Remember, people are uneasy about using something without a decent level of understanding about it, and it's hard enough for the average person to understand public key cryptography
I was going to nod at the wise words, but then again, we all use banks and not many of us have any idea about how it works (fractional banking, monetary base, etc.). On the other hand, as long as you think you know, you're happy.
One thing that concerns me is the fixed maximum number of bitcoins. Lets say people acquire bitcoins, but the amount isn't enough to worry about, so they never use them, or perhaps their computer crashes and they don't have a backup. My understanding is that these bitcoins are permanently lost from the economy of bitcoins. Over time, the total supply would begin to dwindle, presumably pushing up the value of those that remain, until people become frustrated at the small supply and are motivated to move to a new system, then bitcoin is abandoned.
I don't follow you all the way. Let's say bitcoins gets stored away or lost. The remaining bitcoins increase in value (compared to other things, like bicycles). Now, there is still no reason for people to become frustrated at the small supply of bitcoins. You just pay with a small fractions of a bitcoin if one bitcoin is worth too much. As long as the currency is possible to divide into small pieces, which it is, the total amount can be anything. It's the same thing with other currencies. The terms monetary inflation and monetary deflation means exactly that, that the amount of money increases and decreases, respectively. We have it, and our currencies doesn't necessarily stop working because of that.
Most currencies are backed by a government and not just some guy on the internet. Go on, just try printing your own Fun Bucks and try spending them. Thats more or less what happened with Bitcoin but the guy managed to get other people to buy into it.
What do you really mean by "backed by a government"? Historically, as I understand it, banks, and later governments (through what we call "central banks"), guaranteed that you'd a certain amount of gold or other commodity if you gave them back a bank note. That way, a bank note was backed by gold and in a sense equal to gold - just in an easy-to-carry form. (I'm leaving out the discussion of fractional-reserve banking where new bank notes are issued but backed by the same gold, thus reducing the security of your savings.) My government no longer offers gold or anything else when you return your money and likely not yours either.
Why is it important that linux drivers have source available but we don't worry so much about seeing the firmware source?
When your operating system changes in a way that breaks the driver (or you want to use the card on a completely different OS), you can adapt the driver to your new system. From this perspective, it does not matter what is in firmware and what is in hardware.
I was involved in teaching introductory mathematics to the newly arrived students. Some time into the course, the professor in charge scratched his large, grey beard, stared into the distance and told me that "There are still too many students [having not dropped out]. We'll have to scare a few more of them away.".:-)
I suspect he was only half joking and planning on increasing the pace on the next lecture. It seems they count on a significant fraction of the admitted students to carefully assess the situation and come to the conclusion that "AAARGH! I'M STUDYING NIGHT AND DAY AND STILL HAVE NO CHANCE OF KEEPING UP. ABANDON SHIP!".
"If you were as puzzled as I was by the blog fight, as Geekwire calls it, between Google and Microsoft over whether or not Google was FISMA certified, then you will be glad to know I gathered up some of the documents from the case, Google et al v. USA, and they cause the mists to clear. I'll show you what I found, but here's the funny part — it turns out it's Microsoft whose cloud services for government aren't FISMA certified. And yet, the Department of the Interior chose Microsoft for its email and messaging cloud solution, instead of Google's offering even though Google today explains that in actually its offering actually is. It calls Microsoft's FUD 'irresponsible.'"
Please include a link to the work you are reporting on, not just to someone else reporting on someone else's reporting etc.
I think this might be the link you are looking for: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.101101
Why do manufacturers restrict the use of their products like this? For me, as a presumptive buyer, it doesn't sound like a feature at all, just silly. What is the purpose?
they really do tap phones of attorneys to get around atty/client and ive seen the records more than once.
I don't think I understand the situation here. Who are "they"? Are you the attorney? Does "atty/client" refer to some set of laws that restrict whom "they" may bug and not?
