Elliptic curve public crypto does not rely on the difficulty of factorization, so this specific attack wouldn't affect it, but I don't know if there are applicable quantum computing attacks. Too bad software patents are such an issue for it in the US.
Well, a chi-squared test would have worked too, but so would Phi correlation (a correlation between two dichotomous / binary variables), which can be computed exactly the same as... Pearson correlation, which TFA used. In fact, if you take the chi-square value you worked out to a few more decimal places: 0.10504 (from R), divide by 50 (=N, the sample size), and then take the square root, you get 0.046, which is the phi (and hence Pearson) correlation coefficient for the TFA's data. In converting from chi-square value to phi correlation you divided out the sample size, which is basically what determines significance. A correlation coefficent alone cannot be used to determine significance. The whole problem with TFA was that he was trying to prove/disprove significance without using an actual significance test. Your solution is equally flawed.
Science does not require experiments. Never has. Sure if it's possible to do an experiment, then that's the best way of gathering data. But if an experiment is impossible, observations are still sufficient to create a scientific theory.
For example, we are almost certain that the Sun is driven by a huge fusion reaction. We haven't created a star in an experimental setting to figure this out, but the weight of massive amounts of observational data, as well as theories of Physics well grounded in mathematics and experimentation, allows us to create a good scientific theory, one that is highly unlikely to be significantly challenged.
Since we cannot study the beginnings of the Universe in an experimental setting, we use observational data (such as cosmic background radiation, and Dopplar shifted stars), along with well grounded theories of Physics, to come up with a good theory. As the age of the Universe is a much more difficult question than that of the mechanism of the Sun, this theory is not going to be as close to the truth. But it is still the best answer given current knowledge. But that's all science ever is -- no scientist would claim to have found the true explanation for anything.
I suppose you have a more sound way of determining the age of the Universe?
apt (ubuntu's package manager) is basically exactly like portage, except everything is precompiled. You type a command (or use a GUI interface which calls a command) and the system automatically calculates dependencies and installs whats needed, just like portage. I used to use Gentoo, until I got tired of fighting with it to compile KDE. I've switched to Ubuntu and am generally happier with it.
I haven't used Fedora in a while, but the problem I had with it was that you had to resolve dependencies yourself, by hunting for.rpm files all over the internet.
I don't know much about VHS-DVD burners (didn't know they even existed), but you might want to look into just doing it with a capture card and a PC. I don't know if I'd trust a dedicated device -- it might not do quite what you're looking for and it probably won't have the flexibility to adjust.
As for the compression question, I don't think you can do that with any decent quality. Assuming you're using single-layer (4.4GB) discs (double-layer ones are still pretty expensive, especially if you going to be backing up large amounts of video), you could probably fit about four hours on it at decent quality if you had decent source. Since you're going from low quality VHS, your source quality is to have a lot of analog (static) degradation. MPEG compression tends to work poorly with anolog degraded sources. You'll end up with severely blocky image.
I have a MythTV system and if I go below 2 GB/hour with MPEG2 compression it starts to look pretty lousy (I have it set to 3 GB/hour). This is with capturing directly from analog cable (of pretty decent quality). Not the best source, but a lot better than SLP VHS.
I'm not sure how much you'll be able to fit comfortably on a DVD, but I'd guess about 1.5 to 2 hours given your low quality source. If playback on a DVD player isn't an issue, you might want to look into just making a DVD of MPEG4 encoded files. That should double your capacity.
Why do these kinds of reviews always focus on speed alone? Who cares if it takes a couple of minutes longer to burn a DVD with one drive versus another? It's not like you have to sit there with baited breath as the DVD burns -- you can do other things.
I'd rather see a comparison of noise or rate-of-coaster-production. I recently got a new DVD burner which works rather well as far as speed and reliability, but is way too noisy, even when I'm just playing a DVD with it. I have to use my old DVD-ROM drive for playback.
I guess its harder to test those things, though. You can't just load up some benchmark it let it run.
Yes, but in this case, they'll make sure it runs well in WINE, changing either winelib or Picassa to make sure it does.
