as from the passenger's point of view, they'll always spend zero time travelling at lightspeed
Sort of - from the passengers point of view they will spend a finite amount of time moving at less than the speed of light compared to everybody outside, covering a huge distance in less time than it would have taken light to travel across.
My understanding is that with suitable power a traveller can get from here to Alpha Centauri in a day, as measured by them, at an extrodinary speed. They could then return to earth in a day as measured by them. They have as measured by them gone at a tremendous velocity, if they reckon based on our measurements of the distances involved. The funny thing is that when they look out their window to see how fast they're going midway, they find they are still going slower than the speed of light compared to everything outside, but for some reason Alpha Centauri looks 1200 times closer than they expected it to be, and everything outside seems to have been flattened along the axis of their travel.
An outside observer would see them travel off at some small fraction of c and arrive back 8 years later.
If you were on an elevator travelling at the speed of light, you wouldn't observe anything different at all inside your frame of reference - it is only when you look at outside that things get really wierd.
If it were any different than there would be an absolute frame of reference that is truly motionless. If you could tell your velocity without looking out the window by strange effects inside the elevator then you'd be able to figure out how fast you're going against some outside frame of reference that you can't even see. If that were true we could closely observe our own world and figure out how fast the earth is moving compared to some absolute frame of reference. There are no absolute frames of reference though, so there is no way to say that an elevator is moving at any speed at all if you consider it in isolation...
All speed is relative. The elevator can only be falling at the speed of light relative to some outside reference frame. In that frame, time inside the elevator would be perceived as stopped. Anybody inside the elevator wouldn't even know they're moving if it were sealed up - well, except for the cosmic background radiation which is blue-shifted into gamma rays which is cooking the occupants.
Right now, the Earth is actually moving at the speed of light compared to some object at the other side of the expanding univerise - the further apart two objects in the universe are, the faster they receede. At some point the speed equals the speed of light (as measured by an observer halfway in-between). There are objects further away than that, but you'll never observe them. The actual speed of far-off objects measured by us will be lower I believe.
Disclaimer - I'm not an expert in Lorenz transformations, and a bit of an amatuer when it comes to physics in general. However, this is my general understanding of how various frams of reference work out in Relativity.
In a nutshell, motion is still relative, but in all reference frame the speed of light appears the same. As a result, time and distance are not constant in all reference frames...
Agreed - the simplest and most efficent solution is full automation with some percentage of completely random auditing.
In each state pick 10 precients at random, and count every last vote in them - they better agree to the automated total.
The proposal to always count them manually amounts to 100% auditing. Sure, it works, but it really isn't necessary. In fact, it is likely to have a higher error rate since there is no value being checked against (unless you have two independant groups count all the votes separately and submit separate counts which are then cross-checked).
Have each machine programmed, assembled, and sealed by an individual who signs some dotted line. If the count turns out wrong, the machine gets a major investigation. If there is fraud, the individual gets sent to prison with an opportunity to somewhat reduce his sentence by singing like a canary.
The EU uses systems like this for drug imports. If you want to certify a lot of manufactured drugs as safe for use in Europe, you have to have an EU citizen sign on the final line. The logic is that there is at least somebody personally accountable for the action who lives in the EU jurisdiction. In the same way, if a megacorp builds a bridge there is still an individual engineer signing each drawing.
The key to law enforcement is individual accountability. No need to waste huge amounts of money counting every vote by hand. You just need to make sure the system fosters accountability. If you check 5% of the precients across the country the chance of any widespread fraud going uncaught is very low. Once widespread fraud is detected you would of course count every last piece of paper three times, and send the bill to the perpetrators...
The problem with this is that your boss can ask to see your receipt to make sure you voted for the right guy. Failure to produce a valid receipt leads to your eventual firing for whatever excuse is necessary...
One is that many musicians know how to sing or strum a guitar, but asking them to operate a computer or even a mixing console might be going a bit far. I know it isn't rocket science, but it still is technical.
