I have thought it would be beneficial for the court to rule that the Blackberry service be terminated immediately, with no recourse. Since legislators are primary users of the Blackberries, they might forcibly have their attention drawn to the issue of IP abuse.
I believe that the best way to handle this would be to wipe down the external surfaces with a (water) dampened cloth when powered off.
I once got curious about whether I could detect any ionizing radiation coming from a monitor (using a G-M detector). (The voltages associated withh a color CRT are sufficiently hight to allow the generation of low energy x-rays; to prevent this manufacturers use glass on front surface to absorb radiation). I discovered that there was ionizing radiation coming from the surface of the monitor; however it was present even when the machine was turned off! It disappeared when I wiped the surface of the monitor down; I was measuring the presence of radon daughters that are adsorbed onto the dust motes!
Would not a bag made of alumnized mylar work? I wouldn't know offhand if the coating would be thick enough. RF cannot penetrate very deeply into conductors.
I heard him speak this weekend at a book signing, and his main objection to OS X was that applications developed for it were dependent on a proprietary library.
I saw him at a bookstore this weekend. It was nice to meet one of the leading figures in the community. (Of course I bought his book!). I have read some of it, and it appears to be a good explanation of how things are done in the Unix world.
I don't think that supporters of Linux need to be concerned about competing with Microsoft, it is not necessary to be concerned with the lack of a unified desktop interface. Microsoft has to worry about providing compatibility across their product line and backwards into their older software for corporate reasons; Linux developers are freed from that.
I rather think that the diversity of choice is rather a healthy thing. People can chose for themselves what interface they like and use it and contribute code into it. There is no corporate mandate to capture market share; there is just the opportunity to use and develop nonproprietary software.
In addition to being a functioning OS, Linux is also a tool for exploring new developments which is in the hands of anyone who is interested. Yes, many efforts will be dead ends, but failure is inherent in any novel venture. It may turn out that the entire Linux development effort will eventually become dead end, but 1) the product will be out there for anyone to inspect at a future time, and 2) the open source movement will move onto whatever new system has developed.
I rather suspect that the false positive rate would make this system impractical. If there were only one false identification per ten thousand people, then the false positives would significantly outnumber the true identifications. This has been pointed out to be the real weakness in biometric identification systems.
I believe the Boffins were characters in a Dickens novel; originally making a living by being trashpickers, they received a great deal of money in an inheritance. Although illiterate, they were very curious and interested in learning, and paid educated youngsters to read to them. (They were also very gentle people).
I believe that we are seeing the increasing development of issues that were first coming to light in the late 90's, when the Y2K problem was starting to be recognized as a problem for society at large. As the economy comes to rely more heavily on properly functioning software based systems, the push to make the designers and constructers of these systems responsible for them. Too often in the community the various proposed approaches to design and implementation (now being expressed as the battle between methodologists and agile methods proponents) obscure the basic need to build the right systems, in the best known fashion. This is, at heart, being willing to accept responsibility for what has been promised. If the community will not do this, then legal sanctions will be imposed which force the issue.
Re:terrorism == loss of human life != hacking
on
Byte Wars
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· Score: 1
Many years ago I read an entertaining science fiction book 'The Syndic' (Kornbluth) in which a saboteur was sent into a region in order to sow mayhem and fear. The problem he encountered was the target society was so free and chaotic that his actions were mistaken for the work of wild kids, the damage repaired immediately, and ignored. The greatest damage that can be done to a society is to induce them to actions that will harm themselves.
The IEEE has fielded such a certification effort (the CSDP). They, and the ICCP are apparently the only organizations offering relatively neutral tests (not specific to platform or technology).
Definitely the Knuth series. I bought the first printings over twenty years ago, still have (latest) printings over my desk. Pragmatic Programmer (Hunt & Thomas) also very good (much more recent vintage) in demonstrating basic principals, as well as the Programming Pearls books by Bentley. None of these books particularly biased toward any language or OS, so stand the passage of time well. The Design Patterns book is also excellent, but I am not sure that they will make a lot of sense for a public library.
