In another coincidence for this thread, I'm doing a porter right now. Boiled it on Wednesday, so I'm not far along. I, too, have that "Ale Pail" kit. Small world, eh?
Computer science shows us that it's impossible to accurately detect a virus (some combination of undecideability and Rice's theorem, I'm thinking). Spyware is a "virus" in this sense, and since we can't detect viruses, we can't get rid of them. In theory, then, it's impossible to have a secure computer program (because even if it did, we couldn't detect that it had achieved such security).
Obviously there are heuristics that antivirus (and antispyware) programs use to "detect" viruses, but ultimately the virus-maker-versus-virus-detector problem is an arms race: virus-detectors try to keep up with virus-makers by discovered new heuristics to "detect" viruses, and virus-makers keep trying to outwit these new heuristics with ever-more-clever viruses.
In practice, a human being can detect the difference between a legitimate application and an unwanted application (hence the popups from firewalls and antivirus tools asking, "Do you want to allow this activity?"), but also in practice, many human beings do not exercise this ability. My grandmother, for example, sees those questions as a nuisance and simply clicks the left-most button no matter what the question asks.
Both in theory and in practice, this is an arms race and ultimately an impossibility.
I agree that the plurality vote is bad, but IRV is flawed, too. Approval voting is the way to go. Read a good summary of the issues at
ElectionMethods.org.
(If only I hadn't just spent my last mod point...)
What is oxymoronic about being a beer snob? Beer has a bad reputation in this culture, and although I know you were joking, I just had to respond.
I don't know about "oxy", but "moronic" are those commercials urging you to choose X Lite over Y Lite on "taste". Thanks, I choose water, since chlorine leaves a better aftertaste than either of you...
You are correct about the "chocolate" beers -- that is a darker roasted malt. However, lambics especially and often weizens will be flavored with actual fruit. Check out Beer Advocate for all your beer knowledge needs.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's reactors run VMS on Alpha. (Well, OK, the monitoring and remote control systems run VMS on Alpha; as other posters have said, the control room itself is a hardware control board driving embedded PLCs and such.)
>Then we learned the real lesson of DARE: Our teachers, our school principals, the police, Nancy Reagan, and that girl on TV with the frying pan lied to us all through our childhood.
Thanks, you made it all so much clearer for me. Oh, wait, no you didn't, since that was a direct quote from the article. Which I then immediately refuted.
I think you confused me (the poster) with the guy in the article (who has a vested interest in seeing RFID take off).
I don't think RFID is per se a privacy concern-- I disagree with his logic and pointed out that he's lying.
As another poster has correctly deduced, I don't care one bit that Kroger's knows I buy "Great Value" medium salsa every time I'm in, Tostitos Scoops chips every other time, and a sixpack Sam Adams Cream Stout every third trip--I was merely pointing out that Mr. McGregor was lying through his teeth.
That sounds an awful lot like the "major US company" I'm working for right now... I'm gonna assume that mi compania es tu compania.
Now the phones work like this: XXXX : intraoffice 9-NXX-XXXX : local POTS call 8-NXX-XXXX : interoffice 8-1-NPA-NXX-XXXX : long distance POTS call
So you can see that the difference from the old scheme is that we must include the leading "1" for POTS long distance.
A further caveat is that we use "6" instead of "8" here in this building. I think it's a different configuration for the PBX, or something to that effect, but I was warned when I got here that most of our other facilities use "8" and it confuses them if you let them find out that we don't. So my email signature just says "DialCOMM: *NXX-XXXX" whereas most people's say "DialCOMM: 8*NXX-XXXX".
C'mon now, Fredericksburg isn't the middle of nowhere (my gf is a theatre major at MWC). Lake Anna, on the other hand (her parents are moving from Centreville to Lake Anna in May), IS the middle of nowhere. =)
Homer and Krusty look like clones because it was supposed to be a Groening in-joke about Bart not respecting his dad but idolizing Krusty... I can't say I get it, but that's what they tell me:)
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QBrew just earned you a spot in my friends list :) Thanks for putting that out there.
In another coincidence for this thread, I'm doing a porter right now. Boiled it on Wednesday, so I'm not far along. I, too, have that "Ale Pail" kit. Small world, eh?
Computer science shows us that it's impossible to accurately detect a virus (some combination of undecideability and Rice's theorem, I'm thinking). Spyware is a "virus" in this sense, and since we can't detect viruses, we can't get rid of them. In theory, then, it's impossible to have a secure computer program (because even if it did, we couldn't detect that it had achieved such security).
