I imagine that the IRS or the SS administration eventually finds the problem, but apparently it takes long enough that these guys usually work for about a year or two before the employer hears from whoever and has to fire the person. Then the person disappears and presumably gets a new fake ID and a new job.
I heard of this happening only once, but one of the guys with bogus credentials told his boss that he does this all the time, and he knows lots of other people who do it, too. All those kitchen workers (here in California) who can't speak English? Come on, there's no way they all have legitimate green cards and SSN's. And the restaraunts can't all be faking it with their entire staff of kitchen workers!
My guess is that no one really wants to see a crackdown, so everyone kind of drags their feet on enforcement.
I haven't ever heard an explanation for that. Obviously, RF radiation travels faster in air than in a cable, but other than that I don't see why there should be ANY difference in latency between wired and wireless point-to-point links. (Which these appear to be.)
Either there is something I don't know (entirely possible) or this whole wireless latency thing is B.S.
I don't use shareware much, but when I do, I pay if it is required. And for other software, like evil MS products, when I do use them I pay for them. I think it is fundamentally dishonest and inconsistent with the Open Source ideal to "pirate" (argh Matie!) commercial software. However, it is NOT the same as stealing material goods. Anyone who can't see the difference is just being obstinate.
I also think it is ridiculous how difficult it is to buy an assembled PC without some version of Windows on it. Dell won't do it, Gateway won't do it. It's almost like the microsoft license fee is really a tax on PC sales. I had to go to some small company in Southern California to buy a PC with no OS installed. (I also bought one from the same company with Win2K and Office2000. That added about $350 USD to the price.)
I saw an amusing sig here on slashdot which deals with this issue. I don't remember the exact wording, so I may be paraphrasing:
Pirating commercial software in the name of Open Source is like stealing crack from a drug dealer and claiming that it makes you free from addiction.
> I won't argue the merits or lack thereof
> having a large base of cheap workers
> who don't pay their share to support
> infrastructure
Perhaps a minor quibble, but many (or perhaps most) people working illegally in the US nevertheless have Social Security cards (bogus) and so pay Social Security tax, FICA, and are subject to witholding, etc. I am not talking about farm workers or construction workers, but restaraunt workers and the like.
When you say, "you'll likely see a single company responsible for Linux development," what exactly do you mean? Responsible for what and to whom?
Do you mean that somehow all the people who now spend their time on the kernel and all the other software that makes linux tick will be somehow forced out of doing any linux stuff? How would that happen? Do you mean that they will just get sick of doing linux stuff? I don't really envision that. There might be some attrition, but not total abandonment. Also, do you think Linus is going to sell the rights to the Linux trademark to this one big company?
Also, when you say that the "true beneficiaries" of free programming labor are these companies (or this company), you seem to be ignoring the customers and other users. I would argue that the true beneficiaries of all this free coding are the people who use the code. If it turns out to be the case that established companies find a way to make money off of linux, I don't think that necessarily means that all the coders labored in vain. I mean, if I wanted to get rich writing code, I don't think I would have published it or allowed it to be published under the GPL or other permissive license. So the programmers haven't really lost anything as I see it. They knew the rules of the game and they played it willingly. They're just like all the other former startup employees who worked hard, but didn't quite get rich.
The investors, though, they lost something. They lost money. And I think its fair to say that they actually were trying or at least hoping to make money. I do feel a bit sorry for the investors, whoever they are.
Not right now they don't. But there are already small displays (like glasses or visors) that create the illusion of a big-screen. It's quite possible that these displays will improve to the point that watching a movie with one will be very enjoyable. Stereo headphones will take care of the audio portion. I don't know whether anyone is working on this but it is a pretty obvious idea.
Methanol is
pretty similar to cigarette lighter fluid (for the old-style lighters with wicks), and should be safer than butane.
You have got to be kidding. Methanol is way more flammable than zippo lighter fluid. If you put methanol in a zippo it would probably just about explode when you went to light it. Just think in terms of how fast it evaporates and at what temperatures. Methanol, you just pour it out at room temerature and it dries up while you watch. With lighter fluid it would take hours for a thin puddle to evaporate.
MM
--
Re:Blend of two transp. materials is not always .
on
Transparent Concrete
·
· Score: 1
Yeah.
