The "current rate of consumption" part is the problem. I though global warming would probably devistate human economies such that oil use decreases dramatically in the near future and we would therefore never run out of oil.
By error I mean that you manually reconcile some portion of the voting machines to printed paper records (your county DOES require paper records, doesn't it?) which the voter confirmed before leaving the polling place. These counts should match 100%. No exceptions. Nada, none, no down payment. A computer simply can't count wrong. If it does, you've got a BIG BIG problem.
All of your reasons are either: (a) human error that doesn't result in a count error or (b) they just don't make sence
> no, there are legitimate reasons for inaccuracy, such as: > - user selects wrong candidate (perhaps they don't line up right in the display, etc) That's an (a). The voter should detect the error on the confirmation screen and have it corrected. If (s)he doesn't, it's the voter's fault and won't result in an incorrect count. > - user selects a candidate, then backs up and selects a different one, but does this process incorrectly That's also an (a) for the same reason. It also results in a printed record that correctly matches the count (i.e. no error). > - user's vote isn't completed and so entire ballot is discarded (a) for the same reason. > - date is incorrect on voting machine (b) So I'm guessing that you're implying the media which holds the vote count has a datestamp and if it doesn't match the election date everyone who voted on that machine doesn't get their vote counted. That's operator (not voter) error. If the election can't be decided even if all those ballots are cast for the the losing candidate, then the election commission should contact all of the voters who used that machine and have them re-vote. > - etc (b) I thought the diebold machines ran WinCE and therefore didn't have an/etc directory.:)
> If you're a programmer, do you get to grade your programming?
I'm all for separation of duties in programming, acconting, and teaching, but to answer your question, yes, programmers usually do "grade" their own programming. Obviously the dev does enough testing to get it working. I'd guess that most commercial software projects, do have a separate test team as part of their SDLC, as does some OSS, but a heck of a lot of it IS primarily tested by the dev, release, and then bugs are reported by end users through bugzilla or the like. What's more is that this seems to work well enough in many cases. Even automated regression testing probably doesn't get as good of coverage as the userbase.:)
I think we need a law that requires 100% accuracy for any electronic voting system. When people counting votes, you'd expect some error and you'd expect that error to be some reasnabally small number. When a computer doing the counting, you'd expect 100% accuracy. If you have a mistake, you can't assume it's some small percentage that can be ignored. It's just as likely to be a very large error.
Anyone care to draft legislation to send to our reps?
From the Article: Iran today boasts of filtering 10 million "immoral" websites. Pornographic sites, political sites and those dealing with religion are usually the ones most targeted.
Judging from my spam filter, 10e^6 seems like it wouldn't even cover all the porn sites.
Okay, I will admit to being a fanboy (as if it was required). I'll also agree that Gentoo has quite the learning curve, and that SUSE wants the server market. I just don't think SUSE DESERVES the server market. I have a SLES server set up by a consulting company and after getting tired of fucking with the ridculious admin tools, I went through Gentoo's learing curve and now all of my other servers and workstations are Gentoo. It's simply worth the trouble.
> have probably one of the most bug-free pieces of software in existence.
Just because it put a few shuttles into space doesn't mean it's bug-free. Compare the instances of this software actually in production use to Windows, Linux, or just about any commercial or open source software and it's insignificant. The concequences of problems are greater, but the userbase and amount of real-world testing is much much less. I'd guess that if shuttle components were affortable and NASA open-sourced their software, their bugzilla site would be pretty active.
I'm not a Meterologist myself, but I do IT support for an organization that does atmospheric research. A large group of the meterologists I support see "An Inconvenient Truth" (Al Gore's movie) as a comedy and don't believe the data on global warming. I have downloaded the data Mr. Gore presented in the movie and reporduced his graphs, but my officemate (a Meterologist) points out that coorilation doesn't imply causation. (i.e. does C02 cause global warming or does global warming cause CO2?). Furthermore, he claims that there's an even better coorilation between global warming and sunspots. Of course we do have no less than 3 Toyota Prius's and 1 Ford Escape Hybrid in the parking lot, so others in the company may feel differently.
