We need to start a campaign to stop this kind of high handed ness. Do anything possible to reduce their revenue. The problem is that they own a substantial part of the 3g/4g spectrum. I regret the day the spectrum got auctioned away.
... would use Facebook to provide police level information, even to someone they know. At the least, they should be using an SSL secured e-mail service, if not the Interpol website (which, I hope, is SSL secured).
I don't think this has anything to do with floating point errors. From your linked article:
Specifically a 64 bit floating point number relating to the horizontal velocity of the rocket with respect to the platform was converted to a 16 bit signed integer. The number was larger than 32,767, the largest integer storeable in a 16 bit signed integer, and thus the conversion failed.
I would interpret this as:
Some moron typecast a double to an int without thinking about allowable ranges
This week there are three people who have enticed me to buy gold:
1. My banker
2. My wife
3. Slashdot
I am used to the first two trying to convince me to buy something that would fall in value. This is the first time Slashdot has joined them. Et tu Brute.
My feeling: $650 per troy ounce by next year.
Well, these people are terrorists - they don't need to legally do anything. They don't even need to provide a good fake document - I know how diligent the SIM card dealers are. The terrorist can show a torn up copy of a fake ration card and walk out with a SIM card in 5 minutes. Some of these SIM card dealers themselves are very shady.
I doubt that any of these regulations will prevent good old me from getting a fake SIM card, let alone a well trained terrorist. I think we need to review our very approach to solving terrorism.
I think this is a big waste of time for the Mumbai police. If the terrorists can't send an e-mail with their threats, they will just send it by postal mail (just as they were doing before e-mail). Stopping them from sending anonymous e-mail won't stop the acts of terror. The Mumbai police should focus on investigating the actual attacks and preventing further attacks, rather than shooting the messenger.
Some people think that this can prevent them from coordinating their attacks, but I don't think so. Their attacks can be coordinated using various other techniques that may even be illegal - won't mention them, use your imagination.
Fundamentally, creating new rules will not stop terrorists - remember that there are already laws that prevent people from acquiring AK-47s & explosives. New rules will only inconvenience law abiding citizens - not terrorists.
Also, on another note - I don't like Times of India because they selectively prevent some comments from being displayed. I specifically mentioned this point in their comments and they have not published it, even after 2 days.
I don't understand how this is relevant to slashdot. What is so technically challenging about a fake SIM card? I am from India, and we see fake IDs here on a regular basis.
These people are terrorrists - if they can procure an AK-47, why should anything prevent them from procuring an illegal ID and illegal SIM card.
Maybe India can make tougher laws, but that would only hamper those who need to to obtain a SIM card for legal purposes - more paperwork. I doubt that terrorists would be bothered by paperwork.
I can understand Times of India (or any other Indian newspaper) publishing this article, but why Slashdot? If we're going to blindly publish articles from TOI, why not publish this one?
Been there, done that. Good from far, but far from good.
As an engineer straight out of college, I was very interested in parallel programming. In fact, we were doing a project on parallel databases. My take is that it sounds very appealing, but once you dig deeper, you realise that there are too many gotchas.
Considering the typical work-time problem, let's say a piece of work takes n seconds to complete by 1 processor. If there are m processors, the work gets completed in n/m seconds. Unless the parallel system can somehow do better than this, it is usually not worth the effort. If the work is perfectly divisible between m processors, then why have a parallel system? Why not a distributed system (like beowulf, etc.)?
If it is not perfectly distributable, the code can get really complicated. Although it might be very interesting to solve mathematically, it is not worth the effort, if the benefit is only 'm'. This is because, as per Moore's law, the speed of the processor will catch up in k*log m years. So, in k*log m years, you will be left with an unmaintainable piece of code which will be running as fast as a serial program running on more modern hardware.
If the parallel system increases the speed factor better than 'm', such as by k^m, the solution is viable. However, there aren't many problems that have such a dramtic improvement.
What may be interesting are algorithms that take serial algorithms and parallelise them. However, most thread scheduling implementations already do this (old shell scripts can also utilise parallel processing using these techniques). Today's emphasis is on writing simple code that will require less maintenance, than on linear performance increase.
