Not to mention the fact that the article states that TRON is currently deployed on 3 billion devices. One cent = 1/100 dollar. 1dollar/100 * 3 billion = 30 million. $30million < $1billion. Someone's math is wrong. Even if there were 3 billion new installs a year for 10 years the guy would not be a billionaire by charging one cent for each install..
That's why they call em 'bad guys' : they're outlaws. 'Cybersecurity' legislation will only be yet another nuisance for the honest person - like most laws.
It reminds me of junior high school ( long tyme ago in a galaxy far away ) the school would have ridiculous rules - rules that you would expect in a prison because someone might do something 'bad'. No walking in the halls with out a pass because someone *might* be cutting class. No going outside between classes because someone *might* smoke, get in a fight, get run over by a car etc. No knives - not even an x-acto knife for art class to protect any would be psychos with daggars from innocent students finding something in their backpacks to fight back with - at least they didn't ban chairs, I'd rather have one of them in a fight than a daggar anyway. No eating with a metal fork unless there is a cork on the tines to prevent you from poking yer eye out ( ok, not really, that's off a Steve Martin movie - don't take the cork off the fork Ruprat. )
The environment just caused the kids to think up new ways to muck things up for the administrators who would then cite 'abuse' of freedoms and impose more assinine restrictions. The constant battle was a vicious circle.
They say that they want to impose restrictions to prevent a Pearl Harbor? Not likely. They'll probably *cause* one. If you turn your country into a police state ( or go war against countries as a way to try and force terrorists to stop ) you will only make the terrorists right. You will actually be the evil influence in the world they claim you are and *then* enough people might hate you to actually be dangerous.
The more you tighten your grip Vader, the more starsystems will slip through your fingers. - Princess Leia
In the case of evil terrorism, or even criminality the best course is not to try and prevent the loss of face by cutting off your own nose. In the case of crime, go after the criminals, but don't ban banks because of bankrobbers. In the case of terrorists, go after the individual people that commit the act, but don't close your society. Turn the other cheek to the countries the terrorists grow up in unless they are actively participating in the terrorism ( like Afganistan, letting terrorists run training camps )
Not letting them drag you down to their level is the best way to convince the world to hate the haters. Acting worse than the bad guys is a great way to turn evil terrorism into noble and riteous struggle.
P( Amateur Astronomer ) * P( Has Optical Telescope ) * P( Has Lazer Detector ) * P( Has GPS ) * P( Has Computer With Net Connection ) * P( Has Heard of this Project ) * 6 billion people on planet earth = 4
I don't understand why Dell/IBM et all don't sell internationally - maybe they do, have you checked if there is a Hungarian version of IBM.com that lives in the hungary tld? They prolly have a local Hungarian department or something being INTERNATIONAL Business Machines and all... As for little startups I understand why they don't sell internationally. I wouldn't do it unless I could afford a team of lawyers to tell me if it was legal. There are tons of things that are legal in one country but are somehow restricted in another. Suppose staplers ( legal in the US ) were illegal for some reason in Hungary. If I shipped a stapler to someone in Hungary then I would be breaking Hungarian law and could be extradited there. The average US joe knows what they can/can't get away with in the US, but once you start crossing borders all bets are off. I'm sure the average Frenchman has a good idea of the laws in Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland Luxemberg,and the UK, but not the laws in say Finland. Why?
Because it's quite a ways to Finland from France, but it might come up that a Frenchman would want to visit a directly neighboring country. Most people in the US have at most visited one other country. If they live in the North, they might go to Canada ( Canada and the US are indistiguishable IMO ) and if they live in the south they might visit Mexico. Those who have visited Mexico have probably never visited Canada and those who have visited Canada have probably never visited Mexico. Hardly anyone in the US has ever gone to Europe and they are no more likely ( probably less likely ) to know the laws in Finland than the average Hungarian is to know the laws of Mexico.
There are tons of tarrifs and stuff that are also probably too confusing for a small business man to understand. They'd need to pay for an expert ( lawyer? ) which they can not afford.
PS I am ignorant of Europe. For all I know there is a tunnel underneath the ocean that leads from France to Finland. If Finland does directly neighbor France substitute another country that doesn't. Hungary?
