I wish I had mod points (other than the anti-israeli rant which just detracts from the post). This is why I hate "non-commercial" clauses and avoid anything that has it. If you render a picture that included a model (or texture!) that had an NC clause and sell a print is that commercial? How about if the rendered image is used by an advertising agency? What if you post the image on a web page that is ad supported? Can you put the image in a portfolio of your work to use when shopping for clients? If you showed the image to a friend in a casual setting and they recommended you to a client?
You can keep going down the line, but there is *always* some potential benefit. It doesn't matter whether or not the creator of the model or texture or what-have-you would have a legal leg to stand on, why even give them a chance?
Which is why I always release work as freely redistributable. Code is GPL, 3d models are CC (without an NC clause), etc. It upsets people who rely on an NC clause to have "competition" from something that is free. If I have to make something myself to avoid some silly NC clause there's no need to make *everyone else* re-invent the wheel.
the point was that you may not be understanding the license correctly. That is becoming increasingly apparently. The suggestion about design patents seems spot on to me, except that the poster then seemed to think that the designer *had* aquired a design patent. Copyright, by law, is inherent at the time of creation. Patents are not: they must be applied for. Creating stuff is fun. Posting it is great for the ego. Filing patents is not fun. It is work and requires money. Either pay the money for a design patent (and then cite the patent whereever you put the design) or shut up.
Corporations are used to rules: they follow them, work around them and pay for them. So it is some surprise to a CEO that someone is offended even when the corporation was following the rules.
What I also find amusing is the suggestion that the big bad corporation is wrong for printing some of this guys designs for display at a booth and that he should be abusing them for "using his designs" but when Apple files design patents and attempts to defend them its the big bad corporation is wrong for abusing the system. I'm not saying there is a contradiction as presumably these points of view come from different posters, but it is very amusing that these defenders of design patents don't speak up when its a corporation.
(Only because someone might misunderstand: I'd as soon copyright be abolished, and patents along with them. Imaginary property rights create confusing and contradictory situations -- which should be apparent simply from reading comments here where despite serious attempts the mythology of separation between design and product do not exist. What I'm saying is if you want to apply IP then use IP and don't fool yourself into thinking that asserting copyright has anything to do with patents.)
Maybe at some point there'd be some sort of built in "signing" of a printed work to track what machine created it. Maybe. But I assure you that the reliability of print output is nowhere near what it would have to be to do such a thing, even if it were allowed to be perceptible to the unaided eye that was not even scrutinizing the printed item.
When 0.01mm is still considered high resolution, prints (from the common hobbyist fused filament printers) are monochrome, and the reliability of production is NOT 0.01nm... it just isn't happening.
Put another way: print two objects from a single file -- in particular selecting a file with delicate or subtle features -- and compare the two prints. The more delicate and the more subtle the less likely a feature will be produced, much less be produced repeatably.
Now, if the printer had a way of influencing the chemical composition to introduce a signature? That'd be feasible but is also something that won't be present on a true hobbyist printer (see the replicator project) and would be subject to signature manipulation or simple removal.
I described how tidal forces work and how distance varies that. IIRC (I haven't read anything on the topic in years) the sun has greater tidal force than the moon, but traditionally people always say the moon and historically sailors have often viewed the moon as special.
With respect to moon/sun opposed or in conjuction that would be full moon and new moon respectively, with the 90 degree points the quarter moons. GP wondered why, if the moon's size (mass, I'm assuming was meant) that anything changed. Distance matters and with tidal forces it is particularly the differential acting on a body. A basic answer. Introducing the sun's influence serves to illustrate how it is even more complicated. But it is all part of the same thing.
There is no meaningful distinction between a "trojan" and a "virus". The old, simplistic application of the terms "trojan", "virus" and "worm" never really made that much sense, but it is pretty meaningless now. Each of those designations simply refers to a method of infection and nothing prevents multiple vectors from being employed. And plenty of malware does that. In fact, the majority I run across do none of those things.
The predominate vector in use today is malvertising. It generally exploits a vulnerability to side step needing user interaction (what trojans use). They are self contained (in general do not rely on injecting into an executable for the purpose of propagation the way a "virus" does). They also generally do not scan and attack (what worms do -- it is noisy making it easy to detect and identify the infected system).
Not to say that the trojan technique of fooling users into running the malware is gone (one of the first big OS X targeted campaigns was for a "cracked office suite" -- oldie but goodie.
Or that file (and process) injection is not used, but it is generally to hide or perform operational function, not to propagate.
Or that the network is not used -- but despite some lingering scanning the much more common use of the network is for command and control with steganography (use of forums), p2p protocols, custom protocols or even good old fashioned IRC. Increasingly, encryption is used. Bogus traffic may be generated to try and hide the C&C in a haystack.
By the old and simplistic definitions this modern, modular malware is not virus, trojan or worm. Malware is a reasonable enough umbrella term to describe it.
Whatever it takes to make you sleep better. But the illogic of that has long been shown (e.g., compromised web servers used to be nearly all IIS despite it having a minority share -- yeah, times have changed, but that just further illustrates that "market share" is not a controlling factor). Your overly facile argument reveals how little you know of the business.
