De branges is a bit of a crank on the Riemann hypothesis. No-one believes his approach(s) will work. This is well documented in the book "Riemann's Zeros". When some of the leading mathematians were asked about his approach they said it was "full of errors" and "unlikely to work". The only reason he is given the light of day is because he managed to prove to the Bieberbach conjecture. That was a difficult problem, hats off to him for getting it aswell, but it's no Riemann hypothesis!
Rest assured, we'll all be dead and burried when it actually gets solved.
As an American, I'd say that other countries have a damned good reason to be anti-American right now - I know I sure do!
Anti-American != Anti-Bush. I'm Anti-Bush but i'm not anti-american. If one puts a mad texan in charge of the worlds only superpower then war is the natural conclusion.
I don't think there's anything amusing about this at all. I think the owners of these units should file a class action lawsuit, though i'm not even sure that's possible due to the EULA. If the EULA does get in the way then I think it's time the government steped in to protect the consumer and started making companies liable for acts as stupid as this. This just isn't the way a responsible company behaves.
Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"
Yeah.. Microsoft are going to give over that easily. Sure, they'll allow you to read the text in your Open Office document no problem but it wont look right. The font might be slightly different, or the margins might be annoyingly out, or that image you placed in the document might be a little off centre.
Then a few months later you hear the board screaming about these faulty.sxw files. "Why don't those files load properly in Microsoft Office.. open office is a pack of shit" - It doesn't matter what you say in response they've already made up their mind..
Remember, large companies are part of the battle but the real Microsoft heartland is the SME. In a typical UK SME, the IT provision usually falls under the control of the Finance director and in general they have no real desire to know the details of the IT industry. This makes justifying anything that isn't directly related to an impact on bottom line rather difficult.
As a key example.. our main company database doesn't even meet first normal form. It's clear to everyone here that such a database is so deeply flawed that it has to be replaced. However, trying to convince them that the move into a normalised solution a whole host better is like trying to square the circle. It's not that they don't agree the proposed solution is better they simply don't see it as important enough to warrent change. It's very odd.
Yes, just like RSA, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange, SHA-1...
None of those are in patent. RSA was patented but that patent expired a few years back. SHA-1 was never patented nor was Diffie-Helman.
we don't have secure communications, what we have are communications that nobody knows how to break yet
Well, not exactly we have the One time pad but that aside: What makes physics different to mathematics? You can't prove a physical theory is true like you can a theorem. There is a small chance quantum mechanics is wrong and there is an alternate theory that describes the photons in a deterministic way.
Yes, it's a small chance.. but don't forget that there's also a small chance that you can find a quick algorithm to solve AES. Changing the laws of physics tends to happen once a century - Theorems on the other hand last forever.
Patent-pending BBN protocols pave the way for robust quantum networks on a larger scale by...
AND
We were ahead of the technology curve with the ARPANET and the first router, and our quantum network exemplifies the same kind of forward thinking and innovation that has made BBN a technology leader for over 50 years
All this would be just fine if it wasn't for the horrible P word. They've automatically, like all people who patent cryptography, made their entire idea completly unprofitable and made sure that no-one ever implements it.
The thing is.. there's no market pressure to adopt this stuff.. we already have secure communication. Sure.. it's improved but so was eliptic curve cryptography but no-one uses that because of patents.
I am personally of the belief that black holes do not exist, as they suffer from the 'tree falling in the forest' syndrome. If you cannot see it, it does not exist.
I agree, if you can't detect it then it doesn't exist since it has no detectable impact on the universe. However, this isn't true for blackholes in that we *can* detect blackholes. They have huge gravity and they're black. When they collide they cause a storm of gravitational waves which should be readily detectable.
If these superdense things aren't blackholes as we understand them then they're something equally as weird.
I think lobbying the MEP's isn't enough.. we have to lobby the central governments of member states.. We don't want some soft-ass patent system like the States.
I know that while I have a dollar (well pound really) I'll pay for my own flaming hardware.
Because you know that once they've eased this on us your machine will end up being their machine. And once that happens you can be sure as hell that machine is going to make it difficult to run linux or any other operating system.
No thank you Bill & SUN. I want to pay for my hardware thanks because I actually want to own it. This isn't about choice,
it's about fattening the pockets of Sir Bill.
big business is never honest? I mean, these provisions are obviously there to help the customer know what product their buying into.
Why do the cell phone companies feel like they need to hide this stuff in small print? People respect a company that is, well, respectable. I'd feel happier to buy a cell if I know *exactly* where i'm going to get charged and how much that charge is.
The cell phone companies should back this clarity.
If Joe Average ran GNU/linux.. we'd see just as many worms, just as many viruses, just as many spam boxes..
The problem isn't the MS operating system as such (well.. *splutters* the buffer overflows are just lame).. The problem is that those idiots are just so damn ingenious.