Lifters are a glorified ionic breeze. No doubt about it. The lifter they tested in a vacuum didn't budge.
Having said that, I thought it was interesting how they mentioned that the top wire of a lifter vibrated like a guitar string, arcing when it approached the tin foil part. With that vibration and arcing in sync with the vibration couldn't a lifter be considered a capacitor? If it is then would the mass of the vibrating top wire fluxuate because of the Woodward effect, possibly causing a net upward force? ( the wire's mass would increase as the 'capacitor' was being charged as the wire vibrated upward and would decrease once it arced. )
Just an idea. Prolly lifters ARE nothing but glorified ionic breezes...
Yeah gaming is SO bad for 12 year olds. It's MUCH worse than being confined to a room where you are sodomized 5 times a day by strange men old enough to be your grandfather. Gaming is certainly the biggest problem facing Thailand's children....
I watched Catch Me if You Can on pay per view. It's about a kid that commits bank fraud and ends up working for the FBI. They mentioned Bleach and Hydrochloride as bleaching agents for checks ( like if you want to erase the amount and the person it was written to and write yourself a big check )
I wondered, why not make the background ink on the checks bleachable so that if anyone bleaches anything written with a Bic pen, the background ink will come off too making the tampering obvious?
Since the film took place back in the 1960s I decided to do an experiment. I wrote myself two checks for One Zillion Dollars and dunked one in Bleach and one in Muriatic acid from the hardware store. ( Muriatic acid is another name for Hydrochloric acid and is used as a cement cleaner ). The Bic pen ink on the check soaking in Bleach was uneffected, the Pen ink in soaking in 30% HCl was turning red. The background ink on the one soaking in bleach was turning greenish, and the background of the check soaking in HCl was uneffected. I let the checks soak a while.
When I removed the checks from their soaking solutions, the paper was not in pieces, but it was definately weakened by the strong chemicals. I decided to try one last test: After washing the checks in water, I redunked each of them into the other solution. The one that had been soaking in HCL lost all BIC Pen markings immediately on contacting the bleach. The one that had been soaking in Bleach lost most markings soon after touching the HCL.
Aha! says I. I think I know what is going on! Even after washing in water, there is some residual chemical in the paper of the check. In the case of the check soaking in Hydrochloric acid, that acid was enough to liberate some free chlorine from the bleach. In the case of the check that had been soaking in bleach, the residual bleach had enough clorine that when the acid liberated it, it could bleach the check. I assume that you could use any acid, not even particularly strong ones like HCL to liberate chlorine from bleach. I think vinegar might work, and not damage the paper so much as HCL. Or a weak solution of HCL would work too I guess.
The only problem I see with this method of crime ( aside from the fact that it is a crime and that you'd get caught - dont try this at home kids! ) is that the security paper takes on a greenish tint after contacting the bleach. No doubt one of the colors in the background is made to be susceptible to bleaching for security purposes so that altered checks clearly stand out as green. ( the green component must not be suceptible to bleach )
Of course I tossed the experimental checks out. ( they were written from my bank account so who would I be stealing from? Me! )
You COULD make a 'lifter' and fly it around your room. It's the same thing as an ionic breeze and you can make one out of tin foil and a broken TV set. In fact, I notice that there's tons of dust on my TV no matter how often I clean it. More TVs might help your dirty air problem.
The problem is that too often crappy science does not help the defendent, but the prosecution. How would you feel if you had to spend the rest of you life behind bars because of the testimony of an 'Aura Reader'?
I don't consider myself a sap, but I WAS suckered into trying OxyClean after seeing it turn the tub full of iodine white. However, iodine is about all it takes out... I unfortunately learned that by buying a tub from WAL*MART before Chlorox came out with their excellent and educational commercial.
I wouldn't say a damn thing to the cops without a lawyer. Even if I was innocent which I am not. I'm definately guilty guilty guilty... They can lie to you and try to scare you etc. Any deals they offer to make for a statement could be non-binding for all I know. Only a lawyer could tell me if they were in fact under some obligation to stay true to a deal. Nope, my trap is shut till I have a lawyer there.
