Computing machines resembling the universal quantum computer could, in principle, be build and would have many remarkable properties not reproducible by any Turing machine. These do not include the computation of non-recursive functions, but they do include 'quantum parallelism', a method by which certain probabilistic tasks can be performed faster by a universal quantum computer than by any classical restriction of it.(emphasis added)
Nobody ever said a Turing Machine is supposed to be fast. This is computability theory, we don't care about speed.
The Church-Turing principle only claims that there is no computer that can solve more problems than a Turing Machine. Clearly there are computers that can run faster than the fastest TM, but that's irrelevant. I'm not sure why this guy is implying otherwise; maybe he's just caught up in the "quantum computing" hype.
It only requires a tape long enough to solve the problem that is on the tape. Therefore, not infinite.
We're using the term "Turing Machine" here loosely, in the sense of "a machine that can compute the same set of algorithms as a true (paper tape) Turing Machine." Although a TM does not actually use an infinite amount of tape in a particular computation, any machine claiming to be Turing-equivalent has to be prepared to provide as much working space as the problem requires. If it doesn't, then there are some algorithms (in fact, an infinite number of algorithms) that can be computed by a true Turing Machine, but not by the machine in question; therefore, it is not a Turing Machine. (In fact, it's not even a linear bounded automaton or a push-down automaton; it's a finite state machine, the lowest rung on the computing ladder.)
However, in order to prevent you from pirating music with it (by plugging in the output of your music system to this thing's input), it has a copyright protection device on it, SDMI compliant.
You're the one who made the decision to buy this hypothetical device.
You don't like SDMI? Buy a device that doesn't use it.
There are no devices that don't use it? Well, that's an anti-trust issue. It's important, but it has nothing to do with the DMCA.
(Unless SDMI is required by law, in which case this is all wrong... is it?)
Probably not from carrot juice though... beta-carotene is often used to dye lemonade
Actually, I'm pretty sure that my case was not related to my diet. I've had a bit of a yellowish tinge all my life. I think it's just some weird genetic thing.
There are no toxic effects, although in cases of severe overdose, your skin may turn orangish for several months.
Just in case anyone gets thrown off by the "Funny" moderation, I'd like to point out that the above post is pretty much correct. I'm told that I had this problem as a kid, although I'm a little fuzzy on the details.
For example, I can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
It's brutally ironic that this cliche comes up so often in discussions on free speech, yet no one seems to remember that the quote was originally used to justify a particularly disturbing infringement on the first ammendment. I found the real story here (bottom of the page), after a few Google searches.
Nor can I write an erotic story where a character says, at the end, "That was the best sex I ever had, but I am only 8 years old."
No, you can't, and that's probably the most blatant violation of the first ammendment that's in force today. However, restoring that particular right is not really a high priority for most defenders of free speech.
I've seen very few DVDs that actually force you to watch commercials, even though it is technically possible. Forcing you to watch the "FBI warning" is more common, but at least that's brief.
If any studio started using the "access control" feature more often, I simply wouldn't buy any of their DVDs. If all the studios start using it, of course, that's a different problem...
Unfortunately, there is no rule in the Constitution protecting our right to build and own technology-- devices or software.
Yes, there is. It's right there at the top of the Bill of Rights. "Software" is a description of a method or sequence of actions -- nothing more, nothing less. Descriptions are speech. Speech is protected.
Even after all of this, I'm still confident that the DMCA will be torn apart by the Supreme Court. I only find it disturbing that our President and Congress have so poor an understanding of the Constitution that they could allow something like this to become law in the first place.
They've GOT to be kidding! That's a VERY low standard. "Still sounded better"??? Is that to imply that once the watermark is applied, the acceptible level of sound quality is equal to a 64 kbps MP3 file?
No, they're saying that once the watermark has been removed, it still sounds better than a 64k MP3 file. As other posters have pointed out, any "attack" on the watermarking system would most likely consist of adding random noise to the sound, until the watermark is no longer detectable. The same principle works for real paper watermarks, if you just run them through the copying machine enough times.
What the source is claiming is that despite the fact that the watermark has been removed, the sounds quality is still acceptable. The sound quality with the watermark intact would be better, probably much better.
I think it could protentially be quite useful, because this way game manufacturers wouldn't have to produce a "Linux version" or a "Windows version", they would just produce a generic PC version.