And as the article says, concrete is normally re-inforced when it is used for any type of load-bearing structure. So technically it's sort of a composite material. A bit like fiberglass-epoxy composite. And, despite the fact that both glass and epoxy are transparent, any reasonably thick layer of fiberglass/epoxy is merely translucent. (Unless you paint it or put dye in the epoxy, of course, in which case it is opaque.) I think this proves your point rather well.
If they want transparency they will have to find some way to adjust the index of refraction of the cement (or glue, as they call it), aggregate, and rebar to all match closely, and they will need a reasonably smooth surface finish as well.
Frankly, I think using glass (or clear plastic) aggregate, epoxy and steel rebar would make for a pretty cool-looking structure even if it weren't remotely transparent. The building cost would be out of control, however, and UV radiation is not good for epoxy. Epoxy exposed to sunlight turns yellow pretty quick, and is significantly weakened, at least near the surface.
Yeah, I kind of wondered about what switches they were using with gcc. When I read the bit about how icc was more pedantic than gcc and vc++ in default mode it sort of raised my eyebrows. Default mode? You mean they are doing a comparison between a super-optimized single-platform compiler and a more portable compiler and they don't even bother to turn on any optimizations on the portable compiler?
I mean, it sounds as if the default Intel compiler's behavior is like gcc with the -ffastmath switch. Did they invoke gcc with -ffastmath? Who knows. The article didn't say.
I like my compiler to warn about everything it can think of, too. Mostly because I hate debugging programs that don't work right. (I'm not a professional programmer, I just dabble.)
Another thing occurs to me. If they are using gcc in default mode, then the comparison is unfair. They should be enabling optimizations.
I don't think C++ is a superset of C. It may have been once, I doubt it is now. For example, I am pretty sure that the new C standard (C99) introduced features in C which are absent in C++.
However, I would be surprised if the Borland C++ compiler does not also includes a C compiler.
And how will they put markings on top of a chip that small? 0402 resistors and caps are already really too small for practical markings, and they are MUCH bigger than a bacterium. Also, they tend to get dislodged by surface tension effects when they are soldered. Have to be careful of how the traces lead into the surface mount pads so that the forces all cancel out.
I think we won't see anything as revolutionary as what is described in this article until a lot of other problems are solved. But hey, this is basic research. You can't expect it to develop into a product right away. That's not really the point.
I recently read _Body of Secrets_ which is about the NSA. One of the things pointed out in that book is that quite a few shady deals (e.g., international arms deals) go down in plaintext because they involve individuals who are not part of the same organization and have not standardized on any crypto system or cipher or what have you.
I mean, of course the Soviets (during the cold war) encrypted communications over insecure channels. But for people like international arms dealers, things are different. They have to communicate in plaintext because there really isn't anything easily available to them (or at least there didn't use to be). I mean, I imagine that if you are an arms dealer, you can't necessarily expect all of your clients to use PGP or whatever. So the NSA's view was that if and when strong crypto becomes ubiquitous, then such deals may be harder to detect using, e.g., Echelon.
I think this pretty much explains the entire motivation for banning the export of strong crypto. They wanted to do whatever they could to slow or halt the adoption of strong crypto by shady characters involved in international deals.
I mean, it is easy to say that people who need to communicate in secret will use strong crypto and no one can stop them. But one could also say that if people know having sex with strangers without a condom can lead to contracting a dangerous and incurable disease, then they will use condoms when they have sex. I think the facts show that neither statement is *entirely* true.
It is questionable whether what Sklyarov did was illegal because he did it in Russia. Anyway, he got a deal so the challenge to the law will have to wait.
Anyway, I don't feel that copyright law is ridiculous or stupid (I observe it pretty carefully, as a matter of fact).
On the other hand, the provisions of the DMCA, which apparently make it illegal to distribute some source code or compiled programs are, to me, an outrage. Hopefully those provisions will be overturned.
Others have raised good points about entrapment and so on. Something interesting is that apparently, Hoover himself didn't approve of using under-cover agents in the FBI.
Well, I wouldn't say that! He admitted many illegal acts, and perhaps comitted some that he was never accused of (who knows).
But some of the allegedly illegal things that Mitnick did apparently were kind of a stretch.
Also, he spent a lot of time in jail without a trial. I don't know if he somehow waived his right to a speedy trial or what, but you're not supposed to have to spend years in jail awaiting a trial in the USA.
