We seem to just keep getting more of these, popping up like dandelions. "We're introducing a new system for the public good. It's a great system, unless it's abused, which even though there are no stong safeguards in place, we're sure will never happen."
Problem is, of the people calling the shots, 1/2 of them are saying "Gee that sounds like a great idea, lets do it." The other half are saying "Gee that sounds like a great idea, can you go over once more how someone might abuse it?"
I think the point of the computer is to do something for you, to produce desired results independently. To perform a task that a person could perform, but meeting requirements that a person could not, such as time to complete, accuracy, cost, energy input, etc. A list of cooking instructions is not a computer program. It's a People Program.;)
You'd have to set some ground rules before answering the OP's question, at least clarify the problem. The way I interpret the question, OP is looking for the oldest existing instructional program, that can still be run today on the original hardware it was meant for. This means no emulation, and that the program's function is changeable by loading a different set of instructions. Where as when you toggle collosus's switches, you are actually reconfiguring the computer itself and not really loading a program, so I would not qualify that. The mechanical looms that run the cards are probably the closest fit since they run a program off "media". (being the cards)
There are many examples of computers older than those looms, but most of them were not programmable in any way, and the rest like the collosus, programs could not be loaded on them. (the computer itself had to be reconfigured to perform the new task) Reconfiguring plugboards I think falls into the same category of having to reconfigure the computer itself. Even if the plugs are forming instructions, a box of patch cables is not media.
Embedded systems I feel fall into a grey area where the computer itself is interpreting the firmware which can be changed without altering the computer itself, but for that I would also require the "program" to be user-loadable as a normal function of its use. While most older embedded systems had no option for firmware upgrade, even with today's upgradeable firmware, changing the basic behavior of the computer is not the reason for the firmware update, it's to fix bugs mainly, so I don't think that counts. Firmware is also not something you tend to have more than one copy of sitting around... any truly programmable computer has (or at one time HAD) at least several programs available to quickly repurpose it. So the ability to quickly change programs on the system sounds like a sensible requirement.
I've seen this question come up several times and so far the looms have always been the best answer.
An additional twist to the question is whether or not to require that the program is still in practical use today. That would probably knock out the looms, I don't think any are in use anymore.
I don't think you can blame people for buying a product that they found out about through spamvertisement, if it's something they wanted. What are you supposed to do? Look at the message and say "Gee actually I was thinking about buying one of those, that one looks perfect, but since they spamvertised it to me, I refuse to buy it." Sounds a little childish and stubborn.
Though I do agree that the few that buy from spamvertisement do encourage the behavior. If you build a system that has a fundamental design flaw that makes it vulnerable to abuse, it will get abused, always and forever, until you fix the flaw. Trying to fight the abusers is a waste of time. So long as its profitable, it will continue to be abused.
SPAM is not so much a problem because of what it is, unsolicited advertisement, but because it's being used wrong. You get spammed when you watch TV. When you listen to the radio. When you drive your car down the road. As you walk through the isles in the store. It's everywhere. You can't just say that you're going to boycott every product you see spamvertised.
Unfortunately email spam is global, and in many cases is considered legal. Here's the thing... if tomorrow it was announced that for the next 5 months no one was supposed to buy from spammers, and they followed through with this, the spammers would go out of business. I'd gladly participate in that. But since you can't make that many people change your ways, all you accomplish with your own private boycott is to inconvenience yourself. It's like organizing a boycott in your town against WalMart because they are selling a brand of toy that's a choking hazard. You and all 30 of your fellow boycotters, what do you think you're going to accomplish, besides your shopping more at K-mart? Is it going to change anything? If you could get 5,000 people in your town to boycott them, ok that may actually get something accomplished. But if you can't DO that, there's no point, unless you enjoy making your life a little bit more difficult, needlessly.
