My company (huge healthcare conglomerate) had Diligent in for a presentation/demo on a non-disclosure basis. (We have oodles*oodles^oodles of data, you see, and our lifecycle requirements are unforgiving.) The CTO guy gave a pretty convincing "here's how we do it without giving aware our IP" presentation. It does involve what most people call RDE (Redundant data Elimination) - they call it "factoring". I seems to get up to 25% across multiple, similar data sets, but the algorithm seems to actually work. The reduction started at regulat LZ levels (~2.5) and worked it's way up to 20-25%.
You had to really stream the data into multiple engines to get numbers that matched an average standard-VTL backup throughput level, though, so I'm not sure that the overhead this "factoring" would require would be acceptable on the average Joe's workstation.... But the core stuff involved here is real.
(aside - Diligent marketing seemed to exist on the bleeding edge of their GA dates, though, so some of these claims may still be kinda vaporous at the present time.)
Good point... And not only would it be extremly unlikely that we're at the same technological level, it would be unlikely that we'd even be at the same point in our evolutionary cycles - their species could have evolved into something with a pretty expanded intellect. Us to chimps, in other words.
We, on the other hand, can almost still smell the mammoth shit. We're evolutionary babies. It's almost a given that any contact would show a huge intellectual disparity in their favor, with us having no hope of catching up without evolving.
What if the signal, once received and processed, affected *us*, not our computers? Not a virus per se, but a logic bomb that burned out the brains of any intelligent creature who observed it?
Piers Anthony, in the great SciFi novel Macroscope, proposed such a signal being delivered in a tachyon stream. Humans above a certain IQ were able to grasp what started out as a simple symbolic pattern matching program, which progressed step by step in complexity and speed until the mind was in a sort of rapture state of comprehension - the viewer couldn't shut their eyes, and the terrible "logic" drew to a conclusion that burned out the brain. I think anyone under IQ 120 (or something) was unaffected because they couldn't follow the pattern beyond the basics. The smarter you were, the more burned you got.
Again, we need to imagine a civ advanced almost beyond our comprehension, and equally evil, but it's an interesting concept as it was depicted in that novel. I think it's about as likely as a universally-effective computer virus (which is to say, near-nil.)
I just hope I never wake up and see : "Installing: Sentience..."
---
Installing:
kernel i686 2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 updates-released 16 M
kernel-devel i686 2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 updates-released 4.2 M
Updating:
gtk2 i386 2.6.10-2 updates-released 4.8 M
gtk2-devel i386 2.6.10-2 updates-released 2.6 M
thunderbird i386 1.0.7-1.1.fc4 updates-released 14 M
unixODBC i386 2.2.11-3.FC4.1 updates-released 859 k
util-linux i386 2.12p-9.12 updates-released 1.6 M
vino i386 2.10.0-4.1 updates-released 288 k
Transaction Summary
Install 2 Package(s)
Update 6 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)
Total download size: 43 M
Downloading Packages:
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installed: kernel.i686 0:2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 kernel-devel.i686 0:2.6.13-1.1526_FC4
Updated: gtk2.i386 0:2.6.10-2 gtk2-devel.i386 0:2.6.10-2 thunderbird.i386 0:1.0.7-1.1.fc4 unixODBC.i386 0:2.2.11-3.FC4.1 util-linux.i386 0:2.12p-9.12 vino.i386 0:2.10.0-4.1
Complete!/usr/local/bin/yum.sh ended on Sat Oct 1 10:32:19 CDT 2005
Exactly. (see my post, "screwed for life by bad checkup, http://slashdot.org/~moving_comfort)
But it's not just "prying eyes" that we have to worry about - it's also the companies that now can legitimately purchase this data. Insurance companies are the primary purchasers of data like this - they buy it from helth care companies, HMO's, etc - and now they will have an incredibly complete, easily searchable database at their fingertips.
