Yes, exactly. All I'm doing is to point out a potentially very serious problem with this method as opposed to current techniques. Does capitalism imply that I can not criticize one method over another?
How often do you have to enter a lot of text with only one hand free?
All the time. This is mostly used for SMS, and the usual setting for an SMS message is while you're standing, waiting for a bus or train, or similar situations. It's actually very quick to type out a quick message by your thumb, without having to put down your bag or similar.
I don't have any problems with people sending html mail whaen it's at least done properly, with both the html and a text version attached, so the client can choose which to display. Whenever I travel, the easiest, fastest and most dependable way for me to read my mail is with pine, and pure html mails screws it up. if there is a 'text/plain' version attached, any client can at least read the message.
I use Galeon, actually. I run it in full-screen mode, and use the mouse pointer as a pointer for the talk. The presentation is normal web pages with discreet next and back links at the bottom, and an 'up' link to a start page with thumbnails of all slides, so I can pick and choose at the inevitable question phase at the end.
This also means I can run movies and such inline, as it's just to put those into the slides/webpages as usual.
A friend avoids clicking links by going through the slides beforehand, backing up, then using the 'forward' hotkey to switch, but I feel more comfortable clicking.
The most important skills to learn in college or at university are foundational subjects. For people in Computer Science and similar, this means mathematics (there is no such thing as too much math), writing (what's the use of an idea if you can't communicate it?), and the core subjects of your chosen field. What specific programming languages you use is totally incidental; with a good grounding in programming you can pick up a new language in a couple of weeks.
This is not to say peripheral subjects is not a good idea - in moderation. Take a semester learning something non-technical just for fun. Among CS students in Lund, psychology and philosophy are both very popular (and a semester of psychology is what landed me in cognitive science...). The point is not to learn a useful work skill during that semester, it's to pig out on something just because it's fun to learn. The point is to do it in moderation; having peripheral subjects half of all your college time seems way too much.
Well, nuclear energy has a few problems. First, it is expensive (it is subsidized in most - if not all - countries that have it). Uranium mines are among the worst pollutants in the world (think strip mining coal, but with a toxic product). Most methods of treating the waste (including some intriguing ways that generate extra energy) require long transports of a radioactive, highly toxic product.
Yes, nuclear energy is way better than burning coal. It is also not a good long-term solution.
Alright, let's assume 1% false positives. A fairly large airport might have about 100.000 people passing through every day (1 flight every 3 minutes, 200 passengers to an airplane). This means that 1.000 people would have to be stopped, searched and identified daily - for one terrorist. If you have a file with 100 different terroroists, the rate would be a lot more than that. What size organization would you suppose be needed to process 1.000+ people a day through background checks, identification and so on? How many lawsuits would it generate? How much would this add to the scheduling problems airlines already have?
And, in the end, of course, it would only mean that putative terrorists would be chosen from people without a file at the FBI.
I don't disagree. However, for a political platform, as opposed to a narrow interest-group kind of thing, you suddenly get harder questions.
Do you support or oppose a ban on private assault weapon ownership? Are you for a strong, inclusive state, or a hands-off minimal government? How much power should private corporations have?
These questions won't be answered with _any_ kind of unity among the people frequenting slashdot, and will quickly disintegrate the community.
It's time we stop lobbying for open source software......
Let's form an open source economy.... with open source media... and an open source polity.
This is an example of what I mean. Yes, we all pretty much agree on Open Source/Free software. I doubt, though, that everybody will want to extend this concept as far as you do. A lot of people view OSS simply as a good way to develop and distribute software, and would not have anything to do with a comprehensive overhaul of the current society. See the OSS/Free debate as a good example.
Slashdot has managed to steer clear of political standpoints by focusing on narrowly defined issues. Trying to make it a political (in the classical sense) community will fracture it. The best way we have of influencing the world around us is precisely by _not_ becoming political; people will listen to us because we don't have a further political agenda. If the community satarts taking a political stance, we will lose a lot of our voice, as we will be viewed as partisan.
...but for what? On these boards, people range from libertarians to conservatives to social democrats to socialists, with a generous sprinkle of anarchists, nihilists, new-age followers and so on ad infinitum. A political movement would become an excercise in flamage withing ten seconds of platform discussion.
A non-political, issue-focused lobbying group, on the other hand, could be workable. On the other hand, EFF fills that role quite well already.
