Hardly. I used to work in the credit card industry (my company was acquired by Red Hat in early 2000).
Personally, I don't care about whether anybody uses my signature for credit card fraud. My exposure is much larger to other kinds of fraud, which a stolen signature would open up.
As others mentioned, credit cards have statutory limits on the user's exposure to fruad - debit cards, on the other hand, are covered by regulations covers forged checks. Additionally, contesting charges is a much more difficult process than with credit cards.
Signatures are valuable in far more realms than credit cards - they are the only legal authentication for many kinds of legally binding documents and I, for one, don't care to have someone else learn to sign my signature.
Paranoid? Perhaps, but I have a good amount to lose. I only have to be a little more paranoid than others with large exposure - "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you."
That makes me really, really glad that I refuse to sign Best Buy's electronic signature pads and tell them to let me sign paper instead.
I know about the arguments that claim that it's just as easy to steal a receipt or carbons, but making it as easy as pulling up front with a wireless card? No, thanks. And yes, I do shred my receipts when I'm done with them.
Mozilla will have a chance on the broad desktop (beyond AOL, that is) if and only if a killer app can be conceived for it.
For IE, the future "killer app" will be integration with (blech).NET. Will there be something else for Mozilla that makes people say "gotta have it" and that Microsoft can't or won't duplicate?
We'll see. My money would, alas, be on Microsoft right now. Monopolies are just too damned effective in this space.
It's only instantaneous in theory. AFAIK, there's no experimental data to back up the claim of instantaneous travel (of energy or information).
General Relativity says that nothing can go faster than light, and as a result the two models are inconsistent. That's why experiment is important, to determine which theory requires updating.
My big question would be what the "speed" of the information propogation
was. Some say it should be c, some say it should be "instantaneous" -
either way, the results will have substantial impact on our view of
several well accepted physical models.
Assuming you're not just trolling/joking, here's the thing:
You don't add velocities linearly in special relativity, they add in such a way that they can never exceed c in any reference frame. In order to move faster than light, you need either a discontinuity or an effect in a domain not covered by SR (GR, quantum,...).
Special Relativity is a really cool system, but it doesn't act intuitively - it all falls out of the simple assumption that everybody always sees light as moving at c relative to their own reference frame (no matter how fast they are moving).
There's a nice intro to a bunch of the concepts involved here (sorry, requires flash).
There was a paper in Science a few years back that took a similar approach.
I don't have the references any more (but here is a similar source), but here's the gist:
They built strands of RNA with specific sites being mapped to parts of the travelling salesman solution, replicated those strands billions of times with PCR. and mixed well. The reactions that prevaled were logically the "shortest" path.
Nature abounds with massively parallel computing engines.
If you make the analogy between file sharing and free speech, I guess this would be the labels taking the "more speech is the best solution to bad speech" tact.
I'd much rather see this than action through the courts.
While that's true, Apple needs to spend its money effectively - the number of Windows users is so vastly larger than the number of Linux users that Apple can't focus on individual Linux users.
However, the XServe is the first of a set of products aimed at the IT segment of the industry - you can bet that further down the road you'll see in-depth coverage of why people should move infrastructure from Linux, Solaris, and so on to Mac OS X.
I dunno, it seems like large engineering projects like this present an easy target for terrorists.
Not that this should deter us from undertaking such project, just that security concerns should help dictate their design. The chunnel, for example, is already pretty well protected from external attack by the rock it was built into. Suspension bridges are much more difficult to guard.
Security isn't what I'd be worrying about for this sort of application -- you have to assume that packets going out over Cable modems and DSL links are going to be sniffed by everyone and their little brother anyway. Use those VPNs if you're looking for security.
Anamarphic, in fact, actually "splits the difference" between NTSC and HDTV on resolution. Anamorphic discs appear much better under HDTV displays than NTSC ones.
If a star supernovaed as it passed us, the remnants would have on average roughly the same velocity as the star group - they would also be 500,000 light years away now.
I doubt CNN made this story out of full cloth, I'm sure the theory has more to back it up than CNN reported - it's not like CNN is a scientific journal, they always trim corroborating details.
(Frankly, I think it's absurd that this comment was moderated to the top.)
It's not that simple. A majority of the voting stock has to be available on the open market for a hostile takeover to be successful.
When a company "goes public" they aren't necessarily (and in Red Hat's case, were not) selling a majority of their voting stock, which can be (and again, in Red Hat's case is) held by their VCs and other early investors (like Bob Young).
While it's not specific to the tech industry, it's an excellent discussion of how to make money without being miserable about what you're doing or feeling that you're "selling out."
Slashdot Mirror
Hardly. I used to work in the credit card industry (my company was acquired by Red Hat in early 2000).
Personally, I don't care about whether anybody uses my signature for credit card fraud. My exposure is much larger to other kinds of fraud, which a stolen signature would open up.
As others mentioned, credit cards have statutory limits on the user's exposure to fruad - debit cards, on the other hand, are covered by regulations covers forged checks. Additionally, contesting charges is a much more difficult process than with credit cards.
Signatures are valuable in far more realms than credit cards - they are the only legal authentication for many kinds of legally binding documents and I, for one, don't care to have someone else learn to sign my signature.
Paranoid? Perhaps, but I have a good amount to lose. I only have to be a little more paranoid than others with large exposure - "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you."
