From the article: "These books are copy-protected, of course. You can read them on a total of six machines, counting Readers that you own and Windows computers. You can't give away or sell a book when you're done with it, much less return it to the store."
Paper books I can sell and buy second hand. I can give them to my friends.
I can read paper books no matter what operating system I am using.
Priced $8 to $16 apiece, from Sony's online store. If Sony is serious about replacing paper with e-books, then the price will have to come down. I'm never going to pay that much for any DRM'd media.
because all the coolest games yet to be released are going to require DirectX 10. You geeks and gamers out there spend a lot of money on the latest graphics hardware, and you want to see those geometry shaders at work, right?
you are right, but this only makes it worse! The article mentions nine blank squares on a screen from which to choose. That means if I steal someone's ATM card, and if I get three chances (as is the case now with typing a PIN code) to guess the right square, that means I have 33% chance to hit the jackpot!
Obviously, having more squares reduces the chance of succesfully guessing the password, but scanning lots of squares with a tactile mouse will take for ever.
The best solution I can think of is to have only two squares on the screen at the same time (left and right), and you have to 'enter' a sequence by choosing left/right a number of times. Hmmm, that might actually work.
16 mechanical pins, that is 16 bits of information, two bytes, typically equialent to two ASCII characters. Most passwords are required to be at least five characters. Add to that the fact that many pin-combinations are not useable because they are hard to distinguish, I would guess that amounts to maybe a few hundred usefull passwords. Not so secure then is it?
Or even better, instead of cracking WGA in the positive sense, someone is bound to come up with a way to trigger WGA into thinking a copy is illegal. Perhaps via a trojan or virus, or some other security exploit, many computers could be turned. A virus could activate on a certain date after a long enough incubation period... and Vista machines all over the world will become useless one-hour-browsing machines. People all over the world will get a message that their copy, paid for with their good money, is illegal. Averge Joe will take a long time to figure out it's not actually M$ messing with him, and he will be flaming pissed and hating them, oooh! (and rightly so).
With M$s reputation for software security, I don't think this is far fetched.
isn't this exactly what terrorists are aiming for, by definition, spreading terror? Except I'm not scared of terrorists but of my own government. The US and other western governments are Al Qaida's workhorses. The terrorists have almost reached their ultimate goal, complete disruption of western society. The effects of 9/11 are way beyond the wildest dreams Bin Laden ever had. Or perhaps he did expect this to happen? Kudos, you clever old bastard!
Through selective inbreeding, these cats will probably end up with a terrible set of genes, prone to decease and allergies (to humans perhaps?). But its owner has paid thousands of dollars for it, so expectations are very high. The poor creature who doesn't like to be bothered by spoiled mean little rich kids, thus doesn't live up to its price tag, will end up in asylum or worse.
Selective breeding can be just as bad as genetic modification, and isn't regulated at all.
No no no no! Given object A is moving away from you in one direction at light speed and object B is moving away from you in the other direction at the speed of light, then the speed of A relative to B is still the speed of light. And that is because time passes slower for objects near or at light speed. Don't ask me why, but that's how it works.
more specifically, men downloading porn. Click here to see teen whores *** in their *** and *** big ****. ~drool~ Click here for FREE video. ~click~. This content requires zCodec, click here to download and proceed to watch video. ~click~ Oops, where did all these popups come from. Shit, here comes my mom/girlfriend AAARGH.
The intended audience is definitely not tech savy, they only have to click click click.
The apollo missions were daring, to say the least. The stuff of heroes. The space shuttle was a spectacular innovation, capturing imagination, sci-fi come true.
The new Orion capsule is a calculated investment, nothing radical, playing it safe. It's hardly worthy to be in the news, except it's really sad that this will be the space shuttle's replacement.
The visionary positive attitude that made those legendary missions possible has been replaced by careful defensive planning. Not just with NASA. It's a sign of the times.
