I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Apple CEO Steve Jobs was found dead in his Cupertino, CA home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to technology. Truly an American icon.
If you want a RAID solution that is not absolutely awful without spending loads of money on SCSI hardware, the only way to go is 3ware. They are the only ATA hardware RAID solution (which means dedicated hardware on the controller is responsible for RAID operations, not some stupid kernel-space driver) and offer controllers with either parallel or serial ATA interfaces. I myself am using two Escalade 7006-2 cards (32-bit PCI interface, parallel ATA, two disks per controller) under FreeBSD and they are excellent. Performance is good, disaster recovery is flawless (they support background mirror rebuilding), and compatability is perfect.
They are also quite cheap. If you go to Monarch Computer, you can find the model I have for around $110 with free shipping.
I know it's hard to trust advice from Slashdot, but this is the best way to go. As many others have pointed out, RAID-1 is the obvious choice for personal uses. And always stay away from software RAID. Whether it's the Linux kernel RAID subsystem or Promise, Highpoint, etc. (these "RAID cards" are in fact software), software RAID sucks and will increase the chances of data loss, not reduce it.
I have a blog entry that talks a little bit more about this.
Have you any clue as to how many years more advanced than Linux Solaris is at the high end?
I'd like to know exactly how Solaris is superior to Linux at the "high end". Care to elaborate? This seems a lot like an empty statement driven by the outdated notion that proporietary software is intrinsically superior to open source.
How many stories does this site link to that point to massively parallel clusters that run Linux? What's "higher end" than that?
Could someone tell me what bearing this could possibly have on determining if Kobe is guilty?
If the messages contain something along the lines of "hey, I just got laid by Kobe, isn't that awesome?", then it would quickly dismantle the plaintiff's case. However, how can we be certain the messages have not been tampered with? If the messages indicate that the accusation is bullshit, then the plaintiff could simply say the messages were not her's. There could be no proof either way.
On the otherhand, if the messages express "hey, Kobe just raped me!", we still know nothing. If the victim is claiming she was raped now, how is a message at any point in time after the rape going to strengthen her case? The answer is, it does't. If I am lying at t[n+1], the same lie at t[n] does not make my statement true.
So what we ultimately have here is... nothing. You would think that a judge with a strong comprehension of logic would realize this and not even bother.
It looks like these cars are more hype than help in the battle against pollution and foreign fuel reliance.
Naturally, the technology, not the drivers, that is responsible for the poor fuel economy.
Nonsense. When I drive my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid (yes, I actually own one, potentially unlike many other people posting here) on the highway, I am careful on the gas (I take a speed hit going up hills, I utilize descents, et cetera). On the Pittsburgh, PA - Washington, DC drive, I consistently average 51 MPG for the length of I76, I70, and I270. On the George Washington Memorial Highway along the Potomac, I can keep it above 53 going in and out of the city. For local traffic, I accelerate slowly and brake slowly (when possible) and that helps keep it above 48 MPG.
On the otherhand, when I feel like having some fun, the gas miliage can drop down into the low 40s (42-46 MPG). For my Civic, that is terrible, but still better than 90% of the cars on the road. I consistently score 575+ miles out of my 12.7 gallon tank.
A terrible driver could take an NSX and lose every race. An excellent driver can take a Kia and kick some serious ass. Likewise with fuel economy, a bad driver can make the most efficient vehicle guzzle gas while a good driver could get some decent range out of an SUV. The point is, a car's technology is only as good as the driver.
I think a lot of people out there get a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle and assume that they don't have to think. That's not the case. There's a very good reason why the Prius and the Civic Hybrid show you whether the motor is assisting or charging and show you your instantaneous fuel economy. These tools help the driver alter their habits to get the best performance. If people are dumb enough to spend the money on one of these vehicles and then not use the technology correctly (understand how to drive with maximum efficienty and change their habits), it's not the fault of the engineering, it's the fault of the consumer.
...but you simply do not use LFS for anything other than hobby purposes.
Don't get me wrong: LFS is an awesome project and definitely has its uses, but certainly not here. Compiling everything (lack of a package system), all the hand-tweaking, and the potential maintenance nightmare will bite them later. If/when these guys move on, the next administrators will be a quagmire of this custom-rolled Linux distribution. In all likelihood, that could trigger a move back to Windows.
