A Mersenne Twister is just a fancy name {probably made up by some marketing type} for a pseudo-random number generator. It's a mathematical process which I found quite instructive. To quote from the ZX81 BASIC Programming Manual, chapter 5, Exercise 6 {I have taken the liberty of altering the original, pure-mathematician's style to more closely resemble a programming style}:
Let
p be a large prime, and let a be a primitive root modulo p. Then if b[i] is the residue of a ** i modulo p (1.le. b[i].lt. p - 1), the sequence
(b[i] - 1) / (p - 1) is a cyclical sequence of p - 1 distinct mumbers in the range 0 to 1 (excluding 1). By choosing a suitably, these can be made to look fairly random.
65537 is a Mersenne prime, 2 ** 16 - 1. Use this, and Gauss's Law of Quadratic Reciprocity, to show that 75 is a primitive root modulo 65537.
The ZX81 uses p = 63337 and a = 75, and stores some b[i] - 1 in memory. The function RND involves replacing b[i] - 1 in memory by b[i + 1] - 1, and yielding the result (b[i + 1] - 1) / (p - 1). RAND n makes b[i] equal to n + 1.
Skipping the heavy maths, what this is basically saying is: you start with some number, and you do the following in order: add one, multiply by 75, subtract one (*), and take note of only the last 16 bits; then put the answer through the same process, and so on over and over again; then you will get a sequence of 65536 distinct values, each possible combination of 16 bits occurring once and only once before the sequence repeats itself.
This sequence is not random at all, but completely predetermined. Re-seeding merely jumps within the sequence to some point along its length. Re-seeding must be done at intervals to ensure some degree of randomness. Traditionally this has been done using some measure of time elapsed between switching the computer on and starting the program running; the units used must be small compared to the variance of this interval.
True randomness would require some totally random event, such as the time interval between particle decays in a radioactive substance, or thermal noise in a semiconductor junction. {The static picked up by an unconnected input of a sound card would be an example of this phenomenon, but would also include local noise sources such as mains hum and local RF interference.} In the case of a fruit machine, the time between player operations, and the sequence of hold and cancel operations, if applicable, can be used as entropy sources.
(*) I know, I know. You can multiply by 75 and add 74 and no-one will know or care.
Flaw 1. Suppose the predetermination takes place at the beginning of a 'game', by which I mean a spin of the reels and any 'features' {payout / gamble sequence; 'nudges'; sub-game &c.}, or a sequence of such spins with intervening 'holds'; the end of a 'game' occurring when the option to 'hold' is not offered.
So, I spin up a pair of cherries and get a hold. This is still part of the same 'game' by my above definition, and the outcome of that game is determined. {in this case, we assume, at nothing; but there is a possibility that some combination of 'hold' and 'cancel' operations could trigger an alternative outcome.} If I hold, the remaining reel will show something other than a cherry, no further hold will be offered and the 'game' is over. If I renounce the option to hold, the third reel will spin to a cherry - a simple but effective little mind trick. I have won nothing, and the game is over.
In the high/low scenario referred to elsewhere on the web site, it looks like the maximum return is fixed at £5. The player has the option to collect this amount as it stands {and thereby terminate the 'game' unless a 'hold' is offered}, or take a high/low gamble and definitely lose. If they choose to play safe and collect the win as offered, they can; if they are greedy, they will be punished.
In the club machine scenario, it looks again as though the maximum return is predetermined at the beginning of the 'game' {recall, a game includes any sequence of win, gamble, feature exchange &c. and all subsequent spins with intervening holds}. The maximum amount winnable is predetermined at the moment the reels land; the player is offered a series of choices which will lead to a certain maximum payout, or disappointment, according to a known sequence; after which, a new 'game' will commence.
The maximum outcome of such a 'game' could be determined in some truly random manner, but whilst the game continues {holds, win/gamble sequences, features and the like} the player's decisions can only negatively impact on this outcome.
Note: We must consider a pseudo-random sequence as being predetermined, unlesss re-seeded from a truly random source. It is entirely possible that such re-seeding occurs at intervals no more often than a 'game' as described above. This would not be detectable by the experimental method described.
Flaw 2. We cannot be certain that the programmes described are correctly emulating the machines mentioned. However, we can assume that it is an awful length to go to in order to perpetrate a hoax, so as a corollary if someone has actually gone to the trouble of creating this programme, then it may as well be accurate. There is likely no less effort expended in a falsification.