Two is that many a person who can operate a mixing console hasn't half an ear for mixing. It really is a different skill from singing or playing an instrument in a modern band. Sure, it is really just general musicianship to be able to blend your part in with everyone else, but since the advent of mixing consoles in modern bands it seems to be a dying art...
Three is that even if you do end up with a really nice CD you still need to be able to bribe somebody to play it over the air...
If you look at the methodology - all the results were obtained using the software set to the fastest mode - not the best compression mode.
So, I would consider gzip the best performer by this criteria. After all, if I cared most about space savings I'd have picked the best-mode - not the fast-mode. All this articles suggests is that a few archivers are REALLY lousy for doing FAST compression.
If my requirements were realtime compression (maybe for streaming multimedia) then I wouldn't be bothered with some mega-compression algorithm that takes 2 minutes per MB to pack the data.
Might I suggest a better test? If interested in best compression, then run each program in a mode which optimizes purely for compression ratio. On the other hand, if interested in realtime compression then take each algorithm and tweak the parameters so that they all run in the same time (which is a realtively fast time), and then compare compression ratios.
With the huge compression of multimedia files I'd also want the reviewers to state explicity that the compression was verified to be lossless. I've never heard of some of these proprietary apps, but if they're getting significant ratios out of.wav and.mp3 files I'd want to do a binary compare of the restored files to ensure they weren't just run through a lossy codec...
Actually, unless they implement some sort of karma system where you need more karma to edit higher-page-view articles, that wouldn't work.
The idea of using account age selectively is that it will tend to get vandals to mess with low-profile pages and be banned before they are able to mess with high-profile pages. If they couldn't edit any pages then you have no opportunity to filter out accounts before they are able to edit high-profile pages.
Of course, trolls can just sign up for an account every day, and keep a list, and have a constant pipeline of accounts they can use a few days later.
I wonder if a karma system would be appropriate - where everybody can moderate anybody's edits. You wouldn't need karma at all for most articles, but it would become necessary when editing high-view articles...
Yeah, and in theory if you just keep a rubber plant in your backyard you never need to buy tires...:)
People wouldn't buy drugs if they didn't work better than eating leaves. Many drugs are based on natural products, and many are not. So, what's the point?
Uh, if the marketers thought that women were satisfied with Saltines, they'd never have approved R&D into a drug to compete with them.
If orange juice cured migraines, you wouldn't see aspirin on the market.
The fact that somebody was bothering to research a drug in the first place suggests that at least some people were likely to buy it, and that means that the perfect cure does not yet exist...
Most nations require a fair number of details about drugs before they allow them to be tested in humans within their borders. Pharma companies were averse to providing these details to the Indian government prior to the adoption of strong patent laws, as they were concerned about espionage. In fact, they could face generic producers of the drug before they even get marketing approval in the 1st world...
I wish I could say the same. Try googling "Canon E18". The lens problem that made me toss my camera after only 1.5 years was bad enough - but the manufacturer not standing behind their work was intolerable. A LOT of people had problems with several models of their cameras...
Name a non-microbial disease that has ever been cured - other than vitamin deficiencies.
The reason drug makers aren't curing diseases is because it is hard to do. It isn't like nobody is working on an HIV vaccine (including academic/government labs), or other non-chromic treatments.
The fact is that few diseases have ever been cured - other than those caused by infectious organisms. Companies are still coming out with antibiotics - albeit slowly. The main reason that infectious diseases aren't a high priority anymore is that they aren't a major cause of deaths these days - owing to the success of the drugs already out there. When antibiotic-resistant organisms start coming along, drugmakers will start inventing more antibiotics (and we're talking about 100's of thousands of deaths - not the current level). Which is the more attractive target - MDR-tuberculosis which kills thousands in 3rd-world nations, or diabetes which kills millions in the USA?
Sure, the economics are better for treatments than cures, but there is still money to be made on the latter, and if one company has the treatment market locked up, other companies have incentives to come up with the cures. The idea that diseases used to be cured more often in the past is just a result of the fact that drugs were at the level of leeches and snake oil only 75 years ago...