Let me get this straight. Gaming companies are going to force 100% of their customers to reboot their machines every time they want to run a game, effectively turning a protected multi-tasking system into a souped up PC-XT, just so they can support the 0.01% of their customers that do not own a copy of Windows?
future ones will using two layers: the lower layer will contain the DSD data, and a normal CD player's layer will pass through that to read the CD layer above.
Of course, you can do that with DVDs too. Although I don't know if anyone has attempted it yet.
One of my favorite features of Windows 2000 (and NTFS) is its completely transparent encryption (and compression). All you have to do is set the appropriate file attribute... "compressed" or "encrypted", right next to "read-only", "archive", etc.
Since it's built into NTFS, it's always there, and you can encrypt a single file or an entire drive without worrying about drivers or special partitions.
I have no idea how secure it is. Given Microsoft's track record with systems programming (and NTFS in particular,) I expect that it's pretty damn good. But I'm sure it's better than nothing, and considering that it's trivial to turn it on, it's hard to complain.
The scariest thing about this election is the fact that the two leading candidates agree on most of the issues that concern us most.
(Interlude: Sigh... It appears that www.algore.com, and not www.algore.org, is the Gore campaign homepage. I guess that's appropriate, since politicians are basically commercial organizations these days...)
In a changing and complex world, parents need an ally--an active government, on the side of parents, giving them the tools they need to raise happy, healthy, thriving children, according to their own values...
Some say we should take no action at all--just let children roam free on the Internet. To them I say: children are not miniature adults. They are vulnerable and impressionable, and we have an obligation to protect them from harmful words and images on the Internet...
Today, on behalf of President Clinton, I am calling for new legislation to require every school and library that applies for the e-rate to come up with its own plan for protecting children from objectionable Internet content...
This speech was given long before the Columbine incident, and (creepily) a few hours before the Jonesboro shooting. The fact that Gore came up with his position on his own, before all the hype started, is in some ways even more disturbing.
On balance, Gore-Lieberman would probably do slightly less damage to our freedom of speech than Bush-Cheney would, but the difference is insignificant. Blaming the movement on the Republicans only reduces your credibility as an activist.
As you might have guessed by now, I'll be voting for Harry Browne. At least he uses TLD's properly.
Re:I'm a Maths Graduate but ...
on
Does P = NP?
·
· Score: 1
There are problems that can be solved but not in any time bounded by O(2^(2^(2^(...^n)))), that is not exponential, double-exponential, triple-exponential, or anything like that.
Would that be a problem with a running time that is not computable (in the formal sense)?
Zowie.
Re:I don't think that's what it says...
on
High-Speed Greed
·
· Score: 2
Reading the article, I got the impression they were talking about changing from flat-rate hosting to commissions on retailers that connect through AT&T, not charging retailers a commission on sales by an AT&T subscriber (which would be unenforceable).
I agree with your interpretation.
However, it got me thinking... Charges based on the client's ISP would not be unenforceable. All AT&T would have to do is tell Amazon.com, "If you don't agree to give us a cut of all sales that come from AT&T customers, we'll block all traffic to your site." Of course customers would complain, but what are they going to do? Switch to a different ISP? Most areas only have one or two "broadband" providers, and modems are rapidly becoming unacceptable. Websites would have no choice but to comply with AT&T or AOL's demands, be they for kickbacks, exclusivity, content control, or anything else.
That's not today's news story. But it'll happen soon enough... You'll see.
I don't think anything like this is feasible, for the simple reason that a healthy species *needs* genetic variation to survive.
IANAPG, but it's my understanding that the issues with genetic diversity have been greatly exaggerated. Sure, a human with one set of grandparents is probably going to be pretty screwed up... but "birth defects" in humans are probably much more noticeable than birth defects in animals. Who knows how many fingers a Dodo bird is supposed to have, anyway? If it is able to reproduce, it's probably good enough for our purposes.
Which brings me to the second point... the problems caused by inbreeding tend to breed themselves out after a few generations. The first run of clones from an endangered species might have a very high rate of fatality, but that just accelerates natural selection, so later generations will be much more robust. Eventually mutations would restore normal genetic diversity.
Then again, you could always spike it with frog DNA.
You charge different prices in different regions because you want to hit a different "sweet spot" when it comes to price/volume of the product in order to generate the most profit.
