Wow.. quite a tirade. I hope you're being sarcastic.
In case you haven't noticed... your guys have had pretty much complete control of Iraq and haven't found any WMDs either.
And yes.. I do remember seeing some ruling or other from a judge in the US that men were no longer allowed to marry women. Sorry to hear about that.
As for hating freedom... well.. talk to the people of Guatemala, or Nicaragua or maybe the people of Iraq before *you guys* gave him millions in support, training and, according to some, bological weapons capabilities... then come and talk here.
Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. Crooks have simply found other (simpler) ways to steal. If other avenues are closed to them have no doubt that they'll get more sophisticated.
All I'm saying is that, under this system, you are no longer an active participant in any possible exploit. With many of the bank-card based exploits (eg. shoulder surfing, fake machines, etc.) You've got to actively get involved (and by extension you have an active role in avoiding fraud). With this system, if an exploit is found you'll never be the wiser.. you'll just be walking down the street and *poof* there goes a couple of grand.
Riiiiiight... and *that* can never be spoofed.. or co-opted... and encryption systems can't be broken.. and the bank never loses your money.. and everyone is honest and doesn't steal.
With enough determination people *will* compromise this system. And when someone figures that out.. watch your bank balance!
No.. but it may as well be. If you can have a transaction that requires no contact and no signature what's to stop someone from doing the same without your knowledge? From what I've read in the article the card is passive in all of this..
Think about it.
ly supposed to return crytographically secure results. i.e. You submit information to the card, it returns signed results. No data that could be usefully stolen is transferred.
Yep.. can't steal the data.. but what about the *money*?
I'd like to know where you get the idea that out of work developers were put there because of the availability of OSS. Any facts to back that up?
It seems to me that the availability of OSS would be, at worst, neutral to the number of jobs available to programmers. Even if my company used nothing but OSS software for our work we would still need developers for plug-ins and fixes.
It's not an oxymororn at all. I'm not sure which part of the word 'raw' you figure means open but a raw digital file is simply the direct dump of all of the data that the sensor (CCD or CMOS as the case may be) reads, without conversion or processing. Throw in the data about the exposure (shutter, white-balance, etc) and you have a raw-format image. This most certainly can be (and is) proprietary.
Do you deliberately read something only as far as the part that says what you want? You may want to get the blinders off and stop thinking that everyone's out to get you (or Apple, for that matter).
The footnote is also attached to the Technical Specs at the bottom of the page which discusses the expandability of the machine:
Processor and memory
256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SDRAM, expandable to up to 1GB5
So it's not just applied to the section on build to order.
In any case, anyone who knows me will realize how rediculous your assumption about my motives is.
Flight 143's problems began on the ground in Montreal. A computer known as the Fuel Quantity Information System Processor manages the entire 767 fuel loading process. The FQIS controls the fuel pumps and drives all of the 767's fuel gauges. Little is left for crew and refuelers to do but hook up the hoses and dial in the desired fuel load. But the FQIS was not working properly on Flight 143. The fault was later discovered to be a poorly soldered sensor. An improbable sequence of circuit-breaking mistakes made by an Air Canada technician independently investigating the problem defeated several layers of redundancy built into the system. This left Aircraft #604 without working fuel gauges.
[WTF! they flew without working fuel gauges?!?]....
The flight crew had never been trained how to perform the calculations. To be safe they re-ran the numbers three times to be absolutely, positively sure the refuelers hadn't made any mistakes; each time using 1.77 pounds/liter as the specific gravity factor. This was the factor written on the refueler's slip and used on all of the other planes in Air Canada's fleet. The factor the refuelers and the crew should have used on the brand new, all-metric 767 was.8 kg/liter of kerosene.
[pesky unit conversions]...
As Pearson began gliding the big bird, Quintal "got busy" in the manuals looking for procedures for dealing with the loss of both engines. There were none.. Neither he nor Pearson nor any other 767 pilot had ever been trained on this contingency.
----
Hmmm. Now.. the crew *was* able to deal with this (and this was really quite a remarkable landing. The flight crew should most definitely be commended).. but *not* because of their training from Air Canada but because of extra-curricular activities.
