Safari's privacy mode is for local privacy
on
Browser Privacy Test
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Safari's "Private browsing" mode is not intended to keep info on your computer (e.g. previous cookies etc) from being sent to web servers.
It is intended for the reverse - to keep the details of your browsing session private from others who might access your account using that computer. I.e. it merely prevents records being kept about your browsing session.
There was a crucial move one of the early games where Kasparov essentially set a trap -- a situation where computers always opt for one move, but a more subtle human player opts for a different strategy. Given the computers play so far, which had conformed exactly to how computers play, Kasparov was fairly confident. But then deep blue went the other way, against anything any other computer would have done, and completely against all expectation. That really threw Kasparov; he thought IBM was cheating since the move deep blue made was so uncharacteristic for a computer
This positional move was unexpected by Kasparov and commentators - many called it a "Karpov-like" move.
But the fact that it so surprised Kasparov was more an indication of how much he underestimated the chess knowledge and positional sense that was built into the hardware. The special purpose chips designed by Hsu allowed for a huge amount of positional evaluation in hardware that was far beyond the purely software "brute-force" calculation done at that time by PC programs like Fritz. Kasparov had trained for this match with Fritz and he evidently thought that Deep Blue would merely be a faster Fritz and hence was surprised when Deep Blue's play revealed a qualitative difference due to the special-purpose chess hardware.
Today, there would be no surprise since currently available PC programs routinely evaluate Be4 as the best move in that position. This is a consequence of both much faster CPUs (more brute force available thanks to Moore's law) and much more chess knowledge being built into the programs (faster CPUs also allow faster access to positional evaluation algorithms).
In other words, in the 10 years since the match, ordinary PCs (with better chess software) have caught up to Deep Blue - at least in some respects.
OSX does do some pretty non-standard things itself. For example, try inserting a CD or other removeable media into your mac and then copying the file to your computer. Most people who have ever used a linux box, windows box, or *even* an Amiga for chrissake will drag the file off the CD and onto their hard-drive or desktop. Then they toss the CD because the data is on their machine now. If you do that in OSX and you'll find the link you just made now leads nowhere because OSX *didn't* copy the bloody file, it only linked to it.
This is completely incorrect.
OS X does a copy (not a link) when you drag a file between drives (e.g. from a CD to the hard drive) - i.e. it behaves precisely as you would expect.
I find it hard to guess what you might have done to get some other (mistaken) impression.
Hate propaganda is illegal in Canada
on
Do Not Flush Your iPod
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· Score: 2, Informative
Unlike in the US, in Canada it actually is illegal to incite hatred against any identifiable group.
See, for example: http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/41491.html
So the only surprising thing is that the customs official didn't know this.
I still want OS X, but I do not want Apple hardware
And how much are you willing to play for OS X?
Don't expect Apple to be selling OS X for generic hardware at the price they currently charge - which is heavily subsidized by Apple's hardware sales. Is OS X worth $500 to you? or $750 ? (Note that you should expect OS X to be significantly more expensive than any version of Windows since Apple sells fewer copies.) If so, be sure to let Apple know - so they can calculate how much money they could make on software to compensate for the possible loss of hardware revenue.
makes the OS entirely unsuitable in a server environment
Note that a "server" doesn't necessarily have to allow local accounts for other than the administrators. Most instances of OS X Server are not used in this way. You can have users whose accounts are authenticated on the server, and whose home folders are physically on the server's disks without allowing those users to be able to directly execute any programs at all on the server. The server serves access to its disk (and other resources) but not (directly) its CPU.
Nevertheless, I agree that privilege escalation exploits are very serious. And I suspect that this one will soon get fixed by Apple.
Apparently the Sophos anti-virus software had a problem in its signature files that resulted in false-positives relating to Inqanta. Sophos has since (a few hours ago) issued an update that fixes this problem.
I have been watching somebody deliberately planting false information about real people and fake references into Wikipedia. I know its false. That person knows its false. But nobody notices because nobody is responsible.
You noticed it. But you didn't care enough to fix it.
If you had cared about it enough, you would have fixed it (removed the false info) and if it got put back again, then you would remove it again, it would get put back again, you would remove it again,...
