'Not like anybody would've expected that...no way...'
Especially given Nikon's less than stellar record with encrypting stuff previously. Remember the fuss about Nikon's white balance encryption a few years ago?:
Adobe cut a deal with Nikon over this to avoid potential DMCA violations (Adobe Camera Raw uses some Nikon code to decrypt white balance), but everyone else just reverse-engineered Nikon's 'secret' key, which turned out not to be much of a challenge - it's now the 'xlat' table in the dcraw and ExifTool source:
(Nikon obfuscates things somewhat by also using the camera serial number and shutter count as keys).
From the Elcomsoft article on the latest crack:
'Two 1024-bit (128-byte) signatures are stored in EXIF MakerNote tag 0Ã--0097 (Color Balance).'
This is the same tag that Nikon still uses to store white balance values encrypted with their broken xlat key (which dcraw, ExifTool and others routinely decrypt). Of course the difference here is that image authentication was a feature designed for the benefit of the (forensic) user, whereas white balance encryption was intended to benefit only Nikon by denying third party software access to important metadata. But both are now equally broken.
The cameras are actually standard models - all the recent pro and semi-pro models (D200 and up) support this feature, though it's off by default. Once you activate it in the camera's menu, any image you take can be 'authenticated' by the software, which goes for about $500 USD.
Unity 2D ('sudo apt-get install unity-2d') works under VirtualBox (if any version of Unity can be said to 'work'). Then you can have fun ticking off how many of these mistakes it makes:
...and now that I actually look more carefully, aren't those brazil nuts (which contain K-40 and Ra-226) in the kitchen photo? Can't make out the packet they're pouring from, but I'm guessing it's something potassium-rich.
'Participation is encouraged through a tasting of 'yellowcake' - a colloquialism for uranium oxide U3O8, an essential ingredient in the preparation of uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. The designer, along with scientists from Nuclear FiRST, devised a recipe for an edible yellowcake, using ingredients that contain radioactive isotopes, to challenge entrenched viewpoints and misunderstandings of risk.'
My random guess would be that the 'ingredients that contain radioactive isotopes' in the 'edible yellowcake' are probably just something rich in, e.g., Potassium-40 - you can get an above background reading from 'LoSalt' salt substitute, and that's a regular food ingredient.
'In Physics at least, specialisation can lead to some very useful and broadly applicable findings. Granted, sometimes completely unexpectedly. I can imagine the same is not true for a highly specialist life sciences PhD.'
'Eh? Is that true?! I live in the UK and bought CDs from the late-1980s onwards, and I don't recall *ever* having seen one inside one of those stupid longbox designs.'
I saw a few in a classical CD sale in London just a few years ago. Must have been languishing in a warehouse somewhere for well over a decade.
'There is no way to put these movements on a two sided cassette without having about 17 minutes of unused space, unless the 3rd movement was split between sides.'
Well, there was the approach taken by DG's excellent value 'Walkman Classics' series, which was just to stuff something else on the tape until it came close to 90 minutes:
(Note to younger readers: the 'Walkman' was one of the technologies that bridged the gap between wax cylinders and your grandfather's hard disk based iPod).
With their Beethoven symphony series DG generally filled up the space with overtures at the end, so the first 3 movements of the 9th were on side A with no break. The downside was that (unless you had some sort of super snazzy programmable player that detected tracks by the gaps between them) you had to stop the tape manually as soon as the last movement of the 9th ended on side B (as having Leonore #3 starting up randomly at that point just sounded wrong).
'I'll even volunteer my own skin sample if we can get this party started! '
I too would like to offer a skin sample from a 'donor'. Sounds like this technique will save me lots of work, and there'll be no more problems training it to put the lotion in the basket.
Incidentally, there'll be a new multimedia version of the actual 'Feynman Lectures on Physics' out this year. They've integrated the (corrected) text with Feynman's original audio, blackboard photos, and related problems:
'Sarah Jane dead? No, impossible! Impossible. Only last week I agreed to do six new audio adventures with her for Big Finish Productions...She can't be dead. But she is: she died yesterday morning. Cancer. I had no idea she was ill; she was so private, never wanted any fuss, and now, gone. A terrible blow to her friends and a shattering blow for all those fans of the programme whose lives were touched every Saturday evening by her lovely heroic character, Sarah-Jane Smith.'
