Any encryption algorithm is susceptible to brute force. However, the fewer times the key is repeated in the message, the more indeterminate variables. In the limiting case, where the message is shorter than the key, you have effectively a one-time pad and every guessed plaintext is equally valid. For example, the plaintext phrase
DEFENDTHEBRIDGEATNOON
might encrypt as
PVTJRBUTYMYUQAZVCAHNU
but can also decipher, equally plausibly, as
ATTACKTHEHILLATSUNSET
or even
MYDAUGHTERHASTHEPILES
Additionally, any kind of symmetric encryption must be considered weak; because if you can recover the encryption key somehow, you have the decryption key.
Any closed-source encryption scheme is automatically suspect. If an encryption scheme demands secrecy for anything except the intended recipient's private key, then it is vulnerable to compromise.
Remember, just because you can't solve a problem you devised, does not necessarily mean it is insoluble, unless you proved so mathematically. For example, by expressing the encryption as a matrix multiplication and proving the matrix is singular. Preferably there should be more than one indeterminate variable, to increase the workspace for brute force attacks.
A really determined adversary could get the source code by disassembling the binary. It'd be hard work, but the payoff might be worth it. So you have to assume that the enemy has the source code to the programme. You also have to assume that the enemy has the sender's sending key {which may or may not be the recipient's public key; but it should be either impossible or at least difficult to determine the receiving key from the sending key. In other words, symmetric cyphers are insecure.}
Even if you think your receiving key is secure, it may not be. But it's the only thing you, as the recipient of the message, really have any measure of control -- even if it's just in the "it won't hurt so much if you don't struggle so much" sense of a measure of control -- over. You don't know that your enemy hasn't found a way to get the source code of the programme and you don't know that your enemy hasn't found a way to get your contact's sending key {which is why they may as well be public anyway -- there is no benefit to you keeping these things secret}. You hope your enemy can't get your receiving key without your knowing about it.
So if YOU were one of the thirteen virgins that a satanist cult wanted to sacrifice at the next full moon, you'd have no problem with that? You'd just offer yourself up for sacrifice rather than offend their sensibilities?
And if not, what's the difference between sacrificing virgins in the name of religion and withholding the gift of life in the name of religion? Just because some "holy" book says something, it can still be WRONG. {Cf. the old Kosher and Halal ritual slaughter methods.}
I restate my earlier assertion: A god who would deny you Eternal Life because you helped another deserves no worship.
Why do we need to use animals to grow spare parts for transplant surgery? Every day, millions of potentially-transplantable organs are burned or buried. Sometimes in the same crematoria / cemeteries as the people who could have been saved by an organ transplant. Organ donation, when you think about it, is really just the logical extension of recycling. And if you can be fined or sent to prison for not recycling your used bottles, cans and papers, then why should you be allowed to get away with not recycling used body parts?
IMHO organ donation should not require consent, it should just be carried out. To deny someone the gift of life is probably the supreme act of selfishness. The living need organs, the dead do not, and the recently-bereaved are hardly in any fit state to make a rational decision.
To pre-empt the "religious" arguments which will probably be raised: (1) Would we pander to a bunch of so-called "satanists" {satanism is actually a branch of christianity} who demanded to sacrifice thirteen virgins on every full moon "for religious reasons"? (2) Does any god who would deny someone admission to Heaven for someone who had saved another life, whilst admitting someone to Heaven who had denied another the gift of life, deserve to be worshipped? (3) Which is the greater sin: to bury or burn a valuable resource which could have saved a life, or to cut up a piece of meat without asking someone first?
But you don't own the software: you own only the disc it is recorded on and a licence to use it.
Imagine if you mislaid your TV licence three months into the year. Would that mean you wouldn't be allowed to watch your TV until you bought another full year's TV licence? What if you mislaid your driving licence? Would you be banned from driving until you got a new provisional licence and retook your theory and road tests, all at your own expense? If you mislaid your ham radio licence, would you have to retake your RAE?
No, no and no; because in each case, the Authorities have done due diligence and keep a record of who has a licence to do what. As long as you can satisfy them that you are indeed a properly licenced person and the original document is lost beyond retrieval, your licence stands and the most you will have to pay is a nominal charge to cover the printing and sending of a new licence.
