So what? I was talking about the idiotic practice of making your columns fixed-width, which means most people will have half-a-page full of white background and then a narrow column of text in the left-hand side. Increasing the font size will simply make the text flow further and further down until you have one or two words on each row. Is this a service to sight-impaired users?
Why do you believe that over a 5 match series the GrandMaster will win handily?
If you look at the position at move 26, it's obvious ChessBrain is being pressured. In fact the article gives a possible move that could have resulted in ChessBrain losing. Instead Nielsen went for a forced draw because he only cared about not losing to a computer.
If ChessBrain refused some normal traps that computers normally fall for, then could it be the case that the computer is better than you realise. What if the drawn match was a bad one for the computer?
I suspect Nielsen sacrificed the win to see if ChessBrain would fall in his standard tricks, and when it didn't he settled for a draw. With that knowledge he'd probably play the second game much differently, and based on ChessBrain's poor position in the first game, would likely win.
But the fact that ChessBrain didn't fall in those standard traps tells us it's better than most computer opponents.
How true. In my mind the Wikipedia is a collection of generally accepted truths. Much of it is researched, true, but you still are at the whim of majority rule when editting.
Isn't that whan an encyclopedia is supposed to be? A collection of generally accepted truths. Discussion about some controversial topic doesn't really belong in an encyclopedia, other than as a neutral collection of facts.
Actually, it sort of is. Many times when you search for something general you get:
1) Metapages that point to "useful" search engines.
2) Shops trying to sell you something.
I think it's high time Google implement the feature that's already in some more experimental search engines: category classification of results. It's especially important when searching for some term which is used in two or more completely different meanings.
Saying that people have windows media player on the desktop so who needs anything else is pretty much how M$ killed netscape.
No, it's not. Netscape killed Netscape by not releasing Netscape 5. As a result IE 5 was a relatively good option for Windows users when compared to the suckiest browser that ever sucked, Netscape 4.xx.
It took a long time for Mozilla to rid itself of the absolute suckiness of Netscape and to surpass IE. It still retains some of the idiocy of Netscape, like the <BLINK>-tag and not being able to turn off background music on webpages (blegh).
Why is it assumed that no one needs or wants the new features? Maybe people like me who don't buy a new phone every year. But those people don't matter.
Features like polyphonic ringtones, Java games and cameras are targeted at cell-phone power users: teens. On the other hand, business types want better connectivity options, calendars, wireless Internet access etc. By introducing more features targeted at these two groups the cell-phone makers increase their sales.
An understanding of computers on it's own is worthless. It is the understanding of computers and how to make use of them to DO SOMETHING USEFUL that is the rare skill. This is what the readers of Slashdot don't understand.
It seems what you don't understand is that you can't value a profession based on the job market or its practical applications. If I have no interest whatsoever in becoming a plumber, why should I train to be one even if the prospects are good? Education has been greatly tainted with the idea that everything you learn must eventually lead to a higher paid job.
I sincerely recommend people study things that truly interest them. There are a lot of fields which might seem "useless" to the general public but if you're passionate and talented in some such a field then chances are you will find some work that keeps you fed and allows you to practice the profession you enjoy.
The point about combined talents is good, most employers are looking for people with a wide range of skills. It also allows you to start your own firm.
The Karma sutra was written by Vatsyayana sometime between the 1st and 6th century AD. If that's not a technical manual, I don't know what is. Oh wait.. this is Slashdot.
That's Kama Sutra, you dork. You've misunderstood the meaning of the word 'karma'. Oh wait... this is Slashdot.
I suppose Karma Sutra is the technical manual for karma-whoring on Slashdot.
If a lawyer's offense/defense can, in the slightest regard, be construed as dishonest or in bad faith, then the lawyer ought to be in danger of undergoing the fate the client would have in the case of a loss.