In reality malware was originally written by people trying to show off their "super skills" or who had a grudge of some sort. By and large they were written for the platform the writer used. Nowadays malware is a business with service contracts and the users of it expect a revenue stream. And business expects an ROI, not a juvenile rationale. As Windows has gradually improved security the ROI for targeting it has leveled off a bit compared to other platforms. On paper, Windows 7 is at least as secure as OS X 10.7, if not more so. This is a more significant reasion why there is more targeting of OS X users now than there used to be.
The reality is that there is a lot of knowledge in the malware industry for exploiting the Windows platform and only a growing knowledge for OS X and Linux. Making up for this deficit is a cost that goes into calculating ROI. The only marketshare part of this is that malware authors most likely cut their programming teeth hacking at Windows because it was what they had. Not because so many other people run Windows, but because it was what *they* (mostly) had.
To re-answer your "question", I would target the platform with the highest ROI. If Windows users weren't so gullible and well monied they wouldn't be targeted so much. But, despite sour grapes from some quarters, plenty of Windows users have more money than sense. And with the relatively low upfront investment they continue to be the most targeted.
You are missing knowledge about what the phase of the moon is, and how it applies. Tides are more complicated than "follow the moon" because the ocean/sea floor has considerable impact. But the thing with tidal forces isn't that the size changes, but that the distance changes. That is, tidal force is the differential between two points and that is a function of distance. If its night and the moon is full it is closer to you than when its night and it is a new moon (e.g., already set and on the other side of the earth). This variation in proximity causes change in the tidal forces.
I haven't followed this, but the argument seems to be that all forces combined to bring water higher than normal, ergo the greater flooding.
I think people tend to underrate what you can discover from land title records. My brother works for a certain state government and deals (indirectly) with some of the shenanigans. Its a different angle from the one you describe, but in general things start to make more sense as to why certain deals are struck, laws passed, etc., when you discover who owns adjacent property.
one note: the pressure brought to bear by "environmental groups" comes from oil funding. Wish I had a citation to hand. Rest of the world energy companies do nuclear and oil. In the US, at least historically, oil companies didn't get involved in nuclear and fed lots of disinformation about nuclear power. Not sure that the situation is still that way, but it certainly was in the 70s and 80s
Back in college I wrote a paper promoting nuclear power to annoy the "nuclear is evil" prof who preached green while driving a car. One of the things I learned in the research was that original limits for nuclear plant allowed radioactivity were lowered after it was discovered to concentrate in fish. But I don't complain about radiation in coal -- no, its the chemical poisons. At least radiation has a half life...
I've only had one multi-day blackout caused by storm. Three multi-day power outages in the last twenty years (not mentioning the numerous 5-90 minute outages or brownouts where lights dim, sensitive electronics resets, etc.). Only one caused by a storm. A single blown transformer can take out a station and kill all power to a town. Even if, on paper, it shouldn't...
I do not call that "quite stable" but rather "inadequate". IME it was more stable thirty years ago.
Isolated and rare? I'm an American... Just last week had a 45min power outage. We probably average an hour per year, not counting the days long "unplanned emergency" outages or the (relatively) frequent brownouts. Like the one that happened a few years ago in January (a week without power) or the one a couple years before that lasted 3 days IIRC.
But I'm in the midwest, how about the power outages that are hitting the northeast these past few winters.
I'm more sensitive to power outages now that I have always on devices (like the computers) than I was thirty years ago, but the *only* multi-day outages I've experienced have all been within the last twenty years. The first was in 1993 (not in the midwest). The next was maybe ten years ago (I don't recall the exact year). Some people bought generators as a result -- a good indicator of how power dependent society has become. With the increasing frequency and length of the outages I may be able to talk my wife into one.
Not a single one of the outages I've experienced were caused by hurrican, tornado or earthquake. One was a winter storm, the other lengthy outages were caused by failure to maintain the grid. And even after those events there is still only maintenance being done after catastrophic failure -- it just normally takes less than a week to replace. Naturally, *important* facilities are powered (by generators) during these outages. Like the hospital, courthouse and mayor's residence. But most Americans don't rate backup power and at best have a small, personal generator with a small fuel supply (if that).
It doesn't matter if the source is coal, nuclear, solar, wind or prancing ponies: the power infrastructure in this country is inadequately maintained. The Chinese don't need to hack their way into exposed SCADA to destabilize it -- lack of maintenance is bringing more frequent failures.
you, as others, seem to think that Sony is using a BSD kernel that will be under continual development and need updating/maintenance. The only kernel maintenance they actually care about has to do with DRM/piracy. This is not a PC, no matter how much some posters seem to want it to be that. It won't be receiving updates for performance, scheduling, or anything except killing off vulnerabilities discovered in their lockdown.
For this purpose BSD makes a lot more sense than linux. Not that linux is bad per se, but BSDs tend to be more secure and stable. You don't see the same level of patch activity which, for a device expected to last 3-5 years in a static environment, is something that is desirable.