So if I was using software under a licence {and not under the "fair dealing" provisions of copyright law, which would still apply if I declined to accept the licence.....} then I would expect that loss of the licence document should not prejudice the licence agreement. One for the courts to decide, maybe.....
While you're at it, disallow AC posts in any discussion until a logged-in user has posted something. And maybe introduce a meta-meta-moderation scheme, where meta-moderators who meta-moderate badly {e.g. M2-ing an offtopic "first post" M1-ed offtopic as unfair} have to wait a bit longer for their next meta-moderation access.
So would men be, probably, if they were subject to be eaten by a parasite from the inside out. Pregnancy and childbirth can destroy a woman's life {sometimes literally}.
OK, a woman Pope is a bit off-topic. But it would hardly be a bad thing and might do a lot of good, if she made the church less male.
But I can't believe that Gates can't afford to licence even one drug patent that might save even more lives. I just think he doesn't want to, because he still believes deep down that information should have Masters. For that reason I hate him; and as long as he continues to show that he believes that, nothing he does can ever redeem him in my sight.
A. Tylenol is para-acetyl aminophenol, paracetamol for short. Its patent expired a long time ago. Now, thanks to competition and market forces, a dose of generic paracetamol can be had for a penny. I believe it would be more instructive to compare the cost just before and just after the patent expired.
B. See under "National Insurance Contributions" on my payslip.
If I wanted to play any video game I wanted, I would have to buy a PSX, PSX2, GameCube, XBox, Gameboy, SNES, Sega, etc etc etc..... I'm just pointing out that having an OS that an overwhelming majority of people use can be good.
So you think.....
This is why the C programming language was created, and ultimately why the Portable Operating Systems Interface Extensions standard was created. Basically, if you write a programme in a properly-supported programming language, it ought to be able to be run on any hardware that is physically capable to run it. Obviously if it does hi-res colour graphics it won't run on something which gets its data in and out via a glorified electric typewriter, but hardware with similar capabilities should be able to handle the task.
The most widely-supported programming language {measured in terms of different architectures on which it will run} is GNU C++ {which by definition includes C; a C programme is a valid C++ programme} and the GNU project has created the autoconf and automake utilities with the aim of making it easy to manage those final "tweaks" which so often are necessary when adapting a programme from one system to another. Anyone who used 8-bit BASIC in the 1980s will remember trying to get a TRS-80 game to run on a Beeb or a Dragon, or an Oric game onto a Spectrum. Or an APPLE-][ programming language on a Beeb.
Different processors {e.g. 80486, 68020} have different instruction sets; and different machine architectures based on the same processor {Amiga, early Macintosh} use different support chips and different addressing schemas. So binaries for one system are mostly useless to another system. But the source code from which those binaries were generated should compile and run OK on a different system. e.g. if I want to send a character to the printer I have to read the BUSY line on the port; and then if the port is not busy, I have to write the data bits to the port address, then lower and raise the STROBE line. The port is electronically the same in different machines but probably has a different address in memory/IO space. As long as I write my code in such a way as to use #defined constants for the addresses of the data and control ports and the bit values of the STROBE and BUSY lines, then my code will work on any system with a printer port, as long as I know the proper constants.
Now, I can make my universal printing programme truly universal by first finding out the important values for as many different machine architectures as possible; then writing a script which asks you {or attempts to determine for itself} what kind of system it is running on, and #includes the relevant #define statements for that architecture in the main programme source code before it compiles it. If I did so properly then it Will Just Work. If anybody else invents a new machine architecture that has a printer port sometime in the future, my programme will work with it as soon as someone creates the relevant include data and {maybe} devises a way that a programme can test for sure if or not it is running on this new kind of machine.
And if every programme was published in the form of source code, and every hardware manufacturer published the full details of the port-addressing schemas of their hardware, then any programme would work on any machine.
Now my printing thing is tiny but it proves a concept. Look how many kinds of machine are capable of running Linux. Then look how many kinds of machine are capable of running NetBSD.