That makes me really, really glad that I refuse to sign Best Buy's electronic signature pads and tell them to let me sign paper instead.
I know about the arguments that claim that it's just as easy to steal a receipt or carbons, but making it as easy as pulling up front with a wireless card? No, thanks. And yes, I do shred my receipts when I'm done with them.
It's still cool, but it would be nice if Slashdot didn't remove such qualifiers as "may" - they're an important part of the story
Mozilla will have a chance on the broad desktop (beyond AOL, that is) if and only if a killer app can be conceived for it.
.NET. Will there be something else for Mozilla that makes people say "gotta have it" and that Microsoft can't or won't duplicate?
For IE, the future "killer app" will be integration with (blech)
We'll see. My money would, alas, be on Microsoft right now. Monopolies are just too damned effective in this space.
It's only instantaneous in theory. AFAIK, there's no experimental data to back up the claim of instantaneous travel (of energy or information).
General Relativity says that nothing can go faster than light, and as a result the two models are inconsistent. That's why experiment is important, to determine which theory requires updating.
...was that they made portable solar arrays to take with you to power the thing (they were *huge*) and that Infocom produced games for it. :)
My big question would be what the "speed" of the information propogation was. Some say it should be c, some say it should be "instantaneous" - either way, the results will have substantial impact on our view of several well accepted physical models.
This doesn't sound all that different from what OpenFirmware (used by Suns and Macs) has done for years.
Nice to see Intel boxes finally catching up with the 1990s.
Nah.
It's just Sigmund.
That would be because Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, and Apple only has 5% of the market. Apple can't abuse a monopoly they don't hold.
Assuming you're not just trolling/joking, here's the thing:
...).
You don't add velocities linearly in special relativity, they add in such a way that they can never exceed c in any reference frame. In order to move faster than light, you need either a discontinuity or an effect in a domain not covered by SR (GR, quantum,
Special Relativity is a really cool system, but it doesn't act intuitively - it all falls out of the simple assumption that everybody always sees light as moving at c relative to their own reference frame (no matter how fast they are moving).
There's a nice intro to a bunch of the concepts involved here (sorry, requires flash).
There was a paper in Science a few years back that took a similar approach.
I don't have the references any more (but here is a similar source), but here's the gist: They built strands of RNA with specific sites being mapped to parts of the travelling salesman solution, replicated those strands billions of times with PCR. and mixed well. The reactions that prevaled were logically the "shortest" path.
Nature abounds with massively parallel computing engines.
If you make the analogy between file sharing and free speech, I guess this would be the labels taking the "more speech is the best solution to bad speech" tact.
I'd much rather see this than action through the courts.
While that's true, Apple needs to spend its money effectively - the number of Windows users is so vastly larger than the number of Linux users that Apple can't focus on individual Linux users.
However, the XServe is the first of a set of products aimed at the IT segment of the industry - you can bet that further down the road you'll see in-depth coverage of why people should move infrastructure from Linux, Solaris, and so on to Mac OS X.
I dunno, it seems like large engineering projects like this present an easy target for terrorists.
Not that this should deter us from undertaking such project, just that security concerns should help dictate their design. The chunnel, for example, is already pretty well protected from external attack by the rock it was built into. Suspension bridges are much more difficult to guard.
Just a thought.
So in other words, because our climate model has changed over the years, no climate model can ever be correct? Our climate will never change, QED?
This has got to be one the lamest arguments I keep hearing against the current theories of global warning.
www.macslash.com now gets redirected to MacMall!!
Is this some attempt to redirect blame, or is MacMall really this slimy?
Holding down the mouse button as the Mac boots has been a way to eject stuck media since time immemorial.
Is there some reason that this isn't working on these "stuck" CDs?
Security isn't what I'd be worrying about for this sort of application -- you have to assume that packets going out over Cable modems and DSL links are going to be sniffed by everyone and their little brother anyway. Use those VPNs if you're looking for security.
(The air gap isn't what it used to be, is it?)
Anamarphic, in fact, actually "splits the difference" between NTSC and HDTV on resolution. Anamorphic discs appear much better under HDTV displays than NTSC ones.
Every HDTV or DVD owner should understand anamorphic DVDs and/or read the DVD FAQ
Counterpoint. I was CEO, later CTO, of a startup. I missed my paycheck from time to time, though my employees never did for more than a few days.
The result? We were eventually bought by Red Hat ( Pgh Post Gazzette article ) and the employees with stock benefitted.
The moral? Every situation is different. Duh.
If a star supernovaed as it passed us, the remnants would have on average roughly the same velocity as the star group - they would also be 500,000 light years away now.
I doubt CNN made this story out of full cloth, I'm sure the theory has more to back it up than CNN reported - it's not like CNN is a scientific journal, they always trim corroborating details.
(Frankly, I think it's absurd that this comment was moderated to the top.)
It's not that simple. A majority of the voting stock has to be available on the open market for a hostile takeover to be successful.
When a company "goes public" they aren't necessarily (and in Red Hat's case, were not) selling a majority of their voting stock, which can be (and again, in Red Hat's case is) held by their VCs and other early investors (like Bob Young).
take a look at Growing a Business, by Paul Hawkin.
While it's not specific to the tech industry, it's an excellent discussion of how to make money without being miserable about what you're doing or feeling that you're "selling out."
Kill the Messenger!