And very soon, others would start to notice this "revert war". And others would start to care. And others would start to research the issue. And the truth would out.
But since you didn't care, it will take longer for someone to notice the problems with this article.
What I find hard to understand is how you can complain about such things and not even mention which article you are talking about. Sure, the process of reverting someone else's incorrect or malicious edits takes a fair bit of work and sometimes a lot of persistence. But it doesn't take much effort at all to mention what article you are talking about. If you did do so in a public forum like this, the problem would likely be investigated and fixed.
In other words, it's not true that nobody is responsible for reporting and fixing errors/misinformation in Wikipedia. The responsibility lies with you.
Yet, the article on Dresden in Wikipedia cites "The Bombing of Dresden" by David Irving as a key reference in regard to the historical event near the end of WW2
Some mistake?
How would you know to check the misleading and false citation on that historical event, especially if you didn't recognise that the source of that information came from a virulent racist, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier who blatently and repeatedly falsified history in his books to the benefit of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis?
The Irving book is just listed as additional reading in the Dresden article. It is not mentioned in the text of the article itself.
Anyone who was really interested in the firebombing issue would read the separate Wikipedia article ("Bombing of Dresden in World War II") that is referred to in the Dresden article. And in that other article you would find quite adequate discussion of the Irving book and its discredited numbers.
I think Wikipedia comes out quite well in this article. I knew a little bit about the Dresden bombing before but had not heard of the Irving book. Your example seems to me to show that Wikipedia is working quite well. (And yes - I checked that this article wasn't just fixed up after you mentioned it in SlashDot.)
The article says "CN (Canadian National) spends $11 billion a year on fuel and we can save them minimum a guarantee of 10 per cent, $1.1 billion a year."
That seemed like a rather large dollar amount. So I looked up CN's annual report (2004).
It says that CN's total operating expenses amounted to $4,380 million in 2004.
Hmm, that's 4 billion. I guess I don't understand accounting somehow.
No, just a bit further down, they say that the fuel costs were $528 million (8% of operating costs, which is typical for transportation companies).
So I don't know where he is getting that $11 billion number from.
$199 for 4GB? Don't you find that a bit expensive especially when it's really meant to be an end-unit for their super successful iTMS
1) I just looked on froogle for: flash memory 4GB
and didn't see anything offered less than $200 - and that's just one component of the iPod Nano.
2) Apple makes more money by selling the iPods than it does with the iTMS.
3) Most songs on people's iPods don't come from the iTMS - so why should Apple provide bargain-priced iPods when they won't necessarily make any profit from them?
One possible conversion tool is macstl (which comes with some scripts that claim to help in converting Altivec to SSE) - I haven't used it myself, only read the blurb.
I simply linked to free libraries that are part of the core Linux OS
I'm quite curious to know exactly which libraries you linked to that caused the problem. Most "core" libraries supplied with Linux are under LGPL.
If you linked to a library that was under GPL, then of course you need to adhere to the GPL. But it is your choice to use or not to use such libraries. Calling it the "bane of my life" seems like a gross exaggeration. It isn't difficult at all to determine the licensing requirements of a library (or any other software). If it says GPL then you know what you need to do - or not do.
Think about all the software updates & installs that you've done on OS X that end with "A Restart is Required".
Many of these restarts are in fact not required. Apple merely programmed the installer to require the restart since:
A) it was easier
B) it eliminates any problems with dependencies like apps that are currently running and using the sub-system that was upgraded. (see A)
I.e. Software Update often requires a restart because doing so enables Apple to release the update several days earlier than would be possible if they had to do all the necessary coding & testing to ensure that the update would work without a restart.
I think it's lame that the 2 hit new features are shameless ripoffs of existing shareware apps. Dashboard is to Konfabulator as Spotlight is to Launchbar. They may have some improvement over the original, but who could say with a straight face that they didn't get the idea from these shareware developers?
Apple didn't ripoff those shareware developers.
The Dashboard vs Konfabulator issue has been discussed at length in two articles at Daring Fireball: 1 2
One important point: ideas by themselves aren't worth all that much - implementations are what count.
