Witness the recent flap over reprogramming ATM machines to spit out $20 but debit $5. While it was embarrassing and cost some ATM owners money, it was not a national crisis. If someone steals votes, investigation is left to partisan poll watchers, if the fraud is detectable at all. The end result is a crooked politician in power for 2-6 years where we can only hope they do nothing worse than steal money.
You could validate an ATM network by creating test accounts and sending anonymous people around to inject transactions. No such capability exists in voting systems because the electronic system has to functionally emulate the paper based system.
Its like saying that instead of ATMs and central bank computers we will introduce Asimov positronic robot bank tellers to manually total up your balance.
Honestly, anybody who looks at those targeted ads must realize that information is being harvested to create them.
The other day I was on some site with google ads and the advertisment was trying to sell me something like bike shops in Melbourne, Australia which is scary because I do live in that city and I do buy a lot from bike shops but the site I was browsing had nothing to do with that.
Homosexuality would never be an evolutionary adaptation for one simple reason--the "gay gene" doesn't reproduce itself.
It might if genes can be transmitted horizontally. If you can induce a fertile male to express your genes then you get the benefit of passing on your genes and somebody else raises your offspring.
Why is the prostate so close to the rectum anyway?
Another idea that has come up is to simply take the shuttle SRBs and external tank as they are now (or replace the shuttle SRBs with liquid rockets) and strap a set of rocket engines on to the rear end of the external tank (to substitute for the shuttle main engines) and strap a payload in (on top of it or on the back in place of the orbiter).
This is the Big Dumb Booster which Stephen Baxter has popularised in several of his books. As you imply there are lots of components available and lots of ways of putting them together.
Doing it without spending $1000 per kilo to orbit is another matter. The biggest cost of the shuttle is the workforce required on the ground all the time. Shuttle derivatives have a reputation as existing only to keep shuttle workers employed.
A bit of a reckless move for a bit of extra speed. It would have been more respectable if the Ubuntu team had worked on optimizing bash instead of going for a crippled, but faster, shell.
Might have been better if they had ported the internal stuff to dash and left the default shell alone. Doesn't other me. All of my scripting is on my netbsd server and it uses ksh.
Yes, you may now rag on Notes if you like -- of course, keep in mind it remains the only real solution for a major corporation that by public key authentication and encryption by default
Like many other good ideas I believe it was given a bad reputation by the lusers who invested their careers in notes as a platform for everything.
Once standardisation sets in notes becomes a reason not to do stuff, or at least not to bother trying.
TFA doesn't say what the patent actually claims but my bet is it is for something quite specific. Perhaps it comes down to the issue another poster raised: how do you retain the pc-ipod relationship if the ipod is out at starbucks buying music?
Maybe the ipod has to log in to the itunes server as the copy of itunes on the pc.
In 1997 I went to Europe and the USA with my then girlfriend. Her visa application was rejected because she didn't own a house (she was renting) she didn't own a car (we had crashed it and were buying a new car with the insurance money) and she didn't have a permanent job (she is a medical doctor).
We had to appeal through the US consulate here in Melbourne and we finally got the visa but it was a pretty horrible procedure being interviewed by a total arsehole on the other side of a big sheet of bullet resistant glass.
For all I know the Australian immigration people are just as bad. Customs and immigration is one field where government workers are least accountable.
I have told this story a few times on/. but here it goes again
Last year I went with my wife and son to Adelaide for a short holiday. Coming back I left my laptop in the checked in luggage (having too much stuff to carry on board). At the time it only ran Mandrake. The laptop was fully charged because I always ran it on mains power.
Boarding time arrived and thw airline announced a delay to "change a wheel". I could see the plane right outside the windows. Adelaide airport is pretty small. No wheels got changed.
We got home and I got the laptop out. The battery was totally flat. After all the warnings not to use a laptop during takeoff and landings did these guys leave my laptop running in the cargo hold? Did they do that because it doesn't have a "start" button?
The solution to the possible peroxides (not the life-detection) issue is to fly a set of sample materials and see how they react to martian atmosphere and regolith.
I don't understand. What do you mean by "fly a set of sample materials"
Thanks for reminding me. I downloaded the sources once and tried to compile it. Its a pity that netbsd and ubuntu (the two platforms I use) don't have it in their package collections.
One question which I can't find an answer to on the web site is about the distinction between client and server in Croquet. Does every node have to have a UI? The reason I ask is that my server runs all the time which is desirable if you want to publish an environment. My workstations are laptops and tend to come and go.
The computers most of us use give us a virtual desktop complete with files and crap scattered around. Minus spilled coffee I suppose.
It would be next to impossible to convince a non-technical person to virtually walk through a filing system to find their work when they could just browse to it normally without the 3D stuff.
But the desktop paradigm breaks down when we talk about portable devices. These devices are both much more limited (by being small) and much more powerful (because by their nature they have to be close to the user and their environment) that a totally new way of seeing the inside of your system may have traction.
William Gibson had this in Virtual Light. Neal Stephenson had it in Snow Crash. I think it will eventually come true.