Ah, you don't want the startup sound, or you want to change it, then you are obviously an Advanced User. You should upgrade to Windows Vista Advanced User. Ofcourse it will be a little bit more expensive than the basic version... but it allows you to do amazing stuff never seen on computer ever before, like, errr, it comes with really cool wallpapers. But be careful, if you use a startup sound that is not MS certified, your computer may stop functioning properly. Actually, if you want to use non certified startup sound files, you must get the Windows Vista Super Advanced Administrator version, which is quite expensive, but it comes with even more cool wallpapers. WARNING: changing Vista's settings without paying big fees to MS is dangerous and illegal. MS hold the right to change the settings of your Vista installation at any time for your own good.
The article does not explain at all what quantum cryptograpy is and how it's different from the cryptograpy we all know. Ah, but here's wikipedia to the rescue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_encryption:
Quantum cryptography uses quantum mechanics for secure communications. Unlike traditional cryptography, which employs various mathematical techniques to restrict eavesdroppers from learning the contents of encrypted messages, quantum cryptography is based on the physics of information. Eavesdropping can be viewed as measurements on a physical object -- in this case the carrier of the information. Using quantum phenomena such as quantum superpositions or quantum entanglement one can design and implement a communication system which can always detect eavesdropping. This is because measurements on the quantum carrier of information disturbs it and therefore leaves traces.
You probably won't find an industry job doing only fundamental (i.e. not yet applicable) research. But I'm sure there are many technology companies that face fundamental problems when developing high-tech products. Many companies simply hack around the problem and end up making mediocre products. So, find a company that makes new and innovative products. Ofcourse, you'll begin close to the bottom (a PhD won't help you much). But if if you work hard and show initiative, you may work your way to a position where you are asked to solve problems that others can't, i.e. interesting and possibly fundamental problems. So, select a company that makes innovative products, and that is open to new ideas. You'll need to get your hands dirty and you'll need some luck.
effectively, what a workflow based UI accomplishes is that
1. you'll have to comply with a workflow that may not be your way of doing things
2. it obfuscates the features of the software, so'll you'll never know if a feature is going to work in a different context, until you try it.
Fine if you are the typical user. Hell if you are different.
So what will be the outcome of such a lawsuit? Perhaps MS will pay a fine, the sueing parties will be happy. But if you want to keep using windows, you'll still need the WGA 'critical update'. Worse, I don't think the lawsuit is going to prevent future WGA implementations. Regargdless of the outcome, the next version of windows will have something similar to WGA installed from the start. There will be a parargraph in the licence agreement when you install your (legal or illegal) copy of Vista that the software may be contacting other computers etc etc without explicit user consent etc etc and you hereby agree etc etc. People aren't going to read it, but they'll hit the "I Agree" button. No grounds for a new lawsuit. With windows, you're stuck with WGA. Take it or leave it.
on anti-satellite weapons. The USSR experimented with ground based lasers in the 70's and 80's. It was a huge succes: apparently
several western spies were blinded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon
if dear Otto can't get his printer working, that's proof! The whole open source community is scheming against him by delaying his flights. Luckely I wasn't mislead by the offending language and in the article into thinking Otto is just some dim wit who's ravings should be ignored. These accusations will no doubt be the end of open source and then... no more delays at the airport. Thank you for saving the world, Otto.
Assuming it will be possible to read MS XML schemas with other word processors such as OpenOffice.org, but it will not be possible to write. Then migrating from MS to open source should be easy. One can still read one's old documents, and new docs created with MS. And even if MS isn't going to support the open document standard, everyone can read your documents, simply by downloading OpenOffice.org. But nobody is going to migrate to MS, because that would mean not everyone can read your documents and perhaps not even read the open document formats. And the more people migrate away from MS, the stronger these effects will become. There is only one conclusion: MS will lose this battle in the long run.
the homepage for the TRIPS project:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cart/trips/
because the article doesn't do a good job at explaining the idea, which I think is very interesting. It's not mere branch prediction these people are talking about, and it's more than dumb parallel processing. They are basically fragmenting programs into small dataflow networks.