In this country, most independent ISPs use Linux. Things may be different in the rest of the world, though. Yes, I am aware of NTFS' user separations, but the "Home editions" supplied with cheap PCs subvert all that. Windows 95/98/98SE/ME are all still in use and don't have such a thing at all. But I'll grudgingly concede that modern versions of Windows can be configured properly. {There, I've said it.}
But without seeing the source code, nobody can say for certain where the security holes are. {Just seeing the source code isn't sufficient: someone has to understand it in a certain way to spot the fault. But it's certainly a necessary condition.} By contrast, when many different people see the source code, it becomes increasingly likely that any vulnerability will be spotted and corrected. {How often has someone else spotted an error straight away in your work that you have spent half an afternoon looking for?} Also, a programmer who knows many people will see their source code will be more likely to check it thoroughly, just for the sake of avoiding embarrassment before ones own kind!
Ultimately, carelessness is the real reason why anyone gets infected. However, I feel justified in saying that Microsoft deserve some share of the blame for actually encouraging this carelessness.
Linux {or Unix or VAX/VMS for that matter} is inherently more secure than Windoze, because if the system is configured properly, then nothing that happens within an individual user's filespace is going to affect any other user. Except root, obviously, but every system I've used creates at least one ordinary user from day one - and frankly, anyone who uses root for the wrong things is asking for it.
Finally, the voice of reason: someone who understands what copyright is really about.
Copyright is a temporary period of exclusivity granted to authors, in return for a promise eventually to release the work into the public domain. In other words: releasing material into the public domain is the price you pay for having the law protect your exclusivity. As an author, you get a short-term assurance that nobody is going to make money by pretending that your work was actually theirs {which, I am sure, some people are nasty enough to do}. Or at least, if they try, the law will be on your side. As a consumer, you get an assurance that you will - eventually, at any rate - be able to obtain the works you are entitled to {for, as I have stated before; no person is an island, and all the fruits of all human endeavour belong to all humanity} for only a nominal cost.
The compromise is determined by the duration for which exclusivity is provided. It should be long enough to permit authors to make a reasonable amount of money, but short enough to allow consumers reasonable access to material. This is, by definition, a highly subjective matter and I don't believe it improper for government to attempt to define some guidelines as to what is "reasonable".
The corollary of this is: if an author has no intention of ever releasing a work into the public domain, then they have no right to expect anyone - least of all the taxpayer - to assist in the maintenance of their exclusivity. Put it like this; either you make your work available to everybody (sooner or later), or you don't make it available at all. There is nothing in between.
There should also be a requirement for anyone wanting to use technological measures to prevent copying of a copyrighted work, to have an unencumbered copy kept in escrow, in order to ensure that when the time comes for it to be released into the public domain, this actually can be done. Any author who does not wish to comply with this measure, and who does not wish to release their work into the public domain after a fixed, non-extensible {though I would not say it shouldn't be shortenable -- this is analogous to the defence being allowed to appeal against a conviction but the prosecution not being allowed to appeal against an acquittal} term, should be denied the protection of the law; and, if they use technological measures to attempt to prevent people from copying their work, then no action should be taken against those who circumvent such measures {cf. reasonable force -- when polite requests fail, less benign methods may legitimately be employed in pursuit of one's rights}.
But the law should never protect any excess of authority, not even one achieved through the (mis)use of technological copy-restriction measures.
OK, so he probably wasn't actually called Prometheus, but that's pretty much what the myth was based on..... tree struck by lightning, falls over on fire, someone grabs hot bit, keeps own fire going.
Blowing up a cocaine factory in Columbia, for example, is a form of self-defense as the drug industry negatively impacts our people, both the users and the dealers. People die and go to jail, in no small numbers, because of the drug trade.
Strictly speaking, it is the illegality of the drug trade that negatively impacts your people. When the USA banned alcohol, the alcohol trade had a far greater negative impact than it ever had when it was legal. Maintaining this stupid puritanical stance is doing you far more harm than letting people get off their boxes occasionally ever would do.
Just because the USA spends more money on equipping soldiers, doesn't mean they're the best. One of our boys with a bolt-action Lee-Enfield can score more hits in a given time interval than any GI with any machine gun..... you see, we do this thing called "aiming" which is where you make sure the gun is actually pointed directly at the person you want to hit *before* you pull the trigger. This has been demonstrated to be more effective than simply firing many rounds and just hoping one makes it. (I don't think we actually use Enfields in combat situations any more, though.)