An no, I haven't read the article yet, but I just wanted to say that whatever the elusive "scientific community" may think, the issue is far from an open and shut case to to meterologists.
No, I didn't, but I stand corrected. Finding this out is worse than the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny things combined. But come to think of it, it does make sence. I don't ever remember them flipping out or cutting anyone's head off, and I never saw them fly. And then they were always trying to kill that shreader guy buy they never could. What loosers.
> Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux...
The implied part missing from this statement is "against Novell". Novell will now be free to develop stuff that steps on MS patents, all open source and GLP-compliant, but other distros won't be able to use it for fear the MS will sue them. Esentially this is a move to try to biforcate the Linux market. They want infighting to slow down Linux development instead of the big feel-good code-sharing orgy that has given Linux so much great software in so little time.
The solution: boycot SuSE. Honestly, there is no shortage of reasons to do this anyway. Its crappy GUI admin tools are MS-like except for the fact that they don't actually work half the time. It's possibly suitable as a desktop OS for users who are afraid of the command line but for some strange reason still want to use Linux. It's NOT very useful as a server product.
First off, the reviewer shouldn't be keeping the hardware in the first place. Hardware should be returned once the review is published, else the REVIEWER has a conflict of interest. And if Alienware doesn't want their product reviewed, then they simply miss out on free publicity with the reviwer noting that Alienware declined participation (which makes readers wonder if Alienware thought their product wasn't up to par). That's how the game works. If the reader trusts the reviewer, Alienware is acting in their own disinterest. If the reader doesn't, then the review wouldn't have much of an effect on that reader one way or the other anyway.
Has anyone actually read this new bill? Both the Govtrack.us and towardsfreedom.com links above seem to be broken, but I found (thanks Google, Wikipedia) Senator Leahy's comments and what I think is the bill in question (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 Report to Accompany H.R. 5122
). I can't find the part that the good (as in good witch, bad witch) Senator mentions that amends the Insurrection Act. Does anyone else have a clue that could help us judge for ourselves exactly what's changed in the law from a first-hand source?
e360Insight's web site urges us to contact our Senators and Representatives, which is just what I did:
Dear Senator|Representative <XYZ>:
e360Insight, an American company, has recently sued Spamhaus, a British company, claiming that Spamhous's service, which lists the e-mail addresses and domain names of known spammers, has violated e360Insight's rights.
Spamhaus provides an invaluable service. Those of us responsible for administering e-mail services know and love the company. Though most users aren't aware of it, almost anyone who uses e-mail receives less unwanted e-mail because of Spamhaus.
e360Insight, as best I can tell from their website, is a major SENDER of unsolicited and/or unwanted SPAM messages. Their argument is incorrect because only individual e-mail administrators have the ability to block e-mail. Spamhaus has no such ability. We CHOOSE to use or ignore Spamhaus recommendations. If such recommendations compromised the e-mail service we provided, we would quickly stop using them due to user complaints.
A federal court has already ordered Spamhaus to pay $11.7 million (an unenforceable measure, since Spamhaus isn't in the US). e360Insight has also asked that Spamhaus's domain be shut down (which was was rejected by U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras). Please encourage Judget Kocoras and any other federal judges involved to dismiss e360Insight's frivolously lawsuit and protect the rights of American's to use Spamhaus, a valuable service that makes e-mail a usable form of communication.
It's a plot! W (a.k.a. "The Kid"), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Ill, they're all just puppets of these evil bacteria who need nuclear war to satisfy their ever-increasing thirst for radioactivity. Of course, I, for one, welcome our new bacterial overloards...
I support Gentoo (quite happily) on 3 clusters, 6 servers, and a dozen or so workstations for a science research organization. Granted, it's my full-time job, but after the first few weeks of setting everything up, everything pretty much just runs. I now sleep in, take long lunches, and do web development on the side.
