I've had to use a handful of circuit simulators, and I've always found SPICE brittle. Perfectly reasonable circuits just refuse to simulate, even when good initial conditions are set. Now it's possible I've been doing something wrong. But on the whole I find SPICE deeply frustrating.
The most robust simulator I've used so far has been a demo version of SiMetrix. HSPICE also does a bang-up job... when it doesn't segfault. Unfortunately, HSPICE is very un-free (and buggy-as-hell), and although SiMetrix does have a demo, it's artificially limited in the size of circuits it can simulate.
There is a growing number of states with "Romeo and Juliet" laws that relax the statutory rape laws so that if, say, an 18-year-old sleeps with a 17-year-old it's not considered rape. So things are improving.
Even a generation ago, however, the situation was much worse. A relative of mine knew a boy in high school who dated a girl a few (2 or 3) years younger than himself. It turned out that this girl was being sexually abused by her father, so the boyfriend encouraged her to speak out; he was the one person giving her support in this very difficult time for her. What happened? The father got into no substantial trouble; rather, he got the boyfriend sent to jail on statutory rape charges.
Yay justice!
Luckily, like I said, things are a little better today. But the laws still vary by state.
"World first?"
on
Tetraktys
·
· Score: 2, Informative
brothke starts a sentence,
The book, which might be the world's first cryptographic thriller[...].
These generalizations are pointless. It depends on the research project. A given research project is supported by a particular grant. Sometimes that grant comes from a government agency like the NSF. Sometimes it comes from a private company, normally with more strings attached. In either case, the arrangement does not directly involve the university; rather it is in effect directly between the professor and the funding agency.
Finally, if one were to insist on making great big generalizations, it would be more accurate to say that the taxpayers do indeed pay for the work, because a large majority of research funding comes from government agencies. This does vary a bit by field, I'll admit; in the more applied areas like semiconductor manufacturing and VLSI, there's more corporate money. But I'd say that most academic work is still government-funded. Private corporations have incentive horizons that are usually too short to justify funding any but the most obviously-applied research.
The given example seemed unrealistic (obviously you can cite other work*), but the overall situation is very real: Academics do in fact routinely (1) sign away their rights to redistribute their work in order to get it published in a "real" journal, and then (2) behave as though they still retain the rights (by posting their papers on their websites).
The real solution (or one of them) would be for academics to read the agreements they sign and renegotiate them. But most don't bother to read them (they're viewed similarly to software EULAs), and laugh them off if they do.
*(There was at least one case in which an author ran into legal trouble by reproducing either a small table of data or a figure (I forget which) in another paper; although he cited it properly by the social conventions of academia he still got hit by a lawsuit. But that's rare. Unfortunately I don't remember the original article.)
Indeed. Don't click the link in grandparent's post! Morbid curiosity inspired me to do so, and I regret it, as for the first time in a very long while a website did things which made me seriously reconsider Firefox's security. I should have heeded AC's warning -- or at least disabled Javascript.
For instance, somehow this website even manages to get Firefox to spawn Internet Explorer windows, and Windows mail (to check some newsgroup). Does Firefox have some really stupid URL handlers enabled by default? I had been reasonably sure I'd disabled this kind of crap in about:config (doublechecks... yeah, looks ok...). If that's true then Firefox out of the box is only as secure as the worst application it uses to handle any kind of URL. And as Internet Explorer now seems to be one of them, that would make Firefox no more secure than Internet Explorer. A frightening thought! So what's going on?
Somehow they added bloat and removed features. I don't know how you can pull that off!
Particularly, MS removed gameport (MIDI) support in Vista. I can understand them assuming that newer joysticks are USB, but it's a completely ridiculous decision if you consider the requirements of musicians, since MIDI is the industry standard and it's not going away.
I learned this to my dismay when I agreed to help someone set up their very nice (music) keyboard with a new computer that had Vista preloaded. I kind-of-sort-of got it working, but this involved using some very sketchy drivers that started causing bluescreens. In the end I gave up, moved a different computer that had had XP Pro preloaded on it into its place, and set up the keyboard with that.
Why not Linux? Because outside of music this is a rather nontechnical user. And all of his music software ran on Windows. I was not about to tell him to switch from the tools he liked to Rosegarden, etc.
I will be surprised if these features have been restored in Win7.
I vaguely remember trying to set up some networking stuff on Vista that it turned out you couldn't do in the 'Home Premium' version that you could do in XP Pro. So on the whole Vista is a serious "value-subtract" for me. The new stuff it can do -- look like a Fischer-Price toy -- I don't care about, and the amount of stuff it can't do has been increased.