The technolgy may be neat - but we have to ask ourselves: Who benefits? Us, or the insurance companies?
Who is this really for?
Insurance companies are the ones that have been primarily pushing for this - for years. This could potentially give them a very quick reason to deny you health insurance, based on something as simple as a bad checkup, or a checkup in which you admitted to smoking in the past.
Previously, this kind of data was hard for the Insurance companies to "mine" - now it will be easy. They could potentially offer employers reduced group rates depending on the number of "super healthy" they employ - thus giving employers incentive to not hire people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Make no mistake - if this goes into production, a bad checkup could follow you around for years and impact you in increasingly intrusive ways.
The big insurance companies really, really want this.
Buy any one of those high power integrated power sprayers/motion detectors. Saw them at the local garden center. They're meant to give the neighborhood rabbits a shocking blast of cold water, but I had an idea to combine the water with high-concentrate fox urine, sold at the same store. The rabbits around here need therapy now.
Re:Don't knock Piers Anthony
on
Singularity Sky
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Yes, Macroscope - one of my all-time favorite SF novels. P.A.'s existance is justified by this work.
Congrats on getting a job in Portland two years ago. Tell me this: If you were interviewing for the same job now, would you get it?
Answer honestly.
No, take your time. I said honestly.
My guess is not. I interview people too, and one of the things we won't abide is outright arrogance. People like that (you) tend to be hard to work with, and end up causing more problems in the workplace than any benefits their supposed coding or admin skills bring. (which are often overblown - arrogance tends to inflate these "skills".) I know, I've made the mistake of overlooking this problem before in an effort to get a hot programmer to work with ASAP, and it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.
You should feel lucky that you have the job you have, and yes, knowing someone influential in a fortune 500 company right now is as important (right now) as having hot skills. That may change as the economy picks up, but if you're denying that's the case then I have to conclude that you're clueless.
Or possibly acting stupider than you are, because it's easier.
Slashdot Mirror
Did Billy Joel write this post?
Darn tootin'.
Compression isn't really... what this is.
My company (huge healthcare conglomerate) had Diligent in for a presentation/demo on a non-disclosure basis. (We have oodles*oodles^oodles of data, you see, and our lifecycle requirements are unforgiving.) The CTO guy gave a pretty convincing "here's how we do it without giving aware our IP" presentation. It does involve what most people call RDE (Redundant data Elimination) - they call it "factoring". I seems to get up to 25% across multiple, similar data sets, but the algorithm seems to actually work. The reduction started at regulat LZ levels (~2.5) and worked it's way up to 20-25%.
You had to really stream the data into multiple engines to get numbers that matched an average standard-VTL backup throughput level, though, so I'm not sure that the overhead this "factoring" would require would be acceptable on the average Joe's workstation.... But the core stuff involved here is real.
(aside - Diligent marketing seemed to exist on the bleeding edge of their GA dates, though, so some of these claims may still be kinda vaporous at the present time.)
It's a well known fact that the angriest terrorists are the smaller terrorists.
When they finally come up with modern suitcase nukes that have those handy telescoping handles and wheels? We'll all be screwed that day, I tell you.
We, on the other hand, can almost still smell the mammoth shit. We're evolutionary babies. It's almost a given that any contact would show a huge intellectual disparity in their favor, with us having no hope of catching up without evolving.
Piers Anthony, in the great SciFi novel Macroscope, proposed such a signal being delivered in a tachyon stream. Humans above a certain IQ were able to grasp what started out as a simple symbolic pattern matching program, which progressed step by step in complexity and speed until the mind was in a sort of rapture state of comprehension - the viewer couldn't shut their eyes, and the terrible "logic" drew to a conclusion that burned out the brain. I think anyone under IQ 120 (or something) was unaffected because they couldn't follow the pattern beyond the basics. The smarter you were, the more burned you got.