Apple with OS X is another matter entirely where they have a whole eco system that is being public exposed (vs running in a limited/restricted environment). And Apple needed to spend a lot of developer time on improving the OS -- dealing with details such as the kernel isn't really where they wanted to be. Using BSD (which allows them to restrict things vs linux and the GPL) was a clear and obvious choice for Apple. As is contributing back because they are in an on-going reciprocal relationship rather than taking a snapshot and utilizing that.
Yeah, like all of those American citizens who bought the government line that they didn't need privacy laws because the government wasn't interested in spying on them. I hope not too many innocient citizens have their feelings hurt as they discover their government has been lying for decades about increasing domestic surveillance that was supposed to protect them. From something. Like the removal of their civil liberties.
Yes, I just hope not too many innocent civilians gets hurt from Snowdens decisions.
that is the theory, too bad it isn't fact. What is considering non-coding DNA gets smaller every year. All it means is that it has no *currently*known* coding.
Which not only goes against the idea that there is zero medical information, but also calls into question the very use of DNA testing as the premise is that the parts being matched are "random junk".
Heck, *I* don't know it is random. But AFAIK it is generally accepted that the moment of decay (or timing between consecutive decays) is non-deterministic. Certainly, Einstein was in the non-random camp. But there certainly appears to be true randomness associated with quantum events and it is relatively easy to generate streams of 0s and 1s that are by current standards non-deterministic. How well does it translate from a lab to a device?
I refer back to my favorite example of cracking cryptography. A flaw in the design can eliminate any advantage. Implementation of anything can be a bitch, and cryptography is much easier to get wrong than right.
However, there is no inherent flaw in using hardware-based random number generation with a non-deterministic source of entropy.
This is based on a broken (modern) understanding of ancient philosophy. I had the good fortune to read Vitruvius Ten Books of Architecture back in high school and it taught me an important lesson: never rely on some modern person's lazy interpretation and whimsical assumptions about what the ancients did or thought. If you do, you end up with nonsense like knights being hoisted into their saddles and mixed up ideas of elements.
In brief (and very much from memory) none of the four elements had more than a philosophical resemblence to the "substance" named. Rather, they were terms for properties and just a way of describing objects in the world around them. For example, a wood that was light but brittle would have more 'air' than 'earth' (relative to a hardwood). Vitruvuius talks about this in terms of selecting wood for construction and I remember a point about a particular tree found in Germania that was resistant to being ignited and was thus recommended for shingling roofs. I don't recollect what the elemental composition was described as (high school was a long time ago), but it was just an empirical description phrased in terms of the four elements.
easy does not mean secure. First hint, your phone numbers do not represent a random distribution of numbers. Better than nothing? Sure. Would it prevent me from cracking the encrypted message? Yes, but I'm not a cryptographer. The lack of any meaningful randomness would permit analysis and cracking.
I have heard of some that try to utilize some sort of seemingly random event that is naturally occurring. However even these can be modeled over time.
A good post, but I'm not sure you understand hardware based random number generation. At least one way to do it is have a small amount of radiactive material. Although it decays predictably in the long term (half life) it is random in the short term. By measuring the radioactive decay truly random numbers can be obtained.
Can you model this? Sure, but your model will either be a software based random number generator or it will be a hardware token. In either case it will *not* be the item in question at the time in question and will not allow you to determine what numbers were generated.
No system is foolproof, but all the interesting cracks in cryptography that I'm aware of come through side channels or demonstration that a method was not truly random. Human card shuffling is certainly not random -- not only is the process controlled by the shuffler, but there are distinct non-random patterns to it that allow stage magicians to take a stack decked that is shuffled and still produce the desired result.
I think my favorite side channel attack was picking up the attenuated signal from the unencrypted side of a cryptograpy machine -- the British didn't have to crack the encryption used by the French embassy, they just read the plain text!
OTP are sexy and cool because they provide unbreakable encryption. As long as they are generated correctly (truly random) and distributed without tampering or exposure. The first is hard enough, but distribution on any scale means that not all of them will be free of tampering and exposure.
I hope the book is better than your description. Roman slavery did not mean what slavery in early USA meant so get rid of any notion that they employed mass slave labor to do things that could be accomplished by a windmill or watermill. In fact, the romans were quite the engineers and very willing to adopt machinery. Unlike their successors.
In medieval europe there was no shortage of man power -- in some ways that was the point. The iron plow share existed in northern europe (around what we call germany now) but was *eliminated* in favor of using large numbers of serfs with pointy sticks. Why? Because that was how the Romans got away with agriculture. Of course, they lived in southern/mediterranean europe, not northern europe with much different soil. But as a side benefit it kept the pesky populace busy -- it took far more work to produce the same amount of food than previously.
The middle ages was NOT "a resources boom". You clearly have either never read anything about medieval europe or entirely failed to comprehend what you read. The middle ages was a sufficiently lengthy period to not hold up well to such generalizations (even if it were true of part of the period).
The early middle ages suffered extensively from attempts by the ruling class to be what they thought roman patrician was. Despite this, and wealth hording (by 'kings', but increasingly dominated by the church), trade did manage to develop which resulted in the creation of the so-called middle class. The term applied to the middle ages does not mean what it does now.