The only other economic benefit I can think of is economy of volumes. If you can get 4GHz of processing power for 1.5 times the cost of a 2GHz processor, it might be worth thinking about it.
My approach to hiring has always been more like impedance matching (you used "signal to noise ratio", so I'm assuming you know this too).
What kind of person best suits this situation. Some roles require very little redesign, more maintenance, good uptime, no oversight. In such cases, I specifically look for people who have been doing such work, people who have the qualities to work independently. Some roles require people who need to do something radically different. They need to communicate well with a various different groups and come up with a radical new design. In such cases, I look for people who are good communicators, knowledge of various technologies to be able to provide new ideas.
I want to stress that both roles are very critical for the organization. I would probably give both of them the same compensation, but it would be disastrous to hire the first kind of person for the second kind of role, or vice versa.
Also, unlike impedance matching, these qualities are not quantifiable. There are various kinds of roles requiring various kinds of people. Sometimes, you don't get the perfect match, but you need to take a decision to make the best match and bring up the person to speed in the other requirements.
Another important point is to make sure that you set the candidate's expectations to reality. If you tell the candidate that he is going to redesign the company and let him realise that he is only there to fix bugs, he will give you a hard time, even if he is incapable of finding another job that he thinks he wants. A frank discussion during the interview could make the difference between an unproductive employee and a "super" employee.
All the Windows fans will be trying to hack Linux, trying to prove that it is worse. All the Linux and OSX fans will be trying to hack Windows for the same reason.
Actually, no, it would be horrible - for the scam cause. Linux has nothing to do with scam. It would prove that Linux enthusiasts do stupid things (like DOSsing servers, sabotaging anti-scam campaigns, etc.). I hope SCO looses the law suit in the plain old-fashioned way, and there are no tricks.
Slashdot Mirror
We need to start a campaign to stop this kind of high handed ness. Do anything possible to reduce their revenue. The problem is that they own a substantial part of the 3g/4g spectrum. I regret the day the spectrum got auctioned away.
Oh boy! When we have oil, we have no oxygen. The universe just isn't fair.
... be assimilated.
I think the biggest problem here is Dharun's refusal to accept a plea bargain:
A second offer was made in December: no jail time, an effort to protect him against deportation, and six hundred hours of community service.
It seems like a reasonable compromise. I wonder why he turned it down.
... would use Facebook to provide police level information, even to someone they know. At the least, they should be using an SSL secured e-mail service, if not the Interpol website (which, I hope, is SSL secured).
I would interpret this as:
In other words, it is a coding error.
Maybe RMS could create a parody that goes like "Copy this...., this is NOT a crime". I'm sure it would be a big hit.
This week there are three people who have enticed me to buy gold: 1. My banker 2. My wife 3. Slashdot I am used to the first two trying to convince me to buy something that would fall in value. This is the first time Slashdot has joined them. Et tu Brute. My feeling: $650 per troy ounce by next year.
Well, these people are terrorists - they don't need to legally do anything. They don't even need to provide a good fake document - I know how diligent the SIM card dealers are. The terrorist can show a torn up copy of a fake ration card and walk out with a SIM card in 5 minutes. Some of these SIM card dealers themselves are very shady.
I doubt that any of these regulations will prevent good old me from getting a fake SIM card, let alone a well trained terrorist. I think we need to review our very approach to solving terrorism.
I think this is a big waste of time for the Mumbai police. If the terrorists can't send an e-mail with their threats, they will just send it by postal mail (just as they were doing before e-mail). Stopping them from sending anonymous e-mail won't stop the acts of terror. The Mumbai police should focus on investigating the actual attacks and preventing further attacks, rather than shooting the messenger.
Some people think that this can prevent them from coordinating their attacks, but I don't think so. Their attacks can be coordinated using various other techniques that may even be illegal - won't mention them, use your imagination.
Fundamentally, creating new rules will not stop terrorists - remember that there are already laws that prevent people from acquiring AK-47s & explosives. New rules will only inconvenience law abiding citizens - not terrorists.