If you want the no-brains install and operation, just pony up the dough for Windows. If you actually NEED a *nix-like OS for something, Gentoo is it because: 1) ebuilds (packages) available for just about everything. If it's not there, check bugs.gentoo.org and see if someone (maybe me) has posted it and it hasn't made it into the portage tree yet. And because packages are compiled from source, it's easy to change the compile options to suit your needs. I've tried fighting with SRPMs, and it's just not worth it. 2) Customizing an ebuild, adding 3rd party ebuild, or adding your own ebuilds is easy using portage overlays. The whole thing is customizable without touching any of the acutal portage tree! 3) gentoo-wiki.com has GOOD and UP-TO-DATE documentation for just about everything you want to do. What's not there is on gentoo.org, and bugs.gentoo.org is active and responsive. Gentoo simply has better support than other free distros. 4) If you can't figure out how to partition your hard drive and untar stuff, you either need to learn or you need to find software that runs on Windows instead.
Lets say I install Windows on a box on my network and hook it up to the Internet with without a firewall. It, of course, gets hacked and the hackers use my 750GB hard drive as a data store for all sorts of illegal and copywrited stuff. I discover this when the RIAA sends me a lawsuit claiming that I allowed people to download their intellectual property from a web site running on my computer.
Am I innocent because I was unaware that it was occuring, or can I be held responsible for anything coming out of the IP address assigned to me by my ISP?
Re:Hate them! Hate them! Hate them!
on
A New Kind of OS
·
· Score: 1
> If you want to improve the OS "of the future", then START with a reduced set of commands and allow the user to choose what level s/he is comfortable with. Do NOT move items once they've been learned.
Amen! Machine learning is in its infancy, while humans' learning algorithms are millions of years in the making. I can learn how my computer works much faster and better than my computer can learn how I work and I doubt that will change for quite a while.
What's more, how did this make it to slashdot? The only "futuristic" thing it seemed to mention was adaptive menues, which (as noted above) have been in MS Office for years. And that's an application feature, or possibly something built in to your windowing API, not a feature of the OS.
And the second page is just some rant about the oh so scary privacy concerns, which he got totally wrong by the way. After all, are you really scared about AOL using behavior data to send you spam about something you actually want, as opposed to porn, viagra, and penny stocks (no offense to those who like those things)? Of course not. Privacy concerns are about criminals stealing your bank account and the government harassing segments of the population based on information obtained without a warrent.
> Also for those who LOVE hydrogen as a fuel, remember, water vapor is a greenhouse gas
But doesn't more water vapor = more clouds = more rain = more plants inhaling co2 and exhaling o2?
This is hardley a new idea. I went to a talk in Oakland, California a few years back by some guy who claimed to have communicated with aliens. He described something similar for how UFO's are powered. Also, the idea of the N-Machine has been around for a while, as have numerous rumours of the oil companies supressing such technology. And who can forget little Lisa Simpson. (Homer: "Lisa, in this house, we follow the rules of thermodynamics!")
I think this claim should be given a serious look. It seems incredible, but such a technology would be so revolutionary that it's worth it anyway. Of course, assuming that the conservation of energy still applies to the devices that USE this energy, by generating all that free energy, won't we be contributing to global warming in a way far beyond just trapping solar radiation?
My Gosh! The ideas here on/. are priceless! If only they could tap the collective brains of/.ers, we'd have world peace, free energy, and space travel for all in mere days.:)
Yes, but sea salt, a byproduct of desalination, will be cheaper, so I'm sure we can affort to pay more for water with what we save on sea salt, a tasty, vitiman rich, and renewable natural resource!
Slashdot Mirror
> All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection" -Butler Lampson
Except, of course, the problem of too many levels of indirection makeing either coding or running the code to slow.
The "current rate of consumption" part is the problem. I though global warming would probably devistate human economies such that oil use decreases dramatically in the near future and we would therefore never run out of oil.
