Furthermore, evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life, only the ways in which it has changed since it began. I have never heard a remotely plausible theory regarding the origin of life. People have not yet been able to create anything nearly as complex as a machine which can produce more of itself outside of laboratory conditions, and the idea that such machines just "happened" accidentally is far-fetched at best.
Scientists have, however, managed to zap at contained vats of chemicals that could be similar to the soup that was Earth's conditions before life and managed to get some very basic 'things' that could be the precursors to life as we know it. Unfortunately, they don't have millennia to continue to monitor and experiment on these vats of organic chemicals to see what actually happens to them.
I think that it's very plausible that amino acids and proteins, combined with a whole slew of other compounds came together and started to have different chemical reactions that built upon themselves leading to "life". Also, small, simple systems are easily mutated chemically at such a stage, so new variants would crop up in the process of dividing or chemically reacting, continuing the diversification. Over time pieces combine or split and grow in complexity, eventually joining into simple multicellular organisms, then further.
If the appliance (I have a hard time calling a specially-built and locked down machine by the term "computer") were very, very cheap or free, or if it came with a year's free service, or if the service were very inexpensive I could see how this could work.
$400? And I don't get to do with it what I want? And everything is proprietary?
I never purchased a wireless bridge, because I was waiting for decent Linux support for 802.11a. A roommate's equipment negated the need after that.
Part of the reason why I was going to go "a" was because there weren't really any wardrivers checking out the network, and the other major part was that my cordless phone, microwave, and other equipment didn't use the frequency. I know that security through obscurity isn't a good idea as one's only line of defense, but using 802.11a, in addition to proper trusted/untrusted zone firewalling with WEP and software or protocol based encrypted tunnelling should have left me fairly secure for being over the airwaves.
I don't know the status of 802.11a in Linux right now, but if it's good then I'd recommend going to that. It may cost more, but it's faster, it's seperate from a, and relatively unused even by people with systems that would fully support it otherwise.
If the company is making money on the product then they should be going through the work to debug their software. Someone finding and publishing errors in software is doing the public a service, as the public will know to either steer clear of the company writing the bad software, or to contact that company if they're already using it and demand a fix or a refund, as the software company sold them a faulty product.
If the software maker presses this upon the researcher, the customers need to press the software maker.
As long as the Government wants to use my money to do anything I feel that I should have the right to see how they're spending that money, in all but a very, very specific set of circumstances for the immediate moment, and ultimately in every aspect as soon as information isn't critical. I believe that I should be able to look up water main locations, power line information, sewage information, telephone line/pole leasing, and the like, because I might find some gross abuse somewhere that warrants public scrutiny.
The only exception that I could make at all would be for ongoing criminal investigations. Things where the court hasn't yet decided but is scheduled to decide, or where the police are investigating and releasing information could compromise the investigation.
The odds of terrorists attacking the water main that leads to my house are miniscule. My city so wide and low density that any terrorists would be foolish to attack here for the purposes of making a large number of kills. That doesn't mean that it's impossible, it just means that it's not something that I'm going to lose sleep over. If I were in San Francisco, New York, or any other really high density place I might have some kind of concern, but not here, even if I am in the fifth largest metro area.
Besides, this is just another attempt at security through obscurity, when it's possible (and even likely) that much of the information on infrastructure is already recorded elsewhere anyway, so claiming that they're protecting it for some actual reason is absurd.
Remember, if we all go paranoid, the terrorists really do win.
"Will people, in the distant (or maybe even near?) future volunteer to swap their human body parts for machine replacements?"
I wouldn't. My body is relatively self-healing, so if I mess something up it has a pretty decent chance of fixing itself to at least a functional state without outside intervention. It's a system that has functioned in billions of units for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years.
Machines break. Electronics suffer from bad programming. Technicians might not be easily found, and if my arms stopped working I'd have a hard time fixing them myself. My arms are also submersible to fairly extreme depths, able to withstand hot and cold to a significant degree, and capable of extremely fine motor control and motion.
Body part replacements for me would be a last resort if my stock ones were failing.
I noted when this article first came out that the mischief was more of the malicious bozo type than the terrorist type. This guy definitely needs to be spanked, as he could have crashed the plane, but charging him under the PATRIOT Act seems to be excessive. "What can we charge him with? How about charging him with terrorism under the PATRIOT act?"