There are a handful of remote hack multiregion BD players out there (I have one), but they probably aren't the players you'd buy otherwise, mostly obscure brands with sketchy support for firmware upgrades (which you might not want to risk applying anyway in case they break multiregion!). A few companies offer more mainstream players chipped to play multiple regions for a premium, but it's a bit like being back in the 90s with DVD. A shame that the major manufacturers aren't treating BD regions with the same contempt they treat DVD regions (i.e., play lip service to the restrictions, but build in support for multiple regions and leak the remote codes to access them).
'Yes, it's absurd. Many street signs have rounded corners - can the sign company sue Apple for "displaying information on a rectangular medium with rounded corners"?'
It may seem absurd, but when Apple successfully sued the 12 Colonies of Kobol, an entire civilization had to switch to displaying information on octagonal media!
'Safari is $110/yr for the base package--5 books at a time.'
For that money, you could also buy around 20 O'Reilly iPhone apps on iTunes. Each contains the unencrypted text of the book, which is easy to extract and re-package as a conventional ePub for use on any device:
'The fact is that that with the Internet and big box retailers, there is just no logical reason for them to exist anymore.'
Except the ones that serve as a focal point for an entire music scene, host live gigs, expose you to music you might never have come across online, act as a labour exchange for local bands, and generally don't suck, e.g.:
Apparently they're having some technical difficulties with that location. Three Summer of Code interns have already been driven hopelessly insane by attempting to map the 3D Buildings layer to abnormal, non-Euclidean geometries loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.
'Neutrally buoyant vacuum tunnel submerged 150 to 300 feet beneath the Atlantic's surface and anchored to the seafloor, through which zips a magnetically levitated train at up to 4,000 mph.'
At '$88 billion - $175 billion' it might be a little outside even Branson's budget, but London to New York in an hour is something of an improvement on Virgin's current service.
'That said, there's got to be a point at which we say "okay, so you made another GM rat with human genes. The process for this is well-established and all you did was repeat something that's been done dozens of times before."'
Which is pretty much the case here. In the patent (which dates from 1998 - transgenic mice had been around since the early 80s) they come right out and say it:
'Standard techniques are used for recombinant nucleic acid methods, polynucleotide synthesis, cell culture, and transgene incorporation (e.g., electroporation, microinjection, lipofection). Generally enzymatic reactions, oligonucleotide synthesis, and purification steps are performed according to the manufacturer's specifications. The techniques and procedures are generally performed according to conventional methods in the art and various general references which are provided throughout this document. The procedures therein are believed to be well known in the art and are provided for the convenience of the reader. '
And even more vaguely:
'The invention can be practiced using essentially any applicable homologous gene targeting strategy known in the art.'
All this is just a way of wrapping up a discovered DNA sequence variant and a successful transgenic experiment done with it (using standard techniques) into an 'invention' that can be patented. It's an important experiment, but is it really an invention? Similar tricks are used to package discoveries as 'genetic tests' (even though the test is something a graduate student could come up with in their lunch hour by pasting the sequence into a primer design program and clicking 'OK').
Slashdot Mirror
'Not like anybody would've expected that ...no way ...'
Especially given Nikon's less than stellar record with encrypting stuff previously. Remember the fuss about Nikon's white balance encryption a few years ago?:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/05/04/25/0511241/Adobe-Blasts-Nikons-Closed-File-Format
Adobe cut a deal with Nikon over this to avoid potential DMCA violations (Adobe Camera Raw uses some Nikon code to decrypt white balance), but everyone else just reverse-engineered Nikon's 'secret' key, which turned out not to be much of a challenge - it's now the 'xlat' table in the dcraw and ExifTool source:
http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/htdocs/Image-ExifTool/Image/ExifTool/Nikon.pm.html
(Nikon obfuscates things somewhat by also using the camera serial number and shutter count as keys).
From the Elcomsoft article on the latest crack:
'Two 1024-bit (128-byte) signatures are stored in EXIF MakerNote tag 0Ã--0097 (Color Balance).'