I don't really see the problem with this. WINE compatible apps work very well. Sure it's a little ugly to look at, but how important is that? Looks like Picassa uses a bunch of custom widgets anyway.
How it's linked is unimportant, true, but the fact that Google will be ensuring WINE compatible in Picassa means all the difference.
Not so neat to see it featured because of a misleading and poorly written article by someone who clearly doesn't know what this is about. He's not attacking evolution, he's just present an alternative to one aspect of it. The article makes it sound like this is a completely different theory. Way too sensationalist.
I like how the Claim Form on that settlement page says "Secure Sever" with a little padlock icon... but the page is http, not https. Even if you type https into the location bar, the form action remains http. A little disengenuous there...
Why would you need fast interrupt speed for multimedia? If anything, a real-time kernel would reduce efficiency for multimedia. You need raw CPU for that, not fast interrupts. RTLinux is for applications where you need the computer to react really fast, like in science experiments.
I wonder if these "secure" monitors will allow Linux to use them. Will they work like broadcast-flag compatible HDTV capture cards, where it is illegal to allow content to be sent to an open source system? In the case of the broadcast-flag, an open source implementation would completely negate the purpose of the DRM. I don't see the same necessity with a monitor, but maybe Microsoft will use DRM as an excuse to lock out non-trusted (from their perspective) operating systems. Perhaps the trusted monitors perform some kind of key exchange that will be patented and not licensed openly?
If they did lock out Linux in this way, I think that would be a bigger problem than Windows locking out non-trusted Monitors. How many people would try Linux if their Microsoft certified monitor wouldn't let them?
I guess they'll change eventually... but at this point, what does Xorg really have that XFree doesn't? Sure it's got the compositing support (shadows, transparency), but that's pretty flaky from what I've seen. I personally haven't had much success with that stuff. Other than that, I don't know of much difference. Why change, until there's a good reason to?
You find it suprising that he considers the motion of the Earth to be "just a theory." This indicates that you do not understand what a theory means in science. A theory is as close to truth as we can ever get when we try to explain why something occurs. To say something is "just a theory" is almost a contradiction.
To illustrate how the Earth orbiting about the sun is "just" a theory:
We are able to observe the motion of the moon, the sun, the planets and the stars in our sky. This a direct observation about the nature of the universe. This is equilivalent to the scientific power of a law. It is undisputable, but it is only an observation, not an explanation. If we want to explain why the celestial bodies move as they do, we must formulate a theory. The current best, and nearly undisputed theory, is that the Earth orbits about the sun, along with the other planets, and the moon orbits around the Earth. This theory is undisputed, but it still remains "just" a theory.
My guess is that the first part refers to the particular software that will actually be used in the voting system. They don't want the voting software sent over the internet to the voting machines for installation (fears of it being intercepted and altered along the way). The source code, object code, and executables could still be sent over the internet for purposes of reviewing it -- just not for actually using it in a voting machine. But I may not be correct in that analysis.
This is my first month as a customer, and they've already done that to me. At least I think they did. I returned my 3 movies at the same time, they were all recieved at the same time, yet only one replacement was sent on Friday. The rest were sent on Monday (not even Saturday! And I know they ship on Saturdays.), even though they were all marked as available now. I always send them back the same day I recieve them, so I guess I was ahead of their hidden quota. It's a shame because I was otherwise very impressed by their service. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it.
I could understand delaying until Saturday if they're swamped... but Monday? That's suspicious.
I'll probably keep it another month, but if it happens again, I'm leaving.
How is it cheaper to pay cash if you get 0% financing?
That's the whole point. It shouldn't be cheaper. But since it is (presumably, since I have no personal experience with this), that means that the 0% financing isn't really 0% percent financing. They're just adding what they would get in interest to the base price. That's where the misleading advertising comes into play.
Although if spammers did use zombied computers, maybe the owners of the infected PCs would know something was wrong when their computer was runnning so slow they couldn't do anything. Right now, these computers can send out tons of emails without significantly hitting its performance. This is key, because if the computer becomes unusable, it will soon not be available for spamming when the user takes it to the shop. Maybe the central server could even put a limit to new keys per hour per IP to limit RPOW factories like this.