It's been demonstrated time and time again that sophisticated equipment is no match for a fighting force with real local knowledge. Which is why we have used the SAS to train up local guerillas in the past..... Of course, we also train soldiers for some of the richest oil barons. They come to Military Academy; and they learn to polish boots, peel potatoes and march around in squares. They just don't learn how to fight;-)
Why are people still fighting at all? Well, thanks to technology, our ability to supply goods has actually exceeded our demand -- effectively rendering both capitalism and socialism instantaneously obsolete, as these systems start out from the assumption that demand > supply. Therefore, to maintain a capitalist / socialist system, it is necessary to artificially adjust this balance. War works well in this respect by not only increasing demand {for both finished goods and the raw materials from which they might have been made}, but also robbing some of the capacity for supply {by removing workers}.
Look at it this way..... we have the technology to build cars that will last "forever" {by any reasonable definition} and run on clean fuel made from plants, but once everybody has one then there will be no more work making them. Not only that, but if everyone has everything they need, then work and money and the whole cycle of capitalism and socialism are obsolete. If everyone already has everything, there would be no such thing as rich or poor, so one fewer division in society {and cap/soc governments always exploit such divisions for their own ends}, and no such thing as theft - so less need for law enforcement {another thing governments do}.
From the point of view of a socialist or capitalist government, it is better to create waste through endless wars than put yourself right out of a job. Of course the citizens are being sold down the river, but governments can get away with doing that..... and will carry on doing so as long as anyone believes the lie that demand still exceeds supply.
..... and if some of the N.I.M.B.Y. whingers we are seeing today had been around when the real-life Prometheus first plucked a blazing brand from a lightning-blasted tree, we probably would never even have had that!
Oracle is just a database, and all modern databases are more-or-less SQL-compatible. That is, they accept commands like SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE "fred" and give output in text form. It wouldn't take too much effort to write a programme that does a SELECT * and chucks out a load of INSERT statements that would recreate the database. *That* is your interchangeable file format.
Source code does give you clues as to how the data is stored, but its usefulness depends on the author's comments..... the commentless pile of IFs and GOTOs you get from decompilation {often without even so much as a variable name} is less useful than a properly-written spec.
As a side note, I do really like your idea of source code escrow..... I'd like to see *any* copyrighted work held in escrow in a non-copy-prevented form, if only to ensure that when it is ready to be released into the public domain, it actually can be.
Ultimately, the rights of the people collectively come first; less important than the least-important right of the people collectively is the most-important right of the individual; and less important than the least-important right of the individual is the most-important right of a corporation.
Pretty successful? That's a good euphemism for "unmitigated disaster". Imagine the devastation one could wreak in a store, just pricking pinholes in the wrapping. One-time readout is not a copy prevention technology - you only need to play it once to copy it. However, the physical impossibility of copy-prevention appears not to have been noticed by the entertainment industry.
Sooner or later, someone will release a DVD/VCR combination unit which will be region-free and incorporate a sync regenerator / Macrovision stripper..... or DVD - HDD, or DVD - Recordable DVD..... Amstrad already did it for Walkman cassettes. You know it's going to happen.
If you can find a way of replicating my telly, so you get a copy that suits your purposes while I will still be able to watch the original one in my living room, then go ahead and help yourself to a copy. You can have that exact one {no copying required} when it's done with, if you can stand the cost of collecting it; however, that will not be for some time yet, as it does still actually work.
This is totally backwards. They should have started with the simple ones first - a generic.tar.gz - then moved up to the RPM based distros.
I've used Debian, Slackware and Mandrake (which is basically RedHat with different graphics). Everything supports.tar.gz files - Slackware packages are.tar.gz, but not all.tar.gz are proper Slackware packages. Debian has its own (IMHO superior) package management system and, if a.deb isn't available then you can bet someone will create one.
Anyway, Slackware 9 comes with KDE3.1, so what do you want Ximian Desktop for?;-)
Introduce tax concessions on renewable fuels, i.e. those made from plants or waste. Subsidise the cost of any conversion work required to use renewable fuels, but prefer fuels that do not require any engine mods. Once it is cheaper to run a vehicle on non-climate-changing fuels (you can burn all the biomass you can grow and you won't add any CO2 to the atmosphere, compared to how much was there before you dropped in the first seed, by doing so), people will do so.
However, I really think governments don't want non-polluting fuels. At the moment, they have a "guilt stick" to beat people over the head with. Take that out of the equation and it becomes that little bit harder to control people's thoughts and behaviour.....