I think the bottom line is that eventually they were out to get him, no matter what. He was villifed in the press, (anonymous high-level sources), etc.
I think, ultimately, Kevin was a victim of demonization by law enforcement and industry players.
What I meant when I said that it is not a "free Kevin" issue, is that there did not appear to be any miscarriage of justice going on with these warez busts. The crime is not theoretical or any kind of stretch.
What is wrong with busting warez distributors? I mean, I'm all in favor of free speech and I believe that source code (even deCSS) and compiled programs should never be banned from distribution, provided that the copyright owner allows it.
But these people were actually distributing copyrighted material which they *didn't* own the copyright to. I mean, they did something that they new was illegal, is clearly illegal (and has been so for many, many years) and they got caught red-handed. This is not a "free Kevin" or "free Dmitry" type of issue.
Besides, these guys will all get deals to rat out someone else, just like Dmitry did.
I'll probably get flamed, but I had to put up my $0.02.
Actually, outlook, by default, has a preview pane so you don't even have to actively open the email in order to get hosed. Just put the cursor on it. And of course, when you open outlook the cursor goes to the newest message...
When I read the people who think nanotechnology and/or computers are going to lead to artificial life and/or super-human intelligence, I can't help but feel that the authors don't live on the same planet as me. I mean, 30 years is a long time, but it's not that long.
Here are a few things to think about.
We have never designed machines that reproduce themselves, and as far as I can see, we are not even moving in that direction. Thirty years to self-reproducing machines that can either survive without humans or at least compel humans to support them? I don't buy it.
For the most part we don't even have machines that can take care of themselves for periods of months! Cars can't drive themselves, and even if they could, they certainly can't change their own oil or anything of that sort. Factories can't send out machines to forage for raw materials, electronics don't have the foggiest notion of reproduction.
The closest things we have to autonomous machines are probably space probes, and they certainly cannot self-repair or reproduce.
What about a super-human intelligence? Think about this: we can't even come close to simulating a human being. We don't even know what it would take to simulate a human being. We barely understand how human beings work. And much of what we do isn't really conscious thinking. For example, a great deal of processing power goes into playing sports. We can't even design autonomous robots to play a decent soccer game.
Sure computers can play good chess, but can they also walk up a flight of stairs? Do they have the sense to run from a burning building? Could they do anything to stop me from unplugging them?
When it comes to making thinking machines, our current capabilities are not even as advanced as a dog. (Chess-playing computers aren't thinking machines, because they are really just ordinary computers running a program) If the "thinking being" also had to be mechanically resillient and reproduce and have useful self-preservation instincts, I doubt we could do as well as a nematode.
To design is human, but to design a human is another matter altogether. While I believe the singularity could happen some day, I don't buy 30 years. No way.
Whether warrants are required is an interesting question. The new, so-called, anti-terrorist laws change the way warrants work. For one, in some cases it is now possible to snoop on internet traffic for a limited period of time without a warrant (immediate threat of loss of life or something like that). Also, I believe some kinds of snooping don't require a warrant at all (for example, URL-only snooping, or email to/from snooping-- this is deemed equivalent to pen registers which have not required a warrant for years and years).
For another, according to some new legislation (not sure if it's out of conference yet or if it will survive) judges may now basically be forced to issue warrants whenever they are requested by an officer or investigator. This was ammended to a bugetary bill in the senate, but the house bill had no such ammendment.
I'm too lazy to find references, but I'm not making this stuff up.
Your criticism is incorrect. There are all sorts of IDE's with the features you seem to want. These IDE's are not specified in any ANSI or ISO documents (as far as I know), so they are not part of the C language, but they do exist. For example, some text editors are C context aware and will (if you want them to) try to finish any variable or function names you start to type. Scope aware search and replace features exist, also.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know how fake SSN's get treated.
I imagine that the IRS or the SS administration eventually finds the problem, but apparently it takes long enough that these guys usually work for about a year or two before the employer hears from whoever and has to fire the person. Then the person disappears and presumably gets a new fake ID and a new job.
I heard of this happening only once, but one of the guys with bogus credentials told his boss that he does this all the time, and he knows lots of other people who do it, too. All those kitchen workers (here in California) who can't speak English? Come on, there's no way they all have legitimate green cards and SSN's. And the restaraunts can't all be faking it with their entire staff of kitchen workers!