There's nothing being done here that couldn't have been done with existing distributions (Debian for instance). And worse, this article serves to emphasize how difficult it can be to tweak F/OSS to your needs. Bad move. People who advocat LFS for production environments should be shot.
It's unlikely that you will because you seem like the type that doesn't like his assumptions challenged in the name of pride (another typically American trait). However, you would discover that SUVs are not safer than other cars and they constitute a shift from placing responsibility on the skill of the driver to be safe onto the equipment and the chance provided by the environment. In other words, an SUV is another affort to be lazy and irresponsible with the lives of others. That is not speaking at all for the resources they consume.
What I find most amusing is that the execuatives of car manufacturers that make SUVs mock the customers who buy them.
but when I run my Suburban on E85, I get over a hundred miles per gallon of gasoline.
Care to back this up?
In reality, you are off by an order of magnitute. Accoridng to a government source, you actually get 10 MPG in the city, and 14 MPG on the highway. The gas mileage on that vehicle with E85 is actually worse than gasoline.
The only advantage of that alternative fuel in that vehicle is it reduces the polution index. You burn more fuel but you put out less pollution.
Perhaps you are really just someone who desperately wants to justify a vastly oversized vehicle that they likely do not need. What is it with Americans and our intense desire to take up more space and resources than anyone else?
For the record, I drive a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. Its battery package is safely enclosed in a Kelvar shell that prevents leakage in the event of an accident. If the car is mangled enough that the back-half of the vehicle is ripped apart length-wise, there is no need to rescue me because the car would have to be beyond recognition. The electrical system also has plenty of failsafes to prevent dangerous shocks. Overall and on average, my vehicle is no more a liability to others in an accident than any other car.
And no matter what you say, SUVs remain a tremendous threat to those with smaller vehicles on the road. No amount of nonsense, canned responses, or irrational whims will change the laws of physics.
for consumer devices, you better use mp3 cause that's all there is that is 100% compatible.
For portable listening purposes, you can be sure that you're not going to notice the loss in quality from transcoding to MP3. In fact, this is even preferable because downsampling for portable devices means greatly increased capasity. I am really just talking about using Vorbis for distribution and listening otherwise.
Of course, there's always the chance that if the market demands portable music players that support Vorbis, companies will begin making them.
I care more about being able to play my music than to show politics about encoding licensing.
My comment wasn't so much about codec licensing issues, although those issues are important. It's about not using a format that tracks usage back to you such that the RIAA can more easily catch you red-handed then sue you $150,000 per song.
The focus of MPEG4 is streaming and generally low bitrates. MPEG2 shoots for quality. Sort of (again, sort of) like FLAC versus MP3. Both are used for compression, but the latter of the two is going for small sizes where as the other wants to preserve the original audio as much as possible while achieving some degree of size reduction. Dirac's purpose is to be used for professional, broadcast purposes, therefore it's competing against MPEG2.
I'm not seeing any real problem here. A right to privacy isn't a right to ba anonymous. The government, or anyone else for that matter, is welcome to watch and identify you in public. Their right ends at your door, however. That is what the right to privacy entails, that you can't be monitored in your home. It does not mean that you can always be totally anonymous when in public.
It is not as benign as you make it sound.
The Constitution protects our right to associate freely because the Framers recognized this right is critical for the democratic process. IANAL, but I believe that removing the ability to move around anonymously, without being monitored or recorded, has a chilling effect on free association. Suddenly the government knows where you are and who you are with all the time. It opens you up to the possibility of being persecuted, either by the government or by your peers.
Anyone who knows the constitutional law better than I do want to correct me or expand on that?
Why does Mr. Valenti think it's wrong for individuals to set their own standards but not for him to force his standards on others? (Of course, limit the scope of this to simple things like what kind of computer.) What if someone cannot afford Windows or a dedicated DVD player. It's therefore wrong if they find a way to watch movies?
I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it.
This struck me as being at the heart of Valenti's misunderstanding of the issues important to us. The whole purpose of encryption is to guard the data whether or not it is in a hostile environment. The Nazis didn't go running around screaming "you can't do that, it's not your right" when British intelligence cracked Enigma. Instead, they responded with a stronger cypher.
