I've never understood this idea. Are we going to build robotic Hitlers just to fight with them? Why do we assume that robots will take on the characteristics of humans? Although actually, that might not be such a dumb idea, seeing as we tend to instinctively humanize everything around us. But if we're worried about robots overtaking humans - well, that seems pretty easily resolvable: don't code them to do that.
Well, starting a TCP connection isn't illegal (although starting many, many of them is, of course.) But I wouldn't worry about it - like the researchers say, this would be useless for almost every distributed app imaginable.
"Kind of like a death penalty: If you kill someone and get caught, you know you'll most likely die. "
Um, no. Hasn't the notion of the death penalty as a deterrent been pretty well rejected by now? Witness Texas: most executions per murder conviction, and yet the homicide rate is still as abnormally high as ever.
Snail-mail letters are much more effective than e-mail. Write to Gregory Josefowicz, the CEO of the Borders Group, at 100 Phoenix Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Here's the letter I'm sending:
I write to indicate my extreme distaste for a recent development in Borders's UK operations which I fear may rear its head on this continent as well. I refer to the use of SmartFace (or FaceIt), the face-recognition technology, in Borders retail outlets to locate known shoplifters, as reported in the British Sunday Herald newspaper on August 26. I find the use of this technology by both government and commercial agencies highly disturbing; its use is fraught with peril, and is simply too open to abuses.
If Borders proceeds to use this technology in its US retail outlets, I will no longer shop at Borders retail outlets and Borders.com, and will also inform my friends and acquaintances of the fact that they will be under this unusually obtrusive form of surveillance when they shop at Borders stores.
I guess it comes with being a telco and being used to screwing customers over, but Qwest are seasoned pros. It has become customary for them to try to sneak extra charges on my bill anytime I order anything from them (which I avoid when at all possible now). Currently, I am trying to get my ISP switched from Qwest.net to another local service provider. I was quoted Aug. 15 at 5 PM for the switchover. A few days after this, I realized I had not been switched and called to complain; they told me the switchover would be today (Aug. 22) at 5! Right now, it's 9, and I just called support, asking why I wasn't switched, and they had NO such switchover on file at all. Next stop is the Better Business Bureau and the Public Utilities Commission...
Only 3 languages? Sure, you could plausibly get by with C, Perl, and sh alone. For that matter, you could get by on C alone.
But it is NOT the case that these tools will always be the best tools for the job. A while back an excellent essay by Paul Graham was posted on/. which detailed how LISP came to be extremely handy in coding Yahoo!'s online store.
Certainly one can learn a few tools well, but there is frequently a best tool for a job, and when it comes, it's nice to have it around.
Re:notoriously buggy?
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 2
The point is that MSNBC should know quite well that referring throughout an article to the "buggy version 6" of a product competing with its owners' products if going to raise an eyebrow - and rightfully so.
It's also worth noting that there are plenty of other reasons not to use IE. Perhaps, for instance, you are disturbed by some of its more security-compromising features.
With statements as stupid as that, their ought to be plenty of rationale for overturning the decision on further appeals. Hopefully they'll keep up with it.
Why pay $5 for a convenient, low-tech copy that may be read by you and others at will when you can pay $1 for every 10 hours of reading on a headache-inducing CRT?
So what qualifies as an unauthorized modification of data? You are the one receiving data and running the code; they are not executing it remotely. It is, to some extent, your responsibility to see that mailicious code isn't executed on your computer. This is why browsers have security settings.
You could turn off scripting, or use a browser that doesn't permit that kind of manipulation.
Sorry, but while these covert actions are annoying, and the people behind it definitely ought to be smacked hard, it's not cause for legislation - unless, perhaps, they are taking advantage of security holes to alter your settings in destructive ways.
Knuth is great work, but sadly its immediate practical value is minimal - it's more suited for the aspiring guru.
CLR, however, is both an elegant introduction to the theory of algorithms and a useful reference for those times you suddenly need to review, say, Knuth-Morris-Pratt, or convex hull algorithms. It's happened to me.
Combine this with K&R and some other good language texts, and you've got a strong intro to programming.
I mean, is it really feasible to scrap the current Internet backbone and replace it with new, experimental technology? Will backbone providers be happy to do so?
This is a pretty scary notion, but (fortunately) it sounds completely impractical.
Biological warfare is much ballyhooed, but in reality it's very difficult to get a biological attack to succeed, and it requires the prolonged effort of many well-educated folk. There have only been a few biological assaults in history, and they haven't been terribly successful. The average terrorist would probably seek something a bit simpler, like a chemical attack on people or food supplies.
"That if you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software for a person's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends automatically."
That's "their right" as in "their right to charge for space." It is not their right to pretend otherwise, which is misleading marketing, and that is what they are attempting to investigate.
Come on now... no one's saying this isn't their right. The question is whether it ethical to do so without informing users, and I think most would agree that it isn't. I certainly wouldn't want to use such a search engine.
Incidentally, Google was not mentioned... good for them.
This is a Red Hat ad in the making: Picture an IT manager looking to upgrade, and the friendly customer service representative chatting his ear off about licensing options. Or IT guys getting a call ("The system's down!"), sprinting and scrambling to a little closet to fix things up, only to find a screen blinking "SOFTWARE EXPIRED: MUST UPGRADE."
And then... the pitch: "Tired of being pushed around by your software? There's an alternative..."
Re:Torched SUV Dealership
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 1
No kidding! Reminds me of the time the Animal Liberation Front freed a bunch of cows from a pasture - and then a couple of the very few that wandered far away got hit by cars.