THAT being said, I've never actually bought anything spammed into my inbox. Not because I'm against it in principle, but because they've never spamvertised anything I'm interested in. I'd be willing to bet a lot of people are in the same camp - never having replied to spam, wishing it would go away, but at the same time being perfectly willing to reply to it if something they truly wanted was being pushed.
There are basically two driving forces in spam. Illegal or scam, and anonymous buying. Either things where you cannot conduct legal business such as prescription meds without a prescription, or sex-related sales. Online is arguably the best way to conduct business in either of these areas, and spam is no doubt the best way to advertise it. Nothing is going to change that, short of either making spam illegal or impossible. Trying to convince the masses to not respond to the spam will also not change these things, and is an exercise in futility.
The initial knee-jerk reaction to this is that it's not going to reduce the spam I am exposed to. But then on further consideration, if I'm going to get spammed say, four times this morning, I'd rather they be at least slightly relevant to me. I don't need help with credit card debt, I'm not shopping for children's toys, and I don't want to buy a new car. If you must spam me, at least make it useful.
Probably 90% of the adverts any given person is exposed to on a daily basis are a complete waste of their and the advertiser's time. (which is why email spam works, because it doesn't cost much to spam everybody)
Actually I was trying to point out the difference between the perception the name gives, and the reality. When I tell you I am holding a 3.5" or 5.25" disk, you don't assume I'm holding a "naked floppy". You assume it's in its jacket. A 5.25" in its jacket is still "floppy". A 3.5" in its jacket is not floppy. The only reason people still call 3.5" disks "floppies" is merely a carryover from the 5.25" disk days. Calling a 3.5" disk a "floppy" makes about as much sense as calling a pinto a "motorized carriage".
It's hard to argue that anyone talking about their 3.5" or 5.25" disks is referring to the naked media, so calling a 3.5" disk a "floppy" is rather nonsensical. My opinion here is it makes more sense to call a 3.5" a "hard disk", but then you get the opposite confusion developing immediately from people that are confusing those with what I believe should more properly be called "fixed disks". But calling a HD a HD isn't going away so there's no point in fighting that one.
Until they come up with a third unique (and easily acceptable) term to cover the three varieties of media, we will be stuck with two terms for three distinct pieces of hardware.
I guess I'd prefer people to pick names that describe the outside of the item moreso than the inside. If we go by insides, a 3.5 and 5.25 are both floppy, and a fixed disk is hard, so that works for them I guess.
Just because you identified a pattern after the fact, doesn't necessarily mean it's not a useful pattern to consult in the future.
Though implementing it to actually make some predictions of events that have not yet occurred, that are then validated, certainly lends it credibility.
"It was simple data mining and algorithms, and none of the information was obtained illegally"
It's a shame more of the public doesn't realize that it's not necessary to either break the law or pass laws to legalize violations of one's rights, to provide reasonable protection for the public good.
I had a//c with over 300 5.25" and 40 3.5" disks sitting in the basement. Decided to get it out (and all the associated flotsum) and found that one of my main use disks was unbootable.
At that point I determined that it was just better off to let go of the past, and it ALL went into the trash can the next pickup.
Probably better that way, and that system certainly didn't owe me anything anymore.
I'm betting my memories are better to keep than the reality. I'm sure had I been able to boot it up I'd immediately run to check some of my awesome handiwork and say Wow, this is slow and crappy! What was I thinking?
3.5" (not really "floppy" - wonder if this is where the term "hard disk" came from?) 5.25" (ok, that flops) 8" (not many of us have seen these... and YES, quite floppy)
if that pattern continues, his 3' floppy must be made of wet noodle.
I know I cannot lay on my back or side for that matter for too much time. More than 6 hrs on my back and my back starts hurting. More than 3 hrs on a side and my shoulder starts aching, so I have to change position at least once a night. I would expect for most, after about two straight weeks things would start getting torturous as there would be no side you wanted to lay on anymore.
when they say sequestered, I assume they mean it's going to be locked into a solid form? The only example of a gas being stored in a geological formation is all that helium they set aside for the airships way back when.