They should let anyone have it. If the item is a peice of crap I wanna know where he lives so I can egg his house put balogna on his windshield and stick a rancid chicken in his mailbox.
Look, ebay can do what it wants privacy-wise as long as they let their users know. If someone doesn't want to give their info to someone who will let the police view it then they don't have to use ebay to sell their item.
What reasons might the police have to request ebay info? Think about it - probably 98% is fraud related. Being hornswaggled is the most worrisome thing about using ebay. It makes me feel safer to know that the sellers info is easily available to law enforcement. I want dishonest sellers to know they may be being monitored by the police. If you are an honest seller, you are more likely to make a sale if the buyers know that the police can get your info. It makes them feel safer. This is a good thing from the honest seller's perspective.
The other 2% may be odds and ends like possible terrorist sales and child porn and the like. I don't want that crap on any site I go on either. I just wanna buy my used VCR so I can illegally copy rented DVDS;-).
I would feel differently if ebay was so willing to disclose buyer information. Buying is something everyone must do, and there should be some privacy protections. What you buy is a window into your personal life. Too much can be deduced, and wrongly assumed from that data for it to be a good idea for law enforcement to have it. What you sell is another matter. The only info it reveals is how you made your money. There is not much chance that law enforcement will start persecuting hot dog vendors just because they are hot dog vendors.
If the sobig virus sends specific spam emails then you should be able to examine the packets output by an infected machine to discover the content of those mail messages. Once you find out the content, then you know who is sending the mails since any useful spam would have to include some way to get in contact with the spammer. ( Maybe not negative ads tho such as 'Tide Sucks' being sent out by All detergent without any reference to itself. ) If I were a spammer looking to send spam via a virus I wrote I would just have the virus act as an open relay. Then I would scan the net at large for open relays to use just as any other spammer would. Writing such a virus would benefit the whole 'Spammer community' to the detriment of everyone else, but the virus writer could remain anonymous since many spammer are likely to find and use infected machines without knowing why the machines are running an open relay.
For half a billion bucks they could have started with linux/KDE and polished it up to the point that your grandmacould run it, then developed their own version of any software they thought they were missing.
It is possible for people's organizations to get enough money from people in $5 and $10 and $20 and $100 contributions
I've noticed that when I write a $10-$20 check to some charity, that they spend at least $20-$30 in postage/envelopes/paper trying to get another $10 out of me. I wish there were a checkbox that said: "Hey I really think your cause is great, but I don't have any more dough, so don't waste your time trying to get more" otherwise I feel that the small donation actually saps the cause I'm trying to help.
In the future when all media comes to my TV/Computer/MusicPlayer/Holodeck/Whatever I'll have to install Kazaa and 'Get Gatored' to watch the evening news..
LInux is and I think probably always will be used primarily by geeks. Geeks want the power that only comes by being a corkless fork. That is - because linux is not meant to be retard proof, it can expose what it needs to to be tinker-with-able. Being tinkerable is a killer app for the geek crowd.
Linux, being free software, appeals to the people who write free software and always will be tinkerable. This is because people who write software are geeks and will write software they want to use. If someone is paying them to do it then well, they will also write software to be retard proof.
Apple's market share has been decreasing more and more over the years. Any recent gains notwithstanding ( I don't keep up with Apple since I replaced my Centris 610 years ago with an Intel box. I grew up on Macs and was a Machead once. ) - any recent gains notwithstanding, Linux will not surpass Apple, Apple will fall behind Linux when enough Mac users switch to Windows that the remaining die hard Macheads amount to less than the total geek population.
There are 2 other possibilities:
More people will become geeky and use linux Then linux desktop market share will increase
Maybe OSX is really 'All that' - I haven't used it. Then more people will have some exposure to unix and Apple will get rich - and people will still use free software written for linux because it will probably compile on OSX. If Apple gets too greedy and starts acting like microsoft though people will switch to linux to be free of Apple. Apple still insists on hardware price gouging.
Real geeks will still use linux unless Apple can offer them something they don't already have which they can't.
