The points of leaving it on include, but are not limited to
a) not needing to switch it off (well, duh) b) not needing to switch it on when you stop driving (enter PIN, wait for network etc) c) knowing if somebody calls, so you can call them back d) having a passenger who can answer it for you if it rings
You apparently have never copy-pasted something very long from terminal window... Sure you can scroll, but it's still pita if it's even moderately long.
1, there's no need to run code without an administrator's or user's directive. Disable Autoplay.
Depends on your point of view. It could be fair to say that inserting the CD is user's directive to run the software on the CD. A better compromise between usability and security would be a question when you insert a given CD for the *first* time. Simple dialog of the type "Run / Don't run this time, Run / don't run every time I insert this CD". Move responsibility to the user without hampering usability.
2, why do people persist in logging on to the console and running anything as an administrator? Fix your local security, use administrative accounts for only administrative activities.
Have you ever tried using windows for anything without having administrative priviledges? I tried using my Win2K as mere "power user", and my head popped in about two days. Maybe WinXP is better since it allows several simultaneous logins, but what would really be needed would be GUI-sudo for Windows, perhaps just simply a "sudo" Explorer window (with annoying blinking red title bar with text "Warning, you have the power to destroy your Windows installation";-). From this Explorer you could then do everything as Administrator, with extra toolbar shortcuts like "start cmd.exe as Admin".
I thought (just the first guess that came to my mind) that in 20 years we might have feasible ways of doing asteroid defence, if we pushed space technology to that direction. So nothing to do with likelyhood of impact (except that a killer impact happening during any 20 years is very small, so we would not be taking a big risk if we ignored the whole thing for next 20 years).
Well, an impact like that could happen any time. But on the other hand, it's very unlikely to happen within, say, next 20 years. We might be better off overall if we cut all tracking and observation for next 20 years and concentrated those resources on research and development of detection and defence technologies.
I mean, there's little point in observing if we don't really notice most of them, or if there's nothing effective we could do even if we do notice an incoming bogey.
IMHO it would be much better to do a few things:
- Establish stronger presence on orbit, so orbital telescopes and later on defence mechanisms become cheaper. Then establish presence on moon for same reasons.
- Get probes to land on existing asteroids, to get great scientific data but also developing ways to intercepting asteroids.
- Later on get a potentially self sustaining colony either to Moon or more likely to Mars ("don't carry all eggs in one basket").
US government is fast heading towards 3rd world status. There's only so much debt a government can have before they can't get any more because the lenders aren't confident they can pay it back.
Some 3rd world country can just ignore their debt, and nobody really cares much (except those who have lent them the money of course), since that's peanuts, and their impact to world economy is barely noticeable, and really who cares (I mean *cares* for real, not only in speeches) if a few million in that country starve to death, it's in Africa or somewhere anyway. (No, I don't think like that, but that's the current world reality.)
But if US declared that it's not going to pay it's debts, just imagine what that would do to world economy... And I fear this will eventually happen. I just hope the big US corporations have become global enough at that point, and other economies (EU and China above all) have grown enough to make US a slightly less crucial part of world economy. If not, we're headed for some really bad times. As opposed to just averagely bad times.
Because I don't see US expenses (especially military) getting any smaller very fast, and I don't see a big tax raise in near future either, which means more and more debt...
How much of US debt is domestic, and how much is international?
Bush *is* responsible for just those things to a large degree. He is the one with the final authority over what USA does regarding those things. He may not do most decision details, and he may have his hands tied in some issues, but in the end he has to give the final approval and therefore bear the final responsibility, doesn't he?
So what if your equation has 15 pairs of nested parentheses with powers? No sweat for RPN, but "normal" calculator users would go nuts.
Uh? Why go nuts?
If you have an equation, you type it into the calculator just as it is in the paper (assuming of course you have a decent calculator).
In normal notation you don't even have to understand it, you just copy the calculation just as it is on paper. Hmm, well, actually, I think with most simpler calculators, you need to move "function" like operations like taking a square root after the parentheses, but in more "advanced" calculators you can just press 'sqrt' '('... ')' just like it's on paper.
