...and not allow technologies to be used to escape financial responsibilities.
The question is, what justification is there for taxing the phone system? It is a private service, just like TV, internet, radio, etc... POTS is either underregulated or overregulated, depending on how you view things. If it's a private enterprise, why all the controls, regulations, and taxes? If it's a government service, why all the competition?
Regulations on phones belong to a previous era. If we wish to continue to maintain that the phone system is a private enterprise, we must let the market regulate it. That does seem to have worked for most of the rest of the economy...
Where some regulation would be useful is the distribution system. Ideally, the government would own the physical hardware and would lease it to anybody who wanted to provide a service. This prevents people from building redundant networks while not leaving all the power in the hands of one corporation.
Actually, the ball bearings themselves would probably cause little damage. The idea is to trigger the Kessler Syndrome:
And while the risk [of debris] today may be minimal, it will increase exponentially unless something is done about it. An interesting theory raised by Donald J. Kessler of NASA, called the Kessler Syndrome, has a scenario in which the debris field would self-regenerate. In this case, there are so many satellites in space, that the amount of debris generation from collisions would exceed the natural removal of space debris mentioned in Possible Solutions. At this point, cleaning the atmosphere would be a huge undertaking and could be considered virtually impossible.
Online Poker != Real World Poker
on
Geeks Playing Poker?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I've been playing almost every weekend for the last two years, and let me tell you, being able to read your opponents is one of the most important skills in poker. I can generally play the odds well enough to break even, but I have one cousin who can read me like a book, and if he plays I leave the table broke.
The odds are extremely important, but so is knowing your opponent.
that will have their eyes opened when they get their first "real" paycheck and see how much is taken out in federal and state taxes....
HAH!
Take a trip to Europe, buddy. My uncle pays 75% of his income to taxes. I pay 21% sales tax. Companies pay 50% gross earnings tax.
Americans complaining about taxes won't get an ounce of pity from me. Nothing against you personally - I lived in the US for quite a while - but you really should learn to see some things in perspective.
No idea which specifically are BPL, but I don't think it makes much difference. According to OmniGeek, the cross-country lines are not sufficiently twisted to prevent interference, and would therefore doubt that any shorter ones are sufficiently twisted.
I don't think we can rely on the twisted pair trick to eliminate the interference...
The twisted lines you saw and the twisted lines that would supposedly stop interference are two different things: - A standard power cable is a long steel cable with an outer layer of aluminum strands twisted around it serving as conductor. - A "twisted pair" of lines are two lines, corresponding to the signal line and the return path, that are twisted around each other. The idea is that if the same signal travels in both directions, the lines will each generate an equal but with opposite sign EM field (which is what causes interference), and these two fields will effectively cancel eachother out. Unfortunately, if you twisted power lines, you'd need insulation tens of centimeters if not meters thick to prevent arcing. High voltage lines can run up to 400kV, and standard insulators between those and the cable towers are a good 3 or 4 meters long...
Check out Wired August 2001 - there's an article about exactly this kind of thing. They describe an experiment with a parapalegic by the name of Ray, who received an implant in his motor cortex hooked up to a computer mouse. After about a month, his mind had learned to treat it as a new limb...
Spyware is not always installed with user consent, as you claim.
I was searching for a game review a while back and ended up on gamespot. Unfortunately, the site wouldn't work with firefox so I was stuck with IE, and by the time I had left I had accumulates two or three different spyware programs (one of them WebRebates, the others I can't remember).
Yes I had all the patches - I'd been running windows update regularly - and no I didn't click on any confirm installation buttons, or any popups at all in fact (close 'em with the keyboard). The fact is, that spyware was put on my computer without my knowledge and without my consent.
Like any drug, it depends on your tolerance. I used to drink an insane amount of cola when I was younger, and could go to sleep after drinking half a bottle. Stopped for a number of years, and now a can will keep me alert for half a day.
I believe this has to do with added harmonics - with tubes you get even order, whereas with solid state you get odd order. Both are distortion of the original sound, but due to the fact that human speech is mainly composed of even order harmonics, the vacuum tube sounds more pleasing and the solid state harsher.