Or, turning it around to look from the other end, by deliberately making computers with different instruction sets and different addressing schemas, and by distributing only the binary code and no source code, manufacturers deliberately and cynically are ensuring that a programme for one architecture cannot be run on another architecture
Some of us think that health is more important than "intellectual property". If it wasn't for the big patent-wielding pharmaceutical companies charging whatever they like for life-saving drugs and vaccines, do you suppose the cost that the WHO has to bear would be any less?
If only it was as easy to steal chemical formulas as it is to steal software.....
Looks as though someone else been reading Mark 12:42-44.....
Of course, Bill Gates does not deserve most of this money in the first place. The whole concept on which Microsoft was founded stinks, and the correct response to this (in)famous document should have been a dragging into the nearest toilet followed by a thorough beating. What can't be owned can't be stolen.
Gates and co. might actually have earned a little respect from me if they had bought out the patent rights on a few life-saving drugs {is this another crazy concept, or what?..... they have the right idea in Cuba..... the Cuban NHS is empowered to synthesise any life-saving drug, and patent encumbrances be damned, on the basis that saving a human life is more important than earning royalty fees for some fatcat corporation} and turned them over to the Public Domain. Or maybe bribed the Roman Catholic Church to install a woman Pope {who would naturally approve of birth control and the ordination of women into lower orders of the Priesthood, and hopefully seek a reunification with the Church of England reversing the Bull[s**t] of Pope Leo XIII in 1896}. That would have been a worthy gesture.
Really, this is no different than some ordinary working-class person buying a copy of the Big Issue.
The aim of the QWERTY keyboard was not to slow typists down, but to separate letters that frequently occurred in pairs. The crucial point is that each typebar has to occupy exactly the same position to print a character, and this can lead to jamming as one typebar tries to rise through the space occupied by the one which is falling. So where two letters frequently occur together, such as P and H, the typebars should approach from (and therefore return in) different directions. This allows the second key to be struck before the first key has returned fully (what we who are accustomed to electronic keyboards, where every key depression merely closes a switch contact, call "rollover"): the first typebar should already have moved out of the critical zone by the time the second arrives. If this is done correctly, it actually speeds typists up since jams will naturally occur less frequently.
Choosing a suitable arrangement must have required painstaking analysis of lists of words to determine which characters most frequently occur in pairs. And all this had to be done without the aid of a computer.....
One error which is now obvious is that the QWERTY layout places the E typebar directly adjacent to the D typebar. My theory is that whoever came up with all the word lists forgot about the past tense altogether:) Alternatively, it could be to do with the fact that both keys are struck with the same finger; so the E typebar must have started to return before the typist can begin to depress the D key.
and the artists do not get a single cent of the profits
That hardly differs from buying CDs..... If you really care about bands getting your money, go and see them play live. Recording earns for record company executives. Gigging earns money for performers.
I think that its high time for Apple to release a version of iTunes in binary form for linux.
I would much rather see Apple release a version of iTunes in source code form. It would then work with any and every architecture.
Although, I have heard that iTunes will run under Linux using one of the Windows emulation packages. If so, you should be able to grab the raw decoded stream by writing your own/dev/dsp.
gree that you should try and get laws changed before breaking them (and only break them after informing interested parties (e.g.: Thomson) that you have broken them).
And if I ever see you drowning, I will remind you that you should drink your way out.
Um, the people who have the patents are the ones that made the standard. They didn't have to publish it at all if they didn't want to.
No, they didn't have to publish it. But what if someone else discovered the algorithm independently? The ugly {well, ugly for fatcat corporations; for mathematicians and scientists, it's really quite beautiful} fact is, MP3 encoding and decoding are nothing more than mathematical processes and as such should fall squarely outside the scope of patentability in any country with a halfway-sane legal system. Otherwise, what's to stop someone from patenting any other mathematical process?
I know! I'll claim a patent on "adding one to something" and charge a licence fee every time anyone adds one to anything. I'll also patent adding two and subtracting one; adding 0.5 twice; doubling, adding two and halving, and a few other methods anyone might use to "get around" the licence restrictions. I won't licence the "workarounds" at all, because anybody using those methods clearly is a thief and a cheat.
The MP3 patent isn't like one-click where they patented something very obvious(such as a digital form for storing music), they patented their algorithm.
It may not be obvious to you, but it's still a mathematical process and as such, it belongs to the universe. In fact, it's only not obvious if you're not an advanced enough mathematician to see straight away how it works.