The other problem is that while some concept might have been discovered in a small lab, it is rare that a modern drug was discovered in a small lab. (Most modern drugs are much more refined than older drugs ever were.) And, even to the extent that target validation and lead optimization can be done in a small lab, you could NEVER do a clinical trial in a small lab. You need thousands of volunteers (often compensated in some way), thousands of pills, etc. You also need to bribe LOTS of doctors to find those volunteers for you (this is probably the biggest expense in clinical trials).
The FOSS model works great for software (hey, wanna alpha-test my latest cd-riping program?), but not so well for drugs (hey, wanna be the first animal of any kind to drink this green liquid?).
If you don't want patents, then the alternative is government R&D labs, possible using outsourced development services. However, the development services would charge a pretty penny for their work, as all costs and profits must be received up-front in the absence of a patent. Somebody has to bear the risk. Perhaps such a model would work.
The other think is that this isn't an either-or situation. If you want to try it out have the NIH develop a drug start to finish, file a patent, and openly license it to anyone to manufacture. If this process works well then perhaps the drug industry isn't necessary, and drug patents can be safely abolished. No need to take drastic steps before validating the model, as government-sponsored drugs can still be made even though there is a commmercial drug industry. In fact, no need to ever abolish drug patents - in theory government can just compete and drive down prices - if government gets their act together then private companies would probably just turn to outsourcing government work anyway, and give up their patent dreams...
Somebody mod parent up. Why does the hubble have to be an either-or solution (vs James Webb/etc)? Just make a new one and launch it - most of the costs of a space probe are for design, and we already have that done - just put the right mirror in, put the consumables in an easily serviced module, etc.
It has to be cheaper just to build another one than to build a robotic telescope repair system, and launch that!
Advocate of truth is relative, because truth in itself is relative to what you believe the truth to be because truth is mearly interpetation of facts. Facts themselves don't change however.
Uh, you're arguing semantics (and using a definition of truth and facts that most probably wouldn't accept). So, just s/truth/fact/ if it makes you happier.
I find it interesting that an IT-oriented newgroup has such odd notions on the concept of truth. Half of computer software is Boolean logic!
If a statement reflects reality, it is true. If not it is false. Now, some statements might be hard to evaluate for truthfulness, but any particular statement is either true or false, unless it is a paradox like "this statement is false". Logic itself can only determine if statements follow from each other - not correspondance with reality.
In any case, I think most would agree that a reporter who exposes a coverup is in fact an advocate of truth, at least in the particular instance...
I'm sure the poster knows what a UUID is in general - however I think his question was whether this was a single code already burned into the CPU/etc, or just a dynamically generated one which could change from time to time. The websites you link have no info relevant to determining this.
For example, I just generated 3 UUIDs that are all appropriate for my machine using uuidgen - as suggested in the site you linked. Obviously these would not be suitable as unique, unmodifiable IDs for my PC. However, I could safely use them in databases, or to identify objects that I create.
Couldn't agree more. I'd put both a modem with speaker/mic on it, RF interface, and USB connection. Transaction sent over phone/air/cable to box, box displays amount, vendor, and date, user enters PIN on device keypad for confirmation. Credentials never leave box - just the signed hash and certificate. PIN never goes anywhere but the box. All authorizations have a serial number, so no replay attacks. Box would use small LCD display. Such a system should be hackproof in concept - as long as the IO code is heavily audited - the communications protocol would be very simple and would use fixed-length fields - so no crazy parsing errors possible (ie no need for the box to run an OS and XML parser/webserver/java/javascript/etc). Code updates to the box would be via direct modem update with signed code from the vendor. The modem would work by simply holding the device up to the phone (low baud) - good for phone transactions, and small firmware updates. I guess you could also allow updates via PC, but keep them signed - it is probably best to just get it right the first time and allow tradeins if they need updates.
But the decisions with the greatest affect on the security of that authentication system are completely in the bank's hands: e.g. the decision to authenticate you by asking you to enter a password into a form on a web page.