You might want to try reading my post. It explains the real reason for region-codes, which is not price discrimination.
Regional price discrimination wouldn't work, and it doesn't really happen anyway. DVDs tend to be about the same price in different countries. (With the exception of those damn Lexx DVDs, that I had to order from Canada. Grumble.)
Two reasons: One, DVD looks much better than VHS, so you're not losing as much by not going to the theater. Two, and more importantly, VHS tapes do have a sort of region-coding. Different countries use different formats: NTSC, PAL, SECAM, etc. DVDs sometimes come in different scan formats too (I'm not clear on why,) but it's trivial to decode them.
I don't know if the differences in television standards were intentionally engineered, but they accomplish the same goal as region codes.
As with so many things discussed on Slashdot these days, everybody seems to assume that region codes are a tool used by Big Business to torment Real People. (That's the whole purpose of Big Business, of course... making money and providing jobs is just a bonus.)
I'm not going to try to tell you that region codes are a good thing for the consumer, but let me just explain what region codes are for, from a (relatively) objective standpoint.
Big movies typically get released in the U.S. first. After a few months, they move to Europe... a few months after that, they trickle down to the rest of the world. By the time a movie has its theatrical premiere in Europe or Asia, it has often been released in America on video or DVD. If Europeans can chose between renting a new movie for $4 and seeing it in theaters for perhaps $70 (for a whole family,) a whole lot of them are going to skip the theaters. That kind of defeats the purpose of a theatrical release... hence region codes.
Now, the next question is, why doesn't Big Business just release the movie everywhere at the same time? That's another evil conspiracy, right? No. Copying a film is not like copying an MP3. Copying a film is hard. The cost of film duplication is a substantial chunk of the post-production budget of a movie.* Furthermore, you can only copy a film master so many times before it disintegrates. The reels that are being projected in European theaters right now are actually the same strips of film that were shown in American theaters this summer. Simultaneous worldwide release is just not feasible with film. (Digital projection may change all this, of course.)
So, that's the story on region codes. I'm not going to pass judgement on whether they're good or evil (they certainly annoy me), but it's always good to know the other side of the story.
And after you get so far wity this you WILL start to lose you "push",
Right, that's the idea, but I'm just wondering how fast you'll be going when that happens. I'm sure it would vary greatly depending on the size of the sail and the mass of the craft... but if it's anything like, say, c/10, then I'm interested.
If they're traveling towards another star, they can gradually reduce the field in such a way that it'd bring them to a stop in just the right place.
Actually, if they kept the magnetic field constant, wouldn't they end up exactly as far from the destination star as they were from the origin star when they launched? (All other things being equal, of course.) It's just like a pendulum, except that they can turn off the force when they want to stop.
and even worse...if you notice you're on a collision course with some asteroid, comet, or other space thing how do you change course to avoid while traveling at that kind of velocity?
Changing your course is easy... remember, there's no friction. The hard part is noticing the obstacle soon enough to act on it.
But actually, it's a silly thing to worry about... As astronomers often point out, real space is much emptier than the space in Star Trek. Even in the densest part of our local asteroid belt, an accidental collision would be very unlikely. In interstellar space, it's a non-issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Think about it, it works.
The Church-Turing principle only claims that there is no computer that can solve more problems than a Turing Machine. Clearly there are computers that can run faster than the fastest TM, but that's irrelevant. I'm not sure why this guy is implying otherwise; maybe he's just caught up in the "quantum computing" hype.
You don't like SDMI? Buy a device that doesn't use it.
There are no devices that don't use it? Well, that's an anti-trust issue. It's important, but it has nothing to do with the DMCA.
(Unless SDMI is required by law, in which case this is all wrong... is it?)
Hey! Prior art!
Considering that we spend millions of dollars restoring historical artifacts and works of art, can't we afford to be a little pro-active here?
I've seen very few DVDs that actually force you to watch commercials, even though it is technically possible. Forcing you to watch the "FBI warning" is more common, but at least that's brief.
If any studio started using the "access control" feature more often, I simply wouldn't buy any of their DVDs. If all the studios start using it, of course, that's a different problem...
Even after all of this, I'm still confident that the DMCA will be torn apart by the Supreme Court. I only find it disturbing that our President and Congress have so poor an understanding of the Constitution that they could allow something like this to become law in the first place.