If you have a decent calculator, you can even get your calculation back to the screen and can verify it matches to the formula on paper. Can't do that with RPN (I mean, you have to "convert" between different notations in order to compare if they are the same or if there's typo).
Or do you write in RPN even on paper, say when solving a physics problem?
Thanks so much for your valuable input on RPN, a technique you don't even know. Not surprisingly, you are completely wrong. RPN users still use algebraic notation (what else would we use), and one does not think of equations in the "normal" way and translate them into RPN. The great part about RPN is that one seldom has to think about the mechanics of entering the equation into the calculator at all, no matter how complicated it is.
Uh. I just read dc manual page, and it's pretty much as I remembered. There's nothing musterious about RPN, it's just simple stack based thing. I've prolly even done a simple RPN-like calculator as a stack exercise in "Data Structures 101" or something. So I do know something about it. I've just never used it for anything.
But the thinking is different. In my mind I think "two plus three". RPN way of thinking the same would be "two and three added" I guess. A very concrete example, in a grocery store, adding prices: "2 milks plus 3 beers plus 5 apples plus a candy bar". "2 P_milk + 3 P_beer + 5 P_apple + P_candy" Direct 1-to-1 translation.
Since you're an "RPN person", how would you think the same situation? I would think differently so it would map 1-to-1 into an RPN calculator, or am I mistaken?
The obivious difficulty with RPN syntax in everyday calculations is that you have to consioucly keep the stack shallow since you can't remember many numbers at the same time. While with normal algebraic notation you have to consioucly add parentheses when you must keep more than 1 extra number in mind. What I mean is, in RPN on paper you might do something like 4 2 7 4 9 6 + + + + + but if you did the same without paper, you have to do it like 4 2 + 7 + 4 + 9 + 6 + or you start forgetting numbers. So there are same real-life limitations in RPN as soon as you don't have a calculator, as the latter form above is essentially the same way you do it with normal algebraic notation, except there it's the only way to do it.
Yeah, same applies to other things. Like it's good idea to use mouse with the other hand every now and then. It wouldn't be a bad excerice in college maths to learn "lisp-notation" (is there an official name for it?) and RPN in addition to normal algebraic notation. Stuff like converting between these three etc, just as a mental excercise.
Or perhaps that would be good idea already for first math classes in primary school. It might make maths less dumbfounding for the "less mathematically talented" and help them understand the concept of maths itself instead of getting stuck with notation. Or then it would just make them even more lost, I don't know...:)
Though just about the only calculator I use myself nowadays is GNU bc:). Or if I just have to use a calculator "on the road" then I use the one in my mobile.
And anyway everything in computer languages (well, the ones I use anyway) use either normal C/arimethic notation or lisp notation. Nothing uses RPN. (Forth does? Never used, and I suspect I'll never need to either).
The problem with RPN is, I imagine, that it's different. Normal algebraic notation is what everybody learns first before they get such calculator, and their thinking ends up following that notation.
Picking up different notation is easy, but to "convert" your thinking between two different thinking models is much harder and takes longer time.
Mind you, I don't know RPN, but I imagine that at first when learning it, you think of the calculation in a normal way and then covert that to RPN for the calculator, and it'll take time to learn to think of the calculation in RPN.
The web does not need applications. Applications communicate across the internet. It's stupid crap, like giving everything a web-interface that makes the internet worse every day. Now, it's expected that you do everything through a web interface, even though using a normal application would be far, far faster, better, and more effecient. I speak of not only web-based-email, but also things like dig, nslookup, traceroute, and a million others.
Except there are no alternatives really for a distributed application for casual user base.
What other UI for applications there is that works from everywhere and is platform independent, except HTML and Java (which can be used mixed or in "pure" form). Of course both have their version problems etc, but there's no better alternative. Well, flash might be one alternative, but it's much more limited and less portable.