Middle class in medieval europe meant a merchant, specifically one who accumulated wealth (as opposed to a common shop keeper who basically subsisted) but was not titled. Some of the middle class tried to become upper class (purchasing titles) which practice was thoroughly disliked by the aristocracy. Artisans (people who produced for a living) were lower class.
Despite attempts to emulate the upper class, the emerging middle class (which was not as large as most moderns assume, possibly based on thinking it was equivalent to what we now term middle class) brought significant change and reform. (Some) cities became chartered. The upper class, whose wealth was often predicated on land ownership, were reduced in size by the middle class (purchase of land due to changing economies impoverishing some of the aristocracy) and the church (too complicated to describe even in a general way in a post this size).
The "boom" of the middle ages was not one of resources, but one of trade and the growth of a mercantile economy which served as the basis for what we have now. The mercantile economy came about *despite* a lack of resources (such as metal to use for coinage) or an increase in supply (I have no idea how you could think that medieval europe had a boom in production). If you want to be informed, there are books on the topic. If you aren't actually interested they make rather dry reading. I'm not at home to provide some suggested reading, but if you are motivated I am sure you can find some books -- it isn't like there's a lack of academic writing on the subject.
I'm not sure where you got the 60-80 hours / week value. Just went back to before unions maybe? It only takes something like 1/3 time (if that) produce enough to live (and support the ruling class). I say "1/3 time" because it isn't smoothly arranged to meet a "20 hour work week" or some such criteria. When your not trying to produce enough food to support a hundred other people its surprising to a modern how little effort is actually required. Historically, agriculture-based societies needed 90% (or more) population devoted to food production -- the farmers weren't slaving every day in the field, but were very busy at critical times such as planting and harvest.
The truth is, most people only realize a small fraction of the greatly improved productivity. A modern farmer doesn't garner 100 to 1000 times more wealth than his predecessors. If you want to see where that production goes, you have to look at the ruling class. But, deliberately, their wealth is not obvious and largely hidden behind bland measures. People are notoriously bad at comprehending very large and very small numbers or probabilities. So while the abuses by the ruling class are not too apparent the people continue to labor. Its only when the abuses become too prominent for too long that change happens.
You also live in a fantasy world where there is always work. "Even if it means being self employed." Great, I'll just decide to pay myself $1000 for making paintings! I feel so liberated! Wait, you mean that I have to produce something that other people I can reach to make transactions with are willing to exchange wealth for? And that due to imperfect knowledge that doesn't always work out? Sometimes I produce things and can't find anyone willing to exchange wealth for them? I guess I'm still "self employed", its just the fault of "bad laws" that my inability to earn money from the activity is called "unemployment".
so, pretending that the working class's lot in life has improved works for you? You can play semantics if that makes you feel better. For what its worth, you are using a very naieve and imprecise definition of serf. Before you go chastising other people for improperly using words you might want to make sure you are actually using it correctly as well.
But, those who want to split hairs will always do so. During initial colonization of north america there were slaves who weren't "slaves" -- and yet they had less freedom than some who were technically slaves. The term was "indentured servant" and is not that far removed from "sharecropper", a term invented for the non-slave slavery of ex-slaves in post-Civil War southern states. No, a share cropper was not a "slave" in the way he was before emancipation. But somehow it didn't feel better for many of them. I'm sure your explanation of why they should be glad to have been emancipated (even if in practice they were still prevented from voting in many cases) would've gone over very well.
Insisting on reserving the term "slave" only for those that are bought and sold as chattel shows willful ignorance of the issues at hand.
Of course, you are so bent on splitting hairs you even missed your own gross mistatement "...prior to industrialism. You know, where 99% of people were serfs or slaves, rather than 0.001%." So, you are willing to cede your definition of serf as "bound to the land by a feudal lord" and greatly expand your definition of slave? Or do you only change the definitions when they fit your agenda?
"Increased production has never once in history lead to a war. Never."
A ridiculous statement and certainly not true on its face if you think about it. Increased production leads to prosperity. Increased prosperity leads to population growth. Increased population growth leads to pressures which have *definitely* resulted in war.
"They just won't produce so many critical things."
In what way are you trying to counter the GPs argument? Do you seriously think that 6 billion humans are going to be "actors, writers, artisans, chefs, athletes, etc." who will somehow making a living even though "they just won't produce so many critical things"? You are trying to ignore that the (no matter how pseudo it is) capitalist economy currently prevalent requires production in return for wealth (except for the ruling class, but that comes back GPs point about the distribution of wealth and how that leads to revolutions).
You say, "They just won't produce so many critical things", but somehow you think that those with wealth will distribute some in return for the production of non-critical things? Tyrants always think they can adequately control the masses and commit abuses as a result. When these abuses go unchecked for too long you get something like the French revolution. The current trend is toward using automation and it is easy to see the ruling class thinking they will simply substitute automation for human slaves that can revolt. The problem is, the filthy swarming masses comprise the vast majority of the population and numbers *always* count -- and that population doesn't go away simply by wishing.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I had mod points (other than the anti-israeli rant which just detracts from the post). This is why I hate "non-commercial" clauses and avoid anything that has it. If you render a picture that included a model (or texture!) that had an NC clause and sell a print is that commercial? How about if the rendered image is used by an advertising agency? What if you post the image on a web page that is ad supported? Can you put the image in a portfolio of your work to use when shopping for clients? If you showed the image to a friend in a casual setting and they recommended you to a client?