Except that's the problem.. IE is so deeply integrated into the operating system you have to use it somewhere. Help files being one example.. Various dialogs in XP use the html rendering engine from IE..
Don't think that you can get away from having to download the IE6 security patches.. because you really do!
I don't run linux personally.. but the lack of choice is annoying. I paid for XP pro and I should be able to remove components completely.
I love Firefox, for example, but I ended up uninstalling it because IE annoyingly gets in the way.
I don't feel as if I have much choice and that's annoying.
Argh.. If theres one thing that makes me troll on Slashdot it's Christian fundamentalism.
Why do you think these people want to be converted? If they wanted to believe in Christ they would already.. the dude already gets enough coverage.
I think a key problem with religious fanatics is a total lack of perspective. They just can't see how someone living thousands of miles away from your local church might could come to entirely different conclusions on their choice of diety (if they even have one) - I mean there's only one god right and that *he's* American and *he's* Christian?
Listen up Christian America: "99% of people you try to convert (read: indoctrinate) think your ideas and your god are bullshit!"
Before you mod me as troll, Sit back and think about what you're *actually* telling these people! You're giving them the ultimate insult by saying they're leading a life on the darkside.. I life without Christ - A life of sin.
.. if back at the time of the dinosaurs all this carbon was in the air.. then how can be releasing it be the end of "life as we know it".. The Dinosaurs did quite well:)
Personally, It's my opinion that the earth is a pretty robust system and our climate models will be rather wrong.
Not totally true.. If you shot downwards from a few miles off the artic right through the centre of the Alantic Ocean you could achieve orbit before crossing another country.
The head code probably said "We can save a few hundred clock cycles if we only encrypt the actual data and not the header data.. I mean what value is the header-data.. "
BIG MISTAKE! Your a coder not a security expert. Get a security expert to make that decision - just because you write code does not give you the experience to make that judgement..
I think the problem is people approach to the security. They think you can just take AES and HMAC and glue them together in any way and arrive at security. I mean both are secure right? The result should be secure?
Wrong! Schneier names one of the chapters in one ofhis book: "Cryptography is hard but that's just the easy part!"
It really is very hard to secure information. It's almost intractable.. We've seen a few articles here in the last week about interesting side-channel attacks. Breaking RSA keys by listening and an earlier one which broke into computers by heating them up.
Cryptography is littered with broken designs fielded designs like WEP and let's not mention software security..
It's going to be twenty years before we have "trustworth computing". It would help if we could modularize cryptography like we can computer programs...
One (of the many) problem(s) with the closed source business model is the fact that the entire company can depend on this intellectual property. The security surrounding that source has to be so huge that the problem quickly becomes intractable.
Open source however, by virtue of it being free (as in Iraq hehe), is worthless. Support contracts are alot harder to steal:P
Let's not forget that open source provides robust security (in principle) where as for closed source we can never be sure.
Why do we still use so much closed source stuff:/ Simon.
Can't you stall? What about extreme high angle of attack situations? I've never been on these and I don't know the physics of it (I'm quite familiar with classic aircraft design and calculations).
If you can stall them it's very difficult to do and easily recoverable due to the autorotation.
If they are so great, why no medium scale implementation exists? The only ones I saw were the small, lightweight implementations.
Fixed wing aircraft are most cost effective for moving loads (be it people or cargo).
Simon.
Gyrocopters would make good civilian flying cars.. They're easy to learn (about 30 odd lessons) and if they run out of fuel they autorotate automatically.. they fall gently and safely.
You can take off and land vertically. Though you need a jumping mechanism to take off vertically as they can't hover. Typical take off distance is less than 50 meters without jumping mechanism.
They're less fuel efficient and slower than their fixed wing counterparts. You can expect a top speed of 116mph on most commericial models.
If they became more prevalent i'd expect the low flight speed and fuel efficiency would become diminish.
The main problem with the gyrocopter is that the angle of the blades to the horizon has to be great enough to provide lift at low speeds for landing and take off. If this angle could be changed in flight then you can fly faster and more economically.
I'd like to see a lot gyrocopters in the sky.. They're great!
Slashdot Mirror
De branges is a bit of a crank on the Riemann hypothesis. No-one believes his approach(s) will work. This is well documented in the book "Riemann's Zeros". When some of the leading mathematians were asked about his approach they said it was "full of errors" and "unlikely to work". The only reason he is given the light of day is because he managed to prove to the Bieberbach conjecture. That was a difficult problem, hats off to him for getting it aswell, but it's no Riemann hypothesis!
Rest assured, we'll all be dead and burried when it actually gets solved.
Simon
As an American, I'd say that other countries have a damned good reason to be anti-American right now - I know I sure do!
