There was an early review of Pattern Recognition in one of the UK broadsheets where the (female, as it happens) reviewer was complaining that she didn't like it, didn't understand it, and it was unfair to expect anyone to understand what 'steganography' was. She couldn't go and find a dictionary?
I'm really looking forward to reading it, when I can find someone to borrow it off:)
IME that's a training thing - spend long enough looking for something and areas of your visual cortex become very adept at identifying it. Interestingly some animals seem to use visual patterns extensively - birds of prey for instance are very adept at identifying their prey, but appear to have much poorer visual resolution for other things.
so, computer 1 asks for a memory address from computer 2, and can then read or write to it by sending back a command.
Operating system mediated memory protection might be an issue here... Sane operating systems at least check to see whether Application 1 actually owns the bit of memory it's trying to read/write before letting it chew over memory that actually belongs to Application 2. Just letting some application read and write any memory is a recipe for disaster that sensible OSes have avoided for a long time...
I remember hearing a wonderful interview with Watson a few years ago - he was saying that if Cambridge had been more co-ed at the time (there were only three Womens' olleges, everywhere else was male) he'd have been too busy trying to get a girlfriend to spend all that time elucidating the structure of DNA.
it's not the movie representation of software developers that attracts students to CS courses, since obviously that's only something that real cool geeks pretend to do as a day job - I'm thinking Hackers, Swordfish... those are the kinds of movies that make computer science seem cool - and yeah, there are some of the stereotypes the author of the article is complaining about, but there's also definate suggestions of what he wants - teamwork, and people actually engaging in social interaction (if you can call Halle Berry that...). Anyway, I'd rate both of those above Tron, and *don't* get me started on The Net...
The revenue generated from the scheme is "ring-fenced", so none of it goes to pay for his shiny new offices, nor for his taxis he gets to get from home in Islington to the South Bank.
I never said the money would pay for his taxis. Just that the congestion charge would make the ride rather easier... it helps to *read* something before you contest it...
My point is that, illegal or not, all of these things *do* occur and *are* a problem.
For the record, I don't drive in London, and I don't have an axe to grind about how this is curtailing my right to the freedom of my car etc etc (I don't even own one).
*However* I firmly believe that this system isn't going to work, that it's not going to work because of the human factor, and that all over it's half-baked and poorly thought out.
I'm in favour of light re-sequencing to favour busses, even if that slows down cars. I'm in favour of bike lanes, even if that takes space from cars. I'd even be in favour of a compulsory multiple-occupancy zone at peak times. Ken's scheme, though, is just not going to work. Nice little revenue stream to pay for his shiny new offices, with the bonus that the taxis he gets to get from home in Islington to the South Bank will get through faster. Bring on the next Mayoral Election. I can just see a consensus anti-charge candidate standing and getting in.
Yes, congestion and pollution in London are a problem. No, this scheme isn't going to fix either of those, it'll just move said congestion and pollution from the very centre of London, where few people live, to the ring just around the zone, which is heavily residential. Wonderful, just what we all need...!
I think the main problem was resolution and the small size of some rear bike-plates.
So have they sorted out bikes being allowed in bus-lanes yet? Seems stupid that in some places they're allowed, and in some they aren't... Personally I'd rather see bikes allowed than taxis.
Hope your bike is fixed soon and you weren't hurt!
Even if they are, though, that doesn't help with detection-avoidance... the problem with the system is that it has to *correctly* identify every number-plate that comes into the zone. All day. Now living in London I'd hazard that was a fair few. Then it has to successfully cancel off every payment made at, well, God knows where. Not Post Offices any more... *then* at close of buisiness it has to fine people who appear on the first list but not on the second.
The ways of avoiding appearing on the first list are, I'd immagine, pretty varied. Some of them are going to incurr a risk of being detected as someone else's number plate. Hell, you don't need any credentials to have any number plate in the world made up at Halfords, I'm sure unscrupulous individuals will see a similar make/model vehicle as their own, get its plates made up, and attatch them over their own. What's to hand-check then?
Aah, the information I was basing my post on was published in the newspapers a while ago. Thanks for pointing that out:)
I can't help but wonder whether the reason they were excluded wasn't that it was basically un-enforcable for bikes...
Well, I know what my answer is then... but watch road-deaths in London increase under the new scheme - bikers should be fairly safe -inside- the zone, but you can't just stay there, and everything outside will be more congested with more irate car drivers than ever...
There's a *known* failure in the system whereby it can't recogise special font plates (only in the process of being made illegal), small motorcycle number plates (even though they're included in the scheme) and it's more than likely that mud, or salt, or cunningly placed black bolts, can make the system mis-fire and log a different number plate to the one you're carrying. There's no real system for ambiguous plates to be checked by hand.