If your encryption can be cracked, it's not a matter of rights or privileges. It's matter of technology. Your encryption is weak and you need to make it stronger. Then you don't need social laws to prevent people from cracking it. The laws of mathematics do that for you, and do a much better job.
Of course, I cannot speculate on how that would change the dynamics of the situation. It may improve because it might eliminate their motivation to push for bad laws to prop up their weak system. Solving technological problems with technology is better than solving them with legality.
He is too dangerous to the terrorists, that is all.
Bush has done nothing but give poster examples as to why outranged people should join terrorist organizations and help fight America. The US, under Bush's lead, has committed horrible attrocities and it only goes to support the agenda of the terrorists: that we are a dangerous, threating force that must be stopped at all costs.
What you and many other conservatives don't seem to understand is that we are not the only people in the world with a political agenda. The people who have pitted themselves against us do so not because they are "jealous, freedom-hating evil doers in league with Satan", but because they have a grievance with us and they have no other recourse.
We need to quantify the injustices we have committed (and we have committed quite a few) and then figure out how to resolve those injustices. That's how we will achieve peace, but we will never do it because it requires us to get off our righteous high-horse and take a hit to our pride. Instead, we opt for the brain-dead solution of simply killing people, a course of action that will never solve the problem. Instead, it will create a never-ending cycle of violence.
Perhaps employeers could require employees not to give their email address to anyone. That would, of course, preclude them from sending any emails. This would definitely prevent their addresses from getting into the hands of spammers. Problem solved! No spam!
Or if that seems a little extremely, there could be an Email Czar that reads every email coming in and only passes the ones that aren't porn off to the recipient.
What's your stance on global warming, since the UN stands to benefit the most from the monthly horror reports blasted at the American public for consuming the blessed oil and cursing the sky with the evil CO2? Not one of us have a dime bag of proof from more than 200 years at absolute best, and yet, the ball of rock we call earth is going into a scientifically defined hell in a handbasket.
Now, be sure, I am not standing against real scientists, but global warming is just a new age religion. 30 years ago, it was global cooling! Come on folks, give me a break here!
We have not only observed the "Greenhouse Effect", we can also reproduce it. We also know what gasses contribute to the phenomenon. We know that we are introducting these gasses to our atomosphere and causing an increase. We can therefore form the hypothesis that the steady emmision of these gasses will impact our environment in a way consistent with the Greenhouse Effect. Therefore, the concept of global warming is not a religion and you are mistaken to classify it as one. (Basically, it is a phenomenon that can be observed and reproduced to a degree.) Of course, it remains a hypothesis that has yet to be proven one way or another, especially since 30 years is not enough time to collect enough data to form a conclusion.
Given that scientists tell us we should be living in straw huts and holding our farts for as long as possible to avoid any potential global warming for as long as possible,
Except that scientists aren't telling us to do those things because doing those things would not reduce the emission of Green House Gasses by any significant measure. One thing that would reduce those emissions is the reduced use of fossil fuels, which when burned, produce the gasses we know contribute to the Greenhouse Effect. This can be done by limiting usage of SUVs to only those who need them and driving alternative fuel or efficient vehicles otherwise (biodesiel, hybrids, etc.). I could go on. I think you are grossly misunderstanding what you're using as a metaphore.
while religious texts such as the Bible give us moral codes that built the Industrial and Information worlds as we know it, I choose Bible. Science brings no organization, it only brings knowledge to the game. A working society has to be there to do something with it.
The Bible doesn't provide any of the moral codes that are in use in Western society, or even most of the civilized world. To attribute them to any religious text is outright false. As for the United States, our legal system (which also happens to establish morality), is based on Locke's notion of property. It does not depend on a deity to determine what's wrong and how to render justice. Then you have other countries which are not predominantly Christian, like countries in the far east (such as Japan).
The purpose of science is to give us information that we can use as fact to draw conclusions and make decisions. The purpose of science is not to decide for us. Science makes us powerful for that very reason. The social organization you're speaking of actually comes from government, not religion. That especially happens to be the case in this country--our government is secular and was established as secular.