That and I don't understand why they can't just make use of it. I'd expect a biodiesel plant would love to be piped into that, making good use of all that CO2 to increase their yield.
This whole idea is basically the same as a landfill. Burying a problem never makes it go away, and almost always causes it go get worse for later generations.
Imagine verisign charging an absolutely absurd amount for their licensing. I mean totally out of line, like $1M/month. Don't want to pay licensing? Don't infringe.
That would dramatically reduce the amount of this DNS perversion going on.
Not that this is going to happen, but it's an interesting prospect to think about. Heaven forbid the system be taken advantage of to the benefit of the people.
I just remembered the remote controlled cockroach in Fifth Element... haha...
But the jump, that's quite possible at that size. Light dense objects can jump really easily. Slowly wind up a spring and then release it, you can send it flying like a tiddlywink.
I can't possibly come close to Rsync in 300 lines of bash.;) But that's the general idea, yes. This is for people that are not totally afraid of terminal but don't know how to map ports, use rsync (safely) etc. My script statically uses 1mb blocks for example, and requires a lot of user interaction. But it does the trick.
Unfortunately something like this can't really count on BOTH ends of the file transfer being technically inclined.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but they do not have no option here. The safe harbor thing basically says if you take it down immediately they can't sue you. So if they are not in the right to ASK you to take it down, you can tell them where to stick it. (and maybe then they sue you anyway, but that's always how it goes)
Just taking it down is of course the safer route, but them you get into the use of takedown notices as a scare tactic, sent out in many more cases than are appropriate, and still getting almost everything taken down.
Insta-caving to takedown notices just encourages them to abuse them more tomorrow, so this should not be looked upon as a good thing. Sure, if they sent YOU a takedown notice, maybe it would be prudent to take it down since you can't really lift a lawsuit even if you ARE in the right, but then there's even that 1% chance they find against you and you lose your shirt. Google on the other hand, has deep pockets and real lawyers on retainer that can evaluate a takedown notice, determine if it's something they need to comply with or not, and tell them where to shove it if they can.
I wrote this bash script to do basically the same thing. It uses openssl (built into most unix and OS X in specific) to create 1mb check files basically the same as torrent files. Follow the instructions and its easy to fix a corrupt download from someone that has a good copy, with the minimum required data transfer. The person with the bad file runs option 1 to make the check file and sends that to the person with the good file. They run option 2 which identifies bad chunks and exports them, which they send back to the first person. Run option 3 and the exports are patched into their download and it's fixed.
Last time I used it, we repaired a 3.8gb transfer by exchanging 11mb of data. (the transfer had been resumed multiple times and apparently one of the transfers glitched its offset or something)
This is easier than BT because using BT can have a bit of a learning curve for seeding. Beta but appears stable. Feedback encouraged.
Regardless of who you are, it is not my responsibility to make sure you are available in case of an emergency. If you need to be available, it is your responsibility to adjust your behavior to increase the odds that you are available, given the provided situations you find yourself in. I don't care if you're a doctor with a patient in the ICU, a parent with a sitter at home, or anyone else for that matter.
A doctor will also be without cell phone service when taking a tour of the Great Mounds Cave. That doesn't mean we should put up cell towers in there. What it means he should not be there while on call. Same goes for a theatre or any other venue where cell reception is naturally or artificially unavailable. Although any venue where a reasonable person would expect cell service but cannot get it, should have reasonable notice. In this case a note on the ticket or at the door to the theatre.
I'm so tired of people trying to make me responsible for their bad decisions. That's what your parents are for. While you're under 18. After that, take ownership of yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
We seem to just keep getting more of these, popping up like dandelions. "We're introducing a new system for the public good. It's a great system, unless it's abused, which even though there are no stong safeguards in place, we're sure will never happen."
Problem is, of the people calling the shots, 1/2 of them are saying "Gee that sounds like a great idea, lets do it." The other half are saying "Gee that sounds like a great idea, can you go over once more how someone might abuse it?"