Would this apply only to civil cases or criminal as well? Is defending an "obviously guilty" murderer grounds for being thrown in prison? Why should attorneys not have the right to use every accepted method of winning the case? There are rules and stipulations to follow, you know. If the judges are willing to give the attorneys leeway to muck about and waste everyones time, is that the attorneys' or the judges' fault? Should cases be thrown out because you don't like the plaintiff?
Before you point me at compiere
[...]
Let's not ignore the fact that there is no current manufacturing module. There are, however, 3 separate development projects that aren't working with each other because of petty pride issues. The lead dev does nothing to stop the pettyness. So fuck compiere.
I would like to point out that the manufacturing module is probably the most complicated part of any ERP system. Not only does it take skilled coders who can implement efficient planning algorithms but also project managers who know about real-life manufacturing processes and how to make the system relevant to real-life applications and processes. It's not a wonder that this is the aspect they're having most trouble with, and probably has little to do with open-source ideology or team-lead personalities. Most experts of the field are simply already employed elsewhere.
In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.
I've noticed that nine times out of ten when people invoke Goedel it's irrelevant. Science is rarely about stringent mathematical logic, it's about finding patterns, analyzing data and forming new hypotheses then testing them. Once the computer system finds a new hypotheses based on models of existing methods for finding hypotheses in some field, it's up to the human scientists to figure out why the hypothesis works like it does. Except for chemists who at this point go "Hey, I don't know why it works but who cares."
Interestingly programs have also been created to find new conjectures in mathematics. ISTR one "finding" Goldbach's Conjecture.
MS may "support" their customers in the sense that they still provide security updates, but they sure don't give free tech support.
Oh but they do. Kind of. The KB and MSDN articles are available for free. There are also many MVPs (and many more non-MVPs who just want to help people out) who respond to questions in the microsoft.public.* newsgroup hierarchy. Technically that's not MS support but many MS employees, some more knowledgeable than any support hotline rep could ever be, also frequent these forums.
If the Linux "community" counts as support then so does the Microsoft "community". You don't necessarily need open source to take advantage of a large community of users sharing their knowledge.
Nope. Plastic blocks cannot cost much more than a few cents. It's simple injection molding, the same way they make CDs. Not much material in each block. The only reason lego charges such outrageous prices for them is because they can.
Actually, with injection moulding the costs of making complicated moulds is very high compared to the cost of the actual plastic. So the fewer kits Lego makes from a certain mould the higher the price. And since expensive kits tend to sell less, well that just makes it even more expensive. It also explains why the price range of Lego kits is so wide.
The greatest human endeavor in a five hundred years is about to be announced, and almost every message is griping about cost and how "impractical" it is.
What great human endeavor happened in 1504? Googles... Ah, this:
1504 - Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians.
Apparently you mean this is another case of an aggressive authority figure using smoke and mirror acts to impress Americans.
In 1000 tosses, you probably won't get close to 500 heads. This is because the standard deviation of the head count for N tosses varies as SQRT(N/2), centred on the mean of N/2.
What? The variance for the number of heads is N/4 so the standard deviation is Sqrt(N)/2.
In absolute terms, therefore, more tosses will get you *further* from the current mean. Only in relative terms will more tosses get you closer. This is why the so-called 'law of averages' is wrong.
I don't know what "absolute terms", "relative terms" or "law of averages" are supposed to mean but any sum of N samples that each follow the Bernoulli distribution with p = 1/2 will have a sample mean that approaches N/2 as N tends to infinity.
1. Dedicated firewalled Linux Laptop with WLAN, and changing MAC
2. WarDrive around for a unsecure internet connection.
3. Use proxies from unsecured PC's, lists available from DBL providers, or you Email server logs.
4. Setup up a web mail account, and send business proposal.
5. WarDrive to other access poiunt for continuing dialog
6. Travel around a bit to avoid setting a Wardrive pattern
That's a good start but if they really wanted they'd still have something to track him down by. First you'd have to wardrive around someplace you have no connections. Otherwise the FBI could simply round out all known crackers with connections to a geographical location.
Secondly, if he's posted material on the Internet under a known pseudom it might be possible to do some kind of lexical analysis to find similarities in the extortion e-mails and publically posted stuff.