Why strive to be the exclusive manufacturer?
on
Why Nokia Is Toast
·
· Score: 1
reader high_rolla points out an interesting bit of speculation that the Nokia-Microsoft pact is part of a grand plan "to become the exclusive manufacturer of hardware for MS phones and tablets."
Why would that be such an attractive position to be in? Do people really crave Windows on their phones? Do people even know what operating system their phones are running?
I have become excited about the Nokia N900, which is like an ordinary computer in that it runs a Debian-based Linux distribution (Maemo) with a software repository and everything. Now, I was eagerly waiting for the successor to the N900, running MeeGo (the successor to Maemo) and then they go and cancel it! Unless I settle for the ageing N900, there is no reason left for me to consider Nokia products anymore. I'll just go on with my current eight or nine years old phone, which can do all the things I actually need - GSM, SMS and alarm.
Killing their most flexible Linux operating system and initiating a collaboration with Microsoft - pfft, how unimpressive.
What is that supposed to mean? You are talking like an economist! Firstly, you're making something of a dimensionality error by not specifying the time during which this growth is taking place. Secondly, you are not specifying the base in which this growth rate becomes "double-digit". Furthermore, even if the reader can guess your choice of base correctly, it conveys a rather arbitrary piece of information about the growth rate of China. I expect better from a technically-minded person. If it was actually coming from an economist, I would have just smiled, filled in the missing bits and gone on to be an appreciated colleague in that workplace, but with you, I still have my hopes that salvation is within reach and that's why I'm picking on it. Repent! Good luck!
The real interesting stuff is devising your own trading strategies. You're trying to find something that orthodoxy for many years thought impossible. And most likely, anyone who found good contrary evidence didn't publish. So it's pretty thin what you have to start with; a field where your own discoveries are actually your own, even though probably other people have come up with similar ideas (and aren't telling). Having no orthodoxy is great for seeing whether you actually understand how statistics work, and in the wider picture, how one discovers anything.
Excellent! That is something I would love to do. It goes very well with the fascination for Bayes's theorem I have picked up recently. It's the formula to rule the world!
I dearly wish I had a dataset to experiment with, but lacking practical experience of this world, I don't really know where to look for it, what data may be useful and what timescales are relevant.
By the way, with your background, there's a good chance you'll be shoehorned into some derivs type thing. You'll definitely be able to do it, although there's some new math. It's initially interesting (pick up the autobiography of Emmanuel Derman), and definitely pays well, but ultimately loses it's lustre. I think the gold rush from science to Wall Street has had it's day, and you and I weren't on one of the first wagons.
Looks like good reading. I'll pick it up as soon as I finish the book on Bayesian inference I'm entertaining myself with right now.
Thank you for sharing your insights. I appreciate this very much.
The thing is, they don't have much of a passion for finance either (it does have interesting bits, just not where everyone thinks).
I find financial markets in general rather interesting and would love to hear what interesting bits you have in mind.
I'm an engineer too who is thinking about how to get into the financial world. I'm biting my tongue not to ask you what your niche is, because I realise you might not want to divulge that. Any information on what kinds of niches there are at all would be very welcome, though.
"first-level" generalizations which are directly, perceptually obvious, such as the toddler's grasp of the fact that "pushed balls roll."
Why is this a fundamental level? Isn't the observed situation a special case (particular ball, surface, pusher and so on) from which the toddler might use induction to conclude that all pushed balls roll?
Is there a list of this kind of products? When I buy a camera or a printer I'd like to know which ones hide serial numbers or the like in the images they produce. EFF should maintain such a list, I think.
Slashdot Mirror
Those are very good points.
Also, I think I like your signature, though I'm not sure I understand it fully. :-)
Remember, people are uneasy about using something without a decent level of understanding about it, and it's hard enough for the average person to understand public key cryptography
I was going to nod at the wise words, but then again, we all use banks and not many of us have any idea about how it works (fractional banking, monetary base, etc.). On the other hand, as long as you think you know, you're happy.