Isn't that like using a gun to prevent a cold? Yes I suppose it's effective, but still...
I think the point of the computer is to do something for you, to produce desired results independently. To perform a task that a person could perform, but meeting requirements that a person could not, such as time to complete, accuracy, cost, energy input, etc. A list of cooking instructions is not a computer program. It's a People Program. ;)
You'd have to set some ground rules before answering the OP's question, at least clarify the problem. The way I interpret the question, OP is looking for the oldest existing instructional program, that can still be run today on the original hardware it was meant for. This means no emulation, and that the program's function is changeable by loading a different set of instructions. Where as when you toggle collosus's switches, you are actually reconfiguring the computer itself and not really loading a program, so I would not qualify that. The mechanical looms that run the cards are probably the closest fit since they run a program off "media". (being the cards)
There are many examples of computers older than those looms, but most of them were not programmable in any way, and the rest like the collosus, programs could not be loaded on them. (the computer itself had to be reconfigured to perform the new task) Reconfiguring plugboards I think falls into the same category of having to reconfigure the computer itself. Even if the plugs are forming instructions, a box of patch cables is not media.
Embedded systems I feel fall into a grey area where the computer itself is interpreting the firmware which can be changed without altering the computer itself, but for that I would also require the "program" to be user-loadable as a normal function of its use. While most older embedded systems had no option for firmware upgrade, even with today's upgradeable firmware, changing the basic behavior of the computer is not the reason for the firmware update, it's to fix bugs mainly, so I don't think that counts. Firmware is also not something you tend to have more than one copy of sitting around... any truly programmable computer has (or at one time HAD) at least several programs available to quickly repurpose it. So the ability to quickly change programs on the system sounds like a sensible requirement.
I've seen this question come up several times and so far the looms have always been the best answer.
An additional twist to the question is whether or not to require that the program is still in practical use today. That would probably knock out the looms, I don't think any are in use anymore.
or because it was bug #0 and someone started keeping track of them at #1.
(hate those boundary bugs!)
Didn't they show off something just like this in Minority Report?
I don't think you can blame people for buying a product that they found out about through spamvertisement, if it's something they wanted. What are you supposed to do? Look at the message and say "Gee actually I was thinking about buying one of those, that one looks perfect, but since they spamvertised it to me, I refuse to buy it." Sounds a little childish and stubborn.
Though I do agree that the few that buy from spamvertisement do encourage the behavior. If you build a system that has a fundamental design flaw that makes it vulnerable to abuse, it will get abused, always and forever, until you fix the flaw. Trying to fight the abusers is a waste of time. So long as its profitable, it will continue to be abused.
SPAM is not so much a problem because of what it is, unsolicited advertisement, but because it's being used wrong. You get spammed when you watch TV. When you listen to the radio. When you drive your car down the road. As you walk through the isles in the store. It's everywhere. You can't just say that you're going to boycott every product you see spamvertised.
Unfortunately email spam is global, and in many cases is considered legal. Here's the thing... if tomorrow it was announced that for the next 5 months no one was supposed to buy from spammers, and they followed through with this, the spammers would go out of business. I'd gladly participate in that. But since you can't make that many people change your ways, all you accomplish with your own private boycott is to inconvenience yourself. It's like organizing a boycott in your town against WalMart because they are selling a brand of toy that's a choking hazard. You and all 30 of your fellow boycotters, what do you think you're going to accomplish, besides your shopping more at K-mart? Is it going to change anything? If you could get 5,000 people in your town to boycott them, ok that may actually get something accomplished. But if you can't DO that, there's no point, unless you enjoy making your life a little bit more difficult, needlessly.
THAT being said, I've never actually bought anything spammed into my inbox. Not because I'm against it in principle, but because they've never spamvertised anything I'm interested in. I'd be willing to bet a lot of people are in the same camp - never having replied to spam, wishing it would go away, but at the same time being perfectly willing to reply to it if something they truly wanted was being pushed.