Some of the wireless networks owners might have paid attention to the vehicle parked outside and tip off the FBI upon hearing of the compromise.
If Best Buy keeps server logs for a certain period of time they could mine them to find traces of intrusion attempts (assuming this guy wasn't bluffing).
Methinks that would be marketing speak for an HTML mail with a web bug (1x1 transparent pixel image loaded from remote server). If the 'villain' is using a mail program that displays HTML, his IP address is logged.
The villain didn't of course use any mail program but some generic webmail address (most likely outside the US). The lesson? Use Lynx to read your webmail when extorting Best Buy.
I wrote a little Javascript Turing email obfuscator, which prevents renders your email address invisible to bots, even those that can execute javascript.
That only works for people who think that sending you e-mail is such an enormous honor that they're willing to jump through flaming hoops backwards to accomplish it. The first spammer that's desperate enough to "decrypt" your e-mail address will add it to an address list and that's the end of that chapter.
Ever notice how entities that erect all sorts of extraneous barriers to communicating with them tend to get your blood boiling? I call it the "you must fax us this form in triplicate with a notarized form and a copy of your driver's license during office hours in Burma on the third tuesday of April during a leap year that doesn't have the number six in it"-syndrome.
Utter Misery:
Somalia. ( Lack of Property Rights )
I thought Somalia was at one point heralded as the dreamland of libertarianism. You know, no centralized government, everything belongs to the strongest faction that can lay a claim to it, no outside economical interference, in fact no laws at all to hinder "progress". By no stretch of imagination is it communism or even socialism.
Slashdot Mirror
More people than you know use 800x600.
So what? I was talking about the idiotic practice of making your columns fixed-width, which means most people will have half-a-page full of white background and then a narrow column of text in the left-hand side. Increasing the font size will simply make the text flow further and further down until you have one or two words on each row. Is this a service to sight-impaired users?
Do the Dell engineers know that people nowadays use resolutions higher than 800x600? And even then only about 3/4 of the width is actually used!
No more ASCII art in official US government memos.
Why do you believe that over a 5 match series the GrandMaster will win handily?
If you look at the position at move 26, it's obvious ChessBrain is being pressured. In fact the article gives a possible move that could have resulted in ChessBrain losing. Instead Nielsen went for a forced draw because he only cared about not losing to a computer.
If ChessBrain refused some normal traps that computers normally fall for, then could it be the case that the computer is better than you realise. What if the drawn match was a bad one for the computer?
I suspect Nielsen sacrificed the win to see if ChessBrain would fall in his standard tricks, and when it didn't he settled for a draw. With that knowledge he'd probably play the second game much differently, and based on ChessBrain's poor position in the first game, would likely win.
But the fact that ChessBrain didn't fall in those standard traps tells us it's better than most computer opponents.
Aardvark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
At least they didn't forget "aardvark". Or "sausage".
How true. In my mind the Wikipedia is a collection of generally accepted truths. Much of it is researched, true, but you still are at the whim of majority rule when editting.
Isn't that whan an encyclopedia is supposed to be? A collection of generally accepted truths. Discussion about some controversial topic doesn't really belong in an encyclopedia, other than as a neutral collection of facts.
They could use a mod system like /.
I can see it now...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf>:
It's not broken the way it is.
Actually, it sort of is. Many times when you search for something general you get:
1) Metapages that point to "useful" search engines.
2) Shops trying to sell you something.
I think it's high time Google implement the feature that's already in some more experimental search engines: category classification of results. It's especially important when searching for some term which is used in two or more completely different meanings.
Saying that people have windows media player on the desktop so who needs anything else is pretty much how M$ killed netscape.
No, it's not. Netscape killed Netscape by not releasing Netscape 5. As a result IE 5 was a relatively good option for Windows users when compared to the suckiest browser that ever sucked, Netscape 4.xx.