Why don't we just send up a staffed mission, and have done with it once and for all?
Obviously, this would have to be a kamikaze mission. But is that such a bad thing anyway? Throughout history, explorers on Earth have set out knowing they might not return -- and many did not return. Even Christopher Columbus knew there was a risk that he could be wrong about the Earth being round. Of course it's best if you can be a living legend, but if you have to settle for one out of two then it's surely better to be a dead legend than a living nobody. That is the spirit of adventure, and it's ultimately why we climbed down from the trees and started walking around on two legs. Not to carry it on now is a mark of disrespect to all those brave people who traded their lives for the advancement of science.
So why not a one-way ticket to space? People have given their lives for much, much less than priceless insights into the cosmos.
Most countries' power grids use 50Hz, a few use 60Hz. I think some parts of the Dutch and/or Belgian railways might use 16.6667Hz, from the information I have seen on power cars of Dutch trains in Belgium. My portable generator gives out anything between 45 and 65Hz, mostly in the low fifties once it's been running awhile. If you want to measure the frequency of the mains or something similar e.g. a DC-AC inverter, use at least a 10:1 oscilloscope probe, preferably 100:1, and even better use somebody else's oscilloscope; or go through a step-down transformer {which won't change the frequency}. I don't recommend carrying out any measurements on railways.....
Aircraft and ships may use higher frequencies, for a variety of reasons. What sets the upper limit on a switch mode supply though is the rectifier diodes: it takes a finite amount of time for a real-life P-N junction to start or stop conducting, especially a big chunky one that has to pass a lot of current and even more so a cheap, mass-produced one. At high frequencies, the deviation from the ideal is so severe as to make the diode unusable as a diode. {Of course, they do make RF diodes and transistors; but usually these devices either aren't carrying a lot of power, or cost a fortune.}
If I had to do that, I'd put a different proprietary plug between the power brick and the printer, so I could still use a 120/240 brick with two DC output pins where only one pin is powered, depending on the input voltage. The cord then localizes the power supply.
I take it you mean the low-voltage plug which goes into the printer. But what's to stop me cutting off the two plugs which fit the printer, and joining the wires from the 230V power pack to the plug which came off the 110V power pack? Now I have a PSU which runs from 230V but fits a printer which originally came with a 110V PSU. If I was smart, I'd actually make the join using some sort of commonly available, standard connector in case I ever wanted to swap back.
Or are wire cutters now banned as a tool of terrorism?
Most electronic appliances these days are designed to run on a low voltage from a separate power brick. Most of these power supplies are switched mode and will accept anything from 100 to 300 volts, DC to about 400Hz. Switched mode supplies are cheaper nowadays than transformers -- especially when you factor in the cost of different winding options for different regions and how big a heatsink you will be likely to need on your voltage regulator depending on the prevailing climate and likely mains voltage in the destination country {it's my experience that where the temperature regularly exceeds 40, the voltage often doesn't exceed 200}. Not to mention the cost of returns when clueless customers blow up appliances by feeding them the wrong voltage.
Anyway, all you would need to do to make your imported printer work is just buy a local version of the same printer, which will come with a local PSU. You aren't going to buy any cartridges for it, so it's not as big a loss as it sounds like. Then just use the PSU from the local printer to power the imported printer. The low voltage input is going to be the same.
Region-free DVD players have already been ruled to be legal in Europe, where regional coding of movies is seen as anti-competitive behaviour. I remember seeing a few TV adverts just before Christmas proclaiming "multi-region" as a feature of DVD players!
Other people besides HP are allowed to, and do, make cartridges for HP printers. If HP won't tell them how when asked politely, then they may use reasonable force, i.e. reverse engineering {holding a knife against Carly Fiorina's throat, much as you would all like to do it, might well be considered unreasonable force}. Non-HP brand cartridges in all probability will be "all-region".
European environmental law explicitly forbids any measure which makes it deliberately harder to reuse or recycle electronic equipment and accessories. This includes consumables.
HP's drivers are released under a BSD-style licence. If this function is implemented by anything in the software, it can simply be commented out and recompiled.
