I did my graduate work under John Priscu, one of the primary researchers working on Lake Vostok, and worked on a number of samples from Vostok and Bonney. Definately cool stuff, but at least at the time I was there, they hadn't found anything as big as an arthropod. They had found a nubmer of cyanobacteria, and (if memory serves) a couple of green algae. Sorry, no ancient fish or big critters!
A number of egg-laying organisms, including daphnia, copepods etc. have evolved the prudent strategy of having a percentage of their eggs not hatch at the FIRST opportune time that presents itself. Some eggs hatch early, some hatch late, and some will only hatch on the second or third season.
Remember, because the parents don't survive the winter, so the entire population depends on the eggs laid in the fall. Occasionally there may be years where a false spring or some catostropic event that kills the early-hatching young before they reach sexual maturity. By insuring that a small percentage of the young will hatch two or three years in the future, the species is able to weather such unpredictable events. Species that didn't adopt this strategy generally aren't around to study (except for a few cladacerns that live in very stable oceanic environments).
I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago. I have been avoiding ATI cards in my Linux boxes, but I was converting a nasty windows box for a friend, and he had a decent ATI card in it. I decided to try to ATI drivers, rather than dredge through the parts box for an old nVidia card. The result was one of the nicest looking and most stable X-org setups I've seen. The only oddity I noticed was that highlights in 3-D mode seemed a bit overly bright. Overall, I'm far more impressed than I expected to be.
I've read several good posts dealing with the potential heat/energy savings of centralizing AC/DC conversion. I have a somewhat related question -- Why don't server rooms use a central vaccuum or blower?
Our server rooms are filled with nice racks, which are filled with all the usual equipment, most of which is trending toward single or double-height units with lots of little high-speed fans. The noise puts me into a stupor every time I go in there. It seems like it would be MUCH more efficient to put a single commercial fan outside, and pipe either presssurized air or vaccuum to the individual units.
This would also provide the advantage of being easy to monitor. After all, how many of you have lost equipment because a couple of those stupid little fans quit working? There are probably 300 of those little things going in our large server room -- I never notice when one dies unless the equipment it's attached to throws a warning . . .
Any comments?
It is for precisely this reason that I named my 126 pound hyper-aggresive Rottwieler "nine-one-one"! When danger threatens, I call him, and without waiting for any operators or intermediaries I get a solution to the problem. It even works with the phone lines down!
The preceeding was intended to be funny. I'm not really a redneck, I don't actually own a Rottweiler. In fact, my dog's name is "Romeo", and he's anything but threatening. . .
I hate to squelch slashdot paranoia, but keep in mind that a DNA fingerprint is nothing like a full sequence. In fact, there are various ways of making a DNA fingerprint, depending on what you're trying to illustrate.
In the most general case, the PCR amp technique is used with a handful of standard probes, and run through several iterations. This creates duplicates of some whatever sections of your DNA are located between those probes. So, the lab has a beaker full of chunks of DNA, split at known sequences, but not representing specific genes. They then run this on a gel,(along with a standard set of control fragments), and print the result.
Generally, only about 50-100 bands are produced on the gel, which is nothing like a complete map of your genetic makeup. This is exactly like a one-way hash in computers. There's no way to take the handful of bands on a gel, and reconstruct the original DNA, any more than you can use and RSA hash to reconstruct the original file. Also, DNA fingerprints are succeptable to collisions, just like hashes, and (again like hashes), increasing the size of the fingerprint (or adjusting it to probe areas of high genetic variability) decreases the probability of collisions, but increases the cost and time required for analysis (as well as the amount of starting material required). As a result, most DNA libraries are pretty low-resolution.
Most "standard" DNA-fingerprint methods give a probability of one in a couple million, which is hardly diagnostic (in most large cities, there are probably two or three other individuals who would produce the same genetic fingerprint as you, using a simple test).
I'm not saying there isn't potential for misuse/abuse of DNA fingerprints, but it's not the same as if they were extracting a full DNA
sequence.
I've done Linux on laptops more than once, and I have to say that this markup is cheap at twice the price. The frustration of getting modems, wireless, graphics, power management, etc. etc. all working can be nearly overwhelming.