Apearently, the Vega is the answer for economically lanching small payloads. Wouldn't it be more economical to lauch many small payloads at once using a large rocket, e.g. Ariane 5. It can't be that hard to mount some kind of multi-payload carrier on the latter also...
No! If you want to discourage people to learn programming, give them a theoretical book!
To continuou your natural language analogue; children don't learn how to speak from a book. At first they just scream, then start to imitate, and by the time they get to the theory, they are already fluent speakers.
I learnt programming as a kid (in Basic), by trial and error. My dad showed me how to start the GWBasic interpretor, explained the FOR, PRINT and RUN command, and gave me a reference manual. From there I went to C, C++, Java, etc. Now, I have a Master's in computer science, and during my training I went through all the theory, and indeed I learnt many new things, but I also noticed that those who learn programming as kids write much cleaner and more elegant code than those who had to learn the basics from a book. The latter know the theory well enough, but they don't have the fluency. They haven't made all the mistakes I did as a kid. I suppose they'll improve with time. But the most profound difference is that they don't enjoy programming as much as I do.
Moral: Let them mess about on their own. Give them just enough not to get discouraged. No big books!
ofcourse, there have been several exploding cell-phone incidents. Exploding cell-phones would do the trick. Or maybe it was gass fumes that caused the expldong cell-phone incendent?
I've been writing like that for a long time! I had no idea it actually has a name...
My handwriting used to be realy terrible. Teachers were so frustrated by my handwriting, they even made my parents send me to therapy (which was sort of fashion in those days... child doesn't conform to the standard? therapy!).
The therapist simply told me to write the way I like it best, so I did. I didn't connect all the letters anymore, and I'm not a fast handwriter,
but people can read my handwriting perfectly.
Actually, I find the 'humanistic' curves more
elegant. Ofcourse the teachers were not satisfied...the school system didn't get me down though.
Guess what, my mother also writes 'humanistic'. Perhaps these old humanists were on to something...
Rick.
Slashdot Mirror
sorry, open problems have nothing to do with open source software. Mod parent 'off topic'.
From the article:
"These books are copy-protected, of course. You can read them on a total of six machines, counting Readers that you own and Windows computers. You can't give away or sell a book when you're done with it, much less return it to the store."
Paper books I can sell and buy second hand. I can give them to my friends.
I can read paper books no matter what operating system I am using.
Priced $8 to $16 apiece, from Sony's online store. If Sony is serious about replacing paper with e-books, then the price will have to come down. I'm never going to pay that much for any DRM'd media.
because all the coolest games yet to be released are going to require DirectX 10. You geeks and gamers out there spend a lot of money on the latest graphics hardware, and you want to see those geometry shaders at work, right?
Microsoft has played it's cards well.
you are right, but this only makes it worse! The article mentions nine blank squares on a screen from which to choose. That means if I steal someone's ATM card, and if I get three chances (as is the case now with typing a PIN code) to guess the right square, that means I have 33% chance to hit the jackpot!
Obviously, having more squares reduces the chance of succesfully guessing the password, but scanning lots of squares with a tactile mouse will take for ever.
The best solution I can think of is to have only two squares on the screen at the same time (left and right), and you have to 'enter' a sequence by choosing left/right a number of times. Hmmm, that might actually work.
16 mechanical pins, that is 16 bits of information, two bytes, typically equialent to two ASCII characters. Most passwords are required to be at least five characters. Add to that the fact that many pin-combinations are not useable because they are hard to distinguish, I would guess that amounts to maybe a few hundred usefull passwords. Not so secure then is it?
Or even better, instead of cracking WGA in the positive sense, someone is bound to come up with a way to trigger WGA into thinking a copy is illegal. Perhaps via a trojan or virus, or some other security exploit, many computers could be turned. A virus could activate on a certain date after a long enough incubation period... and Vista machines all over the world will become useless one-hour-browsing machines. People all over the world will get a message that their copy, paid for with their good money, is illegal. Averge Joe will take a long time to figure out it's not actually M$ messing with him, and he will be flaming pissed and hating them, oooh! (and rightly so).