If this were an Egyptian dig, no one here would denigrate it. If this were Mayan or Aztec, or Hindu or ancient Sumerian, it would be taken at face value. Why the hatred, then, for what has been shown time and time again to be the most accurate and most studied ancient historical text in the world?
A few reasons. First, these gentlemen, as far as I can tell, are doing this in an attempt to prove Christianity. They are not out to learn anything they do not already know, and if they are, they are not intending to share it with the rest of the world by any verifiable means (pictures, are as the story points out, weak as evidence for anything). Their ultimate purpose is to deliver a conclusion, not facts. Your typical archaelogist visits a location to learn more about an unknown culture, not to offer conclusions, but simply to offer knowledge and let the information speak.
Do you see the subtle distinction here? On one hand, we have the scientist that assumes something to be true then goes looking only for evidence that supports it. On the other hand, we have the scientist that that explores and records only what is observed and lets the facts speak for themselves. Which of these categories is likely to get the most cynical reaction? Which category do you think these guys fall into?
There is also a negative reaction from many rational people to the heavy-weight evangelistic nature of Christianity. Rational people usually want evidence to back up claims, evidence which is often not offered by evangelism. This can put people at odds against an idealogy. Would you dislike it if people of other religions came thumping you with their religious beliefs using threats of punishment and slander? Would it make you uncomfortable? Also, many active religions today (key point to remember with your claim--many ancient religions of noteworthy attention are no longer practiced) use fear and coersion to recruit new members. Fear of eternal suffering or punishment is commen. Religions often do this at great financial benefit to themselves.
I could go on and on, but I digress. Nevertheless, I think when you look at all this, you find that there is a great deal of cause for people to express hostility towards religion. Perhaps you should take these things into consideration before you feel like you or your belief system are being picked on.
I'm certain that Lego will take security into strong consideration with this system. I am certain they will ensure that preditors of children will not be able to hijack the system and locate your kids as effectively as you can. Afterall, strong cryptographic authentication will be used and identifications will be universally unique, or some other such mechanisms will be in place... right?
All but the vernam cipher are theoretically crackable given enough computer power and time.
I understand computationally secure cyphers versus a scheme like Vernam, but the pad can be guessed. Using a key once does not somehow make the encyphering irreversable by adversaries. I can, at least, make as many attempts guessing the pad as I like. Ultimately, all I have to know is how to identify spurious results (of course, I am not implying that this is somehow trivial). I think the question of "[is] encryption... crackable" is correctly answered "yes", insofar as it is always possible to extract the cleartext. Granted that may take billions of years, but possible nevertheless.
If an encryption scheme allows a message to be recovered, it can be cracked. Is it likely that good encryption will be cracked within a timeframe that the information is relevant or useful? No. Is it likely that messaged encyphered with a one-time pad will be cracked within the span of our universe? No.
Slashdot Mirror
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Apple CEO Steve Jobs was found dead in his Cupertino, CA home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to technology. Truly an American icon.
I mean, you can't quite going around suing people for speaking the truth.
If you want a RAID solution that is not absolutely awful without spending loads of money on SCSI hardware, the only way to go is 3ware. They are the only ATA hardware RAID solution (which means dedicated hardware on the controller is responsible for RAID operations, not some stupid kernel-space driver) and offer controllers with either parallel or serial ATA interfaces. I myself am using two Escalade 7006-2 cards (32-bit PCI interface, parallel ATA, two disks per controller) under FreeBSD and they are excellent. Performance is good, disaster recovery is flawless (they support background mirror rebuilding), and compatability is perfect.
They are also quite cheap. If you go to Monarch Computer, you can find the model I have for around $110 with free shipping.
I know it's hard to trust advice from Slashdot, but this is the best way to go. As many others have pointed out, RAID-1 is the obvious choice for personal uses. And always stay away from software RAID. Whether it's the Linux kernel RAID subsystem or Promise, Highpoint, etc. (these "RAID cards" are in fact software), software RAID sucks and will increase the chances of data loss, not reduce it.
I have a blog entry that talks a little bit more about this.
I'd like to know exactly how Solaris is superior to Linux at the "high end". Care to elaborate? This seems a lot like an empty statement driven by the outdated notion that proporietary software is intrinsically superior to open source.