Hear Hear! Here in Antwerp, the center of the city is probably about 10, max 20 km from the nuke plant that supplies it - you can even hear them test the siren every month. Never had a problem as far as I know - people are more concerned about the petrolum factory next door that's pumping out all those lovely gasses.
On the other hand, the 50m high flame on top of the distillation column is quite pretty at night...
The article was pretty clear about the fact that you cannot generate a message for a given hash. It is impossibly unlikely that someone can find a collision for one of the hashes out there. However, there is now a documented, working process for finding two documents who'se hash is identical, which is the basis for the certificate attack described in the article. Indeed, there is no guarantee that you will find two valid certificates, but in the last month it has become a whole lot more possible...
It's not about generating a malignant one from a hash, it's about searching for two non-gibberish certificates that have the same hash. This is now possible.
You find the two certificates first, and THEN get the hasn signed. This is what the attack is all about - you can't choose the collision hash but you can find a collision between a valid benign and valid malicious string of bytes, and if you get the benign one signed...
You're absolutely correct that they've only found a collision attack, but this is not 'perfectly acceptable.' The best example he gave is of someone who finds a collision between two SSL certificates, one pretty standard and one granting an absurd number of privleges. If he can then submit the first certificate and get it signed...
Let's say someone uses this attack to generate two ssl certificates with the same hash, one benign, one malignant (ie * for host, 2200 AD for expiry). This person then sends the benign one in to Verisign and gets it signed as a trusted certificate. He then applies the malignant certificate, with a valid Verisign signature, to his little scam website - people log on, check the certificate, see that it's signed, trust the website...
What does this atomic structure mean for the stability of the system in the case where there is not enough space to write the new tree? Say you write a file 4 directories deep, but your disk is so full (or so small) that you only have space for 3 more directory records? Would you simply get an out of space error?
How about editing a file? If you change text in the middle, is just the middle copied and written back? Everything after the middle? Everything? Again the issue of space...
I'm asking here because the site is slow as molasses, and I don't know if it even answers these questions...
Human nature, or, more accurately, mammalian nature, is a pack, consisting of one alpha male, ie the dictator, and a few men and women who listen to his every command. They all do what he tells them to, until one of them becomes strong enough to kick his @ss and become the new alpha male.
Capitalism is actually a very bad system - it breaks up the social group, encourages materialism and individualism, and turns everyone against eachother. It leads to stress, exhaustion, broken families, bankrupcy... why do you think they call it the rat race? In terms of survival of the species, capitalism is rather sh*tty, leading in the extreme case to an oligarchy based on money (everything's for sale).
The only reason we use it is because it is the lesser of two evils - the selfishness in human nature makes communism turn out even worse, as the power structure in a communistic society eventually becomes corrupt, bloated, and drains the life out of the 'peasant.' If we weren't selfish, communism would be ideal - too bad we are.
It does if the bombs start rusting through and the fuses become damaged...
Not sure how they're actually set off, but say you have just one bomb in there with a failsafe switch - you know, the kind that, in the case that the mechanism is disabled/destroyed, automatically detonates... (I'm making this up, but who knows)
but you don't own the games you buy. You own a license to use those games.
So if I only own a license to play the game, does that mean that they are required to replace the CD if it becomes scratched or worn? How about making a copy of a friend's to replace my own? No? Why not? I didn't pay for the CD, I payed for the license, so it doesn't matter if it's the original or a copy or even a cracked version from the net...
I learned that I had a serious dust allergy a few years ago, probaby caused by the fact that my mom pretty much disinfected the house when I was a child. Well, I'm now living in a dusty dorm room (partially on purpose, partially 'cause I'm lazy) and it's become pretty rare that I feel any effect at all.
With a bit of motivation and slow exposure, your body should be able to adjust itself.
Slashdot Mirror
...and not allow technologies to be used to escape financial responsibilities.
The question is, what justification is there for taxing the phone system? It is a private service, just like TV, internet, radio, etc...
POTS is either underregulated or overregulated, depending on how you view things. If it's a private enterprise, why all the controls, regulations, and taxes? If it's a government service, why all the competition?