Anti-American != Anti-Bush. I'm Anti-Bush but i'm not anti-american. If one puts a mad texan in charge of the worlds only superpower then war is the natural conclusion.
Simon
I don't think there's anything amusing about this at all. I think the owners of these units should file a class action lawsuit, though i'm not even sure that's possible due to the EULA. If the EULA does get in the way then
I think it's time the government steped in to protect the consumer and started making companies liable for acts as stupid as this. This just isn't the way a responsible company behaves.
Simon.
Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"
Yeah.. Microsoft are going to give over that easily. Sure, they'll allow you to read the text in your Open Office document no problem but it wont look right. The font might be slightly different, or the margins might be annoyingly out, or that image you placed in the document might be a little off centre.
Then a few months later you hear the board screaming about these faulty .sxw files. "Why don't those files load properly in Microsoft Office.. open office is a pack of shit" - It doesn't matter what you say in response they've already made up their mind..
Remember, large companies are part of the battle but the real Microsoft heartland is the SME. In a typical UK SME, the IT provision usually falls under the control of the Finance director and in general they have no real desire to know the details of the IT industry. This makes justifying anything that isn't directly related to an impact on bottom line rather difficult.
As a key example.. our main company database doesn't even meet first normal form. It's clear to everyone here that such a database is so deeply flawed that it has to be replaced. However, trying to convince them that the move into a normalised solution a whole host better is like trying to square the circle. It's not that they don't agree the proposed solution is better they simply don't see it as important enough to warrent change. It's very odd.
Simon
Yes, just like RSA, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange, SHA-1...
None of those are in patent. RSA was patented but that patent expired a few years back. SHA-1 was never patented nor was Diffie-Helman.
we don't have secure communications, what we have are communications that nobody knows how to break yet
Well, not exactly we have the One time pad but that aside: What makes physics different to mathematics? You can't prove a physical theory is true like you can a theorem. There is a small chance quantum mechanics is wrong and there is an alternate theory that describes the photons in a deterministic way.
Yes, it's a small chance.. but don't forget that there's also a small chance that you can find a quick algorithm to solve AES. Changing the laws of physics tends to happen once a century - Theorems on the other hand last forever.
Simon.
Patent-pending BBN protocols pave the way for robust quantum networks on a larger scale by ...
AND
We were ahead of the technology curve with the ARPANET and the first router, and our quantum network exemplifies the same kind of forward thinking and innovation that has made BBN a technology leader for over 50 years
All this would be just fine if it wasn't for the horrible P word. They've automatically, like all people who patent cryptography, made their entire idea completly unprofitable and made sure that no-one ever implements it. The thing is.. there's no market pressure to adopt this stuff.. we already have secure communication. Sure.. it's improved but so was eliptic curve cryptography but no-one uses that because of patents.
What a waste of time!
Simon.
I am personally of the belief that black holes do not exist, as they suffer from the 'tree falling in the forest' syndrome. If you cannot see it, it does not exist.
I agree, if you can't detect it then it doesn't exist since it has no detectable impact on the universe. However, this isn't true for blackholes in that we *can* detect blackholes. They have huge gravity and they're black. When they collide they cause a storm of gravitational waves which should be readily detectable.
If these superdense things aren't blackholes as we understand them then they're something equally as weird.
Simon
I think lobbying the MEP's isn't enough.. we have to lobby the central governments of member states.. We don't want some soft-ass patent system like the States.
Simon.
I know that while I have a dollar (well pound really) I'll pay for my own flaming hardware. Because you know that once they've eased this on us your machine will end up being their machine. And once that happens you can be sure as hell that machine is going to make it difficult to run linux or any other operating system.
No thank you Bill & SUN. I want to pay for my hardware thanks because I actually want to own it. This isn't about choice, it's about fattening the pockets of Sir Bill.
Simon
big business is never honest? I mean, these provisions are obviously there to help the customer know what product their buying into.
Why do the cell phone companies feel like they need to hide this stuff in small print? People respect a company that is, well, respectable. I'd feel happier to buy a cell if I know *exactly* where i'm going to get charged and how much that charge is.
The cell phone companies should back this clarity.
Simon.
The square root of any integer that is not a perfect square is irrational. View Addenum two of this for details.
Simon.
Actually it has been proven that Pi is a transcendental number, which means that it is not the solution to any polynomial equation.
[nit] Nearly.. it's not the root of any polynominal with rational coeffients. If we allowed irrational coeffients then it surely would be! [/nit]
Simon
If Joe Average ran GNU/linux.. we'd see just as many worms, just as many viruses, just as many spam boxes..
The problem isn't the MS operating system as such (well.. *splutters* the buffer overflows are just lame).. The problem is that those idiots are just so damn ingenious.
Simon.
Except that's the problem.. IE is so deeply integrated into the operating system you have to use it somewhere. Help files being one example.. Various dialogs in XP use the html rendering engine from IE..