You can keep going down the line, but there is *always* some potential benefit. It doesn't matter whether or not the creator of the model or texture or what-have-you would have a legal leg to stand on, why even give them a chance?
Which is why I always release work as freely redistributable. Code is GPL, 3d models are CC (without an NC clause), etc. It upsets people who rely on an NC clause to have "competition" from something that is free. If I have to make something myself to avoid some silly NC clause there's no need to make *everyone else* re-invent the wheel.
the point was that you may not be understanding the license correctly. That is becoming increasingly apparently. The suggestion about design patents seems spot on to me, except that the poster then seemed to think that the designer *had* aquired a design patent. Copyright, by law, is inherent at the time of creation. Patents are not: they must be applied for. Creating stuff is fun. Posting it is great for the ego. Filing patents is not fun. It is work and requires money. Either pay the money for a design patent (and then cite the patent whereever you put the design) or shut up.
Corporations are used to rules: they follow them, work around them and pay for them. So it is some surprise to a CEO that someone is offended even when the corporation was following the rules.
What I also find amusing is the suggestion that the big bad corporation is wrong for printing some of this guys designs for display at a booth and that he should be abusing them for "using his designs" but when Apple files design patents and attempts to defend them its the big bad corporation is wrong for abusing the system. I'm not saying there is a contradiction as presumably these points of view come from different posters, but it is very amusing that these defenders of design patents don't speak up when its a corporation.
(Only because someone might misunderstand: I'd as soon copyright be abolished, and patents along with them. Imaginary property rights create confusing and contradictory situations -- which should be apparent simply from reading comments here where despite serious attempts the mythology of separation between design and product do not exist. What I'm saying is if you want to apply IP then use IP and don't fool yourself into thinking that asserting copyright has anything to do with patents.)
Maybe at some point there'd be some sort of built in "signing" of a printed work to track what machine created it. Maybe. But I assure you that the reliability of print output is nowhere near what it would have to be to do such a thing, even if it were allowed to be perceptible to the unaided eye that was not even scrutinizing the printed item.
When 0.01mm is still considered high resolution, prints (from the common hobbyist fused filament printers) are monochrome, and the reliability of production is NOT 0.01nm... it just isn't happening.
Put another way: print two objects from a single file -- in particular selecting a file with delicate or subtle features -- and compare the two prints. The more delicate and the more subtle the less likely a feature will be produced, much less be produced repeatably.
Now, if the printer had a way of influencing the chemical composition to introduce a signature? That'd be feasible but is also something that won't be present on a true hobbyist printer (see the replicator project) and would be subject to signature manipulation or simple removal.
I described how tidal forces work and how distance varies that. IIRC (I haven't read anything on the topic in years) the sun has greater tidal force than the moon, but traditionally people always say the moon and historically sailors have often viewed the moon as special.
With respect to moon/sun opposed or in conjuction that would be full moon and new moon respectively, with the 90 degree points the quarter moons. GP wondered why, if the moon's size (mass, I'm assuming was meant) that anything changed. Distance matters and with tidal forces it is particularly the differential acting on a body. A basic answer. Introducing the sun's influence serves to illustrate how it is even more complicated. But it is all part of the same thing.
There is no meaningful distinction between a "trojan" and a "virus". The old, simplistic application of the terms "trojan", "virus" and "worm" never really made that much sense, but it is pretty meaningless now. Each of those designations simply refers to a method of infection and nothing prevents multiple vectors from being employed. And plenty of malware does that. In fact, the majority I run across do none of those things.
The predominate vector in use today is malvertising. It generally exploits a vulnerability to side step needing user interaction (what trojans use). They are self contained (in general do not rely on injecting into an executable for the purpose of propagation the way a "virus" does). They also generally do not scan and attack (what worms do -- it is noisy making it easy to detect and identify the infected system).
Not to say that the trojan technique of fooling users into running the malware is gone (one of the first big OS X targeted campaigns was for a "cracked office suite" -- oldie but goodie.
Or that file (and process) injection is not used, but it is generally to hide or perform operational function, not to propagate.
Or that the network is not used -- but despite some lingering scanning the much more common use of the network is for command and control with steganography (use of forums), p2p protocols, custom protocols or even good old fashioned IRC. Increasingly, encryption is used. Bogus traffic may be generated to try and hide the C&C in a haystack.
By the old and simplistic definitions this modern, modular malware is not virus, trojan or worm. Malware is a reasonable enough umbrella term to describe it.
Whatever it takes to make you sleep better. But the illogic of that has long been shown (e.g., compromised web servers used to be nearly all IIS despite it having a minority share -- yeah, times have changed, but that just further illustrates that "market share" is not a controlling factor). Your overly facile argument reveals how little you know of the business.