One thing that concerns me is the fixed maximum number of bitcoins. Lets say people acquire bitcoins, but the amount isn't enough to worry about, so they never use them, or perhaps their computer crashes and they don't have a backup. My understanding is that these bitcoins are permanently lost from the economy of bitcoins. Over time, the total supply would begin to dwindle, presumably pushing up the value of those that remain, until people become frustrated at the small supply and are motivated to move to a new system, then bitcoin is abandoned.
I don't follow you all the way. Let's say bitcoins gets stored away or lost. The remaining bitcoins increase in value (compared to other things, like bicycles). Now, there is still no reason for people to become frustrated at the small supply of bitcoins. You just pay with a small fractions of a bitcoin if one bitcoin is worth too much. As long as the currency is possible to divide into small pieces, which it is, the total amount can be anything. It's the same thing with other currencies. The terms monetary inflation and monetary deflation means exactly that, that the amount of money increases and decreases, respectively. We have it, and our currencies doesn't necessarily stop working because of that.
Most currencies are backed by a government and not just some guy on the internet. Go on, just try printing your own Fun Bucks and try spending them. Thats more or less what happened with Bitcoin but the guy managed to get other people to buy into it.
What do you really mean by "backed by a government"? Historically, as I understand it, banks, and later governments (through what we call "central banks"), guaranteed that you'd a certain amount of gold or other commodity if you gave them back a bank note. That way, a bank note was backed by gold and in a sense equal to gold - just in an easy-to-carry form. (I'm leaving out the discussion of fractional-reserve banking where new bank notes are issued but backed by the same gold, thus reducing the security of your savings.) My government no longer offers gold or anything else when you return your money and likely not yours either.
Bitcoins do not have intrinsic value
Isn't that true for most currencies? You know, being off the gold standard and all that. I'm not saying it's a good thing - I just note it.
they do not have any gauranteed exchange rate to anything else.
Again, that's common for currencies, right?
Why is it important that linux drivers have source available but we don't worry so much about seeing the firmware source?
When your operating system changes in a way that breaks the driver (or you want to use the card on a completely different OS), you can adapt the driver to your new system. From this perspective, it does not matter what is in firmware and what is in hardware.
I was involved in teaching introductory mathematics to the newly arrived students. Some time into the course, the professor in charge scratched his large, grey beard, stared into the distance and told me that "There are still too many students [having not dropped out]. We'll have to scare a few more of them away.". :-)
I suspect he was only half joking and planning on increasing the pace on the next lecture. It seems they count on a significant fraction of the admitted students to carefully assess the situation and come to the conclusion that "AAARGH! I'M STUDYING NIGHT AND DAY AND STILL HAVE NO CHANCE OF KEEPING UP. ABANDON SHIP!".
"If you were as puzzled as I was by the blog fight, as Geekwire calls it, between Google and Microsoft over whether or not Google was FISMA certified, then you will be glad to know I gathered up some of the documents from the case, Google et al v. USA, and they cause the mists to clear. I'll show you what I found, but here's the funny part — it turns out it's Microsoft whose cloud services for government aren't FISMA certified. And yet, the Department of the Interior chose Microsoft for its email and messaging cloud solution, instead of Google's offering even though Google today explains that in actually its offering actually is. It calls Microsoft's FUD 'irresponsible.'"
Editors!
Please include a link to the work you are reporting on, not just to someone else reporting on someone else's reporting etc. I think this might be the link you are looking for: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.101101
Why do manufacturers restrict the use of their products like this? For me, as a presumptive buyer, it doesn't sound like a feature at all, just silly. What is the purpose?
Doesn't exist.
What? The subject?
they really do tap phones of attorneys to get around atty/client and ive seen the records more than once.
I don't think I understand the situation here. Who are "they"? Are you the attorney? Does "atty/client" refer to some set of laws that restrict whom "they" may bug and not?
reader high_rolla points out an interesting bit of speculation that the Nokia-Microsoft pact is part of a grand plan "to become the exclusive manufacturer of hardware for MS phones and tablets."
