True enough. Markets are quite efficient from the point of view of the con artist. And only a con artist could like the free market. Cybersquatters are just another parasite on a system that invites parasitical behavior.
Don't lay stupid economic behaviors in market users at the feet of the markets. Markets don't shoot people, people shoot people.
The main problem I have with markets is the serious lack of information- by anonymizing the buyers and sellers as much as possible, you guarantee that the con artists will always win out because people don't have enough information to make an adequate decision. That's a stupid system, not stupid people. The only way market price will ever be fair is if all liars are shot on sight.
If a good is significantly rare, or the need for that good is significantly high, then the transaction cannot be described as voluntary. If the transaction is not voluntary, your reasoning falls apart.
The question is in this case- do you change the name of your business, or run the risk of your competitor being willing to pay the $1500 to grab this domain and then slander your business or direct business to their site in your name. The risk is great enough that this is not a voluntary transaction- and while the gouging is indeed great (had you grabbed that domain yourself, you would have saved more than two orders of magnitude), the cost of NOT grabbing it is potentially even greater.
And then offer them $9- the cost of the domain at GoDaddy for one year, and make it clear that you're also willing to haggle. I wonder if they'll accept less than $750?
The last time I actively programmed in Assembly was in the mid 1990s- on a Verifone, and even that was to interface it to a VB GUI. But that's not what I'm talking about.
A good understanding of algorithims requires an excellent command of basic Boolean mathematics, memory management, and excution order. While other, higher level languages can provide both of these, no higher level language I know of combines both concepts at once- either the optimizer handles the logic and mathematics for the programmer, or the optimizer handles the memory managment for the programmer, or the operating system handles the execution order. It is only when you are programming at the lowest level possible that you get a good handle on all three; the API programmer who doesn't have a good handle on all three will create security holes with their bugs. I strongly suspect that's where buffer overflows came from originally- an API programmer who did not have a good handle on memory management and program executution because they let the operating system and the higher level language do it all for them, for instance.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that it should be a FIRST language- the work to reward ratio is too great for that, a good first language should give instant gratification. But I'm absolutely resolute on the idea that the difference between a good programmer and a great programmer is a knowledge of basic assembly and machine architecture on a low level. What value that is to the end user is getting more questionable all the time- this is after all the type of "deep and narrow" knowledge that artificial intelligence is good at, and so as time goes on our optimising compilers are getting better and better at removing this knowledge from the realm of humans entirely. One day API programmers will no longer be neccessary at all- the compiler's built in object model will do everything anybody could ever want, and scan works such as wikipedia to build new functions as new research models of our universe come out. But we ain't there yet- and so I still recommend assembly for young programmers.
That doesn't make sense to me. I think you are saying one thing but mean another. People don't understand algorithms any better if you learn algorithms using assembly.
I did. By a LONG ways. Nothing teaches boolean logic, iterative looping, bit shifting shortcuts, and bit masking like learning assembly. All of which are neccessary for good algorithm design.
You might mean that a person knowing assembly will write more efficient code in a higher level language because they will understand approximately what will happen under the hood. Is that what you meant?
Partially- though the closer we get to the perfect optimizing compiler this advantage is slowly getting wiped away. But also- it gives you an idea what all computers do natively and best- and allows you to design new algorithms that fit the best optimization of computer vs user workload.
But speed is not even remotely the most important thing in most applications. Robustness and maintainability is. And understanding the order of complexity of an algorithm is far more important than knowing how many clock cycles something will take. Understanding the order of complexity of an algorithm can be done without assembly. In fact, it is easier without involving assembly.
Ideally, your algorithms should never need to be maintained- they should be nice, small, wide-scope black boxes that you or someone else can assemble into higher level code- libraries that become APIs. I'm talking about the difference between a programmer who uses APIs and one who is able to create new APIs. The first only needs to know the complexity of the object model- the second should have a good feel for how machines operate. It's the difference between merely being a coder and being a software engineer.
However, if you are learning GC languages like Java or C#, then ASM is going to end up being a confusing language with no real link to the languages in question (although, both are probably written deep-down in C, at least in the GC/compiler phases).