In reality malware was originally written by people trying to show off their "super skills" or who had a grudge of some sort. By and large they were written for the platform the writer used. Nowadays malware is a business with service contracts and the users of it expect a revenue stream. And business expects an ROI, not a juvenile rationale. As Windows has gradually improved security the ROI for targeting it has leveled off a bit compared to other platforms. On paper, Windows 7 is at least as secure as OS X 10.7, if not more so. This is a more significant reasion why there is more targeting of OS X users now than there used to be.
The reality is that there is a lot of knowledge in the malware industry for exploiting the Windows platform and only a growing knowledge for OS X and Linux. Making up for this deficit is a cost that goes into calculating ROI. The only marketshare part of this is that malware authors most likely cut their programming teeth hacking at Windows because it was what they had. Not because so many other people run Windows, but because it was what *they* (mostly) had.
To re-answer your "question", I would target the platform with the highest ROI. If Windows users weren't so gullible and well monied they wouldn't be targeted so much. But, despite sour grapes from some quarters, plenty of Windows users have more money than sense. And with the relatively low upfront investment they continue to be the most targeted.
You are missing knowledge about what the phase of the moon is, and how it applies. Tides are more complicated than "follow the moon" because the ocean/sea floor has considerable impact. But the thing with tidal forces isn't that the size changes, but that the distance changes. That is, tidal force is the differential between two points and that is a function of distance. If its night and the moon is full it is closer to you than when its night and it is a new moon (e.g., already set and on the other side of the earth). This variation in proximity causes change in the tidal forces.
I haven't followed this, but the argument seems to be that all forces combined to bring water higher than normal, ergo the greater flooding.
I think people tend to underrate what you can discover from land title records. My brother works for a certain state government and deals (indirectly) with some of the shenanigans. Its a different angle from the one you describe, but in general things start to make more sense as to why certain deals are struck, laws passed, etc., when you discover who owns adjacent property.
one note: the pressure brought to bear by "environmental groups" comes from oil funding. Wish I had a citation to hand. Rest of the world energy companies do nuclear and oil. In the US, at least historically, oil companies didn't get involved in nuclear and fed lots of disinformation about nuclear power. Not sure that the situation is still that way, but it certainly was in the 70s and 80s
ah, yes, and it is and will stay dilute. Sigh.
Back in college I wrote a paper promoting nuclear power to annoy the "nuclear is evil" prof who preached green while driving a car. One of the things I learned in the research was that original limits for nuclear plant allowed radioactivity were lowered after it was discovered to concentrate in fish. But I don't complain about radiation in coal -- no, its the chemical poisons. At least radiation has a half life...
I've only had one multi-day blackout caused by storm. Three multi-day power outages in the last twenty years (not mentioning the numerous 5-90 minute outages or brownouts where lights dim, sensitive electronics resets, etc.). Only one caused by a storm. A single blown transformer can take out a station and kill all power to a town. Even if, on paper, it shouldn't...
I do not call that "quite stable" but rather "inadequate". IME it was more stable thirty years ago.
Isolated and rare? I'm an American... Just last week had a 45min power outage. We probably average an hour per year, not counting the days long "unplanned emergency" outages or the (relatively) frequent brownouts. Like the one that happened a few years ago in January (a week without power) or the one a couple years before that lasted 3 days IIRC.
But I'm in the midwest, how about the power outages that are hitting the northeast these past few winters.
I'm more sensitive to power outages now that I have always on devices (like the computers) than I was thirty years ago, but the *only* multi-day outages I've experienced have all been within the last twenty years. The first was in 1993 (not in the midwest). The next was maybe ten years ago (I don't recall the exact year). Some people bought generators as a result -- a good indicator of how power dependent society has become. With the increasing frequency and length of the outages I may be able to talk my wife into one.
Not a single one of the outages I've experienced were caused by hurrican, tornado or earthquake. One was a winter storm, the other lengthy outages were caused by failure to maintain the grid. And even after those events there is still only maintenance being done after catastrophic failure -- it just normally takes less than a week to replace. Naturally, *important* facilities are powered (by generators) during these outages. Like the hospital, courthouse and mayor's residence. But most Americans don't rate backup power and at best have a small, personal generator with a small fuel supply (if that).
It doesn't matter if the source is coal, nuclear, solar, wind or prancing ponies: the power infrastructure in this country is inadequately maintained. The Chinese don't need to hack their way into exposed SCADA to destabilize it -- lack of maintenance is bringing more frequent failures.
you, as others, seem to think that Sony is using a BSD kernel that will be under continual development and need updating/maintenance. The only kernel maintenance they actually care about has to do with DRM/piracy. This is not a PC, no matter how much some posters seem to want it to be that. It won't be receiving updates for performance, scheduling, or anything except killing off vulnerabilities discovered in their lockdown.
For this purpose BSD makes a lot more sense than linux. Not that linux is bad per se, but BSDs tend to be more secure and stable. You don't see the same level of patch activity which, for a device expected to last 3-5 years in a static environment, is something that is desirable.
