Canadian democracy is Representational. It says so in the constitution.
I guess it depends on your definition of representational. It says a lot of things in the Constitution, for example, it says that Seperate School Boards are allowed to descriminate in their hiring practices on the basis of religion.
I consider the fact that a group that got 30% of the popular vote getting only 1% of the seats to imply that the system is not especially representational.
I prefer proportional representational systems, like here in NZ. I would like to see the senate given some teeth and made proportional.
I suppose it would be confirmation
that the government doesn't actually listen to us, but do you really have any doubt?
How cynical.:) Yes, I don't think the govt. listens to us, but how long do you think a govt. would last that ignored the results of a referendum that passed? Not very long I would think (hope).
I'm not saying that _everything_ should be sent out to a referendum, but if 1% of the population thought that it was important enough to sign a piece of paper, don't you think it should be at least discussed? If you want to water it down, my not make it that the item becomes a "Private Members Bill"?
A referendum would / will cost $150 million to the Canadian Taxpayer, and in the words of Rick Mercer ( the comedian who
came up with the idea ), "Any idiot could get a referendum on his pet issue. I'm just the first idiot."
This is wrong. A referendum does not need to cost $150m to run. The major cost in any election is registration of voters (see: here). However, in a referendum, why care about _where_ someone votes? All you should really care about is that they only vote once. This is a much easier problem. Everyone already has unique identifiers (SIN anyone?), and has to present photo-ID in order to vote. Just record the fact that they voted, and keep going. No registration required. The fact that the last one was run in such a way as to cost $150m doesn't they all should.
Anything that increases a citizens involvement in government is a good thing. Otherwise, you end up with people telling you what is right, rather than you telling them what you want.
O.k. while the "Doris Day joke was funny. The petition itself is useless. It is being completely spammed, just like all of the People Magazine ones, you know, where "Hank the angry, drunken dwarf" always wins.
This becomes even more obvious when you look at the traffic on the site. It is getting 200 new records per minute (seems to be the limit of the server). Every so often there is a pause, and the response time goes back down, until the guy starts his script and the rate goes back up to 200/minute.
Online petitions are an interesting concept, but I sincerely doubt that even 1% of the existing 850k entries are valid, with the rest being spam.
If anyone can get 350k _valid_ signatures on a form, then I believe that the issue should at least be discussed, and a referendum could be held. I don't believe that referendae need to be stupid, and the silly ones will be filtered really quickly. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.
Also, so what if we have a large number of referendae? That is, IMO, a good idea. The Canadian electoral system is so non-representational that it isn't even funny. It would be a good thing to hear from minority political groups, even if the referendae don't get passed.
It is also a way for the _people_ to set the tone of government, as well as set the agenda in a
fashion that simply isn't possible right now. Wouldn't you like to vote with the Liberals on some issues, but with the Greens on others, and with the Conservatives yet others? This gives you that ability.
For example. Say the government is dragging its feet over environmental legislation (say because it might have detrimental effects on the production of cars). However, a group of people get together and get the requisite signatures. A referendum ensues, and passes. All of a sudden, the government has to change direction and do what is required! Very cool, democracy works.
You're only dealing with Napster at University. MP3s themselves are actually accepted by the recording industry here. DJs are allowed to make MP3s of the CDs they have and use the MP3s in their performances.
I don't see how quantum encryption will be usefull
on
Quantum Security
·
· Score: 1
I never did quantum mechanics at university, so I've probably missed something.
The problem with cryptography based around the physical state of photons is that I don't see how it can work with the existing equipment. This has been pointed out before on Slashdot (not by me)...
Think about it, you can secure communication between any two points in a network, however that's not the problem. The problem is that you can't trust the routers between you and your destination. You may be able to have secure communications between you and the first router, but what about the rest of them between you and the other end?
Other problems. How does this interact with standard fiber that is doped to increase the distance? How about optical switches? All of these systems will affect the spin of the photon (either by re-emitting it, or by looking at it), making the whole system report false wiretaps.
No it wasn't about PS/2 the connector.... It was about PS/2 the IBM PC brand.... I believe the mouse connector originated there, and is really the only thing left.
I love the way this guy suckered not one person in, but another person correcting the sucker! Love it! Well Done!
