You are partially correct. What they really should have said instead of flat is "euclidean". That is, a space in which: For any simplex of dimension one less than the space itself and a point not on said simplex, there is exactly one simplex which contains the point and does not intersect the first simplex. What this means is that parallel lines stay parallel. The other primary options are Reimann (in which there are no parallel lines; all straight lines meet at some point) and Lobachevskian (sp?) (in which for any simplex and point not on the simplex (blah blah blah) there exists an infinite number of simplexes containing the point an not intersecting the first simplex. Euclidean geometry is the one we are all used to. The angles in a triangle add to 180 degrees, etc. Two dimensional Riemann geometry is sort of like being on the outside of a sphere, and two dimensional Lobachevskian goemetry is sort of like being on the inside of a sphere. For quite some time, many scientists were convinced that the universe was a four-dimensional Lobachevskian space (which would happen to appear as a Euclidean space in confined local areas if the curvature is low enough)
Does this legislation also have a clause condemning anyone who happens to be knowledgable and motivated enough to write their own encryption software? I'm sure a pretty substantial percentage of the/. community, at least, is capable of this.
If I write a Super-Duper-Mega-Wacky encryption program, and give a copy to all my friends (and drug dealers, of course:-) Most drug dealers just don't have time to code good encryption algorithms) What are They going to do about it? As an interesting side note: Is software authoring even covered under the first ammendment, either by precedent, or convention, or by just general acceptance?
All this stuff creeps me out. Unfortunately, the average J. Q. Computer User doesn't have the expertise to even realize if the government is mucking with their machine (Which most of them only use to order stuff from Amazon.com, anyway). Remember the whole V-Chip crap? Everyone was up in arms about Uncle Sam stepping on the toes of America's Favorite Pastime: The Boob-Tube. But then when they started talking about adding IDs to PCs, no one but the real computer user community gave a rat's ass.
This particular bill may not pass, but they will just keep proposing new and equally moronic methods of policing the electronic world.
What about security? What's to keep J.Q. Hacker from writing a Palm or CE program that fools the receiving Palm or CE unit into beleiving it just received, oh, I don't know, millions of dollars? Or, even better, just modify the unit to think it has a million dollars instead of ten dollars. That data has to be stored on the unit somewhere. Seems like there are a lot of possible holes here.
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You are partially correct. What they really should have said instead of flat is "euclidean". That is, a space in which: For any simplex of dimension one less than the space itself and a point not on said simplex, there is exactly one simplex which contains the point and does not intersect the first simplex. What this means is that parallel lines stay parallel. The other primary options are Reimann (in which there are no parallel lines; all straight lines meet at some point) and Lobachevskian (sp?) (in which for any simplex and point not on the simplex (blah blah blah) there exists an infinite number of simplexes containing the point an not intersecting the first simplex. Euclidean geometry is the one we are all used to. The angles in a triangle add to 180 degrees, etc. Two dimensional Riemann geometry is sort of like being on the outside of a sphere, and two dimensional Lobachevskian goemetry is sort of like being on the inside of a sphere. For quite some time, many scientists were convinced that the universe was a four-dimensional Lobachevskian space (which would happen to appear as a Euclidean space in confined local areas if the curvature is low enough)
If I write a Super-Duper-Mega-Wacky encryption program, and give a copy to all my friends (and drug dealers, of course
All this stuff creeps me out. Unfortunately, the average J. Q. Computer User doesn't have the expertise to even realize if the government is mucking with their machine (Which most of them only use to order stuff from Amazon.com, anyway). Remember the whole V-Chip crap? Everyone was up in arms about Uncle Sam stepping on the toes of America's Favorite Pastime: The Boob-Tube. But then when they started talking about adding IDs to PCs, no one but the real computer user community gave a rat's ass.
This particular bill may not pass, but they will just keep proposing new and equally moronic methods of policing the electronic world.
What about security? What's to keep J.Q. Hacker from writing a Palm or CE program that fools the receiving Palm or CE unit into beleiving it just received, oh, I don't know, millions of dollars? Or, even better, just modify the unit to think it has a million dollars instead of ten dollars. That data has to be stored on the unit somewhere. Seems like there are a lot of possible holes here.
I have a pair of partially polarizing sunglasses. Would something like that be sufficient to view the display?