Or better yet - the decision to authenticate purchasers by having merchants ask users for a 16-digit number which is transmitted in the clear to the merchant and later relayed to the bank. Credit card numbers are a system that should have abandoned ages ago. Imagine an email system where you send people mail by tying in an address, and read your mail by visiting a website and typing in your own address - and no password. Or, as is now becoming more common, you read mail by entering your address and a PIN, and send others mail by entering their address and their PIN.
Merchants should never be given master account authentication credentials. They should be given signed message digests, or one-time authentication codes, or something along these lines, which are tied to the transaction date and amount. Even if credit card companies just put secureID readouts on their cards it would MASSIVELY cut fraud. Imagine what would happen if they actually used certificates and digital signatures, with the card private key retained in a secured ROM protected by PIN-pad on the card itself!
The costs of a digital ID system with good PKI could be recoped in only a few months from the savings due to reduced identity theft. In fact, the government would be a natural choice of a body to administer such a system.
And if they do leave it open, everybody tends to filter out mail from dynamic IPs - even if it uses SPF or similar mechanisms to identify itself is a legitimate domain mailer. Even though I'd like to send mail via my own SMTP server I end up relaying through an ISP just to get around these blocks...
It depends on how they define that. Suppose they have to track the headers of every IP packet? That is a LOT of data. Even if they track each connection you're talking about a lot of data, and with UDP-based protocols there are no connections.
The solution to all of this is to start using SSL religiously - then all you get is IP addresses, making most of the data meaningless...
Yes, but most trade mags or booksellers don't collect money to advertise stuff which is outright fraud. Imagine if Barnes and Noble had a reputation for publishing books which were missing every 3rd page to save on printing costs! In general when doing business with somebody it isn't acceptable to merely take the cash and promote them - especially when you know that fraud is a problem.
Imagine if the New York Times published classified ads for cocaine dealers - after collecting cash and an assurance that the dealers had a special exemtion from the DEA which they didn't actually provide evidence of. Do you think that the attourney general wouldn't fine them?
Sure, maybe bookstores promote books that aren't all that good - but that is different than promoting a book that is known to be missing pages, or double-charging customers, etc. There is marketing, and there is fraud. Sometimes the line isn't clear, but these photo outfits are nowhere near the line.
So, has anybody actually filed a marketing application for it? Obviously if no application is filed, the FDA won't approve it.
Obviously the system tends to benefit patented compounds more than generic ones, due to the profit motive funding safety studies. However, generic drug manufacturers seem to be able to file applications for drugs without holding patents...
The FDA is one of the strictest regulatory bodies on the planet - it is MUCH harder to put something on shelves in America than just about anywhere - at least in terms of burden of proof. Some markets, like Japan, are notoriously hard to get into, but this is usually due to processes which are designed more to get rid of external competition than to promote safety...
I thought the whole idea behind BT was that it had built-in economics? If somebody is downloading and not uploading (say by using a hacked client, or highly limiting upload rate), then other clients will deprioritize traffic to them.
As long as you're uploading anytime that you're downloading - who cares if you're contributing files or not?
My guess is that the reason for the higher speeds on the private trackers is that the elite community becomes a selection filter for folks who like to nurse their BT clients (not closing them down as soon as they're done, having high speed lines, etc). And, they probably tend to filter out folks with asymmetric links - which would tend to degrade BT performance. However, somebody with a symmetric link should get good BT performance on any site - as long as the tracker isn't overloaded and folks aren't using modded clients.
Is there documentation that shows that it really is safer than Splenda? A quick check of the FDA website indicates that stevia does not have sufficient toxcicity data to allow for approval for use in the US. The website you linked just advocates that it is safe and the subject of a big coverup - but has no solid data.
In general anytime somebody wants to market a new food additive, the burden of proof is on them to show that it is safe. The fact that it is natrual means nothing - so are nicotine, taxol, and cobra venom - none of which would be suitable as food additives.
Why would sugar sellers be able to suppress stevia, when they apparently were unable to suppress aspartame, sucralose, sacchrin, etc?