The key was "Microchannel", a proprietary (relatively short-lived) bus architecture, standard on the PS/2. Fast, but most definitely closed. IBM's last attempt at regaining control over the PC.
Oh wait, was the response another attempt at sucking someone in?:)
Oh My God. Someone out there actually likes ClearCase? It must have changed substantially in the years since I looked at it last.
The last I looked, it was incredibly difficult to manage, impossible to easily tell what branch you were working on, and too easy to screw up. We had to have a full time developer on each site simply to handle merge problems and inter-site updates.
I'm now at a different company, and we use CVS. No it's not perfect, but it works. CVS can also be integrated with bug-tracking tools (we've integrated it with bugzilla), and we've added transactions to it also CVSZilla
I looked at both DOC++ and Doxygen, and went with Doxygen. The benefit of not having to use Java to browse the class heirarchy, plus support for legacy C code, was a major plus for me.
I've also worked in both countries. You can't simply compare the dollars and taxes. You have to also factor in:
Medical Insurance.
Housing
Cars
Food
Computers (ie Toys!)
Internet Connections
Travel
For example. Housing.... Houses can be _very_ expensive in the US, especially around high-tech centers. The sellers know the geeks have money, and don't have time to shop around. Lots of demand, low supply = high prices. San Jose is incredibly expensive. Compare that to Ottawa, Toronto, or Edmonton. Easy.
Next, internet connections. $40US/month for cable internet (RoadRunner), only $40CDN (Rogers@Home). Another easy win.
Taxes. Sure they can be high compared to some states, but compare then to the New England states, and they end up being remarkably similar. Bring in the requisite medical insurance for the US, and wow, look, it is the same!
I've lived and worked in Tampa Fl, Clearwater Fl, Boston Mass, San Jose Ca, Ottawa On, Toronto On, Waterloo On, and I'm currently in Wellington New Zealand. By and far, I prefer Canada to the US. While in the US you get the benefits of higher population density, you also get the problems... The places I've been have been noisy, smelly, and dangerous. They haven't been conducive to getting around on anything other than a car, in fact it can be physically dangerous to ride a bike.
New Zealand, while clean, is about 5-10 years behind in tech, it's public health system is apalling, and personal income taxes are going up. No capital gains taxes though, which is great for a mop geek in a startup. Which is why I'm here!
It has been my experience that for the most part, a unit of currency is a unit of currency. If you need 50kUS to live, you will need 50k NZ or 50K CDN.
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that it is a press release by a company providing support/etc for Postgres. Now, I don't know about you, but this raises the "benchmarketing" alarms for me.
Not to say that this isn't true. However, as I browsed the release, I noticed things like "1-100 client connections", which tell me that there is a lot of maneuvering room to pick the best values.
All my info comes from Cringely's "Triumph of the Nerds" show. But a quick google search turns up the following pages, complete with some legal arguments:
O.k. the standard clean room process is used to re-implement projects through reverse-engineering.
First, one developer/team comes up with a detailed specification of what the program does. This person/team is the one who has complete access to the product being reverse engineered. The developer writes up a detailed specification, including file formats, interfaces, everything.
Once the specification is completed, the first team will go to a lawyer and hand off the specification. The lawyer then goes to the implementation team and gives them the specification for implementation. There can be no communication except through the specification between the two teams, and the specification cannot include any of the original source, etc. (in other words, cut/paste, screen shots don't count). I don't even think that you are allowed to ask questions back to the original team. Once the spec is handed off, the original team is finished with the project, never to be heard from again. The members of the implementation team should also have never seen the original product that they are re-implementing.
Then the implementation team implements the product according to the (hopefully very) detailed specification.
Once this is all done, you should have a clean room re-implementation of the original. Of course, you will then end up with having to fight all of the lawsuits based on trademark infringement and copyright (see pac-man).
* You may only install and use one copy of the OS Components. If you have multiple validly licensed copies of the applicable OS Product, you need to reconnect to this site and download an additional copy of the OS Components from each computer on which you are running the applicable OS Product.
Of course, since I'm a network admin, and we have to pay for the traffic (and I don't want everyone going to microsoft to get the updates) this is onerous. I should be allowed to download an install the updates on all systems that I own at once. It costs me $.35/meg for traffic.
