I generally dislike biometrics. In general most biometrics suffer from very poor false-positive and false-negative accuracy. However iris and retina scanners are the exception. Iris scanners in particular are excellent. Read this paper from IEEE: An Iris Biometric System for Public and Personal Use (pdf) That particular paper was published in Feb 2000, however I have seen similar results presented in mid 1998. I suspect that the state of the art has been advanced in those 4 years.
Regarding the accuracy. You cannot quote one accuracy figure for biometrics. There are always two: False positives, and false negatives. False positives are when a biometric is misenterpreted for another persons biometric. The system thinks that person A is person B. False negatives are when a person is not accepted by the system as being that person. The purpose of the system will dictate which false reading is worst. In general you can inmprove one error at the cost of the other error. That 47% accuracy is meaningless.
The important thing to remember about any biometric system is that you must back it up with a second piece of id such as a card (swipe or smart), or a pin. This is true for most forms of strong identification.
My bad. It was a Compaq not a Dell. It is a single XP 2100+. You can deffinately go cheaper. You probably can get the same result for half that. Cheaper still if you built dedicated hardware.
Based on the numbers from distributed.net. The actual computing power used is equivalent to 32504 800Mhz Apple powerbook G4s running for 676 days. With the same number of powerbooks you could exhaust the keyspace in 790 days. For 100 million dollars USD you could buy 100000 Dell Athlon XPs from BestCry and exhaust the keyspace in a little over a year.
PI is an ifinite sequence of non-repeating numbers. Every finite sequence of numbers can be found within the digits of PI. It may take a while to find your finite sequence, but it is there. This is similar to how all finite numbers are contained within infinity.
As the digits of PI have considerable prior art, I would suggest that the digits of another irrational number be copyright. Among other prior art from PiDigits we see:
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center maintains a web page in which binary-encoded words (with a = 1,..., z = 26) can be looked up in the first 4 billion digits of pi.
The page goes on to list some other interesting sequences of numbers and their positions.
Re:Down with specialized pieces
on
Lego Addictions
·
· Score: 2
No comment on the Harry Potter stuff, but the Star Wars kits are excellent. The sets have a minimum of specialized pieces, and are well built useing lots of the "old" generic bits. The kits are reminissent of the old blue and grey Space with lots of interlocking pieces forming a solid model. Some of the Star Wars kits rival my own designs.
I have the same problem with Windows themed X desktops. I think those themes do more harm then good as it only serves to frustrate the user. Instead of a user sitting down and thinking: "Hey this looks different, I will have to learn how it works." The user sits downs sees a mostly familiar looking and proceeds to get frustrated when it dosen't act the same.
My flame was aimed at the parent poster who implied that behaviour of the Assyrians is tied to the behaviour of current Iraq. I believe that it can be shown the all groups of people have a history of behaviour unacceptable by modern western standards. If one was in a controvertial mood, one could say that modern western society behaves in ways which are unacceptable by modern western standards.
What you describe is exactly what copyright is designed to prevent. Modifieing a copyrighted work for profit. "Adding value" to an original copyright work is not covered under fair use.
Regarding value added software: In such cases the value added reseller has permission from the copyright owner to resell the value added version. Obviously this is the opposite of the Clean Flicks case.
Motorola's market is the embeded market. This is why Apple is bottom of the list. Profit per unit is meaningless when Motorola ships so many more embebed cpus then desktop cpus.
I haven't read much on this issue.[vitamin B defficiency]
You claim that the issue of poor vegetarian diets is a myth. Then you admit that you have read much on the issue of vitamin B defficiency. I think you have some reading to do.
Vegetarian diets are more complicated then omnivorous diets. There are some key nutritional requires that are easy satisfied by eating some meat. Lack of Vitamin B is just one problem. One of the symtoms of vitamin B defficiency is pale, pasty white skin. A feature that is all too common with vegetarians. It takes about 6 months to deplete your vitamin B reserves, and about the same ammount of time to rebuild them. I had a crash course in vegetarian diets and the risks when a friend of mine became quite sick. They have since changed their diet, are still vegetarian, and are now quite healthy.