It took a long time for Mozilla to rid itself of the absolute suckiness of Netscape and to surpass IE. It still retains some of the idiocy of Netscape, like the <BLINK>-tag and not being able to turn off background music on webpages (blegh).
Can we trust them to be fair and unbiased in their "research"?
*boggle*
Someone on Slashdot is worried about whether Groklaw is being fair against SCO.
What next, FoxNews worried about the humane treatment of Saddam Hussein?
"640k should be enough for anyone."
Why is it assumed that no one needs or wants the new features? Maybe people like me who don't buy a new phone every year. But those people don't matter.
Features like polyphonic ringtones, Java games and cameras are targeted at cell-phone power users: teens. On the other hand, business types want better connectivity options, calendars, wireless Internet access etc. By introducing more features targeted at these two groups the cell-phone makers increase their sales.
An understanding of computers on it's own is worthless. It is the understanding of computers and how to make use of them to DO SOMETHING USEFUL that is the rare skill. This is what the readers of Slashdot don't understand.
It seems what you don't understand is that you can't value a profession based on the job market or its practical applications. If I have no interest whatsoever in becoming a plumber, why should I train to be one even if the prospects are good? Education has been greatly tainted with the idea that everything you learn must eventually lead to a higher paid job.
I sincerely recommend people study things that truly interest them. There are a lot of fields which might seem "useless" to the general public but if you're passionate and talented in some such a field then chances are you will find some work that keeps you fed and allows you to practice the profession you enjoy.
The point about combined talents is good, most employers are looking for people with a wide range of skills. It also allows you to start your own firm.
That's Kama Sutra, you dork. You've misunderstood the meaning of the word 'karma'. Oh wait... this is Slashdot.
I suppose Karma Sutra is the technical manual for karma-whoring on Slashdot.
If a lawyer's offense/defense can, in the slightest regard, be construed as dishonest or in bad faith, then the lawyer ought to be in danger of undergoing the fate the client would have in the case of a loss.
Would this apply only to civil cases or criminal as well? Is defending an "obviously guilty" murderer grounds for being thrown in prison? Why should attorneys not have the right to use every accepted method of winning the case? There are rules and stipulations to follow, you know. If the judges are willing to give the attorneys leeway to muck about and waste everyones time, is that the attorneys' or the judges' fault? Should cases be thrown out because you don't like the plaintiff?
Anyone tried musicrebellion.com?
"We apologize, but the content owner does not allow this digital download to be delivered to your country."
Need I say more?
Before you point me at compiere
[...]
Let's not ignore the fact that there is no current manufacturing module. There are, however, 3 separate development projects that aren't working with each other because of petty pride issues. The lead dev does nothing to stop the pettyness. So fuck compiere.
I would like to point out that the manufacturing module is probably the most complicated part of any ERP system. Not only does it take skilled coders who can implement efficient planning algorithms but also project managers who know about real-life manufacturing processes and how to make the system relevant to real-life applications and processes. It's not a wonder that this is the aspect they're having most trouble with, and probably has little to do with open-source ideology or team-lead personalities. Most experts of the field are simply already employed elsewhere.
In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.
I've noticed that nine times out of ten when people invoke Goedel it's irrelevant. Science is rarely about stringent mathematical logic, it's about finding patterns, analyzing data and forming new hypotheses then testing them. Once the computer system finds a new hypotheses based on models of existing methods for finding hypotheses in some field, it's up to the human scientists to figure out why the hypothesis works like it does. Except for chemists who at this point go "Hey, I don't know why it works but who cares."
Interestingly programs have also been created to find new conjectures in mathematics. ISTR one "finding" Goldbach's Conjecture.
MS may "support" their customers in the sense that they still provide security updates, but they sure don't give free tech support.
Oh but they do. Kind of. The KB and MSDN articles are available for free. There are also many MVPs (and many more non-MVPs who just want to help people out) who respond to questions in the microsoft.public.* newsgroup hierarchy. Technically that's not MS support but many MS employees, some more knowledgeable than any support hotline rep could ever be, also frequent these forums.