Clue not needed, the only time I've _ever_ heard of Soros is to do with the accusations that he sells down currencies, he's basically regarded as a "not-nice person" here in the Pacific, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia and here in New Zealand. Currency speculators tend to be dirty words in small currency countries. Especially since a billion dollars being suddenly pulled from your currency has a drastic effect on its value, and interest rates.
Of course, he may have done several philanthropic acts, but that doesn't mean I've heard of them. All I ever hear about is people accusing him of destroying national economies by selling their currencies short.
For example:
Billionaire George Soros, well known for his speculative plays in global currency markets, denies that his philanthropic foundation and currency speculation business are linked in an attack on Southeast Asian currencies in retaliation for Burma's admission into the region's trade group. - July 24, 1997 AP-Dow Jones.
So, who's the victim of spin?:)
A little search on the net does show several foundations with the Soros name, I didn't go much further. It seems he does like democracy, which is a good thing.
The only problem with this is defining which system is the server, and which is the client.
Is the server the one providing most of the traffic? That would work for ftp downloads, but not uploads. How about gnutella and other peering systems?
The way to do it would be to say that you don't pay for any traffic _from_ your location, only to it. Currently, you pay for traffic in both directions.
Note that this is how cell-phones work over here. It is the caller that pays for the call. If you call a cell-phone, you pay. If the cell-phone calls you, they pay. This is different from North America, where the cell-phone always pays (again from what I remember).
As for collecting payment for traffic, most ISPs outside of the US do this already. My cable modem here in New Zealand is metered, and so is the ADSL line the Telco offers.
That's the first time I've heard of him being called a "philanthropist". Most of the time everyone is acusing him of destroying countries' monetary systems.
This is a standard business service that most (if not all) ISPs offer. Telcos don't just sell bandwidth to ISPs, usually they sell an amount of traffic from a pool, with both hard and soft limits. For example, it is usually possible to purchase an guarantee of 45Mbps, with (short) peaks up to (say) 90Mbps. You are guaranteed the 45Mbps. If you can't saturate it, the Telco _pays_ you money out of the guarantee.
Even if this is a true QOS access guarantee between content providers and the ISP, again there is no problem with this. Traffic charging is a good thing. I would love to be able to differentiate my Quake traffic from my email, even to the point of getting preferential access to sites because I am willing to pay more for my traffic. It's called customer choice, and is a good thing(tm).
Personally, I don't think I'm as paranoid as some here on slashdot, so I think that exclusive routing agreements aren't likely to happen. Besides, that would be censorship, just the same as mandatory censoreware. Of course, if you aren't in the US, then this doesn't apply.:)
Also, feel free to vote with your feet. Your local Telco would probably be very willing to offer you ADSL service, if you don't like @Home cable.
O.k. Everyone seems to miss the fact that every single piece of information that the government gathered was important to its operation. You can't tax people unless you know where they live, how much they make, and where they worked. You can't pay them welfare/unemployment insurance unless you know what they earned last year, and how much they were paid in benefits, etc...
The only problem was the linking of the two. The intent was to detect things like double dipping, where someone is both working and getting benefits, or other such abuses.
However, as with any large database, there are many ways that it can be abused. They already have problems with government staff joyriding through the data. Every government has that problem, the IRS even tracks it and publishes stats on it.
And before everyone starts complaining about it maintaining a history, rather than simply current totals, remember that they have to maintain records for seven years for audit purposes.
I'm not saying that the large data-wharehouse kind of information is a good thing. It can, however, have several beneficial uses. It would give the government very good demographic data about the majority of its constituency (middle-class tax payers), which would help in resource planning (faster than a census). However, as with anything, there is an increased level of responsability required when using the information.
Schmam notes that Stevie Case, one of the designers for Quake II
Killcreek never worked for id. She worked for Ritual/Hipnotic for a while as a tester, and then she went on to Ion Storm as a level designer working on Daikatana. I believe she was/is in the CPL as well?
But you can't then use that to order pizza, call the cops, etc. You can only use it to talk to your limited set of tech-savy friends. As soon as it becomes widely used enough to be usefull, it becomes desireable to detect it, and the cost of doing so isn't prohibitive (compared to earnings).