It agree on all three counts. OpenBSD could be easier for first time users, but is simple and fast the second and nth time around. FreeBSD and its menus can be confusing. You need the Handbook right in front of you. Even then I seem to install something a little different each time. Haven't used NetBSD recently. I had trouble with the installer, but that was a while ago I hope things have changed.
OpenBSD is my favorite *nix. It is perfect. It is a simple clean install that comes with everything that should be in a default unix install. (Except BASH!:-) The installer is not friendly to the first time user. My first install was wiped in about 3 minutes as I started my second install. My second install worked well. My third and nth installs are great. The install is very quick. The defaults are sane and not a lot of questions are asked. There are only a handfull of packages that I install from precompiled instead of ports. When I need a *nix I install OpenBSD.
OpenBSD may be for a more advanced user. Anyone willing to learn, read a little, make some mistakes, should have no trouble working with OpenBSD. I encourage any *nix admin to make some time and learn OpenBSD. Call it professional development. I am sure that you won't turn around and install OpenBSD everywhere. However I am confident that you will find uses for OpenBSD where its quick and simple install will save you time and stress.
Pardon me for any technical errors; I'm clueless about wireless.
Er. Yes.:-)
Anyone can sniff the valid MACs out of the air and spoof a valid MAC. Useing a old MAC buys you nothing. There are 2^48 MACs so it is unlikely that anyone will randomly try MACs. They will sniff.
To be secure you need WEP. It is not perfect, but if you change your secret atleast once a month you will be far better off then doing nothing. WEP will provide both date security, but also the access controls that you want.
If you really want to be secure you would setup airsnort to try and crack your secret. Once you have half the number of weak packets required to crack, set a new secret. Other options include: use Cisco cards only and Leap; Use Orinoco cards with the new (beta) drivers that don't use weak WEP IVs; Use a proper VPN for all traffic going over the wireless link.
But you in particular have a linksys and don't want to buy new gear. So use WEP and change the key.
You are correct that some ammount of hardware will be required for RF. However that hardware would be pretty minimal. Such as a handfull of electronics and a circuit board bought as a mail order kit.
You are also correct that you need more then a soundcard to get good bandwidth.
The question is: why would you want to do WiFi or Bluetooth in software? It would be the same as a software only winModem. Dedicated hardware for that is cheap. Where the power of software radio really comes from is the ability to prototype new modes, and Hams are going to love this. As another poster wrote, nice all-mode rigs are expensive. Software radio, a soundcard, and transciever, will do the job at an affordable price.
I reread what I wrote and I see that I look like a Hasbro fanboy. I am not. Hasbro is just another company. However I dislike the anti Hasbro sentiment. It is too easy to blame a company that has probably had a neutral effect on D&D. It is harder to take an honest critical look at the darling WotC.
then dumb down the 5 products to a 4th grade level
But in the case of the Avalon Hill line this is not what happened. Initially this is what Hasbro wanted to do. I have no doubt about that. However that is not what they ended up doing. The Axis&Allies stuff is unchanged. Shogun did get a stupid name change to Samurai Swords, but is otherwise identical. And while the new Risk 3025(??) looks dumb, it is actually a pretty decent game. I was as shocked as anyone. I expected to play it once and shelve it. What is left of the original Avalon Hill line would not be published today if Hasbro wasn't distributing. There really isn't a big market for these games any more.
First edition AD&D had class and content and consistency and charm.
First edition had huge problems. Any role playing that happened was despite the hinderance of the game mechanics. I still have the stack of addon rules that my group wrote. If we added a character generation and advancement system we would have had a complete role playing game. The wealth of extra rules that used to flood the net is testament that my group was not the only one frustrated by the First edition system.
I will agree that 2nd should not have seen the light of day. 3rd Edition though is really quite good. All the mechanics have been cleaned up. The system is very flexible and easy to use. It allows DMs to concentrate on story telling and not rule creation. As always the rules are only there if you want to use them. Ofcourse if you don't drop your prejudice against the 3rd ed rules you won't see the elegance.