Well, if we're lucky then the court will exhonerate him on the terrorism charges, which might make it difficult for them to continue any further prosecution. If that happens more than once, the Attorney General's office would be forced to start charging people with the actual crime they've committed rather that something like terrorism, and maybe the legal system would make sense.
Remember, the courts are, in theory, their own masters, so just because the guy is charged with something doesn't mean that he's guilty of it. The Executive branch, through its lawyers and law enforcement officers prosecute the laws that the legislative branch has passed, or don't if they ultimately don't want to. They then have to convince the judicial branch (through the jury) that 1) the law was just, and/or 2) that the law applies.
Off topic, but "Judicial Activism" isn't a problem in my opinion, as it's always interpretation of existing law to remove conflicts and remove unjust laws. A Judge can't legislate from the bench beyond striking a law that conflicts with other laws or Constitutional law. Sometimes this does force the legislature to act, like if a judge throws out something passed by the legislature, like a school disctrict budget that doesn't treat everyone approximately equally, but that ultimately is their power.
The Judicial branch has been rumbling a bit about Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and I suspect that they'll get even noisier if the Executive branch tries to hold people indefinitely, as that is direct violation of habeas corpus.
"But Texas has the largest cities I've ever seen, land wise."
So is Phoenix, AZ. Unfortunately I-10 and I-17 both go right through the heart of town. I-17 is mostly a connector between I-10 and I-40 for those who don't have business in towns and cities along the way, but I-10 travels through city for something like 60 miles before finally going rural again. Right now it's only really bad going toward downtown Phoenix between 6:45AM and 9:00AM and going away from downtown Phoenix from 3:45PM to 6:00PM, but it means that for about four and a half hours every day it's a disaster for anyone going along without business in Phoenix. Due to topology there is no bypass route either.
It's not quite as bad for those coming south on I-17, for they can ditch and take AZ-101 Agua Fria to get to either the east or west sides of town to go whatever direction I-10 they need, but frequently AZ-101 is backed up all of the way around, and it goes around almost the entire city (or what was the entire city when it was built; the city has since expanded).
It doesn't do any good to build bypass routes here anyway, since sprawl isn't contained and new communities would just crop up along the new highways/freeways, clogging them further, with idiots still commuting into downtown Phoenix every day even if they live 100 miles away.
Cities need some containment. Not total, as that artificially inflates land prices and causes havoc over time, but something to reduce the growth to a creep rather than a flood.
"Depending on luck and timing, you can have gridlock on Eastbound I88 up to Aurora from Chicago. That's about a 3 hour adventure to go about 30 miles. I90 and I94 can have you moving at a blistering average of 7 miles per hour on both sides (Indiana side and north side)."
For a long time, US-60 was a parking lot twice a day, between its split from the I-10 to approximately fifteen miles out east into the city of Mesa. When I had to drive it I would take the surface street less than a mile south of it (Baseline Road) and end up getting to my destination far faster (and with far less shot nerves) than if I'd taken the freeway. Even with the opening of AZ-202 and portions of AZ-101 it's still bad during rush hour to the point of making many simply not use it. It's faster to sit through the occasional red light.
I don't understand really why AMD felt a need to make an ad campaign over the technology anyway. Most uses for this technology are buffer overflow preventions, which are almost exclusively server technology. Admittedly, it is possible for any program that makes a remote connection to accept data or idles waiting for data to possibly be vulnerable, but for a userland machine this would be mostly messaging programs and p2p programs.
I think it would have made sense to put it as a nice side feature so that geeks see the technology and how it prevents buffer overflows, but they probably already know about it.
It should also probably be pointed out that Genesis was orbiting the Sun directly for a considerable amount of time, was a "one-off", and didn't have the quality assurance time that a commercial craft capable of carrying hundreds of passengers gets. The FAA is pretty severe about safety before certifying a plane for commercial purposes. While there are plane crashes, there are a very, very small number of incidents compared to normal flights.
"...with the crap you have just listed you are becomming a little dated..."
Normally I ignore Anonymous Cowards, but I'll bite for once.