Slashdot Mirror
Is a statutory requirement here in New Zealand... :)
Jason
I guess it depends on your definition of representational. It says a lot of things in the Constitution, for example, it says that Seperate School Boards are allowed to descriminate in their hiring practices on the basis of religion.
I consider the fact that a group that got 30% of the popular vote getting only 1% of the seats to imply that the system is not especially representational.
I prefer proportional representational systems, like here in NZ. I would like to see the senate given some teeth and made proportional.
How cynical. :) Yes, I don't think the govt. listens to us, but how long do you think a govt. would last that ignored the results of a referendum that passed? Not very long I would think (hope).
I'm not saying that _everything_ should be sent out to a referendum, but if 1% of the population thought that it was important enough to sign a piece of paper, don't you think it should be at least discussed? If you want to water it down, my not make it that the item becomes a "Private Members Bill"?
This is wrong. A referendum does not need to cost $150m to run. The major cost in any election is registration of voters (see: here). However, in a referendum, why care about _where_ someone votes? All you should really care about is that they only vote once. This is a much easier problem. Everyone already has unique identifiers (SIN anyone?), and has to present photo-ID in order to vote. Just record the fact that they voted, and keep going. No registration required. The fact that the last one was run in such a way as to cost $150m doesn't they all should.
Anything that increases a citizens involvement in government is a good thing. Otherwise, you end up with people telling you what is right, rather than you telling them what you want.
O.k. while the "Doris Day joke was funny. The petition itself is useless. It is being completely spammed, just like all of the People Magazine ones, you know, where "Hank the angry, drunken dwarf" always wins.
This becomes even more obvious when you look at the traffic on the site. It is getting 200 new records per minute (seems to be the limit of the server). Every so often there is a pause, and the response time goes back down, until the guy starts his script and the rate goes back up to 200/minute.
Online petitions are an interesting concept, but I sincerely doubt that even 1% of the existing 850k entries are valid, with the rest being spam.
If anyone can get 350k _valid_ signatures on a form, then I believe that the issue should at least be discussed, and a referendum could be held. I don't believe that referendae need to be stupid, and the silly ones will be filtered really quickly. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.
Also, so what if we have a large number of referendae? That is, IMO, a good idea. The Canadian electoral system is so non-representational that it isn't even funny. It would be a good thing to hear from minority political groups, even if the referendae don't get passed.
It is also a way for the _people_ to set the tone of government, as well as set the agenda in a fashion that simply isn't possible right now. Wouldn't you like to vote with the Liberals on some issues, but with the Greens on others, and with the Conservatives yet others? This gives you that ability.
For example. Say the government is dragging its feet over environmental legislation (say because it might have detrimental effects on the production of cars). However, a group of people get together and get the requisite signatures. A referendum ensues, and passes. All of a sudden, the government has to change direction and do what is required! Very cool, democracy works.
Jason PollockYou're only dealing with Napster at University. MP3s themselves are actually accepted by the recording industry here. DJs are allowed to make MP3s of the CDs they have and use the MP3s in their performances.
I never did quantum mechanics at university, so I've probably missed something.
The problem with cryptography based around the physical state of photons is that I don't see how it can work with the existing equipment. This has been pointed out before on Slashdot (not by me)...
Think about it, you can secure communication between any two points in a network, however that's not the problem. The problem is that you can't trust the routers between you and your destination. You may be able to have secure communications between you and the first router, but what about the rest of them between you and the other end?
Other problems. How does this interact with standard fiber that is doped to increase the distance? How about optical switches? All of these systems will affect the spin of the photon (either by re-emitting it, or by looking at it), making the whole system report false wiretaps.
Or am I missing something entirely
Jason PollockNo it wasn't about PS/2 the connector.... It was about PS/2 the IBM PC brand.... I believe the mouse connector originated there, and is really the only thing left.
I love the way this guy suckered not one person in, but another person correcting the sucker! Love it! Well Done!
The key was "Microchannel", a proprietary (relatively short-lived) bus architecture, standard on the PS/2. Fast, but most definitely closed. IBM's last attempt at regaining control over the PC.
