There's a lot of comment here about whether it was piracy, but note that it isn't just about the 6500 seats, they actually gave copies of the software to other organisations so that they could access the police systems. In fact, that was how Micro Focus came to hear about what was going on.
Whilst I would like to see the day where our work (I am a scientist) is all in open access journals, there is still a cost. The author pays the journal instead of the library. The difficulty for authors is that we typically don't have funding for that. Maybe what we need is for our institution libraries to be paying that cost, but then the library doesn't save any money...
I second this. I fairly regularly go to live orchestral performances and frankly a CD on a decent system gives you only a tiny fraction of the live sound (note I'm not talking about amplified concerts here, before the get off my lawn comments start). I hoped that as disks were able to store more and more data we'd get closer and closer to that live sound, but now too few people are interested to make it economically worthwhile.
I'm not defending the actions of the GG or the GG's ability to dissolve parliament, but Gough Whitlam was dismissed because the opposition had control of the senate and refused to pass any budget he put forward. The country was about about to be paralysed due to the government no longer being able to pay anyone (much like nearly happened in the US recently, but didn't for different reasons). He wasn't dismissed for not doing what the US wanted. Also the GG's powers aren't archaic, they are there because the Queen is still our head of state.
It doesn't do anything of the sort and there is nothing new in the Schneier article. Why would your average non-IT journo understand about PGP? If the journo was told it was a temporary password then they are very unlikely to say, "oh no you are wrong you IT people, I know about stuff and this can't be temporary". I've been reading Slashdot for well over a decade and if someone I thought knew what they were talking about told me they had stuff encrypted with a temporary key, I would believe them (although I'd be wondering just how it was done).
The other angle is that why would the Guardian publish the key if they new it would unlock everything for everyone? It isn't in their interest (selling newspapers), plus there are plenty of reports of other media outlets being offered the data more than a year ago, so it has hardly just got out there.
I think the real story is it is all a screw up, journo knows nothing about IT, is bullsh*tted by Assange and believes what they are told. Assange isn't doing the security by the Wikileaks protocol, everything goes to crap.
"The embassy cables were shared with the Guardian through a secure server for a period of hours, after which the server was taken offline and all files removed, as was previously agreed by both parties. This is considered a basic security precaution when handling sensitive files. But unknown to anyone at the Guardian, the same file with the same password was republished later on BitTorrent, a network typically used to distribute films and music. This file's contents were never publicised, nor was it linked online to WikiLeaks in any way.
"Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.
So 1) WikiLeaks knew the password was out there many months ago, 2) if they were TOLD the password was temporary they didn't misunderstand anything...
...can someone who illegally obtained classified documents and released them into the public domain then sue someone else for stealing their illegally obtained documents and releasing them into the public domain.
For what it's worth it seems much more likely to me that someone within WikiLeaks who was disaffected them stole the data/password and release them than the Guardian did it. Just because it was the (supposedly) time limited password given to the Guardian doesn't mean no one else had access to it.
I've had Quanta (version 3.5.10) installed since 4.6.... now I'm on 4.7.... don't have an issue
Same here, but I think the problem is that we won't be able to run the KDE 3.5 version of Quanta in a KDE 5.0 environment, we'd have to install the KDE 3.5 environment and swap between that and KDE 5.0 to use it. It really amazes me that Quanta has yet to be ported to KDE 4 as there really isn't an equivalent web development environment on Linux. I've tried several others and for me as a home user with a couple of small family websites none of the other free (in both senses) web development environments have the combination of ease of use and features that Quanta has.
Awww..... It is almost heartwarming that someone still believes we live in a meritocracy.
If only I didn't find that statement so offensive and, of course, not based on any evidence. I would contend that wealth is largely based on opportunity. For instance, almost all members of the wealthy European aristocracy are dumb as a bag of spanners due to inbreeding (look at Prince Charles and his offspring), also various studies have demonstrated that most (but by no means all) of top income earners come from a high income family background.
I'd like to see the time spent on the IQ test factored in. ie people running IE6 may be in some crummy corporate cube farm with little time to play around and a lower IQ score may represent a rushed test rather than actual IQ.