Indeed. I'd be pissed off too, but all this guy has achieved is to make a fool of himself. There is a classy way to put someone in his place which will earn you respect from others, and this isn't it.
That's what humans consume externally. All the food we eat needs energy too. Plus all the plants, oceans, etc, all need sunlight. I imagine the ocean itself eats a massive amount of the solar energy, without that energy nothing will live, weather will get fucked, etc. Keeping the atmosphere warm, etc, etc, etc.
We can use all the 'solar energy' we want and it will have zero impact on the amount of heat entering the atmosphere. Because we're not really using energy, colloquial usage notwithstanding. What we're using is exergy; that is, we're creating entropy. Energy is conserved, and it all necessarily ends up as heat.
Plants do need exergy. But surely we don't need to cover the entire surface of the globe with solar cells; covering just the Sahara, or just New Mexico, would do. Even these are too huge to be realistic, I know, but the point is that you hardly need to cover the entire surface of the Earth.
Also, all the other renewables -- wind, hydro, you-name-it -- are just solar in disguise.
(Two exceptions: (1) Tidal can extract mechanical energy stored in the Earth-moon system, and (2) geothermal harnesses heat energy stored in the earth (which may or may not be generated ultimately by radioactive decay; we don't know)).
I kind of like concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) more than photovoltaics. And with CSP, you can basically store heat from the sun in the form of, e.g. liquid salt, and use that to run your generators at night.
I respect Fox news as little as the next (sane) guy, but I really don't have that much of an issue with that clip. It's still pretty obviously a joke; they left it more-or-less in context, with Stephen Colbert telling him to say it.
Wow, you chose a bunch of silly "arguments" as your straw men. It's amusing to see someone list five ridiculous "questions" that no one would ask; rebut them; then say, "Q.E.D.!"
Yeah, kindasorta. But can you think of any better arguments against the idea? Because I haven't. And I thought these were the kinds of concerns people would have. Maybe not people on Slashdot, but people in general.
You'd think that an outpatient procedure like this would be considerably cheaper than the traditional alternative. For a while the technology will be expensive, but the cost will come down, whereas the cost of human labor (i.e., of surgeons and nurses) will not. So in the long run, perhaps this is cheaper.
Funny, this sentiment. It sounds bitter to the extreme, but lots of people must think something like it here in the developed world, because our birthrates aren't enough to even replace people as they die. If we thought having children was worth it, we'd have more kids.
And it's strange, because you'd think we of all people would want to bring new people into the world: We have all the money and power and rights and privileges; you'd think we'd be the ones who enjoy life and think the world is a happy enough place to warrant bringing another generation into. Yet it's the developing world where people have the most children -- places where you'd think life must on the whole look less appealing (and perhaps cruel to bring a child into). Now, part of it is to do with the availability of contraceptives here, and the increased unofficial social rights of women to ensure that the contraceptives are actually used. But in the end I think it all comes down to money. Children are expensive -- and we'd rather spend the money on ourselves.
If preserving the environment is one of your core values, this might be seen as a good thing: It reduces the rate at which the population grows and takes a little bit of the pressure off the environment (except we individually do consume more resources in the developed world, and perhaps this makes up for it). It might also be a good thing if your core value is human happiness: With more resources to go around, the average happiness on a planet with fewer people might be greater.
But it also raises the obvious question: If the existence of too many people is a bad thing, then what gives you the right to conclude that you are not one of the "too many?" And if bringing children into the world is not worth it, then were your parents fools for having you? Would it be better if you simply did not exist?
Was "H Beatty Chadwick" - that's a wealthy, old money name if I've ever heard one. He's got the money.
Similarly, "Shaqeel Lawrence Johnson" obviously mugged the old lady, and "David Emmanuel Goldsteen" weaseled that other guy out of his money. The names say it all, right?
And this is yet one more reason why the government shouldn't be giving people marriages. Anyone. Gay or straight. There's no reason to regulate marriages -- which are a religious institution and personal committment -- in any way, whatsoever. If there are financial things attached to a marriage, they should be handled as a private contract like anything else. And with the contractual obligations of marriage made explicit rather than existing in the legal code, I think this kind of garbage would end -- because two people in love wouldn't make each other sign grossly unfair contracts.
It's funny: I'm not particularly libertarian. I like government to do stuff. But I'm pretty staunchly libertarian on this because it seems like such a personal issue, and such an intrusion of government into the intimate parts of our lives which are simply not other people's business.
Some hypothetical questions and answers:
"Doesn't this mess up taxes?" Why does it need to? If someone is a dependent, it shouldn't matter why from the government's point of view.