And that's exactly my problem with Java. I avoid Java programs whenever possible, as the UI tends to be slow and clunky, and just doesn't fit in with all the other UI apps I use (it won't follow themes or UI conventions).
I _do_ like the fact that I can run stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have had accessible, but as soon as there is a native application to do the same thing, the native one just is so much nicer.
Once the Gnome and KDE people have agreed on some interoperability standards (drag and drop, themability and UI functionality), I'll have KDE apps to consider as native as well. Would it be _that_ difficult to reimplement the Java UI in a native manner as well?
...which would mean that all OSS programs are automatically outlawed.
This is a bill just as much against Open Source or Free Software as it is against crypto. What's even worse (if it can get worse) is that personal development could be outlawed unless you sign an agreement not to share your source or similar. Maybe even a 'programmer' license, with only licensees being allowed near a compiler.
IANAC either (though I have a few years of university math):
The point is, the pad needs to be aptternless, or it becomes very easy to break (no years or even days to break it). What you would do is add two patterns over each other, while with a random pad you would add a pattern with a non-pattern that destroys the original pattern totally.
Take the (admittedly ridiculous) case of encrypting Beatles "Abbey Road". As it happens, the key is Beatles "Abbey Road". The result is a file of all zeroes. Now, if an opponent got to know that a part of the message was a few bars from one of those songs - and the encrypted file was all zero, it doesn't take a genius to guess what the pad key for the rest of it is.
In a similar (but more complicated) manner, if the opponent can guess a part of the message (for economic espionage, some of the words "Pricing", "offer" or "profit" can be assumed, for example). Try these words out on the encrypted text. If the key is non-random, you will find a part of the key that can be searched for to recover the rest of the key. As an aside, this can be done even when the random distribution isn't perfect; once you can guess that some random values are more likely than others, you can take a large step forward in breaking the crypto. This is BTW also why you shouldn't use the same random key more than once.
With a truly random key system, on the other hand, breaking a part of the message (or using hints) will not help you recover any other part.
Many of the methods you can use to do this kind of analysis can be automated, so for a weak pad, you might talk about a breking time of minutes or hours, rather than weeks.
Except that an actual audio CD is a very poor choice. The pad _needs_ to be random. This brings the obvoius problem of how to transmit that random data to the other party without a listener copying the thing.
A cd full of random bits can really only have one use, though, so it's not as innocent an item than an audio CD would have been.
Well if no nicotine reaches the brain (and the article never said that it only reduces the level), it doesn't matter _how_ much you smoke or snuff, you'll have no choice but to go through the withdrawal. If the vaccine is reasonably long-lasting (upwards of a year or more), having sudden relapses at the pub or at parties won't do anything for you either, severing the behavioral connection between chemical bliss and holding a damp cardboard tube in your mouth.
If it is effective (i.e. stops _any_ nicotine from reaching the brain), this could be a very good thing.
LegOS _is_ rather close to LEGO, after all, and it is emphatically in the same market. So, I'd think that a name change on the part of Noga would not be amiss.
Other than that, I hope that LEGO leaves well alone (giving an official 'stamp of approval' to high quality projects are a good idea, though). As the article emphasizes several times, LEGOs business is selling kits, not software. Having a prominent wanring that messing with the OS will void your warranty should be enough.
Mindrover from Loki has the same idea. The difference is really that it doesn't require you to learn a full programming language, but allows you to program your robots through a graphical building-block kind of interface, with counters, gates and stuff.
Nono, I didn't say you did not get a good education; you do (though it depends more on you than the quality of the school). I just pointed out that academics are no different than other people, and that the ideal of the disinterested, unworldly academic does not exist in real life.
Slashdot Mirror
And looking back, I realize I overreacted a bit to your post - and should have written a friendlier post even had you meant what I thought you meant.
/Janne
Yes, exactly. All I'm doing is to point out a potentially very serious problem with this method as opposed to current techniques. Does capitalism imply that I can not criticize one method over another?
/Janne
How often do you have to enter a lot of text with only one hand free?
All the time. This is mostly used for SMS, and the usual setting for an SMS message is while you're standing, waiting for a bus or train, or similar situations. It's actually very quick to type out a quick message by your thumb, without having to put down your bag or similar.
/Janne
...except that I use the thumb to press every key on the cellphone, holding it with the rest of the fingers.
