2) There are weird problems with keyboard keys not working right sometimes. For example, occasionally if I click in the document that has been displayed, the arrow keys will not move the page. Or in forms the home/end keys, etc. dont work. It seems like these events aren't being captured, although I can't find any consistent way to cause it.
I'm using an older build but I've noticed this as well. Try clicking in the address bar, now up/down/home/end change it. Now click on a blank part of the webpage (not over text so you have an arrow instead of the text cursor). Bingo, address bar still has focus and keys don't move the page. I'm sure somebody will reply that its a feature not a bug but it is annoying...
Ok then, seeing as you believe cracking encrypted peer2peer filesharing would be in breach of the DCMA would you kindly explain to me how? AFAIK the DMCA rules out circumventing a copyright protection device which this encryption method certainly wouldn't be.
Ahh yes, I forget that you Americans have some really dumb laws. I was thinking of a law that would be more widely applicable than just in the states.
Although from what I understand of the DMCA it outlaws circumvention of copyright protection schemes. P2P traffic isn't copyrighted (in a sense that the people exchanging the traffic own a copyright to it - obviously most of the files are copyrighted by somebody else), and so cracking that encryption wouldn't be a copyright circumvention device AFAIK.
Of course, the real solution is to encrypt your traffic. Then you get to have your ISP prosecued for a serious crime (at least much more serious than copyright violation) if they do manage to break the encryption.
OK then boy-genius. What crime is that then? There are no laws against cracking encryption systems. If there were, then cryptoanalysts wouldn't do their work quite so openly, now would they?
Still, on the bright-side, you've proven the complete shambolic idiocy of most people with mod points by getting +5 insightful. Well done. The world is now a dumber place that you have spoken.
I invent a couple of examples where privacy is not a problem, the crime is solved, ergo privacy is not a problem. Can you see the circularity of this argument?
But, to pull apart your example a bit rather than just show you one of the many other examples in recent years where a bit more privacy would have stopped a crime from being solved:
"My brother went to your house to talk about buying a car from you. He's not been back. Where is he? What were those gunshots I heard just now?"
Well, you can't ask me. I have privacy. You can't verify if anyone else heard the gunshots - they all have privacy. So what do you do? Assume that I killed him? What if he was shot leaving my house by someone else, hasn't your assumption just caused a miscarriage of justice? On the other hand, without perfect privacy the police would be allowed to check my house for forensics, or even interview me to see if I seemed like a suspect, or interview other people to see if they saw anything... does this sound like real life perhaps?
maybe actualy doing their job for once rather than relying on useless cameras?
The system works. Define useless in this context...
Ironic really that I started this by refering to the Slashdot knee-jerk crowd and you've brought the old Ben Franklin reference out to play.
Why do I think that its a tradeoff? Well, if everybody had perfect privacy, then crime would not be solvable. If we had perfect safety then there would be no privacy, when we mix some each up to create a balance, we tend to call it a tradeoff.
It would be amazing that trash like this gets a +4 insightful, but then again this is slashdot and saying what the crowd wants to hear will always be popular.
So, as a UK citizen, responding to someone who clearly knows nothing about the UK apart from a couple of trashy 'Cops! Doing bad stuff III' shows there are a couple of things to clear up.
Firstly, we do not have a consistent CCTV network. In city centres (eg the bar districts) there are CCTV cameras because if you've ever been out in a city centre on a friday / saturday night in the UK you'd notice the hoard of drunken little twats whose idea of a good night out is a few beers and a fight, optionally followed by breaking the nearest thing they can find.
People are quite supportive of these, they are also used by the police to cut down on shoplifters and pickpockets during the day, and as a result neither is as bad a problem as it would be. What the Slashdot knee-jerk crowd forgets is that there is a balance between privacy and safety. Different countries opt for different points on the scale. Sure, we could have more privacy at the expense of a higher crime rate, but why do we need it? What is the problem with your face popping up on a few cameras when you go shopping?
I mean, do you have a problem with people taking your picture as well? Or only if they're government employees... do you have to check IDs and stuff of people with cameras before you get pissed off?
Most (largish) private stores have their own CCTV cameras, when theres a crime they turn the tapes over to the police to help in the investigation. So most of the 'network' that you refer to is A) Not a unified network, and B) Not under central control.
Your other points were equally weak, for instance only London has an underground in the UK. So you can't really claim that its the primary means of transportation in 'such cities'.
