Why make the assumption that ours is the one and only Universe? There have been many theories about multiple universes. There's the worldline theory that a whole universe of worlds exists in each node of an infinite patchwork of some time fabric. There's the overused parallel universe theory. Similarly, theres the theory that a single mirror universe exists on the opposite side of the space-time continuum. There is even a theory that black holes suck up energy and matter and spit it out into another universe that would be a pin-point on end and an expanding bulb on the other - sort of like a long horn. I wonder if anyone has seen any evidence supporting such a crazy 'horn shaped universe' theory.
This is highly similar to chris.kainaw.com/ferriera with one exception. This system blocks domain names. Ferriera takes it one step further and blocks the IP addresses the domain names are mapped to.
I know that the use of 'most' is used to imply that you aren't sure what percentage of the population speeds, but it implies that it is far more than 50%. I don't have the exact statistics either, but I feel that the most percentage would be around 50%, if not lower. My reasoning is that most of the drivers on the road are either working (as in making deliveries) or they have no need to get anywhere soon (just out shopping). Working stiffs race to work and back home again. They are in a hurry because it is in their nature to rush, rush, rush and feel that they are more important than the guy in front of them. Outside of rush hour, you have a hell of a lot of people who want to drive slow for many reasons. They don't want to get back from their delivery too quick. They are looking for signs on the side of the road. They are just out cruising on a slow drive. They are drunk/high and don't want to be pulled over. Considering all of the traffic, I'd have to say that it is hard to claim that 'most' people speed.
if the traffic signals stop rewarding speeders by making them miss a light, then the speeders will slow down.
This assumes that speeders speed to make it through the red lights. I disagree. I think that speeders tend to speed because it makes them feel important. They know that they are average working stiffs like everyone else, but if they can just get in front of one more person they feel so cool. Of course, that's my SUV theory as well. The bigger the car, the lower the person's self-esteem.
You make the assumption that regular non-cell phones are never available. You also assume that pagers will be blocked by the same service. These devices are developed to combat human stupidity that keeps a large portion of the population ignorant of the fact that there are other people in the world too - and sometimes they like to hear the movie that they just paid over $10 to see.
I must admit, that is my answer after a lot of yoga-like deep breathing. My initial response is that all we need are more guns and less arrests for "attempted murder". Just because you shoot someone doesn't mean you attempted to murder them. Sometimes you just want them to shut up.
I have purchased a new computer every Spring for the past eight years. I try like hell to donate my old one. It is harder than you think. Most organizations don't want used computers. According to our local school system, "Used computers require so much more manpower to maintain them that it is cheaper to use all new computers." So, instead of going the 'donating' route, I call the local Middle School and ask the principal to give me the name of a student that could really use a computer but can't afford it. Then, I get to have that warm fuzzy feeling when I deliver it to its new owner in person.
If anything, in the current market government customers are less likely to be taken in because they've been fleeced so thoroughly in recent years already.
This statement would be true if it weren't for the early retirement factor. It is possible, and highly likely, that you will retire much earlier from a government job than a civilian job. Because of that, situtations like the following one that I witnessed while working for the government happen every day:
SRC, a government contracting company, signs a small contract with a government agency, Spawar. The person at Spawar who is in charge of the project agrees to allow missed deadlines and budget overruns because:
A project will not be reviewed until it is over-time by 5 years.
A project will not be reviewed until it is over-budget by 5 million dollars.
That basically comes down to a million a year for SRC per project at Spawar. For them, they don't need to produce anything at all. After 5 years, they just send the project to another company, assuming anyone wants to continue it.
Now, why would anyone at Spawar allow this to happen? Early retirement. SRC has gained the nickname "Spawar Retirement Community" because the Spawar employees in charge of the projects are given nice executive positions at SRC in exchange for the millions of dollars they funnel into the company. This is a benefit for SRC because it is ex-Spawar employees doing the closed-door million-dollar deals with the current Spawar employees.
So, in summary, the goverment customers are voluntarily getting taken in and fleeced because it is to their benefit.
At least they announced the mistake and you got it correct eventually. I was frustrated at one that I went to, so I took a program that kept getting 'runtime error' from the judges and gave it to another team. They submitted it and got it correct. We resubmitted it and got 'runtime error' again.
I left with this opinion of the ACM Programming Competition: It is a college event. College is about learning. What do you learn at that event? Nothing. If you get a problem wrong, it is wrong. There is nothing else you can know. You never get to see a working solution. You never get to see the judges data. In any other competition, from professional sports to playing blackjack in Las Vegas, you see why you lost. You can attempt to improve.
