Functional languages assume a certain method of problem-solving: you break a problem down into smaller problems, then break each of those down into even smaller problems, until the parts are trivial to solve. Solve the parts, recompose, and you have a solution to the overall problem.
Unfortunately, most people (including most programmers) don't solve problems that way. If they did, "software engineering" would be a day-to-day reality, not an oxymoron. People often start attacking a problem with only a vague idea of how they're going to finish. They make the first few steps, backtrack, try a different approach, solve a couple of easy but unrelated parts and then try fitting the pieces together. Maybe it doesn't work but it gives them a new insight into the structure of the problem, so they throw a couple of pieces out and try a new approach. Repeat until the problem is approximately solved. This gives rise to bugs, bloated APIs, the compile-run-debug cycle and everything else software engineering has been trying to save us from, but we keep doing it because it's the only way to solve a problem you don't really understand, and we keep using procedural languages because they support our hackish, fuzzy, intuitive style of problem-solving.
I'd be interested to know how they're going to achieve strong anonymity in a Kademlia-style DHT:
you can estimate the probability that someone originated a request rather than proxying it for someone else by the XOR distance between their ID and the requested ID
you can't hide the provider because anyone could be assigned a node ID that makes them a neighbour of the provider, so it must be possible for an arbitrary node to get the address of the node that's responsible for a given ID
same traffic analysis problems as a low-latency mix network
are the BitTorrent connections also going to be proxied?
DoS
I'm not saying it can't be done, but I suspect they're talking about plasuible deniability rather than strong anonymity, and I don't know whether anonymous Kenosis would fit well with BitTorrent.
The advertisers who fund most TV networks wouldn't be particularly happy about the networks selling ad-free copies of their shows. (DVD box sets typically don't appear until the revenue from reruns starts to dry up - look at how long it's taken for Seinfeld to appear on DVD.) HBO and other subscription-funded networks might be able to get away with it though.
a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act
At least in British law, "unlawful" refers to civil matters while "illegal" refers to criminal matters - does this mean it can be a criminal offence to conspire to commit a civil offence? At first I thought the recent wave of insane copyright legislation had created a new offence of "felony copyright infringement", but maybe it's always existed?
you want the WiFi device to be able to adjust its power settings based upon the amount of power needed to communicate to the other devices. What you DON'T want is the user taking the device out of the designed limits.
not the master but the servant of something far greater than himself.
Perhaps that also applies to the people in charge of WiFi specs.;-)
One of the writers at the Economist is certainly interested in mesh networking - they've been talking it up for a while - but without knowing who it is, how can I tell whether their interest is technical or, er, economic?
Actually the EUCD does provide a specific exemption for public libraries, provided they have no other way of getting a non-copy-protected version of the data. However, the EUCD is implemented differently in different EU member states, and implementations can choose which exemptions to include. What's legal in Germany might not be legal in the UK, for example, if and when the UK ever gets round to implementing the Directive.
The program's just a Perl script that parses the output of wiconfig and presents it in a curses interface. You could rewrite it in Python and stick the output in a PyGTK text box instead.
Re:One reason why I'm still using Window Maker....
on
Xfce 4.2.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Here's a guess based on what little I know about X internals:
Each window (not just top-level windows - things like buttons frequently have their own window which is a child of the top-level window) has a 'background' property stored by the X server. The background can be a solid colour or a bitmap. If you're using anitaliased fonts or a pixmap theme the toolkit draws its own background, but the X background property is still there - from X's point of view, anything the toolkit draws is the foreground.
When part of the window is exposed, the background is redrawn by the X server during its timeslot and then the foreground is drawn during the app's timeslot. Result: the exposed area briefly appears as a solid rectangle of the background colour.
It's easy to see this happening on a slow machine. Hide a browser window behind another window and then bring the browser window to the front - you'll see blank rectangles corresponding to the address box, menu bar, scroll bars etc. After a second the text and 3D shading appear along with the web page. I think it's particularly noticable with browsers because GUI redraws can get stuck behind much slower page redraws - I guess a single thread handles all the drawing.
To make matters worse, some apps redraw the entire window when part of it is exposed. The expose event sent by the X server contains information about which part of the window was exposed, but some apps don't do anything with this information because it's quicker to redraw the entire window than to work out which elements overlap the damaged area, or because the toolkit doesn't export the necessary information (eg GTK 1.2).
Can anyone explain why light causes more heating if it reaches the surface than if it's absorbed in the atmosphere? I would have thought that the energy released would be the same either way, so why would more light reaching the surface cause an increase in temperature?
In many DHTs (I don't know about Kenosis), your node ID is the hash of your IP address - you don't get to choose your ID. (If you have access to a large number of addresses you can try them all and pick the closest, but chances are there's someone else in the network who's closer still.)
Define "objectify". Does it mean anything more than "represent"? Are there any examples of non-objectifying representations of men or women? (I'm not flaming, I'd honestly like answers.)
To be honest, I've never heard of anyone playing Tomb Raider to see Lara's breasts bounce, despite a lot of journalistic innuendo to the contrary. Journalists seem to be more interested than gamers are in the sexuality of the characters, perhaps because the journalists' view of games is more superficial.
It could be, but unless you have a reason for assuming that only men create sexual stereotypes, Occam's razor says you shouldn't. As far as I can see, most men and most women enforce, and adhere to, sexual stereotypes.
This is spooky - yesterday after two nights with very little sleep I was pondering the fact that I seem to eat more when I haven't slept enough, and wondering whether any studies had been done. I've also noticed that music sounds better when I haven't slept enough - anyone know of any studies on that?
