This reminds me of an annual tradition in my city. Each year, hundreds of residents (of an affluent, suburban neighborhood, no less) line up alongside the Amtrak rail and lower their pants in unison. It's really quite a sight to see men, women, and children alike moon the passing train as the local police stand nearby, laughing quite loudly. The event has become such a tradition that the date is often reported in the paper before the event takes place.
Fortunately, people realize that it's just a harmless tradition, and each year the police let everyone off with a warning to "never do it again." At least until next year.
There's no new technology here. For all you know, Agent Smith could have walked by your house many times already and taken all the pictures he needed.
The real concern here, of course, is that the information/technology isn't abused. But I can't think of a good reason why the use of van-based cameras poses a greater threat to privacy than man-based cameras (oooh, that rhymes! I didn't plan it, I swear!) Cameras are everywhere, and the simple act of giving them wheels doesn't frighten me.
Why it's appropriate for SETI and not for film
on
Rendering Shrek@Home?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Despite the coolness of the SETI project, the major reason I support SETI and other scientific projects (e.g., protein folding@home) is that they are notoriously underfunded. SETI and the organization which operates folding@home (Stanford?) do not make profit, and at each step have to literally beg the government (usually the NSF) for more grants. This is especially true of SETI, which has become a pretty out-of-fashion program in funding circles.
In short, the whole point of donating CPU cycles is to allow somebody access to computing power that it would not otherwise have. While I enjoy the Shrek movies just as much as the other guy, I'm not so philanthropic when it comes to a company that's capable of making $128 million in one weekend. Here's an analogy: you might donate clothing to the Salvation Army, but would you donate to Sak's Fifth Avenue? I think not -- I suspect many of you, like me, would rather support the little guy with no alternative.
It becomes impossible to open a 100k HTML file once it gets slashdotted... god help that poor soul that is trying to download those huge ISO files right now.
I wonder if there are hidden shortcomings to this technique. If it only costs $5, I would think that manufacturers of wireless access points would have implemented this a long time ago (or at least made it available as a $40 add on). After all, there *is* a market for it, and at least some people would buy such a device.
Internet -- Tim Berners Lee, an Englishman, who invented the device while he was at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland
Light bulb -- Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb, but improved it. The inventor was a Sir Humphrey Davy of England, who created the first carbon arc lamp. Edison and Sir Joseph Swann DID, however, create the first incandescant lamp.
Telephone -- Credit is normally given to Alexander Graham Bell (a Scot, but living as an American), and it's largely deserved, since he was the first person able to get the device to work somewhat reliably and at reasonable cost. However, the first implementation of the technology was by a fellow named Innocenzo Manzetti, an Italian national. Some will give credit to a guy named Meucci, but as far as I know, he was never able to get the thing working, but he did have the idea.
I think a more accurate answer is in order (not to malign the other posts, as they all contain bits of the complete answer).
Accelerating means that the outer boundary of Universe ("horizon") is moving away from us at an ever increasing rate. The components of the Universe also accelerate away at a proportional rate. It does not simply mean that the Universe is growing bigger (although that is true). It means that it's growing bigger at an increasing rate.
The Universe is *not* expanding at the speed of light. The speed of light does not pose a real barrier to the expansion of the horizon (in fact, it is believed that the Universe underwent a period of faster than light inflation early on), but it DOES place an upper limit on the speed at which components of the universe can move away. In other words, the speed of light applies only to objects, not imaginary boundaries. As an example, one can think of shining a laser pointer at a distant wall and moving your wrist quickly; the laser point can easily exceed the speed of light, since the point is not a physical object. But no matter how hard you throw the laser pointer itself, you'll never exceed the speed of light.
When you ask whether dark matter (actually, dark matter isn't special at all, usually just normal matter that's hard to detect; you mean "dark energy") can bend the laws of physics, you've fallen into the same trap that countless others have. Popular accounts seem to really harp on the exoticness of dark matter, but never mention how "normal" it can be. Dark energy is just an energy field that exerts a pressure on the constituents of the Universe, just as a gas would exert a pressure on the walls of its container. This is one of the most trusted explanations for why the Universe is accelerating.