The UK is still ahead in CCTV technology, and finding ways to further intermesh it with various goals.
Beautiful dude, you've managed to say absolutely nothing with that statement and yet make it as if you almost had...
I guess that if you actually came over and had a look for yourself instead of gaining your view of the rest of the world from the back of a cereal box you might be better informed...
Why should I say fine wines? How will it help you in your pitiful bourgeois existence, I could sell you fine wines but that would certainly cost you a tidy sum.
Fucking proles
Ahh, now here we can at least agree on something. Especially when their rent is due and they become desperate. Exquisite
How does this get marked up as +3 insightful? Did you read the paper?
They are using analysis techniques to locate bugs at specific points within the parse-tree.Hence, they are locating bugs within specific functions rather than just files. As all of their examples showed. Sure, its a nice point. But it is what they are doing.
Errr, so if this is true, then really its just a US problem isn't it? AFAIK, the rest of the world doesn't enfore software patents. We certainly don't over here in the UK. Would this mean that linux was freely distributable and usable in the rest of the world but not over there?
Yup, good point. Got a bit carried away with my own rhetoric there. People have invented a lot of crap since then... what where the silver dots? Don't think that I heard of that one.
The question that springs to mind is why do you have them docked most of the time? The whole point of a PDA is that its a mobile device... I think it is reasonable to have a moving interface on a mobile device.
If its purely to sync up then wireless networking is the way forward. If its because you like a largely static solution with a pen interface then the tablet PC seems like a good idea - but then the solution is a larger screen area. The problem that the guy was trying to solve is keeping the small form factor for mobility but giving the user more screen estate to work with.
I think that you've missed the point somewhat. This isn't a hardware or software innovation. It is an experiment in a new type of HCI, allowing the user to freely move the display around is more intuitive than having to flick modes in order to scroll or to use the display.
The solution that you're talking about may be less physically bulky and built into the system but it isn't as usable as the type of device that this is a prototype for. The device doesn't tilt, it moves freely in space and as you move the physical device it updates the view that you see. The whole point of this is that is makes for a more usable interface than what we have already.
Other posters have complained that this is just X windows multiple desktops - well it is just a windowing system but the point is how you move the viewable window, it's through a physical interface that you can easily use in *combination* with the stylus. Placing both modes of interaction on the stylus just reinvents what we already have.
The last time somebody tried out an innovative new way of communicating with a machine he was also scoffed at to begin with - who needs a pointer moving device when we have a keyboard?
I had thought something similar. The way that we've come across to fix it is to force the camera to accept that there are file entries in the FAT table by touching them (*before* a reformat) on the linux side. It does appear that the sony kit is a bit lax about things like formatting and creating fat entries.
This is slightly off-topic but seems like a good place to mention the Jenreader which is a little £10 USB adaptor for memory-sticks that allow you to plug them into any USB socket. They work like a treat... apart from the file corruption that occurs under linux.
The file-system mounts ok using the usb-storage modules but if you try and write to the stick then sony products think the card has been corrupted. Once you lose sync even reformatting the card won't bring it back. Anyone come across this... got a patch... any clue whats going on?
BTW, I wonder if Slashcode imposes a limit on the depth of replies to replies to replies...:-)
Well, there's only one way to find out...;)
I'm read a fair bit on relativity and string theory, I'm quite familiar with the ideas of inflation et al, I've just never come across the definite assumption that the universe is infinite in expanse. Are there any specific weblinks - yup, I'm that lazy, the library is in the next building, and its raining;)
Interesting stuff. Have you got some links with some more indepth explanations. One thing that I still have a problem with is how can it be expanding if its already infinite - infinity is just an uncontrolled or divergent growth process. How can such a process be growing in size? Or to put it another way, at the time it was a singularity it must have been finite in size, so it must have had a period of expansion that was infinite in rate. If not how could it have been an infinitely sized, yet singular point?
No. If the universe's age is X, then X is how far back in the past you can see. X increases by one year with every year that passes.
Ah good point. I hadn't considered that. But then, if the universe has grown to infinite size in finite time doesn't that imply an infinite rate of expansion?
Thanks for clearing that up. I can now see where you're coming from on the open universe angle.
One thing that still doesn't make sense though; If the observable universe will grow without limit then the distance that we can see further back in time will also grow without limit - isn't this a contradiction with the claim that that time started at a finite distance in the past?