If you have problem with a device in one distro, you're probably going to have the same problem in others.
Not really, each distro heavily patches the kernel, Mandriva included, and not necessarily with the same patches. Plus as the distros tend not to come out on the same day they also often have different kernel versions. On top of that the userland tools to detect and set up hardware are not the same and things like automating ndiswrapper wifi driver installs tend to be better on Mandriva
I second Mandriva, I've been using it for close to a decade and it is definitely easier to set up than Ubuntu, plus being KDE based will be a bit easier for a Windows user to get used to.
However, there is one caveat, in the last month I have started converting my PCs to OpenSUSE as Mandriva seems to be slowly dying with take-over after take-over and the current 2010.2 version is somewhat long in the tooth.
Mandriva do a live CD which can be also run from a USB disk, why not try that first?
Who's making extraordinary claims? Me because I can hear the difference between FLAC and most MP3s (which I strongly suspect most people can) or you because you claim no one can tell the difference between lossy and lossless formats and that apparently no one can tell the difference between one hi-fi and another? Now they are extraordinary claims, not to mention you being unnecessarily abusive to boot.
Incidentally, I know what difference testing is and how it is done properly (e.g. duo-trio tests), I suspect you don't. I also suspect you don't know what normalise means. If you normalise 16 bit and 24 bit music you are by definition giving them the same dynamic range and removing the very aspect you say you are testing. What you are describing seems to be an offset (and would be more appropriate). Plus I didn't even comment on the 24 vs 16 bit argument and certainly didn't claim to be an expert.
Though why I'm replying to an AC I really don't know...
Indeed, I have never understood why Slashdot is so keen to bag 'audiophiles', particularly as the majority of readers have probably never heard a high-end hi-fi, let alone good recordings of classical music on such equipment. I have no idea whether 24bit will sound better than 16 bit, but I can tell you that going from MP3 (lossy) to FLAC (lossless) has a large and obvious effect on sound quality even on my $50 PC speakers (and I'm talking indie-rock here, classical music is unlistenable on my PC). Most MP3s sound just awful on my hi-fi (which is in the same category as the parent comment and about 50% of which was second hand).
The point of 'audiophile' equipment is exactly not to listen to the equipment, but to get the best out of the source, whether it be a high quality modern recording or a poor quality 78. If you enjoy classical music (high dynamic range in almost any piece and symphonic music typically having a very complex sound) then you pretty much have to buy a decent hi-fi as the cheap ones sound so bl**dy awful. I am proud to be an 'audiophile' in the (almost) literal sense, in that I love music. I would rather hear poor recordings of good music on crap equipment than most of the dross that is released on high-end hi-fi, but I'd much rather hear good recordings of good music on good equipment.
Am I the only one that is none the wiser for that post? What is a 'wave' supposed to be or do? Can someone explain in plain English what the purpose of Google Wave is?
And I shall look forward to publishing my own version of reality once I have my hands on the LHC data.
In principle free access to data and analysis is great, in practice science is a wide area and it isn't always worthwhile or straightforward. No one is going to release their data before they have published, if you have to do that why would you bother with collecting it? By the time you have published then the data is often already out of date and the little interest there might be in it won't justify the time/cost in organising and hosting that data. Furthermore, in many areas of science there are commercial and patent reasons why you can't release the data.
In the case of areas like climate modelling, generally much of the data doesn't belong to the scientists analysing it and it wouldn't even be their decision.
So whilst I agree with you and would like to see more data sets publicly available, as a scientist, I also recognise that it is a principle that is impossible to implement as general rule.
Most of these replies are wrong about the questions. The loaded questions you suggest had a 94% yes vote, the 80% yes vote was to "having a mandatory Government Internet filter that would automatically block all access in Australia, to overseas websites containing material that is Refused Classification" Not only that, but prior to the question they were read a definition of 'Refused Classification' as:
Images and information about one or more of the following:
- child sexual abuse - bestiality - sexual violence - gratuitous, exploitative or offensive sexual fetishes; and - detailed instructions on or promotion of crime, violence or use of illegal drugs
I don't believe in any censorship, but it appears the Australian public does, whatever Slashdot thinks about it.