I myself have a HP printer {Business Inkjet 1100} which I use almost exclusively for printing photographs, either for other people or when I know I will not just be able to take my laptop somewhere. I almost never need to print out documents anymore, thanks to tabbed browsing in Konqueror and Firefox. And now that photo labs are offering prints direct from memory cards at quite reasonable prices, I would recommend anyone simply not to bother with a printer.
I, for one, am against Microsoft because of their business practices {consistent abuse of dominant position to achieve near-monopoly status} and their products {closed-source software}.
No it isn't. The disc is rightfully THE LIBRARY's property. That means that THE LIBRARY is privy to any secret embodied in the disc, and the "encrypted message" on it is addressed to THE LIBRARY. This is what gives THE LIBRARY the right to break the DRM without committing a criminal offence. If an encrypted communication is addressed to you, it is not an offence to decrypt it, anymore than it is an offence to break into your own house and steal your own property.
But the library is under a mandate to keep an archive copy. This means they are the intended recipients of the encrypted content, and by virtue of that fact they are automatically entitled to break the encryption. Simple common-law property rights and all that; if you rightfully own the disc, then whatever is recorded on it is not a secret from you. If a message is addressed to you in the first place, then it cannot possibly be illegal for you to attempt to read it. Reading a message addressed to you, in private, is exactly the kind of lawful activity it is illegal to disrupt!
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Any closed-source encryption scheme is automatically suspect. If an encryption scheme demands secrecy for anything except the intended recipient's private key, then it is vulnerable to compromise.
Remember, just because you can't solve a problem you devised, does not necessarily mean it is insoluble, unless you proved so mathematically. For example, by expressing the encryption as a matrix multiplication and proving the matrix is singular. Preferably there should be more than one indeterminate variable, to increase the workspace for brute force attacks.
A really determined adversary could get the source code by disassembling the binary. It'd be hard work, but the payoff might be worth it. So you have to assume that the enemy has the source code to the programme. You also have to assume that the enemy has the sender's sending key {which may or may not be the recipient's public key; but it should be either impossible or at least difficult to determine the receiving key from the sending key. In other words, symmetric cyphers are insecure.}
Even if you think your receiving key is secure, it may not be. But it's the only thing you, as the recipient of the message, really have any measure of control -- even if it's just in the "it won't hurt so much if you don't struggle so much" sense of a measure of control -- over. You don't know that your enemy hasn't found a way to get the source code of the programme and you don't know that your enemy hasn't found a way to get your contact's sending key {which is why they may as well be public anyway -- there is no benefit to you keeping these things secret}. You hope your enemy can't get your receiving key without your knowing about it.
So if YOU were one of the thirteen virgins that a satanist cult wanted to sacrifice at the next full moon, you'd have no problem with that? You'd just offer yourself up for sacrifice rather than offend their sensibilities?
And if not, what's the difference between sacrificing virgins in the name of religion and withholding the gift of life in the name of religion? Just because some "holy" book says something, it can still be WRONG. {Cf. the old Kosher and Halal ritual slaughter methods.}
I restate my earlier assertion: A god who would deny you Eternal Life because you helped another deserves no worship.
Why do we need to use animals to grow spare parts for transplant surgery? Every day, millions of potentially-transplantable organs are burned or buried. Sometimes in the same crematoria / cemeteries as the people who could have been saved by an organ transplant. Organ donation, when you think about it, is really just the logical extension of recycling. And if you can be fined or sent to prison for not recycling your used bottles, cans and papers, then why should you be allowed to get away with not recycling used body parts?
IMHO organ donation should not require consent, it should just be carried out. To deny someone the gift of life is probably the supreme act of selfishness. The living need organs, the dead do not, and the recently-bereaved are hardly in any fit state to make a rational decision.
To pre-empt the "religious" arguments which will probably be raised: (1) Would we pander to a bunch of so-called "satanists" {satanism is actually a branch of christianity} who demanded to sacrifice thirteen virgins on every full moon "for religious reasons"? (2) Does any god who would deny someone admission to Heaven for someone who had saved another life, whilst admitting someone to Heaven who had denied another the gift of life, deserve to be worshipped? (3) Which is the greater sin: to bury or burn a valuable resource which could have saved a life, or to cut up a piece of meat without asking someone first?
