1 out of 36 is the odds of getting two sixes in a row. The important thing is that this applies regardless of if you've just rolled another two sixes in a row beforehand, or never have held a dice before in your life.
Now, if you throw 10 sixes in a row, the odds actually goes up that the next roll will be another six. This is, of course, due to the increased possibility of the dice being modified.:^)
Rolling a dice and getting the number six doesn't reduce the possibility of hitting another six the next throw. But the odds of getting two sixes (or any other particular number) in a row is 1 out of 36.
Reminds me of a discussion I had once about random patterns of ones and zeroes - I ended up writing a short simulation to demonstrate this.
Reminds me of the story about the statistician who calculated the odds of there being a bomb on the airplane he was travelling on, and found out that the odds were too high for him to feel safe. He then calculated the odds of there being two, independent bombs on the same plane, and noticed that the possibility was remote to the extreme, compared to the first calculation.
So, now, he always brings a bomb with him when he's flying.
I'm usure about how copyright for the images works and if someone would be allowed to make such a film publicly available. That would lessen the burden on that server. Perhaps.:)
Every once in a while, you have to wipe a Windows machine, for whatever reason (usually, because the registry is so bloated with crap, it's easier to start over fresh.) At work we just finished doing just that - installing a fresh copy of Win2K (patches galore to get it from SP2 to SP4, joy...) The first thing I did (after installing a firewall, antivirus software, THEN jacking the machine into the network to download updates) was to install Firefox and set it as the default browser. Then, just for good measure, I hid IE (you can't remove Explorer, but there is an option to hide the toolbar icon and desktop shortcuts.)
If this is a recurring task for you, I'd recommend using some partitioning imaging software to make a snapshot of the completed state of the installation, after service packs, extra patches, hiding the IE icons:), and other stuff. A reinstall is much simpler then, since it is just a question of restoring the partition image.
I bet there is some free Windows-equivalent of the "partimage" software out there.
It could still be worse... (from the Fortune database):
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
No, but it happens to be the book I'm going to read after I finish "Hellstrom's Hive" - which coincidentally is about a human society modelled after insects. It is written by Frank Herbert (most famous for his "Dune" works) and I really recommend it.
Oops, I meant that "Solaris 9 SPARC" is downloadable for free.
I don't know for certain about the x86 version, but as far as I've heard it is correct that you cannot download it except for a fee.
(Quick check) -- yes, it is available on the Edonkey p2p network. Of course I think one has to have a proper license in order to download and use it.:)
Solaris 9 is freely downloadable to use on single CPU boxes.
This is exactly the same Solaris 9 that you would run on an SMP box, but the license to run it for free doesn't apply on those machines.
Oh, and it doesn't matter if you use only 1 CPU on a system that supports, lets say, 4. You still have to pay for the license on those machines, even if you never install more than 1 CPU.
I was sent one of these images, but from a scammer using a completely different name, than noted on the webpage.
Here it is, fourth image from the top.
I received this image as an attachment from "Ibuchi Ibuch". I think that many of these "family photos" are shared and recycled between scammers; they could be of any family who looks a bit to come from the place that the scammer claims to be coming from.
I have over 200 E-mails from these people saved. Here is my favorite way of wasting their time:
1. I send them a nice answer, indicating my interest in the business proposal.
2. When I receive their follow-up, I know that their E-mail address is working.
3. An E-mail to abuse@[theirmailservice] takes care of their account, usually within 2 days. Hotmail usually responds very quickly to any complaints.
4. The scammer sends another E-mail, from a new address, saying that their old E-mail address should not be used "for security reasons" or some similar excuse, and asks that further correspondence go through this, new, one.
5. I reply, saying that I am sorry that the E-mail I just sent all the information they requested, including my bank account number, isn't working anymore, and that I'll resend that information to the new address shortly. I also mention my discontent with my "business partner" being unable to keep an E-mail address.
6. Go to step 3 (repeat, until the neuro-paths of the scammer adapts to the situation)
Chemistry is not a science in the same sense as physics. There are general rules for chemical reactions, but when you get right down to it, chemistry is not predictive. It consists of a bunch of recipies telling you how to make stuff, and a catalog of what happens when you mix various things together.