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as from the passenger's point of view, they'll always spend zero time travelling at lightspeed
Sort of - from the passengers point of view they will spend a finite amount of time moving at less than the speed of light compared to everybody outside, covering a huge distance in less time than it would have taken light to travel across.
My understanding is that with suitable power a traveller can get from here to Alpha Centauri in a day, as measured by them, at an extrodinary speed. They could then return to earth in a day as measured by them. They have as measured by them gone at a tremendous velocity, if they reckon based on our measurements of the distances involved. The funny thing is that when they look out their window to see how fast they're going midway, they find they are still going slower than the speed of light compared to everything outside, but for some reason Alpha Centauri looks 1200 times closer than they expected it to be, and everything outside seems to have been flattened along the axis of their travel.
An outside observer would see them travel off at some small fraction of c and arrive back 8 years later.
If you were on an elevator travelling at the speed of light, you wouldn't observe anything different at all inside your frame of reference - it is only when you look at outside that things get really wierd.
If it were any different than there would be an absolute frame of reference that is truly motionless. If you could tell your velocity without looking out the window by strange effects inside the elevator then you'd be able to figure out how fast you're going against some outside frame of reference that you can't even see. If that were true we could closely observe our own world and figure out how fast the earth is moving compared to some absolute frame of reference. There are no absolute frames of reference though, so there is no way to say that an elevator is moving at any speed at all if you consider it in isolation...
All speed is relative. The elevator can only be falling at the speed of light relative to some outside reference frame. In that frame, time inside the elevator would be perceived as stopped. Anybody inside the elevator wouldn't even know they're moving if it were sealed up - well, except for the cosmic background radiation which is blue-shifted into gamma rays which is cooking the occupants.
Right now, the Earth is actually moving at the speed of light compared to some object at the other side of the expanding univerise - the further apart two objects in the universe are, the faster they receede. At some point the speed equals the speed of light (as measured by an observer halfway in-between). There are objects further away than that, but you'll never observe them. The actual speed of far-off objects measured by us will be lower I believe.
Disclaimer - I'm not an expert in Lorenz transformations, and a bit of an amatuer when it comes to physics in general. However, this is my general understanding of how various frams of reference work out in Relativity.
In a nutshell, motion is still relative, but in all reference frame the speed of light appears the same. As a result, time and distance are not constant in all reference frames...
Agreed - the simplest and most efficent solution is full automation with some percentage of completely random auditing.
In each state pick 10 precients at random, and count every last vote in them - they better agree to the automated total.
The proposal to always count them manually amounts to 100% auditing. Sure, it works, but it really isn't necessary. In fact, it is likely to have a higher error rate since there is no value being checked against (unless you have two independant groups count all the votes separately and submit separate counts which are then cross-checked).
Have each machine programmed, assembled, and sealed by an individual who signs some dotted line. If the count turns out wrong, the machine gets a major investigation. If there is fraud, the individual gets sent to prison with an opportunity to somewhat reduce his sentence by singing like a canary.
The EU uses systems like this for drug imports. If you want to certify a lot of manufactured drugs as safe for use in Europe, you have to have an EU citizen sign on the final line. The logic is that there is at least somebody personally accountable for the action who lives in the EU jurisdiction. In the same way, if a megacorp builds a bridge there is still an individual engineer signing each drawing.
The key to law enforcement is individual accountability. No need to waste huge amounts of money counting every vote by hand. You just need to make sure the system fosters accountability. If you check 5% of the precients across the country the chance of any widespread fraud going uncaught is very low. Once widespread fraud is detected you would of course count every last piece of paper three times, and send the bill to the perpetrators...
The problem with this is that your boss can ask to see your receipt to make sure you voted for the right guy. Failure to produce a valid receipt leads to your eventual firing for whatever excuse is necessary...
A few issues here.
One is that many musicians know how to sing or strum a guitar, but asking them to operate a computer or even a mixing console might be going a bit far. I know it isn't rocket science, but it still is technical.
Two is that many a person who can operate a mixing console hasn't half an ear for mixing. It really is a different skill from singing or playing an instrument in a modern band. Sure, it is really just general musicianship to be able to blend your part in with everyone else, but since the advent of mixing consoles in modern bands it seems to be a dying art...