Well.. so far the evolutionary record bears this out. I mean.. sharks (and all their variants) have been around a lot longer (in much the same form) than primates. They were around before the K-T Extinction, made it through, and are still here today.
A few things can happen here:
- asteroid parks itself somewhere on Earth: I'm thinking that the sharks would survive this one before we would - nuclear devastation: I'd give even odds on this one. - we destroy/severely damage the biosphere (somewhat related to the previous one): well, even if we take out the sharks first we'd be following soon after. Anyone who thinks that we can blithely destroy large numbers of ecosystems and their species and continue to live on this planet needs to read up a bit on systems-based ecological theory.
The fact that we are at the top of the food chart at the moment doesn't mean that we have to be here.
This happens to be one of my pet peeves. Anyone who thinks that humans are at the top of the (supposed) food chain (or chart as you call it) has never been stalked by a cougar or a bear.
I'm not sure when/where the idea of a food chain with a bottom and a top arose but it's poppycock. There is a food *cycle* in which every thing is food for something else (what do you think happens when you die and they put you in that hole in the ground?) and humanity's place in it is no more special than a carrot's or a tiger's.
If you're talking about predator/prey relationships then humans still don't win. If anything sharks would win there (anyone out there know if Great Whites have any natural predators besides humans?)
It seems they've changed back. I too went to google groups late last night (this morning?) and was horrified at what I saw. Bad formatting and layout, missing features, etc.
I'm glad to see that it is now back to its old self. Hopefully it will stay that way.
Berj
Have people on Slashdot never heard of *renting* a movie?
You don't *have* to buy anything. We've all known well in advance that the EE was coming -- the producers have never been shy about that. The way I see it, there are at least four choices:
1) don't buy either.. rent 'em both
2) buy the theatrical version, rent the EE
3) rent the theatrical version, wait and buy the EE
4) buy both.
There isn't some magical force that's causing your wallet to pop out and buy these things.
Why is this so hard for people to deal with?
I think that people need to get past the idea that it's all about money. To me the thing about contributing to open source projects isn't about getting direct remuneration for that work but rather the payback of having access to all the other open source tools/software out there.
Sure programmer X may not get paid for his work but surely there's some value in not having to pay almost $900 (CDN) for a development suite. Programmer Y can use programmer X's new whiz-bang tool to build his whiz-bang tool. Heck.. maybe even programmer X will need/like programmer Y's tool. I'm really baffled as to why people don't get this. It's a symbiotic relationship and it works (as evidenced by the amount of high-quality OSS that we have).
Do you really think that the programmers working for no money aren't getting *something* for their efforts? Are they mentally deficient? Robots that have no need for food or sleep? I doubt it. The reward they are getting (whatever that may be) is obviously enough for them otherwise they wouldn't do it. Why go through all the work when you get nothing?
I rarely get paid for my photography and yet I've spent many thousands of dollars for my hobby. I've taken pictures many times for people and given them prints/scans/negatives without asking for a cent. Am I loony? Not especially so. I just love taking pictures, love the personal interaction that goes along with it and I have a day job that pays well. What's so hard to understand about that?
So.. those programmers (like me) who need to eat will write software for money. But in our spare time we will write OSS. Simple.
Regardless, I reject your suggestion that it makes absolutely no difference.
My assertion isn't that it makes no difference. I am making a differentiation between something that prevents an action and something that is a deterrent.
There is a mistaken assumtion out there that police and our laws are there to prevent people from doing bad things to us when in fact they are there to a) give marginal crooks pause b) to give us recourse and maybe recompense c) hopefully rehabilitate the offender. etc.
If someone is going to whack me on the head and take my money even the presence of a police officer by my side can't stop it. They guy may get caught but I've still got a lump on my noggin.
If I was worried about there being a record of something I was doing, I wouldn't do it - cameras or no cameras. I don't do anything that requires me to defend my actions.