Add in a real problem in the UK with second hand cars still being registered to their previous owners (the new owner is responsible for re-registration, and many don't because it means parking and speeding fines don't reach them) and you have One Hell of a Problem.
I expect civil disobedience.
The technology may be ever so good (though I somehow doubt even that) but it'll be the human element that'll scupper it...
You want the cerebral cortex. That's where the thinking happens. The cerebellum is a funny little bit in the old middle bit of your brain that keeps your balance working. Applying a crowbar to it would merely have a simmilar effect to many pints of beer...
As far as I could tell from a quick follow of the link, this offer is available only to K-12 teachers and accredited Faculty members of post-secondary colleges - surely secondary school teachers are *most* likely to want/need these tools, and are more likely to be getting to students when they're both aware of the tools being used on them but also open to *uhm* suggestion...? They're missing a trick here, shurely?
Oh, and also, why only in the States? The Free-Jaguar deal applies in the UK, too... when for free iLife and Keynote?
Okay, so we're talking about AMP which although as the article says is a 'natural' chemical, is also one of the very basic molecules used by every cell in our bodies as part of the mechanism for determining their metabolic needs and monitoring what's going on within them. This gives me a case of the screaming heebie jeebies.
I somehow can't help thinking of Monosodium Glutamate here... Flavour enhancers don't have what you might call a *glowing* record of healthiness...
What this compound is doing is bitter-blocking, and I don't know about you, but there are bitter flavours I actually find rather enjoyable - strong black coffee being one of these... But an awful lot of foods contain bitterness to a greater or lesser degree, and it makes up one of the five tastes we're actually able to percieve - the effect of using this stuff widely would have to be tantamount to knocking out the blue channel in our eyes! It's going to do all kinds of really bizzare things to how things taste, not all of them good...
Besides which, the article mentions that the side effect is to induce a flavour of raw fish... I dunno, I'll take my coffee with a kick please, not with a side order of sushi...
Slashdot Mirror
Also, the sentence you want in there somewhere is 'do your employers' not 'does your employees'.
There was an early review of Pattern Recognition in one of the UK broadsheets where the (female, as it happens) reviewer was complaining that she didn't like it, didn't understand it, and it was unfair to expect anyone to understand what 'steganography' was. She couldn't go and find a dictionary?
:)
I'm really looking forward to reading it, when I can find someone to borrow it off
Yeah, after a real Tetris binge I kept trying to fit pieces into the indentations on the margins of printed text... very wierd...
IME that's a training thing - spend long enough looking for something and areas of your visual cortex become very adept at identifying it. Interestingly some animals seem to use visual patterns extensively - birds of prey for instance are very adept at identifying their prey, but appear to have much poorer visual resolution for other things.
so, computer 1 asks for a memory address from computer 2, and can then read or write to it by sending back a command.
Operating system mediated memory protection might be an issue here... Sane operating systems at least check to see whether Application 1 actually owns the bit of memory it's trying to read/write before letting it chew over memory that actually belongs to Application 2. Just letting some application read and write any memory is a recipe for disaster that sensible OSes have avoided for a long time...
I remember hearing a wonderful interview with Watson a few years ago - he was saying that if Cambridge had been more co-ed at the time (there were only three Womens' olleges, everywhere else was male) he'd have been too busy trying to get a girlfriend to spend all that time elucidating the structure of DNA.
it's not the movie representation of software developers that attracts students to CS courses, since obviously that's only something that real cool geeks pretend to do as a day job - I'm thinking Hackers, Swordfish... those are the kinds of movies that make computer science seem cool - and yeah, there are some of the stereotypes the author of the article is complaining about, but there's also definate suggestions of what he wants - teamwork, and people actually engaging in social interaction (if you can call Halle Berry that...). Anyway, I'd rate both of those above Tron, and *don't* get me started on The Net...
The revenue generated from the scheme is "ring-fenced", so none of it goes to pay for his shiny new offices, nor for his taxis he gets to get from home in Islington to the South Bank.
I never said the money would pay for his taxis. Just that the congestion charge would make the ride rather easier... it helps to *read* something before you contest it...
My point is that, illegal or not, all of these things *do* occur and *are* a problem.
For the record, I don't drive in London, and I don't have an axe to grind about how this is curtailing my right to the freedom of my car etc etc (I don't even own one).
*However* I firmly believe that this system isn't going to work, that it's not going to work because of the human factor, and that all over it's half-baked and poorly thought out.
I'm in favour of light re-sequencing to favour busses, even if that slows down cars. I'm in favour of bike lanes, even if that takes space from cars. I'd even be in favour of a compulsory multiple-occupancy zone at peak times. Ken's scheme, though, is just not going to work. Nice little revenue stream to pay for his shiny new offices, with the bonus that the taxis he gets to get from home in Islington to the South Bank will get through faster. Bring on the next Mayoral Election. I can just see a consensus anti-charge candidate standing and getting in.