I'm against internet filtering as much as most Slashdotters, but the evidence is that most Australians want a filter. Have a look here: http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/internet-filter-survey-results This was a survey carried out by a program aimed at young hip tech-savy viewers and yet their survey showed that 80% of responders agree that filtering is a good idea. The filter would be democracy in action, it is we who are the vocal minority in opposing it not the Australian Christian Lobby in supporting it.
and IAAB (biologist) and I can tell you that most scientists don't have access to statisticians or don't have the grant money to pay for them. I also don't have time to learn SAS and code my own tests, therefore I use stuff like SPSS or Genstat (both of which do allow you to code your own tests as well). Just because they are easy to use doesn't mean I do or do not understand the tests, the assumptions or their results. I would say my grasp of stats is above average for my peer group, below where I would like it to be and obviously limited.
One thing that is interesting to me is that throughout my education and career I have been warned off using multiple means comparisons and LSD in particular (I understand why and have avoided where I can and the latter always). Yet the only actual statisticians I have dealt with in recent years have recommended me to use LSD on means comparisons with 10s of means. I would be hard pressed to publish those results.
In summary, whilst statisticians like to blame easy to use stats programs for bad stats the reality is they are just a tool and if statisticians can't agree on the acceptable use of the simplest procedures I'm not sure what chance the rest of us have of getting it right.
As far as Symbian is concerned they say "We currently have no plans to develop Firefox for the Symbian platform." Because after all there are so many more phones running Windows Mobile and Maemo than Symbian.....
Stick with Opera Mobile, it's an excellent mobile browser anyway.
I was living in Mildura until recently and we had a great hoo-ha for a couple of years about the multiple square km glasshouse they were going to build locally (at Wentworth if I recall correctly - the next town along the Murray). It's v hot there (regularly above 40C), v sunny (less than 300 mm rain annually) so an ideal spot for this sort of thing. However, it never happened, the next we heard they were going to build a smaller scale pilot (seems like it would be sensible to have thought of that first), and still nothing happened. I've never heard them say they weren't going to build anything, but it looks like that is the result.
In other words, don't hold your breath for this to actually happen.
First off I don't think there is any serious debate, if you took the proportion of people who have some understanding of climatology and are climate change sceptics I would be surprised if it is as high as 1:1000. When you go over those published signatures on various websites, basically none of them are practising climatologists, and the ones that are are generally private consultants, which like it or not taints them. As has been said before, the debate is political not scientific. By some understanding above, I mean at the very least a PhD or equivalent experience, I'm afraid an undergrad course simply doesn't cut it.
Secondly, whilst the idea of "open-sourcing" the data/models is a nice one and I am not against it, look at the practicalities. How many of you have the capacity to deal with hundreds of terabytes of data and run models that take days on a supercomputer? Anyway, the models are actually out there, they are peer reviewed and published. Not the source code (what would you run it on?), but the maths. Although, the peer review process means you tend to be a year or two behind the latests updates I'll admit.
The Slashdot crowd like to be against "authority", but that doesn't mean we should simply be against anything we don't like. On this front page is a story about the LHC. How many people here would claim to understand all the maths and science behind that? Of those that don't (the vast majority of us) how many think it's a load of old hokum? It's far more ridiculous and unbelievable than climate change (CO2 and methane absorb infra-red radiation - it's an indisputable fact and can be proven in any high school), but we don't have a massive crowd here talking about what a waste of money the LHC is and denying that entire area of research do we?
Slashdot Mirror
There's a lot of comment here about whether it was piracy, but note that it isn't just about the 6500 seats, they actually gave copies of the software to other organisations so that they could access the police systems. In fact, that was how Micro Focus came to hear about what was going on.
Some are. PLoS One for instance has a pretty high impact factor. It's not up there with Nature, but it's higher than the vast majority of journals.