That's a very short sighted view of things. What if you go to the bookstore every week to buy a great political magazine that you like. What if holding those political views becomes illegal someday. What's to stop your being rounded up in a witch hunt. It's been done before based on the colour of peoples' skin.. why not based on their buying habits? The political and moral landscape changes (sometimes drastically). I don't need my (currently legal) actions to be scrutinized with digital accuracy in the future.
Never had a busybody neighbour?
Certainly but if he was recording my every move for cataloging he and I would have words.;-)
What makes your assumption any better?
This is an interesting point. My initial reaction to this is that the government (as a system/body, not individual people) hasn't got the same rights as individual citizens. The burden of proof always lays with the government, not the other way around.
Umm, because you'd have to be pretty stupid to commit a crime in sight of one?
Wow.. Seems to me that the cameras in banks and convenience stores don't stop the crooks from robbing them. How do I know this? Have a look see for some of the many reality shows on TV showing crimes being comitted. Crime and stupidity tend to go hand in hand.
Sorry, I'm just not paranoid and that's not going to change. I'm not one of these people who gets uncomfortable just because someone is looking at me.
It's not about someone looking at you. It's about someone being able to record everything you do. Facial recognition software is getting more and more sophisticated by the day. Having a permanent record of everything you do that can be traced back indefinately is not something I'm terribly comfortable with.
Just because I don't have anything to hide doesn't mean that I want everyone/anyone to know my business.
We're starting to live in a society where others and our goverment in particular want to assume that we're crooks. I, for one, don't accept this and I'm curious why you do.
If it's their computer, they can use it. I'll do work on a machine that only I have access to.
Then you can do it without their paycheque.
Man.. if I hired a programmer with your attitude he'd be out of a job so fast his head would spin.
I tend to agree with your ideas about the privacy of your computer but I gotta wonder what, exactly, you need to do to/with your computer to get your job done. I've worked as a programmer for about 9 years now and I think I can count on my hands the number of times I actually needed to install something new to get my job done. I figure let the sysadmin do it and I can get on with my real job -- writing software.
Maybe the problem is that I've been working on Irix and Linux machines where I can change simple things like screen savers and backgrounds while not being able to do anything dangerous.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow.. quite a tirade. I hope you're being sarcastic.
In case you haven't noticed... your guys have had pretty much complete control of Iraq and haven't found any WMDs either.
And yes.. I do remember seeing some ruling or other from a judge in the US that men were no longer allowed to marry women. Sorry to hear about that.
As for hating freedom... well.. talk to the people of Guatemala, or Nicaragua or maybe the people of Iraq before *you guys* gave him millions in support, training and, according to some, bological weapons capabilities... then come and talk here.
All I'm saying is that, under this system, you are no longer an active participant in any possible exploit. With many of the bank-card based exploits (eg. shoulder surfing, fake machines, etc.) You've got to actively get involved (and by extension you have an active role in avoiding fraud). With this system, if an exploit is found you'll never be the wiser.. you'll just be walking down the street and *poof* there goes a couple of grand.
With enough determination people *will* compromise this system. And when someone figures that out.. watch your bank balance!
No.. but it may as well be. If you can have a transaction that requires no contact and no signature what's to stop someone from doing the same without your knowledge? From what I've read in the article the card is passive in all of this.. Think about it.
Yep.. can't steal the data.. but what about the *money*?
I'd like to know where you get the idea that out of work developers were put there because of the availability of OSS. Any facts to back that up?
It seems to me that the availability of OSS would be, at worst, neutral to the number of jobs available to programmers. Even if my company used nothing but OSS software for our work we would still need developers for plug-ins and fixes.
It's not an oxymororn at all. I'm not sure which part of the word 'raw' you figure means open but a raw digital file is simply the direct dump of all of the data that the sensor (CCD or CMOS as the case may be) reads, without conversion or processing. Throw in the data about the exposure (shutter, white-balance, etc) and you have a raw-format image. This most certainly can be (and is) proprietary.
If that were the case I would hope that it would be worded:
Memory *should* be installed...
not
Memory *must* be installed...
No?
The footnote is also attached to the Technical Specs at the bottom of the page which discusses the expandability of the machine:
Processor and memory
256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SDRAM, expandable to up to 1GB5
So it's not just applied to the section on build to order.