Again, we need to imagine a civ advanced almost beyond our comprehension, and equally evil, but it's an interesting concept as it was depicted in that novel. I think it's about as likely as a universally-effective computer virus (which is to say, near-nil.)
I just hope I never wake up and see : "Installing: Sentience ..."
---
Installing:
kernel i686 2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 updates-released 16 M
kernel-devel i686 2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 updates-released 4.2 M
Updating:
gtk2 i386 2.6.10-2 updates-released 4.8 M
gtk2-devel i386 2.6.10-2 updates-released 2.6 M
thunderbird i386 1.0.7-1.1.fc4 updates-released 14 M
unixODBC i386 2.2.11-3.FC4.1 updates-released 859 k
util-linux i386 2.12p-9.12 updates-released 1.6 M
vino i386 2.10.0-4.1 updates-released 288 k
Transaction Summary
Install 2 Package(s)
Update 6 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)
Total download size: 43 M
Downloading Packages:
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installed: kernel.i686 0:2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 kernel-devel.i686 0:2.6.13-1.1526_FC4
Updated: gtk2.i386 0:2.6.10-2 gtk2-devel.i386 0:2.6.10-2 thunderbird.i386 0:1.0.7-1.1.fc4 unixODBC.i386 0:2.2.11-3.FC4.1 util-linux.i386 0:2.12p-9.12 vino.i386 0:2.10.0-4.1
Complete! /usr/local/bin/yum.sh ended on Sat Oct 1 10:32:19 CDT 2005
#> while true
#> kill -9 666
#> done &
Why have they been removed?
Insanely great for it's genre. Smooth user transitions between functions, elegant, intuitive, fast. Fun to use. A+.
Exactly. (see my post, "screwed for life by bad checkup, http://slashdot.org/~moving_comfort) But it's not just "prying eyes" that we have to worry about - it's also the companies that now can legitimately purchase this data. Insurance companies are the primary purchasers of data like this - they buy it from helth care companies, HMO's, etc - and now they will have an incredibly complete, easily searchable database at their fingertips. The technolgy may be neat - but we have to ask ourselves: Who benefits? Us, or the insurance companies? Who is this really for?
Insurance companies are the ones that have been primarily pushing for this - for years. This could potentially give them a very quick reason to deny you health insurance, based on something as simple as a bad checkup, or a checkup in which you admitted to smoking in the past. Previously, this kind of data was hard for the Insurance companies to "mine" - now it will be easy. They could potentially offer employers reduced group rates depending on the number of "super healthy" they employ - thus giving employers incentive to not hire people with pre-existing medical conditions. Make no mistake - if this goes into production, a bad checkup could follow you around for years and impact you in increasingly intrusive ways. The big insurance companies really, really want this.
Buy any one of those high power integrated power sprayers/motion detectors. Saw them at the local garden center. They're meant to give the neighborhood rabbits a shocking blast of cold water, but I had an idea to combine the water with high-concentrate fox urine, sold at the same store. The rabbits around here need therapy now.
Yes, Macroscope - one of my all-time favorite SF novels. P.A.'s existance is justified by this work.
I felt exactly the same way. That scene was one of the few dissapointments in the film for me.
Congrats on getting a job in Portland two years ago. Tell me this: If you were interviewing for the same job now, would you get it? Answer honestly. No, take your time. I said honestly. My guess is not. I interview people too, and one of the things we won't abide is outright arrogance. People like that (you) tend to be hard to work with, and end up causing more problems in the workplace than any benefits their supposed coding or admin skills bring. (which are often overblown - arrogance tends to inflate these "skills".) I know, I've made the mistake of overlooking this problem before in an effort to get a hot programmer to work with ASAP, and it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. You should feel lucky that you have the job you have, and yes, knowing someone influential in a fortune 500 company right now is as important (right now) as having hot skills. That may change as the economy picks up, but if you're denying that's the case then I have to conclude that you're clueless. Or possibly acting stupider than you are, because it's easier.