How many stories does this site link to that point to massively parallel clusters that run Linux? What's "higher end" than that?
Could someone tell me what bearing this could possibly have on determining if Kobe is guilty?
If the messages contain something along the lines of "hey, I just got laid by Kobe, isn't that awesome?", then it would quickly dismantle the plaintiff's case. However, how can we be certain the messages have not been tampered with? If the messages indicate that the accusation is bullshit, then the plaintiff could simply say the messages were not her's. There could be no proof either way.
On the otherhand, if the messages express "hey, Kobe just raped me!", we still know nothing. If the victim is claiming she was raped now, how is a message at any point in time after the rape going to strengthen her case? The answer is, it does't. If I am lying at t[n+1], the same lie at t[n] does not make my statement true.
So what we ultimately have here is... nothing. You would think that a judge with a strong comprehension of logic would realize this and not even bother.
Naturally, the technology, not the drivers, that is responsible for the poor fuel economy.
Nonsense. When I drive my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid (yes, I actually own one, potentially unlike many other people posting here) on the highway, I am careful on the gas (I take a speed hit going up hills, I utilize descents, et cetera). On the Pittsburgh, PA - Washington, DC drive, I consistently average 51 MPG for the length of I76, I70, and I270. On the George Washington Memorial Highway along the Potomac, I can keep it above 53 going in and out of the city. For local traffic, I accelerate slowly and brake slowly (when possible) and that helps keep it above 48 MPG.
On the otherhand, when I feel like having some fun, the gas miliage can drop down into the low 40s (42-46 MPG). For my Civic, that is terrible, but still better than 90% of the cars on the road. I consistently score 575+ miles out of my 12.7 gallon tank.
A terrible driver could take an NSX and lose every race. An excellent driver can take a Kia and kick some serious ass. Likewise with fuel economy, a bad driver can make the most efficient vehicle guzzle gas while a good driver could get some decent range out of an SUV. The point is, a car's technology is only as good as the driver.
I think a lot of people out there get a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle and assume that they don't have to think. That's not the case. There's a very good reason why the Prius and the Civic Hybrid show you whether the motor is assisting or charging and show you your instantaneous fuel economy. These tools help the driver alter their habits to get the best performance. If people are dumb enough to spend the money on one of these vehicles and then not use the technology correctly (understand how to drive with maximum efficienty and change their habits), it's not the fault of the engineering, it's the fault of the consumer.
I actually miss Katz. His articles were interesting, if not outright fun to read sometimes (in a sort of "wtf?" kind of way).
...but you simply do not use LFS for anything other than hobby purposes.
Don't get me wrong: LFS is an awesome project and definitely has its uses, but certainly not here. Compiling everything (lack of a package system), all the hand-tweaking, and the potential maintenance nightmare will bite them later. If/when these guys move on, the next administrators will be a quagmire of this custom-rolled Linux distribution. In all likelihood, that could trigger a move back to Windows.
There's nothing being done here that couldn't have been done with existing distributions (Debian for instance). And worse, this article serves to emphasize how difficult it can be to tweak F/OSS to your needs. Bad move. People who advocat LFS for production environments should be shot.
I highly recommend you take a look at this article: http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html .
It's unlikely that you will because you seem like the type that doesn't like his assumptions challenged in the name of pride (another typically American trait). However, you would discover that SUVs are not safer than other cars and they constitute a shift from placing responsibility on the skill of the driver to be safe onto the equipment and the chance provided by the environment. In other words, an SUV is another affort to be lazy and irresponsible with the lives of others. That is not speaking at all for the resources they consume.
What I find most amusing is that the execuatives of car manufacturers that make SUVs mock the customers who buy them.
Care to back this up?
In reality, you are off by an order of magnitute. Accoridng to a government source, you actually get 10 MPG in the city, and 14 MPG on the highway. The gas mileage on that vehicle with E85 is actually worse than gasoline.
The only advantage of that alternative fuel in that vehicle is it reduces the polution index. You burn more fuel but you put out less pollution.
Perhaps you are really just someone who desperately wants to justify a vastly oversized vehicle that they likely do not need. What is it with Americans and our intense desire to take up more space and resources than anyone else?