But you don't own the software: you own only the disc it is recorded on and a licence to use it.
.....} then I would expect that loss of the licence document should not prejudice the licence agreement. One for the courts to decide, maybe .....
Imagine if you mislaid your TV licence three months into the year. Would that mean you wouldn't be allowed to watch your TV until you bought another full year's TV licence? What if you mislaid your driving licence? Would you be banned from driving until you got a new provisional licence and retook your theory and road tests, all at your own expense? If you mislaid your ham radio licence, would you have to retake your RAE?
No, no and no; because in each case, the Authorities have done due diligence and keep a record of who has a licence to do what. As long as you can satisfy them that you are indeed a properly licenced person and the original document is lost beyond retrieval, your licence stands and the most you will have to pay is a nominal charge to cover the printing and sending of a new licence.
So if I was using software under a licence {and not under the "fair dealing" provisions of copyright law, which would still apply if I declined to accept the licence
While you're at it, disallow AC posts in any discussion until a logged-in user has posted something. And maybe introduce a meta-meta-moderation scheme, where meta-moderators who meta-moderate badly {e.g. M2-ing an offtopic "first post" M1-ed offtopic as unfair} have to wait a bit longer for their next meta-moderation access.
OK, a woman Pope is a bit off-topic. But it would hardly be a bad thing and might do a lot of good, if she made the church less male.
But I can't believe that Gates can't afford to licence even one drug patent that might save even more lives. I just think he doesn't want to, because he still believes deep down that information should have Masters. For that reason I hate him; and as long as he continues to show that he believes that, nothing he does can ever redeem him in my sight.
A. Tylenol is para-acetyl aminophenol, paracetamol for short. Its patent expired a long time ago. Now, thanks to competition and market forces, a dose of generic paracetamol can be had for a penny. I believe it would be more instructive to compare the cost just before and just after the patent expired.
B. See under "National Insurance Contributions" on my payslip.
So you think .....
This is why the C programming language was created, and ultimately why the Portable Operating Systems Interface Extensions standard was created. Basically, if you write a programme in a properly-supported programming language, it ought to be able to be run on any hardware that is physically capable to run it. Obviously if it does hi-res colour graphics it won't run on something which gets its data in and out via a glorified electric typewriter, but hardware with similar capabilities should be able to handle the task.
The most widely-supported programming language {measured in terms of different architectures on which it will run} is GNU C++ {which by definition includes C; a C programme is a valid C++ programme} and the GNU project has created the autoconf and automake utilities with the aim of making it easy to manage those final "tweaks" which so often are necessary when adapting a programme from one system to another. Anyone who used 8-bit BASIC in the 1980s will remember trying to get a TRS-80 game to run on a Beeb or a Dragon, or an Oric game onto a Spectrum. Or an APPLE-][ programming language on a Beeb.
Different processors {e.g. 80486, 68020} have different instruction sets; and different machine architectures based on the same processor {Amiga, early Macintosh} use different support chips and different addressing schemas. So binaries for one system are mostly useless to another system. But the source code from which those binaries were generated should compile and run OK on a different system. e.g. if I want to send a character to the printer I have to read the BUSY line on the port; and then if the port is not busy, I have to write the data bits to the port address, then lower and raise the STROBE line. The port is electronically the same in different machines but probably has a different address in memory/IO space. As long as I write my code in such a way as to use #defined constants for the addresses of the data and control ports and the bit values of the STROBE and BUSY lines, then my code will work on any system with a printer port, as long as I know the proper constants.
Now, I can make my universal printing programme truly universal by first finding out the important values for as many different machine architectures as possible; then writing a script which asks you {or attempts to determine for itself} what kind of system it is running on, and #includes the relevant #define statements for that architecture in the main programme source code before it compiles it. If I did so properly then it Will Just Work. If anybody else invents a new machine architecture that has a printer port sometime in the future, my programme will work with it as soon as someone creates the relevant include data and {maybe} devises a way that a programme can test for sure if or not it is running on this new kind of machine.
And if every programme was published in the form of source code, and every hardware manufacturer published the full details of the port-addressing schemas of their hardware, then any programme would work on any machine.