Actually, even in GC/compiler languages, understanding assembly can give you the reason WHY, for instance, an unprotected buffer is a security risk.
I understand assembly, and it is at times a comforting feeling, but in all honesty I belive the time I spent learning assembly would have been better spent learning design patterns.
There's a difference? The whole point of learning Assembly is to learn algorithim design at as low a level as possible, thus making you a better programmer in higher level languages. If your instructor didn't concentrate on algorithim design, then he missed the whole reason we teach assembly to students at all anymore (because any good optimizing compiler can write better assembly than a human being can0.
You can read about your API and they will explain the algorithms used and that's enough.
I've yet to see an API explain their underlying algorithims- more often they just give you the calling interface and a brief description of what to expect for output. APIs are black boxes. What Assembly is good for- and ANY assembly language will do, 16 instructions in a simulated 8-bit RISC processor is as good at teaching the concepts as MASM-32- is learning WHY things compile the way they do. Once you've learned that- you're well on your way to knowing how to design your own algorithms instead of just using other people's.
Experience with programming languages, design specification languages, etc., would tend to indicate that even when everybody wants the communication to be clear, it often isn't. Add in a (sometimes quite strong) motivation to misread, misunderstand, etc., and there's virtually no chance you can prevent all misunderstanding and such.
So eliminate the human experience entirely- let the machines read the law, and let them give us the answer. I just want the law to become deterministic- the same answer out for the same input variables, every time.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm certainly not trying to say law-writing isn't open to improvement. At the same time, my own experience has been that a lot of the law is written far more carefully than it's given credit for. There's also quite a bit of room for a bit of judgement in legal matters -- in fact, I'd say some of the worst laws around are those that attempt to be completely binary, and remove all human judgement.
Sounds wonderfull to me- as long as the law is properly advertised, it becomes extremely easy to comply with.
While legal loopholes most definitely get abused, having all laws be "absolute, black & white, this is the way it is" has a lot of potential to really break down in situations where a little bit of common sense can save the day.
I'm not sure I believe in the existance of "common sense" anymore- and thus would rather have society run more like an operating system. Preferably one where there is a bug appeal process, but still at least deterministic instead of indeterministic.
That said, writing the laws more clearly is not a bad thing... just making it a strict logical construct such as Modus Ponens ("if A, then B. B, therefore A") will not work in a real society.
Why not? If we believe in rule of law above all else, why should anybody be allowed to twist the construct to something less than absolute?
Besides, the shysters out there (which is not all lawyers, but enough of 'em) would find some way to abuse solid logical constructs too. Give a person enough time and motivation, and they'll find an exploit for any given situation.
Well, that's the fun part- if we code it all in boolean logic, we can replace the lawyers AND the judges with incorruptible expert systems.....
And lawyers wonder why we engineers and mathematicians snigger behind their backs. What we really need is to get the legislatures to write law in clear, boolean logic that anybody can follow and always come up with the same answer....
for me, the most shocking thing about The Da Vinci Code is that people would take a book out of the fiction section and treat it as if it was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The author himself is famous for this exact mistake. But that's why this isn't a work of pure fiction. It's theological fiction- the religious version of science fiction- in the realm of slightly-alternate-reality subgenre. The author, Dan Brown, put a lot of work and real research into this so-called "Novel". Not enough from my point of view, but certainly enough to be convincing to the casual reader or anybody familiar with European art and archetecture.
It only happens if you have a default share in your login script assigned to a low enough drive letter. If all drive letters A-E are filled up, and F is mapped in the login script, this can "hide" a USB drive plugged in after login comming in on Drive F. The really curious thing is what happens with my multi-card reader: everything EXCEPT the CF card shows up quite nicely, but that one requires remapping to a letter other than F.
Well, then the Silicon Forest (suburbs just west of Portland, OR that include Beaverton, Aloha, and Hillsboro) is well on it's way. My house that I paid $142,000 for just 8 years ago is worth $250,000 today, supposedly according to my last tax assessment.
Maybe we are on our way to being the next Silicon Valley- in which case I'm living in the right area to outsource my ideas that I can't implement in my new job working for the state.