Examples include managing embedded systems. CLI interface is a bad choice for ease of use even if it is more efficient for professionals. Pure HTML-interface can be slow, especially if you need to do other stuff than just set a few configuration options. Any real-time stuff like monitoring a live image is really ill-suited for HTML.
HTML+Java is by far the best choice here, much better and efficient than for example including control application download (for which platforms?) in device's static html pages.
Yeah well, if it's on the chip, the task of the chip can be emulated in software.
However, is it possible to open an IC and read what is stored in it's flash (or whatever) memory? Or to put it other way, is it possible to take a smart card (eg a phone SIM card) and read what's written there without having the PIN?
I mean is it physically possible with our current technology? Can NSA or IBM labs or a university labs or a garage geek do it? How much does it cost to do it?
If it's not possible, then it's essentially impossible to crack in any other way except breaking into chip manufacturers facilities (physically or electronically) and stealing the keys. In other words, then it falls into the domain of crowbar or lead pipe cryptography...
Come on. That is outrageous. Africans are not babies, and we are not their irresponsible parents. I find talk like that extremely insulting to Africans as it suggests they are not as "advanced" as Western civilizations and cannot control themselves when presented with military technology.
Ehhe. Give your average African dictator or guerilla warlord a lot of weapons, and you can be pretty sure he does what any dictator or warlord would do... Africans would be advanced indeed if bringing weapons to unstable situation (colonies getting independent, commies and 'merkins fighting for their souls) wouldn't make a tragic mess.
I mean, it's about same as if some company made statistics about stolen stuff (I mean stuff that can be stolen in the legal sense of the word). If that company sold their results to other companies for marketing research, I don't think that would be an argument in favor of allowing theft...
So why is RIAA compromising their position if they get statistics on P2P copyright infringement, even if it is for marketing purposes?
We ended up having their top tech staff in the country give us a visit
I suppose that means either that your problem was very rare, or that nobody else had bought them. I mean, the top tech staff doesn't generally have a lot of free time to visit clients...
Slashdot Mirror
Now I have to ask... Why not use Java?
.NET, so that it'd ever be worth considering using Mono and risking MS doing the expected a bit later?
Would that not be far simpler and safer option for enterprice-wide deployment, when you have the power to decide on the version of JVM to use etc?
What's the supposed big benefit of
The points of leaving it on include, but are not limited to
;)
a) not needing to switch it off (well, duh)
b) not needing to switch it on when you stop driving (enter PIN, wait for network etc)
c) knowing if somebody calls, so you can call them back
d) having a passenger who can answer it for you if it rings
and of course
e) answering it even if it's against the law
Also note that not only do you need something to stab against, you also need to be attached to it, or the force of the stab will make you fly away.
You apparently have never copy-pasted something very long from terminal window... Sure you can scroll, but it's still pita if it's even moderately long.
Uh... Is this a trick question?
Depends on your point of view. It could be fair to say that inserting the CD is user's directive to run the software on the CD. A better compromise between usability and security would be a question when you insert a given CD for the *first* time. Simple dialog of the type "Run / Don't run this time, Run / don't run every time I insert this CD". Move responsibility to the user without hampering usability.
Have you ever tried using windows for anything without having administrative priviledges? I tried using my Win2K as mere "power user", and my head popped in about two days. Maybe WinXP is better since it allows several simultaneous logins, but what would really be needed would be GUI-sudo for Windows, perhaps just simply a "sudo" Explorer window (with annoying blinking red title bar with text "Warning, you have the power to destroy your Windows installation"
I thought (just the first guess that came to my mind) that in 20 years we might have feasible ways of doing asteroid defence, if we pushed space technology to that direction. So nothing to do with likelyhood of impact (except that a killer impact happening during any 20 years is very small, so we would not be taking a big risk if we ignored the whole thing for next 20 years).
Well, an impact like that could happen any time. But on the other hand, it's very unlikely to happen within, say, next 20 years. We might be better off overall if we cut all tracking and observation for next 20 years and concentrated those resources on research and development of detection and defence technologies.
I mean, there's little point in observing if we don't really notice most of them, or if there's nothing effective we could do even if we do notice an incoming bogey.