Err, this is a bit real life. One of the prof's in the office is a specialist on patent law, he even has an award for the number that he filed when he used to work at a private company. He is called in as an expect witness in these desputes.
And as for: Patents are documented fully, design documents are also publicly available.
Have you ever read a filed patent? They are deliberately worded to cover as much as they possibly can. Just take the BT 'hyperlink' patent.
Patents were designed to protect physical products created in a world of little inventors in their sheds being stomped on by large factory and mill owners. In a world where the physical costs of creation are zero (eg computer software) they don't work. In a world where I can independently come up with an invention, prove it works and pass it around for free on the internet, why should I blocked by a large corporation that A) thought of it first and B) has the money to hire a legal firm. As I pointed out ealier, kids in the playground screaming 'but I thought of it *first*'. So what? Why does that mean that I can't use an idea that I have?
The patent system was devised in an age where coming up with the idea was the easy part and making it work was a) difficuly b) time consuming and c) expensive. None of this applies to software development and patents don't work in the computer industry.
The part of patent law that the USPTO seem so incompetent in enforcing is that a patent should apply to an idea, only to an implementation. Well, in software, the idea is the implementation (at least if you can write it down...). Copyright already covers program listings, adding patent protection is just bad for the industry. So go on, name a single beneficial software patent. Just one.
I notice that all of your examples of good patent use are physical products in the real world. Fine. I'll agree with you totally (I can't be arsed to argue that people dying of a disease because they're country can't afford the patented medicines have a right to life). So lets ignore physical products, the goods that patents were designed to protect.
Lets fastforward to the modern world. A world of virtual goods and products, specifically computer software, what the hell - it is the point of this article and the original posters point. Name one benefical software patent. Go on. Just one.
How do you know / suspect this? I'm not suggesting that you're wrong, I'm just wondering what the evidence to support it is. After all if its outside of the observable universe, how can we tell what features it has?
Slashdot Mirror
2) There are weird problems with keyboard keys not working right sometimes. For example, occasionally if I click in the document that has been displayed, the arrow keys will not move the page. Or in forms the home/end keys, etc. dont work. It seems like these events aren't being captured, although I can't find any consistent way to cause it.
I'm using an older build but I've noticed this as well. Try clicking in the address bar, now up/down/home/end change it. Now click on a blank part of the webpage (not over text so you have an arrow instead of the text cursor). Bingo, address bar still has focus and keys don't move the page. I'm sure somebody will reply that its a feature not a bug but it is annoying...
Ok then, seeing as you believe cracking encrypted peer2peer filesharing would be in breach of the DCMA would you kindly explain to me how? AFAIK the DMCA rules out circumventing a copyright protection device which this encryption method certainly wouldn't be.
Ahh yes, I forget that you Americans have some really dumb laws. I was thinking of a law that would be more widely applicable than just in the states.
Although from what I understand of the DMCA it outlaws circumvention of copyright protection schemes. P2P traffic isn't copyrighted (in a sense that the people exchanging the traffic own a copyright to it - obviously most of the files are copyrighted by somebody else), and so cracking that encryption wouldn't be a copyright circumvention device AFAIK.
Of course, the real solution is to encrypt your traffic. Then you get to have your ISP prosecued for a serious crime (at least much more serious than copyright violation) if they do manage to break the encryption.
OK then boy-genius. What crime is that then? There are no laws against cracking encryption systems. If there were, then cryptoanalysts wouldn't do their work quite so openly, now would they?
Still, on the bright-side, you've proven the complete shambolic idiocy of most people with mod points by getting +5 insightful. Well done. The world is now a dumber place that you have spoken.
I invent a couple of examples where privacy is not a problem, the crime is solved, ergo privacy is not a problem. Can you see the circularity of this argument?
... does this sound like real life perhaps?
But, to pull apart your example a bit rather than just show you one of the many other examples in recent years where a bit more privacy would have stopped a crime from being solved:
"My brother went to your house to talk about buying a car from you. He's not been back. Where is he? What were those gunshots I heard just now?"
Well, you can't ask me. I have privacy. You can't verify if anyone else heard the gunshots - they all have privacy. So what do you do? Assume that I killed him? What if he was shot leaving my house by someone else, hasn't your assumption just caused a miscarriage of justice? On the other hand, without perfect privacy the police would be allowed to check my house for forensics, or even interview me to see if I seemed like a suspect, or interview other people to see if they saw anything
Ahh, sounds like a Geordie AC ;^) I didn't realise that it was underground near the centre.
maybe actualy doing their job for once rather than relying on useless cameras?
