power] To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
This power is pretty broad; Congress used it to establish (at the urging of the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton) a national bank. Although it was violently opposed by Jefferson and the Republicans as unconstitutional, its legality was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1819 in the case McCulloch v. Maryland under this Elastic Clause.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been doing a little bit of work in this area--it seems that the VisMod group at MIT released a simple face recognition system about 10 years ago. It uses the eigenface method, which is generally considered the standard (though there have been other models proposed).
I've ported the code to Linux and BSD, and it works all right, though it takes a lot of configuring, and uses a strange format for the images. I'll get around to making a HOWTO at some point, but until then, if anyone wants to play around with the program, they can grab the source for Linux and BSD.
Since these are open source, and the method is fairly easy to understand (there are docs all around about it), I hope that some OSS programmers will take some time to improve on this.
And if it's causing interference, it's giving out a signal, most likely one that can be intercepted and read. The best solution is to buy TEMPEST certified products.
I've installed debian personally on a wide variety of low end machines:
In fact, the computers I work with most are all below the level of a Pentium 150. It doesn't take that much to get linux on them, just be smart about what you choose to install.
Of course, that said, I also have to admit that it would be pretty nice if I didn't have to choose my packages carefully, because the defaults were ultra-slim. It does sometimes take a bit of work if the HD or RAM is too small (one of the funnier error messages I've ever gotten is "Memory size too small to load kernel--2M").
So, props to these guys, and I'll give it a spin sometime, but for now, debian works wonders, and it's pretty well up to date.
I don't think Slashdot needs any reminders about history repeating itself...
There's a game theory paper waiting to be written somewhere in there, I know it ;)
Turns out I just didn't see it. Sorry!
It looks like the "iPod killer" has mysteriously disappeared from the writeup. Way to rewrite history, micheal!
Think about this for a second: the iPod has a ludicrous amount of memory (32M--as much as the *storage* space on the original Rio. Enough that you could whack it repeatedly on the ground with no skipping), it works as a portable hard drive, it has a general CPU (not just an mp3-decoding chip, upgradable firmware (meaning you ogg freaks ;) will probably be supported in the near future), and a screen that looks like it could do quite a bit more than text.
Now, you have this powerful, software-upgradeable machine with a good screen and a good interface. Is *anyone* else thinking that Apple might eventually release a "PDA" upgrade to this thing, once it's gotten a foothold among the MP3 crowd? I think that Jobs is positioning this to be much more than just an MP3 player, but rather an extensible part of his "digital hub". Even the name, iPod, has no musical connotations whatsoever.
Or maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist... ;)
Reacting to errors is a vital part of any good code. A user kills off a random task that Word depends on? Word should pop up an error message, allow the user the chance to save his work, and then close if it is unable to continue. Crashing is not a good way of dealing with problems.
I also assume that when he says "crashes repeatedly," he's talking about the application itself, and not the OS in general--hence cracked codecs, odd drivers, and the like shouldn't be messing with Word at all. (I realize that I'm speaking from a dream world where all applications have their own, protected memory, but that's not the user's fault).
I don't quite understand the original poster's reluctance to use TeX or LaTeX; there's a good, easy to use editor (LyX) available, and with minimal effort I've been able to make documents look a lot better than I could have in MS Word. TeX was also designed to convert to a whole mess of different formats, and it (or rather, a helper program) can convert to nearly any end format you desire.
Er. Not at all the same thing. The basis of Lessig's argument is the fact that all notions of copyright (those in the Constitution, at least) are based on the idea of public good. The only reason copyright exists at all is to provide an incentive for the creation of new works by giving the author a TIME LIMITED monopoly. After a certain period of time, it is a very good idea to put the work into the public domain so that derivative works can be created, and the "state of the art" can be further advanced.
The examples you give are things completely useless to the public good. No one gives a fuck about (for example) your PIN, your PGP key, or your diary (unless that diary has already been released under normal copyright). You can keep them a secret for as long as you like because they don't benefit anyone else. Is it reasonable to say that someone should be allowed to retain an indefinite monopoly on something like a cancer cure, for example?
It would be nice if people would try to understand arguments before they refute them... and before moderators score that refutation at 4 :p/p
Hell, if you're feeling saucy, you might even teach her how to make perfect debian packages out of the MPlayer source. It's really very easy, especially since they've been kind enough to provide the scripts...
fakeroot debian/rules binary
One command. Yes, it really is that simple
Some of the questions in the FAQ do come across as a bit testy, yes. However, this is understandable, because the person who wrote it (Gabucino) is the one who gets ALL the newbie questions. So, yes, he can get annoyed ;) However, everyone I've ever talked to on the mailing list is consistently friendly and helpful.
The only reason that anyone could really call MPlayer controversial is because they had some lisencing issues a while back, because of incompatible lisences in (if I remember right) the OpenDivX portion of the program.
Really? It worked fine in IE6...
On a slightly more serious note, it seems you can also put HTML into that caption, which opens up the possibility of all sorts of nasty JS exploits. Silly CGI designers...
This is a completely irrelevant side note, but has anyone else noticed that Space.com's picture-presenting cgi feeds the caption in the URL? Silly way of doing things, but provides the opportunity for some fun.
Observe.
I had some really insightful comment about how space exploration has died, but IE ate it. So you get this instead :p
Merry Christmas.
I've seen quite a few comments along the lines of "you don't need a server running to send e-mail!" While this is technically true, the fact of the matter is that this worm does (if I'm reading what's here correctly), in fact, run its own SMTP server. Therefore, in this specific instance at least, the worm's impact would be minimized by denying non-admins access to low ports.
Look at the context. He's talking about opening a port in order to run an SMTP server. Using "open" in this case probably isn't technically correct (the function is named bind(), not open() ), but you're really just nitpicking.
Geez, don't people place meaning before semantics here? ;P
Incorrect. The Elastic Clause (also known as the "neccessary and proper" clause) only allows Congress (NOT the President; that's the executive, not legislative branch) to enact laws that help it execute its other powers defined in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8).
Here's the actual Elastic Clause (Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 18):
This power is pretty broad; Congress used it to establish (at the urging of the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton) a national bank. Although it was violently opposed by Jefferson and the Republicans as unconstitutional, its legality was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1819 in the case McCulloch v. Maryland under this Elastic Clause.
IANAL, but I am anal about the Constitution. ;)
Most likely they don't want to get flamed by Linus ;) (*ducks*)