IMHO it would be much better to do a few things:
- Establish stronger presence on orbit, so orbital telescopes and later on defence mechanisms become cheaper. Then establish presence on moon for same reasons.
- Get probes to land on existing asteroids, to get great scientific data but also developing ways to intercepting asteroids.
- Later on get a potentially self sustaining colony either to Moon or more likely to Mars ("don't carry all eggs in one basket").
In other words, we're done for.
Of course those people can then give it, as well as the binaries, away freely or for cost.
US government is fast heading towards 3rd world status. There's only so much debt a government can have before they can't get any more because the lenders aren't confident they can pay it back.
Some 3rd world country can just ignore their debt, and nobody really cares much (except those who have lent them the money of course), since that's peanuts, and their impact to world economy is barely noticeable, and really who cares (I mean *cares* for real, not only in speeches) if a few million in that country starve to death, it's in Africa or somewhere anyway. (No, I don't think like that, but that's the current world reality.)
But if US declared that it's not going to pay it's debts, just imagine what that would do to world economy... And I fear this will eventually happen. I just hope the big US corporations have become global enough at that point, and other economies (EU and China above all) have grown enough to make US a slightly less crucial part of world economy. If not, we're headed for some really bad times. As opposed to just averagely bad times.
Because I don't see US expenses (especially military) getting any smaller very fast, and I don't see a big tax raise in near future either, which means more and more debt...
How much of US debt is domestic, and how much is international?
Uh, not sure why I'm replying to an AC, but...
I have to ask, is that sarcasm or serious post?
Bush *is* responsible for just those things to a large degree. He is the one with the final authority over what USA does regarding those things. He may not do most decision details, and he may have his hands tied in some issues, but in the end he has to give the final approval and therefore bear the final responsibility, doesn't he?
Uh? Why go nuts?
If you have an equation, you type it into the calculator just as it is in the paper (assuming of course you have a decent calculator).
In normal notation you don't even have to understand it, you just copy the calculation just as it is on paper. Hmm, well, actually, I think with most simpler calculators, you need to move "function" like operations like taking a square root after the parentheses, but in more "advanced" calculators you can just press 'sqrt' '('
If you have a decent calculator, you can even get your calculation back to the screen and can verify it matches to the formula on paper. Can't do that with RPN (I mean, you have to "convert" between different notations in order to compare if they are the same or if there's typo).
Or do you write in RPN even on paper, say when solving a physics problem?
Uh. I just read dc manual page, and it's pretty much as I remembered. There's nothing musterious about RPN, it's just simple stack based thing. I've prolly even done a simple RPN-like calculator as a stack exercise in "Data Structures 101" or something. So I do know something about it. I've just never used it for anything.
But the thinking is different. In my mind I think "two plus three". RPN way of thinking the same would be "two and three added" I guess. A very concrete example, in a grocery store, adding prices:
"2 milks plus 3 beers plus 5 apples plus a candy bar".
"2 P_milk + 3 P_beer + 5 P_apple + P_candy"
Direct 1-to-1 translation.
Since you're an "RPN person", how would you think the same situation? I would think differently so it would map 1-to-1 into an RPN calculator, or am I mistaken?
The obivious difficulty with RPN syntax in everyday calculations is that you have to consioucly keep the stack shallow since you can't remember many numbers at the same time. While with normal algebraic notation you have to consioucly add parentheses when you must keep more than 1 extra number in mind. What I mean is, in RPN on paper you might do something like
4 2 7 4 9 6 + + + + +
but if you did the same without paper, you have to do it like
4 2 + 7 + 4 + 9 + 6 +
or you start forgetting numbers. So there are same real-life limitations in RPN as soon as you don't have a calculator, as the latter form above is essentially the same way you do it with normal algebraic notation, except there it's the only way to do it.
Yeah, same applies to other things. Like it's good idea to use mouse with the other hand every now and then. It wouldn't be a bad excerice in college maths to learn "lisp-notation" (is there an official name for it?) and RPN in addition to normal algebraic notation. Stuff like converting between these three etc, just as a mental excercise.