Yes, I know that some of you are kernel hackers, and write video drivers in your sleep. I am a good Oracle DBA, and a fairly deft hand with Linux, but I'm not a bona-fide expert. Dropping a modern distro on a desktop is a pretty straightforward job (though I still find Nvidia drivers can be a challenge on some distros). A laptop is a different beast, and while it's easy to get most features working, it can be a five-star hair-pulling nightmare to get it all working.
If you live and die by your laptop, $500 to make it work correctly seems pretty cheap. It beats flying across the country to see an important client, then explaining that you can't connect to their wireless network, or connect to their projector, or hibernate your system for a minute because "it runs Linux"!
The "garage" books caught my eye at a local bookstore -- definately very stylish looking. However, after spending a half-hour or so browsing the tome, I was left feeling like it lacked focus. As the orignal reviewer indicated, it isn't a tutorial, cookbook, or referece, it seemed to wander through topics, somtimes giving very detailed examples, and sometimes doing vague arm-waving sketches of major concepts. For my money, I think O'Reilly does a remarkable job of delivering content efficiently and accurately.
On the other hand the w3.org maintains a bang-up bunch of white-papers on all web-related technologies. Nothing say's nerd like volumes of loose-leaf white papers falling out of your attache case . . .
I have a friend who occasionally travels to Germany, and brings me back a few chocolate bars each trip. As somebody who considers chocolate one of the major food groups, I am green with envy -- you're grocery-store brand chocolate is better than what's avilable in expensive Amercian candy-botiques.
There a dark chocolate bar, "Schwarts Herr?" (It's name reminds of of "Black Man") that is truly excellent, and it's just an every-day candy bar over there. Amazing!
So, know any good German companies that need a good Oracle DBA/Unix Sysop?
You are correct, there is no legal obligation for them to honor a warranty past the expiration date. Although on something as flagrant as this (Poof, cloud of smoke, and a slagged heap of melted components) most companies will bend the rules a bit.
No, my anger stems from the fact that the help desk was not interested in helping. They came up with several improbable causes for the problem "Did you have anti-virus software installed, Mr Briggs?" (I'd love to write a virus that literally melts the computer, pretty cool huh?) They were smug and entirely too pleased with themselves when they discovered that my warranty had indeed expired. Then they had the gall to connect me to the "out-of-warrenty parts department" who told me that for about twice what a new dell would cost, they could sell me the proprietary parts to fix my smoking slag heap. Strangely enough, my next call was to new egg!
Dell complied with the letter of the law -- in much the same way that slum-lords and payday-loan places comply with the letter of the law. I have no legal complaint, but I find them unethical and morally objectionable. One advantage of a free society is that I don't need to ever do business with them again AND, as long as I don't distort the facts, I am free to try to persuade others to avoid them as well.
I usually build my own systems, but a couple of years ago my wife decided to buy a Dell. The power supply went wonky, and delivered massive overvoltage to every component in the case. Complete meltdown, no salvage.
Customer service was nearly giggling with glee when they told me that I was TWO DAYS past the warranty expiration.
They should have factored in the fact that, as a professional nerd, I have some influence over computer purchases. I will NEVER buy from them again and have cost them hundreds of additional sales, making that one of the most expensive desktops those jerks have sold.
Bravo, excellently well said. Would you like to come talk some sense into the executives at my company?
I work for a contrator for Department of Defense. After much whining, the company decided that maybe it was worth looking at some open-source software. Unfortunately, they classed it as "untrusted" software, and indicated that, even for deployment in insecure sites, it would be allowed only after a security audit of the source code had been performed to verify that there were no buffer overflows, back-doors etc. A bit later I was asked how long it would take me to do a detailed analysis of "Fedora core 3". They were trying to play it by the book, but they didn't like the estimate I gave them (forever plus overtime!).
Actually, I wish I could get a keyboard for my desktop with the "pogo-stick" pointer. One of my favorite things about the Thinkpad is the dual pointing devices. I like the stick for general editing etc - my hands stay on the keys the whole time. I can always plug a mouse (or a tablet) in when fine control is required. I'm not sure why more people don't like the stick -- it works well enough for me!