Can anybody honestly tell me that they don't like WinAMP 2.X?
I hate the WinAmp 2.x interface. It is too small on big monitors. The fonts are terible. There are a bunch of little faded out letters that do important things but they are too small to use. The colours are miserable. The fonts in the playlist are too small. I think you get my point.
WinAmp 2 used a bitmapped UI. Bitmapped UIs suck. All the skins could do was add a different picture to a bad interface.
As an end user I have had no trouble with Linux device drivers. I suspect that most users with standard machines will have no trouble with device drivers. I use Debian. It compiles many drivers into the kernel directly. It includes the rest as modules. The list of hardware that a default Debian does not run on is pretty small.
I do however use a custom kernel. Not because I have to, but because I want to. In the case of Debian I wish to use devfs which is experimental. I also wish to remove the unneeded drivers, modularize other drivers, and compile the kernel specifically for the target CPU.
If you must recompile your kernel it is the fault of your distrobution not the Linux kernel.
Is the Linux device driver model really flawed as many claim?
I take exception to your statement that "many claim." It makes you look like a troll. If you wrote "some claim" I would accept that. Regardless, I disagree. From a technology perspective Linux device drivers can do anything that "that other OS" kernel can. The big difference is that linux drivers don't usually come precompiled. There is no good reason for this other then history.
Re:Hasbro? How about WotC.
on
Layoffs at WotC
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It is easy to blaim Hasbro. But it is probably neither fair nor correct to do so.
There was an article floating around written by a former WotC employee. It may have been posted to/. or Kuro5hin. He wrote of how WotC and its founder changed. My understanding was that this was due to a sudden understanding of reality and markets demands. Hasbro was just one piece of the puzzle. The article also discussed the aquisition of TSR and how that was not a happy merger. IIRC this article was written by one of the first employees who stuck around for a year or two. Even after he left he still had an inside scoop as he was friends with many of the employees.
Hasbro's record is not that bad. Look at some of the other titles they aquired. They picked up the excellent Shogun/Samurai Swords, and Axis&Allies. They also picked up Avalon Hill which was basically dead. Initially Hasbro did not understand these markets which are much older then the kids Hasbro knew. Hasbro made some initial mistakes. But look now. The Avalon Hill line is doing well. There are a number of quality games produced under Avalon Hill. (You can buy Diplomacy again!)
Likewise with TSR and D&D. TSR was dead. It was running at a loss with zero plan for recovery. TSR owed people money and was selling it books at a loss. WotC stepped in and instantly regreted it. Hasbro came onboard. We now have the best D&D rules ever. It is quite possible that without Hasbro D&D 3rd would not have seen the light of day. It is fact that someone had to step in and rescue both WotC and the D&D line.
There is no evidence to support a claim that Hasbro has harmed D&D. D&D 3 was published and is an excellent product. Hasbro has also treated the Avalon Hill line well. As other posters have written Hasbro probably saved WotC and D&D.
As per the other poster: take the risk now. Even if you lose hard, bankruptcy is not forever. (Although this probably depends on where you live.) You will have a chance to recover.
That said I faced a similar situation out of uni. I chose a safer less exciting job. I neither won nor lost. I am still employed, my friends aren't. On the flip side they have less debt (but this is changeing), and drive nicer cars.
Knowing what I know now: If, at the time of graduation, I had found a job that was all that I dreamed of and more I would have taken it risk and pay be damned. You will be amazed how little money you can comfortably live off of.
As the property is for retirement, having the value plummet is a good thing. You don't want to sell anyway, and it lowers the taxes. You may even be able to use it as a captical lose to offset the initial cost of startup. Setting up a small company is not hard, and can have significant tax advantages even if little revenue is generated. An accountant and a little book reading is all that is needed. Obviously the onous is on the land owner to determine if the revenue from stumpage will cover the expenses in both time and money.