Now my printing thing is tiny but it proves a concept. Look how many kinds of machine are capable of running Linux. Then look how many kinds of machine are capable of running NetBSD.
Or, turning it around to look from the other end, by deliberately making computers with different instruction sets and different addressing schemas, and by distributing only the binary code and no source code, manufacturers deliberately and cynically are ensuring that a programme for one architecture cannot be run on another architecture
Some of us think that health is more important than "intellectual property". If it wasn't for the big patent-wielding pharmaceutical companies charging whatever they like for life-saving drugs and vaccines, do you suppose the cost that the WHO has to bear would be any less?
.....
If only it was as easy to steal chemical formulas as it is to steal software
Looks as though someone else been reading Mark 12:42-44 .....
..... they have the right idea in Cuba ..... the Cuban NHS is empowered to synthesise any life-saving drug, and patent encumbrances be damned, on the basis that saving a human life is more important than earning royalty fees for some fatcat corporation} and turned them over to the Public Domain. Or maybe bribed the Roman Catholic Church to install a woman Pope {who would naturally approve of birth control and the ordination of women into lower orders of the Priesthood, and hopefully seek a reunification with the Church of England reversing the Bull[s**t] of Pope Leo XIII in 1896}. That would have been a worthy gesture.
Of course, Bill Gates does not deserve most of this money in the first place. The whole concept on which Microsoft was founded stinks, and the correct response to this (in)famous document should have been a dragging into the nearest toilet followed by a thorough beating. What can't be owned can't be stolen.
Gates and co. might actually have earned a little respect from me if they had bought out the patent rights on a few life-saving drugs {is this another crazy concept, or what?
Really, this is no different than some ordinary working-class person buying a copy of the Big Issue.
The aim of the QWERTY keyboard was not to slow typists down, but to separate letters that frequently occurred in pairs. The crucial point is that each typebar has to occupy exactly the same position to print a character, and this can lead to jamming as one typebar tries to rise through the space occupied by the one which is falling. So where two letters frequently occur together, such as P and H, the typebars should approach from (and therefore return in) different directions. This allows the second key to be struck before the first key has returned fully (what we who are accustomed to electronic keyboards, where every key depression merely closes a switch contact, call "rollover"): the first typebar should already have moved out of the critical zone by the time the second arrives. If this is done correctly, it actually speeds typists up since jams will naturally occur less frequently.
.....
:) Alternatively, it could be to do with the fact that both keys are struck with the same finger; so the E typebar must have started to return before the typist can begin to depress the D key.
Choosing a suitable arrangement must have required painstaking analysis of lists of words to determine which characters most frequently occur in pairs. And all this had to be done without the aid of a computer
One error which is now obvious is that the QWERTY layout places the E typebar directly adjacent to the D typebar. My theory is that whoever came up with all the word lists forgot about the past tense altogether
Although, I have heard that iTunes will run under Linux using one of the Windows emulation packages. If so, you should be able to grab the raw decoded stream by writing your own
So why won't they open the source code to the whole lot, then?
If they want to keep the source to themselves, that by itself is evil enough. Understand?
I know! I'll claim a patent on "adding one to something" and charge a licence fee every time anyone adds one to anything. I'll also patent adding two and subtracting one; adding 0.5 twice; doubling, adding two and halving, and a few other methods anyone might use to "get around" the licence restrictions. I won't licence the "workarounds" at all, because anybody using those methods clearly is a thief and a cheat. It may not be obvious to you, but it's still a mathematical process and as such, it belongs to the universe. In fact, it's only not obvious if you're not an advanced enough mathematician to see straight away how it works.
Why don't we just send up a staffed mission, and have done with it once and for all?
Obviously, this would have to be a kamikaze mission. But is that such a bad thing anyway? Throughout history, explorers on Earth have set out knowing they might not return -- and many did not return. Even Christopher Columbus knew there was a risk that he could be wrong about the Earth being round. Of course it's best if you can be a living legend, but if you have to settle for one out of two then it's surely better to be a dead legend than a living nobody. That is the spirit of adventure, and it's ultimately why we climbed down from the trees and started walking around on two legs. Not to carry it on now is a mark of disrespect to all those brave people who traded their lives for the advancement of science.
So why not a one-way ticket to space? People have given their lives for much, much less than priceless insights into the cosmos.