Whilst I would like to see the day where our work (I am a scientist) is all in open access journals, there is still a cost. The author pays the journal instead of the library. The difficulty for authors is that we typically don't have funding for that. Maybe what we need is for our institution libraries to be paying that cost, but then the library doesn't save any money...
I second this. I fairly regularly go to live orchestral performances and frankly a CD on a decent system gives you only a tiny fraction of the live sound (note I'm not talking about amplified concerts here, before the get off my lawn comments start). I hoped that as disks were able to store more and more data we'd get closer and closer to that live sound, but now too few people are interested to make it economically worthwhile.
I'm not defending the actions of the GG or the GG's ability to dissolve parliament, but Gough Whitlam was dismissed because the opposition had control of the senate and refused to pass any budget he put forward. The country was about about to be paralysed due to the government no longer being able to pay anyone (much like nearly happened in the US recently, but didn't for different reasons). He wasn't dismissed for not doing what the US wanted. Also the GG's powers aren't archaic, they are there because the Queen is still our head of state.
It doesn't do anything of the sort and there is nothing new in the Schneier article. Why would your average non-IT journo understand about PGP? If the journo was told it was a temporary password then they are very unlikely to say, "oh no you are wrong you IT people, I know about stuff and this can't be temporary". I've been reading Slashdot for well over a decade and if someone I thought knew what they were talking about told me they had stuff encrypted with a temporary key, I would believe them (although I'd be wondering just how it was done).
The other angle is that why would the Guardian publish the key if they new it would unlock everything for everyone? It isn't in their interest (selling newspapers), plus there are plenty of reports of other media outlets being offered the data more than a year ago, so it has hardly just got out there.
I think the real story is it is all a screw up, journo knows nothing about IT, is bullsh*tted by Assange and believes what they are told. Assange isn't doing the security by the Wikileaks protocol, everything goes to crap.
Sorry, the first part was meant to be funny... As for the second, according to the Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online
"The embassy cables were shared with the Guardian through a secure server for a period of hours, after which the server was taken offline and all files removed, as was previously agreed by both parties. This is considered a basic security precaution when handling sensitive files. But unknown to anyone at the Guardian, the same file with the same password was republished later on BitTorrent, a network typically used to distribute films and music. This file's contents were never publicised, nor was it linked online to WikiLeaks in any way.
"Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.
So 1) WikiLeaks knew the password was out there many months ago, 2) if they were TOLD the password was temporary they didn't misunderstand anything...
...can someone who illegally obtained classified documents and released them into the public domain then sue someone else for stealing their illegally obtained documents and releasing them into the public domain.
For what it's worth it seems much more likely to me that someone within WikiLeaks who was disaffected them stole the data/password and release them than the Guardian did it. Just because it was the (supposedly) time limited password given to the Guardian doesn't mean no one else had access to it.
The patent says silicon and/or aluminum. Doesn't sound very stone like to me.
What? Stone is mostly silicon dioxide, how does something made out of silicon not sound stone like?
I've had Quanta (version 3.5.10) installed since 4.6.... now I'm on 4.7.... don't have an issue
Same here, but I think the problem is that we won't be able to run the KDE 3.5 version of Quanta in a KDE 5.0 environment, we'd have to install the KDE 3.5 environment and swap between that and KDE 5.0 to use it. It really amazes me that Quanta has yet to be ported to KDE 4 as there really isn't an equivalent web development environment on Linux. I've tried several others and for me as a home user with a couple of small family websites none of the other free (in both senses) web development environments have the combination of ease of use and features that Quanta has.
Dumb people tend to end up poor.
Awww..... It is almost heartwarming that someone still believes we live in a meritocracy.
If only I didn't find that statement so offensive and, of course, not based on any evidence. I would contend that wealth is largely based on opportunity. For instance, almost all members of the wealthy European aristocracy are dumb as a bag of spanners due to inbreeding (look at Prince Charles and his offspring), also various studies have demonstrated that most (but by no means all) of top income earners come from a high income family background.
I'd like to see the time spent on the IQ test factored in. ie people running IE6 may be in some crummy corporate cube farm with little time to play around and a lower IQ score may represent a rushed test rather than actual IQ.
