I just bought a new computer through Dell Canada at the end of October. The first thing I did, after installing ZoneAlarm and Opera, was to prune the System Startup with msconfig. One of the files that I didn't recognise was DSentry.exe ( DVDSentry). When I looked it up at pacs-portal, it was described so:
"Anti-spyware from Dell. Seems that after Dell found out certain applications being installed from DVD's would report back information about what customers were watching, they decided to implement an anti-spyware service. Run manually before installation starts".
So I expect that either the memo only refers to Dell US, and we Canadians are still safe, or they're just covering themselves legally by not mentioning specific sites.
The "27 hour day" reference is from James P. Hogan's book "Inherit the Stars". A lot of the "science" in the book is so believable written (like in many of his novels) that the 27 hour day bit is often quoted. It's worth noting, though, that in the novel 27 hour biological days are used as a proof for humans having evolved off earth, and the moon only having been captured about 25k years ago.
One thing to keeo in mind about this is that biometrics are already used, in the workplace and society, and have been for decades. I refer, of course to fingerprints. As an employee, your fingerprints generally only come into play if you work in a secure field (government, police, security) so you choose to give up you data in order to work in the field.
The difference between fingerprints and retinal scans is one of resolution and number of useable data points, not one of scope. This topic cleverly combines two issues and suggests that they are the same.
Issue one: Should biometrics data use become more common? Right now, only secure fields use these technologies. There's no rational reason for less secure businesses to employ such technologies, but that doesn't mean that they won't.
Issue two: Should biometrics data be transferred, traded, made publicly available, etc.? Again, there's no reason why it should. In fact, disseminating biometrics data reduces its usefulness for security, as it opens the possibility of the data being compromised or copied. However, again, that doesn't mean it won't as the modern economic model has a feed of itself mentality.
The important point I'm trying to make, though, is that these two points have to be dealt with separately. It's not enough to say "Biometrics bad. Open source good.", the issues have to actually be dealt with.
Frankly, I don't think a lot of people, even here, would have a problem with the issue had the question been phrased: "Do you think that those industries who currently use use fingerprint data should migrate to retinal scans for increased security?". Or perhaps the original question should have been "Do you think that the use of fingerprint indentification should become more commonplace, and how should it be regulated?".
As always, language dervives thought, and misuse of language sends the wrong idea.
Articles in New Scientist aside, WB hasn't used any serious protection on VHS for years. As far back as the Matrix (and probably before, but I have no data) WB has abandoned the use of copy protecting on VHS tapes. Or, at least, they've been using cp that is either before the commercials or only relevant to low end VCRs.
Several other companies also seem to be abandoning cp, though Dreamworks and Disney still use it, and I believe Universal does as well.
I read the original statement, and, frankly, it didn't sound to me like Gates was claiming credit for Open Source. What he said was that if it hadn't been for M$ standardizing computing with DOS, there wouldn't be a market for Open Source now. However much I may disagree with M$ policies and coding today, I would tend to agree with the thought behind that statement.
Anyone who remembers computing in the early '80's should recognize that the industry wasn't going anywhere. $5000 for an Apple 2? The only software is rudimentary databases and word processors. Games are less sophisticated than those on the Atari 2600. Monitors are monochrome. Apple is enforcing a closed source policy which improves the quality of the machines, but hampers development.
It was the pairing of M$'s DOS with IBM PCs, and an open policy towards clones, that allowed the explosion of PCs seen in the mid-80's. Without that expansion, we'd probably still be looking at a computer in every 100th home, and no gaming or online community to speak of besides Nethack, university email accounts, and usenet.
While Gates is hardly responsible for coming up with the idea of Open Source, he was certainly a key person in the expansion of the computer industry. It was that expansion which resulted in so many educated, trained, computer users that people started being able to program their own systems. If we still had to use machine language and punch cards, there wouldn't be open source.
Gates' comments were perhaps worded less specifically than they should have been, but the Open Source community is likely also guilty of jumping on the comment more than necessary.