My guess is that no one really wants to see a crackdown, so everyone kind of drags their feet on enforcement.
MM
--
Why does wireless have more latency than wired?
I haven't ever heard an explanation for that. Obviously, RF radiation travels faster in air than in a cable, but other than that I don't see why there should be ANY difference in latency between wired and wireless point-to-point links. (Which these appear to be.)
Either there is something I don't know (entirely possible) or this whole wireless latency thing is B.S.
MM
--
Every company I've worked for (OK, that's only two) used winZip and payed for it, scrupulously, just as they do with all the other software they use.
Pirating software in the name of "freedom" is like stealing crack from a drug dealer and claiming it makes you free from addiction.
MM
--
I don't use shareware much, but when I do, I pay if it is required. And for other software, like evil MS products, when I do use them I pay for them. I think it is fundamentally dishonest and inconsistent with the Open Source ideal to "pirate" (argh Matie!) commercial software. However, it is NOT the same as stealing material goods. Anyone who can't see the difference is just being obstinate.
I also think it is ridiculous how difficult it is to buy an assembled PC without some version of Windows on it. Dell won't do it, Gateway won't do it. It's almost like the microsoft license fee is really a tax on PC sales. I had to go to some small company in Southern California to buy a PC with no OS installed. (I also bought one from the same company with Win2K and Office2000. That added about $350 USD to the price.)
I saw an amusing sig here on slashdot which deals with this issue. I don't remember the exact wording, so I may be paraphrasing:
Pirating commercial software in the name of Open Source is like stealing crack from a drug dealer and claiming that it makes you free from addiction.
--
MM
> I won't argue the merits or lack thereof
> having a large base of cheap workers
> who don't pay their share to support
> infrastructure
Perhaps a minor quibble, but many (or perhaps most) people working illegally in the US nevertheless have Social Security cards (bogus) and so pay Social Security tax, FICA, and are subject to witholding, etc. I am not talking about farm workers or construction workers, but restaraunt workers and the like.
MM
--
When you say, "you'll likely see a single company responsible for Linux development," what exactly do you mean? Responsible for what and to whom?
Do you mean that somehow all the people who now spend their time on the kernel and all the other software that makes linux tick will be somehow forced out of doing any linux stuff? How would that happen? Do you mean that they will just get sick of doing linux stuff? I don't really envision that. There might be some attrition, but not total abandonment. Also, do you think Linus is going to sell the rights to the Linux trademark to this one big company?
Also, when you say that the "true beneficiaries" of free programming labor are these companies (or this company), you seem to be ignoring the customers and other users. I would argue that the true beneficiaries of all this free coding are the people who use the code. If it turns out to be the case that established companies find a way to make money off of linux, I don't think that necessarily means that all the coders labored in vain. I mean, if I wanted to get rich writing code, I don't think I would have published it or allowed it to be published under the GPL or other permissive license. So the programmers haven't really lost anything as I see it. They knew the rules of the game and they played it willingly. They're just like all the other former startup employees who worked hard, but didn't quite get rich.
The investors, though, they lost something. They lost money. And I think its fair to say that they actually were trying or at least hoping to make money. I do feel a bit sorry for the investors, whoever they are.
MM
--
Not right now they don't. But there are already small displays (like glasses or visors) that create the illusion of a big-screen. It's quite possible that these displays will improve to the point that watching a movie with one will be very enjoyable. Stereo headphones will take care of the audio portion. I don't know whether anyone is working on this but it is a pretty obvious idea.
MM
--
You have got to be kidding. Methanol is way more flammable than zippo lighter fluid. If you put methanol in a zippo it would probably just about explode when you went to light it. Just think in terms of how fast it evaporates and at what temperatures. Methanol, you just pour it out at room temerature and it dries up while you watch. With lighter fluid it would take hours for a thin puddle to evaporate.
MM
--
Yeah.
And as the article says, concrete is normally re-inforced when it is used for any type of load-bearing structure. So technically it's sort of a composite material. A bit like fiberglass-epoxy composite. And, despite the fact that both glass and epoxy are transparent, any reasonably thick layer of fiberglass/epoxy is merely translucent. (Unless you paint it or put dye in the epoxy, of course, in which case it is opaque.) I think this proves your point rather well.