There are basically two driving forces in spam. Illegal or scam, and anonymous buying. Either things where you cannot conduct legal business such as prescription meds without a prescription, or sex-related sales. Online is arguably the best way to conduct business in either of these areas, and spam is no doubt the best way to advertise it. Nothing is going to change that, short of either making spam illegal or impossible. Trying to convince the masses to not respond to the spam will also not change these things, and is an exercise in futility.
The initial knee-jerk reaction to this is that it's not going to reduce the spam I am exposed to. But then on further consideration, if I'm going to get spammed say, four times this morning, I'd rather they be at least slightly relevant to me. I don't need help with credit card debt, I'm not shopping for children's toys, and I don't want to buy a new car. If you must spam me, at least make it useful.
Probably 90% of the adverts any given person is exposed to on a daily basis are a complete waste of their and the advertiser's time. (which is why email spam works, because it doesn't cost much to spam everybody)
Actually I was trying to point out the difference between the perception the name gives, and the reality. When I tell you I am holding a 3.5" or 5.25" disk, you don't assume I'm holding a "naked floppy". You assume it's in its jacket. A 5.25" in its jacket is still "floppy". A 3.5" in its jacket is not floppy. The only reason people still call 3.5" disks "floppies" is merely a carryover from the 5.25" disk days. Calling a 3.5" disk a "floppy" makes about as much sense as calling a pinto a "motorized carriage".
It's hard to argue that anyone talking about their 3.5" or 5.25" disks is referring to the naked media, so calling a 3.5" disk a "floppy" is rather nonsensical. My opinion here is it makes more sense to call a 3.5" a "hard disk", but then you get the opposite confusion developing immediately from people that are confusing those with what I believe should more properly be called "fixed disks". But calling a HD a HD isn't going away so there's no point in fighting that one.
Until they come up with a third unique (and easily acceptable) term to cover the three varieties of media, we will be stuck with two terms for three distinct pieces of hardware.
I guess I'd prefer people to pick names that describe the outside of the item moreso than the inside. If we go by insides, a 3.5 and 5.25 are both floppy, and a fixed disk is hard, so that works for them I guess.
maybe it will piss off the rest of the UK population enough so that they might just take notice.
Or maybe they'll remain blissfully unaware or just plain roll over like in the US and most other places nowadays.
Just because you identified a pattern after the fact, doesn't necessarily mean it's not a useful pattern to consult in the future.
Though implementing it to actually make some predictions of events that have not yet occurred, that are then validated, certainly lends it credibility.
I predict tomorrow we will have daytime.
"It was simple data mining and algorithms, and none of the information was obtained illegally"
It's a shame more of the public doesn't realize that it's not necessary to either break the law or pass laws to legalize violations of one's rights, to provide reasonable protection for the public good.
I had a //c with over 300 5.25" and 40 3.5" disks sitting in the basement. Decided to get it out (and all the associated flotsum) and found that one of my main use disks was unbootable.
At that point I determined that it was just better off to let go of the past, and it ALL went into the trash can the next pickup.
Probably better that way, and that system certainly didn't owe me anything anymore.
I'm betting my memories are better to keep than the reality. I'm sure had I been able to boot it up I'd immediately run to check some of my awesome handiwork and say Wow, this is slow and crappy! What was I thinking?
3.5" (not really "floppy" - wonder if this is where the term "hard disk" came from?)
5.25" (ok, that flops)
8" (not many of us have seen these... and YES, quite floppy)
if that pattern continues, his 3' floppy must be made of wet noodle.
I know I cannot lay on my back or side for that matter for too much time. More than 6 hrs on my back and my back starts hurting. More than 3 hrs on a side and my shoulder starts aching, so I have to change position at least once a night. I would expect for most, after about two straight weeks things would start getting torturous as there would be no side you wanted to lay on anymore.
when they say sequestered, I assume they mean it's going to be locked into a solid form? The only example of a gas being stored in a geological formation is all that helium they set aside for the airships way back when.