I confronted the head of the Southeastern United States ACM Competition about this and she said that the judges cannot release any information about the problems because it may be discovered that they made a mistake. WTF!? Referees in the NFL make mistakes all the time - even with instant replay, but they are adult enough to admit it after the game and go on with their job. Apparently the judges for the ACM competitions are far too immature to handle scrutiny. At any rate, I cancelled my ACM membership and pushed to have our college's ACM chapter drop any and all relations with the ACM, simply becoming a local computer club.
Why would you be discussing the Navy's internal computer projects on your personal blog without permission?
The following is the actual blog that they found offensive enough to threaten me with National Security:
"My project at work is moving along, but not very quickly. The guy in charge does not know programming, database design, or server maintenance. However, he finds it necessary to micromanage every aspect of how everything is done. On top of that, the liason from the contracting company told me that he thinks he can stretch the 3 months allowed for the demo to 5 years. I don't want to be working on this in 5 years."
As you can see, a blog like that really threatens national security. Now it's on Slashdot!? Run for cover. We'll be attacked in no time!
It is not ONLY the job you like, but who you work with/for. I had a job that I rather enjoyed: converting a AccuCobol application to JSP/Oracle. I got a head start on the project while I was waiting for the development "team" to get contracted out (should I note that this was for the Navy?). The team arrived and came up with all kinds of crazy ideas:
We need to use the most expensive JSP interpreter we can find.
We need to use the most expensive JSP IDE we can find.
We need a separate computer for each person (including those who will work primarily from their computer located off-site), plus a test server and a backup for the test server and an extra computer just in case.
We need to make the database as related as possible - if you can make a lookup table for a Yes/No field, then by all means you should do it!
Make sure each and every table has an auto-increment integer index, expecially those tables that will contain over 100 million records.
Development time must take at least 18 months to provide a proof-of-concept, but cannot produce anything that may be actually used.
Needless to say, I was kicked off the job and threatened with being charged under the Patriot's Act for complaining about the job on my BLOG. Now, I'm out of that environment and wrapping up a 4-month conversion of a VB/SQL2000 application to PHP/PgSQL. Practically the same job, but I really love this one.
So, the solution is to send spam through a virus that opens your address book and spams all your friends. Just tack on an attachment that says: "Open this cool [whatever]" and you'll be spreading your spam in no time.
That is a problem that I already got around. I use Mozilla Mail to filter out junk to a folder called Junk. I then have a cron parse it at night and send me an email with all the links in the Junk email. I delete any links that I don't want to block, add a password to the subject line, and hit reply. Then the server blocks only the IP addresses for domain names I purposely left in the message. With that, you can link to microsoft, CNN, slashdot, or w3 and I won't block it unless I really wanted to. Actually, I get a hell of a lot of spam with w3.org links in it. I'm not really sure why.
You are correct. Most spam is not coming from the people selling junk. That is why I avoid blocking spammers. I block the servers that the spam wants me to link to. For instance, Joe wants to sell junk and gets a server with the IP address of 123.123.123.123. He buys about 200 domain names for the server and pays some spammer to advertise for him. After getting one spam for one of his domain names, I block all spam advertising a domain that maps to 123.123.123.123. So, Joe just wasted a lot of money on me. If everyone did the same, the server with the IP of 123.123.123.123 would be absolutely useless for spammers.
As for collateral damage: this does not block email from the server 123.123.123.123. It blocks email that contains links or images to 123.123.123.123. So, if it was your server, you could still send and recieve emails. You just couldn't add a link to your server in your email - meaning that you can't advertise any domain name on the server.
The only way to deter crime is to take away the profit. Where have all the bootleggers gone? The profit died when prohibition ended. I have worked on a plan to remove the profit from spam, but I have to assume it is a stupid idea because I have never had anyone tell me otherwise. Instead of blocking servers or the million variations of Viagra, I do an IP lookup for every web address in the email. Most spam has a link to a website or an image. I then block the IP address (not the URL). The spammer can no longer use that IP address to host some website to try and make a profit off me. I figure that if everyone blocked email in the same way, spammers would quickly run out of IP addresses to host their fraudulent websites. They'd have to lease more servers, costing them more and more money, eating away the profits.
Another thing that I would like to learn to do is block outgoing email as well as incoming email. Then, if someone authorized to use my server gets infected by a spambot, the spam will just head off to/dev/null.
That is a common idea being tackled by many research facilities. It is not really for the purpose that you note. It is for the time when we finally take the steering wheels away from the dumb humans and let computers do the driving. They will be able to quickly report their position and speed to a central server (the local DMV) and get updates on where to go. It will drastically reduce travel time since the central computer will continally strive to keep traffic moving around any accidents that may occur (caused by the human drivers, of course).