For the record, I drive a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. Its battery package is safely enclosed in a Kelvar shell that prevents leakage in the event of an accident. If the car is mangled enough that the back-half of the vehicle is ripped apart length-wise, there is no need to rescue me because the car would have to be beyond recognition. The electrical system also has plenty of failsafes to prevent dangerous shocks. Overall and on average, my vehicle is no more a liability to others in an accident than any other car.
And no matter what you say, SUVs remain a tremendous threat to those with smaller vehicles on the road. No amount of nonsense, canned responses, or irrational whims will change the laws of physics.
For portable listening purposes, you can be sure that you're not going to notice the loss in quality from transcoding to MP3. In fact, this is even preferable because downsampling for portable devices means greatly increased capasity. I am really just talking about using Vorbis for distribution and listening otherwise.
Of course, there's always the chance that if the market demands portable music players that support Vorbis, companies will begin making them.
My comment wasn't so much about codec licensing issues, although those issues are important. It's about not using a format that tracks usage back to you such that the RIAA can more easily catch you red-handed then sue you $150,000 per song.
Why don't we just stick with Ogg Vorbis audio compression for our file trading needs?
The focus of MPEG4 is streaming and generally low bitrates. MPEG2 shoots for quality. Sort of (again, sort of) like FLAC versus MP3. Both are used for compression, but the latter of the two is going for small sizes where as the other wants to preserve the original audio as much as possible while achieving some degree of size reduction. Dirac's purpose is to be used for professional, broadcast purposes, therefore it's competing against MPEG2.
It is not as benign as you make it sound.
The Constitution protects our right to associate freely because the Framers recognized this right is critical for the democratic process. IANAL, but I believe that removing the ability to move around anonymously, without being monitored or recorded, has a chilling effect on free association. Suddenly the government knows where you are and who you are with all the time. It opens you up to the possibility of being persecuted, either by the government or by your peers.
Anyone who knows the constitutional law better than I do want to correct me or expand on that?
Why does Mr. Valenti think it's wrong for individuals to set their own standards but not for him to force his standards on others? (Of course, limit the scope of this to simple things like what kind of computer.) What if someone cannot afford Windows or a dedicated DVD player. It's therefore wrong if they find a way to watch movies?
This struck me as being at the heart of Valenti's misunderstanding of the issues important to us. The whole purpose of encryption is to guard the data whether or not it is in a hostile environment. The Nazis didn't go running around screaming "you can't do that, it's not your right" when British intelligence cracked Enigma. Instead, they responded with a stronger cypher.
If your encryption can be cracked, it's not a matter of rights or privileges. It's matter of technology. Your encryption is weak and you need to make it stronger. Then you don't need social laws to prevent people from cracking it. The laws of mathematics do that for you, and do a much better job.
Of course, I cannot speculate on how that would change the dynamics of the situation. It may improve because it might eliminate their motivation to push for bad laws to prop up their weak system. Solving technological problems with technology is better than solving them with legality.
Bush has done nothing but give poster examples as to why outranged people should join terrorist organizations and help fight America. The US, under Bush's lead, has committed horrible attrocities and it only goes to support the agenda of the terrorists: that we are a dangerous, threating force that must be stopped at all costs.
What you and many other conservatives don't seem to understand is that we are not the only people in the world with a political agenda. The people who have pitted themselves against us do so not because they are "jealous, freedom-hating evil doers in league with Satan", but because they have a grievance with us and they have no other recourse.
We need to quantify the injustices we have committed (and we have committed quite a few) and then figure out how to resolve those injustices. That's how we will achieve peace, but we will never do it because it requires us to get off our righteous high-horse and take a hit to our pride. Instead, we opt for the brain-dead solution of simply killing people, a course of action that will never solve the problem. Instead, it will create a never-ending cycle of violence.
Perhaps employeers could require employees not to give their email address to anyone. That would, of course, preclude them from sending any emails. This would definitely prevent their addresses from getting into the hands of spammers. Problem solved! No spam!
Or if that seems a little extremely, there could be an Email Czar that reads every email coming in and only passes the ones that aren't porn off to the recipient.
Hey, stupid laws require stupid solutions!