As a Yankee, I fully understand the frustration and disenchantement that accompany the realization that idealism and promise of democracy has been murdered in its cradle by greed and corporate carpetbagging. As you know, we once had a promising democracy ourselves, bought and paid for with the 'blood of patriots' and all that.
Currently, the 'blood of patriots' is worth something less than a hundred dollars on the open markent, and with your spare change you can purchase the integrity and immortal souls of every member of congress. The war is over, and we, the 'have-nots', have been roundly defeated.
However, all is not lost. In order to prevent any sort of cohesive resistance, the powers that be have elected to maintain a plentiful supply of beer at reasonable prices, and insure that you can get 200 channels of daytime television for a reasonable monthly fee. Sit back, watch another MASH re-run, and have a cold one mate. Cheers!
I've done a fair bit of web-coding, and I think the "magic" recipe is to have multiple people do the work.
Content is king - So let the advertising staff, tech writers, or even a manager (who can usually write better than we give them credit for) lay out the text. Besides, if you write it, they'll just re-write it into a hash by the end of the project anyway.
Presentation is Queen - Speaking from experience, most of us overestimate our artistic abilities. Fonts, colors, whitespace, branding etc. are both a science and an art. I have seen first-hand the difference a good graphics artist can make. For a few hours of consultation, you can get more good ideas that most of us will come up with in a year of fiddling around.
The Joker is in the Details A good nerd is the magic glue that makes it all happen. Sombody has to know the standards, be able to code, and make the decisions about which technologies to use. Some sites just require basic HTML and maybe a bit of CSS, but most modern sites require a whole lot more.
The point is that very few people can combine all of these skills at a professional level. The skills are orthagonal - being good at one implies nothing (or very little) about your abilities in the others. Ego aside, most of us would get far better results if we were humble enough to ask for help -- a brief survey of web sites should convince ANYONE that really good designes are few and far between (and no, slashdot is NOT a shining beacon of perfection).
Cool, a kindred spirit in this messed up world! I monkeyed with superconductivity a few times (at about a sophmore level) -- absolutely facinating stuff! Sorry to hear you've borne the brunt of our new "anti-primary research" science initiatives. You know, the ones that say "If you can't bolser coporate profits in a three-to-six-month time frame it's not science, and shouldn't be funded". If you'd just find a way to use your chosen technology to build bombs or spy on citizens you'd have little trouble getting grants;-)
Anyway, sorry for the rant. Have a great day!
Mike
OK, asbestos underwear firmly in place, I'll bite. I started out doing science. After getting three B.S. degrees I worked as a chemist for big business for a short while. However, I wanted to "make a difference" in the world (I guess I'm a hippie at heart). I took a job as a biologist with the John G. Shedd Aquarium. Diving, research and public education in one nice package.
While there, I became aquainted with a group of scientists trying to restore the Chicago river, which is far harder than it sounds. Intrigued, I went back to college for another three years studying biogeochemistry, the low level interactions of microbes and the evironment, that drives the rest of the ecosystem. It turns out that aquatic ecosystems all over the US are stressed, many in danger of collapse. I was SURE that there would be jobs a-plenty solving these problems. How naive of me -- the govt. response has been to put better treatment plants on the drinking water, and loosen regulations on agriculture and industrial dumping.
Finding no jobs in my chosen field, I worked for the USGS (which also does a fair bit of environmental research). However, reduced funding and a bumper crop of young biologists has driven the market value of a wildlife biologist down to Burger-King levels -- a master's degree and 10 years experience would get you just over 30k (in 1994). The politics were ugly - competition for jobs was high, and grant money comes with all sorts of strings attached. It's hard to hold the moral high ground if you have have a family to support.
So now I'm a bloody nerd. I try not to read about the environment, because there's hang-all I can do about it. I'm a sell out, a bitter old man working for the highest bidder, content with the sop I've been offered. However, the good folks in the Fish and Wildlife and other agencies are trying to do good work, they're sacrificing time and talent for barely adequate wages because they believe in something. When they dare suggest that perphaps our current excesses are ill-advised, they're labeled as hippies, extremeists, or worse to shut them up. These are NOT your lazy, stereotypical DMV employees.