This is the only real huge drawback I see to the Apple iPod line - non-replaceable rechargeable batteries
Try googling for: iPod battery
and you will find many 3rd-party iPod replacement battery suppliers in the ads on the right hand side.
And Apple does supply one as well:
www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html
No doubt there will soon be suppliers of replacement batteries for the iPod Shuttle as well.
Various polls (some of which have been mentioned in previous Slashdot articles) show that the right choice in this election seems obvious to the rest of the world. As a Canadian, I share this predominate view and not just because I'm affected more than the rest of the world by the "elephant" with which we sleep.
I respond here in the hope that one or two readers who might be considering voting for Bush might be persuaded to vote instead for the world's obvious choice (anyone else!) - the election seems so close that just a few votes might change the result.
And I think it is justifiable to call this the "most important" election, not merely because of the looming appointment of a few supreme court judges, but because (like the rest of the world) I think it is obvious that the American voters made a huge mistake in letting Bush run the country (and hence greatly affect the rest of the world) the last four years. I would have thought that the huge loss of liberties inherent in the Patriot Act would make this mistake clear for most Slashdot readers - even those who support the war in Iraq. This election is important because America must rectify that mistake before it goes further down the slippery slope.
The entry also says that only 20% of puerto ricans decend from blacks which is a lie. Immigration from europe and slaves brough from africa accounted for almost 100% of the population and it was about 50-50 white and black. The article instead says that 60% of the population can claim amerindian descent. THat is bullshit. the indians in puerto rico were killed in practically less than a generation. that is why they started bringing black slave in the first place.
If you read that Wikipedia article more carefully, you would see that the assertions about ethnic background are based on mitochondrial DNA evidence from a recent study. The conclusions from that study were a surprise to many people - see for example this news report.
If you have counter-evidence then you should add it to the Wikipedia article, otherwise live and learn. I think the Wikipedia article on Puerto Rico is an example of Wikipedia's strengths - it appears to be thorough and up to date.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess the fly in urinal is a classic example of nudging technology.
Reminds me of the time that Feynman fortuitously identified a design problem in the plans for a uranium refinement plant
Safari's "Private browsing" mode is not intended to keep info on your computer (e.g. previous cookies etc) from being sent to web servers. It is intended for the reverse - to keep the details of your browsing session private from others who might access your account using that computer. I.e. it merely prevents records being kept about your browsing session.
Deep Blue moved 37. Be4
This positional move was unexpected by Kasparov and commentators - many called it a "Karpov-like" move. But the fact that it so surprised Kasparov was more an indication of how much he underestimated the chess knowledge and positional sense that was built into the hardware. The special purpose chips designed by Hsu allowed for a huge amount of positional evaluation in hardware that was far beyond the purely software "brute-force" calculation done at that time by PC programs like Fritz. Kasparov had trained for this match with Fritz and he evidently thought that Deep Blue would merely be a faster Fritz and hence was surprised when Deep Blue's play revealed a qualitative difference due to the special-purpose chess hardware.
Today, there would be no surprise since currently available PC programs routinely evaluate Be4 as the best move in that position. This is a consequence of both much faster CPUs (more brute force available thanks to Moore's law) and much more chess knowledge being built into the programs (faster CPUs also allow faster access to positional evaluation algorithms).
In other words, in the 10 years since the match, ordinary PCs (with better chess software) have caught up to Deep Blue - at least in some respects.
I find it hard to guess what you might have done to get some other (mistaken) impression.
Unlike in the US, in Canada it actually is illegal to incite hatred against any identifiable group.
See, for example: http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/41491.html
So the only surprising thing is that the customs official didn't know this.
Nevertheless, I agree that privilege escalation exploits are very serious. And I suspect that this one will soon get fixed by Apple.
Apparently the Sophos anti-virus software had a problem in its signature files that resulted in false-positives relating to Inqanta. Sophos has since (a few hours ago) issued an update that fixes this problem.
If you had cared about it enough, you would have fixed it (removed the false info) and if it got put back again, then you would remove it again, it would get put back again, you would remove it again,
But since you didn't care, it will take longer for someone to notice the problems with this article.