Recent meaning less than one year ago. I suspect that arvindn's comments on the ubiquity of Linux are accurate of academia and some other technical settings, but let's not forget that 99% of the Indian population is neither academic nor technical. Once you distance yourselves from the universities, Linux disappears.
On a recent trip to India, I could not help but notice that not a single computer I encountered was running Linux, despite all the hype (and I saw hundreds of computers). They were all running pirated copies of Windows 95 and 98. When you have the ability to pirate software (without any real fear of prosecution), there's one less incentive to switch to free (as in $0, not as in freedom) software. Usability isn't a real concern to those at the lowest socioeconomic levels; what matters is the mere existence of computer technology.
I finally got Windows installed properly on my computer, and now this. I bet that by the time I turn my cell phone on, they'll have it running Lin... oh crap, too late.
Mmm...I'm envisioning a computer case made entirely out of mud, grass, and ants. I suspect it will appeal to the high-tech, environmentally-conscious, case-modding,/. reading market.
The article says "To date, however, problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use to mobile devices and backlights." But it does not say that these problems have been completely eliminated. I'd be wary of buying a $2000 display with a lifetime of seventeen minutes.
In the U.S., "space" is anything above 80km (about 50 mi). Evidently the equivalent marker is at 100km in Europe. Of course, none of this matters, since there is no sharp boundary.
You're absolutely right that most instant message clients have the ability to log conversations. However, there is at least one good reason that the problem is more difficult.
Remember the Enron case, where the FBI and SEC went through the e-mails exchanged between certain employees? Suppose one of these companies was charged with similar crimes. The government could always subpoena e-mail evidence, which resides on central servers, but can't effectively do the same thing with IM logs with are stored on a client computer. If a corporate criminal had a computer with incriminating IM logs, the first thing the he/she would do is delete the files.
In short, the purpose of maintaining such evidence is so that it can be recalled. Controlling access to your own logs makes the whole purpose of keeping such records pointless.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of an annual tradition in my city. Each year, hundreds of residents (of an affluent, suburban neighborhood, no less) line up alongside the Amtrak rail and lower their pants in unison. It's really quite a sight to see men, women, and children alike moon the passing train as the local police stand nearby, laughing quite loudly. The event has become such a tradition that the date is often reported in the paper before the event takes place. Fortunately, people realize that it's just a harmless tradition, and each year the police let everyone off with a warning to "never do it again." At least until next year.
There's no new technology here. For all you know, Agent Smith could have walked by your house many times already and taken all the pictures he needed. The real concern here, of course, is that the information/technology isn't abused. But I can't think of a good reason why the use of van-based cameras poses a greater threat to privacy than man-based cameras (oooh, that rhymes! I didn't plan it, I swear!) Cameras are everywhere, and the simple act of giving them wheels doesn't frighten me.
Despite the coolness of the SETI project, the major reason I support SETI and other scientific projects (e.g., protein folding@home) is that they are notoriously underfunded. SETI and the organization which operates folding@home (Stanford?) do not make profit, and at each step have to literally beg the government (usually the NSF) for more grants. This is especially true of SETI, which has become a pretty out-of-fashion program in funding circles. In short, the whole point of donating CPU cycles is to allow somebody access to computing power that it would not otherwise have. While I enjoy the Shrek movies just as much as the other guy, I'm not so philanthropic when it comes to a company that's capable of making $128 million in one weekend. Here's an analogy: you might donate clothing to the Salvation Army, but would you donate to Sak's Fifth Avenue? I think not -- I suspect many of you, like me, would rather support the little guy with no alternative.
It becomes impossible to open a 100k HTML file once it gets slashdotted... god help that poor soul that is trying to download those huge ISO files right now.
I wonder if there are hidden shortcomings to this technique. If it only costs $5, I would think that manufacturers of wireless access points would have implemented this a long time ago (or at least made it available as a $40 add on). After all, there *is* a market for it, and at least some people would buy such a device.
Yes, but then the /. nerd in front of the computer has to be put in a glass envelope.