Regulations on phones belong to a previous era. If we wish to continue to maintain that the phone system is a private enterprise, we must let the market regulate it. That does seem to have worked for most of the rest of the economy...
Where some regulation would be useful is the distribution system. Ideally, the government would own the physical hardware and would lease it to anybody who wanted to provide a service. This prevents people from building redundant networks while not leaving all the power in the hands of one corporation.
Jw
From http://users.rowan.edu/~kozdro43/SophClinic/Space
Jw
I've been playing almost every weekend for the last two years, and let me tell you, being able to read your opponents is one of the most important skills in poker. I can generally play the odds well enough to break even, but I have one cousin who can read me like a book, and if he plays I leave the table broke.
The odds are extremely important, but so is knowing your opponent.
Jw
that will have their eyes opened when they get their first "real" paycheck and see how much is taken out in federal and state taxes....
HAH!
Take a trip to Europe, buddy. My uncle pays 75% of his income to taxes. I pay 21% sales tax. Companies pay 50% gross earnings tax.
Americans complaining about taxes won't get an ounce of pity from me. Nothing against you personally - I lived in the US for quite a while - but you really should learn to see some things in perspective.
Jw
No idea which specifically are BPL, but I don't think it makes much difference. According to OmniGeek, the cross-country lines are not sufficiently twisted to prevent interference, and would therefore doubt that any shorter ones are sufficiently twisted.
I don't think we can rely on the twisted pair trick to eliminate the interference...
Jw
The twisted lines you saw and the twisted lines that would supposedly stop interference are two different things:
- A standard power cable is a long steel cable with an outer layer of aluminum strands twisted around it serving as conductor.
- A "twisted pair" of lines are two lines, corresponding to the signal line and the return path, that are twisted around each other. The idea is that if the same signal travels in both directions, the lines will each generate an equal but with opposite sign EM field (which is what causes interference), and these two fields will effectively cancel eachother out.
Unfortunately, if you twisted power lines, you'd need insulation tens of centimeters if not meters thick to prevent arcing. High voltage lines can run up to 400kV, and standard insulators between those and the cable towers are a good 3 or 4 meters long...
Jw
Now there's an interesting comment. If I trusted that the moderators had the first clue about moderating I wouldn't have made the comment.
Good god, you are an elitist prick! You obviously consider yourself a moderation master and the rest of us just scum on the water
I did not deserve to be called an "elitist prick".
Try changing your tone a bit - you might find yourself a bit more welcome and people more open.
Until then, we'll call you what we like.
Jw
Check out Wired August 2001 - there's an article about exactly this kind of thing. They describe an experiment with a parapalegic by the name of Ray, who received an implant in his motor cortex hooked up to a computer mouse. After about a month, his mind had learned to treat it as a new limb...
Jw
Spyware is not always installed with user consent, as you claim.
I was searching for a game review a while back and ended up on gamespot. Unfortunately, the site wouldn't work with firefox so I was stuck with IE, and by the time I had left I had accumulates two or three different spyware programs (one of them WebRebates, the others I can't remember).
Yes I had all the patches - I'd been running windows update regularly - and no I didn't click on any confirm installation buttons, or any popups at all in fact (close 'em with the keyboard). The fact is, that spyware was put on my computer without my knowledge and without my consent.
Jw
Like any drug, it depends on your tolerance. I used to drink an insane amount of cola when I was younger, and could go to sleep after drinking half a bottle. Stopped for a number of years, and now a can will keep me alert for half a day.
Jw
I believe this has to do with added harmonics - with tubes you get even order, whereas with solid state you get odd order. Both are distortion of the original sound, but due to the fact that human speech is mainly composed of even order harmonics, the vacuum tube sounds more pleasing and the solid state harsher.
Jw
Hear Hear!
Here in Antwerp, the center of the city is probably about 10, max 20 km from the nuke plant that supplies it - you can even hear them test the siren every month. Never had a problem as far as I know - people are more concerned about the petrolum factory next door that's pumping out all those lovely gasses.
On the other hand, the 50m high flame on top of the distillation column is quite pretty at night...