If the Linux "community" counts as support then so does the Microsoft "community". You don't necessarily need open source to take advantage of a large community of users sharing their knowledge.
Nope. Plastic blocks cannot cost much more than a few cents. It's simple injection molding, the same way they make CDs. Not much material in each block. The only reason lego charges such outrageous prices for them is because they can.
Actually, with injection moulding the costs of making complicated moulds is very high compared to the cost of the actual plastic. So the fewer kits Lego makes from a certain mould the higher the price. And since expensive kits tend to sell less, well that just makes it even more expensive. It also explains why the price range of Lego kits is so wide.
The greatest human endeavor in a five hundred years is about to be announced, and almost every message is griping about cost and how "impractical" it is.
What great human endeavor happened in 1504? Googles... Ah, this:
1504 - Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians.
Apparently you mean this is another case of an aggressive authority figure using smoke and mirror acts to impress Americans.
In 1000 tosses, you probably won't get close to 500 heads. This is because the standard deviation of the head count for N tosses varies as SQRT(N/2), centred on the mean of N/2.
What? The variance for the number of heads is N/4 so the standard deviation is Sqrt(N)/2.
In absolute terms, therefore, more tosses will get you *further* from the current mean. Only in relative terms will more tosses get you closer. This is why the so-called 'law of averages' is wrong.
I don't know what "absolute terms", "relative terms" or "law of averages" are supposed to mean but any sum of N samples that each follow the Bernoulli distribution with p = 1/2 will have a sample mean that approaches N/2 as N tends to infinity.
at a hefty 745 pages, Designing Network Security is a concise and...
At least this one isn't infamous like several other topics yesterday.
1. Dedicated firewalled Linux Laptop with WLAN, and changing MAC
2. WarDrive around for a unsecure internet connection.
3. Use proxies from unsecured PC's, lists available from DBL providers, or you Email server logs.
4. Setup up a web mail account, and send business proposal.
5. WarDrive to other access poiunt for continuing dialog
6. Travel around a bit to avoid setting a Wardrive pattern
That's a good start but if they really wanted they'd still have something to track him down by. First you'd have to wardrive around someplace you have no connections. Otherwise the FBI could simply round out all known crackers with connections to a geographical location.
Secondly, if he's posted material on the Internet under a known pseudom it might be possible to do some kind of lexical analysis to find similarities in the extortion e-mails and publically posted stuff.
Some of the wireless networks owners might have paid attention to the vehicle parked outside and tip off the FBI upon hearing of the compromise.
If Best Buy keeps server logs for a certain period of time they could mine them to find traces of intrusion attempts (assuming this guy wasn't bluffing).
Methinks that would be marketing speak for an HTML mail with a web bug (1x1 transparent pixel image loaded from remote server). If the 'villain' is using a mail program that displays HTML, his IP address is logged.
The villain didn't of course use any mail program but some generic webmail address (most likely outside the US). The lesson? Use Lynx to read your webmail when extorting Best Buy.
I wrote a little Javascript Turing email obfuscator, which prevents renders your email address invisible to bots, even those that can execute javascript.
That only works for people who think that sending you e-mail is such an enormous honor that they're willing to jump through flaming hoops backwards to accomplish it. The first spammer that's desperate enough to "decrypt" your e-mail address will add it to an address list and that's the end of that chapter.
Ever notice how entities that erect all sorts of extraneous barriers to communicating with them tend to get your blood boiling? I call it the "you must fax us this form in triplicate with a notarized form and a copy of your driver's license during office hours in Burma on the third tuesday of April during a leap year that doesn't have the number six in it"-syndrome.
Utter Misery:
Somalia. ( Lack of Property Rights )
I thought Somalia was at one point heralded as the dreamland of libertarianism. You know, no centralized government, everything belongs to the strongest faction that can lay a claim to it, no outside economical interference, in fact no laws at all to hinder "progress". By no stretch of imagination is it communism or even socialism.
Too bad all that together forms total anarchy.