Slashdot Mirror
Why make the assumption that ours is the one and only Universe? There have been many theories about multiple universes. There's the worldline theory that a whole universe of worlds exists in each node of an infinite patchwork of some time fabric. There's the overused parallel universe theory. Similarly, theres the theory that a single mirror universe exists on the opposite side of the space-time continuum. There is even a theory that black holes suck up energy and matter and spit it out into another universe that would be a pin-point on end and an expanding bulb on the other - sort of like a long horn. I wonder if anyone has seen any evidence supporting such a crazy 'horn shaped universe' theory.
This is highly similar to chris.kainaw.com/ferriera with one exception. This system blocks domain names. Ferriera takes it one step further and blocks the IP addresses the domain names are mapped to.
most people speed
I know that the use of 'most' is used to imply that you aren't sure what percentage of the population speeds, but it implies that it is far more than 50%. I don't have the exact statistics either, but I feel that the most percentage would be around 50%, if not lower. My reasoning is that most of the drivers on the road are either working (as in making deliveries) or they have no need to get anywhere soon (just out shopping). Working stiffs race to work and back home again. They are in a hurry because it is in their nature to rush, rush, rush and feel that they are more important than the guy in front of them. Outside of rush hour, you have a hell of a lot of people who want to drive slow for many reasons. They don't want to get back from their delivery too quick. They are looking for signs on the side of the road. They are just out cruising on a slow drive. They are drunk/high and don't want to be pulled over. Considering all of the traffic, I'd have to say that it is hard to claim that 'most' people speed.
if the traffic signals stop rewarding speeders by making them miss a light, then the speeders will slow down.
This assumes that speeders speed to make it through the red lights. I disagree. I think that speeders tend to speed because it makes them feel important. They know that they are average working stiffs like everyone else, but if they can just get in front of one more person they feel so cool. Of course, that's my SUV theory as well. The bigger the car, the lower the person's self-esteem.
I drive a tiny little 2-door Saturn.
You make the assumption that regular non-cell phones are never available. You also assume that pagers will be blocked by the same service. These devices are developed to combat human stupidity that keeps a large portion of the population ignorant of the fact that there are other people in the world too - and sometimes they like to hear the movie that they just paid over $10 to see.
I must admit, that is my answer after a lot of yoga-like deep breathing. My initial response is that all we need are more guns and less arrests for "attempted murder". Just because you shoot someone doesn't mean you attempted to murder them. Sometimes you just want them to shut up.
I have purchased a new computer every Spring for the past eight years. I try like hell to donate my old one. It is harder than you think. Most organizations don't want used computers. According to our local school system, "Used computers require so much more manpower to maintain them that it is cheaper to use all new computers." So, instead of going the 'donating' route, I call the local Middle School and ask the principal to give me the name of a student that could really use a computer but can't afford it. Then, I get to have that warm fuzzy feeling when I deliver it to its new owner in person.
This statement would be true if it weren't for the early retirement factor. It is possible, and highly likely, that you will retire much earlier from a government job than a civilian job. Because of that, situtations like the following one that I witnessed while working for the government happen every day:
SRC, a government contracting company, signs a small contract with a government agency, Spawar. The person at Spawar who is in charge of the project agrees to allow missed deadlines and budget overruns because:
- A project will not be reviewed until it is over-time by 5 years.
- A project will not be reviewed until it is over-budget by 5 million dollars.
That basically comes down to a million a year for SRC per project at Spawar. For them, they don't need to produce anything at all. After 5 years, they just send the project to another company, assuming anyone wants to continue it.Now, why would anyone at Spawar allow this to happen? Early retirement. SRC has gained the nickname "Spawar Retirement Community" because the Spawar employees in charge of the projects are given nice executive positions at SRC in exchange for the millions of dollars they funnel into the company. This is a benefit for SRC because it is ex-Spawar employees doing the closed-door million-dollar deals with the current Spawar employees.
So, in summary, the goverment customers are voluntarily getting taken in and fleeced because it is to their benefit.
At least they announced the mistake and you got it correct eventually. I was frustrated at one that I went to, so I took a program that kept getting 'runtime error' from the judges and gave it to another team. They submitted it and got it correct. We resubmitted it and got 'runtime error' again.
I left with this opinion of the ACM Programming Competition: It is a college event. College is about learning. What do you learn at that event? Nothing. If you get a problem wrong, it is wrong. There is nothing else you can know. You never get to see a working solution. You never get to see the judges data. In any other competition, from professional sports to playing blackjack in Las Vegas, you see why you lost. You can attempt to improve.