This is the same tag that Nikon still uses to store white balance values encrypted with their broken xlat key (which dcraw, ExifTool and others routinely decrypt). Of course the difference here is that image authentication was a feature designed for the benefit of the (forensic) user, whereas white balance encryption was intended to benefit only Nikon by denying third party software access to important metadata. But both are now equally broken.
The cameras are actually standard models - all the recent pro and semi-pro models (D200 and up) support this feature, though it's off by default. Once you activate it in the camera's menu, any image you take can be 'authenticated' by the software, which goes for about $500 USD.
Unity 2D ('sudo apt-get install unity-2d') works under VirtualBox (if any version of Unity can be said to 'work'). Then you can have fun ticking off how many of these mistakes it makes:
http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm
"A major point of the Protestant Reformation was the demand for Bibles written in the local languages"
Though this sort of blatant DRM violation was initially prosecuted quite vigorously:
http://www.exclassics.com/foxe/foxe088.gif
...and now that I actually look more carefully, aren't those brazil nuts (which contain K-40 and Ra-226) in the kitchen photo? Can't make out the packet they're pouring from, but I'm guessing it's something potassium-rich.
I wonder what was actually used? The artist's description is phrased very carefully:
http://zoeworks.co.uk/projects/nuclear-dialogues
'Participation is encouraged through a tasting of 'yellowcake' - a colloquialism for uranium oxide U3O8, an essential ingredient in the preparation of uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. The designer, along with scientists from Nuclear FiRST, devised a recipe for an edible yellowcake, using ingredients that contain radioactive isotopes, to challenge entrenched viewpoints and misunderstandings of risk.'
My random guess would be that the 'ingredients that contain radioactive isotopes' in the 'edible yellowcake' are probably just something rich in, e.g., Potassium-40 - you can get an above background reading from 'LoSalt' salt substitute, and that's a regular food ingredient.
'In Physics at least, specialisation can lead to some very useful and broadly applicable findings. Granted, sometimes completely unexpectedly. I can imagine the same is not true for a highly specialist life sciences PhD.'
http://xkcd.com/793/
'Eh? Is that true?! I live in the UK and bought CDs from the late-1980s onwards, and I don't recall *ever* having seen one inside one of those stupid longbox designs.'
I saw a few in a classical CD sale in London just a few years ago. Must have been languishing in a warehouse somewhere for well over a decade.
'There is no way to put these movements on a two sided cassette without having about 17 minutes of unused space, unless the 3rd movement was split between sides.'
Well, there was the approach taken by DG's excellent value 'Walkman Classics' series, which was just to stuff something else on the tape until it came close to 90 minutes:
http://www.talkclassical.com/7444-performers-old-dg-walkman.html
(Note to younger readers: the 'Walkman' was one of the technologies that bridged the gap between wax cylinders and your grandfather's hard disk based iPod).
With their Beethoven symphony series DG generally filled up the space with overtures at the end, so the first 3 movements of the 9th were on side A with no break. The downside was that (unless you had some sort of super snazzy programmable player that detected tracks by the gaps between them) you had to stop the tape manually as soon as the last movement of the 9th ended on side B (as having Leonore #3 starting up randomly at that point just sounded wrong).
You should probably be using a Modern Difference Engine:
http://acarol.woz.org/difference_engine.html
'I'll even volunteer my own skin sample if we can get this party started! '
I too would like to offer a skin sample from a 'donor'. Sounds like this technique will save me lots of work, and there'll be no more problems training it to put the lotion in the basket.
Incidentally, there'll be a new multimedia version of the actual 'Feynman Lectures on Physics' out this year. They've integrated the (corrected) text with Feynman's original audio, blackboard photos, and related problems:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqRp9tyDLvw
http://www.basicfeynman.com/enhanced.html
Goddness knows what locked-down format this will be in, though.
'He would not appreciate people holding his teaching behinds artificial barriers.'