The idiotic advice is to leave the property sitting idle when it could be making money.
Slashdot Mirror
nt
I generally dislike biometrics. In general most biometrics suffer from very poor false-positive and false-negative accuracy. However iris and retina scanners are the exception. Iris scanners in particular are excellent. Read this paper from IEEE: An Iris Biometric System for Public and Personal Use (pdf) That particular paper was published in Feb 2000, however I have seen similar results presented in mid 1998. I suspect that the state of the art has been advanced in those 4 years.
Regarding the accuracy. You cannot quote one accuracy figure for biometrics. There are always two: False positives, and false negatives. False positives are when a biometric is misenterpreted for another persons biometric. The system thinks that person A is person B. False negatives are when a person is not accepted by the system as being that person. The purpose of the system will dictate which false reading is worst. In general you can inmprove one error at the cost of the other error. That 47% accuracy is meaningless.
The important thing to remember about any biometric system is that you must back it up with a second piece of id such as a card (swipe or smart), or a pin. This is true for most forms of strong identification.
My bad. It was a Compaq not a Dell. It is a single XP 2100+. You can deffinately go cheaper. You probably can get the same result for half that. Cheaper still if you built dedicated hardware.
Don't they teach math anymore?
Based on the numbers from distributed.net. The actual computing power used is equivalent to 32504 800Mhz Apple powerbook G4s running for 676 days. With the same number of powerbooks you could exhaust the keyspace in 790 days. For 100 million dollars USD you could buy 100000 Dell Athlon XPs from BestCry and exhaust the keyspace in a little over a year.
Yes you are correct! Mod -1 against me for not thinking it though.
Incidently I get lost on a tangent following the links from Wolfram. Once again I am reminded that math is wacked. But in a good way.
As the digits of PI have considerable prior art, I would suggest that the digits of another irrational number be copyright. Among other prior art from PiDigits we see:
The page goes on to list some other interesting sequences of numbers and their positions.
No comment on the Harry Potter stuff, but the Star Wars kits are excellent. The sets have a minimum of specialized pieces, and are well built useing lots of the "old" generic bits. The kits are reminissent of the old blue and grey Space with lots of interlocking pieces forming a solid model. Some of the Star Wars kits rival my own designs.
I have the same problem with Windows themed X desktops. I think those themes do more harm then good as it only serves to frustrate the user. Instead of a user sitting down and thinking: "Hey this looks different, I will have to learn how it works." The user sits downs sees a mostly familiar looking and proceeds to get frustrated when it dosen't act the same.
Agreed.
My flame was aimed at the parent poster who implied that behaviour of the Assyrians is tied to the behaviour of current Iraq. I believe that it can be shown the all groups of people have a history of behaviour unacceptable by modern western standards. If one was in a controvertial mood, one could say that modern western society behaves in ways which are unacceptable by modern western standards.
Wow. Kinda like the Christians. Only nicer.
What you describe is exactly what copyright is designed to prevent. Modifieing a copyrighted work for profit. "Adding value" to an original copyright work is not covered under fair use.
Regarding value added software: In such cases the value added reseller has permission from the copyright owner to resell the value added version. Obviously this is the opposite of the Clean Flicks case.
Motorola's market is the embeded market. This is why Apple is bottom of the list. Profit per unit is meaningless when Motorola ships so many more embebed cpus then desktop cpus.
I'm pleased to know better - it's a myth.
I haven't read much on this issue.[vitamin B defficiency]
You claim that the issue of poor vegetarian diets is a myth. Then you admit that you have read much on the issue of vitamin B defficiency. I think you have some reading to do.
Vegetarian diets are more complicated then omnivorous diets. There are some key nutritional requires that are easy satisfied by eating some meat. Lack of Vitamin B is just one problem. One of the symtoms of vitamin B defficiency is pale, pasty white skin. A feature that is all too common with vegetarians. It takes about 6 months to deplete your vitamin B reserves, and about the same ammount of time to rebuild them. I had a crash course in vegetarian diets and the risks when a friend of mine became quite sick. They have since changed their diet, are still vegetarian, and are now quite healthy.