They are all the same kernel.
They all use the same user land apps and daemons.
If you have problem with a device in one distro, you're probably going to have the same problem in others.
Not really, each distro heavily patches the kernel, Mandriva included, and not necessarily with the same patches. Plus as the distros tend not to come out on the same day they also often have different kernel versions. On top of that the userland tools to detect and set up hardware are not the same and things like automating ndiswrapper wifi driver installs tend to be better on Mandriva
I second Mandriva, I've been using it for close to a decade and it is definitely easier to set up than Ubuntu, plus being KDE based will be a bit easier for a Windows user to get used to.
However, there is one caveat, in the last month I have started converting my PCs to OpenSUSE as Mandriva seems to be slowly dying with take-over after take-over and the current 2010.2 version is somewhat long in the tooth.
Mandriva do a live CD which can be also run from a USB disk, why not try that first?
Who's making extraordinary claims? Me because I can hear the difference between FLAC and most MP3s (which I strongly suspect most people can) or you because you claim no one can tell the difference between lossy and lossless formats and that apparently no one can tell the difference between one hi-fi and another? Now they are extraordinary claims, not to mention you being unnecessarily abusive to boot.
Incidentally, I know what difference testing is and how it is done properly (e.g. duo-trio tests), I suspect you don't. I also suspect you don't know what normalise means. If you normalise 16 bit and 24 bit music you are by definition giving them the same dynamic range and removing the very aspect you say you are testing. What you are describing seems to be an offset (and would be more appropriate). Plus I didn't even comment on the 24 vs 16 bit argument and certainly didn't claim to be an expert.
Though why I'm replying to an AC I really don't know...
Indeed, I have never understood why Slashdot is so keen to bag 'audiophiles', particularly as the majority of readers have probably never heard a high-end hi-fi, let alone good recordings of classical music on such equipment. I have no idea whether 24bit will sound better than 16 bit, but I can tell you that going from MP3 (lossy) to FLAC (lossless) has a large and obvious effect on sound quality even on my $50 PC speakers (and I'm talking indie-rock here, classical music is unlistenable on my PC). Most MP3s sound just awful on my hi-fi (which is in the same category as the parent comment and about 50% of which was second hand).
The point of 'audiophile' equipment is exactly not to listen to the equipment, but to get the best out of the source, whether it be a high quality modern recording or a poor quality 78. If you enjoy classical music (high dynamic range in almost any piece and symphonic music typically having a very complex sound) then you pretty much have to buy a decent hi-fi as the cheap ones sound so bl**dy awful. I am proud to be an 'audiophile' in the (almost) literal sense, in that I love music. I would rather hear poor recordings of good music on crap equipment than most of the dross that is released on high-end hi-fi, but I'd much rather hear good recordings of good music on good equipment.
Because they're shit.
Try Balfours.
Because they are shit too,
try Villi's.
Am I the only one that is none the wiser for that post? What is a 'wave' supposed to be or do? Can someone explain in plain English what the purpose of Google Wave is?
Whooooossssshhhhhh!!!! That was the grand-parent post going over your head.
Now why was the parent marked insightful exactly?
And I shall look forward to publishing my own version of reality once I have my hands on the LHC data.
In principle free access to data and analysis is great, in practice science is a wide area and it isn't always worthwhile or straightforward. No one is going to release their data before they have published, if you have to do that why would you bother with collecting it? By the time you have published then the data is often already out of date and the little interest there might be in it won't justify the time/cost in organising and hosting that data. Furthermore, in many areas of science there are commercial and patent reasons why you can't release the data.
In the case of areas like climate modelling, generally much of the data doesn't belong to the scientists analysing it and it wouldn't even be their decision.
So whilst I agree with you and would like to see more data sets publicly available, as a scientist, I also recognise that it is a principle that is impossible to implement as general rule.