One thing I am sure of. If I am going to have little LCD screens in my glasses I want to focus on infinity to look at them. Not sure how you do that without massive amounts of refractive material in the small space available.
If it is beyond geosync, then its orbital period is larger than one day. The "tension" it will exert on the station is thus not radial away from the earth but towards slowing the station down. Slowed down, the station will fall closer to the earth.
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You could validate an ATM network by creating test accounts and sending anonymous people around to inject transactions. No such capability exists in voting systems because the electronic system has to functionally emulate the paper based system.
Its like saying that instead of ATMs and central bank computers we will introduce Asimov positronic robot bank tellers to manually total up your balance.
Because it would save Theo a heck of a lot of bandwidth?
The other day I was on some site with google ads and the advertisment was trying to sell me something like bike shops in Melbourne, Australia which is scary because I do live in that city and I do buy a lot from bike shops but the site I was browsing had nothing to do with that.
Apollo 12. Neil Armstrong landed 5km beyond the intended target. I was a good thing they left the precision landing to Pete Conrad.
This might interest you
I think he must be going for the slow down cowboy record
How about a Chinese conservative?
It might if genes can be transmitted horizontally. If you can induce a fertile male to express your genes then you get the benefit of passing on your genes and somebody else raises your offspring.
Why is the prostate so close to the rectum anyway?
Let me guess, compulsory folate in vegemite?
This is the Big Dumb Booster which Stephen Baxter has popularised in several of his books. As you imply there are lots of components available and lots of ways of putting them together.
Doing it without spending $1000 per kilo to orbit is another matter. The biggest cost of the shuttle is the workforce required on the ground all the time. Shuttle derivatives have a reputation as existing only to keep shuttle workers employed.
Not using conventional hosting solutions, I assume. I wonder if there is an OSS version of it (client and server) floating around?
Might have been better if they had ported the internal stuff to dash and left the default shell alone. Doesn't other me. All of my scripting is on my netbsd server and it uses ksh.
Like many other good ideas I believe it was given a bad reputation by the lusers who invested their careers in notes as a platform for everything.
Once standardisation sets in notes becomes a reason not to do stuff, or at least not to bother trying.
What did they say after you made those points?
TFA doesn't say what the patent actually claims but my bet is it is for something quite specific. Perhaps it comes down to the issue another poster raised: how do you retain the pc-ipod relationship if the ipod is out at starbucks buying music?
Maybe the ipod has to log in to the itunes server as the copy of itunes on the pc.
So if I choose to visit the US again I could be locked up without due process? I think I will give that one a miss, thanks.
Looks like they could do with help from some open source sysadmins.
In 1997 I went to Europe and the USA with my then girlfriend. Her visa application was rejected because she didn't own a house (she was renting) she didn't own a car (we had crashed it and were buying a new car with the insurance money) and she didn't have a permanent job (she is a medical doctor).
We had to appeal through the US consulate here in Melbourne and we finally got the visa but it was a pretty horrible procedure being interviewed by a total arsehole on the other side of a big sheet of bullet resistant glass.
For all I know the Australian immigration people are just as bad. Customs and immigration is one field where government workers are least accountable.
I have told this story a few times on /. but here it goes again
Last year I went with my wife and son to Adelaide for a short holiday. Coming back I left my laptop in the checked in luggage (having too much stuff to carry on board). At the time it only ran Mandrake. The laptop was fully charged because I always ran it on mains power.
Boarding time arrived and thw airline announced a delay to "change a wheel". I could see the plane right outside the windows. Adelaide airport is pretty small. No wheels got changed.
We got home and I got the laptop out. The battery was totally flat. After all the warnings not to use a laptop during takeoff and landings did these guys leave my laptop running in the cargo hold? Did they do that because it doesn't have a "start" button?
I didn't know that! Even the bacteria sample from the Surveyor 3 camera was considered likely to be contamination on Earth.
I don't understand. What do you mean by "fly a set of sample materials"
Thanks for reminding me. I downloaded the sources once and tried to compile it. Its a pity that netbsd and ubuntu (the two platforms I use) don't have it in their package collections.
One question which I can't find an answer to on the web site is about the distinction between client and server in Croquet. Does every node have to have a UI? The reason I ask is that my server runs all the time which is desirable if you want to publish an environment. My workstations are laptops and tend to come and go.
Do you want to be modified?
The computers most of us use give us a virtual desktop complete with files and crap scattered around. Minus spilled coffee I suppose.
It would be next to impossible to convince a non-technical person to virtually walk through a filing system to find their work when they could just browse to it normally without the 3D stuff.
But the desktop paradigm breaks down when we talk about portable devices. These devices are both much more limited (by being small) and much more powerful (because by their nature they have to be close to the user and their environment) that a totally new way of seeing the inside of your system may have traction.
William Gibson had this in Virtual Light. Neal Stephenson had it in Snow Crash. I think it will eventually come true.
One thing I am sure of. If I am going to have little LCD screens in my glasses I want to focus on infinity to look at them. Not sure how you do that without massive amounts of refractive material in the small space available.
No, sorry. It sounds a bit like something Robert Forward would have come up with.
It is not in orbit. It is tethered.