It agree on all three counts. OpenBSD could be easier for first time users, but is simple and fast the second and nth time around. FreeBSD and its menus can be confusing. You need the Handbook right in front of you. Even then I seem to install something a little different each time. Haven't used NetBSD recently. I had trouble with the installer, but that was a while ago I hope things have changed.
:-) The installer is not friendly to the first time user. My first install was wiped in about 3 minutes as I started my second install. My second install worked well. My third and nth installs are great. The install is very quick. The defaults are sane and not a lot of questions are asked. There are only a handfull of packages that I install from precompiled instead of ports. When I need a *nix I install OpenBSD.
OpenBSD is my favorite *nix. It is perfect. It is a simple clean install that comes with everything that should be in a default unix install. (Except BASH!
OpenBSD may be for a more advanced user. Anyone willing to learn, read a little, make some mistakes, should have no trouble working with OpenBSD. I encourage any *nix admin to make some time and learn OpenBSD. Call it professional development. I am sure that you won't turn around and install OpenBSD everywhere. However I am confident that you will find uses for OpenBSD where its quick and simple install will save you time and stress.
Pardon me for any technical errors; I'm clueless about wireless.
:-)
Er. Yes.
Anyone can sniff the valid MACs out of the air and spoof a valid MAC. Useing a old MAC buys you nothing. There are 2^48 MACs so it is unlikely that anyone will randomly try MACs. They will sniff.
To be secure you need WEP. It is not perfect, but if you change your secret atleast once a month you will be far better off then doing nothing. WEP will provide both date security, but also the access controls that you want.
If you really want to be secure you would setup airsnort to try and crack your secret. Once you have half the number of weak packets required to crack, set a new secret. Other options include: use Cisco cards only and Leap; Use Orinoco cards with the new (beta) drivers that don't use weak WEP IVs; Use a proper VPN for all traffic going over the wireless link.
But you in particular have a linksys and don't want to buy new gear. So use WEP and change the key.
You are correct that some ammount of hardware will be required for RF. However that hardware would be pretty minimal. Such as a handfull of electronics and a circuit board bought as a mail order kit.
You are also correct that you need more then a soundcard to get good bandwidth.
The question is: why would you want to do WiFi or Bluetooth in software? It would be the same as a software only winModem. Dedicated hardware for that is cheap. Where the power of software radio really comes from is the ability to prototype new modes, and Hams are going to love this. As another poster wrote, nice all-mode rigs are expensive. Software radio, a soundcard, and transciever, will do the job at an affordable price.
I reread what I wrote and I see that I look like a Hasbro fanboy. I am not. Hasbro is just another company. However I dislike the anti Hasbro sentiment. It is too easy to blame a company that has probably had a neutral effect on D&D. It is harder to take an honest critical look at the darling WotC.
then dumb down the 5 products to a 4th grade level
But in the case of the Avalon Hill line this is not what happened. Initially this is what Hasbro wanted to do. I have no doubt about that. However that is not what they ended up doing. The Axis&Allies stuff is unchanged. Shogun did get a stupid name change to Samurai Swords, but is otherwise identical. And while the new Risk 3025(??) looks dumb, it is actually a pretty decent game. I was as shocked as anyone. I expected to play it once and shelve it. What is left of the original Avalon Hill line would not be published today if Hasbro wasn't distributing. There really isn't a big market for these games any more.
First edition AD&D had class and content and consistency and charm.
First edition had huge problems. Any role playing that happened was despite the hinderance of the game mechanics. I still have the stack of addon rules that my group wrote. If we added a character generation and advancement system we would have had a complete role playing game. The wealth of extra rules that used to flood the net is testament that my group was not the only one frustrated by the First edition system.
I will agree that 2nd should not have seen the light of day. 3rd Edition though is really quite good. All the mechanics have been cleaned up. The system is very flexible and easy to use. It allows DMs to concentrate on story telling and not rule creation. As always the rules are only there if you want to use them. Ofcourse if you don't drop your prejudice against the 3rd ed rules you won't see the elegance.