What I find hard to understand is how you can complain about such things and not even mention which article you are talking about. Sure, the process of reverting someone else's incorrect or malicious edits takes a fair bit of work and sometimes a lot of persistence. But it doesn't take much effort at all to mention what article you are talking about. If you did do so in a public forum like this, the problem would likely be investigated and fixed.
In other words, it's not true that nobody is responsible for reporting and fixing errors/misinformation in Wikipedia. The responsibility lies with you.
Anyone who was really interested in the firebombing issue would read the separate Wikipedia article ("Bombing of Dresden in World War II") that is referred to in the Dresden article. And in that other article you would find quite adequate discussion of the Irving book and its discredited numbers.
I think Wikipedia comes out quite well in this article. I knew a little bit about the Dresden bombing before but had not heard of the Irving book. Your example seems to me to show that Wikipedia is working quite well. (And yes - I checked that this article wasn't just fixed up after you mentioned it in SlashDot.)
That seemed like a rather large dollar amount. So I looked up CN's annual report (2004). It says that CN's total operating expenses amounted to $4,380 million in 2004. Hmm, that's 4 billion. I guess I don't understand accounting somehow.
No, just a bit further down, they say that the fuel costs were $528 million (8% of operating costs, which is typical for transportation companies).
So I don't know where he is getting that $11 billion number from.
And here's an analysis of the memory component costs of the iPod nano. The Semico guy's lowest estimate was $160 as a wholesale price for the the 4GB of flash memory.
and didn't see anything offered less than $200 - and that's just one component of the iPod Nano.
2) Apple makes more money by selling the iPods than it does with the iTMS.
3) Most songs on people's iPods don't come from the iTMS - so why should Apple provide bargain-priced iPods when they won't necessarily make any profit from them?
One possible conversion tool is macstl (which comes with some scripts that claim to help in converting Altivec to SSE) - I haven't used it myself, only read the blurb.
If you linked to a library that was under GPL, then of course you need to adhere to the GPL. But it is your choice to use or not to use such libraries. Calling it the "bane of my life" seems like a gross exaggeration. It isn't difficult at all to determine the licensing requirements of a library (or any other software). If it says GPL then you know what you need to do - or not do.
A) it was easier
B) it eliminates any problems with dependencies like apps that are currently running and using the sub-system that was upgraded. (see A)
I.e. Software Update often requires a restart because doing so enables Apple to release the update several days earlier than would be possible if they had to do all the necessary coding & testing to ensure that the update would work without a restart.
1
2
One important point: ideas by themselves aren't worth all that much - implementations are what count.
and you will find many 3rd-party iPod replacement battery suppliers in the ads on the right hand side.
And Apple does supply one as well: www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html
No doubt there will soon be suppliers of replacement batteries for the iPod Shuttle as well.
No - according to the C and C++ standards, main must return an int.
See the C FAQ
I respond here in the hope that one or two readers who might be considering voting for Bush might be persuaded to vote instead for the world's obvious choice (anyone else!) - the election seems so close that just a few votes might change the result.
And I think it is justifiable to call this the "most important" election, not merely because of the looming appointment of a few supreme court judges, but because (like the rest of the world) I think it is obvious that the American voters made a huge mistake in letting Bush run the country (and hence greatly affect the rest of the world) the last four years. I would have thought that the huge loss of liberties inherent in the Patriot Act would make this mistake clear for most Slashdot readers - even those who support the war in Iraq. This election is important because America must rectify that mistake before it goes further down the slippery slope.
How about one thousand? E.g. $799 (eMac) $1099 (iBook) $1299 (iMac)
If you read that Wikipedia article more carefully, you would see that the assertions about ethnic background are based on mitochondrial DNA evidence from a recent study. The conclusions from that study were a surprise to many people - see for example this news report.
If you have counter-evidence then you should add it to the Wikipedia article, otherwise live and learn. I think the Wikipedia article on Puerto Rico is an example of Wikipedia's strengths - it appears to be thorough and up to date.
No - I heard enough of the subsequent conversation to rule that out and to derive the mental model I referred to above.