Apple with OS X is another matter entirely where they have a whole eco system that is being public exposed (vs running in a limited/restricted environment). And Apple needed to spend a lot of developer time on improving the OS -- dealing with details such as the kernel isn't really where they wanted to be. Using BSD (which allows them to restrict things vs linux and the GPL) was a clear and obvious choice for Apple. As is contributing back because they are in an on-going reciprocal relationship rather than taking a snapshot and utilizing that.
Yeah, like all of those American citizens who bought the government line that they didn't need privacy laws because the government wasn't interested in spying on them. I hope not too many innocient citizens have their feelings hurt as they discover their government has been lying for decades about increasing domestic surveillance that was supposed to protect them. From something. Like the removal of their civil liberties.
Yes, I just hope not too many innocent civilians gets hurt from Snowdens decisions.
that is the theory, too bad it isn't fact. What is considering non-coding DNA gets smaller every year. All it means is that it has no *currently*known* coding.
Which not only goes against the idea that there is zero medical information, but also calls into question the very use of DNA testing as the premise is that the parts being matched are "random junk".
Heck, *I* don't know it is random. But AFAIK it is generally accepted that the moment of decay (or timing between consecutive decays) is non-deterministic. Certainly, Einstein was in the non-random camp. But there certainly appears to be true randomness associated with quantum events and it is relatively easy to generate streams of 0s and 1s that are by current standards non-deterministic. How well does it translate from a lab to a device?
I refer back to my favorite example of cracking cryptography. A flaw in the design can eliminate any advantage. Implementation of anything can be a bitch, and cryptography is much easier to get wrong than right.
However, there is no inherent flaw in using hardware-based random number generation with a non-deterministic source of entropy.
This is based on a broken (modern) understanding of ancient philosophy. I had the good fortune to read Vitruvius Ten Books of Architecture back in high school and it taught me an important lesson: never rely on some modern person's lazy interpretation and whimsical assumptions about what the ancients did or thought. If you do, you end up with nonsense like knights being hoisted into their saddles and mixed up ideas of elements.
In brief (and very much from memory) none of the four elements had more than a philosophical resemblence to the "substance" named. Rather, they were terms for properties and just a way of describing objects in the world around them. For example, a wood that was light but brittle would have more 'air' than 'earth' (relative to a hardwood). Vitruvuius talks about this in terms of selecting wood for construction and I remember a point about a particular tree found in Germania that was resistant to being ignited and was thus recommended for shingling roofs. I don't recollect what the elemental composition was described as (high school was a long time ago), but it was just an empirical description phrased in terms of the four elements.
What do they teach kids in school these days? :)
easy does not mean secure. First hint, your phone numbers do not represent a random distribution of numbers. Better than nothing? Sure. Would it prevent me from cracking the encrypted message? Yes, but I'm not a cryptographer. The lack of any meaningful randomness would permit analysis and cracking.
I have heard of some that try to utilize some sort of seemingly random event that is naturally occurring. However even these can be modeled over time.
A good post, but I'm not sure you understand hardware based random number generation. At least one way to do it is have a small amount of radiactive material. Although it decays predictably in the long term (half life) it is random in the short term. By measuring the radioactive decay truly random numbers can be obtained.
Can you model this? Sure, but your model will either be a software based random number generator or it will be a hardware token. In either case it will *not* be the item in question at the time in question and will not allow you to determine what numbers were generated.
No system is foolproof, but all the interesting cracks in cryptography that I'm aware of come through side channels or demonstration that a method was not truly random. Human card shuffling is certainly not random -- not only is the process controlled by the shuffler, but there are distinct non-random patterns to it that allow stage magicians to take a stack decked that is shuffled and still produce the desired result.
I think my favorite side channel attack was picking up the attenuated signal from the unencrypted side of a cryptograpy machine -- the British didn't have to crack the encryption used by the French embassy, they just read the plain text!
OTP are sexy and cool because they provide unbreakable encryption. As long as they are generated correctly (truly random) and distributed without tampering or exposure. The first is hard enough, but distribution on any scale means that not all of them will be free of tampering and exposure.
I hope the book is better than your description. Roman slavery did not mean what slavery in early USA meant so get rid of any notion that they employed mass slave labor to do things that could be accomplished by a windmill or watermill. In fact, the romans were quite the engineers and very willing to adopt machinery. Unlike their successors.
In medieval europe there was no shortage of man power -- in some ways that was the point. The iron plow share existed in northern europe (around what we call germany now) but was *eliminated* in favor of using large numbers of serfs with pointy sticks. Why? Because that was how the Romans got away with agriculture. Of course, they lived in southern/mediterranean europe, not northern europe with much different soil. But as a side benefit it kept the pesky populace busy -- it took far more work to produce the same amount of food than previously.
The middle ages was NOT "a resources boom". You clearly have either never read anything about medieval europe or entirely failed to comprehend what you read. The middle ages was a sufficiently lengthy period to not hold up well to such generalizations (even if it were true of part of the period).
The early middle ages suffered extensively from attempts by the ruling class to be what they thought roman patrician was. Despite this, and wealth hording (by 'kings', but increasingly dominated by the church), trade did manage to develop which resulted in the creation of the so-called middle class. The term applied to the middle ages does not mean what it does now.