Can anybody honestly tell me that they don't like WinAMP 2.X?
I hate the WinAmp 2.x interface. It is too small on big monitors. The fonts are terible. There are a bunch of little faded out letters that do important things but they are too small to use. The colours are miserable. The fonts in the playlist are too small. I think you get my point.
WinAmp 2 used a bitmapped UI. Bitmapped UIs suck. All the skins could do was add a different picture to a bad interface.
As an end user I have had no trouble with Linux device drivers. I suspect that most users with standard machines will have no trouble with device drivers. I use Debian. It compiles many drivers into the kernel directly. It includes the rest as modules. The list of hardware that a default Debian does not run on is pretty small.
I do however use a custom kernel. Not because I have to, but because I want to. In the case of Debian I wish to use devfs which is experimental. I also wish to remove the unneeded drivers, modularize other drivers, and compile the kernel specifically for the target CPU.
If you must recompile your kernel it is the fault of your distrobution not the Linux kernel.
Is the Linux device driver model really flawed as many claim?
I take exception to your statement that "many claim." It makes you look like a troll. If you wrote "some claim" I would accept that. Regardless, I disagree. From a technology perspective Linux device drivers can do anything that "that other OS" kernel can. The big difference is that linux drivers don't usually come precompiled. There is no good reason for this other then history.
It is easy to blaim Hasbro. But it is probably neither fair nor correct to do so.
/. or Kuro5hin. He wrote of how WotC and its founder changed. My understanding was that this was due to a sudden understanding of reality and markets demands. Hasbro was just one piece of the puzzle. The article also discussed the aquisition of TSR and how that was not a happy merger. IIRC this article was written by one of the first employees who stuck around for a year or two. Even after he left he still had an inside scoop as he was friends with many of the employees.
There was an article floating around written by a former WotC employee. It may have been posted to
Hasbro's record is not that bad. Look at some of the other titles they aquired. They picked up the excellent Shogun/Samurai Swords, and Axis&Allies. They also picked up Avalon Hill which was basically dead. Initially Hasbro did not understand these markets which are much older then the kids Hasbro knew. Hasbro made some initial mistakes. But look now. The Avalon Hill line is doing well. There are a number of quality games produced under Avalon Hill. (You can buy Diplomacy again!)
Likewise with TSR and D&D. TSR was dead. It was running at a loss with zero plan for recovery. TSR owed people money and was selling it books at a loss. WotC stepped in and instantly regreted it. Hasbro came onboard. We now have the best D&D rules ever. It is quite possible that without Hasbro D&D 3rd would not have seen the light of day. It is fact that someone had to step in and rescue both WotC and the D&D line.
There is no evidence to support a claim that Hasbro has harmed D&D. D&D 3 was published and is an excellent product. Hasbro has also treated the Avalon Hill line well. As other posters have written Hasbro probably saved WotC and D&D.
SLA == sealed lead acid
As per the other poster: take the risk now. Even if you lose hard, bankruptcy is not forever. (Although this probably depends on where you live.) You will have a chance to recover.
That said I faced a similar situation out of uni. I chose a safer less exciting job. I neither won nor lost. I am still employed, my friends aren't. On the flip side they have less debt (but this is changeing), and drive nicer cars.
Knowing what I know now: If, at the time of graduation, I had found a job that was all that I dreamed of and more I would have taken it risk and pay be damned. You will be amazed how little money you can comfortably live off of.
As the property is for retirement, having the value plummet is a good thing. You don't want to sell anyway, and it lowers the taxes. You may even be able to use it as a captical lose to offset the initial cost of startup. Setting up a small company is not hard, and can have significant tax advantages even if little revenue is generated. An accountant and a little book reading is all that is needed. Obviously the onous is on the land owner to determine if the revenue from stumpage will cover the expenses in both time and money.
The idiotic advice is to leave the property sitting idle when it could be making money.