Obviously there are heuristics that antivirus (and antispyware) programs use to "detect" viruses, but ultimately the virus-maker-versus-virus-detector problem is an arms race: virus-detectors try to keep up with virus-makers by discovered new heuristics to "detect" viruses, and virus-makers keep trying to outwit these new heuristics with ever-more-clever viruses.
In practice, a human being can detect the difference between a legitimate application and an unwanted application (hence the popups from firewalls and antivirus tools asking, "Do you want to allow this activity?"), but also in practice, many human beings do not exercise this ability. My grandmother, for example, sees those questions as a nuisance and simply clicks the left-most button no matter what the question asks.
Both in theory and in practice, this is an arms race and ultimately an impossibility.
I agree that the plurality vote is bad, but IRV is flawed, too. Approval voting is the way to go. Read a good summary of the issues at ElectionMethods.org.
As an A-student undergrad in computer science with a minor in sociology....
...I'm not sure where I stand on your comparison. ;)
When did your order get "sent to vendor"? I'm trying to figure out when mine will arrive...
Welcome to my friends list.
I stand corrected, thank you! No wonder I didn't like the stuff.
God, you're making me want a Turbodog right now...
(If only I hadn't just spent my last mod point...)
What is oxymoronic about being a beer snob? Beer has a bad reputation in this culture, and although I know you were joking, I just had to respond.
I don't know about "oxy", but "moronic" are those commercials urging you to choose X Lite over Y Lite on "taste". Thanks, I choose water, since chlorine leaves a better aftertaste than either of you...
That's because a "pale ale" has only one thing in common with a "light beer" -- it's made of water, yeast, and hops.
You are correct about the "chocolate" beers -- that is a darker roasted malt. However, lambics especially and often weizens will be flavored with actual fruit. Check out Beer Advocate for all your beer knowledge needs.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's reactors run VMS on Alpha. (Well, OK, the monitoring and remote control systems run VMS on Alpha; as other posters have said, the control room itself is a hardware control board driving embedded PLCs and such.)
>Set waypoints to fly over your neighbors house and feed back live video of what their kids are doing...
Or their girlfriends...
>Then we learned the real lesson of DARE: Our teachers, our school principals, the police, Nancy Reagan, and that girl on TV with the frying pan lied to us all through our childhood.
A-fucking-men.
You know, I am utterly glad to see that I'm not the only person who took the time to work that out...
Or, someone at your sister's work may not have heard that all of those names are urban legends.
(I did notice that there really was a pitcher with the last name "Lemongello", though...)
Holy crap, you have just described my life to a T... Thank you for making me laugh out loud for the first time all day.
Actually we have 511 in Virginia as well. I only know this because my university helped develop it.
Thanks, you made it all so much clearer for me. Oh, wait, no you didn't, since that was a direct quote from the article. Which I then immediately refuted.
I think you confused me (the poster) with the guy in the article (who has a vested interest in seeing RFID take off).
I don't think RFID is per se a privacy concern-- I disagree with his logic and pointed out that he's lying.
As another poster has correctly deduced, I don't care one bit that Kroger's knows I buy "Great Value" medium salsa every time I'm in, Tostitos Scoops chips every other time, and a sixpack Sam Adams Cream Stout every third trip--I was merely pointing out that Mr. McGregor was lying through his teeth.
That sounds an awful lot like the "major US company" I'm working for right now... I'm gonna assume that mi compania es tu compania.
Now the phones work like this:
XXXX : intraoffice
9-NXX-XXXX : local POTS call
8-NXX-XXXX : interoffice
8-1-NPA-NXX-XXXX : long distance POTS call
So you can see that the difference from the old scheme is that we must include the leading "1" for POTS long distance.
A further caveat is that we use "6" instead of "8" here in this building. I think it's a different configuration for the PBX, or something to that effect, but I was warned when I got here that most of our other facilities use "8" and it confuses them if you let them find out that we don't. So my email signature just says "DialCOMM: *NXX-XXXX" whereas most people's say "DialCOMM: 8*NXX-XXXX".
C'mon now, Fredericksburg isn't the middle of nowhere (my gf is a theatre major at MWC). Lake Anna, on the other hand (her parents are moving from Centreville to Lake Anna in May), IS the middle of nowhere. =)
Homer and Krusty look like clones because it was supposed to be a Groening in-joke about Bart not respecting his dad but idolizing Krusty... I can't say I get it, but that's what they tell me :)
"On July 9th, 1997, Skynet became self-aware..."