Would then it be possible, that the science of physics, applied down to the smallest particles we know about, could one day solve this problem? Or has it already been determined that however deep our knowledge of matter will extend, it will never be possible to know exactly how any given mix of atoms - or let's say sub-atomic particles - will interact?
Is there a known limitation that makes us never being able to build a system that can simulate interaction on the necessary sub-atomic level for such a manufacturing / simulation device to work?
First of all: I have no higher schooling in either of the subjects (chemistry or math), so if the answer to my question is explained somewhere in terms that a layman in those subjects could understand, by all means, direct me to them...
Anyway, here's what I'm wondering:
How far are we from reducing the problem of designing a material with the exact properties we need for a particular use, to entering the properties we want into a computer, watch the manufacturing machine mix together the required components, and the finished material come out?
I understand that much of chemistry is mathematics, and the ways that atoms and molecules interact can be predicted, simulated, to some extent, without the ingredients physically having to be mixed together.
Is it at all possible to determine if nature's rulebook of chemistry ever can be fully understood? Can it, given enough knowledge, time and computational power, be possible, in the future, to simulate how _any_ substances will interact, and without the need for experimenting, know in advance exactly what mix of atoms are needed to get the material properties we want? Or, closest possible match?
Actually, you are, in a way, bringing up an interesting point - the number of Slashdot readers commenting on articles before taking their precious time to read enough of it to make their postings meaningful.
Of course, there are always things that can be said without actually understanding exactly what the article is about, but it is always a good idea to read up, and get a good impression from which to base your comments on, before... ah, this is Slashdot. Nevermind.
You forgot about this one, contributed by Steve Rubenstein:
Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black.
Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of
side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath
-- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved.
I guess that goes with many artists. They do their most inspired works when hungry. Once fame is obtained, the crap tends to follow.
If that is true, I bet that Lucas was starving when he wrote and directed THX 1138. It is certainly the most thought-provoking, and possibly the best sci-fi movie I've ever seen.
It is not just nostalgia that makes me want to see the old, first SW movies again and again. It is because they actually are very good examples of fine moviemaking.
The ambiance, that feeling of magic throughout the movies is very hard to beat.
And the prequels come nowhere near to touching that ambience.
No, it is not because I've become older that I detested the prequels - it is because they mostly are soulless, pretentious excuses for movies, comprised of computer generated backgrounds, with (some) live actors thrown in, poorly trying to save a boring plot.
One, perhaps little known, fact that I find interesting is that some of these scammers, after collecting their harvest of fresh E-mail addresses from a message board, posts on the board with certain keywords to indicate to other scammers that these addresses now are "claimed" or "taken".
The posts usually come with a sender, subject or body containing combination of the words "Mugu" and "Guymen". "Mugu" seems to mean "Big fool" in Nigerian.
Try a Google search for the words (ignore Google's suggested replacement words:), and a lot of "claimed" message boards
will appear.
Nice that they actually are getting these people. They have no morals whatsoever.
I have an IMAP folder labeled "crooks", into which all scammer correspondence go. So far I've collected about 150 of them in there.
I actually try to answer each and every one of them; I usually send them a template mail which is designed to arouse their interest. At the same time, I send a complaint to the host of the mailservice they used. Sometimes, the scammer gets back, with a new e-mail address and asks me to use the new one instead because the old one is "no longer confidential" or some similar braindead excuse. My typical response to that is to tell them that "I just sent you all the information you requested, to the E-mail address you used before. Didn't I get it right?"
Everything to irritate them, and waste their time. Why?
If enough people were doing it, they would be forced to another way of earning a living. Perhaps even looking for an honest job. One can hope.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing here.
:^)
1 out of 36 is the odds of getting two sixes in a row. The important thing is that this applies regardless of if you've just rolled another two sixes in a row beforehand, or never have held a dice before in your life.
Now, if you throw 10 sixes in a row, the odds actually goes up that the next roll will be another six. This is, of course, due to the increased possibility of the dice being modified.
You're right.
Rolling a dice and getting the number six doesn't reduce the possibility of hitting another six the next throw. But the odds of getting two sixes (or any other particular number) in a row is 1 out of 36.