Pink noise and spectrum analyzer? Why not tones and and a meter, which are more accurate for this purpose
Because if you use tones, then you have to do several tests; but if you use a noise source with a known frequency envelope, you can effectively do several tests at once. If you're tweaking the controls in real time, it can save quite a bit of time - the sliders on a graphic equaliser affect *bands*, not spot frequencies. It depends on the analyser having a much longer time constant than any of the individual frequencies in the noise signal, but this is generally true. Obviously the narrower the bandwidth (as opposed to the span!) on the spectrum analyser, the more accurate the result; a continuous display would be the best.
It may have no economical value, but it would help students studying the areas the copyrights cover by making those areas free. Thus it would make it more feasible for students to do research projects and such on the material that is no longer worth the companies time.
I thought "fair dealing" made provision for academic study of copyrighted material?
I would go even further. Copyright was originally conceived as a *temporary* exclusivity at the end of which you were *required* to release your work into the public domain. This way, you had a limited time in which you could make money out of it; but the public eventually got to see it anyway. *Any* extension to the exclusivity period goes against this second aim. No person is an island; *all* the fruits of *all* human endeavour ultimately belong to *all* of humanity.
I also believe there should be a requirement that a copy of the material, with no copy-prevention measures, be held in escrow for the duration of the copyright period. This would go some way towards ensuring that the public get the chance to access the material upon the expiry of copyright.
Solar powered cooling is possible. After all, you can have gas or even kerosene fired fridges..... the way they work is widely documented. (They're also inhertently CFC free since they use ammonia as the refrigerant; but since the CFCs in a fridge are sealed inside the mechanism, where they can't get anywhere near the ozone layer, I am at a loss to understand why this makes any difference.) So all you would have to do is focus the sun's rays onto the evaporator using a concave mirror or convex lens (you *will* need the optics). No need for PV's, either.
Incidentally, why don't people fit some form of chimney to their kitchen refrigerator? Since it is producing hot air..... no combustion fumes in it if it's an electric fridge obviously, but you'd think that extra heat would be better kept away from the thing
It also seems to taste better if you've just worked REALY HARD on somthing, eg. laying briks or competeing end of semester exams.
The taste buds that respond best to the taste of beer are at the back of the mouth and tongue. Those at the front react negatively to beer. Now, if you're really thirsty, you will probably just throw the stuff back, co-incidentally striking the right set of taste buds. THAT is why beer tastes so good when you are thirsty, but minging when you sip it.
- papaphrased from a half-remembered CAMRA leaflet.
Re:12v Power Over CAT5?
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PeltierBeer
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· Score: 1
Cable size (mm2) is determined by amperage, not voltage. Although what will carry 30 amps at 230V might not be good enough for 30A at 12V, because there *is* a voltage drop across *any* cable, and at automotive voltages there is less to waste than with mains. Insulation thickness is determined by voltage.
As long as you used pins 4, 5, 7 and 8, then there shouldn't be a problem (networks use only 1-2 and 3-6 and on some very cheap cards there aren't even any contacts in the other positions). In fact, you can wire up a dual gang faceplate with one length of CAT5 by using the "spare" pairs for the second socket, and I have.
But I still wouldn't trust it. 24AWG wire has a cross-sectional area of only 0.26mm2. Twenty metres of that stuff will have a resistance of an ohm or so (when you allow for there being effectively 20m + 20m; the current has to get back as well) => you lose 1V for every ampere of current drawn. Using wires in parallel may help mitigate this (and you've got 4 spare wires, so 2 in parallel gives you 0.5 ohm), but it's still a bit messy.
The batteries are, IMHO, a waste of effort, since the beer will not be warmed appreciably over their operating lifetime. Like battery backup for a solar powered pump filling a cistern..... I surely don't need to explain why that is unnecessary. In fact, since batteries work by a chemical reaction, they will get hot whileever they are producing current and may do more harm than good!
Re:Cooling
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PeltierBeer
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· Score: 2, Informative
1 calorie = amount of heat required to make 1kg of water 1 degree hotter. 1 BTU = amount of heat required to make 0.454kg of water 5/9 degree hotter.
Heat capacity of water = 4170 J kg-1 K-1.
Beer is 90-odd % water. Assume HC of beer is 4200 J kg-1 K-1. Now of course we need to get the mass of our beer; the cans are only labelled by volume. A full pint is 568ml, a standard beer can is normally 440ml. Now we need a figure for the density..... um, sod it, keep the figures round, assume 0.5kg of beer. So the total heat capacity will be 2100J K-1 - i.e. it will take about 2000 watt-seconds of energy to make your beer a single degree hotter - or, to make your beer colder, you will have to extract that much energy from it.