In any case, anyone who knows me will realize how rediculous your assumption about my motives is.
Do I have to spell everything out?
The implication is, of course, that any sort of digestion will void the warrantee.
Duh.
Umm.. how about straight from the horse's mouth (er.. keyboard):
http://www.apple.com/ca/macmini/specs.html
Look at footnote number 5 down at the bottom:
Memory upgrade must be performed by an Apple Authorized Service Provider.
You can get off your high-horse Mr. Pilot-Man..
....
.8 kg/liter of kerosene.
...
http://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html
And I quote:
Flight 143's problems began on the ground in Montreal. A computer known as the Fuel Quantity Information System Processor manages the entire 767 fuel loading process. The FQIS controls the fuel pumps and drives all of the 767's fuel gauges. Little is left for crew and refuelers to do but hook up the hoses and dial in the desired fuel load. But the FQIS was not working properly on Flight 143. The fault was later discovered to be a poorly soldered sensor. An improbable sequence of circuit-breaking mistakes made by an Air Canada technician independently investigating the problem defeated several layers of redundancy built into the system. This left Aircraft #604 without working fuel gauges.
[WTF! they flew without working fuel gauges?!?]
The flight crew had never been trained how to perform the calculations. To be safe they re-ran the numbers three times to be absolutely, positively sure the refuelers hadn't made any mistakes; each time using 1.77 pounds/liter as the specific gravity factor. This was the factor written on the refueler's slip and used on all of the other planes in Air Canada's fleet. The factor the refuelers and the crew should have used on the brand new, all-metric 767 was
[pesky unit conversions]
As Pearson began gliding the big bird, Quintal "got busy" in the manuals looking for procedures for dealing with the loss of both engines. There were none.. Neither he nor Pearson nor any other 767 pilot had ever been trained on this contingency.
----
Hmmm. Now.. the crew *was* able to deal with this (and this was really quite a remarkable landing. The flight crew should most definitely be commended).. but *not* because of their training from Air Canada but because of extra-curricular activities.
Berj
Well.. so far the evolutionary record bears this out. I mean.. sharks (and all their variants) have been around a lot longer (in much the same form) than primates. They were around before the K-T Extinction, made it through, and are still here today.
A few things can happen here:
- asteroid parks itself somewhere on Earth: I'm thinking that the sharks would survive this one before we would
- nuclear devastation: I'd give even odds on this one.
- we destroy/severely damage the biosphere (somewhat related to the previous one): well, even if we take out the sharks first we'd be following soon after. Anyone who thinks that we can blithely destroy large numbers of ecosystems and their species and continue to live on this planet needs to read up a bit on systems-based ecological theory.
This happens to be one of my pet peeves. Anyone who thinks that humans are at the top of the (supposed) food chain (or chart as you call it) has never been stalked by a cougar or a bear.
I'm not sure when/where the idea of a food chain with a bottom and a top arose but it's poppycock. There is a food *cycle* in which every thing is food for something else (what do you think happens when you die and they put you in that hole in the ground?) and humanity's place in it is no more special than a carrot's or a tiger's.
If you're talking about predator/prey relationships then humans still don't win. If anything sharks would win there (anyone out there know if Great Whites have any natural predators besides humans?)
Berj
It seems they've changed back. I too went to google groups late last night (this morning?) and was horrified at what I saw. Bad formatting and layout, missing features, etc. I'm glad to see that it is now back to its old self. Hopefully it will stay that way. Berj
Have people on Slashdot never heard of *renting* a movie? You don't *have* to buy anything. We've all known well in advance that the EE was coming -- the producers have never been shy about that. The way I see it, there are at least four choices: 1) don't buy either.. rent 'em both 2) buy the theatrical version, rent the EE 3) rent the theatrical version, wait and buy the EE 4) buy both. There isn't some magical force that's causing your wallet to pop out and buy these things. Why is this so hard for people to deal with?
You do realize that Mission: Impossible was a TV show from the sixties, right? Who stole what now?