Feynman was pretty keen on unlocking things, too. Perhaps he'd have approved of unoffcial methods of viewing these lectures, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=feynman+messenger+lectures
Note that the MS site doesn't have the famous 'Feynman Lectures on Physics', but the much shorter series of 7 Messenger Lectures given at Cornell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Character_of_Physical_Law
Tom Baker on the news:
http://www.tom-baker.co.uk/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=159
'Sarah Jane dead? No, impossible! Impossible. Only last week I agreed to do six new audio adventures with her for Big Finish Productions...She can't be dead. But she is: she died yesterday morning. Cancer. I had no idea she was ill; she was so private, never wanted any fuss, and now, gone. A terrible blow to her friends and a shattering blow for all those fans of the programme whose lives were touched every Saturday evening by her lovely heroic character, Sarah-Jane Smith.'
There are a handful of remote hack multiregion BD players out there (I have one), but they probably aren't the players you'd buy otherwise, mostly obscure brands with sketchy support for firmware upgrades (which you might not want to risk applying anyway in case they break multiregion!). A few companies offer more mainstream players chipped to play multiple regions for a premium, but it's a bit like being back in the 90s with DVD. A shame that the major manufacturers aren't treating BD regions with the same contempt they treat DVD regions (i.e., play lip service to the restrictions, but build in support for multiple regions and leak the remote codes to access them).
'Yes, it's absurd. Many street signs have rounded corners - can the sign company sue Apple for "displaying information on a rectangular medium with rounded corners"?'
It may seem absurd, but when Apple successfully sued the 12 Colonies of Kobol, an entire civilization had to switch to displaying information on octagonal media!
'Our weapons are Surprise, Fear, and an almost fanatical dedication to Guido van Rossum!'
'Safari is $110/yr for the base package--5 books at a time.'
For that money, you could also buy around 20 O'Reilly iPhone apps on iTunes. Each contains the unencrypted text of the book, which is easy to extract and re-package as a conventional ePub for use on any device:
http://oreilly.com/ebooks/oreilly_iphone_tips.csp
http://zef.me/3246/convert-cheap-oreilly-iphone-app-books-to-epub
'The fact is that that with the Internet and big box retailers, there is just no logical reason for them to exist anymore.'
Except the ones that serve as a focal point for an entire music scene, host live gigs, expose you to music you might never have come across online, act as a labour exchange for local bands, and generally don't suck, e.g.:
http://www.spillersrecords.co.uk/
http://www.amoeba.com/
Apparently they're having some technical difficulties with that location. Three Summer of Code interns have already been driven hopelessly insane by attempting to map the 3D Buildings layer to abnormal, non-Euclidean geometries loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.
I was hoping for this:
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-04/trans-atlantic-maglev
'Neutrally buoyant vacuum tunnel submerged 150 to 300 feet beneath the Atlantic's surface and anchored to the seafloor, through which zips a magnetically levitated train at up to 4,000 mph.'
At '$88 billion - $175 billion' it might be a little outside even Branson's budget, but London to New York in an hour is something of an improvement on Virgin's current service.
'We're the guys who don't accept the mantra from up high.'
Yeah we do:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/taocp.html
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/316.html
'That said, there's got to be a point at which we say "okay, so you made another GM rat with human genes. The process for this is well-established and all you did was repeat something that's been done dozens of times before."'
Which is pretty much the case here. In the patent (which dates from 1998 - transgenic mice had been around since the early 80s) they come right out and say it:
http://patents.com/us-5850003.html
'Standard techniques are used for recombinant nucleic acid methods, polynucleotide synthesis, cell culture, and transgene incorporation (e.g., electroporation, microinjection, lipofection). Generally enzymatic reactions, oligonucleotide synthesis, and purification steps are performed according to the manufacturer's specifications. The techniques and procedures are generally performed according to conventional methods in the art and various general references which are provided throughout this document. The procedures therein are believed to be well known in the art and are provided for the convenience of the reader. '
And even more vaguely:
'The invention can be practiced using essentially any applicable homologous gene targeting strategy known in the art.'
All this is just a way of wrapping up a discovered DNA sequence variant and a successful transgenic experiment done with it (using standard techniques) into an 'invention' that can be patented. It's an important experiment, but is it really an invention? Similar tricks are used to package discoveries as 'genetic tests' (even though the test is something a graduate student could come up with in their lunch hour by pasting the sequence into a primer design program and clicking 'OK').
Don't be silly! Back then it would have been Mr Cholmondley-Warner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ivsb79-h90
'Look there was never much of a fuss when people did things like copying their records to cassette tapes so they could listen in the car.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music