That and I don't understand why they can't just make use of it. I'd expect a biodiesel plant would love to be piped into that, making good use of all that CO2 to increase their yield.
This whole idea is basically the same as a landfill. Burying a problem never makes it go away, and almost always causes it go get worse for later generations.
Imagine verisign charging an absolutely absurd amount for their licensing. I mean totally out of line, like $1M/month. Don't want to pay licensing? Don't infringe.
That would dramatically reduce the amount of this DNS perversion going on.
Not that this is going to happen, but it's an interesting prospect to think about. Heaven forbid the system be taken advantage of to the benefit of the people.
I just remembered the remote controlled cockroach in Fifth Element... haha...
But the jump, that's quite possible at that size. Light dense objects can jump really easily. Slowly wind up a spring and then release it, you can send it flying like a tiddlywink.
I can't possibly come close to Rsync in 300 lines of bash. ;) But that's the general idea, yes. This is for people that are not totally afraid of terminal but don't know how to map ports, use rsync (safely) etc. My script statically uses 1mb blocks for example, and requires a lot of user interaction. But it does the trick.
Unfortunately something like this can't really count on BOTH ends of the file transfer being technically inclined.
or better yet, an AASP. Apple Authorized Service Provider
(guess where I work?)
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but they do not have no option here. The safe harbor thing basically says if you take it down immediately they can't sue you. So if they are not in the right to ASK you to take it down, you can tell them where to stick it. (and maybe then they sue you anyway, but that's always how it goes)
Just taking it down is of course the safer route, but them you get into the use of takedown notices as a scare tactic, sent out in many more cases than are appropriate, and still getting almost everything taken down.
Insta-caving to takedown notices just encourages them to abuse them more tomorrow, so this should not be looked upon as a good thing. Sure, if they sent YOU a takedown notice, maybe it would be prudent to take it down since you can't really lift a lawsuit even if you ARE in the right, but then there's even that 1% chance they find against you and you lose your shirt. Google on the other hand, has deep pockets and real lawyers on retainer that can evaluate a takedown notice, determine if it's something they need to comply with or not, and tell them where to shove it if they can.
I wrote this bash script to do basically the same thing. It uses openssl (built into most unix and OS X in specific) to create 1mb check files basically the same as torrent files. Follow the instructions and its easy to fix a corrupt download from someone that has a good copy, with the minimum required data transfer. The person with the bad file runs option 1 to make the check file and sends that to the person with the good file. They run option 2 which identifies bad chunks and exports them, which they send back to the first person. Run option 3 and the exports are patched into their download and it's fixed.
Last time I used it, we repaired a 3.8gb transfer by exchanging 11mb of data. (the transfer had been resumed multiple times and apparently one of the transfers glitched its offset or something)
This is easier than BT because using BT can have a bit of a learning curve for seeding. Beta but appears stable. Feedback encouraged.
Plans for a robot that can crawl like a spider are 'well developed'
That's military-contractor-ese for "we drew you a picture..."
Regardless of who you are, it is not my responsibility to make sure you are available in case of an emergency. If you need to be available, it is your responsibility to adjust your behavior to increase the odds that you are available, given the provided situations you find yourself in. I don't care if you're a doctor with a patient in the ICU, a parent with a sitter at home, or anyone else for that matter.
A doctor will also be without cell phone service when taking a tour of the Great Mounds Cave. That doesn't mean we should put up cell towers in there. What it means he should not be there while on call. Same goes for a theatre or any other venue where cell reception is naturally or artificially unavailable. Although any venue where a reasonable person would expect cell service but cannot get it, should have reasonable notice. In this case a note on the ticket or at the door to the theatre.
I'm so tired of people trying to make me responsible for their bad decisions. That's what your parents are for. While you're under 18. After that, take ownership of yourself.
They also usually showed Macgyver being nimble and fast. That wouldn't be so believable in an older actor.