What do you think these users are running for hardware/software? Do you think that every medical office has updated to the latest release from Microsoft? I suspect that many of the computers are running Windows 98 or Windows Me, have 128MB memory, and are currently using some kind of 5250 or VT interpreter to connect to a central database for electronic records, similar to how insurance companies and school districts do it. Even those running NT or 2000 would have to install runtimes or other libraries to have any chance of using.Net, if such components even exist.
Update to XP? That means new computers. That means probably six computers per small doctor's office, so around $6,000 all said and done for just the raw systems. Throw in modern productivity suites and the cost rises more, and that's not even counting the labor costs that a field service company is going to charge. Now throw in the cost of the new custom software, the support contract, the learning curve with the users, and the bugs found in the newly-written application and you find very few takers for the first versions. There's no point if what they already have works, is maintained, and does what they need even if it isn't intuitive.
Organizations with numerous scattered branches or offices aren't that likely to switch if they're running big iron like an IBM or HP mainframe or mini which simply requires the branch to have a leased line and a 3270 or 5250 client. All diagnostic and repair of the system itself is centrally located, and workstations are a dime a dozen and all clones of each other.
Keep playing with your toys like.Net, someday you'll grow up.
"Well, you certainly deserve all the `PHP rocks!' and `11 lines of Perl are all u need' answers you'll be getting..."
At least people won't be constantly telling him how powerful Visual Basic is for this, or recommend that he set up an Access database to store the information...
I've seen plenty of programs developed in Microsoft environments that needed runtimes or extra "stuff". We have Foxpro, Access2, Access97, and VB apps at work that all require this crap. I wouldn't doubt for a second that.Net or any other Microsoft product would need extra stuff.
I think that the grandparent was implying that if the fork maintainer doesn't like it, he's free to go and make his own product from scratch and license it however he chooses. He can't truly ignore the GPL (unless his userbase is so small that none of them care) and he can't rightfully claim the original code predating the fork as his, and since his changes are to GPLed code he has no standing as he knew the licensing conditions in the first place.
I'd suggest replying to the guy with a limerick:
There once was a man who did fork us,
His etiquette complaints really torqued us.
On Slashdot we moaned;
posts left him quite 0wn3d,
and now he looks like quite the dorkus...
I've observed that people almost always want to deride those who are different. Differences have included race, gender (especially in situations where one side is disproportionately represented), intelligence, willingness to follow new trends or fads, socialability, and the like. The Government, being an extension of The People, is likely to follow similar but delayed trends in who are the new hot target. This is why such monitoring databases worries me, it creates suspect classes of people who have done nothing otherwise any more wrong than anyone else. It especially causes issues with "victimless" crimes like drug use and sexuality, or on strong but otherwise benign political views.
The thing is that they'll build profiles and come up with lists of people who deviate from the norm.
Do you watch TV? Do you use Windows? Do you drive a relatively new car with a payment? Do you have some accrued credit card debt? Do you spend a significant portion of your income keeping up with trends?
If you answered "no" to three or more then you're not normal. You'd be higher on the list of people to keep track of. There are undoubtedly more questions to ask to help create such a list, but the idea is easy to implement if you have access to as much information as the federal government does...
They can brute force it if they really wanted to. They have the computing power to do it. By revealing that you even have such you immediately leave them suspect to your intentions, sad as that is.
I suspect that Stenography is the real direction that this is going to take. They could 'monitor' the cleric/mage chat in the MUD, but if the chat looks like a standard character exchange, with the data of the underlying chat being the location of some punctuation, or some specific word choice, or some way one side gets angry in the game or transacts items with the other, then that would be almost undetectable.
Another example, one that I've seen: stupid person, we'll call him "Bob", smokes a controlled substance. He, for some reason, decides to use code words for his habit with his friends, so he calls asking if he "can come over for some salad." He gets busted eventually because it is so utterly ridiculous. It stands out. Another guy, "James", just calls his friends and asks if he can come over. No discussion about why. If the friends and him have a routine of what they do when he comes over, they simply have to say, "yeah, c'mon over and hang" or "no, we're busy" and there's no communication that would trip something since it sounds like a perfectly normal conversation that anyone would have.