By error I mean that you manually reconcile some portion of the voting machines to printed paper records (your county DOES require paper records, doesn't it?) which the voter confirmed before leaving the polling place. These counts should match 100%. No exceptions. Nada, none, no down payment. A computer simply can't count wrong. If it does, you've got a BIG BIG problem.
/etc directory. :)
All of your reasons are either:
(a) human error that doesn't result in a count error or
(b) they just don't make sence
> no, there are legitimate reasons for inaccuracy, such as:
> - user selects wrong candidate (perhaps they don't line up right in the display, etc)
That's an (a). The voter should detect the error on the confirmation screen and have it corrected. If (s)he doesn't, it's the voter's fault and won't result in an incorrect count.
> - user selects a candidate, then backs up and selects a different one, but does this process incorrectly
That's also an (a) for the same reason. It also results in a printed record that correctly matches the count (i.e. no error).
> - user's vote isn't completed and so entire ballot is discarded
(a) for the same reason.
> - date is incorrect on voting machine
(b) So I'm guessing that you're implying the media which holds the vote count has a datestamp and if it doesn't match the election date everyone who voted on that machine doesn't get their vote counted. That's operator (not voter) error. If the election can't be decided even if all those ballots are cast for the the losing candidate, then the election commission should contact all of the voters who used that machine and have them re-vote.
> - etc
(b) I thought the diebold machines ran WinCE and therefore didn't have an
> If you're a programmer, do you get to grade your programming?
:)
I'm all for separation of duties in programming, acconting, and teaching, but to answer your question, yes, programmers usually do "grade" their own programming. Obviously the dev does enough testing to get it working. I'd guess that most commercial software projects, do have a separate test team as part of their SDLC, as does some OSS, but a heck of a lot of it IS primarily tested by the dev, release, and then bugs are reported by end users through bugzilla or the like. What's more is that this seems to work well enough in many cases. Even automated regression testing probably doesn't get as good of coverage as the userbase.
I think we need a law that requires 100% accuracy for any electronic voting system. When people counting votes, you'd expect some error and you'd expect that error to be some reasnabally small number. When a computer doing the counting, you'd expect 100% accuracy. If you have a mistake, you can't assume it's some small percentage that can be ignored. It's just as likely to be a very large error.
Anyone care to draft legislation to send to our reps?
From the Article: Iran today boasts of filtering 10 million "immoral" websites. Pornographic sites, political sites and those dealing with religion are usually the ones most targeted.
Judging from my spam filter, 10e^6 seems like it wouldn't even cover all the porn sites.
Okay, I will admit to being a fanboy (as if it was required). I'll also agree that Gentoo has quite the learning curve, and that SUSE wants the server market. I just don't think SUSE DESERVES the server market. I have a SLES server set up by a consulting company and after getting tired of fucking with the ridculious admin tools, I went through Gentoo's learing curve and now all of my other servers and workstations are Gentoo. It's simply worth the trouble.
> have probably one of the most bug-free pieces of software in existence.
Just because it put a few shuttles into space doesn't mean it's bug-free. Compare the instances of this software actually in production use to Windows, Linux, or just about any commercial or open source software and it's insignificant. The concequences of problems are greater, but the userbase and amount of real-world testing is much much less. I'd guess that if shuttle components were affortable and NASA open-sourced their software, their bugzilla site would be pretty active.
I'm not a Meterologist myself, but I do IT support for an organization that does atmospheric research. A large group of the meterologists I support see "An Inconvenient Truth" (Al Gore's movie) as a comedy and don't believe the data on global warming. I have downloaded the data Mr. Gore presented in the movie and reporduced his graphs, but my officemate (a Meterologist) points out that coorilation doesn't imply causation. (i.e. does C02 cause global warming or does global warming cause CO2?). Furthermore, he claims that there's an even better coorilation between global warming and sunspots. Of course we do have no less than 3 Toyota Prius's and 1 Ford Escape Hybrid in the parking lot, so others in the company may feel differently.