What the source is claiming is that despite the fact that the watermark has been removed, the sounds quality is still acceptable. The sound quality with the watermark intact would be better, probably much better.
Well, somebody has to mention this...
*takes a deep breath*
One of my favorite features of Windows 2000 (and NTFS) is its completely transparent encryption (and compression). All you have to do is set the appropriate file attribute... "compressed" or "encrypted", right next to "read-only", "archive", etc.
Since it's built into NTFS, it's always there, and you can encrypt a single file or an entire drive without worrying about drivers or special partitions.
I have no idea how secure it is. Given Microsoft's track record with systems programming (and NTFS in particular,) I expect that it's pretty damn good. But I'm sure it's better than nothing, and considering that it's trivial to turn it on, it's hard to complain.
(Interlude: Sigh... It appears that www.algore.com, and not www.algore.org, is the Gore campaign homepage. I guess that's appropriate, since politicians are basically commercial organizations these days...)
Here are some quotes from a 1998 Gore speech:This speech was given long before the Columbine incident, and (creepily) a few hours before the Jonesboro shooting. The fact that Gore came up with his position on his own, before all the hype started, is in some ways even more disturbing.
On balance, Gore-Lieberman would probably do slightly less damage to our freedom of speech than Bush-Cheney would, but the difference is insignificant. Blaming the movement on the Republicans only reduces your credibility as an activist.
As you might have guessed by now, I'll be voting for Harry Browne. At least he uses TLD's properly.
Zowie.
However, it got me thinking... Charges based on the client's ISP would not be unenforceable. All AT&T would have to do is tell Amazon.com, "If you don't agree to give us a cut of all sales that come from AT&T customers, we'll block all traffic to your site." Of course customers would complain, but what are they going to do? Switch to a different ISP? Most areas only have one or two "broadband" providers, and modems are rapidly becoming unacceptable. Websites would have no choice but to comply with AT&T or AOL's demands, be they for kickbacks, exclusivity, content control, or anything else.
That's not today's news story. But it'll happen soon enough... You'll see.
Which brings me to the second point... the problems caused by inbreeding tend to breed themselves out after a few generations. The first run of clones from an endangered species might have a very high rate of fatality, but that just accelerates natural selection, so later generations will be much more robust. Eventually mutations would restore normal genetic diversity.
Then again, you could always spike it with frog DNA.
Regional price discrimination wouldn't work, and it doesn't really happen anyway. DVDs tend to be about the same price in different countries. (With the exception of those damn Lexx DVDs, that I had to order from Canada. Grumble.)
I don't know if the differences in television standards were intentionally engineered, but they accomplish the same goal as region codes.
As with so many things discussed on Slashdot these days, everybody seems to assume that region codes are a tool used by Big Business to torment Real People. (That's the whole purpose of Big Business, of course... making money and providing jobs is just a bonus.)
I'm not going to try to tell you that region codes are a good thing for the consumer, but let me just explain what region codes are for, from a (relatively) objective standpoint.
Big movies typically get released in the U.S. first. After a few months, they move to Europe... a few months after that, they trickle down to the rest of the world. By the time a movie has its theatrical premiere in Europe or Asia, it has often been released in America on video or DVD. If Europeans can chose between renting a new movie for $4 and seeing it in theaters for perhaps $70 (for a whole family,) a whole lot of them are going to skip the theaters. That kind of defeats the purpose of a theatrical release... hence region codes.
Now, the next question is, why doesn't Big Business just release the movie everywhere at the same time? That's another evil conspiracy, right? No. Copying a film is not like copying an MP3. Copying a film is hard. The cost of film duplication is a substantial chunk of the post-production budget of a movie.* Furthermore, you can only copy a film master so many times before it disintegrates. The reels that are being projected in European theaters right now are actually the same strips of film that were shown in American theaters this summer. Simultaneous worldwide release is just not feasible with film. (Digital projection may change all this, of course.)
So, that's the story on region codes. I'm not going to pass judgement on whether they're good or evil (they certainly annoy me), but it's always good to know the other side of the story.
* Some actual numbers would be nice here. Anyone?
But actually, it's a silly thing to worry about... As astronomers often point out, real space is much emptier than the space in Star Trek. Even in the densest part of our local asteroid belt, an accidental collision would be very unlikely. In interstellar space, it's a non-issue.