Yes it will. I installed it on a Compaq Deskpro 2000 5200MMX with 32MB RAM running the original factory install of Windows 95. The user couldn't puy anything better on it as it was a science demonstrator workstation that had software they needed but were unsure of the location of the installation media (typical for a school).
Slashdot Mirror
"The probe is apparently about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle."
An original Beetle, or a Super Beetle? Or even a new water-cooled "New Beetle"?
With the Italian involvement, wouldn't comparing it to a Volkswagen Scirocco be more appropriate?
at least the probe isn't being compared to a Ford Probe...
Scientists have, however, managed to zap at contained vats of chemicals that could be similar to the soup that was Earth's conditions before life and managed to get some very basic 'things' that could be the precursors to life as we know it. Unfortunately, they don't have millennia to continue to monitor and experiment on these vats of organic chemicals to see what actually happens to them.
I think that it's very plausible that amino acids and proteins, combined with a whole slew of other compounds came together and started to have different chemical reactions that built upon themselves leading to "life". Also, small, simple systems are easily mutated chemically at such a stage, so new variants would crop up in the process of dividing or chemically reacting, continuing the diversification. Over time pieces combine or split and grow in complexity, eventually joining into simple multicellular organisms, then further.
If the appliance (I have a hard time calling a specially-built and locked down machine by the term "computer") were very, very cheap or free, or if it came with a year's free service, or if the service were very inexpensive I could see how this could work.
$400? And I don't get to do with it what I want? And everything is proprietary?
I never purchased a wireless bridge, because I was waiting for decent Linux support for 802.11a. A roommate's equipment negated the need after that.
Part of the reason why I was going to go "a" was because there weren't really any wardrivers checking out the network, and the other major part was that my cordless phone, microwave, and other equipment didn't use the frequency. I know that security through obscurity isn't a good idea as one's only line of defense, but using 802.11a, in addition to proper trusted/untrusted zone firewalling with WEP and software or protocol based encrypted tunnelling should have left me fairly secure for being over the airwaves.
I don't know the status of 802.11a in Linux right now, but if it's good then I'd recommend going to that. It may cost more, but it's faster, it's seperate from a, and relatively unused even by people with systems that would fully support it otherwise.
If the company is making money on the product then they should be going through the work to debug their software. Someone finding and publishing errors in software is doing the public a service, as the public will know to either steer clear of the company writing the bad software, or to contact that company if they're already using it and demand a fix or a refund, as the software company sold them a faulty product.
If the software maker presses this upon the researcher, the customers need to press the software maker.
As long as the Government wants to use my money to do anything I feel that I should have the right to see how they're spending that money, in all but a very, very specific set of circumstances for the immediate moment, and ultimately in every aspect as soon as information isn't critical. I believe that I should be able to look up water main locations, power line information, sewage information, telephone line/pole leasing, and the like, because I might find some gross abuse somewhere that warrants public scrutiny.
The only exception that I could make at all would be for ongoing criminal investigations. Things where the court hasn't yet decided but is scheduled to decide, or where the police are investigating and releasing information could compromise the investigation.
The odds of terrorists attacking the water main that leads to my house are miniscule. My city so wide and low density that any terrorists would be foolish to attack here for the purposes of making a large number of kills. That doesn't mean that it's impossible, it just means that it's not something that I'm going to lose sleep over. If I were in San Francisco, New York, or any other really high density place I might have some kind of concern, but not here, even if I am in the fifth largest metro area.
Besides, this is just another attempt at security through obscurity, when it's possible (and even likely) that much of the information on infrastructure is already recorded elsewhere anyway, so claiming that they're protecting it for some actual reason is absurd.
Remember, if we all go paranoid, the terrorists really do win.
"Will people, in the distant (or maybe even near?) future volunteer to swap their human body parts for machine replacements?"
I wouldn't. My body is relatively self-healing, so if I mess something up it has a pretty decent chance of fixing itself to at least a functional state without outside intervention. It's a system that has functioned in billions of units for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years.
Machines break. Electronics suffer from bad programming. Technicians might not be easily found, and if my arms stopped working I'd have a hard time fixing them myself. My arms are also submersible to fairly extreme depths, able to withstand hot and cold to a significant degree, and capable of extremely fine motor control and motion.