Three is that even if you do end up with a really nice CD you still need to be able to bribe somebody to play it over the air...
If you look at the methodology - all the results were obtained using the software set to the fastest mode - not the best compression mode.
.wav and .mp3 files I'd want to do a binary compare of the restored files to ensure they weren't just run through a lossy codec...
So, I would consider gzip the best performer by this criteria. After all, if I cared most about space savings I'd have picked the best-mode - not the fast-mode. All this articles suggests is that a few archivers are REALLY lousy for doing FAST compression.
If my requirements were realtime compression (maybe for streaming multimedia) then I wouldn't be bothered with some mega-compression algorithm that takes 2 minutes per MB to pack the data.
Might I suggest a better test? If interested in best compression, then run each program in a mode which optimizes purely for compression ratio. On the other hand, if interested in realtime compression then take each algorithm and tweak the parameters so that they all run in the same time (which is a realtively fast time), and then compare compression ratios.
With the huge compression of multimedia files I'd also want the reviewers to state explicity that the compression was verified to be lossless. I've never heard of some of these proprietary apps, but if they're getting significant ratios out of
Actually, unless they implement some sort of karma system where you need more karma to edit higher-page-view articles, that wouldn't work.
The idea of using account age selectively is that it will tend to get vandals to mess with low-profile pages and be banned before they are able to mess with high-profile pages. If they couldn't edit any pages then you have no opportunity to filter out accounts before they are able to edit high-profile pages.
Of course, trolls can just sign up for an account every day, and keep a list, and have a constant pipeline of accounts they can use a few days later.
I wonder if a karma system would be appropriate - where everybody can moderate anybody's edits. You wouldn't need karma at all for most articles, but it would become necessary when editing high-view articles...
Yeah, and in theory if you just keep a rubber plant in your backyard you never need to buy tires... :)
People wouldn't buy drugs if they didn't work better than eating leaves. Many drugs are based on natural products, and many are not. So, what's the point?
Uh, if the marketers thought that women were satisfied with Saltines, they'd never have approved R&D into a drug to compete with them.
If orange juice cured migraines, you wouldn't see aspirin on the market.
The fact that somebody was bothering to research a drug in the first place suggests that at least some people were likely to buy it, and that means that the perfect cure does not yet exist...
Most nations require a fair number of details about drugs before they allow them to be tested in humans within their borders. Pharma companies were averse to providing these details to the Indian government prior to the adoption of strong patent laws, as they were concerned about espionage. In fact, they could face generic producers of the drug before they even get marketing approval in the 1st world...
I wish I could say the same. Try googling "Canon E18". The lens problem that made me toss my camera after only 1.5 years was bad enough - but the manufacturer not standing behind their work was intolerable. A LOT of people had problems with several models of their cameras...
Name a non-microbial disease that has ever been cured - other than vitamin deficiencies.
The reason drug makers aren't curing diseases is because it is hard to do. It isn't like nobody is working on an HIV vaccine (including academic/government labs), or other non-chromic treatments.
The fact is that few diseases have ever been cured - other than those caused by infectious organisms. Companies are still coming out with antibiotics - albeit slowly. The main reason that infectious diseases aren't a high priority anymore is that they aren't a major cause of deaths these days - owing to the success of the drugs already out there. When antibiotic-resistant organisms start coming along, drugmakers will start inventing more antibiotics (and we're talking about 100's of thousands of deaths - not the current level). Which is the more attractive target - MDR-tuberculosis which kills thousands in 3rd-world nations, or diabetes which kills millions in the USA?
Sure, the economics are better for treatments than cures, but there is still money to be made on the latter, and if one company has the treatment market locked up, other companies have incentives to come up with the cures. The idea that diseases used to be cured more often in the past is just a result of the fact that drugs were at the level of leeches and snake oil only 75 years ago...