Kehvarl:
An excellent point. And THAT is, of course, the curse of biometrics, and the reason that current biometrics focus on either gross morphology (hand-shape readers) or a few readily-distinguished features of a fingerprint. False negatives are a royal pain, and the subject of many sleepless nights! The current thought is that in order to increase specificity without triggering an unacceptable number of false negatives, a large number of metrics should be taken, and a positive reading returned when more than X of them match the stored signature. However, implementation of a cost-effective, compact scanner capable of meeting these "ideal" requirements, however is left as a challenge to the reader (because nobody else has figured it out yet!).
However, the point I was trying to make in my origninal post was that there are many ways in which the same object can be characterized. Even if we stick to fingerprint recognition, there are many different algorithms by which a thumbprint can be interpreted into a digital signature. WalMart may use one (presumably weak) method, and Chase Manhattan Bank will probably choose another. Therefore, compromizing one digital signature database does not grant the hacker automatic acces to other systems, unless they are using the same algorithm (i.e. bought the same make and model of scanner and software).
There is a minor flaw in your argument, vis: There are an infinite number of ways that a physical object can be characterized. Admittedly, only a few, fairly simple ones are commonly employed in biometric devices, but that's an implementation fault, not a flaw in the principles of biometrics.
To take your example of a thumbprint. What is being categorized on a scan? Typcially a handful of easily-recognized points (the apex of whorls, converging furrows), plotted in two dimensions. However, there are MANY possible ways of choosing and mapping these points. Ifse WAL-MART's 4-point cheesy scan record is compromised, this should have little impact on your bank's security, unless they chose the same lame algorithm.
In addition, scanners could theoretically look at skin tone, scars, furrow depth (very hard to fake), overall dimensions, or even do a 3-D model of the entire thumb. The point is that as technology advances, the biometric CHARACTERIZATION of the same thumb becomes increasingly difficult to forge.
LOL! I am the laughing stock of WSU, where I'm working on an M.S. in computer science. EVERYONE has a laptop, and most of them play games or chat during lecture. I bring a $0.75 spiral notebook and a pencil, just like when I was a kid.
It works surprisingly well -- I get highly-formatted text, including greek and cyrillic characters as needed. I can reproduce complex drawings, including simple gray-scale shading. In shorthand mode, I can capture output in near real time, and in high-quality output mode other students can generally read my notes. Pretty amazing things, these pencils.
I watched a fellow student using both thumbs to frantically poke tic-tac sized buttons on his PDA's integrated keyboard, and offered him a piece of paper and a spare pencil. "No way", he said, "this is a $500 PDA!". Sigh.
Shroud version 1.1.7.3 was found to have unacceptably high rates of edge-fraying, and the pigments were not light-fast. Realizing that the problem required immediate redress, the Christain coalition of 846 patched the shroud to version 1.2 a stable release which has endured to this day.
Actually, I'm starting a new company to sell them to folks who need to "energize and enhance" other parts of their anatomy. . . anyone know where I can contact a bulk emailer for assistance? (ducks and runs).
Actually, it's a perfectly correct use of the term Chimera. Genetically, Chimera's are creatures composed of genetically distinct cells (from different zygotes). They've been known, studied and even created inthe lab for some time. Frankly, my problem with this non-story is that, other than some arm-waving about possible regulatory actions, it could have been written in the 70's for all the new information it provided. Yawn.
Slashdot Mirror
I did my graduate work under John Priscu, one of the primary researchers working on Lake Vostok, and worked on a number of samples from Vostok and Bonney. Definately cool stuff, but at least at the time I was there, they hadn't found anything as big as an arthropod. They had found a nubmer of cyanobacteria, and (if memory serves) a couple of green algae. Sorry, no ancient fish or big critters!