For 0.5 K min-1 cooling (which is what cheap environmental chambers are spec'ed at) that means drawing out 2000J in 120", which is 17W. If the cooler needs 1W in to get 1W through (2W out), then it will be running 34W, or about 3A at 12V. And this is only half a degree a minute!
Why does everyone say that everything is "the best thing since sliced bread" ? Store-bought, sliced bread is minging - I for one wonder how they manage to get away with calling it bread.
It really is time for a radical re-think of the patent system. The original purpose was to enable someone with a new idea but not much money to get a bit of short-term protection against people with plenty of money but no ideas of their own. Not what we are seeing today.....
Way back in the 1980s, as a young lad barely out of short trousers, I had the idea to mount a small permanent magnet downstream of the drive spindle/roller assembly in a Walkman-style cassette. This would allow the content to be listened just once. The original intention was to use it for computer games: a programme would be loaded from cassette to format a floppy, then the game itself would be read from tape and stored on the disk. Afterward you had a blank tape..... I naively assumed manufacturers might offer a promotion whereby you could send in some used cassettes and get a free one.
But I never did much with the idea because it was, frankly, crap. It was simply too easy to defeat, besides being error-prone.
It sounds as though this kind of thing would be illegal in mainland Europe anyway, with their strict recycling laws.....
Slashdot Mirror
This sequence is not random at all, but completely predetermined. Re-seeding merely jumps within the sequence to some point along its length. Re-seeding must be done at intervals to ensure some degree of randomness. Traditionally this has been done using some measure of time elapsed between switching the computer on and starting the program running; the units used must be small compared to the variance of this interval.
True randomness would require some totally random event, such as the time interval between particle decays in a radioactive substance, or thermal noise in a semiconductor junction. {The static picked up by an unconnected input of a sound card would be an example of this phenomenon, but would also include local noise sources such as mains hum and local RF interference.} In the case of a fruit machine, the time between player operations, and the sequence of hold and cancel operations, if applicable, can be used as entropy sources.
Flaw 1. Suppose the predetermination takes place at the beginning of a 'game', by which I mean a spin of the reels and any 'features' {payout / gamble sequence; 'nudges'; sub-game &c.}, or a sequence of such spins with intervening 'holds'; the end of a 'game' occurring when the option to 'hold' is not offered.
So, I spin up a pair of cherries and get a hold. This is still part of the same 'game' by my above definition, and the outcome of that game is determined. {in this case, we assume, at nothing; but there is a possibility that some combination of 'hold' and 'cancel' operations could trigger an alternative outcome.} If I hold, the remaining reel will show something other than a cherry, no further hold will be offered and the 'game' is over. If I renounce the option to hold, the third reel will spin to a cherry - a simple but effective little mind trick. I have won nothing, and the game is over.
In the high/low scenario referred to elsewhere on the web site, it looks like the maximum return is fixed at £5. The player has the option to collect this amount as it stands {and thereby terminate the 'game' unless a 'hold' is offered}, or take a high/low gamble and definitely lose. If they choose to play safe and collect the win as offered, they can; if they are greedy, they will be punished.
In the club machine scenario, it looks again as though the maximum return is predetermined at the beginning of the 'game' {recall, a game includes any sequence of win, gamble, feature exchange &c. and all subsequent spins with intervening holds}. The maximum amount winnable is predetermined at the moment the reels land; the player is offered a series of choices which will lead to a certain maximum payout, or disappointment, according to a known sequence; after which, a new 'game' will commence.
The maximum outcome of such a 'game' could be determined in some truly random manner, but whilst the game continues {holds, win/gamble sequences, features and the like} the player's decisions can only negatively impact on this outcome.
Note: We must consider a pseudo-random sequence as being predetermined, unlesss re-seeded from a truly random source. It is entirely possible that such re-seeding occurs at intervals no more often than a 'game' as described above. This would not be detectable by the experimental method described.
Flaw 2. We cannot be certain that the programmes described are correctly emulating the machines mentioned. However, we can assume that it is an awful length to go to in order to perpetrate a hoax, so as a corollary if someone has actually gone to the trouble of creating this programme, then it may as well be accurate. There is likely no less effort expended in a falsification.