I don't think free software will get much more retard proof. It will never be as polished as non-free software. I think that is because polish means closing up stuff which hinders tinkerability. Open software tends to leave frayed edges exposed. This is not a sign of poor quality - it is just that you need those edges loose to weave it in to something else or to add to it.
The knots come in groups of seven. Maybe this is like a telephone number in base 25. I say base 25 because there are 24 colors and the possibility of tying no knot ( maybe a zero? ) making 25. And as long as every seventh position on the string is empty, even missing knots aren't going to be that confusing.
Wasn't there research done that found that seven digits is the average maximum numbers of digits that can be remembered by someone? If there were no phonetic logic between words it might be easier to remember a seven digit number than how to draw a chinese character. 25^7 = 6.1 billion.
That's way more words than any language I know of has. Probably some of the 24 colors are really not official colors but badly dyed wool. Prolly there is no difference between burgandy and brown in the language if this idea is right. I would look for highly contrasting colors and different pigments used to dye the strings to try and sort out which 'digits' were really meant to be distinct digits.
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Not to mention the fact that the article states that TRON is currently deployed on 3 billion devices. One cent = 1/100 dollar. 1dollar/100 * 3 billion = 30 million. $30million < $1billion. Someone's math is wrong. Even if there were 3 billion new installs a year for 10 years the guy would not be a billionaire by charging one cent for each install..
It reminds me of junior high school ( long tyme ago in a galaxy far away ) the school would have ridiculous rules - rules that you would expect in a prison because someone might do something 'bad'. No walking in the halls with out a pass because someone *might* be cutting class. No going outside between classes because someone *might* smoke, get in a fight, get run over by a car etc. No knives - not even an x-acto knife for art class to protect any would be psychos with daggars from innocent students finding something in their backpacks to fight back with - at least they didn't ban chairs, I'd rather have one of them in a fight than a daggar anyway. No eating with a metal fork unless there is a cork on the tines to prevent you from poking yer eye out ( ok, not really, that's off a Steve Martin movie - don't take the cork off the fork Ruprat. )
The environment just caused the kids to think up new ways to muck things up for the administrators who would then cite 'abuse' of freedoms and impose more assinine restrictions. The constant battle was a vicious circle.
They say that they want to impose restrictions to prevent a Pearl Harbor? Not likely. They'll probably *cause* one. If you turn your country into a police state ( or go war against countries as a way to try and force terrorists to stop ) you will only make the terrorists right. You will actually be the evil influence in the world they claim you are and *then* enough people might hate you to actually be dangerous.
The more you tighten your grip Vader, the more starsystems will slip through your fingers. - Princess Leia
In the case of evil terrorism, or even criminality the best course is not to try and prevent the loss of face by cutting off your own nose. In the case of crime, go after the criminals, but don't ban banks because of bankrobbers. In the case of terrorists, go after the individual people that commit the act, but don't close your society. Turn the other cheek to the countries the terrorists grow up in unless they are actively participating in the terrorism ( like Afganistan, letting terrorists run training camps )
Not letting them drag you down to their level is the best way to convince the world to hate the haters. Acting worse than the bad guys is a great way to turn evil terrorism into noble and riteous struggle.
That's pretty fast..... I think there's prior art.
P( Amateur Astronomer ) * P( Has Optical Telescope ) * P( Has Lazer Detector ) * P( Has GPS ) * P( Has Computer With Net Connection ) * P( Has Heard of this Project ) * 6 billion people on planet earth = 4
Because it's quite a ways to Finland from France, but it might come up that a Frenchman would want to visit a directly neighboring country. Most people in the US have at most visited one other country. If they live in the North, they might go to Canada ( Canada and the US are indistiguishable IMO ) and if they live in the south they might visit Mexico. Those who have visited Mexico have probably never visited Canada and those who have visited Canada have probably never visited Mexico. Hardly anyone in the US has ever gone to Europe and they are no more likely ( probably less likely ) to know the laws in Finland than the average Hungarian is to know the laws of Mexico.
There are tons of tarrifs and stuff that are also probably too confusing for a small business man to understand. They'd need to pay for an expert ( lawyer? ) which they can not afford.