Actually, as the previous article (Third Base) pointed out, it really is -1, 0, and 1. this system works even better than 0, 1, 2 since it it symmetrically balanced. That article used a symbol similar to a 1 with a hyphen through it, for which I'll use the "t" key.
The example given is 19, which in 0, 1, 2 is expressed as 201 [ (2* 3^2) + (0* 3^1) + (1* 3^0) ] = 18 + 0 + 1 = 19.
In -1, 0, 1 this is represented as 1t01 [ (1* 3^3) + (-1* 3^2) + (0* 3^1) + (1* 3^0) ] = 27 - 9 + 0 + 1 = 19.
Although it does often take more digits to represent the number via the second method, the balanced system does have many advantages. Without getting to deeply involved, the important one is that you have one system fo both positive and negative number, thus eliminating the need for the actual sign.
I hope this basic summary of that previous article helps.
"There was a mysterious explosion of 10-15 megatons (high explosive equivalent at..." [specific location/time follows] "...The explosion devasted an area of 1,500 miles^2 and the shock was felt as far away as 625 miles. The cause was variously attributed to a meteorite (1927), a comet (1930), a nuclear explosion (1961), antimatter (1965), a small black hole (1973) and an exploding flying saucer (1976). Although the meteorite theory was initiall rejected, a new assessment in 1992 suggest that the explosion can be accounted for by the energy released following a total disintegration at an altitude of 33,000 ft of a 98-ft-diameter common type stony asteroid traveling at hypersonic velocity at an incoming angle of 45 degrees."
Besides the obvious point that there have previously been many theories, but still no prrof (not even with the new theory), I think the more interesting fact is the sociological significance of the various theories. In each case, a theory presented taps into the buzzwords of the day.
While the idea that scientific theories are more media buzzwords than provable facts will hardly come as news to any frequent reader of slashdot, it raises the idea that modern scientists might be well served to learn a bit of history.
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I just bought a new computer through Dell Canada at the end of October. The first thing I did, after installing ZoneAlarm and Opera, was to prune the System Startup with msconfig. One of the files that I didn't recognise was DSentry.exe ( DVDSentry). When I looked it up at pacs-portal, it was described so:
"Anti-spyware from Dell. Seems that after Dell found out certain applications being installed from DVD's would report back information about what customers were watching, they decided to implement an anti-spyware service. Run manually before installation starts".
So I expect that either the memo only refers to Dell US, and we Canadians are still safe, or they're just covering themselves legally by not mentioning specific sites.
The "27 hour day" reference is from James P. Hogan's book "Inherit the Stars". A lot of the "science" in the book is so believable written (like in many of his novels) that the 27 hour day bit is often quoted. It's worth noting, though, that in the novel 27 hour biological days are used as a proof for humans having evolved off earth, and the moon only having been captured about 25k years ago.
One thing to keeo in mind about this is that biometrics are already used, in the workplace and society, and have been for decades. I refer, of course to fingerprints. As an employee, your fingerprints generally only come into play if you work in a secure field (government, police, security) so you choose to give up you data in order to work in the field.
The difference between fingerprints and retinal scans is one of resolution and number of useable data points, not one of scope. This topic cleverly combines two issues and suggests that they are the same.
Issue one: Should biometrics data use become more common? Right now, only secure fields use these technologies. There's no rational reason for less secure businesses to employ such technologies, but that doesn't mean that they won't.
Issue two: Should biometrics data be transferred, traded, made publicly available, etc.? Again, there's no reason why it should. In fact, disseminating biometrics data reduces its usefulness for security, as it opens the possibility of the data being compromised or copied. However, again, that doesn't mean it won't as the modern economic model has a feed of itself mentality.
The important point I'm trying to make, though, is that these two points have to be dealt with separately. It's not enough to say "Biometrics bad. Open source good.", the issues have to actually be dealt with.