Yes, congestion and pollution in London are a problem. No, this scheme isn't going to fix either of those, it'll just move said congestion and pollution from the very centre of London, where few people live, to the ring just around the zone, which is heavily residential. Wonderful, just what we all need...!
I think the main problem was resolution and the small size of some rear bike-plates.
So have they sorted out bikes being allowed in bus-lanes yet? Seems stupid that in some places they're allowed, and in some they aren't... Personally I'd rather see bikes allowed than taxis.
Hope your bike is fixed soon and you weren't hurt!
The re-registration process for vehicles has been changed so that the current owner is responsible for the re-registration:
I know. This doesn't change the TENS OF THOUSANDS of mis-registered vehicles currently on the road. Most of them also un-insured.
Even if they are, though, that doesn't help with detection-avoidance... the problem with the system is that it has to *correctly* identify every number-plate that comes into the zone. All day. Now living in London I'd hazard that was a fair few. Then it has to successfully cancel off every payment made at, well, God knows where. Not Post Offices any more... *then* at close of buisiness it has to fine people who appear on the first list but not on the second.
The ways of avoiding appearing on the first list are, I'd immagine, pretty varied. Some of them are going to incurr a risk of being detected as someone else's number plate. Hell, you don't need any credentials to have any number plate in the world made up at Halfords, I'm sure unscrupulous individuals will see a similar make/model vehicle as their own, get its plates made up, and attatch them over their own. What's to hand-check then?
Aah, the information I was basing my post on was published in the newspapers a while ago. Thanks for pointing that out :)
I can't help but wonder whether the reason they were excluded wasn't that it was basically un-enforcable for bikes...
Well, I know what my answer is then... but watch road-deaths in London increase under the new scheme - bikers should be fairly safe -inside- the zone, but you can't just stay there, and everything outside will be more congested with more irate car drivers than ever...
There's a *known* failure in the system whereby it can't recogise special font plates (only in the process of being made illegal), small motorcycle number plates (even though they're included in the scheme) and it's more than likely that mud, or salt, or cunningly placed black bolts, can make the system mis-fire and log a different number plate to the one you're carrying. There's no real system for ambiguous plates to be checked by hand.
Add in a real problem in the UK with second hand cars still being registered to their previous owners (the new owner is responsible for re-registration, and many don't because it means parking and speeding fines don't reach them) and you have One Hell of a Problem.
I expect civil disobedience.
The technology may be ever so good (though I somehow doubt even that) but it'll be the human element that'll scupper it...
Maybe this makes me a biology pedant, but...
with the force of a crowbar to the Cerebellum?
You want the cerebral cortex. That's where the thinking happens. The cerebellum is a funny little bit in the old middle bit of your brain that keeps your balance working. Applying a crowbar to it would merely have a simmilar effect to many pints of beer...
Aaah, I was reading it in ages.
:)
And I'm British
Ah, perhaps I'm misunderstanding the US school-age naming system. Sorry :)
As far as I could tell from a quick follow of the link, this offer is available only to K-12 teachers and accredited Faculty members of post-secondary colleges - surely secondary school teachers are *most* likely to want/need these tools, and are more likely to be getting to students when they're both aware of the tools being used on them but also open to *uhm* suggestion...? They're missing a trick here, shurely?
Oh, and also, why only in the States? The Free-Jaguar deal applies in the UK, too... when for free iLife and Keynote?
Okay, so we're talking about AMP which although as the article says is a 'natural' chemical, is also one of the very basic molecules used by every cell in our bodies as part of the mechanism for determining their metabolic needs and monitoring what's going on within them. This gives me a case of the screaming heebie jeebies.
I somehow can't help thinking of Monosodium Glutamate here... Flavour enhancers don't have what you might call a *glowing* record of healthiness...
What this compound is doing is bitter-blocking, and I don't know about you, but there are bitter flavours I actually find rather enjoyable - strong black coffee being one of these... But an awful lot of foods contain bitterness to a greater or lesser degree, and it makes up one of the five tastes we're actually able to percieve - the effect of using this stuff widely would have to be tantamount to knocking out the blue channel in our eyes! It's going to do all kinds of really bizzare things to how things taste, not all of them good...
Besides which, the article mentions that the side effect is to induce a flavour of raw fish... I dunno, I'll take my coffee with a kick please, not with a side order of sushi...
Sounds good to me :)
If I sign up for world domination, do I get a shiny new PowerBook?
*grin*
What am I going to do with a pure sole?
Poach it slowly in a herb sauce? *grin*
Well, given I only graduate this summer there's rather a lot of my life left... plus, my sins aren't *that* great...
I guess the specific collection terms would have to be negotiable...
Um, enough to fund a new desktop Apple? (penniless student with old dead PowerBook)
Never mind. Give it another day or so and one of ours may yet turn up as a Dupe :)