The system works. Define useless in this context...
Ironic really that I started this by refering to the Slashdot knee-jerk crowd and you've brought the old Ben Franklin reference out to play.
Why do I think that its a tradeoff? Well, if everybody had perfect privacy, then crime would not be solvable. If we had perfect safety then there would be no privacy, when we mix some each up to create a balance, we tend to call it a tradeoff.
I might give you Glasgow, but the Newcastle metro is an overground bus / light rail service.
But I forget, anything north of Birmingham isn't the UK is it?
LOL. Nice point.
It would be amazing that trash like this gets a +4 insightful, but then again this is slashdot and saying what the crowd wants to hear will always be popular.
... do you have to check IDs and stuff of people with cameras before you get pissed off?
Most (largish) private stores have their own CCTV cameras, when theres a crime they turn the tapes over to the police to help in the investigation. So most of the 'network' that you refer to is
... ...
So, as a UK citizen, responding to someone who clearly knows nothing about the UK apart from a couple of trashy 'Cops! Doing bad stuff III' shows there are a couple of things to clear up.
Firstly, we do not have a consistent CCTV network. In city centres (eg the bar districts) there are CCTV cameras because if you've ever been out in a city centre on a friday / saturday night in the UK you'd notice the hoard of drunken little twats whose idea of a good night out is a few beers and a fight, optionally followed by breaking the nearest thing they can find.
People are quite supportive of these, they are also used by the police to cut down on shoplifters and pickpockets during the day, and as a result neither is as bad a problem as it would be. What the Slashdot knee-jerk crowd forgets is that there is a balance between privacy and safety. Different countries opt for different points on the scale. Sure, we could have more privacy at the expense of a higher crime rate, but why do we need it? What is the problem with your face popping up on a few cameras when you go shopping?
I mean, do you have a problem with people taking your picture as well? Or only if they're government employees
A) Not a unified network, and
B) Not under central control.
Your other points were equally weak, for instance only London has an underground in the UK. So you can't really claim that its the primary means of transportation in 'such cities'.
The UK is still ahead in CCTV technology, and finding ways to further intermesh it with various goals.
Beautiful dude, you've managed to say absolutely nothing with that statement and yet make it as if you almost had
I guess that if you actually came over and had a look for yourself instead of gaining your view of the rest of the world from the back of a cereal box you might be better informed
But those virtual CPUs are on the same physical chip with the same cache state so how can their distance to memory be different?
Why should I say fine wines? How will it help you in your pitiful bourgeois existence, I could sell you fine wines but that would certainly cost you a tidy sum.
Fucking proles Ahh, now here we can at least agree on something. Especially when their rent is due and they become desperate. Exquisite
How does this get marked up as +3 insightful? Did you read the paper?
They are using analysis techniques to locate bugs at specific points within the parse-tree.Hence, they are locating bugs within specific functions rather than just files. As all of their examples showed. Sure, its a nice point. But it is what they are doing.
Errr, so if this is true, then really its just a US problem isn't it? AFAIK, the rest of the world doesn't enfore software patents. We certainly don't over here in the UK. Would this mean that linux was freely distributable and usable in the rest of the world but not over there?
Boy, that would suck for you guys huh?
... indicate that the chinese have already been experimenting with defenses against microwave weapons. So far the most reliable is a metal spoon ...
Yup, good point. Got a bit carried away with my own rhetoric there. People have invented a lot of crap since then ... what where the silver dots? Don't think that I heard of that one.
... I think it is reasonable to have a moving interface on a mobile device.
The question that springs to mind is why do you have them docked most of the time? The whole point of a PDA is that its a mobile device
If its purely to sync up then wireless networking is the way forward. If its because you like a largely static solution with a pen interface then the tablet PC seems like a good idea - but then the solution is a larger screen area. The problem that the guy was trying to solve is keeping the small form factor for mobility but giving the user more screen estate to work with.
I think that you've missed the point somewhat. This isn't a hardware or software innovation. It is an experiment in a new type of HCI, allowing the user to freely move the display around is more intuitive than having to flick modes in order to scroll or to use the display.
The solution that you're talking about may be less physically bulky and built into the system but it isn't as usable as the type of device that this is a prototype for. The device doesn't tilt, it moves freely in space and as you move the physical device it updates the view that you see. The whole point of this is that is makes for a more usable interface than what we have already.