Remember, because the parents don't survive the winter, so the entire population depends on the eggs laid in the fall. Occasionally there may be years where a false spring or some catostropic event that kills the early-hatching young before they reach sexual maturity. By insuring that a small percentage of the young will hatch two or three years in the future, the species is able to weather such unpredictable events. Species that didn't adopt this strategy generally aren't around to study (except for a few cladacerns that live in very stable oceanic environments).
I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago. I have been avoiding ATI cards in my Linux boxes, but I was converting a nasty windows box for a friend, and he had a decent ATI card in it. I decided to try to ATI drivers, rather than dredge through the parts box for an old nVidia card. The result was one of the nicest looking and most stable X-org setups I've seen. The only oddity I noticed was that highlights in 3-D mode seemed a bit overly bright. Overall, I'm far more impressed than I expected to be.
I've read several good posts dealing with the potential heat/energy savings of centralizing AC/DC conversion. I have a somewhat related question -- Why don't server rooms use a central vaccuum or blower? Our server rooms are filled with nice racks, which are filled with all the usual equipment, most of which is trending toward single or double-height units with lots of little high-speed fans. The noise puts me into a stupor every time I go in there. It seems like it would be MUCH more efficient to put a single commercial fan outside, and pipe either presssurized air or vaccuum to the individual units. This would also provide the advantage of being easy to monitor. After all, how many of you have lost equipment because a couple of those stupid little fans quit working? There are probably 300 of those little things going in our large server room -- I never notice when one dies unless the equipment it's attached to throws a warning . . . Any comments?
The preceeding was intended to be funny. I'm not really a redneck, I don't actually own a Rottweiler. In fact, my dog's name is "Romeo", and he's anything but threatening. . .
In the most general case, the PCR amp technique is used with a handful of standard probes, and run through several iterations. This creates duplicates of some whatever sections of your DNA are located between those probes. So, the lab has a beaker full of chunks of DNA, split at known sequences, but not representing specific genes. They then run this on a gel,(along with a standard set of control fragments), and print the result.
Generally, only about 50-100 bands are produced on the gel, which is nothing like a complete map of your genetic makeup. This is exactly like a one-way hash in computers. There's no way to take the handful of bands on a gel, and reconstruct the original DNA, any more than you can use and RSA hash to reconstruct the original file. Also, DNA fingerprints are succeptable to collisions, just like hashes, and (again like hashes), increasing the size of the fingerprint (or adjusting it to probe areas of high genetic variability) decreases the probability of collisions, but increases the cost and time required for analysis (as well as the amount of starting material required). As a result, most DNA libraries are pretty low-resolution.
Most "standard" DNA-fingerprint methods give a probability of one in a couple million, which is hardly diagnostic (in most large cities, there are probably two or three other individuals who would produce the same genetic fingerprint as you, using a simple test).
I'm not saying there isn't potential for misuse/abuse of DNA fingerprints, but it's not the same as if they were extracting a full DNA sequence.
I've done Linux on laptops more than once, and I have to say that this markup is cheap at twice the price. The frustration of getting modems, wireless, graphics, power management, etc. etc. all working can be nearly overwhelming.
Yes, I know that some of you are kernel hackers, and write video drivers in your sleep. I am a good Oracle DBA, and a fairly deft hand with Linux, but I'm not a bona-fide expert. Dropping a modern distro on a desktop is a pretty straightforward job (though I still find Nvidia drivers can be a challenge on some distros). A laptop is a different beast, and while it's easy to get most features working, it can be a five-star hair-pulling nightmare to get it all working.
If you live and die by your laptop, $500 to make it work correctly seems pretty cheap. It beats flying across the country to see an important client, then explaining that you can't connect to their wireless network, or connect to their projector, or hibernate your system for a minute because "it runs Linux"!
On the other hand the w3.org maintains a bang-up bunch of white-papers on all web-related technologies. Nothing say's nerd like volumes of loose-leaf white papers falling out of your attache case . . .
There a dark chocolate bar, "Schwarts Herr?" (It's name reminds of of "Black Man") that is truly excellent, and it's just an every-day candy bar over there. Amazing! So, know any good German companies that need a good Oracle DBA/Unix Sysop?