Aha! We know who you are unixbugs, or should I say, Darth Vader.
Those bastards I'm competing against have accumulated thousands of years of credits.
Internet -- Tim Berners Lee, an Englishman, who invented the device while he was at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland Light bulb -- Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb, but improved it. The inventor was a Sir Humphrey Davy of England, who created the first carbon arc lamp. Edison and Sir Joseph Swann DID, however, create the first incandescant lamp. Telephone -- Credit is normally given to Alexander Graham Bell (a Scot, but living as an American), and it's largely deserved, since he was the first person able to get the device to work somewhat reliably and at reasonable cost. However, the first implementation of the technology was by a fellow named Innocenzo Manzetti, an Italian national. Some will give credit to a guy named Meucci, but as far as I know, he was never able to get the thing working, but he did have the idea.
I think a more accurate answer is in order (not to malign the other posts, as they all contain bits of the complete answer). Accelerating means that the outer boundary of Universe ("horizon") is moving away from us at an ever increasing rate. The components of the Universe also accelerate away at a proportional rate. It does not simply mean that the Universe is growing bigger (although that is true). It means that it's growing bigger at an increasing rate. The Universe is *not* expanding at the speed of light. The speed of light does not pose a real barrier to the expansion of the horizon (in fact, it is believed that the Universe underwent a period of faster than light inflation early on), but it DOES place an upper limit on the speed at which components of the universe can move away. In other words, the speed of light applies only to objects, not imaginary boundaries. As an example, one can think of shining a laser pointer at a distant wall and moving your wrist quickly; the laser point can easily exceed the speed of light, since the point is not a physical object. But no matter how hard you throw the laser pointer itself, you'll never exceed the speed of light. When you ask whether dark matter (actually, dark matter isn't special at all, usually just normal matter that's hard to detect; you mean "dark energy") can bend the laws of physics, you've fallen into the same trap that countless others have. Popular accounts seem to really harp on the exoticness of dark matter, but never mention how "normal" it can be. Dark energy is just an energy field that exerts a pressure on the constituents of the Universe, just as a gas would exert a pressure on the walls of its container. This is one of the most trusted explanations for why the Universe is accelerating.
Recent meaning less than one year ago. I suspect that arvindn's comments on the ubiquity of Linux are accurate of academia and some other technical settings, but let's not forget that 99% of the Indian population is neither academic nor technical. Once you distance yourselves from the universities, Linux disappears.
On a recent trip to India, I could not help but notice that not a single computer I encountered was running Linux, despite all the hype (and I saw hundreds of computers). They were all running pirated copies of Windows 95 and 98. When you have the ability to pirate software (without any real fear of prosecution), there's one less incentive to switch to free (as in $0, not as in freedom) software. Usability isn't a real concern to those at the lowest socioeconomic levels; what matters is the mere existence of computer technology.
I finally got Windows installed properly on my computer, and now this. I bet that by the time I turn my cell phone on, they'll have it running Lin... oh crap, too late.
Mmm...I'm envisioning a computer case made entirely out of mud, grass, and ants. I suspect it will appeal to the high-tech, environmentally-conscious, case-modding, /. reading market.
The article says "To date, however, problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use to mobile devices and backlights." But it does not say that these problems have been completely eliminated. I'd be wary of buying a $2000 display with a lifetime of seventeen minutes.
In the U.S., "space" is anything above 80km (about 50 mi). Evidently the equivalent marker is at 100km in Europe. Of course, none of this matters, since there is no sharp boundary.
You're absolutely right that most instant message clients have the ability to log conversations. However, there is at least one good reason that the problem is more difficult. Remember the Enron case, where the FBI and SEC went through the e-mails exchanged between certain employees? Suppose one of these companies was charged with similar crimes. The government could always subpoena e-mail evidence, which resides on central servers, but can't effectively do the same thing with IM logs with are stored on a client computer. If a corporate criminal had a computer with incriminating IM logs, the first thing the he/she would do is delete the files. In short, the purpose of maintaining such evidence is so that it can be recalled. Controlling access to your own logs makes the whole purpose of keeping such records pointless.