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, most people (including most programmers) don't solve problems that way. If they did, "software engineering" would be a day-to-day reality, not an oxymoron. People often start attacking a problem with only a vague idea of how they're going to finish. They make the first few steps, backtrack, try a different approach, solve a couple of easy but unrelated parts and then try fitting the pieces together. Maybe it doesn't work but it gives them a new insight into the structure of the problem, so they throw a couple of pieces out and try a new approach. Repeat until the problem is approximately solved. This gives rise to bugs, bloated APIs, the compile-run-debug cycle and everything else software engineering has been trying to save us from, but we keep doing it because it's the only way to solve a problem you don't really understand, and we keep using procedural languages because they support our hackish, fuzzy, intuitive style of problem-solving.
- you can estimate the probability that someone originated a request rather than proxying it for someone else by the XOR distance between their ID and the requested ID
- you can't hide the provider because anyone could be assigned a node ID that makes them a neighbour of the provider, so it must be possible for an arbitrary node to get the address of the node that's responsible for a given ID
- same traffic analysis problems as a low-latency mix network
- are the BitTorrent connections also going to be proxied?
- DoS
I'm not saying it can't be done, but I suspect they're talking about plasuible deniability rather than strong anonymity, and I don't know whether anonymous Kenosis would fit well with BitTorrent.The advertisers who fund most TV networks wouldn't be particularly happy about the networks selling ad-free copies of their shows. (DVD box sets typically don't appear until the revenue from reruns starts to dry up - look at how long it's taken for Seinfeld to appear on DVD.) HBO and other subscription-funded networks might be able to get away with it though.
They're waiting for DRM-encumbered PCs to become the norm.
Kenosis-enabled BitTorrent is not anonymous. But anonymous P2P is being worked on.
At least in British law, "unlawful" refers to civil matters while "illegal" refers to criminal matters - does this mean it can be a criminal offence to conspire to commit a civil offence? At first I thought the recent wave of insane copyright legislation had created a new offence of "felony copyright infringement", but maybe it's always existed?
Work in progress. :-)
More like 4-way yield() signs :-)
OK then, can you hardwire the limits?
Once again discretionary powers make a mockery of the concept of equal treatment under the law.
Perhaps that also applies to the people in charge of WiFi specs. ;-)
One of the writers at the Economist is certainly interested in mesh networking - they've been talking it up for a while - but without knowing who it is, how can I tell whether their interest is technical or, er, economic?
Good grief! I was under the impression the draft implementation had been sent back to the Patent Office. Thanks for the unwelcome news. :-)
That's rich coming from a magazine that doesn't publish the names of its journalists.
Actually the EUCD does provide a specific exemption for public libraries, provided they have no other way of getting a non-copy-protected version of the data. However, the EUCD is implemented differently in different EU member states, and implementations can choose which exemptions to include. What's legal in Germany might not be legal in the UK, for example, if and when the UK ever gets round to implementing the Directive.
You can't buy SVR4 bumper stickers.
I guess that means you'll be submitting a patch then. ;-)
The program's just a Perl script that parses the output of wiconfig and presents it in a curses interface. You could rewrite it in Python and stick the output in a PyGTK text box instead.
Each window (not just top-level windows - things like buttons frequently have their own window which is a child of the top-level window) has a 'background' property stored by the X server. The background can be a solid colour or a bitmap. If you're using anitaliased fonts or a pixmap theme the toolkit draws its own background, but the X background property is still there - from X's point of view, anything the toolkit draws is the foreground.
When part of the window is exposed, the background is redrawn by the X server during its timeslot and then the foreground is drawn during the app's timeslot. Result: the exposed area briefly appears as a solid rectangle of the background colour.
It's easy to see this happening on a slow machine. Hide a browser window behind another window and then bring the browser window to the front - you'll see blank rectangles corresponding to the address box, menu bar, scroll bars etc. After a second the text and 3D shading appear along with the web page. I think it's particularly noticable with browsers because GUI redraws can get stuck behind much slower page redraws - I guess a single thread handles all the drawing.
To make matters worse, some apps redraw the entire window when part of it is exposed. The expose event sent by the X server contains information about which part of the window was exposed, but some apps don't do anything with this information because it's quicker to redraw the entire window than to work out which elements overlap the damaged area, or because the toolkit doesn't export the necessary information (eg GTK 1.2).
Can anyone explain why light causes more heating if it reaches the surface than if it's absorbed in the atmosphere? I would have thought that the energy released would be the same either way, so why would more light reaching the surface cause an increase in temperature?
Dorset will be under water - invest in seaside properties in Wiltshire.
In many DHTs (I don't know about Kenosis), your node ID is the hash of your IP address - you don't get to choose your ID. (If you have access to a large number of addresses you can try them all and pick the closest, but chances are there's someone else in the network who's closer still.)
Define "objectify". Does it mean anything more than "represent"? Are there any examples of non-objectifying representations of men or women? (I'm not flaming, I'd honestly like answers.)
To be honest, I've never heard of anyone playing Tomb Raider to see Lara's breasts bounce, despite a lot of journalistic innuendo to the contrary. Journalists seem to be more interested than gamers are in the sexuality of the characters, perhaps because the journalists' view of games is more superficial.
It could be, but unless you have a reason for assuming that only men create sexual stereotypes, Occam's razor says you shouldn't. As far as I can see, most men and most women enforce, and adhere to, sexual stereotypes.
This is spooky - yesterday after two nights with very little sleep I was pondering the fact that I seem to eat more when I haven't slept enough, and wondering whether any studies had been done. I've also noticed that music sounds better when I haven't slept enough - anyone know of any studies on that?