OK, cool, but even if the author falsely believes his own stories to be true, cannot the work itself be judged as a work of fiction, just like other works of fiction?
The problem isn't that he believes his OWN stories to be true- he actually believes OTHER people's fake stories to be true, to the point that he was actually sued by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail- who had been taken in by the same fraud back in the 1960s before it was revealed to be a fraud. Also, any large institution will attract crackpots who want to believe the worst about the institution, and Opus Dei has never been a very open order within the Church, and has many aspects about it that others (even other Catholics) consider to be strange and cultish (such as requiring minimal contact with family members; and choosing one's life path at a young age, as well as adopting mideval practices such as self-flagelation and other forms of self-administered torture as penance). They don't need any more help to be marginalized- they're doing fine on their own- and they certainly don't need their Holy Places in Europe labeled as murder sites or associated with a monarchist fraud just because they have the initals for Simon and Peter in the windows.
Yes, and you're right, I should have said Mbps and Gbps (30 Gigabit networking is going to create a packet flow that far outstrips the NSA's 622Megabit packet sniffing capability).
Dan Brown has said in several interviews that he considers the secret rituals, secret societies, artwork, and supporting history of his fictional novel to all be true. It's the murders that are fiction, according to him, not the back story.
The problem is, his supporting documentation is false- the Priory of Sion was a political hoax created in 1956 by a pretender to the Throne of France who was hoping to restore the monarchy and be proclaimed king based on being a descendant of Jesus Christ and a line of ancient French Kings. The documentation does exist- but has been known to be false since 1975.
Slashdot Mirror
That, also, depends on your point of view.
True enough. Markets are quite efficient from the point of view of the con artist. And only a con artist could like the free market. Cybersquatters are just another parasite on a system that invites parasitical behavior.
Don't lay stupid economic behaviors in market users at the feet of the markets. Markets don't shoot people, people shoot people.
The main problem I have with markets is the serious lack of information- by anonymizing the buyers and sellers as much as possible, you guarantee that the con artists will always win out because people don't have enough information to make an adequate decision. That's a stupid system, not stupid people. The only way market price will ever be fair is if all liars are shot on sight.
If the market will bear it, then there's no real problem.
Actually, that depends on your point of view. Markets are notoriously bad at setting prices in a truly efficient manner.
If a good is significantly rare, or the need for that good is significantly high, then the transaction cannot be described as voluntary. If the transaction is not voluntary, your reasoning falls apart.
The question is in this case- do you change the name of your business, or run the risk of your competitor being willing to pay the $1500 to grab this domain and then slander your business or direct business to their site in your name. The risk is great enough that this is not a voluntary transaction- and while the gouging is indeed great (had you grabbed that domain yourself, you would have saved more than two orders of magnitude), the cost of NOT grabbing it is potentially even greater.
And then offer them $9- the cost of the domain at GoDaddy for one year, and make it clear that you're also willing to haggle. I wonder if they'll accept less than $750?
The last time I actively programmed in Assembly was in the mid 1990s- on a Verifone, and even that was to interface it to a VB GUI. But that's not what I'm talking about.
A good understanding of algorithims requires an excellent command of basic Boolean mathematics, memory management, and excution order. While other, higher level languages can provide both of these, no higher level language I know of combines both concepts at once- either the optimizer handles the logic and mathematics for the programmer, or the optimizer handles the memory managment for the programmer, or the operating system handles the execution order. It is only when you are programming at the lowest level possible that you get a good handle on all three; the API programmer who doesn't have a good handle on all three will create security holes with their bugs. I strongly suspect that's where buffer overflows came from originally- an API programmer who did not have a good handle on memory management and program executution because they let the operating system and the higher level language do it all for them, for instance.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that it should be a FIRST language- the work to reward ratio is too great for that, a good first language should give instant gratification. But I'm absolutely resolute on the idea that the difference between a good programmer and a great programmer is a knowledge of basic assembly and machine architecture on a low level. What value that is to the end user is getting more questionable all the time- this is after all the type of "deep and narrow" knowledge that artificial intelligence is good at, and so as time goes on our optimising compilers are getting better and better at removing this knowledge from the realm of humans entirely. One day API programmers will no longer be neccessary at all- the compiler's built in object model will do everything anybody could ever want, and scan works such as wikipedia to build new functions as new research models of our universe come out. But we ain't there yet- and so I still recommend assembly for young programmers.