Body part replacements for me would be a last resort if my stock ones were failing.
Remember, the courts are, in theory, their own masters, so just because the guy is charged with something doesn't mean that he's guilty of it. The Executive branch, through its lawyers and law enforcement officers prosecute the laws that the legislative branch has passed, or don't if they ultimately don't want to. They then have to convince the judicial branch (through the jury) that 1) the law was just, and/or 2) that the law applies.
Off topic, but "Judicial Activism" isn't a problem in my opinion, as it's always interpretation of existing law to remove conflicts and remove unjust laws. A Judge can't legislate from the bench beyond striking a law that conflicts with other laws or Constitutional law. Sometimes this does force the legislature to act, like if a judge throws out something passed by the legislature, like a school disctrict budget that doesn't treat everyone approximately equally, but that ultimately is their power.
The Judicial branch has been rumbling a bit about Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and I suspect that they'll get even noisier if the Executive branch tries to hold people indefinitely, as that is direct violation of habeas corpus.
we'll have to see what happens in all of this.
"Yeah, you can OD on sugar."
Well, Sugar is my drug of choice. It's only fair that overdosing on it could have the same result as crack...
well, I should have learned how to use the tag apparently...
"But Texas has the largest cities I've ever seen, land wise."
So is Phoenix, AZ. Unfortunately I-10 and I-17 both go right through the heart of town. I-17 is mostly a connector between I-10 and I-40 for those who don't have business in towns and cities along the way, but I-10 travels through city for something like 60 miles before finally going rural again. Right now it's only really bad going toward downtown Phoenix between 6:45AM and 9:00AM and going away from downtown Phoenix from 3:45PM to 6:00PM, but it means that for about four and a half hours every day it's a disaster for anyone going along without business in Phoenix. Due to topology there is no bypass route either.
It's not quite as bad for those coming south on I-17, for they can ditch and take AZ-101 Agua Fria to get to either the east or west sides of town to go whatever direction I-10 they need, but frequently AZ-101 is backed up all of the way around, and it goes around almost the entire city (or what was the entire city when it was built; the city has since expanded).
It doesn't do any good to build bypass routes here anyway, since sprawl isn't contained and new communities would just crop up along the new highways/freeways, clogging them further, with idiots still commuting into downtown Phoenix every day even if they live 100 miles away.
Cities need some containment. Not total, as that artificially inflates land prices and causes havoc over time, but something to reduce the growth to a creep rather than a flood.
"Depending on luck and timing, you can have gridlock on Eastbound I88 up to Aurora from Chicago. That's about a 3 hour adventure to go about 30 miles. I90 and I94 can have you moving at a blistering average of 7 miles per hour on both sides (Indiana side and north side)."
For a long time, US-60 was a parking lot twice a day, between its split from the I-10 to approximately fifteen miles out east into the city of Mesa. When I had to drive it I would take the surface street less than a mile south of it (Baseline Road) and end up getting to my destination far faster (and with far less shot nerves) than if I'd taken the freeway. Even with the opening of AZ-202 and portions of AZ-101 it's still bad during rush hour to the point of making many simply not use it. It's faster to sit through the occasional red light.
I don't understand really why AMD felt a need to make an ad campaign over the technology anyway. Most uses for this technology are buffer overflow preventions, which are almost exclusively server technology. Admittedly, it is possible for any program that makes a remote connection to accept data or idles waiting for data to possibly be vulnerable, but for a userland machine this would be mostly messaging programs and p2p programs.
I think it would have made sense to put it as a nice side feature so that geeks see the technology and how it prevents buffer overflows, but they probably already know about it.
*rotfl!*
In response to the story about the giant rock hurling through space that is set to devastate our planet in a horrible event, Merry Christmas everyone!
At least if it hits on April 13 we won't have to file our taxes in 2029...
It should also probably be pointed out that Genesis was orbiting the Sun directly for a considerable amount of time, was a "one-off", and didn't have the quality assurance time that a commercial craft capable of carrying hundreds of passengers gets. The FAA is pretty severe about safety before certifying a plane for commercial purposes. While there are plane crashes, there are a very, very small number of incidents compared to normal flights.
"...with the crap you have just listed you are becomming a little dated..."