The other problem is that while some concept might have been discovered in a small lab, it is rare that a modern drug was discovered in a small lab. (Most modern drugs are much more refined than older drugs ever were.) And, even to the extent that target validation and lead optimization can be done in a small lab, you could NEVER do a clinical trial in a small lab. You need thousands of volunteers (often compensated in some way), thousands of pills, etc. You also need to bribe LOTS of doctors to find those volunteers for you (this is probably the biggest expense in clinical trials).
The FOSS model works great for software (hey, wanna alpha-test my latest cd-riping program?), but not so well for drugs (hey, wanna be the first animal of any kind to drink this green liquid?).
If you don't want patents, then the alternative is government R&D labs, possible using outsourced development services. However, the development services would charge a pretty penny for their work, as all costs and profits must be received up-front in the absence of a patent. Somebody has to bear the risk. Perhaps such a model would work.
The other think is that this isn't an either-or situation. If you want to try it out have the NIH develop a drug start to finish, file a patent, and openly license it to anyone to manufacture. If this process works well then perhaps the drug industry isn't necessary, and drug patents can be safely abolished. No need to take drastic steps before validating the model, as government-sponsored drugs can still be made even though there is a commmercial drug industry. In fact, no need to ever abolish drug patents - in theory government can just compete and drive down prices - if government gets their act together then private companies would probably just turn to outsourcing government work anyway, and give up their patent dreams...
Somebody mod parent up. Why does the hubble have to be an either-or solution (vs James Webb/etc)? Just make a new one and launch it - most of the costs of a space probe are for design, and we already have that done - just put the right mirror in, put the consumables in an easily serviced module, etc.
It has to be cheaper just to build another one than to build a robotic telescope repair system, and launch that!
Advocate of truth is relative, because truth in itself is relative to what you believe the truth to be because truth is mearly interpetation of facts. Facts themselves don't change however.
Uh, you're arguing semantics (and using a definition of truth and facts that most probably wouldn't accept). So, just s/truth/fact/ if it makes you happier.
I find it interesting that an IT-oriented newgroup has such odd notions on the concept of truth. Half of computer software is Boolean logic!
If a statement reflects reality, it is true. If not it is false. Now, some statements might be hard to evaluate for truthfulness, but any particular statement is either true or false, unless it is a paradox like "this statement is false". Logic itself can only determine if statements follow from each other - not correspondance with reality.
In any case, I think most would agree that a reporter who exposes a coverup is in fact an advocate of truth, at least in the particular instance...
I'm sure the poster knows what a UUID is in general - however I think his question was whether this was a single code already burned into the CPU/etc, or just a dynamically generated one which could change from time to time. The websites you link have no info relevant to determining this.
For example, I just generated 3 UUIDs that are all appropriate for my machine using uuidgen - as suggested in the site you linked. Obviously these would not be suitable as unique, unmodifiable IDs for my PC. However, I could safely use them in databases, or to identify objects that I create.
Couldn't agree more. I'd put both a modem with speaker/mic on it, RF interface, and USB connection. Transaction sent over phone/air/cable to box, box displays amount, vendor, and date, user enters PIN on device keypad for confirmation. Credentials never leave box - just the signed hash and certificate. PIN never goes anywhere but the box. All authorizations have a serial number, so no replay attacks. Box would use small LCD display. Such a system should be hackproof in concept - as long as the IO code is heavily audited - the communications protocol would be very simple and would use fixed-length fields - so no crazy parsing errors possible (ie no need for the box to run an OS and XML parser/webserver/java/javascript/etc). Code updates to the box would be via direct modem update with signed code from the vendor. The modem would work by simply holding the device up to the phone (low baud) - good for phone transactions, and small firmware updates. I guess you could also allow updates via PC, but keep them signed - it is probably best to just get it right the first time and allow tradeins if they need updates.
But the decisions with the greatest affect on the security of that authentication system are completely in the bank's hands: e.g. the decision to authenticate you by asking you to enter a password into a form on a web page.