Oh wait, was the response another attempt at sucking someone in? :)
Heh. Thanks, I'll give it a try.
O.k.
So, where do I find some good burn-in software?
Thanks,
Jason Pollock
Oh My God. Someone out there actually likes ClearCase? It must have changed substantially in the years since I looked at it last.
The last I looked, it was incredibly difficult to manage, impossible to easily tell what branch you were working on, and too easy to screw up. We had to have a full time developer on each site simply to handle merge problems and inter-site updates.
I'm now at a different company, and we use CVS. No it's not perfect, but it works. CVS can also be integrated with bug-tracking tools (we've integrated it with bugzilla), and we've added transactions to it also CVSZilla
I looked at both DOC++ and Doxygen, and went with Doxygen. The benefit of not having to use Java to browse the class heirarchy, plus support for legacy C code, was a major plus for me.
I've also worked in both countries. You can't simply compare the dollars and taxes. You have to also factor in:
For example. Housing.... Houses can be _very_ expensive in the US, especially around high-tech centers. The sellers know the geeks have money, and don't have time to shop around. Lots of demand, low supply = high prices. San Jose is incredibly expensive. Compare that to Ottawa, Toronto, or Edmonton. Easy.
Next, internet connections. $40US/month for cable internet (RoadRunner), only $40CDN (Rogers@Home). Another easy win.
Taxes. Sure they can be high compared to some states, but compare then to the New England states, and they end up being remarkably similar. Bring in the requisite medical insurance for the US, and wow, look, it is the same!
I've lived and worked in Tampa Fl, Clearwater Fl, Boston Mass, San Jose Ca, Ottawa On, Toronto On, Waterloo On, and I'm currently in Wellington New Zealand. By and far, I prefer Canada to the US. While in the US you get the benefits of higher population density, you also get the problems... The places I've been have been noisy, smelly, and dangerous. They haven't been conducive to getting around on anything other than a car, in fact it can be physically dangerous to ride a bike.
New Zealand, while clean, is about 5-10 years behind in tech, it's public health system is apalling, and personal income taxes are going up. No capital gains taxes though, which is great for a mop geek in a startup. Which is why I'm here!
It has been my experience that for the most part, a unit of currency is a unit of currency. If you need 50kUS to live, you will need 50k NZ or 50K CDN.
Ugh. Non-computer literate person attempting to pass themselves off as one. Almost as bad as those Tom Clancy books.
It's even based around the whole "Good Times" email virus hoax. Blech.
Jason Pollock
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that it is a press release by a company providing support/etc for Postgres. Now, I don't know about you, but this raises the "benchmarketing" alarms for me.
Not to say that this isn't true. However, as I browsed the release, I noticed things like "1-100 client connections", which tell me that there is a lot of maneuvering room to pick the best values.
Jason PollockAll my info comes from Cringely's "Triumph of the Nerds" show. But a quick google search turns up the following pages, complete with some legal arguments:
- www.jonesaskew
.com/articl es/97/0497avoidiplit.html - www.jli.com/services.htm (look at clean room, further down the page)
So it shouldn't be too hard to find others. Jason PollockO.k. the standard clean room process is used to re-implement projects through reverse-engineering.
First, one developer/team comes up with a detailed specification of what the program does. This person/team is the one who has complete access to the product being reverse engineered. The developer writes up a detailed specification, including file formats, interfaces, everything.
Once the specification is completed, the first team will go to a lawyer and hand off the specification. The lawyer then goes to the implementation team and gives them the specification for implementation. There can be no communication except through the specification between the two teams, and the specification cannot include any of the original source, etc. (in other words, cut/paste, screen shots don't count). I don't even think that you are allowed to ask questions back to the original team. Once the spec is handed off, the original team is finished with the project, never to be heard from again. The members of the implementation team should also have never seen the original product that they are re-implementing.
Then the implementation team implements the product according to the (hopefully very) detailed specification.
Once this is all done, you should have a clean room re-implementation of the original. Of course, you will then end up with having to fight all of the lawsuits based on trademark infringement and copyright (see pac-man).
Of course, since I'm a network admin, and we have to pay for the traffic (and I don't want everyone going to microsoft to get the updates) this is onerous. I should be allowed to download an install the updates on all systems that I own at once. It costs me $.35/meg for traffic.