Tres productive.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, MS will still sell XP aplenty. After all, anyone who buys a new system will get it, whether they like it or not.
I've never understood this idea. Are we going to build robotic Hitlers just to fight with them? Why do we assume that robots will take on the characteristics of humans? Although actually, that might not be such a dumb idea, seeing as we tend to instinctively humanize everything around us. But if we're worried about robots overtaking humans - well, that seems pretty easily resolvable: don't code them to do that.
There are other formats which other word processors can handle as well ... HTML, for example.
Much like this one ...
http://lzip.sourceforge.net/
:-)
Well, starting a TCP connection isn't illegal (although starting many, many of them is, of course.) But I wouldn't worry about it - like the researchers say, this would be useless for almost every distributed app imaginable.
"Instead, by using C, all interfaces are exposed using a pseudo-object framework."
Ah,but you don't have to use C with GTK+ if you don't want to - there are C++ bindings, as well as bindings for plenty of other languages.
"Kind of like a death penalty: If you kill someone and get caught, you know you'll most likely die. "
Um, no. Hasn't the notion of the death penalty as a deterrent been pretty well rejected by now? Witness Texas: most executions per murder conviction, and yet the homicide rate is still as abnormally high as ever.
Snail-mail letters are much more effective than e-mail. Write to Gregory Josefowicz, the CEO of the Borders Group, at 100 Phoenix Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Here's the letter I'm sending:
I write to indicate my extreme distaste for a recent development in Borders's UK operations which I fear may rear its head on this continent as well. I refer to the use of SmartFace (or FaceIt), the face-recognition technology, in Borders retail outlets to locate known shoplifters, as reported in the British Sunday Herald newspaper on August 26. I find the use of this technology by both government and commercial agencies highly disturbing; its use is fraught with peril, and is simply too open to abuses.
If Borders proceeds to use this technology in its US retail outlets, I will no longer shop at Borders retail outlets and Borders.com, and will also inform my friends and acquaintances of the fact that they will be under this unusually obtrusive form of surveillance when they shop at Borders stores.
I guess it comes with being a telco and being used to screwing customers over, but Qwest are seasoned pros. It has become customary for them to try to sneak extra charges on my bill anytime I order anything from them (which I avoid when at all possible now). Currently, I am trying to get my ISP switched from Qwest.net to another local service provider. I was quoted Aug. 15 at 5 PM for the switchover. A few days after this, I realized I had not been switched and called to complain; they told me the switchover would be today (Aug. 22) at 5! Right now, it's 9, and I just called support, asking why I wasn't switched, and they had NO such switchover on file at all. Next stop is the Better Business Bureau and the Public Utilities Commission ...
That's the real test.
Only 3 languages? Sure, you could plausibly get by with C, Perl, and sh alone. For that matter, you could get by on C alone.
/. which detailed how LISP came to be extremely handy in coding Yahoo!'s online store.
But it is NOT the case that these tools will always be the best tools for the job. A while back an excellent essay by Paul Graham was posted on
Certainly one can learn a few tools well, but there is frequently a best tool for a job, and when it comes, it's nice to have it around.
The point is that MSNBC should know quite well that referring throughout an article to the "buggy version 6" of a product competing with its owners' products if going to raise an eyebrow - and rightfully so.
It's also worth noting that there are plenty of other reasons not to use IE. Perhaps, for instance, you are disturbed by some of its more security-compromising features.
With statements as stupid as that, their ought to be plenty of rationale for overturning the decision on further appeals. Hopefully they'll keep up with it.
Why pay $5 for a convenient, low-tech copy that may be read by you and others at will when you can pay $1 for every 10 hours of reading on a headache-inducing CRT?
Yep, sign me up.
So what qualifies as an unauthorized modification of data? You are the one receiving data and running the code; they are not executing it remotely. It is, to some extent, your responsibility to see that mailicious code isn't executed on your computer. This is why browsers have security settings.
You could turn off scripting, or use a browser that doesn't permit that kind of manipulation.
Sorry, but while these covert actions are annoying, and the people behind it definitely ought to be smacked hard, it's not cause for legislation - unless, perhaps, they are taking advantage of security holes to alter your settings in destructive ways.
"Introduction to Algorithms."
Knuth is great work, but sadly its immediate practical value is minimal - it's more suited for the aspiring guru.
CLR, however, is both an elegant introduction to the theory of algorithms and a useful reference for those times you suddenly need to review, say, Knuth-Morris-Pratt, or convex hull algorithms. It's happened to me.
Combine this with K&R and some other good language texts, and you've got a strong intro to programming.
... Red Hat should do it for them. Great marketing scheme. :-)
This is a pretty scary notion, but (fortunately) it sounds completely impractical.
Biological warfare is much ballyhooed, but in reality it's very difficult to get a biological attack to succeed, and it requires the prolonged effort of many well-educated folk. There have only been a few biological assaults in history, and they haven't been terribly successful. The average terrorist would probably seek something a bit simpler, like a chemical attack on people or food supplies.
What, exactly, are they up to here?
That's "their right" as in "their right to charge for space." It is not their right to pretend otherwise, which is misleading marketing, and that is what they are attempting to investigate.
Come on now ... no one's saying this isn't their right. The question is whether it ethical to do so without informing users, and I think most would agree that it isn't. I certainly wouldn't want to use such a search engine.
... good for them.
Incidentally, Google was not mentioned
And then ... the pitch: "Tired of being pushed around by your software? There's an alternative ..."
No kidding! Reminds me of the time the Animal Liberation Front freed a bunch of cows from a pasture - and then a couple of the very few that wandered far away got hit by cars. Tres productive.