Middle class in medieval europe meant a merchant, specifically one who accumulated wealth (as opposed to a common shop keeper who basically subsisted) but was not titled. Some of the middle class tried to become upper class (purchasing titles) which practice was thoroughly disliked by the aristocracy. Artisans (people who produced for a living) were lower class.
Despite attempts to emulate the upper class, the emerging middle class (which was not as large as most moderns assume, possibly based on thinking it was equivalent to what we now term middle class) brought significant change and reform. (Some) cities became chartered. The upper class, whose wealth was often predicated on land ownership, were reduced in size by the middle class (purchase of land due to changing economies impoverishing some of the aristocracy) and the church (too complicated to describe even in a general way in a post this size).
The "boom" of the middle ages was not one of resources, but one of trade and the growth of a mercantile economy which served as the basis for what we have now. The mercantile economy came about *despite* a lack of resources (such as metal to use for coinage) or an increase in supply (I have no idea how you could think that medieval europe had a boom in production). If you want to be informed, there are books on the topic. If you aren't actually interested they make rather dry reading. I'm not at home to provide some suggested reading, but if you are motivated I am sure you can find some books -- it isn't like there's a lack of academic writing on the subject.
I'm not sure where you got the 60-80 hours / week value. Just went back to before unions maybe? It only takes something like 1/3 time (if that) produce enough to live (and support the ruling class). I say "1/3 time" because it isn't smoothly arranged to meet a "20 hour work week" or some such criteria. When your not trying to produce enough food to support a hundred other people its surprising to a modern how little effort is actually required. Historically, agriculture-based societies needed 90% (or more) population devoted to food production -- the farmers weren't slaving every day in the field, but were very busy at critical times such as planting and harvest.
The truth is, most people only realize a small fraction of the greatly improved productivity. A modern farmer doesn't garner 100 to 1000 times more wealth than his predecessors. If you want to see where that production goes, you have to look at the ruling class. But, deliberately, their wealth is not obvious and largely hidden behind bland measures. People are notoriously bad at comprehending very large and very small numbers or probabilities. So while the abuses by the ruling class are not too apparent the people continue to labor. Its only when the abuses become too prominent for too long that change happens.
You also live in a fantasy world where there is always work. "Even if it means being self employed." Great, I'll just decide to pay myself $1000 for making paintings! I feel so liberated! Wait, you mean that I have to produce something that other people I can reach to make transactions with are willing to exchange wealth for? And that due to imperfect knowledge that doesn't always work out? Sometimes I produce things and can't find anyone willing to exchange wealth for them? I guess I'm still "self employed", its just the fault of "bad laws" that my inability to earn money from the activity is called "unemployment".
i seriously wish I had mod points.
so, pretending that the working class's lot in life has improved works for you? You can play semantics if that makes you feel better. For what its worth, you are using a very naieve and imprecise definition of serf. Before you go chastising other people for improperly using words you might want to make sure you are actually using it correctly as well.
But, those who want to split hairs will always do so. During initial colonization of north america there were slaves who weren't "slaves" -- and yet they had less freedom than some who were technically slaves. The term was "indentured servant" and is not that far removed from "sharecropper", a term invented for the non-slave slavery of ex-slaves in post-Civil War southern states. No, a share cropper was not a "slave" in the way he was before emancipation. But somehow it didn't feel better for many of them. I'm sure your explanation of why they should be glad to have been emancipated (even if in practice they were still prevented from voting in many cases) would've gone over very well.
Insisting on reserving the term "slave" only for those that are bought and sold as chattel shows willful ignorance of the issues at hand.
Of course, you are so bent on splitting hairs you even missed your own gross mistatement "...prior to industrialism. You know, where 99% of people were serfs or slaves, rather than 0.001%." So, you are willing to cede your definition of serf as "bound to the land by a feudal lord" and greatly expand your definition of slave? Or do you only change the definitions when they fit your agenda?
"Increased production has never once in history lead to a war. Never."
A ridiculous statement and certainly not true on its face if you think about it. Increased production leads to prosperity. Increased prosperity leads to population growth. Increased population growth leads to pressures which have *definitely* resulted in war.
"They just won't produce so many critical things."
In what way are you trying to counter the GPs argument? Do you seriously think that 6 billion humans are going to be "actors, writers, artisans, chefs, athletes, etc." who will somehow making a living even though "they just won't produce so many critical things"? You are trying to ignore that the (no matter how pseudo it is) capitalist economy currently prevalent requires production in return for wealth (except for the ruling class, but that comes back GPs point about the distribution of wealth and how that leads to revolutions).
You say, "They just won't produce so many critical things", but somehow you think that those with wealth will distribute some in return for the production of non-critical things? Tyrants always think they can adequately control the masses and commit abuses as a result. When these abuses go unchecked for too long you get something like the French revolution. The current trend is toward using automation and it is easy to see the ruling class thinking they will simply substitute automation for human slaves that can revolt. The problem is, the filthy swarming masses comprise the vast majority of the population and numbers *always* count -- and that population doesn't go away simply by wishing.