If we have to use every finger, this means you suddenly need to use both hands just to use the phone - not a step forward.
/Janne
I don't have any problems with people sending html mail whaen it's at least done properly, with both the html and a text version attached, so the client can choose which to display. Whenever I travel, the easiest, fastest and most dependable way for me to read my mail is with pine, and pure html mails screws it up. if there is a 'text/plain' version attached, any client can at least read the message.
/Janne
I use Galeon, actually. I run it in full-screen mode, and use the mouse pointer as a pointer for the talk. The presentation is normal web pages with discreet next and back links at the bottom, and an 'up' link to a start page with thumbnails of all slides, so I can pick and choose at the inevitable question phase at the end.
This also means I can run movies and such inline, as it's just to put those into the slides/webpages as usual.
A friend avoids clicking links by going through the slides beforehand, backing up, then using the 'forward' hotkey to switch, but I feel more comfortable clicking.
/Janne
Then, your .sig
> Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And if it weren't, a couple of "fun" courses wouldn't do much to tell you otherwise, eh?
It's a catchphrase from Paranoia.
/Janne
The most important skills to learn in college or at university are foundational subjects. For people in Computer Science and similar, this means mathematics (there is no such thing as too much math), writing (what's the use of an idea if you can't communicate it?), and the core subjects of your chosen field. What specific programming languages you use is totally incidental; with a good grounding in programming you can pick up a new language in a couple of weeks.
This is not to say peripheral subjects is not a good idea - in moderation. Take a semester learning something non-technical just for fun. Among CS students in Lund, psychology and philosophy are both very popular (and a semester of psychology is what landed me in cognitive science...). The point is not to learn a useful work skill during that semester, it's to pig out on something just because it's fun to learn. The point is to do it in moderation; having peripheral subjects half of all your college time seems way too much.
/Janne
Yes, it's not nearly 1/1000. It's often much less than that. They're mining some ores that are 50% uranium.
But it needs to be enriched. Using pure uranium with the blend of isotopes you find naturally isn't going to accomplich much, energy-wise.
/Janne
Well, it's not nearly 1/1000 - remember, what you use in a reactor is enriched, and to get a kilo of enriched uranium you need many tons of ore.
/Janne
Well, nuclear energy has a few problems. First, it is expensive (it is subsidized in most - if not all - countries that have it). Uranium mines are among the worst pollutants in the world (think strip mining coal, but with a toxic product). Most methods of treating the waste (including some intriguing ways that generate extra energy) require long transports of a radioactive, highly toxic product.
Yes, nuclear energy is way better than burning coal. It is also not a good long-term solution.
/Janne
Alright, let's assume 1% false positives. A fairly large airport might have about 100.000 people passing through every day (1 flight every 3 minutes, 200 passengers to an airplane). This means that 1.000 people would have to be stopped, searched and identified daily - for one terrorist. If you have a file with 100 different terroroists, the rate would be a lot more than that. What size organization would you suppose be needed to process 1.000+ people a day through background checks, identification and so on? How many lawsuits would it generate? How much would this add to the scheduling problems airlines already have?
And, in the end, of course, it would only mean that putative terrorists would be chosen from people without a file at the FBI.
/Janne
I don't disagree. However, for a political platform, as opposed to a narrow interest-group kind of thing, you suddenly get harder questions.
Do you support or oppose a ban on private assault weapon ownership? Are you for a strong, inclusive state, or a hands-off minimal government? How much power should private corporations have?
These questions won't be answered with _any_ kind of unity among the people frequenting slashdot, and will quickly disintegrate the community.
/Janne
It's time we stop lobbying for open source software......
Let's form an open source economy.... with open source media... and an open source polity.
This is an example of what I mean. Yes, we all pretty much agree on Open Source/Free software. I doubt, though, that everybody will want to extend this concept as far as you do. A lot of people view OSS simply as a good way to develop and distribute software, and would not have anything to do with a comprehensive overhaul of the current society. See the OSS/Free debate as a good example.
Slashdot has managed to steer clear of political standpoints by focusing on narrowly defined issues. Trying to make it a political (in the classical sense) community will fracture it. The best way we have of influencing the world around us is precisely by _not_ becoming political; people will listen to us because we don't have a further political agenda. If the community satarts taking a political stance, we will lose a lot of our voice, as we will be viewed as partisan.