"But what if an 80-year-old wants to marry a 10-year-old girl?" Then he's committing statutory rape. We don't need separate laws.
"But what if someone with AIDS marries someone without it? Shouldn't we require that people be tested?" Do we require government certification of sex partners in any other context?
"Don't we need a way to understand 'who is a couple' for adoption purposes?" Is it currently illegal for single people to adopt children? Or to raise children?
"But what about bigamists? Polyamorists?" The government doesn't snoop in people's homes to keep polyamorists from living together. Why should it care if people decide to make these kinds of arrangements long-term and official?
why eat an animal that is so otherwise valuable? Eat the stupid cows, that's what they are there for.
I think it's interesting to point out that this is actually one of the key points in the (non-religious side of the) Hindu argument against eating cows: They produce milk for dairy products and are therefore incredibly valuable creatures.
It looks like there's a fairly large amount of artwork involved in this game -- and it looks good; this isn't just programmer art! My only suggestion (if any of the authors read Slashdot) would be that in general the contrast and saturation of the various graphics could be increased. It'd make the graphics "pop" out a little more, and go a long way.
Steganography hides data in an innocuous-looking "carrier" signal; e.g., a photo from your vacation; it's about hiding in plain sight. These images are not pictures of anything, and very obviously represent just a bunch of bits shoved into an image. It's the difference between a spy sending the message "So, I hear the Yankees won the other day" to communicate "assassinate the prime minister" to his partner, and sending the message "ENCRYPTED: XLAIHOIUHLEGDHGDLHSLKJHDGS" to his partner. The former avoids suspicion; the latter arouses it.
Better would be to just shove the torrents into some "reserved" or "metadata" portion of the image format, say somewhere in the header, or after the last byte of the image data (or similar; I'm not super familiar with the implementation details of these formats).
Slashdot Mirror
I've had to use a handful of circuit simulators, and I've always found SPICE brittle. Perfectly reasonable circuits just refuse to simulate, even when good initial conditions are set. Now it's possible I've been doing something wrong. But on the whole I find SPICE deeply frustrating.
The most robust simulator I've used so far has been a demo version of SiMetrix. HSPICE also does a bang-up job... when it doesn't segfault. Unfortunately, HSPICE is very un-free (and buggy-as-hell), and although SiMetrix does have a demo, it's artificially limited in the size of circuits it can simulate.
Thoughts?
There is a growing number of states with "Romeo and Juliet" laws that relax the statutory rape laws so that if, say, an 18-year-old sleeps with a 17-year-old it's not considered rape. So things are improving.
Even a generation ago, however, the situation was much worse. A relative of mine knew a boy in high school who dated a girl a few (2 or 3) years younger than himself. It turned out that this girl was being sexually abused by her father, so the boyfriend encouraged her to speak out; he was the one person giving her support in this very difficult time for her. What happened? The father got into no substantial trouble; rather, he got the boyfriend sent to jail on statutory rape charges.
Yay justice!
Luckily, like I said, things are a little better today. But the laws still vary by state.
brothke starts a sentence,
The book, which might be the world's first cryptographic thriller[...].
which of course isn't true. E.g., Cryptonomicon.
These generalizations are pointless. It depends on the research project. A given research project is supported by a particular grant. Sometimes that grant comes from a government agency like the NSF. Sometimes it comes from a private company, normally with more strings attached. In either case, the arrangement does not directly involve the university; rather it is in effect directly between the professor and the funding agency.
Finally, if one were to insist on making great big generalizations, it would be more accurate to say that the taxpayers do indeed pay for the work, because a large majority of research funding comes from government agencies. This does vary a bit by field, I'll admit; in the more applied areas like semiconductor manufacturing and VLSI, there's more corporate money. But I'd say that most academic work is still government-funded. Private corporations have incentive horizons that are usually too short to justify funding any but the most obviously-applied research.
The given example seemed unrealistic (obviously you can cite other work*), but the overall situation is very real: Academics do in fact routinely (1) sign away their rights to redistribute their work in order to get it published in a "real" journal, and then (2) behave as though they still retain the rights (by posting their papers on their websites).
The real solution (or one of them) would be for academics to read the agreements they sign and renegotiate them. But most don't bother to read them (they're viewed similarly to software EULAs), and laugh them off if they do.
*(There was at least one case in which an author ran into legal trouble by reproducing either a small table of data or a figure (I forget which) in another paper; although he cited it properly by the social conventions of academia he still got hit by a lawsuit. But that's rare. Unfortunately I don't remember the original article.)