If they want transparency they will have to find some way to adjust the index of refraction of the cement (or glue, as they call it), aggregate, and rebar to all match closely, and they will need a reasonably smooth surface finish as well.
Frankly, I think using glass (or clear plastic) aggregate, epoxy and steel rebar would make for a pretty cool-looking structure even if it weren't remotely transparent. The building cost would be out of control, however, and UV radiation is not good for epoxy. Epoxy exposed to sunlight turns yellow pretty quick, and is significantly weakened, at least near the surface.
MM
--
Yeah, I kind of wondered about what switches they were using with gcc. When I read the bit about how icc was more pedantic than gcc and vc++ in default mode it sort of raised my eyebrows. Default mode? You mean they are doing a comparison between a super-optimized single-platform compiler and a more portable compiler and they don't even bother to turn on any optimizations on the portable compiler?
I mean, it sounds as if the default Intel compiler's behavior is like gcc with the -ffastmath switch. Did they invoke gcc with -ffastmath? Who knows. The article didn't say.
MM
--
I like my compiler to warn about everything it can think of, too. Mostly because I hate debugging programs that don't work right. (I'm not a professional programmer, I just dabble.)
Another thing occurs to me. If they are using gcc in default mode, then the comparison is unfair. They should be enabling optimizations.
MM
--
void main (void) is not valid in C. You seem to imply that it is invalid in C++ only.
Also note that you should included stdio and return a value. I.e.,
#include
int main (void)
{
printf("Big deal\n");
return 0;
}
MM
--
I don't think C++ is a superset of C. It may have been once, I doubt it is now. For example, I am pretty sure that the new C standard (C99) introduced features in C which are absent in C++.
However, I would be surprised if the Borland C++ compiler does not also includes a C compiler.
MM
--
Heh, heh.
And how will they put markings on top of a chip that small? 0402 resistors and caps are already really too small for practical markings, and they are MUCH bigger than a bacterium. Also, they tend to get dislodged by surface tension effects when they are soldered. Have to be careful of how the traces lead into the surface mount pads so that the forces all cancel out.
I think we won't see anything as revolutionary as what is described in this article until a lot of other problems are solved. But hey, this is basic research. You can't expect it to develop into a product right away. That's not really the point.
--
Yeah, I agree with you.
I recently read _Body of Secrets_ which is about the NSA. One of the things pointed out in that book is that quite a few shady deals (e.g., international arms deals) go down in plaintext because they involve individuals who are not part of the same organization and have not standardized on any crypto system or cipher or what have you.
I mean, of course the Soviets (during the cold war) encrypted communications over insecure channels. But for people like international arms dealers, things are different. They have to communicate in plaintext because there really isn't anything easily available to them (or at least there didn't use to be). I mean, I imagine that if you are an arms dealer, you can't necessarily expect all of your clients to use PGP or whatever. So the NSA's view was that if and when strong crypto becomes ubiquitous, then such deals may be harder to detect using, e.g., Echelon.
I think this pretty much explains the entire motivation for banning the export of strong crypto. They wanted to do whatever they could to slow or halt the adoption of strong crypto by shady characters involved in international deals.
I mean, it is easy to say that people who need to communicate in secret will use strong crypto and no one can stop them. But one could also say that if people know having sex with strangers without a condom can lead to contracting a dangerous and incurable disease, then they will use condoms when they have sex. I think the facts show that neither statement is *entirely* true.
MM
--
Heh, heh.
If you have no objection, I am going to steal your sig. I won't actually use it as my sig, but I am going to repeat it every opportunity I get.
MM
--
Heh. I hear you. It is a bit unsavory isn't it?
Did you see _Training Day_?
MM
--
It is questionable whether what Sklyarov did was illegal because he did it in Russia. Anyway, he got a deal so the challenge to the law will have to wait.
Anyway, I don't feel that copyright law is ridiculous or stupid (I observe it pretty carefully, as a matter of fact).
On the other hand, the provisions of the DMCA, which apparently make it illegal to distribute some source code or compiled programs are, to me, an outrage. Hopefully those provisions will be overturned.
Others have raised good points about entrapment and so on. Something interesting is that apparently, Hoover himself didn't approve of using under-cover agents in the FBI.