PS I am ignorant of Europe. For all I know there is a tunnel underneath the ocean that leads from France to Finland. If Finland does directly neighbor France substitute another country that doesn't. Hungary?
Having said that, I thought it was interesting how they mentioned that the top wire of a lifter vibrated like a guitar string, arcing when it approached the tin foil part. With that vibration and arcing in sync with the vibration couldn't a lifter be considered a capacitor? If it is then would the mass of the vibrating top wire fluxuate because of the Woodward effect, possibly causing a net upward force? ( the wire's mass would increase as the 'capacitor' was being charged as the wire vibrated upward and would decrease once it arced. )
Just an idea. Prolly lifters ARE nothing but glorified ionic breezes...
Yeah gaming is SO bad for 12 year olds. It's MUCH worse than being confined to a room where you are sodomized 5 times a day by strange men old enough to be your grandfather. Gaming is certainly the biggest problem facing Thailand's children....
I wondered, why not make the background ink on the checks bleachable so that if anyone bleaches anything written with a Bic pen, the background ink will come off too making the tampering obvious?
Since the film took place back in the 1960s I decided to do an experiment. I wrote myself two checks for One Zillion Dollars and dunked one in Bleach and one in Muriatic acid from the hardware store. ( Muriatic acid is another name for Hydrochloric acid and is used as a cement cleaner ). The Bic pen ink on the check soaking in Bleach was uneffected, the Pen ink in soaking in 30% HCl was turning red. The background ink on the one soaking in bleach was turning greenish, and the background of the check soaking in HCl was uneffected. I let the checks soak a while.
When I removed the checks from their soaking solutions, the paper was not in pieces, but it was definately weakened by the strong chemicals. I decided to try one last test: After washing the checks in water, I redunked each of them into the other solution. The one that had been soaking in HCL lost all BIC Pen markings immediately on contacting the bleach. The one that had been soaking in Bleach lost most markings soon after touching the HCL.
Aha! says I. I think I know what is going on! Even after washing in water, there is some residual chemical in the paper of the check. In the case of the check soaking in Hydrochloric acid, that acid was enough to liberate some free chlorine from the bleach. In the case of the check that had been soaking in bleach, the residual bleach had enough clorine that when the acid liberated it, it could bleach the check. I assume that you could use any acid, not even particularly strong ones like HCL to liberate chlorine from bleach. I think vinegar might work, and not damage the paper so much as HCL. Or a weak solution of HCL would work too I guess.
The only problem I see with this method of crime ( aside from the fact that it is a crime and that you'd get caught - dont try this at home kids! ) is that the security paper takes on a greenish tint after contacting the bleach. No doubt one of the colors in the background is made to be susceptible to bleaching for security purposes so that altered checks clearly stand out as green. ( the green component must not be suceptible to bleach )
Of course I tossed the experimental checks out. ( they were written from my bank account so who would I be stealing from? Me! )
You COULD make a 'lifter' and fly it around your room. It's the same thing as an ionic breeze and you can make one out of tin foil and a broken TV set. In fact, I notice that there's tons of dust on my TV no matter how often I clean it. More TVs might help your dirty air problem.
The problem is that too often crappy science does not help the defendent, but the prosecution. How would you feel if you had to spend the rest of you life behind bars because of the testimony of an 'Aura Reader'?
I don't consider myself a sap, but I WAS suckered into trying OxyClean after seeing it turn the tub full of iodine white. However, iodine is about all it takes out... I unfortunately learned that by buying a tub from WAL*MART before Chlorox came out with their excellent and educational commercial.
Psycologists, Psychiatrists, Handwriting Analizers, Lie Detectors etc etc etc...
I wouldn't say a damn thing to the cops without a lawyer. Even if I was innocent which I am not. I'm definately guilty guilty guilty... They can lie to you and try to scare you etc. Any deals they offer to make for a statement could be non-binding for all I know. Only a lawyer could tell me if they were in fact under some obligation to stay true to a deal. Nope, my trap is shut till I have a lawyer there.
They should let anyone have it. If the item is a peice of crap I wanna know where he lives so I can egg his house put balogna on his windshield and stick a rancid chicken in his mailbox.