With M$s reputation for software security, I don't think this is far fetched.
isn't this exactly what terrorists are aiming for, by definition, spreading terror? Except I'm not scared of terrorists but of my own government. The US and other western governments are Al Qaida's workhorses. The terrorists have almost reached their ultimate goal, complete disruption of western society. The effects of 9/11 are way beyond the wildest dreams Bin Laden ever had. Or perhaps he did expect this to happen? Kudos, you clever old bastard!
Through selective inbreeding, these cats will probably end up with a terrible set of genes, prone to decease and allergies (to humans perhaps?). But its owner has paid thousands of dollars for it, so expectations are very high. The poor creature who doesn't like to be bothered by spoiled mean little rich kids, thus doesn't live up to its price tag, will end up in asylum or worse.
Selective breeding can be just as bad as genetic modification, and isn't regulated at all.
No no no no! Given object A is moving away from you in one direction at light speed and object B is moving away from you in the other direction at the speed of light, then the speed of A relative to B is still the speed of light. And that is because time passes slower for objects near or at light speed. Don't ask me why, but that's how it works.
more specifically, men downloading porn. Click here to see teen whores *** in their *** and *** big ****. ~drool~ Click here for FREE video. ~click~. This content requires zCodec, click here to download and proceed to watch video. ~click~ Oops, where did all these popups come from. Shit, here comes my mom/girlfriend AAARGH.
The intended audience is definitely not tech savy, they only have to click click click.
The apollo missions were daring, to say the least. The stuff of heroes. The space shuttle was a spectacular innovation, capturing imagination, sci-fi come true.
The new Orion capsule is a calculated investment, nothing radical, playing it safe. It's hardly worthy to be in the news, except it's really sad that this will be the space shuttle's replacement.
The visionary positive attitude that made those legendary missions possible has been replaced by careful defensive planning. Not just with NASA. It's a sign of the times.
Ah, you don't want the startup sound, or you want to change it, then you are obviously an Advanced User. You should upgrade to Windows Vista Advanced User. Ofcourse it will be a little bit more expensive than the basic version... but it allows you to do amazing stuff never seen on computer ever before, like, errr, it comes with really cool wallpapers. But be careful, if you use a startup sound that is not MS certified, your computer may stop functioning properly. Actually, if you want to use non certified startup sound files, you must get the Windows Vista Super Advanced Administrator version, which is quite expensive, but it comes with even more cool wallpapers. WARNING: changing Vista's settings without paying big fees to MS is dangerous and illegal. MS hold the right to change the settings of your Vista installation at any time for your own good.
The article does not explain at all what quantum cryptograpy is and how it's different from the cryptograpy we all know. Ah, but here's wikipedia to the rescue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_encryption:
Quantum cryptography uses quantum mechanics for secure communications. Unlike traditional cryptography, which employs various mathematical techniques to restrict eavesdroppers from learning the contents of encrypted messages, quantum cryptography is based on the physics of information. Eavesdropping can be viewed as measurements on a physical object -- in this case the carrier of the information. Using quantum phenomena such as quantum superpositions or quantum entanglement one can design and implement a communication system which can always detect eavesdropping. This is because measurements on the quantum carrier of information disturbs it and therefore leaves traces.
You probably won't find an industry job doing only fundamental (i.e. not yet applicable) research. But I'm sure there are many technology companies that face fundamental problems when developing high-tech products. Many companies simply hack around the problem and end up making mediocre products. So, find a company that makes new and innovative products. Ofcourse, you'll begin close to the bottom (a PhD won't help you much). But if if you work hard and show initiative, you may work your way to a position where you are asked to solve problems that others can't, i.e. interesting and possibly fundamental problems. So, select a company that makes innovative products, and that is open to new ideas. You'll need to get your hands dirty and you'll need some luck.
effectively, what a workflow based UI accomplishes is that 1. you'll have to comply with a workflow that may not be your way of doing things 2. it obfuscates the features of the software, so'll you'll never know if a feature is going to work in a different context, until you try it. Fine if you are the typical user. Hell if you are different.