Or better yet - the decision to authenticate purchasers by having merchants ask users for a 16-digit number which is transmitted in the clear to the merchant and later relayed to the bank. Credit card numbers are a system that should have abandoned ages ago. Imagine an email system where you send people mail by tying in an address, and read your mail by visiting a website and typing in your own address - and no password. Or, as is now becoming more common, you read mail by entering your address and a PIN, and send others mail by entering their address and their PIN.
Merchants should never be given master account authentication credentials. They should be given signed message digests, or one-time authentication codes, or something along these lines, which are tied to the transaction date and amount. Even if credit card companies just put secureID readouts on their cards it would MASSIVELY cut fraud. Imagine what would happen if they actually used certificates and digital signatures, with the card private key retained in a secured ROM protected by PIN-pad on the card itself!
The costs of a digital ID system with good PKI could be recoped in only a few months from the savings due to reduced identity theft. In fact, the government would be a natural choice of a body to administer such a system.
And if they do leave it open, everybody tends to filter out mail from dynamic IPs - even if it uses SPF or similar mechanisms to identify itself is a legitimate domain mailer. Even though I'd like to send mail via my own SMTP server I end up relaying through an ISP just to get around these blocks...
It depends on how they define that. Suppose they have to track the headers of every IP packet? That is a LOT of data. Even if they track each connection you're talking about a lot of data, and with UDP-based protocols there are no connections.
The solution to all of this is to start using SSL religiously - then all you get is IP addresses, making most of the data meaningless...
Yes, but most trade mags or booksellers don't collect money to advertise stuff which is outright fraud. Imagine if Barnes and Noble had a reputation for publishing books which were missing every 3rd page to save on printing costs! In general when doing business with somebody it isn't acceptable to merely take the cash and promote them - especially when you know that fraud is a problem.
Imagine if the New York Times published classified ads for cocaine dealers - after collecting cash and an assurance that the dealers had a special exemtion from the DEA which they didn't actually provide evidence of. Do you think that the attourney general wouldn't fine them?
Sure, maybe bookstores promote books that aren't all that good - but that is different than promoting a book that is known to be missing pages, or double-charging customers, etc. There is marketing, and there is fraud. Sometimes the line isn't clear, but these photo outfits are nowhere near the line.
So, has anybody actually filed a marketing application for it? Obviously if no application is filed, the FDA won't approve it.
Obviously the system tends to benefit patented compounds more than generic ones, due to the profit motive funding safety studies. However, generic drug manufacturers seem to be able to file applications for drugs without holding patents...
The FDA is one of the strictest regulatory bodies on the planet - it is MUCH harder to put something on shelves in America than just about anywhere - at least in terms of burden of proof. Some markets, like Japan, are notoriously hard to get into, but this is usually due to processes which are designed more to get rid of external competition than to promote safety...
I'm sure the Canon DSLRs are nice, but google Canon E18 sometime and see what others have to say about their compact cameras.
After my Canon digital compact died after only 1.5 years, the last thing I was about to do is buy another...
I thought the whole idea behind BT was that it had built-in economics? If somebody is downloading and not uploading (say by using a hacked client, or highly limiting upload rate), then other clients will deprioritize traffic to them.
As long as you're uploading anytime that you're downloading - who cares if you're contributing files or not?
My guess is that the reason for the higher speeds on the private trackers is that the elite community becomes a selection filter for folks who like to nurse their BT clients (not closing them down as soon as they're done, having high speed lines, etc). And, they probably tend to filter out folks with asymmetric links - which would tend to degrade BT performance. However, somebody with a symmetric link should get good BT performance on any site - as long as the tracker isn't overloaded and folks aren't using modded clients.
Is there documentation that shows that it really is safer than Splenda? A quick check of the FDA website indicates that stevia does not have sufficient toxcicity data to allow for approval for use in the US. The website you linked just advocates that it is safe and the subject of a big coverup - but has no solid data.
In general anytime somebody wants to market a new food additive, the burden of proof is on them to show that it is safe. The fact that it is natrual means nothing - so are nicotine, taxol, and cobra venom - none of which would be suitable as food additives.
Why would sugar sellers be able to suppress stevia, when they apparently were unable to suppress aspartame, sucralose, sacchrin, etc?