Most of these replies are wrong about the questions. The loaded questions you suggest had a 94% yes vote, the 80% yes vote was to "having a mandatory Government Internet filter that would automatically block all access in Australia, to overseas websites containing material that is Refused Classification" Not only that, but prior to the question they were read a definition of 'Refused Classification' as:
Images and information about one or more of the following:
- child sexual abuse
- bestiality
- sexual violence
- gratuitous, exploitative or offensive sexual fetishes; and
- detailed instructions on or promotion of crime, violence or use of illegal drugs
I don't believe in any censorship, but it appears the Australian public does, whatever Slashdot thinks about it.
I'm against internet filtering as much as most Slashdotters, but the evidence is that most Australians want a filter. Have a look here: http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/internet-filter-survey-results This was a survey carried out by a program aimed at young hip tech-savy viewers and yet their survey showed that 80% of responders agree that filtering is a good idea. The filter would be democracy in action, it is we who are the vocal minority in opposing it not the Australian Christian Lobby in supporting it.
and IAAB (biologist) and I can tell you that most scientists don't have access to statisticians or don't have the grant money to pay for them. I also don't have time to learn SAS and code my own tests, therefore I use stuff like SPSS or Genstat (both of which do allow you to code your own tests as well). Just because they are easy to use doesn't mean I do or do not understand the tests, the assumptions or their results. I would say my grasp of stats is above average for my peer group, below where I would like it to be and obviously limited.
One thing that is interesting to me is that throughout my education and career I have been warned off using multiple means comparisons and LSD in particular (I understand why and have avoided where I can and the latter always). Yet the only actual statisticians I have dealt with in recent years have recommended me to use LSD on means comparisons with 10s of means. I would be hard pressed to publish those results.
In summary, whilst statisticians like to blame easy to use stats programs for bad stats the reality is they are just a tool and if statisticians can't agree on the acceptable use of the simplest procedures I'm not sure what chance the rest of us have of getting it right.
Check here for info on other ports:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Platforms
As far as Symbian is concerned they say "We currently have no plans to develop Firefox for the Symbian platform." Because after all there are so many more phones running Windows Mobile and Maemo than Symbian.....
Stick with Opera Mobile, it's an excellent mobile browser anyway.
I was living in Mildura until recently and we had a great hoo-ha for a couple of years about the multiple square km glasshouse they were going to build locally (at Wentworth if I recall correctly - the next town along the Murray). It's v hot there (regularly above 40C), v sunny (less than 300 mm rain annually) so an ideal spot for this sort of thing. However, it never happened, the next we heard they were going to build a smaller scale pilot (seems like it would be sensible to have thought of that first), and still nothing happened. I've never heard them say they weren't going to build anything, but it looks like that is the result.
In other words, don't hold your breath for this to actually happen.
I'd mod you up, but you're already +5. That is possibly the funniest thing I've read on Slashdot in many years.
First off I don't think there is any serious debate, if you took the proportion of people who have some understanding of climatology and are climate change sceptics I would be surprised if it is as high as 1:1000. When you go over those published signatures on various websites, basically none of them are practising climatologists, and the ones that are are generally private consultants, which like it or not taints them. As has been said before, the debate is political not scientific. By some understanding above, I mean at the very least a PhD or equivalent experience, I'm afraid an undergrad course simply doesn't cut it.
Secondly, whilst the idea of "open-sourcing" the data/models is a nice one and I am not against it, look at the practicalities. How many of you have the capacity to deal with hundreds of terabytes of data and run models that take days on a supercomputer? Anyway, the models are actually out there, they are peer reviewed and published. Not the source code (what would you run it on?), but the maths. Although, the peer review process means you tend to be a year or two behind the latests updates I'll admit.
The Slashdot crowd like to be against "authority", but that doesn't mean we should simply be against anything we don't like. On this front page is a story about the LHC. How many people here would claim to understand all the maths and science behind that? Of those that don't (the vast majority of us) how many think it's a load of old hokum? It's far more ridiculous and unbelievable than climate change (CO2 and methane absorb infra-red radiation - it's an indisputable fact and can be proven in any high school), but we don't have a massive crowd here talking about what a waste of money the LHC is and denying that entire area of research do we?