In any event, spam would certainly be reduced by this, as each zombie could not send out nearly as many emails.
You might just be using hyperbole, but the Universe is NOT infinitely huge, according to current theory. In fact, if it were infinite, then there would have to be infinite worlds with life on them.
We exist on the 3 dimensional surface of a four dimensional sphere (circle:sphere::sphere:4D sphere). So, just like an ant crawling on the surface of a sphere can never reach the "end" of it, we can never reach the edge of the Universe. But as a sphere has limited surface area, so does the Universe have limited surface volume.
Basically, the Universe has limited (although extremely large) size, but it is impossible to reach its edge.
But if they did pick it, at least they wouldn't be circumventing copyright restrictions. Because that would be terrible.
/obligatory slashdot DMCA reference
I'm a second semester computer science major at the University of Pittsburgh, and I'm taking a required course in assembly (albeit MIPS, not x86), and computer hardware fundamentals. Next year I'll even be taking a course in writing an OS (also required). Is this really unusual? I thought all computer science majors would learn these things.
As someone who had some knowledge of assembly prior to college (the z80 processor, as well as some very basic x86), I'm sometimes suprised at how little my classmates understand how the computer actually works. I definately feel that assembly has helped me in this area.
As a bit of illustration, I had no idea C used a stack, until I was playing around on the z80 (my TI-83... those were the days...) and realized that I could make a C compiler using a stack (but too lazy to actually do it, of course). I later found out that C compilers really do use the stack - but assembly helped me understand this better.
Re:Breaking the laws of physics
on
The Year In Ideas
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, if you want to get real technical about it, the space shuttle weighs nearly as much in orbit as on Earth. Weight is defined as the force of gravity on an object according to the equation G*m1*m2/d^2, where d is the distance between masses m1 and m2. Relative to the radius of the earth, the increase in d is rather marginal when you go from the surface of the Earth to the orbital altitude of the space shuttle. The only reason it seems like there is no gravity is that the space shuttle is essentially in free-fall (it just is going so fast it keeps "missing" the earth).
Slashdot Mirror
Elliptic curve public crypto does not rely on the difficulty of factorization, so this specific attack wouldn't affect it, but I don't know if there are applicable quantum computing attacks. Too bad software patents are such an issue for it in the US.
Sounds like a good summary of the goals of the GPL to me. Why should the average person care exactly how it implements its goals?
Science does not require experiments. Never has. Sure if it's possible to do an experiment, then that's the best way of gathering data. But if an experiment is impossible, observations are still sufficient to create a scientific theory.
For example, we are almost certain that the Sun is driven by a huge fusion reaction. We haven't created a star in an experimental setting to figure this out, but the weight of massive amounts of observational data, as well as theories of Physics well grounded in mathematics and experimentation, allows us to create a good scientific theory, one that is highly unlikely to be significantly challenged.
Since we cannot study the beginnings of the Universe in an experimental setting, we use observational data (such as cosmic background radiation, and Dopplar shifted stars), along with well grounded theories of Physics, to come up with a good theory. As the age of the Universe is a much more difficult question than that of the mechanism of the Sun, this theory is not going to be as close to the truth. But it is still the best answer given current knowledge. But that's all science ever is -- no scientist would claim to have found the true explanation for anything.
I suppose you have a more sound way of determining the age of the Universe?
apt (ubuntu's package manager) is basically exactly like portage, except everything is precompiled. You type a command (or use a GUI interface which calls a command) and the system automatically calculates dependencies and installs whats needed, just like portage. I used to use Gentoo, until I got tired of fighting with it to compile KDE. I've switched to Ubuntu and am generally happier with it.
.rpm files all over the internet.
I haven't used Fedora in a while, but the problem I had with it was that you had to resolve dependencies yourself, by hunting for
*Looks it up online*
Hey, what do you know, it's supposed to be "bated" breath. That makes sense...