In this country, most independent ISPs use Linux. Things may be different in the rest of the world, though. Yes, I am aware of NTFS' user separations, but the "Home editions" supplied with cheap PCs subvert all that. Windows 95/98/98SE/ME are all still in use and don't have such a thing at all. But I'll grudgingly concede that modern versions of Windows can be configured properly. {There, I've said it.}
But without seeing the source code, nobody can say for certain where the security holes are. {Just seeing the source code isn't sufficient: someone has to understand it in a certain way to spot the fault. But it's certainly a necessary condition.} By contrast, when many different people see the source code, it becomes increasingly likely that any vulnerability will be spotted and corrected. {How often has someone else spotted an error straight away in your work that you have spent half an afternoon looking for?} Also, a programmer who knows many people will see their source code will be more likely to check it thoroughly, just for the sake of avoiding embarrassment before ones own kind!
Ultimately, carelessness is the real reason why anyone gets infected. However, I feel justified in saying that Microsoft deserve some share of the blame for actually encouraging this carelessness.
Linux {or Unix or VAX/VMS for that matter} is inherently more secure than Windoze, because if the system is configured properly, then nothing that happens within an individual user's filespace is going to affect any other user. Except root, obviously, but every system I've used creates at least one ordinary user from day one - and frankly, anyone who uses root for the wrong things is asking for it.
Why do you think your ISP uses Linux?
Finally, the voice of reason: someone who understands what copyright is really about.
Copyright is a temporary period of exclusivity granted to authors, in return for a promise eventually to release the work into the public domain. In other words: releasing material into the public domain is the price you pay for having the law protect your exclusivity. As an author, you get a short-term assurance that nobody is going to make money by pretending that your work was actually theirs {which, I am sure, some people are nasty enough to do}. Or at least, if they try, the law will be on your side. As a consumer, you get an assurance that you will - eventually, at any rate - be able to obtain the works you are entitled to {for, as I have stated before; no person is an island, and all the fruits of all human endeavour belong to all humanity} for only a nominal cost.
The compromise is determined by the duration for which exclusivity is provided. It should be long enough to permit authors to make a reasonable amount of money, but short enough to allow consumers reasonable access to material. This is, by definition, a highly subjective matter and I don't believe it improper for government to attempt to define some guidelines as to what is "reasonable".
The corollary of this is: if an author has no intention of ever releasing a work into the public domain, then they have no right to expect anyone - least of all the taxpayer - to assist in the maintenance of their exclusivity. Put it like this; either you make your work available to everybody (sooner or later), or you don't make it available at all. There is nothing in between.
There should also be a requirement for anyone wanting to use technological measures to prevent copying of a copyrighted work, to have an unencumbered copy kept in escrow, in order to ensure that when the time comes for it to be released into the public domain, this actually can be done. Any author who does not wish to comply with this measure, and who does not wish to release their work into the public domain after a fixed, non-extensible {though I would not say it shouldn't be shortenable -- this is analogous to the defence being allowed to appeal against a conviction but the prosecution not being allowed to appeal against an acquittal} term, should be denied the protection of the law; and, if they use technological measures to attempt to prevent people from copying their work, then no action should be taken against those who circumvent such measures {cf. reasonable force -- when polite requests fail, less benign methods may legitimately be employed in pursuit of one's rights}.
But the law should never protect any excess of authority, not even one achieved through the (mis)use of technological copy-restriction measures.
OK, so he probably wasn't actually called Prometheus, but that's pretty much what the myth was based on ..... tree struck by lightning, falls over on fire, someone grabs hot bit, keeps own fire going.
Just because the USA spends more money on equipping soldiers, doesn't mean they're the best. One of our boys with a bolt-action Lee-Enfield can score more hits in a given time interval than any GI with any machine gun ..... you see, we do this thing called "aiming" which is where you make sure the gun is actually pointed directly at the person you want to hit *before* you pull the trigger. This has been demonstrated to be more effective than simply firing many rounds and just hoping one makes it. (I don't think we actually use Enfields in combat situations any more, though.)
..... Of course, we also train soldiers for some of the richest oil barons. They come to Military Academy; and they learn to polish boots, peel potatoes and march around in squares. They just don't learn how to fight ;-)
..... we have the technology to build cars that will last "forever" {by any reasonable definition} and run on clean fuel made from plants, but once everybody has one then there will be no more work making them. Not only that, but if everyone has everything they need, then work and money and the whole cycle of capitalism and socialism are obsolete. If everyone already has everything, there would be no such thing as rich or poor, so one fewer division in society {and cap/soc governments always exploit such divisions for their own ends}, and no such thing as theft - so less need for law enforcement {another thing governments do}.