That doesn't make sense to me. I think you are saying one thing but mean another. People don't understand algorithms any better if you learn algorithms using assembly.
I did. By a LONG ways. Nothing teaches boolean logic, iterative looping, bit shifting shortcuts, and bit masking like learning assembly. All of which are neccessary for good algorithm design.
You might mean that a person knowing assembly will write more efficient code in a higher level language because they will understand approximately what will happen under the hood. Is that what you meant?
Partially- though the closer we get to the perfect optimizing compiler this advantage is slowly getting wiped away. But also- it gives you an idea what all computers do natively and best- and allows you to design new algorithms that fit the best optimization of computer vs user workload.
But speed is not even remotely the most important thing in most applications. Robustness and maintainability is. And understanding the order of complexity of an algorithm is far more important than knowing how many clock cycles something will take. Understanding the order of complexity of an algorithm can be done without assembly. In fact, it is easier without involving assembly.
Ideally, your algorithms should never need to be maintained- they should be nice, small, wide-scope black boxes that you or someone else can assemble into higher level code- libraries that become APIs. I'm talking about the difference between a programmer who uses APIs and one who is able to create new APIs. The first only needs to know the complexity of the object model- the second should have a good feel for how machines operate. It's the difference between merely being a coder and being a software engineer.
However, if you are learning GC languages like Java or C#, then ASM is going to end up being a confusing language with no real link to the languages in question (although, both are probably written deep-down in C, at least in the GC/compiler phases).
Actually, even in GC/compiler languages, understanding assembly can give you the reason WHY, for instance, an unprotected buffer is a security risk.
I understand assembly, and it is at times a comforting feeling, but in all honesty I belive the time I spent learning assembly would have been better spent learning design patterns.
There's a difference? The whole point of learning Assembly is to learn algorithim design at as low a level as possible, thus making you a better programmer in higher level languages. If your instructor didn't concentrate on algorithim design, then he missed the whole reason we teach assembly to students at all anymore (because any good optimizing compiler can write better assembly than a human being can0.
Well, that's ONE place to start- the processor isn't half as important as the basic concepts of what computers REALLY do behind the scenes.
Amazing how those sentences are so physically close together, and yet one has to make an enormous leap to get from one to the other.
Not that enourmous- if you have to fight, then you've failed at the type of cooperation all parents try to teach their kids by age 3.
You can read about your API and they will explain the algorithms used and that's enough.
I've yet to see an API explain their underlying algorithims- more often they just give you the calling interface and a brief description of what to expect for output. APIs are black boxes. What Assembly is good for- and ANY assembly language will do, 16 instructions in a simulated 8-bit RISC processor is as good at teaching the concepts as MASM-32- is learning WHY things compile the way they do. Once you've learned that- you're well on your way to knowing how to design your own algorithms instead of just using other people's.
I still say assembly- there's a darn good bit of understanding you get when you're programming every memory location manually.
In adversarial games worth playing
Adversarial games are not worth playing. If you need to be adversarial, you're doing something seriously wrong with your life.
Experience with programming languages, design specification languages, etc., would tend to indicate that even when everybody wants the communication to be clear, it often isn't. Add in a (sometimes quite strong) motivation to misread, misunderstand, etc., and there's virtually no chance you can prevent all misunderstanding and such.
So eliminate the human experience entirely- let the machines read the law, and let them give us the answer. I just want the law to become deterministic- the same answer out for the same input variables, every time.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm certainly not trying to say law-writing isn't open to improvement. At the same time, my own experience has been that a lot of the law is written far more carefully than it's given credit for. There's also quite a bit of room for a bit of judgement in legal matters -- in fact, I'd say some of the worst laws around are those that attempt to be completely binary, and remove all human judgement.