I don't know much about VHS-DVD burners (didn't know they even existed), but you might want to look into just doing it with a capture card and a PC. I don't know if I'd trust a dedicated device -- it might not do quite what you're looking for and it probably won't have the flexibility to adjust.
As for the compression question, I don't think you can do that with any decent quality. Assuming you're using single-layer (4.4GB) discs (double-layer ones are still pretty expensive, especially if you going to be backing up large amounts of video), you could probably fit about four hours on it at decent quality if you had decent source. Since you're going from low quality VHS, your source quality is to have a lot of analog (static) degradation. MPEG compression tends to work poorly with anolog degraded sources. You'll end up with severely blocky image.
I have a MythTV system and if I go below 2 GB/hour with MPEG2 compression it starts to look pretty lousy (I have it set to 3 GB/hour). This is with capturing directly from analog cable (of pretty decent quality). Not the best source, but a lot better than SLP VHS.
I'm not sure how much you'll be able to fit comfortably on a DVD, but I'd guess about 1.5 to 2 hours given your low quality source. If playback on a DVD player isn't an issue, you might want to look into just making a DVD of MPEG4 encoded files. That should double your capacity.
Why do these kinds of reviews always focus on speed alone? Who cares if it takes a couple of minutes longer to burn a DVD with one drive versus another? It's not like you have to sit there with baited breath as the DVD burns -- you can do other things.
I'd rather see a comparison of noise or rate-of-coaster-production. I recently got a new DVD burner which works rather well as far as speed and reliability, but is way too noisy, even when I'm just playing a DVD with it. I have to use my old DVD-ROM drive for playback.
I guess its harder to test those things, though. You can't just load up some benchmark it let it run.
Yes, but in this case, they'll make sure it runs well in WINE, changing either winelib or Picassa to make sure it does. I don't really see the problem with this. WINE compatible apps work very well. Sure it's a little ugly to look at, but how important is that? Looks like Picassa uses a bunch of custom widgets anyway. How it's linked is unimportant, true, but the fact that Google will be ensuring WINE compatible in Picassa means all the difference.
Neat to see my school's newspaper on Slashdot!
Not so neat to see it featured because of a misleading and poorly written article by someone who clearly doesn't know what this is about. He's not attacking evolution, he's just present an alternative to one aspect of it. The article makes it sound like this is a completely different theory. Way too sensationalist.
I like how the Claim Form on that settlement page says "Secure Sever" with a little padlock icon... but the page is http, not https. Even if you type https into the location bar, the form action remains http. A little disengenuous there...
Why would you need fast interrupt speed for multimedia? If anything, a real-time kernel would reduce efficiency for multimedia. You need raw CPU for that, not fast interrupts. RTLinux is for applications where you need the computer to react really fast, like in science experiments.
I wonder if these "secure" monitors will allow Linux to use them. Will they work like broadcast-flag compatible HDTV capture cards, where it is illegal to allow content to be sent to an open source system? In the case of the broadcast-flag, an open source implementation would completely negate the purpose of the DRM. I don't see the same necessity with a monitor, but maybe Microsoft will use DRM as an excuse to lock out non-trusted (from their perspective) operating systems. Perhaps the trusted monitors perform some kind of key exchange that will be patented and not licensed openly?
If they did lock out Linux in this way, I think that would be a bigger problem than Windows locking out non-trusted Monitors. How many people would try Linux if their Microsoft certified monitor wouldn't let them?
I guess they'll change eventually... but at this point, what does Xorg really have that XFree doesn't? Sure it's got the compositing support (shadows, transparency), but that's pretty flaky from what I've seen. I personally haven't had much success with that stuff. Other than that, I don't know of much difference. Why change, until there's a good reason to?
You find it suprising that he considers the motion of the Earth to be "just a theory." This indicates that you do not understand what a theory means in science. A theory is as close to truth as we can ever get when we try to explain why something occurs. To say something is "just a theory" is almost a contradiction.