Reminds me of a discussion I had once about random patterns of ones and zeroes - I ended up writing a short simulation to demonstrate this.
Reminds me of the story about the statistician who calculated the odds of there being a bomb on the airplane he was travelling on, and found out that the odds were too high for him to feel safe. He then calculated the odds of there being two, independent bombs on the same plane, and noticed that the possibility was remote to the extreme, compared to the first calculation.
So, now, he always brings a bomb with him when he's flying.
Here are images taken with a regular interval, which can be retrieved with wget, and combined into a nifty time-lapse film, for example with Mencoder:
:)
mencoder -mf type=jpg mf://*jpg -o movie.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=2:trell:cbp:mv0
I'm usure about how copyright for the images works and if someone would be allowed to make such a film publicly available. That would lessen the burden on that server. Perhaps.
Every once in a while, you have to wipe a Windows machine, for whatever reason (usually, because the registry is so bloated with crap, it's easier to start over fresh.) At work we just finished doing just that - installing a fresh copy of Win2K (patches galore to get it from SP2 to SP4, joy...) The first thing I did (after installing a firewall, antivirus software, THEN jacking the machine into the network to download updates) was to install Firefox and set it as the default browser. Then, just for good measure, I hid IE (you can't remove Explorer, but there is an option to hide the toolbar icon and desktop shortcuts.)
:), and other stuff. A reinstall is much simpler then, since it is just a question of restoring the partition image.
If this is a recurring task for you, I'd recommend using some partitioning imaging software to make a snapshot of the completed state of the installation, after service packs, extra patches, hiding the IE icons
I bet there is some free Windows-equivalent of the "partimage" software out there.
It could still be worse... (from the Fortune database):
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
If cars ever are built with emotions, I'll name my first car Sally.
No, but it happens to be the book I'm going to read after I finish "Hellstrom's Hive" - which coincidentally is about a human society modelled after insects. It is written by Frank Herbert (most famous for his "Dune" works) and I really recommend it.
Predictable, but gets the point through nevertheless
Direct link to the clip, for those of you having trouble viewing it inline in your browser.
Make sure to check out the others too!
I believe it was Gandhi who said
... they've been attacking for a while now, eh? :)
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."
So
Ok, sometimes comments on Slashdot are a bit US-centric, but I think we have a winner!
Oops, I meant that "Solaris 9 SPARC" is downloadable for free.
:)
I don't know for certain about the x86 version, but as far as I've heard it is correct that you cannot download it except for a fee.
(Quick check) -- yes, it is available on the Edonkey p2p network. Of course I think one has to have a proper license in order to download and use it.
Solaris 9 is freely downloadable to use on single CPU boxes.
This is exactly the same Solaris 9 that you would run on an SMP box, but the license to run it for free doesn't apply on those machines.
Oh, and it doesn't matter if you use only 1 CPU on a system that supports, lets say, 4. You still have to pay for the license on those machines, even if you never install more than 1 CPU.
Changes are inevitable when doing an adaption, but they can be used to add another creative dimension to the story... :)
I was sent one of these images, but from a scammer using a completely different name, than noted on the webpage.
:^)
Here it is, fourth image from the top.
I received this image as an attachment from "Ibuchi Ibuch". I think that many of these "family photos" are shared and recycled between scammers; they could be of any family who looks a bit to come from the place that the scammer claims to be coming from.
I have over 200 E-mails from these people saved. Here is my favorite way of wasting their time:
1. I send them a nice answer, indicating my interest in the business proposal.
2. When I receive their follow-up, I know that their E-mail address is working.
3. An E-mail to abuse@[theirmailservice] takes care of their account, usually within 2 days. Hotmail usually responds very quickly to any complaints.
4. The scammer sends another E-mail, from a new address, saying that their old E-mail address should not be used "for security reasons" or some similar excuse, and asks that further correspondence go through this, new, one.
5. I reply, saying that I am sorry that the E-mail I just sent all the information they requested, including my bank account number, isn't working anymore, and that I'll resend that information to the new address shortly. I also mention my discontent with my "business partner" being unable to keep an E-mail address.