An no, I haven't read the article yet, but I just wanted to say that whatever the elusive "scientific community" may think, the issue is far from an open and shut case to to meterologists.
No, I didn't, but I stand corrected. Finding this out is worse than the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny things combined. But come to think of it, it does make sence. I don't ever remember them flipping out or cutting anyone's head off, and I never saw them fly. And then they were always trying to kill that shreader guy buy they never could. What loosers.
> Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux...
The implied part missing from this statement is "against Novell". Novell will now be free to develop stuff that steps on MS patents, all open source and GLP-compliant, but other distros won't be able to use it for fear the MS will sue them. Esentially this is a move to try to biforcate the Linux market. They want infighting to slow down Linux development instead of the big feel-good code-sharing orgy that has given Linux so much great software in so little time.
The solution: boycot SuSE. Honestly, there is no shortage of reasons to do this anyway. Its crappy GUI admin tools are MS-like except for the fact that they don't actually work half the time. It's possibly suitable as a desktop OS for users who are afraid of the command line but for some strange reason still want to use Linux. It's NOT very useful as a server product.
Long Live Gentoo!
> Look, you're already a mammal... A MAMMAL? Perhaps your forgetting the most famous of Ninjas, none of whom were mammals, Leo, Don, Raph, and Mike.
First off, the reviewer shouldn't be keeping the hardware in the first place. Hardware should be returned once the review is published, else the REVIEWER has a conflict of interest. And if Alienware doesn't want their product reviewed, then they simply miss out on free publicity with the reviwer noting that Alienware declined participation (which makes readers wonder if Alienware thought their product wasn't up to par). That's how the game works. If the reader trusts the reviewer, Alienware is acting in their own disinterest. If the reader doesn't, then the review wouldn't have much of an effect on that reader one way or the other anyway.
I think there's a bug in the slashdot moderation system. Parent was mod'd +4 funny. It should have been +4 infomative.
Has anyone actually read this new bill? Both the Govtrack.us and towardsfreedom.com links above seem to be broken, but I found (thanks Google, Wikipedia) Senator Leahy's comments and what I think is the bill in question (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 Report to Accompany H.R. 5122 ). I can't find the part that the good (as in good witch, bad witch) Senator mentions that amends the Insurrection Act. Does anyone else have a clue that could help us judge for ourselves exactly what's changed in the law from a first-hand source?
e360Insight's web site urges us to contact our Senators and Representatives, which is just what I did:
Dear Senator|Representative <XYZ>:
e360Insight, an American company, has recently sued Spamhaus, a British company, claiming that Spamhous's service, which lists the e-mail addresses and domain names of known spammers, has violated e360Insight's rights.
Spamhaus provides an invaluable service. Those of us responsible for administering e-mail services know and love the company. Though most users aren't aware of it, almost anyone who uses e-mail receives less unwanted e-mail because of Spamhaus.
e360Insight, as best I can tell from their website, is a major SENDER of unsolicited and/or unwanted SPAM messages. Their argument is incorrect because only individual e-mail administrators have the ability to block e-mail. Spamhaus has no such ability. We CHOOSE to use or ignore Spamhaus recommendations. If such recommendations compromised the e-mail service we provided, we would quickly stop using them due to user complaints.
A federal court has already ordered Spamhaus to pay $11.7 million (an unenforceable measure, since Spamhaus isn't in the US). e360Insight has also asked that Spamhaus's domain be shut down (which was was rejected by U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras). Please encourage Judget Kocoras and any other federal judges involved to dismiss e360Insight's frivolously lawsuit and protect the rights of American's to use Spamhaus, a valuable service that makes e-mail a usable form of communication.
http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.gov/
It's a plot! W (a.k.a. "The Kid"), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Ill, they're all just puppets of these evil bacteria who need nuclear war to satisfy their ever-increasing thirst for radioactivity. Of course, I, for one, welcome our new bacterial overloards...