I confronted the head of the Southeastern United States ACM Competition about this and she said that the judges cannot release any information about the problems because it may be discovered that they made a mistake. WTF!? Referees in the NFL make mistakes all the time - even with instant replay, but they are adult enough to admit it after the game and go on with their job. Apparently the judges for the ACM competitions are far too immature to handle scrutiny. At any rate, I cancelled my ACM membership and pushed to have our college's ACM chapter drop any and all relations with the ACM, simply becoming a local computer club.
Why would you be discussing the Navy's internal computer projects on your personal blog without permission?
The following is the actual blog that they found offensive enough to threaten me with National Security:
"My project at work is moving along, but not very quickly. The guy in charge does not know programming, database design, or server maintenance. However, he finds it necessary to micromanage every aspect of how everything is done. On top of that, the liason from the contracting company told me that he thinks he can stretch the 3 months allowed for the demo to 5 years. I don't want to be working on this in 5 years."
As you can see, a blog like that really threatens national security. Now it's on Slashdot!? Run for cover. We'll be attacked in no time!
- We need to use the most expensive JSP interpreter we can find.
- We need to use the most expensive JSP IDE we can find.
- We need a separate computer for each person (including those who will work primarily from their computer located off-site), plus a test server and a backup for the test server and an extra computer just in case.
- We need to make the database as related as possible - if you can make a lookup table for a Yes/No field, then by all means you should do it!
- Make sure each and every table has an auto-increment integer index, expecially those tables that will contain over 100 million records.
- Development time must take at least 18 months to provide a proof-of-concept, but cannot produce anything that may be actually used.
Needless to say, I was kicked off the job and threatened with being charged under the Patriot's Act for complaining about the job on my BLOG. Now, I'm out of that environment and wrapping up a 4-month conversion of a VB/SQL2000 application to PHP/PgSQL. Practically the same job, but I really love this one.So, the solution is to send spam through a virus that opens your address book and spams all your friends. Just tack on an attachment that says: "Open this cool [whatever]" and you'll be spreading your spam in no time.
That is a problem that I already got around. I use Mozilla Mail to filter out junk to a folder called Junk. I then have a cron parse it at night and send me an email with all the links in the Junk email. I delete any links that I don't want to block, add a password to the subject line, and hit reply. Then the server blocks only the IP addresses for domain names I purposely left in the message. With that, you can link to microsoft, CNN, slashdot, or w3 and I won't block it unless I really wanted to. Actually, I get a hell of a lot of spam with w3.org links in it. I'm not really sure why.
You are correct. Most spam is not coming from the people selling junk. That is why I avoid blocking spammers. I block the servers that the spam wants me to link to. For instance, Joe wants to sell junk and gets a server with the IP address of 123.123.123.123. He buys about 200 domain names for the server and pays some spammer to advertise for him. After getting one spam for one of his domain names, I block all spam advertising a domain that maps to 123.123.123.123. So, Joe just wasted a lot of money on me. If everyone did the same, the server with the IP of 123.123.123.123 would be absolutely useless for spammers.
As for collateral damage: this does not block email from the server 123.123.123.123. It blocks email that contains links or images to 123.123.123.123. So, if it was your server, you could still send and recieve emails. You just couldn't add a link to your server in your email - meaning that you can't advertise any domain name on the server.
The only way to deter crime is to take away the profit. Where have all the bootleggers gone? The profit died when prohibition ended. I have worked on a plan to remove the profit from spam, but I have to assume it is a stupid idea because I have never had anyone tell me otherwise. Instead of blocking servers or the million variations of Viagra, I do an IP lookup for every web address in the email. Most spam has a link to a website or an image. I then block the IP address (not the URL). The spammer can no longer use that IP address to host some website to try and make a profit off me. I figure that if everyone blocked email in the same way, spammers would quickly run out of IP addresses to host their fraudulent websites. They'd have to lease more servers, costing them more and more money, eating away the profits.
/dev/null.
Another thing that I would like to learn to do is block outgoing email as well as incoming email. Then, if someone authorized to use my server gets infected by a spambot, the spam will just head off to
That is a common idea being tackled by many research facilities. It is not really for the purpose that you note. It is for the time when we finally take the steering wheels away from the dumb humans and let computers do the driving. They will be able to quickly report their position and speed to a central server (the local DMV) and get updates on where to go. It will drastically reduce travel time since the central computer will continally strive to keep traffic moving around any accidents that may occur (caused by the human drivers, of course).