Indeed. Don't click the link in grandparent's post! Morbid curiosity inspired me to do so, and I regret it, as for the first time in a very long while a website did things which made me seriously reconsider Firefox's security. I should have heeded AC's warning -- or at least disabled Javascript.
For instance, somehow this website even manages to get Firefox to spawn Internet Explorer windows, and Windows mail (to check some newsgroup). Does Firefox have some really stupid URL handlers enabled by default? I had been reasonably sure I'd disabled this kind of crap in about:config (doublechecks... yeah, looks ok...). If that's true then Firefox out of the box is only as secure as the worst application it uses to handle any kind of URL. And as Internet Explorer now seems to be one of them, that would make Firefox no more secure than Internet Explorer. A frightening thought! So what's going on?
Users can smell the money getting involved and abandon sites as they commercialise
...with the notable exception of Facebook... :-(
Somehow they added bloat and removed features. I don't know how you can pull that off!
Particularly, MS removed gameport (MIDI) support in Vista. I can understand them assuming that newer joysticks are USB, but it's a completely ridiculous decision if you consider the requirements of musicians, since MIDI is the industry standard and it's not going away.
I learned this to my dismay when I agreed to help someone set up their very nice (music) keyboard with a new computer that had Vista preloaded. I kind-of-sort-of got it working, but this involved using some very sketchy drivers that started causing bluescreens. In the end I gave up, moved a different computer that had had XP Pro preloaded on it into its place, and set up the keyboard with that.
Why not Linux? Because outside of music this is a rather nontechnical user. And all of his music software ran on Windows. I was not about to tell him to switch from the tools he liked to Rosegarden, etc.
I will be surprised if these features have been restored in Win7.
I vaguely remember trying to set up some networking stuff on Vista that it turned out you couldn't do in the 'Home Premium' version that you could do in XP Pro. So on the whole Vista is a serious "value-subtract" for me. The new stuff it can do -- look like a Fischer-Price toy -- I don't care about, and the amount of stuff it can't do has been increased.
Indeed. I'd be pissed off too, but all this guy has achieved is to make a fool of himself. There is a classy way to put someone in his place which will earn you respect from others, and this isn't it.
The problem isn't the metal, it's the pointy bits. After all, you must have noticed that the microwave itself is made of metal.
..and get low-end torque like a locomotive?
That's what humans consume externally. All the food we eat needs energy too. Plus all the plants, oceans, etc, all need sunlight. I imagine the ocean itself eats a massive amount of the solar energy, without that energy nothing will live, weather will get fucked, etc. Keeping the atmosphere warm, etc, etc, etc.
We can use all the 'solar energy' we want and it will have zero impact on the amount of heat entering the atmosphere. Because we're not really using energy, colloquial usage notwithstanding. What we're using is exergy; that is, we're creating entropy. Energy is conserved, and it all necessarily ends up as heat.
Plants do need exergy. But surely we don't need to cover the entire surface of the globe with solar cells; covering just the Sahara, or just New Mexico, would do. Even these are too huge to be realistic, I know, but the point is that you hardly need to cover the entire surface of the Earth.
Also, all the other renewables -- wind, hydro, you-name-it -- are just solar in disguise.
(Two exceptions: (1) Tidal can extract mechanical energy stored in the Earth-moon system, and (2) geothermal harnesses heat energy stored in the earth (which may or may not be generated ultimately by radioactive decay; we don't know)).
and what about when the sun isn't shining.
I kind of like concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) more than photovoltaics. And with CSP, you can basically store heat from the sun in the form of, e.g. liquid salt, and use that to run your generators at night.
Humans consume 16 TW on average.
89 PW of solar energy reaches the earth's surface.
That's over 5,000x the power we need.
(source).
I support nuclear too, but GP is no idiot.
I respect Fox news as little as the next (sane) guy, but I really don't have that much of an issue with that clip. It's still pretty obviously a joke; they left it more-or-less in context, with Stephen Colbert telling him to say it.
Wow, you chose a bunch of silly "arguments" as your straw men. It's amusing to see someone list five ridiculous "questions" that no one would ask; rebut them; then say, "Q.E.D.!"
Yeah, kindasorta. But can you think of any better arguments against the idea? Because I haven't. And I thought these were the kinds of concerns people would have. Maybe not people on Slashdot, but people in general.
You'd think that an outpatient procedure like this would be considerably cheaper than the traditional alternative. For a while the technology will be expensive, but the cost will come down, whereas the cost of human labor (i.e., of surgeons and nurses) will not. So in the long run, perhaps this is cheaper.