Frankly, I don't think a lot of people, even here, would have a problem with the issue had the question been phrased: "Do you think that those industries who currently use use fingerprint data should migrate to retinal scans for increased security?". Or perhaps the original question should have been "Do you think that the use of fingerprint indentification should become more commonplace, and how should it be regulated?".
As always, language dervives thought, and misuse of language sends the wrong idea.
Articles in New Scientist aside, WB hasn't used any serious protection on VHS for years. As far back as the Matrix (and probably before, but I have no data) WB has abandoned the use of copy protecting on VHS tapes. Or, at least, they've been using cp that is either before the commercials or only relevant to low end VCRs.
Several other companies also seem to be abandoning cp, though Dreamworks and Disney still use it, and I believe Universal does as well.
I read the original statement, and, frankly, it didn't sound to me like Gates was claiming credit for Open Source. What he said was that if it hadn't been for M$ standardizing computing with DOS, there wouldn't be a market for Open Source now. However much I may disagree with M$ policies and coding today, I would tend to agree with the thought behind that statement.
Anyone who remembers computing in the early '80's should recognize that the industry wasn't going anywhere. $5000 for an Apple 2? The only software is rudimentary databases and word processors. Games are less sophisticated than those on the Atari 2600. Monitors are monochrome. Apple is enforcing a closed source policy which improves the quality of the machines, but hampers development.
It was the pairing of M$'s DOS with IBM PCs, and an open policy towards clones, that allowed the explosion of PCs seen in the mid-80's. Without that expansion, we'd probably still be looking at a computer in every 100th home, and no gaming or online community to speak of besides Nethack, university email accounts, and usenet.
While Gates is hardly responsible for coming up with the idea of Open Source, he was certainly a key person in the expansion of the computer industry. It was that expansion which resulted in so many educated, trained, computer users that people started being able to program their own systems. If we still had to use machine language and punch cards, there wouldn't be open source.
Gates' comments were perhaps worded less specifically than they should have been, but the Open Source community is likely also guilty of jumping on the comment more than necessary.
At the very least, it's worth considering.
Actually, as the previous article (Third Base) pointed out, it really is -1, 0, and 1. this system works even better than 0, 1, 2 since it it symmetrically balanced. That article used a symbol similar to a 1 with a hyphen through it, for which I'll use the "t" key.
The example given is 19, which in 0, 1, 2 is expressed as 201 [ (2* 3^2) + (0* 3^1) + (1* 3^0) ] = 18 + 0 + 1 = 19.
In -1, 0, 1 this is represented as 1t01 [ (1* 3^3) + (-1* 3^2) + (0* 3^1) + (1* 3^0) ] = 27 - 9 + 0 + 1 = 19.
Although it does often take more digits to represent the number via the second method, the balanced system does have many advantages. Without getting to deeply involved, the important one is that you have one system fo both positive and negative number, thus eliminating the need for the actual sign.
I hope this basic summary of that previous article helps.
"There was a mysterious explosion of 10-15 megatons (high explosive equivalent at ..." [specific location/time follows] "...The explosion devasted an area of 1,500 miles^2 and the shock was felt as far away as 625 miles. The cause was variously attributed to a meteorite (1927), a comet (1930), a nuclear explosion (1961), antimatter (1965), a small black hole (1973) and an exploding flying saucer (1976). Although the meteorite theory was initiall rejected, a new assessment in 1992 suggest that the explosion can be accounted for by the energy released following a total disintegration at an altitude of 33,000 ft of a 98-ft-diameter common type stony asteroid traveling at hypersonic velocity at an incoming angle of 45 degrees."
Besides the obvious point that there have previously been many theories, but still no prrof (not even with the new theory), I think the more interesting fact is the sociological significance of the various theories. In each case, a theory presented taps into the buzzwords of the day.
While the idea that scientific theories are more media buzzwords than provable facts will hardly come as news to any frequent reader of slashdot, it raises the idea that modern scientists might be well served to learn a bit of history.