What reasons might the police have to request ebay info? Think about it - probably 98% is fraud related. Being hornswaggled is the most worrisome thing about using ebay. It makes me feel safer to know that the sellers info is easily available to law enforcement. I want dishonest sellers to know they may be being monitored by the police. If you are an honest seller, you are more likely to make a sale if the buyers know that the police can get your info. It makes them feel safer. This is a good thing from the honest seller's perspective.
The other 2% may be odds and ends like possible terrorist sales and child porn and the like. I don't want that crap on any site I go on either. I just wanna buy my used VCR so I can illegally copy rented DVDS ;-).
I would feel differently if ebay was so willing to disclose buyer information. Buying is something everyone must do, and there should be some privacy protections. What you buy is a window into your personal life. Too much can be deduced, and wrongly assumed from that data for it to be a good idea for law enforcement to have it. What you sell is another matter. The only info it reveals is how you made your money. There is not much chance that law enforcement will start persecuting hot dog vendors just because they are hot dog vendors.
If the sobig virus sends specific spam emails then you should be able to examine the packets output by an infected machine to discover the content of those mail messages. Once you find out the content, then you know who is sending the mails since any useful spam would have to include some way to get in contact with the spammer. ( Maybe not negative ads tho such as 'Tide Sucks' being sent out by All detergent without any reference to itself. ) If I were a spammer looking to send spam via a virus I wrote I would just have the virus act as an open relay. Then I would scan the net at large for open relays to use just as any other spammer would. Writing such a virus would benefit the whole 'Spammer community' to the detriment of everyone else, but the virus writer could remain anonymous since many spammer are likely to find and use infected machines without knowing why the machines are running an open relay.
How do they detect hydrogen? It's not hot so it is not giving off any 'spectal lines' or anything. It's just sitting there cold as ice..
For half a billion bucks they could have started with linux/KDE and polished it up to the point that your grandmacould run it, then developed their own version of any software they thought they were missing.
$970/toilet seat?
I've noticed that when I write a $10-$20 check to some charity, that they spend at least $20-$30 in postage/envelopes/paper trying to get another $10 out of me. I wish there were a checkbox that said: "Hey I really think your cause is great, but I don't have any more dough, so don't waste your time trying to get more" otherwise I feel that the small donation actually saps the cause I'm trying to help.
In the future when all media comes to my TV/Computer/MusicPlayer/Holodeck/Whatever I'll have to install Kazaa and 'Get Gatored' to watch the evening news..
The time it takes to 'get' a joke.
'Spose I were rooting for Einstein, then do I want an instantaneous gravity or one that takes time to propagate?
Linux, being free software, appeals to the people who write free software and always will be tinkerable. This is because people who write software are geeks and will write software they want to use. If someone is paying them to do it then well, they will also write software to be retard proof.
Apple's market share has been decreasing more and more over the years. Any recent gains notwithstanding ( I don't keep up with Apple since I replaced my Centris 610 years ago with an Intel box. I grew up on Macs and was a Machead once. ) - any recent gains notwithstanding, Linux will not surpass Apple, Apple will fall behind Linux when enough Mac users switch to Windows that the remaining die hard Macheads amount to less than the total geek population.
There are 2 other possibilities:
Real geeks will still use linux unless Apple can offer them something they don't already have which they can't.
I don't think free software will get much more retard proof. It will never be as polished as non-free software. I think that is because polish means closing up stuff which hinders tinkerability. Open software tends to leave frayed edges exposed. This is not a sign of poor quality - it is just that you need those edges loose to weave it in to something else or to add to it.
Wasn't there research done that found that seven digits is the average maximum numbers of digits that can be remembered by someone? If there were no phonetic logic between words it might be easier to remember a seven digit number than how to draw a chinese character. 25^7 = 6.1 billion.
That's way more words than any language I know of has. Probably some of the 24 colors are really not official colors but badly dyed wool. Prolly there is no difference between burgandy and brown in the language if this idea is right. I would look for highly contrasting colors and different pigments used to dye the strings to try and sort out which 'digits' were really meant to be distinct digits.