I think that people need to get past the idea that it's all about money. To me the thing about contributing to open source projects isn't about getting direct remuneration for that work but rather the payback of having access to all the other open source tools/software out there.
Sure programmer X may not get paid for his work but surely there's some value in not having to pay almost $900 (CDN) for a development suite. Programmer Y can use programmer X's new whiz-bang tool to build his whiz-bang tool. Heck.. maybe even programmer X will need/like programmer Y's tool. I'm really baffled as to why people don't get this. It's a symbiotic relationship and it works (as evidenced by the amount of high-quality OSS that we have).
Do you really think that the programmers working for no money aren't getting *something* for their efforts? Are they mentally deficient? Robots that have no need for food or sleep? I doubt it. The reward they are getting (whatever that may be) is obviously enough for them otherwise they wouldn't do it. Why go through all the work when you get nothing?
I rarely get paid for my photography and yet I've spent many thousands of dollars for my hobby. I've taken pictures many times for people and given them prints/scans/negatives without asking for a cent. Am I loony? Not especially so. I just love taking pictures, love the personal interaction that goes along with it and I have a day job that pays well. What's so hard to understand about that?
So.. those programmers (like me) who need to eat will write software for money. But in our spare time we will write OSS. Simple.
My assertion isn't that it makes no difference. I am making a differentiation between something that prevents an action and something that is a deterrent.
There is a mistaken assumtion out there that police and our laws are there to prevent people from doing bad things to us when in fact they are there to a) give marginal crooks pause b) to give us recourse and maybe recompense c) hopefully rehabilitate the offender. etc.
If someone is going to whack me on the head and take my money even the presence of a police officer by my side can't stop it. They guy may get caught but I've still got a lump on my noggin.
If I was worried about there being a record of something I was doing, I wouldn't do it - cameras or no cameras. I don't do anything that requires me to defend my actions.
That's a very short sighted view of things. What if you go to the bookstore every week to buy a great political magazine that you like. What if holding those political views becomes illegal someday. What's to stop your being rounded up in a witch hunt. It's been done before based on the colour of peoples' skin.. why not based on their buying habits? The political and moral landscape changes (sometimes drastically). I don't need my (currently legal) actions to be scrutinized with digital accuracy in the future.
Never had a busybody neighbour?
Certainly but if he was recording my every move for cataloging he and I would have words. ;-)
What makes your assumption any better?
This is an interesting point. My initial reaction to this is that the government (as a system/body, not individual people) hasn't got the same rights as individual citizens. The burden of proof always lays with the government, not the other way around.
Wow.. Seems to me that the cameras in banks and convenience stores don't stop the crooks from robbing them. How do I know this? Have a look see for some of the many reality shows on TV showing crimes being comitted. Crime and stupidity tend to go hand in hand.
Sorry, I'm just not paranoid and that's not going to change. I'm not one of these people who gets uncomfortable just because someone is looking at me.
It's not about someone looking at you. It's about someone being able to record everything you do. Facial recognition software is getting more and more sophisticated by the day. Having a permanent record of everything you do that can be traced back indefinately is not something I'm terribly comfortable with.
Just because I don't have anything to hide doesn't mean that I want everyone/anyone to know my business.
We're starting to live in a society where others and our goverment in particular want to assume that we're crooks. I, for one, don't accept this and I'm curious why you do.
PS. I'm Canadian.
Then you can do it without their paycheque.
Man.. if I hired a programmer with your attitude he'd be out of a job so fast his head would spin.
I tend to agree with your ideas about the privacy of your computer but I gotta wonder what, exactly, you need to do to/with your computer to get your job done. I've worked as a programmer for about 9 years now and I think I can count on my hands the number of times I actually needed to install something new to get my job done. I figure let the sysadmin do it and I can get on with my real job -- writing software.
Maybe the problem is that I've been working on Irix and Linux machines where I can change simple things like screen savers and backgrounds while not being able to do anything dangerous.
I'd say that this is analagous (loosely) to closed software makers patenting the bejeebus out of everything they can get their hands on.
Free Algos == chickens
Patented Algos == dead chickens
Gotta protect the coop.