Jw
Not so sure about that...
The article was pretty clear about the fact that you cannot generate a message for a given hash. It is impossibly unlikely that someone can find a collision for one of the hashes out there.
However, there is now a documented, working process for finding two documents who'se hash is identical, which is the basis for the certificate attack described in the article.
Indeed, there is no guarantee that you will find two valid certificates, but in the last month it has become a whole lot more possible...
Jw
...behind such countries as Belgium.
What's he got against Belgium?!?
A Confused Belgian
It's not about generating a malignant one from a hash, it's about searching for two non-gibberish certificates that have the same hash. This is now possible.
You find the two certificates first, and THEN get the hasn signed. This is what the attack is all about - you can't choose the collision hash but you can find a collision between a valid benign and valid malicious string of bytes, and if you get the benign one signed...
Jw
aah, my bad
Jw
Does that mean we can get it from Activision? From P2P?
Jw
... any chance of finding the original game anywhere? If the company's bankrupt, not much chance of purchasing it....
What's the copyright status? Abandonware?
Jw
You're absolutely correct that they've only found a collision attack, but this is not 'perfectly acceptable.' The best example he gave is of someone who finds a collision between two SSL certificates, one pretty standard and one granting an absurd number of privleges. If he can then submit the first certificate and get it signed...
Jw
Why it's a big deal is explained in the article:
Let's say someone uses this attack to generate two ssl certificates with the same hash, one benign, one malignant (ie * for host, 2200 AD for expiry). This person then sends the benign one in to Verisign and gets it signed as a trusted certificate. He then applies the malignant certificate, with a valid Verisign signature, to his little scam website - people log on, check the certificate, see that it's signed, trust the website...
Jw
What does this atomic structure mean for the stability of the system in the case where there is not enough space to write the new tree? Say you write a file 4 directories deep, but your disk is so full (or so small) that you only have space for 3 more directory records? Would you simply get an out of space error?
How about editing a file? If you change text in the middle, is just the middle copied and written back? Everything after the middle? Everything? Again the issue of space...
I'm asking here because the site is slow as molasses, and I don't know if it even answers these questions...
Jw
What a crock of sh*t!
Human nature, or, more accurately, mammalian nature, is a pack, consisting of one alpha male, ie the dictator, and a few men and women who listen to his every command. They all do what he tells them to, until one of them becomes strong enough to kick his @ss and become the new alpha male.
Capitalism is actually a very bad system - it breaks up the social group, encourages materialism and individualism, and turns everyone against eachother. It leads to stress, exhaustion, broken families, bankrupcy... why do you think they call it the rat race? In terms of survival of the species, capitalism is rather sh*tty, leading in the extreme case to an oligarchy based on money (everything's for sale).
The only reason we use it is because it is the lesser of two evils - the selfishness in human nature makes communism turn out even worse, as the power structure in a communistic society eventually becomes corrupt, bloated, and drains the life out of the 'peasant.' If we weren't selfish, communism would be ideal - too bad we are.
Capitalism perfect? Bah!
Jw
It does if the bombs start rusting through and the fuses become damaged...
Not sure how they're actually set off, but say you have just one bomb in there with a failsafe switch - you know, the kind that, in the case that the mechanism is disabled/destroyed, automatically detonates... (I'm making this up, but who knows)
Jw
but you don't own the games you buy. You own a license to use those games.
So if I only own a license to play the game, does that mean that they are required to replace the CD if it becomes scratched or worn? How about making a copy of a friend's to replace my own? No? Why not? I didn't pay for the CD, I payed for the license, so it doesn't matter if it's the original or a copy or even a cracked version from the net...
No?
Maybe you better rethink your stance.
Jw
Agreed - Exposure helps a great deal.
I learned that I had a serious dust allergy a few years ago, probaby caused by the fact that my mom pretty much disinfected the house when I was a child. Well, I'm now living in a dusty dorm room (partially on purpose, partially 'cause I'm lazy) and it's become pretty rare that I feel any effect at all.
With a bit of motivation and slow exposure, your body should be able to adjust itself.
Jw