Also, on another note - I don't like Times of India because they selectively prevent some comments from being displayed. I specifically mentioned this point in their comments and they have not published it, even after 2 days.
These people are terrorrists - if they can procure an AK-47, why should anything prevent them from procuring an illegal ID and illegal SIM card.
Maybe India can make tougher laws, but that would only hamper those who need to to obtain a SIM card for legal purposes - more paperwork. I doubt that terrorists would be bothered by paperwork.
I can understand Times of India (or any other Indian newspaper) publishing this article, but why Slashdot? If we're going to blindly publish articles from TOI, why not publish this one?
Been there, done that. Good from far, but far from good.
As an engineer straight out of college, I was very interested in parallel programming. In fact, we were doing a project on parallel databases. My take is that it sounds very appealing, but once you dig deeper, you realise that there are too many gotchas.
Considering the typical work-time problem, let's say a piece of work takes n seconds to complete by 1 processor. If there are m processors, the work gets completed in n/m seconds. Unless the parallel system can somehow do better than this, it is usually not worth the effort. If the work is perfectly divisible between m processors, then why have a parallel system? Why not a distributed system (like beowulf, etc.)?
If it is not perfectly distributable, the code can get really complicated. Although it might be very interesting to solve mathematically, it is not worth the effort, if the benefit is only 'm'. This is because, as per Moore's law, the speed of the processor will catch up in k*log m years. So, in k*log m years, you will be left with an unmaintainable piece of code which will be running as fast as a serial program running on more modern hardware.
If the parallel system increases the speed factor better than 'm', such as by k^m, the solution is viable. However, there aren't many problems that have such a dramtic improvement.
What may be interesting are algorithms that take serial algorithms and parallelise them. However, most thread scheduling implementations already do this (old shell scripts can also utilise parallel processing using these techniques). Today's emphasis is on writing simple code that will require less maintenance, than on linear performance increase.
The only other economic benefit I can think of is economy of volumes. If you can get 4GHz of processing power for 1.5 times the cost of a 2GHz processor, it might be worth thinking about it.
My approach to hiring has always been more like impedance matching (you used "signal to noise ratio", so I'm assuming you know this too).
What kind of person best suits this situation. Some roles require very little redesign, more maintenance, good uptime, no oversight. In such cases, I specifically look for people who have been doing such work, people who have the qualities to work independently. Some roles require people who need to do something radically different. They need to communicate well with a various different groups and come up with a radical new design. In such cases, I look for people who are good communicators, knowledge of various technologies to be able to provide new ideas.
I want to stress that both roles are very critical for the organization. I would probably give both of them the same compensation, but it would be disastrous to hire the first kind of person for the second kind of role, or vice versa.
Also, unlike impedance matching, these qualities are not quantifiable. There are various kinds of roles requiring various kinds of people. Sometimes, you don't get the perfect match, but you need to take a decision to make the best match and bring up the person to speed in the other requirements.
Another important point is to make sure that you set the candidate's expectations to reality. If you tell the candidate that he is going to redesign the company and let him realise that he is only there to fix bugs, he will give you a hard time, even if he is incapable of finding another job that he thinks he wants. A frank discussion during the interview could make the difference between an unproductive employee and a "super" employee.
Oh boy! That will be fun.
All the Windows fans will be trying to hack Linux, trying to prove that it is worse. All the Linux and OSX fans will be trying to hack Windows for the same reason.
It will be one big mud slinging campaign.
Could someone please tell me about this bank? I had not heard of it until now. Is it really a bank? What would be the estimated customer base?
Does anyone know the corresponding patent numbers held by microsoft?
Actually, no, it would be horrible - for the scam cause. Linux has nothing to do with scam. It would prove that Linux enthusiasts do stupid things (like DOSsing servers, sabotaging anti-scam campaigns, etc.). I hope SCO looses the law suit in the plain old-fashioned way, and there are no tricks.
Filed: May 15, 2000
I am sure that Netscape has done it before May 15, 2000. Sadly, I don't know if they have published it before that.