..... and will carry on doing so as long as anyone believes the lie that demand still exceeds supply.
It's been demonstrated time and time again that sophisticated equipment is no match for a fighting force with real local knowledge. Which is why we have used the SAS to train up local guerillas in the past
Why are people still fighting at all? Well, thanks to technology, our ability to supply goods has actually exceeded our demand -- effectively rendering both capitalism and socialism instantaneously obsolete, as these systems start out from the assumption that demand > supply. Therefore, to maintain a capitalist / socialist system, it is necessary to artificially adjust this balance. War works well in this respect by not only increasing demand {for both finished goods and the raw materials from which they might have been made}, but also robbing some of the capacity for supply {by removing workers}.
Look at it this way
From the point of view of a socialist or capitalist government, it is better to create waste through endless wars than put yourself right out of a job. Of course the citizens are being sold down the river, but governments can get away with doing that
..... and if some of the N.I.M.B.Y. whingers we are seeing today had been around when the real-life Prometheus first plucked a blazing brand from a lightning-blasted tree, we probably would never even have had that!
Oracle is just a database, and all modern databases are more-or-less SQL-compatible. That is, they accept commands like SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE "fred" and give output in text form. It wouldn't take too much effort to write a programme that does a SELECT * and chucks out a load of INSERT statements that would recreate the database. *That* is your interchangeable file format.
..... the commentless pile of IFs and GOTOs you get from decompilation {often without even so much as a variable name} is less useful than a properly-written spec.
..... I'd like to see *any* copyrighted work held in escrow in a non-copy-prevented form, if only to ensure that when it is ready to be released into the public domain, it actually can be.
Source code does give you clues as to how the data is stored, but its usefulness depends on the author's comments
As a side note, I do really like your idea of source code escrow
Ultimately, the rights of the people collectively come first; less important than the least-important right of the people collectively is the most-important right of the individual; and less important than the least-important right of the individual is the most-important right of a corporation.
Pretty successful? That's a good euphemism for "unmitigated disaster". Imagine the devastation one could wreak in a store, just pricking pinholes in the wrapping. One-time readout is not a copy prevention technology - you only need to play it once to copy it. However, the physical impossibility of copy-prevention appears not to have been noticed by the entertainment industry.
..... or DVD - HDD, or DVD - Recordable DVD ..... Amstrad already did it for Walkman cassettes. You know it's going to happen.
Sooner or later, someone will release a DVD/VCR combination unit which will be region-free and incorporate a sync regenerator / Macrovision stripper
If you can find a way of replicating my telly, so you get a copy that suits your purposes while I will still be able to watch the original one in my living room, then go ahead and help yourself to a copy. You can have that exact one {no copying required} when it's done with, if you can stand the cost of collecting it; however, that will not be for some time yet, as it does still actually work.
If you go to the trouble to write software, what the hell gives you the right to not release it under a public licence in the first place?
No person is an island. All the fruits of all human endeavour belong to all humankind.
This is totally backwards. They should have started with the simple ones first - a generic .tar.gz - then moved up to the RPM based distros.
.tar.gz files - Slackware packages are .tar.gz, but not all .tar.gz are proper Slackware packages. Debian has its own (IMHO superior) package management system and, if a .deb isn't available then you can bet someone will create one.
;-)
I've used Debian, Slackware and Mandrake (which is basically RedHat with different graphics). Everything supports
Anyway, Slackware 9 comes with KDE3.1, so what do you want Ximian Desktop for?
Introduce tax concessions on renewable fuels, i.e. those made from plants or waste. Subsidise the cost of any conversion work required to use renewable fuels, but prefer fuels that do not require any engine mods. Once it is cheaper to run a vehicle on non-climate-changing fuels (you can burn all the biomass you can grow and you won't add any CO2 to the atmosphere, compared to how much was there before you dropped in the first seed, by doing so), people will do so.
.....
However, I really think governments don't want non-polluting fuels. At the moment, they have a "guilt stick" to beat people over the head with. Take that out of the equation and it becomes that little bit harder to control people's thoughts and behaviour
I would go even further. Copyright was originally conceived as a *temporary* exclusivity at the end of which you were *required* to release your work into the public domain. This way, you had a limited time in which you could make money out of it; but the public eventually got to see it anyway. *Any* extension to the exclusivity period goes against this second aim. No person is an island; *all* the fruits of *all* human endeavour ultimately belong to *all* of humanity.