Sounds wonderfull to me- as long as the law is properly advertised, it becomes extremely easy to comply with.
While legal loopholes most definitely get abused, having all laws be "absolute, black & white, this is the way it is" has a lot of potential to really break down in situations where a little bit of common sense can save the day.
I'm not sure I believe in the existance of "common sense" anymore- and thus would rather have society run more like an operating system. Preferably one where there is a bug appeal process, but still at least deterministic instead of indeterministic.
That said, writing the laws more clearly is not a bad thing... just making it a strict logical construct such as Modus Ponens ("if A, then B. B, therefore A") will not work in a real society.
Why not? If we believe in rule of law above all else, why should anybody be allowed to twist the construct to something less than absolute?
Besides, the shysters out there (which is not all lawyers, but enough of 'em) would find some way to abuse solid logical constructs too. Give a person enough time and motivation, and they'll find an exploit for any given situation.
Well, that's the fun part- if we code it all in boolean logic, we can replace the lawyers AND the judges with incorruptible expert systems.....
And lawyers wonder why we engineers and mathematicians snigger behind their backs. What we really need is to get the legislatures to write law in clear, boolean logic that anybody can follow and always come up with the same answer....
Oh, dispos-itive, as in a tendancy to be disposed, as opposed to dis-positive, or negative......
Is that anything like double-plus-ungood? Winston Smith, are you in there someplace?
for me, the most shocking thing about The Da Vinci Code is that people would take a book out of the fiction section and treat it as if it was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The author himself is famous for this exact mistake. But that's why this isn't a work of pure fiction. It's theological fiction- the religious version of science fiction- in the realm of slightly-alternate-reality subgenre. The author, Dan Brown, put a lot of work and real research into this so-called "Novel". Not enough from my point of view, but certainly enough to be convincing to the casual reader or anybody familiar with European art and archetecture.
It only happens if you have a default share in your login script assigned to a low enough drive letter. If all drive letters A-E are filled up, and F is mapped in the login script, this can "hide" a USB drive plugged in after login comming in on Drive F. The really curious thing is what happens with my multi-card reader: everything EXCEPT the CF card shows up quite nicely, but that one requires remapping to a letter other than F.
Well, then the Silicon Forest (suburbs just west of Portland, OR that include Beaverton, Aloha, and Hillsboro) is well on it's way. My house that I paid $142,000 for just 8 years ago is worth $250,000 today, supposedly according to my last tax assessment.
Maybe we are on our way to being the next Silicon Valley- in which case I'm living in the right area to outsource my ideas that I can't implement in my new job working for the state.
OK, cool, but even if the author falsely believes his own stories to be true, cannot the work itself be judged as a work of fiction, just like other works of fiction?
The problem isn't that he believes his OWN stories to be true- he actually believes OTHER people's fake stories to be true, to the point that he was actually sued by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail- who had been taken in by the same fraud back in the 1960s before it was revealed to be a fraud. Also, any large institution will attract crackpots who want to believe the worst about the institution, and Opus Dei has never been a very open order within the Church, and has many aspects about it that others (even other Catholics) consider to be strange and cultish (such as requiring minimal contact with family members; and choosing one's life path at a young age, as well as adopting mideval practices such as self-flagelation and other forms of self-administered torture as penance). They don't need any more help to be marginalized- they're doing fine on their own- and they certainly don't need their Holy Places in Europe labeled as murder sites or associated with a monarchist fraud just because they have the initals for Simon and Peter in the windows.
Were you trying to get fp or something?
Yes, and you're right, I should have said Mbps and Gbps (30 Gigabit networking is going to create a packet flow that far outstrips the NSA's 622Megabit packet sniffing capability).
Dan Brown has said in several interviews that he considers the secret rituals, secret societies, artwork, and supporting history of his fictional novel to all be true. It's the murders that are fiction, according to him, not the back story.
The problem is, his supporting documentation is false- the Priory of Sion was a political hoax created in 1956 by a pretender to the Throne of France who was hoping to restore the monarchy and be proclaimed king based on being a descendant of Jesus Christ and a line of ancient French Kings. The documentation does exist- but has been known to be false since 1975.