Other posters have complained that this is just X windows multiple desktops - well it is just a windowing system but the point is how you move the viewable window, it's through a physical interface that you can easily use in *combination* with the stylus. Placing both modes of interaction on the stylus just reinvents what we already have.
The last time somebody tried out an innovative new way of communicating with a machine he was also scoffed at to begin with - who needs a pointer moving device when we have a keyboard?
But how many people use mice today?
I had thought something similar. The way that we've come across to fix it is to force the camera to accept that there are file entries in the FAT table by touching them (*before* a reformat) on the linux side. It does appear that the sony kit is a bit lax about things like formatting and creating fat entries.
This is slightly off-topic but seems like a good place to mention the Jenreader which is a little £10 USB adaptor for memory-sticks that allow you to plug them into any USB socket. They work like a treat ... apart from the file corruption that occurs under linux.
... got a patch ... any clue whats going on?
The file-system mounts ok using the usb-storage modules but if you try and write to the stick then sony products think the card has been corrupted. Once you lose sync even reformatting the card won't bring it back. Anyone come across this
BTW, I wonder if Slashcode imposes a limit on the depth of replies to replies to replies ... :-)
... ;)
;)
Well, there's only one way to find out
I'm read a fair bit on relativity and string theory, I'm quite familiar with the ideas of inflation et al, I've just never come across the definite assumption that the universe is infinite in expanse. Are there any specific weblinks - yup, I'm that lazy, the library is in the next building, and its raining
Interesting stuff. Have you got some links with some more indepth explanations. One thing that I still have a problem with is how can it be expanding if its already infinite - infinity is just an uncontrolled or divergent growth process. How can such a process be growing in size? Or to put it another way, at the time it was a singularity it must have been finite in size, so it must have had a period of expansion that was infinite in rate. If not how could it have been an infinitely sized, yet singular point?
No. If the universe's age is X, then X is how far back in the past you can see. X increases by one year with every year that passes.
Ah good point. I hadn't considered that. But then, if the universe has grown to infinite size in finite time doesn't that imply an infinite rate of expansion?
Thanks for clearing that up. I can now see where you're coming from on the open universe angle.
One thing that still doesn't make sense though; If the observable universe will grow without limit then the distance that we can see further back in time will also grow without limit - isn't this a contradiction with the claim that that time started at a finite distance in the past?
This is a bit wrong.
Err, this is a bit real life. One of the prof's in the office is a specialist on patent law, he even has an award for the number that he filed when he used to work at a private company. He is called in as an expect witness in these desputes. And as for:
Patents are documented fully, design documents are also publicly available.
Have you ever read a filed patent? They are deliberately worded to cover as much as they possibly can. Just take the BT 'hyperlink' patent.
Patents were designed to protect physical products created in a world of little inventors in their sheds being stomped on by large factory and mill owners. In a world where the physical costs of creation are zero (eg computer software) they don't work. In a world where I can independently come up with an invention, prove it works and pass it around for free on the internet, why should I blocked by a large corporation that A) thought of it first and B) has the money to hire a legal firm. As I pointed out ealier, kids in the playground screaming 'but I thought of it *first*'. So what? Why does that mean that I can't use an idea that I have?
The patent system was devised in an age where coming up with the idea was the easy part and making it work was a) difficuly b) time consuming and c) expensive. None of this applies to software development and patents don't work in the computer industry.
The part of patent law that the USPTO seem so incompetent in enforcing is that a patent should apply to an idea, only to an implementation. Well, in software, the idea is the implementation (at least if you can write it down...). Copyright already covers program listings, adding patent protection is just bad for the industry. So go on, name a single beneficial software patent. Just one.
I notice that all of your examples of good patent use are physical products in the real world. Fine. I'll agree with you totally (I can't be arsed to argue that people dying of a disease because they're country can't afford the patented medicines have a right to life). So lets ignore physical products, the goods that patents were designed to protect.
Lets fastforward to the modern world. A world of virtual goods and products, specifically computer software, what the hell - it is the point of this article and the original posters point. Name one benefical software patent. Go on. Just one.
whereas the volume of the universe is infinite.
How do you know / suspect this? I'm not suggesting that you're wrong, I'm just wondering what the evidence to support it is. After all if its outside of the observable universe, how can we tell what features it has?