We have not only observed the "Greenhouse Effect", we can also reproduce it. We also know what gasses contribute to the phenomenon. We know that we are introducting these gasses to our atomosphere and causing an increase. We can therefore form the hypothesis that the steady emmision of these gasses will impact our environment in a way consistent with the Greenhouse Effect. Therefore, the concept of global warming is not a religion and you are mistaken to classify it as one. (Basically, it is a phenomenon that can be observed and reproduced to a degree.) Of course, it remains a hypothesis that has yet to be proven one way or another, especially since 30 years is not enough time to collect enough data to form a conclusion.
Except that scientists aren't telling us to do those things because doing those things would not reduce the emission of Green House Gasses by any significant measure. One thing that would reduce those emissions is the reduced use of fossil fuels, which when burned, produce the gasses we know contribute to the Greenhouse Effect. This can be done by limiting usage of SUVs to only those who need them and driving alternative fuel or efficient vehicles otherwise (biodesiel, hybrids, etc.). I could go on. I think you are grossly misunderstanding what you're using as a metaphore.
The Bible doesn't provide any of the moral codes that are in use in Western society, or even most of the civilized world. To attribute them to any religious text is outright false. As for the United States, our legal system (which also happens to establish morality), is based on Locke's notion of property. It does not depend on a deity to determine what's wrong and how to render justice. Then you have other countries which are not predominantly Christian, like countries in the far east (such as Japan).
The purpose of science is to give us information that we can use as fact to draw conclusions and make decisions. The purpose of science is not to decide for us. Science makes us powerful for that very reason. The social organization you're speaking of actually comes from government, not religion. That especially happens to be the case in this country--our government is secular and was established as secular.
By providing evidence that can be interpreted as showing that accounts of history offered by the Bible are true.
A few reasons. First, these gentlemen, as far as I can tell, are doing this in an attempt to prove Christianity. They are not out to learn anything they do not already know, and if they are, they are not intending to share it with the rest of the world by any verifiable means (pictures, are as the story points out, weak as evidence for anything). Their ultimate purpose is to deliver a conclusion, not facts. Your typical archaelogist visits a location to learn more about an unknown culture, not to offer conclusions, but simply to offer knowledge and let the information speak.
Do you see the subtle distinction here? On one hand, we have the scientist that assumes something to be true then goes looking only for evidence that supports it. On the other hand, we have the scientist that that explores and records only what is observed and lets the facts speak for themselves. Which of these categories is likely to get the most cynical reaction? Which category do you think these guys fall into?
There is also a negative reaction from many rational people to the heavy-weight evangelistic nature of Christianity. Rational people usually want evidence to back up claims, evidence which is often not offered by evangelism. This can put people at odds against an idealogy. Would you dislike it if people of other religions came thumping you with their religious beliefs using threats of punishment and slander? Would it make you uncomfortable? Also, many active religions today (key point to remember with your claim--many ancient religions of noteworthy attention are no longer practiced) use fear and coersion to recruit new members. Fear of eternal suffering or punishment is commen. Religions often do this at great financial benefit to themselves.
I could go on and on, but I digress. Nevertheless, I think when you look at all this, you find that there is a great deal of cause for people to express hostility towards religion. Perhaps you should take these things into consideration before you feel like you or your belief system are being picked on.
I'm certain that Lego will take security into strong consideration with this system. I am certain they will ensure that preditors of children will not be able to hijack the system and locate your kids as effectively as you can. Afterall, strong cryptographic authentication will be used and identifications will be universally unique, or some other such mechanisms will be in place... right?
While they're going all-out, did they stash any cocain in the seat cushions?
I understand computationally secure cyphers versus a scheme like Vernam, but the pad can be guessed. Using a key once does not somehow make the encyphering irreversable by adversaries. I can, at least, make as many attempts guessing the pad as I like. Ultimately, all I have to know is how to identify spurious results (of course, I am not implying that this is somehow trivial). I think the question of "[is] encryption ... crackable" is correctly answered "yes", insofar as it is always possible to extract the cleartext. Granted that may take billions of years, but possible nevertheless.
If an encryption scheme allows a message to be recovered, it can be cracked. Is it likely that good encryption will be cracked within a timeframe that the information is relevant or useful? No. Is it likely that messaged encyphered with a one-time pad will be cracked within the span of our universe? No.
Yes.