Most countries' power grids use 50Hz, a few use 60Hz. I think some parts of the Dutch and/or Belgian railways might use 16.6667Hz, from the information I have seen on power cars of Dutch trains in Belgium. My portable generator gives out anything between 45 and 65Hz, mostly in the low fifties once it's been running awhile. If you want to measure the frequency of the mains or something similar e.g. a DC-AC inverter, use at least a 10:1 oscilloscope probe, preferably 100:1, and even better use somebody else's oscilloscope; or go through a step-down transformer {which won't change the frequency}. I don't recommend carrying out any measurements on railways .....
Aircraft and ships may use higher frequencies, for a variety of reasons. What sets the upper limit on a switch mode supply though is the rectifier diodes: it takes a finite amount of time for a real-life P-N junction to start or stop conducting, especially a big chunky one that has to pass a lot of current and even more so a cheap, mass-produced one. At high frequencies, the deviation from the ideal is so severe as to make the diode unusable as a diode. {Of course, they do make RF diodes and transistors; but usually these devices either aren't carrying a lot of power, or cost a fortune.}
Or are wire cutters now banned as a tool of terrorism?
Most electronic appliances these days are designed to run on a low voltage from a separate power brick. Most of these power supplies are switched mode and will accept anything from 100 to 300 volts, DC to about 400Hz. Switched mode supplies are cheaper nowadays than transformers -- especially when you factor in the cost of different winding options for different regions and how big a heatsink you will be likely to need on your voltage regulator depending on the prevailing climate and likely mains voltage in the destination country {it's my experience that where the temperature regularly exceeds 40, the voltage often doesn't exceed 200}. Not to mention the cost of returns when clueless customers blow up appliances by feeding them the wrong voltage.
Anyway, all you would need to do to make your imported printer work is just buy a local version of the same printer, which will come with a local PSU. You aren't going to buy any cartridges for it, so it's not as big a loss as it sounds like. Then just use the PSU from the local printer to power the imported printer. The low voltage input is going to be the same.
- Region-free DVD players have already been ruled to be legal in Europe, where regional coding of movies is seen as anti-competitive behaviour. I remember seeing a few TV adverts just before Christmas proclaiming "multi-region" as a feature of DVD players!
- Other people besides HP are allowed to, and do, make cartridges for HP printers. If HP won't tell them how when asked politely, then they may use reasonable force, i.e. reverse engineering {holding a knife against Carly Fiorina's throat, much as you would all like to do it, might well be considered unreasonable force}. Non-HP brand cartridges in all probability will be "all-region".
- European environmental law explicitly forbids any measure which makes it deliberately harder to reuse or recycle electronic equipment and accessories. This includes consumables.
- HP's drivers are released under a BSD-style licence. If this function is implemented by anything in the software, it can simply be commented out and recompiled.
I myself have a HP printer {Business Inkjet 1100} which I use almost exclusively for printing photographs, either for other people or when I know I will not just be able to take my laptop somewhere. I almost never need to print out documents anymore, thanks to tabbed browsing in Konqueror and Firefox. And now that photo labs are offering prints direct from memory cards at quite reasonable prices, I would recommend anyone simply not to bother with a printer.This would be a good subject for a poll .....
I, for one, am against Microsoft because of their business practices {consistent abuse of dominant position to achieve near-monopoly status} and their products {closed-source software}.
No it isn't. The disc is rightfully THE LIBRARY's property. That means that THE LIBRARY is privy to any secret embodied in the disc, and the "encrypted message" on it is addressed to THE LIBRARY. This is what gives THE LIBRARY the right to break the DRM without committing a criminal offence. If an encrypted communication is addressed to you, it is not an offence to decrypt it, anymore than it is an offence to break into your own house and steal your own property.
But the library is under a mandate to keep an archive copy. This means they are the intended recipients of the encrypted content, and by virtue of that fact they are automatically entitled to break the encryption. Simple common-law property rights and all that; if you rightfully own the disc, then whatever is recorded on it is not a secret from you. If a message is addressed to you in the first place, then it cannot possibly be illegal for you to attempt to read it. Reading a message addressed to you, in private, is exactly the kind of lawful activity it is illegal to disrupt!