:)
:). Or if I just have to use a calculator "on the road" then I use the one in my mobile.
Or perhaps that would be good idea already for first math classes in primary school. It might make maths less dumbfounding for the "less mathematically talented" and help them understand the concept of maths itself instead of getting stuck with notation. Or then it would just make them even more lost, I don't know...
Though just about the only calculator I use myself nowadays is GNU bc
And anyway everything in computer languages (well, the ones I use anyway) use either normal C/arimethic notation or lisp notation. Nothing uses RPN. (Forth does? Never used, and I suspect I'll never need to either).
The problem with RPN is, I imagine, that it's different. Normal algebraic notation is what everybody learns first before they get such calculator, and their thinking ends up following that notation.
Picking up different notation is easy, but to "convert" your thinking between two different thinking models is much harder and takes longer time.
Mind you, I don't know RPN, but I imagine that at first when learning it, you think of the calculation in a normal way and then covert that to RPN for the calculator, and it'll take time to learn to think of the calculation in RPN.
If that's the case, then there's a good chance they won't have the decency to quit either...
Which can lead to situation where the not-so-good guys stay, while the good guys quit...
Except there are no alternatives really for a distributed application for casual user base.
What other UI for applications there is that works from everywhere and is platform independent, except HTML and Java (which can be used mixed or in "pure" form). Of course both have their version problems etc, but there's no better alternative. Well, flash might be one alternative, but it's much more limited and less portable.
Examples include managing embedded systems. CLI interface is a bad choice for ease of use even if it is more efficient for professionals. Pure HTML-interface can be slow, especially if you need to do other stuff than just set a few configuration options. Any real-time stuff like monitoring a live image is really ill-suited for HTML.
HTML+Java is by far the best choice here, much better and efficient than for example including control application download (for which platforms?) in device's static html pages.
Yeah well, if it's on the chip, the task of the chip can be emulated in software.
However, is it possible to open an IC and read what is stored in it's flash (or whatever) memory? Or to put it other way, is it possible to take a smart card (eg a phone SIM card) and read what's written there without having the PIN?
I mean is it physically possible with our current technology?
Can NSA or IBM labs or a university labs or a garage geek do it?
How much does it cost to do it?
If it's not possible, then it's essentially impossible to crack in any other way except breaking into chip manufacturers facilities (physically or electronically) and stealing the keys. In other words, then it falls into the domain of crowbar or lead pipe cryptography...
Come on. That is outrageous. Africans are not babies, and we are not their irresponsible parents. I find talk like that extremely insulting to Africans as it suggests they are not as "advanced" as Western civilizations and cannot control themselves when presented with military technology.
Ehhe. Give your average African dictator or guerilla warlord a lot of weapons, and you can be pretty sure he does what any dictator or warlord would do... Africans would be advanced indeed if bringing weapons to unstable situation (colonies getting independent, commies and 'merkins fighting for their souls) wouldn't make a tragic mess.
I mean, it's about same as if some company made statistics about stolen stuff (I mean stuff that can be stolen in the legal sense of the word). If that company sold their results to other companies for marketing research, I don't think that would be an argument in favor of allowing theft...
So why is RIAA compromising their position if they get statistics on P2P copyright infringement, even if it is for marketing purposes?
The beauty in cracking OTPs is that you get to decide what the unecrypted message is!
That also makes it fastest encryption break
1. You just XOR the desired result with encrypted text. This gives you the OTP.
2. You XOR the encrypted text with the OTP to do the decryption (see 1. above)
Tadah! You have the desired text decrypted! And the bast part is, you also have the OTP, so you can decrypt future messages with it too!
I suppose that means either that your problem was very rare, or that nobody else had bought them. I mean, the top tech staff doesn't generally have a lot of free time to visit clients...
Uh. That power mill of yours ran even Quake quite nice (assuming it was Pentium)!
25MHz (on 486) was enough for running Doom nicely.
Yes, but it'll still work just fine after you put it back together.