Don't think that you can get away from having to download the IE6 security patches.. because you really do!
I don't run linux personally.. but the lack of choice is annoying. I paid for XP pro and I should be able to remove components completely.
I love Firefox, for example, but I ended up uninstalling it because IE annoyingly gets in the way.
I don't feel as if I have much choice and that's annoying.
Cheers,
Simon.
Argh.. If theres one thing that makes me troll on Slashdot it's Christian fundamentalism.
Why do you think these people want to be converted? If they wanted to believe in Christ they would already.. the dude already gets enough coverage.
I think a key problem with religious fanatics is a total lack of perspective. They just can't see how someone living thousands of miles away from your local church might could come to entirely different conclusions on their choice of diety (if they even have one) - I mean there's only one god right and that *he's* American and *he's* Christian?
Listen up Christian America: "99% of people you try to convert (read: indoctrinate) think your ideas and your god are bullshit!"
Before you mod me as troll, Sit back and think about what you're *actually* telling these people! You're giving them the ultimate insult by saying they're leading a life on the darkside.. I life without Christ - A life of sin.
Simon.
I'm not trolling.. I'm not a troll (look at my history to see that) but seriously..
:D
LINUX IS JUST SOFTWARE.
It will not:
1.) Feed the hungry.
2.) Bring world peace.
3.) Become a viable renewable power source.
It's just free software.. and that's a good thing..
Simon.
.. if back at the time of the dinosaurs all this carbon was in the air.. then how can be releasing it be the end of "life as we know it".. The Dinosaurs did quite well :)
Personally, It's my opinion that the earth is a pretty robust system and our climate models will be rather wrong.
Simon.
Not totally true.. If you shot downwards from a few miles off the artic right through the centre of the Alantic Ocean you could achieve orbit before crossing another country.
Simon.
They missed the header data.. It's attacks based on the fact the header data isn't authenticated.
Simon.
It's a drive for efficiency..
The head code probably said "We can save a few hundred clock cycles if we only encrypt the actual data and not the header data.. I mean what value is the header-data.. "
BIG MISTAKE! Your a coder not a security expert. Get a security expert to make that decision - just because you write code does not give you the experience to make that judgement..
Simon.
I think the problem is people approach to the security.
They think you can just take AES and HMAC and glue them together in any way
and arrive at security. I mean both are secure right? The result should be secure?
Wrong! Schneier names one of the chapters in one ofhis book: "Cryptography is hard but that's just the easy part!"
It really is very hard to secure information. It's almost intractable.. We've seen a few articles here in the last week about interesting side-channel attacks. Breaking RSA keys by listening and an earlier one which broke into computers by heating them up.
Cryptography is littered with broken designs fielded designs like WEP and let's not mention software security..
It's going to be twenty years before we have "trustworth computing". It would help if we could modularize cryptography like we can computer programs...
Simon.
One (of the many) problem(s) with the closed source business model is the fact that the entire company can depend on this intellectual property. The security surrounding that source has to be so huge that the problem quickly becomes intractable.
:P
:/
Open source however, by virtue of it being free (as in Iraq hehe), is worthless. Support contracts are alot harder to steal
Let's not forget that open source provides robust security (in principle) where as for closed source we can never be sure.
Why do we still use so much closed source stuff
Simon.
Can't you stall? What about extreme high angle of attack situations? I've never been on these and I don't know the physics of it (I'm quite familiar with classic aircraft design and calculations).
If you can stall them it's very difficult to do and easily recoverable due to the autorotation.
If they are so great, why no medium scale implementation exists? The only ones I saw were the small, lightweight implementations.
Fixed wing aircraft are most cost effective for moving loads (be it people or cargo). Simon.Gyrocopters would make good civilian flying cars.. They're easy to learn (about 30 odd lessons) and if they run out of fuel they autorotate automatically.. they fall gently and safely.
You can take off and land vertically. Though you need a jumping mechanism to take off vertically as they can't hover. Typical take off distance is less than 50 meters without jumping mechanism.
They're less fuel efficient and slower than their fixed wing counterparts. You can expect a top speed of 116mph on most commericial models.
If they became more prevalent i'd expect the low flight speed and fuel efficiency would become diminish.
The main problem with the gyrocopter is that the angle of the blades to the horizon has to be great enough to provide lift at low speeds for landing and take off. If this angle could be changed in flight then you can fly faster and more economically.
I'd like to see a lot gyrocopters in the sky.. They're great!
Simon.
lol.. I have a question for Americans and other nationalities in general.. Do your accents change every 3 or 4 miles..
For instance.. Our accent in this end of town is different from the one down the road.. No kidding..
Liverpool is only 11 miles away and that has a different accent again. Warrington does to. Runcorn has a different again..
Is it just Britain that has this property?
Simon.