I also believe there should be a requirement that a copy of the material, with no copy-prevention measures, be held in escrow for the duration of the copyright period. This would go some way towards ensuring that the public get the chance to access the material upon the expiry of copyright.
Solar powered cooling is possible. After all, you can have gas or even kerosene fired fridges ..... the way they work is widely documented. (They're also inhertently CFC free since they use ammonia as the refrigerant; but since the CFCs in a fridge are sealed inside the mechanism, where they can't get anywhere near the ozone layer, I am at a loss to understand why this makes any difference.) So all you would have to do is focus the sun's rays onto the evaporator using a concave mirror or convex lens (you *will* need the optics). No need for PV's, either.
..... no combustion fumes in it if it's an electric fridge obviously, but you'd think that extra heat would be better kept away from the thing
Incidentally, why don't people fit some form of chimney to their kitchen refrigerator? Since it is producing hot air
- papaphrased from a half-remembered CAMRA leaflet.
Cable size (mm2) is determined by amperage, not voltage. Although what will carry 30 amps at 230V might not be good enough for 30A at 12V, because there *is* a voltage drop across *any* cable, and at automotive voltages there is less to waste than with mains. Insulation thickness is determined by voltage.
..... I surely don't need to explain why that is unnecessary. In fact, since batteries work by a chemical reaction, they will get hot whileever they are producing current and may do more harm than good!
As long as you used pins 4, 5, 7 and 8, then there shouldn't be a problem (networks use only 1-2 and 3-6 and on some very cheap cards there aren't even any contacts in the other positions). In fact, you can wire up a dual gang faceplate with one length of CAT5 by using the "spare" pairs for the second socket, and I have.
But I still wouldn't trust it. 24AWG wire has a cross-sectional area of only 0.26mm2. Twenty metres of that stuff will have a resistance of an ohm or so (when you allow for there being effectively 20m + 20m; the current has to get back as well) => you lose 1V for every ampere of current drawn. Using wires in parallel may help mitigate this (and you've got 4 spare wires, so 2 in parallel gives you 0.5 ohm), but it's still a bit messy.
The batteries are, IMHO, a waste of effort, since the beer will not be warmed appreciably over their operating lifetime. Like battery backup for a solar powered pump filling a cistern
1 calorie = amount of heat required to make 1kg of water 1 degree hotter. 1 BTU = amount of heat required to make 0.454kg of water 5/9 degree hotter.
..... um, sod it, keep the figures round, assume 0.5kg of beer. So the total heat capacity will be 2100J K-1 - i.e. it will take about 2000 watt-seconds of energy to make your beer a single degree hotter - or, to make your beer colder, you will have to extract that much energy from it.
Heat capacity of water = 4170 J kg-1 K-1.
Beer is 90-odd % water. Assume HC of beer is 4200 J kg-1 K-1. Now of course we need to get the mass of our beer; the cans are only labelled by volume. A full pint is 568ml, a standard beer can is normally 440ml. Now we need a figure for the density
For 0.5 K min-1 cooling (which is what cheap environmental chambers are spec'ed at) that means drawing out 2000J in 120", which is 17W. If the cooler needs 1W in to get 1W through (2W out), then it will be running 34W, or about 3A at 12V. And this is only half a degree a minute!
Why does everyone say that everything is "the best thing since sliced bread" ? Store-bought, sliced bread is minging - I for one wonder how they manage to get away with calling it bread.
.....
It really is time for a radical re-think of the patent system. The original purpose was to enable someone with a new idea but not much money to get a bit of short-term protection against people with plenty of money but no ideas of their own. Not what we are seeing today
I claim prior art on this idea.
..... I naively assumed manufacturers might offer a promotion whereby you could send in some used cassettes and get a free one.
.....
Way back in the 1980s, as a young lad barely out of short trousers, I had the idea to mount a small permanent magnet downstream of the drive spindle/roller assembly in a Walkman-style cassette. This would allow the content to be listened just once. The original intention was to use it for computer games: a programme would be loaded from cassette to format a floppy, then the game itself would be read from tape and stored on the disk. Afterward you had a blank tape
But I never did much with the idea because it was, frankly, crap. It was simply too easy to defeat, besides being error-prone.
It sounds as though this kind of thing would be illegal in mainland Europe anyway, with their strict recycling laws
I can just see the old man from G.G.M. now ..... Linus Torvalds is Indian! Linux comes from India!
{side note: does anyone know if they're going to do a TV version of "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie"?}