Funny, this sentiment. It sounds bitter to the extreme, but lots of people must think something like it here in the developed world, because our birthrates aren't enough to even replace people as they die. If we thought having children was worth it, we'd have more kids.
And it's strange, because you'd think we of all people would want to bring new people into the world: We have all the money and power and rights and privileges; you'd think we'd be the ones who enjoy life and think the world is a happy enough place to warrant bringing another generation into. Yet it's the developing world where people have the most children -- places where you'd think life must on the whole look less appealing (and perhaps cruel to bring a child into). Now, part of it is to do with the availability of contraceptives here, and the increased unofficial social rights of women to ensure that the contraceptives are actually used. But in the end I think it all comes down to money. Children are expensive -- and we'd rather spend the money on ourselves.
If preserving the environment is one of your core values, this might be seen as a good thing: It reduces the rate at which the population grows and takes a little bit of the pressure off the environment (except we individually do consume more resources in the developed world, and perhaps this makes up for it). It might also be a good thing if your core value is human happiness: With more resources to go around, the average happiness on a planet with fewer people might be greater.
But it also raises the obvious question: If the existence of too many people is a bad thing, then what gives you the right to conclude that you are not one of the "too many?" And if bringing children into the world is not worth it, then were your parents fools for having you? Would it be better if you simply did not exist?
Was "H Beatty Chadwick" - that's a wealthy, old money name if I've ever heard one. He's got the money.
Similarly, "Shaqeel Lawrence Johnson" obviously mugged the old lady, and "David Emmanuel Goldsteen" weaseled that other guy out of his money. The names say it all, right?
And this is yet one more reason why the government shouldn't be giving people marriages. Anyone. Gay or straight. There's no reason to regulate marriages -- which are a religious institution and personal committment -- in any way, whatsoever. If there are financial things attached to a marriage, they should be handled as a private contract like anything else. And with the contractual obligations of marriage made explicit rather than existing in the legal code, I think this kind of garbage would end -- because two people in love wouldn't make each other sign grossly unfair contracts.
It's funny: I'm not particularly libertarian. I like government to do stuff. But I'm pretty staunchly libertarian on this because it seems like such a personal issue, and such an intrusion of government into the intimate parts of our lives which are simply not other people's business.
Some hypothetical questions and answers:
"Doesn't this mess up taxes?" Why does it need to? If someone is a dependent, it shouldn't matter why from the government's point of view.
"But what if an 80-year-old wants to marry a 10-year-old girl?" Then he's committing statutory rape. We don't need separate laws.
"But what if someone with AIDS marries someone without it? Shouldn't we require that people be tested?" Do we require government certification of sex partners in any other context?
"Don't we need a way to understand 'who is a couple' for adoption purposes?" Is it currently illegal for single people to adopt children? Or to raise children?
"But what about bigamists? Polyamorists?" The government doesn't snoop in people's homes to keep polyamorists from living together. Why should it care if people decide to make these kinds of arrangements long-term and official?
The end. That's what I think.
why eat an animal that is so otherwise valuable? Eat the stupid cows, that's what they are there for.
I think it's interesting to point out that this is actually one of the key points in the (non-religious side of the) Hindu argument against eating cows: They produce milk for dairy products and are therefore incredibly valuable creatures.
I take your Comic Sans with purple and raise you a high contrast obviously-tiled background image. And a tag.
It looks like there's a fairly large amount of artwork involved in this game -- and it looks good; this isn't just programmer art! My only suggestion (if any of the authors read Slashdot) would be that in general the contrast and saturation of the various graphics could be increased. It'd make the graphics "pop" out a little more, and go a long way.
Steganography hides data in an innocuous-looking "carrier" signal; e.g., a photo from your vacation; it's about hiding in plain sight. These images are not pictures of anything, and very obviously represent just a bunch of bits shoved into an image. It's the difference between a spy sending the message "So, I hear the Yankees won the other day" to communicate "assassinate the prime minister" to his partner, and sending the message "ENCRYPTED: XLAIHOIUHLEGDHGDLHSLKJHDGS" to his partner. The former avoids suspicion; the latter arouses it.
Better would be to just shove the torrents into some "reserved" or "metadata" portion of the image format, say somewhere in the header, or after the last byte of the image data (or similar; I'm not super familiar with the implementation details of these formats).
So, maybe small can be better in some cases. But there is a solid thermodynamic reason for having large powerplants:
1 - The volume (and hence power produced) of a heat engine increases with the cube of its scale.
2 - The area (and hence heat lost) from a heat engine increases with the square of its scale.
Hence, larger power plants (and jet engines, and diesel motors, and any other heat engines) tend to be significantly more efficient than smaller ones.