So what will be the outcome of such a lawsuit? Perhaps MS will pay a fine, the sueing parties will be happy. But if you want to keep using windows, you'll still need the WGA 'critical update'. Worse, I don't think the lawsuit is going to prevent future WGA implementations. Regargdless of the outcome, the next version of windows will have something similar to WGA installed from the start. There will be a parargraph in the licence agreement when you install your (legal or illegal) copy of Vista that the software may be contacting other computers etc etc without explicit user consent etc etc and you hereby agree etc etc. People aren't going to read it, but they'll hit the "I Agree" button. No grounds for a new lawsuit. With windows, you're stuck with WGA. Take it or leave it.
on anti-satellite weapons. The USSR experimented with ground based lasers in the 70's and 80's. It was a huge succes: apparently several western spies were blinded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon
if dear Otto can't get his printer working, that's proof! The whole open source community is scheming against him by delaying his flights. Luckely I wasn't mislead by the offending language and in the article into thinking Otto is just some dim wit who's ravings should be ignored. These accusations will no doubt be the end of open source and then... no more delays at the airport. Thank you for saving the world, Otto.
Assuming it will be possible to read MS XML schemas with other word processors such as OpenOffice.org, but it will not be possible to write. Then migrating from MS to open source should be easy. One can still read one's old documents, and new docs created with MS. And even if MS isn't going to support the open document standard, everyone can read your documents, simply by downloading OpenOffice.org. But nobody is going to migrate to MS, because that would mean not everyone can read your documents and perhaps not even read the open document formats. And the more people migrate away from MS, the stronger these effects will become. There is only one conclusion: MS will lose this battle in the long run.
the homepage for the TRIPS project: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cart/trips/ because the article doesn't do a good job at explaining the idea, which I think is very interesting. It's not mere branch prediction these people are talking about, and it's more than dumb parallel processing. They are basically fragmenting programs into small dataflow networks.
Apearently, the Vega is the answer for economically lanching small payloads. Wouldn't it be more economical to lauch many small payloads at once using a large rocket, e.g. Ariane 5. It can't be that hard to mount some kind of multi-payload carrier on the latter also...
To continuou your natural language analogue; children don't learn how to speak from a book. At first they just scream, then start to imitate, and by the time they get to the theory, they are already fluent speakers.
I learnt programming as a kid (in Basic), by trial and error. My dad showed me how to start the GWBasic interpretor, explained the FOR, PRINT and RUN command, and gave me a reference manual. From there I went to C, C++, Java, etc. Now, I have a Master's in computer science, and during my training I went through all the theory, and indeed I learnt many new things, but I also noticed that those who learn programming as kids write much cleaner and more elegant code than those who had to learn the basics from a book. The latter know the theory well enough, but they don't have the fluency. They haven't made all the mistakes I did as a kid. I suppose they'll improve with time. But the most profound difference is that they don't enjoy programming as much as I do.
Moral: Let them mess about on their own. Give them just enough not to get discouraged. No big books!
Hmm, this turned out a bit of a rant.
Rick.
ofcourse, there have been several exploding cell-phone incidents. Exploding cell-phones would do the trick. Or maybe it was gass fumes that caused the expldong cell-phone incendent?
I've been writing like that for a long time! I had no idea it actually has a name... My handwriting used to be realy terrible. Teachers were so frustrated by my handwriting, they even made my parents send me to therapy (which was sort of fashion in those days... child doesn't conform to the standard? therapy!). The therapist simply told me to write the way I like it best, so I did. I didn't connect all the letters anymore, and I'm not a fast handwriter, but people can read my handwriting perfectly. Actually, I find the 'humanistic' curves more elegant. Ofcourse the teachers were not satisfied...the school system didn't get me down though. Guess what, my mother also writes 'humanistic'. Perhaps these old humanists were on to something... Rick.