No, my anger stems from the fact that the help desk was not interested in helping. They came up with several improbable causes for the problem "Did you have anti-virus software installed, Mr Briggs?" (I'd love to write a virus that literally melts the computer, pretty cool huh?) They were smug and entirely too pleased with themselves when they discovered that my warranty had indeed expired. Then they had the gall to connect me to the "out-of-warrenty parts department" who told me that for about twice what a new dell would cost, they could sell me the proprietary parts to fix my smoking slag heap. Strangely enough, my next call was to new egg!
Dell complied with the letter of the law -- in much the same way that slum-lords and payday-loan places comply with the letter of the law. I have no legal complaint, but I find them unethical and morally objectionable. One advantage of a free society is that I don't need to ever do business with them again AND, as long as I don't distort the facts, I am free to try to persuade others to avoid them as well.
I usually build my own systems, but a couple of years ago my wife decided to buy a Dell. The power supply went wonky, and delivered massive overvoltage to every component in the case. Complete meltdown, no salvage.
Customer service was nearly giggling with glee when they told me that I was TWO DAYS past the warranty expiration.
They should have factored in the fact that, as a professional nerd, I have some influence over computer purchases. I will NEVER buy from them again and have cost them hundreds of additional sales, making that one of the most expensive desktops those jerks have sold.
I work for a contrator for Department of Defense. After much whining, the company decided that maybe it was worth looking at some open-source software. Unfortunately, they classed it as "untrusted" software, and indicated that, even for deployment in insecure sites, it would be allowed only after a security audit of the source code had been performed to verify that there were no buffer overflows, back-doors etc. A bit later I was asked how long it would take me to do a detailed analysis of "Fedora core 3". They were trying to play it by the book, but they didn't like the estimate I gave them (forever plus overtime!).
Actually, I wish I could get a keyboard for my desktop with the "pogo-stick" pointer. One of my favorite things about the Thinkpad is the dual pointing devices. I like the stick for general editing etc - my hands stay on the keys the whole time. I can always plug a mouse (or a tablet) in when fine control is required. I'm not sure why more people don't like the stick -- it works well enough for me!
Currently, the 'blood of patriots' is worth something less than a hundred dollars on the open markent, and with your spare change you can purchase the integrity and immortal souls of every member of congress. The war is over, and we, the 'have-nots', have been roundly defeated.
However, all is not lost. In order to prevent any sort of cohesive resistance, the powers that be have elected to maintain a plentiful supply of beer at reasonable prices, and insure that you can get 200 channels of daytime television for a reasonable monthly fee. Sit back, watch another MASH re-run, and have a cold one mate. Cheers!
Hmmm. As geeks we know what to do when a system becomes unresponsive . . . REBOOT!
Content is king - So let the advertising staff, tech writers, or even a manager (who can usually write better than we give them credit for) lay out the text. Besides, if you write it, they'll just re-write it into a hash by the end of the project anyway.
Presentation is Queen - Speaking from experience, most of us overestimate our artistic abilities. Fonts, colors, whitespace, branding etc. are both a science and an art. I have seen first-hand the difference a good graphics artist can make. For a few hours of consultation, you can get more good ideas that most of us will come up with in a year of fiddling around.
The Joker is in the Details A good nerd is the magic glue that makes it all happen. Sombody has to know the standards, be able to code, and make the decisions about which technologies to use. Some sites just require basic HTML and maybe a bit of CSS, but most modern sites require a whole lot more.
The point is that very few people can combine all of these skills at a professional level. The skills are orthagonal - being good at one implies nothing (or very little) about your abilities in the others. Ego aside, most of us would get far better results if we were humble enough to ask for help -- a brief survey of web sites should convince ANYONE that really good designes are few and far between (and no, slashdot is NOT a shining beacon of perfection).
Cool, a kindred spirit in this messed up world! I monkeyed with superconductivity a few times (at about a sophmore level) -- absolutely facinating stuff! Sorry to hear you've borne the brunt of our new "anti-primary research" science initiatives. You know, the ones that say "If you can't bolser coporate profits in a three-to-six-month time frame it's not science, and shouldn't be funded". If you'd just find a way to use your chosen technology to build bombs or spy on citizens you'd have little trouble getting grants ;-)
Anyway, sorry for the rant. Have a great day!