6. Go to step 3 (repeat, until the neuro-paths of the scammer adapts to the situation)
7. NO Profit for the scammer!
Chemistry is not a science in the same sense as physics. There are general rules for chemical reactions, but when you get right down to it, chemistry is not predictive. It consists of a bunch of recipies telling you how to make stuff, and a catalog of what happens when you mix various things together.
Would then it be possible, that the science of physics, applied down to the smallest particles we know about, could one day solve this problem? Or has it already been determined that however deep our knowledge of matter will extend, it will never be possible to know exactly how any given mix of atoms - or let's say sub-atomic particles - will interact?
Is there a known limitation that makes us never being able to build a system that can simulate interaction on the necessary sub-atomic level for such a manufacturing / simulation device to work?
First of all: I have no higher schooling in either of the subjects (chemistry or math), so if the answer to my question is explained somewhere in terms that a layman in those subjects could understand, by all means, direct me to them...
Anyway, here's what I'm wondering:
How far are we from reducing the problem of designing a material with the exact properties we need for a particular use, to entering the properties we want into a computer, watch the manufacturing machine mix together the required components, and the finished material come out?
I understand that much of chemistry is mathematics, and the ways that atoms and molecules interact can be predicted, simulated, to some extent, without the ingredients physically having to be mixed together.
Is it at all possible to determine if nature's rulebook of chemistry ever can be fully understood? Can it, given enough knowledge, time and computational power, be possible, in the future, to simulate how _any_ substances will interact, and without the need for experimenting, know in advance exactly what mix of atoms are needed to get the material properties we want? Or, closest possible match?
Actually, you are, in a way, bringing up an interesting point - the number of Slashdot readers commenting on articles before taking their precious time to read enough of it to make their postings meaningful.
... ah, this is Slashdot. Nevermind.
:)
Of course, there are always things that can be said without actually understanding exactly what the article is about, but it is always a good idea to read up, and get a good impression from which to base your comments on, before
You forgot about this one, contributed by Steve Rubenstein:
Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube:
Black.
Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved.
I guess that goes with many artists. They do their most inspired works when hungry. Once fame is obtained, the crap tends to follow.
If that is true, I bet that Lucas was starving when he wrote and directed THX 1138. It is certainly the most thought-provoking, and possibly the best sci-fi movie I've ever seen.
I beg to disagree.
:)
It is not just nostalgia that makes me want to see the old, first SW movies again and again. It is because they actually are very good examples of fine moviemaking.
The ambiance, that feeling of magic throughout the movies is very hard to beat.
And the prequels come nowhere near to touching that ambience.
No, it is not because I've become older that I detested the prequels - it is because they mostly are soulless, pretentious excuses for movies, comprised of computer generated backgrounds, with (some) live actors thrown in, poorly trying to save a boring plot.
Just my viewpoint, of course.
There should be a factory nearby that could need these.
So, how far from the university is the HAL plant?
One, perhaps little known, fact that I find interesting is that some of these scammers, after collecting their harvest of fresh E-mail addresses from a message board, posts on the board with certain keywords to indicate to other scammers that these addresses now are "claimed" or "taken".
:), and a lot of "claimed" message boards
will appear.
The posts usually come with a sender, subject or body containing combination of the words "Mugu" and "Guymen". "Mugu" seems to mean "Big fool" in Nigerian.
Try a Google search for the words (ignore Google's suggested replacement words
Quite weird.
Nice that they actually are getting these people. They have no morals whatsoever.
I have an IMAP folder labeled "crooks", into which all scammer correspondence go. So far I've collected about 150 of them in there.
I actually try to answer each and every one of them; I usually send them a template mail which is designed to arouse their interest. At the same time, I send a complaint to the host of the mailservice they used. Sometimes, the scammer gets back, with a new e-mail address and asks me to use the new one instead because the old one is "no longer confidential" or some similar braindead excuse. My typical response to that is to tell them that "I just sent you all the information you requested, to the E-mail address you used before. Didn't I get it right?"
Everything to irritate them, and waste their time. Why?
If enough people were doing it, they would be forced to another way of earning a living. Perhaps even looking for an honest job. One can hope.
How about a bounty for successfully prosecuting the company behind the software that seems designed to aid viruses in spreading?
How many Outlook / IIS design flaws / bugs are we counting now?
Really?