/Janne
...but for what? On these boards, people range from libertarians to conservatives to social democrats to socialists, with a generous sprinkle of anarchists, nihilists, new-age followers and so on ad infinitum. A political movement would become an excercise in flamage withing ten seconds of platform discussion.
A non-political, issue-focused lobbying group, on the other hand, could be workable. On the other hand, EFF fills that role quite well already.
/Janne
UI is what matters now to people.
And that's exactly my problem with Java. I avoid Java programs whenever possible, as the UI tends to be slow and clunky, and just doesn't fit in with all the other UI apps I use (it won't follow themes or UI conventions).
I _do_ like the fact that I can run stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have had accessible, but as soon as there is a native application to do the same thing, the native one just is so much nicer.
Once the Gnome and KDE people have agreed on some interoperability standards (drag and drop, themability and UI functionality), I'll have KDE apps to consider as native as well. Would it be _that_ difficult to reimplement the Java UI in a native manner as well?
/Janne
I use gnut, a console gnutella client available here
It's fast, featureful and is by now very stable, despite the low version number.
/Janne
...which would mean that all OSS programs are automatically outlawed.
This is a bill just as much against Open Source or Free Software as it is against crypto. What's even worse (if it can get worse) is that personal development could be outlawed unless you sign an agreement not to share your source or similar. Maybe even a 'programmer' license, with only licensees being allowed near a compiler.
/Janne
IANAC either (though I have a few years of university math):
The point is, the pad needs to be aptternless, or it becomes very easy to break (no years or even days to break it). What you would do is add two patterns over each other, while with a random pad you would add a pattern with a non-pattern that destroys the original pattern totally.
Take the (admittedly ridiculous) case of encrypting Beatles "Abbey Road". As it happens, the key is Beatles "Abbey Road". The result is a file of all zeroes. Now, if an opponent got to know that a part of the message was a few bars from one of those songs - and the encrypted file was all zero, it doesn't take a genius to guess what the pad key for the rest of it is.
In a similar (but more complicated) manner, if the opponent can guess a part of the message (for economic espionage, some of the words "Pricing", "offer" or "profit" can be assumed, for example). Try these words out on the encrypted text. If the key is non-random, you will find a part of the key that can be searched for to recover the rest of the key. As an aside, this can be done even when the random distribution isn't perfect; once you can guess that some random values are more likely than others, you can take a large step forward in breaking the crypto. This is BTW also why you shouldn't use the same random key more than once.
With a truly random key system, on the other hand, breaking a part of the message (or using hints) will not help you recover any other part.
Many of the methods you can use to do this kind of analysis can be automated, so for a weak pad, you might talk about a breking time of minutes or hours, rather than weeks.
/Janne
Except that an actual audio CD is a very poor choice. The pad _needs_ to be random. This brings the obvoius problem of how to transmit that random data to the other party without a listener copying the thing.
A cd full of random bits can really only have one use, though, so it's not as innocent an item than an audio CD would have been.
/Janne
Well if no nicotine reaches the brain (and the article never said that it only reduces the level), it doesn't matter _how_ much you smoke or snuff, you'll have no choice but to go through the withdrawal. If the vaccine is reasonably long-lasting (upwards of a year or more), having sudden relapses at the pub or at parties won't do anything for you either, severing the behavioral connection between chemical bliss and holding a damp cardboard tube in your mouth.
If it is effective (i.e. stops _any_ nicotine from reaching the brain), this could be a very good thing.
/Janne
LegOS _is_ rather close to LEGO, after all, and it is emphatically in the same market. So, I'd think that a name change on the part of Noga would not be amiss.
Other than that, I hope that LEGO leaves well alone (giving an official 'stamp of approval' to high quality projects are a good idea, though). As the article emphasizes several times, LEGOs business is selling kits, not software. Having a prominent wanring that messing with the OS will void your warranty should be enough.
/Janne
Mindrover from Loki has the same idea. The difference is really that it doesn't require you to learn a full programming language, but allows you to program your robots through a graphical building-block kind of interface, with counters, gates and stuff.
/Janne
Eh? Only thing I ever had to do was to enable it in X (and that's got nothing to do with GNOME).
/Janne
Nono, I didn't say you did not get a good education; you do (though it depends more on you than the quality of the school). I just pointed out that academics are no different than other people, and that the ideal of the disinterested, unworldly academic does not exist in real life.
/Janne