Jason PollockClue not needed, the only time I've _ever_ heard of Soros is to do with the accusations that he sells down currencies, he's basically regarded as a "not-nice person" here in the Pacific, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia and here in New Zealand. Currency speculators tend to be dirty words in small currency countries. Especially since a billion dollars being suddenly pulled from your currency has a drastic effect on its value, and interest rates.
Of course, he may have done several philanthropic acts, but that doesn't mean I've heard of them. All I ever hear about is people accusing him of destroying national economies by selling their currencies short.
For example:So, who's the victim of spin? :)
A little search on the net does show several foundations with the Soros name, I didn't go much further. It seems he does like democracy, which is a good thing.
JasonThe only problem with this is defining which system is the server, and which is the client.
Is the server the one providing most of the traffic? That would work for ftp downloads, but not uploads. How about gnutella and other peering systems?
The way to do it would be to say that you don't pay for any traffic _from_ your location, only to it. Currently, you pay for traffic in both directions.
Note that this is how cell-phones work over here. It is the caller that pays for the call. If you call a cell-phone, you pay. If the cell-phone calls you, they pay. This is different from North America, where the cell-phone always pays (again from what I remember).
As for collecting payment for traffic, most ISPs outside of the US do this already. My cable modem here in New Zealand is metered, and so is the ADSL line the Telco offers.
Jason PollockThat's the first time I've heard of him being called a "philanthropist". Most of the time everyone is acusing him of destroying countries' monetary systems.
Jason PollockThis is a standard business service that most (if not all) ISPs offer. Telcos don't just sell bandwidth to ISPs, usually they sell an amount of traffic from a pool, with both hard and soft limits. For example, it is usually possible to purchase an guarantee of 45Mbps, with (short) peaks up to (say) 90Mbps. You are guaranteed the 45Mbps. If you can't saturate it, the Telco _pays_ you money out of the guarantee.
Even if this is a true QOS access guarantee between content providers and the ISP, again there is no problem with this. Traffic charging is a good thing. I would love to be able to differentiate my Quake traffic from my email, even to the point of getting preferential access to sites because I am willing to pay more for my traffic. It's called customer choice, and is a good thing(tm).
Personally, I don't think I'm as paranoid as some here on slashdot, so I think that exclusive routing agreements aren't likely to happen. Besides, that would be censorship, just the same as mandatory censoreware. Of course, if you aren't in the US, then this doesn't apply. :)
Also, feel free to vote with your feet. Your local Telco would probably be very willing to offer you ADSL service, if you don't like @Home cable.
Jason PollockO.k. Everyone seems to miss the fact that every single piece of information that the government gathered was important to its operation. You can't tax people unless you know where they live, how much they make, and where they worked. You can't pay them welfare/unemployment insurance unless you know what they earned last year, and how much they were paid in benefits, etc...
The only problem was the linking of the two. The intent was to detect things like double dipping, where someone is both working and getting benefits, or other such abuses.
However, as with any large database, there are many ways that it can be abused. They already have problems with government staff joyriding through the data. Every government has that problem, the IRS even tracks it and publishes stats on it.
And before everyone starts complaining about it maintaining a history, rather than simply current totals, remember that they have to maintain records for seven years for audit purposes.
I'm not saying that the large data-wharehouse kind of information is a good thing. It can, however, have several beneficial uses. It would give the government very good demographic data about the majority of its constituency (middle-class tax payers), which would help in resource planning (faster than a census). However, as with anything, there is an increased level of responsability required when using the information.
Jason PollockKillcreek never worked for id. She worked for Ritual/Hipnotic for a while as a tester, and then she went on to Ion Storm as a level designer working on Daikatana. I believe she was/is in the CPL as well?
Jason PollockCorrect, _you_ can.
But you can't then use that to order pizza, call the cops, etc. You can only use it to talk to your limited set of tech-savy friends. As soon as it becomes widely used enough to be usefull, it becomes desireable to detect it, and the cost of doing so isn't prohibitive (compared to earnings).
Jason PollockYes, SIP works in this fashion. It's locators are standard email addresses, if I remember correctly.
ie: oog@oogland.com