Mike
While there, I became aquainted with a group of scientists trying to restore the Chicago river, which is far harder than it sounds. Intrigued, I went back to college for another three years studying biogeochemistry, the low level interactions of microbes and the evironment, that drives the rest of the ecosystem. It turns out that aquatic ecosystems all over the US are stressed, many in danger of collapse. I was SURE that there would be jobs a-plenty solving these problems. How naive of me -- the govt. response has been to put better treatment plants on the drinking water, and loosen regulations on agriculture and industrial dumping.
Finding no jobs in my chosen field, I worked for the USGS (which also does a fair bit of environmental research). However, reduced funding and a bumper crop of young biologists has driven the market value of a wildlife biologist down to Burger-King levels -- a master's degree and 10 years experience would get you just over 30k (in 1994). The politics were ugly - competition for jobs was high, and grant money comes with all sorts of strings attached. It's hard to hold the moral high ground if you have have a family to support.
So now I'm a bloody nerd. I try not to read about the environment, because there's hang-all I can do about it. I'm a sell out, a bitter old man working for the highest bidder, content with the sop I've been offered. However, the good folks in the Fish and Wildlife and other agencies are trying to do good work, they're sacrificing time and talent for barely adequate wages because they believe in something. When they dare suggest that perphaps our current excesses are ill-advised, they're labeled as hippies, extremeists, or worse to shut them up. These are NOT your lazy, stereotypical DMV employees.
I read the headline as
...ensure their respective DRM and anti-rip technologies are inoperable,. . .
The day suddenly seemed brighter, and hope arose in my heart. Then I read it again - (*SIGH*).
However, the point I was trying to make in my origninal post was that there are many ways in which the same object can be characterized. Even if we stick to fingerprint recognition, there are many different algorithms by which a thumbprint can be interpreted into a digital signature. WalMart may use one (presumably weak) method, and Chase Manhattan Bank will probably choose another. Therefore, compromizing one digital signature database does not grant the hacker automatic acces to other systems, unless they are using the same algorithm (i.e. bought the same make and model of scanner and software).
To take your example of a thumbprint. What is being categorized on a scan? Typcially a handful of easily-recognized points (the apex of whorls, converging furrows), plotted in two dimensions. However, there are MANY possible ways of choosing and mapping these points. Ifse WAL-MART's 4-point cheesy scan record is compromised, this should have little impact on your bank's security, unless they chose the same lame algorithm. In addition, scanners could theoretically look at skin tone, scars, furrow depth (very hard to fake), overall dimensions, or even do a 3-D model of the entire thumb. The point is that as technology advances, the biometric CHARACTERIZATION of the same thumb becomes increasingly difficult to forge.
It works surprisingly well -- I get highly-formatted text, including greek and cyrillic characters as needed. I can reproduce complex drawings, including simple gray-scale shading. In shorthand mode, I can capture output in near real time, and in high-quality output mode other students can generally read my notes. Pretty amazing things, these pencils.
I watched a fellow student using both thumbs to frantically poke tic-tac sized buttons on his PDA's integrated keyboard, and offered him a piece of paper and a spare pencil. "No way", he said, "this is a $500 PDA!". Sigh.
Shroud version 1.1.7.3 was found to have unacceptably high rates of edge-fraying, and the pigments were not light-fast. Realizing that the problem required immediate redress, the Christain coalition of 846 patched the shroud to version 1.2 a stable release which has endured to this day.
Actually, I'm starting a new company to sell them to folks who need to "energize and enhance" other parts of their anatomy. . . anyone know where I can contact a bulk emailer for assistance? (ducks and runs).
Actually, it's a perfectly correct use of the term Chimera. Genetically, Chimera's are creatures composed of genetically distinct cells (from different zygotes). They've been known, studied and even created inthe lab for some time. Frankly, my problem with this non-story is that, other than some arm-waving about possible regulatory actions, it could have been written in the 70's for all the new information it provided. Yawn.