Slashdot Mirror
When the ionospheric conditions are right it is possible to work (on 28 MHz, at least) the entire world with a 5 Watt FM transceiver. Very spooky!
Most amateurs use way too much power anyway.
KI3J
I have thought it would be beneficial for the court to rule that the Blackberry service be terminated immediately, with no recourse. Since legislators are primary users of the Blackberries, they might forcibly have their attention drawn to the issue of IP abuse.
I believe that the best way to handle this would be to wipe down the external surfaces with a (water) dampened cloth when powered off.
I once got curious about whether I could detect any ionizing radiation coming from a monitor (using a G-M detector). (The voltages associated withh a color CRT are sufficiently hight to allow the generation of low energy x-rays; to prevent this manufacturers use glass on front surface to absorb radiation). I discovered that there was ionizing radiation coming from the surface of the monitor; however it was present even when the machine was turned off! It disappeared when I wiped the surface of the monitor down; I was measuring the presence of radon daughters that are adsorbed onto the dust motes!
Would not a bag made of alumnized mylar work? I wouldn't know offhand if the coating would be thick enough. RF cannot penetrate very deeply into conductors.
I heard him speak this weekend at a book signing, and his main objection to OS X was that applications developed for it were dependent on a proprietary library.
I saw him at a bookstore this weekend. It was nice to meet one of the leading figures in the community. (Of course I bought his book!). I have read some of it, and it appears to be a good explanation of how things are done in the Unix world.
I don't think that supporters of Linux need to be concerned about competing with Microsoft, it is not necessary to be concerned with the lack of a unified desktop interface. Microsoft has to worry about providing compatibility across their product line and backwards into their older software for corporate reasons; Linux developers are freed from that.
I rather think that the diversity of choice is rather a healthy thing. People can chose for themselves what interface they like and use it and contribute code into it. There is no corporate mandate to capture market share; there is just the opportunity to use and develop nonproprietary software.
In addition to being a functioning OS, Linux is also a tool for exploring new developments which is in the hands of anyone who is interested. Yes, many efforts will be dead ends, but failure is inherent in any novel venture. It may turn out that the entire Linux development effort will eventually become dead end, but 1) the product will be out there for anyone to inspect at a future time, and 2) the open source movement will move onto whatever new system has developed.
I rather suspect that the false positive rate would make this system impractical. If there were only one false identification per ten thousand people, then the false positives would significantly outnumber the true identifications. This has been pointed out to be the real weakness in biometric identification systems.
I believe the Boffins were characters in a Dickens novel; originally making a living by being trashpickers, they received a great deal of money in an inheritance. Although illiterate, they were very curious and interested in learning, and paid educated youngsters to read to them. (They were also very gentle people).
I believe that we are seeing the increasing development of issues that were first coming to light in the late 90's, when the Y2K problem was starting to be recognized as a problem for society at large. As the economy comes to rely more heavily on properly functioning software based systems, the push to make the designers and constructers of these systems responsible for them. Too often in the community the various proposed approaches to design and implementation (now being expressed as the battle between methodologists and agile methods proponents) obscure the basic need to build the right systems, in the best known fashion. This is, at heart, being willing to accept responsibility for what has been promised. If the community will not do this, then legal sanctions will be imposed which force the issue.
Many years ago I read an entertaining science fiction book 'The Syndic' (Kornbluth) in which a saboteur was sent into a region in order to sow mayhem and fear. The problem he encountered was the target society was so free and chaotic that his actions were mistaken for the work of wild kids, the damage repaired immediately, and ignored. The greatest damage that can be done to a society is to induce them to actions that will harm themselves.
The IEEE has fielded such a certification effort (the CSDP). They, and the ICCP are apparently the only organizations offering relatively neutral tests (not specific to platform or technology).
Definitely the Knuth series. I bought the first printings over twenty years ago, still have (latest) printings over my desk. Pragmatic Programmer (Hunt & Thomas) also very good (much more recent vintage) in demonstrating basic principals, as well as the Programming Pearls books by Bentley. None of these books particularly biased toward any language or OS, so stand the passage of time well. The Design Patterns book is also excellent, but I am not sure that they will make a lot of sense for a public library.