Well, I wouldn't say that! He admitted many illegal acts, and perhaps comitted some that he was never accused of (who knows).
But some of the allegedly illegal things that Mitnick did apparently were kind of a stretch.
Also, he spent a lot of time in jail without a trial. I don't know if he somehow waived his right to a speedy trial or what, but you're not supposed to have to spend years in jail awaiting a trial in the USA.
I think the bottom line is that eventually they were out to get him, no matter what. He was villifed in the press, (anonymous high-level sources), etc.
I think, ultimately, Kevin was a victim of demonization by law enforcement and industry players.
What I meant when I said that it is not a "free Kevin" issue, is that there did not appear to be any miscarriage of justice going on with these warez busts. The crime is not theoretical or any kind of stretch.
MM
--
What is wrong with busting warez distributors? I mean, I'm all in favor of free speech and I believe that source code (even deCSS) and compiled programs should never be banned from distribution, provided that the copyright owner allows it.
But these people were actually distributing copyrighted material which they *didn't* own the copyright to. I mean, they did something that they new was illegal, is clearly illegal (and has been so for many, many years) and they got caught red-handed. This is not a "free Kevin" or "free Dmitry" type of issue.
Besides, these guys will all get deals to rat out someone else, just like Dmitry did.
I'll probably get flamed, but I had to put up my $0.02.
MM
--
Fuck the draft?
anyone...
Actually, outlook, by default, has a preview pane so you don't even have to actively open the email in order to get hosed. Just put the cursor on it. And of course, when you open outlook the cursor goes to the newest message...
MM
--
When I read the people who think nanotechnology and/or computers are going to lead to artificial life and/or super-human intelligence, I can't help but feel that the authors don't live on the same planet as me. I mean, 30 years is a long time, but it's not that long.
Here are a few things to think about.
We have never designed machines that reproduce themselves, and as far as I can see, we are not even moving in that direction. Thirty years to self-reproducing machines that can either survive without humans or at least compel humans to support them? I don't buy it.
For the most part we don't even have machines that can take care of themselves for periods of months! Cars can't drive themselves, and even if they could, they certainly can't change their own oil or anything of that sort. Factories can't send out machines to forage for raw materials, electronics don't have the foggiest notion of reproduction.
The closest things we have to autonomous machines are probably space probes, and they certainly cannot self-repair or reproduce.
What about a super-human intelligence? Think about this: we can't even come close to simulating a human being. We don't even know what it would take to simulate a human being. We barely understand how human beings work. And much of what we do isn't really conscious thinking. For example, a great deal of processing power goes into playing sports. We can't even design autonomous robots to play a decent soccer game.
Sure computers can play good chess, but can they also walk up a flight of stairs? Do they have the sense to run from a burning building? Could they do anything to stop me from unplugging them?
When it comes to making thinking machines, our current capabilities are not even as advanced as a dog. (Chess-playing computers aren't thinking machines, because they are really just ordinary computers running a program) If the "thinking being" also had to be mechanically resillient and reproduce and have useful self-preservation instincts, I doubt we could do as well as a nematode.
To design is human, but to design a human is another matter altogether. While I believe the singularity could happen some day, I don't buy 30 years. No way.
MM
--
Whether warrants are required is an interesting question. The new, so-called, anti-terrorist laws change the way warrants work. For one, in some cases it is now possible to snoop on internet traffic for a limited period of time without a warrant (immediate threat of loss of life or something like that). Also, I believe some kinds of snooping don't require a warrant at all (for example, URL-only snooping, or email to/from snooping-- this is deemed equivalent to pen registers which have not required a warrant for years and years).
For another, according to some new legislation (not sure if it's out of conference yet or if it will survive) judges may now basically be forced to issue warrants whenever they are requested by an officer or investigator. This was ammended to a bugetary bill in the senate, but the house bill had no such ammendment.
I'm too lazy to find references, but I'm not making this stuff up.
MM
--
Your criticism is incorrect. There are all sorts of IDE's with the features you seem to want. These IDE's are not specified in any ANSI or ISO documents (as far as I know), so they are not part of the C language, but they do exist. For example, some text editors are C context aware and will (if you want them to) try to finish any variable or function names you start to type. Scope aware search and replace features exist, also.
MM
--