.Net, if such components even exist.
.Net, someday you'll grow up.
Normally I ignore Anonymous Cowards, but I'll bite for once.
What do you think these users are running for hardware/software? Do you think that every medical office has updated to the latest release from Microsoft? I suspect that many of the computers are running Windows 98 or Windows Me, have 128MB memory, and are currently using some kind of 5250 or VT interpreter to connect to a central database for electronic records, similar to how insurance companies and school districts do it. Even those running NT or 2000 would have to install runtimes or other libraries to have any chance of using
Update to XP? That means new computers. That means probably six computers per small doctor's office, so around $6,000 all said and done for just the raw systems. Throw in modern productivity suites and the cost rises more, and that's not even counting the labor costs that a field service company is going to charge. Now throw in the cost of the new custom software, the support contract, the learning curve with the users, and the bugs found in the newly-written application and you find very few takers for the first versions. There's no point if what they already have works, is maintained, and does what they need even if it isn't intuitive.
Organizations with numerous scattered branches or offices aren't that likely to switch if they're running big iron like an IBM or HP mainframe or mini which simply requires the branch to have a leased line and a 3270 or 5250 client. All diagnostic and repair of the system itself is centrally located, and workstations are a dime a dozen and all clones of each other.
Keep playing with your toys like
In my book, that means about, oh, two strands per inch." (emphasis added)
Modifying the cover of your passport already?
"Well, you certainly deserve all the `PHP rocks!' and `11 lines of Perl are all u need' answers you'll be getting..."
At least people won't be constantly telling him how powerful Visual Basic is for this, or recommend that he set up an Access database to store the information...
I've seen plenty of programs developed in Microsoft environments that needed runtimes or extra "stuff". We have Foxpro, Access2, Access97, and VB apps at work that all require this crap. I wouldn't doubt for a second that .Net or any other Microsoft product would need extra stuff.
Wow. Only on Slashdot do I get a constructive criticism to a mild error in a limerick and it's not a flame...
I'd suggest replying to the guy with a limerick:
I've observed that people almost always want to deride those who are different. Differences have included race, gender (especially in situations where one side is disproportionately represented), intelligence, willingness to follow new trends or fads, socialability, and the like. The Government, being an extension of The People, is likely to follow similar but delayed trends in who are the new hot target. This is why such monitoring databases worries me, it creates suspect classes of people who have done nothing otherwise any more wrong than anyone else. It especially causes issues with "victimless" crimes like drug use and sexuality, or on strong but otherwise benign political views.
The thing is that they'll build profiles and come up with lists of people who deviate from the norm.
Do you watch TV? Do you use Windows? Do you drive a relatively new car with a payment? Do you have some accrued credit card debt? Do you spend a significant portion of your income keeping up with trends?
If you answered "no" to three or more then you're not normal. You'd be higher on the list of people to keep track of. There are undoubtedly more questions to ask to help create such a list, but the idea is easy to implement if you have access to as much information as the federal government does...
They can brute force it if they really wanted to. They have the computing power to do it. By revealing that you even have such you immediately leave them suspect to your intentions, sad as that is.
I suspect that Stenography is the real direction that this is going to take. They could 'monitor' the cleric/mage chat in the MUD, but if the chat looks like a standard character exchange, with the data of the underlying chat being the location of some punctuation, or some specific word choice, or some way one side gets angry in the game or transacts items with the other, then that would be almost undetectable.
Another example, one that I've seen: stupid person, we'll call him "Bob", smokes a controlled substance. He, for some reason, decides to use code words for his habit with his friends, so he calls asking if he "can come over for some salad." He gets busted eventually because it is so utterly ridiculous. It stands out. Another guy, "James", just calls his friends and asks if he can come over. No discussion about why. If the friends and him have a routine of what they do when he comes over, they simply have to say, "yeah, c'mon over and hang" or "no, we're busy" and there's no communication that would trip something since it sounds like a perfectly normal conversation that anyone would have.
Yes it will. I installed it on a Compaq Deskpro 2000 5200MMX with 32MB RAM running the original factory install of Windows 95. The user couldn't puy anything better on it as it was a science demonstrator workstation that had software they needed but were unsure of the location of the installation media (typical for a school).