I support Gentoo (quite happily) on 3 clusters, 6 servers, and a dozen or so workstations for a science research organization. Granted, it's my full-time job, but after the first few weeks of setting everything up, everything pretty much just runs. I now sleep in, take long lunches, and do web development on the side.
If you want the no-brains install and operation, just pony up the dough for Windows. If you actually NEED a *nix-like OS for something, Gentoo is it because:
1) ebuilds (packages) available for just about everything. If it's not there, check bugs.gentoo.org and see if someone (maybe me) has posted it and it hasn't made it into the portage tree yet. And because packages are compiled from source, it's easy to change the compile options to suit your needs. I've tried fighting with SRPMs, and it's just not worth it.
2) Customizing an ebuild, adding 3rd party ebuild, or adding your own ebuilds is easy using portage overlays. The whole thing is customizable without touching any of the acutal portage tree!
3) gentoo-wiki.com has GOOD and UP-TO-DATE documentation for just about everything you want to do. What's not there is on gentoo.org, and bugs.gentoo.org is active and responsive. Gentoo simply has better support than other free distros.
4) If you can't figure out how to partition your hard drive and untar stuff, you either need to learn or you need to find software that runs on Windows instead.
Lets say I install Windows on a box on my network and hook it up to the Internet with without a firewall. It, of course, gets hacked and the hackers use my 750GB hard drive as a data store for all sorts of illegal and copywrited stuff. I discover this when the RIAA sends me a lawsuit claiming that I allowed people to download their intellectual property from a web site running on my computer.
Am I innocent because I was unaware that it was occuring, or can I be held responsible for anything coming out of the IP address assigned to me by my ISP?
...when you run `wget --mirror http://www.google.com/search?q=porn --domains=72.14.207.104 #google cache`
> If you want to improve the OS "of the future", then START with a reduced set of commands and allow the user to choose what level s/he is comfortable with. Do NOT move items once they've been learned.
Amen! Machine learning is in its infancy, while humans' learning algorithms are millions of years in the making. I can learn how my computer works much faster and better than my computer can learn how I work and I doubt that will change for quite a while.
What's more, how did this make it to slashdot? The only "futuristic" thing it seemed to mention was adaptive menues, which (as noted above) have been in MS Office for years. And that's an application feature, or possibly something built in to your windowing API, not a feature of the OS.
And the second page is just some rant about the oh so scary privacy concerns, which he got totally wrong by the way. After all, are you really scared about AOL using behavior data to send you spam about something you actually want, as opposed to porn, viagra, and penny stocks (no offense to those who like those things)? Of course not. Privacy concerns are about criminals stealing your bank account and the government harassing segments of the population based on information obtained without a warrent.
> Also for those who LOVE hydrogen as a fuel, remember, water vapor is a greenhouse gas But doesn't more water vapor = more clouds = more rain = more plants inhaling co2 and exhaling o2?
This is hardley a new idea. I went to a talk in Oakland, California a few years back by some guy who claimed to have communicated with aliens. He described something similar for how UFO's are powered. Also, the idea of the N-Machine has been around for a while, as have numerous rumours of the oil companies supressing such technology. And who can forget little Lisa Simpson. (Homer: "Lisa, in this house, we follow the rules of thermodynamics!")
I think this claim should be given a serious look. It seems incredible, but such a technology would be so revolutionary that it's worth it anyway. Of course, assuming that the conservation of energy still applies to the devices that USE this energy, by generating all that free energy, won't we be contributing to global warming in a way far beyond just trapping solar radiation?
My Gosh! The ideas here on /. are priceless! If only they could tap the collective brains of /.ers, we'd have world peace, free energy, and space travel for all in mere days. :)
Yes, but sea salt, a byproduct of desalination, will be cheaper, so I'm sure we can affort to pay more for water with what we save on sea salt, a tasty, vitiman rich, and renewable natural resource!