To illustrate how the Earth orbiting about the sun is "just" a theory:
We are able to observe the motion of the moon, the sun, the planets and the stars in our sky. This a direct observation about the nature of the universe. This is equilivalent to the scientific power of a law. It is undisputable, but it is only an observation, not an explanation. If we want to explain why the celestial bodies move as they do, we must formulate a theory. The current best, and nearly undisputed theory, is that the Earth orbits about the sun, along with the other planets, and the moon orbits around the Earth. This theory is undisputed, but it still remains "just" a theory.
My guess is that the first part refers to the particular software that will actually be used in the voting system. They don't want the voting software sent over the internet to the voting machines for installation (fears of it being intercepted and altered along the way). The source code, object code, and executables could still be sent over the internet for purposes of reviewing it -- just not for actually using it in a voting machine. But I may not be correct in that analysis.
This is my first month as a customer, and they've already done that to me. At least I think they did. I returned my 3 movies at the same time, they were all recieved at the same time, yet only one replacement was sent on Friday. The rest were sent on Monday (not even Saturday! And I know they ship on Saturdays.), even though they were all marked as available now. I always send them back the same day I recieve them, so I guess I was ahead of their hidden quota. It's a shame because I was otherwise very impressed by their service. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it.
I could understand delaying until Saturday if they're swamped... but Monday? That's suspicious.
I'll probably keep it another month, but if it happens again, I'm leaving.
How is it cheaper to pay cash if you get 0% financing?
That's the whole point. It shouldn't be cheaper. But since it is (presumably, since I have no personal experience with this), that means that the 0% financing isn't really 0% percent financing. They're just adding what they would get in interest to the base price. That's where the misleading advertising comes into play.
Although if spammers did use zombied computers, maybe the owners of the infected PCs would know something was wrong when their computer was runnning so slow they couldn't do anything. Right now, these computers can send out tons of emails without significantly hitting its performance. This is key, because if the computer becomes unusable, it will soon not be available for spamming when the user takes it to the shop. Maybe the central server could even put a limit to new keys per hour per IP to limit RPOW factories like this. In any event, spam would certainly be reduced by this, as each zombie could not send out nearly as many emails.
You might just be using hyperbole, but the Universe is NOT infinitely huge, according to current theory. In fact, if it were infinite, then there would have to be infinite worlds with life on them.
We exist on the 3 dimensional surface of a four dimensional sphere (circle:sphere::sphere:4D sphere). So, just like an ant crawling on the surface of a sphere can never reach the "end" of it, we can never reach the edge of the Universe. But as a sphere has limited surface area, so does the Universe have limited surface volume.
Basically, the Universe has limited (although extremely large) size, but it is impossible to reach its edge.
But if they did pick it, at least they wouldn't be circumventing copyright restrictions. Because that would be terrible.
/obligatory slashdot DMCA reference
I'm a second semester computer science major at the University of Pittsburgh, and I'm taking a required course in assembly (albeit MIPS, not x86), and computer hardware fundamentals. Next year I'll even be taking a course in writing an OS (also required). Is this really unusual? I thought all computer science majors would learn these things.
As someone who had some knowledge of assembly prior to college (the z80 processor, as well as some very basic x86), I'm sometimes suprised at how little my classmates understand how the computer actually works. I definately feel that assembly has helped me in this area.
As a bit of illustration, I had no idea C used a stack, until I was playing around on the z80 (my TI-83... those were the days...) and realized that I could make a C compiler using a stack (but too lazy to actually do it, of course). I later found out that C compilers really do use the stack - but assembly helped me understand this better.
Well, if you want to get real technical about it, the space shuttle weighs nearly as much in orbit as on Earth. Weight is defined as the force of gravity on an object according to the equation G*m1*m2/d^2, where d is the distance between masses m1 and m2. Relative to the radius of the earth, the increase in d is rather marginal when you go from the surface of the Earth to the orbital altitude of the space shuttle. The only reason it seems like there is no gravity is that the space shuttle is essentially in free-fall (it just is going so fast it keeps "missing" the earth).
:-)
But that's just being silly