Why would that be such an attractive position to be in? Do people really crave Windows on their phones? Do people even know what operating system their phones are running?
I have become excited about the Nokia N900, which is like an ordinary computer in that it runs a Debian-based Linux distribution (Maemo) with a software repository and everything. Now, I was eagerly waiting for the successor to the N900, running MeeGo (the successor to Maemo) and then they go and cancel it! Unless I settle for the ageing N900, there is no reason left for me to consider Nokia products anymore. I'll just go on with my current eight or nine years old phone, which can do all the things I actually need - GSM, SMS and alarm. Killing their most flexible Linux operating system and initiating a collaboration with Microsoft - pfft, how unimpressive.
double-digit growth
What is that supposed to mean? You are talking like an economist! Firstly, you're making something of a dimensionality error by not specifying the time during which this growth is taking place. Secondly, you are not specifying the base in which this growth rate becomes "double-digit". Furthermore, even if the reader can guess your choice of base correctly, it conveys a rather arbitrary piece of information about the growth rate of China. I expect better from a technically-minded person. If it was actually coming from an economist, I would have just smiled, filled in the missing bits and gone on to be an appreciated colleague in that workplace, but with you, I still have my hopes that salvation is within reach and that's why I'm picking on it. Repent! Good luck!
Thanks a lot! Cheers!
The real interesting stuff is devising your own trading strategies. You're trying to find something that orthodoxy for many years thought impossible. And most likely, anyone who found good contrary evidence didn't publish. So it's pretty thin what you have to start with; a field where your own discoveries are actually your own, even though probably other people have come up with similar ideas (and aren't telling). Having no orthodoxy is great for seeing whether you actually understand how statistics work, and in the wider picture, how one discovers anything.
Excellent! That is something I would love to do. It goes very well with the fascination for Bayes's theorem I have picked up recently. It's the formula to rule the world!
I dearly wish I had a dataset to experiment with, but lacking practical experience of this world, I don't really know where to look for it, what data may be useful and what timescales are relevant.
By the way, with your background, there's a good chance you'll be shoehorned into some derivs type thing. You'll definitely be able to do it, although there's some new math. It's initially interesting (pick up the autobiography of Emmanuel Derman), and definitely pays well, but ultimately loses it's lustre. I think the gold rush from science to Wall Street has had it's day, and you and I weren't on one of the first wagons.
Looks like good reading. I'll pick it up as soon as I finish the book on Bayesian inference I'm entertaining myself with right now.
Thank you for sharing your insights. I appreciate this very much.
The thing is, they don't have much of a passion for finance either (it does have interesting bits, just not where everyone thinks).
I find financial markets in general rather interesting and would love to hear what interesting bits you have in mind.
I'm an engineer too who is thinking about how to get into the financial world. I'm biting my tongue not to ask you what your niche is, because I realise you might not want to divulge that. Any information on what kinds of niches there are at all would be very welcome, though.
"first-level" generalizations which are directly, perceptually obvious, such as the toddler's grasp of the fact that "pushed balls roll."
Why is this a fundamental level? Isn't the observed situation a special case (particular ball, surface, pusher and so on) from which the toddler might use induction to conclude that all pushed balls roll?
and what kind of data is it? Is it images or position coordinates for stars?
For cameras, it's virtually every single modern one that supports EXIF.
Oh, but EXIF data isn't so much of a problem. What I want to know is which devices hide information in some secret way.
they would call me a pathalogical couch potato - if they knew the word
Yeah, they probably couldn't spell it if they heard it!
Is there a list of this kind of products? When I buy a camera or a printer I'd like to know which ones hide serial numbers or the like in the images they produce. EFF should maintain such a list, I think.
I'm invincible now! Yeah!
From the article cited in the summary:
The botnet sends out millions of spam messages ...
You're a few orders of magnitude off there. Try tens of billions ...
I'd say it has the wrong dimension altogether. Is that the number of messages per second, per year, per Planck time?