I remember thinking it would be useful to use the SSID of wireless access points to issue commands to cameras to disable things like the flash (useful in an art gallery for instance). It turns out there are already a whole bunch of patents which have been issued in the last 10 years which cover this idea.
During the course of my PhD, and into my postdoc, I have performed "first principles" molecular dynamics simulations of various molecules and materials. What's the connection with high frequency trading? Well, those calculations, which involve a pretty decent solution to the SchrÃdinger equation, typically involved simulating the motion of atoms over timescales on the order of picoseconds. One of the advantages of such simulations (compared to say classical molecular dynamics) is that there are no empirical parameters involved. This is physics speak for "we didn't force the answer we wanted with a fit". One of the disadvantages of these methods, however, is that they can only look at processes which occur on short timescales, due to the high computational cost of the method. Just to be clear - LOTS of important physical processes occur on timescales longer than picoseconds. I would have thought the economy was one of those processes.
Now, back to high frequency trading. Why the push to faster transactions? The answer is simple: if you get there first, you do better. Believe it or not, firms with faster computers which are physically closer to the exchange have an advantage over those which are slower or farther away. The speed of light is actually something people consider when they are running financial transactions. If this seems ridiculous to you, it should. Traders argue that the existence of high frequency trading increases market liquidity. Let's assume for the moment that this is true (it's not 100% clear to me that it is) - is there a better way to achieve this goal? Everything I have read on this topic suggests that the typical business model is for large financial institutions to buy really expensive hardware which they place between legitimate buyers and sellers, siphoning off some cash in the process.
So, what is the alternative? How do we prevent time, money, and effort going into executing financial transactions on such ludicrous timescales?
I think the answer (as a Canadian I feel qualified to propose this), is that we need to establish Standard Financial Time. The concept is similar to Universal Time - if you want to build a railway, people need to agree what time it is. With SFT, exchanges need to establish the equivalent of a financial pulse. Transactions take place at regular intervals. The fact that you submitted your buy slightly before mine should mean nothing, provided they both arrive before the next beat. What should this timescale be? Well, if we want to have an efficient system (in the global sense), then everyone who would like to make a buy or sell offer needs to have an opportunity to do so. That means the pulse can be, at minimum, the time it takes to send a buy/sell order from any terminal in the world. For light to go from one side of the world to the other takes ~ 0.13 seconds. Anything faster than that, and you end up with financial types buying up computers in random spots on the earth trying to take advantage of information asymmetry due to the speed of light.
One problem this does create is that it is possible now to have two buys for a single sell, or vice versa. Fortunately the fix is straightforward. You either match the buyer and seller by a random number or, if you want to get fancy, you do something like the single transferable vote. Every buy order consists of an initial offer and a max offer (think of what happens when you bid on ebay). This works out well for sellers since they will maximize their sale price, and it works for buyers because they can minimize their payout. No matter how you go about doing it, the monetary advantage to shorter ethernet cables goes away; that can only be a good thing.
This is really what OLPC was supposed to be. A $100 (or $200, whatever) ereader and laptop. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line people got more interested in trying to deploy untested educational software rather than make the ebook part work properly. It still doesn't.
Why is IPv6 not based on MAC adresses? I've never understood this. Every piece of electronics capable of connecting to a network has at least one unique hardware id already. Why do we need a new one?
Is there are reason not to just use this number? Or have I misunderstood, and this actually IS the plan.
Now the danger of unsecured wireless is no longer something that only tech heads know about. When you make it easy like this, it gets a lot of attention quickly. This makes it much more likely for websites to fix it. To be honest with you, I thought that gmail had been converted completely to SSL after the incident with Chinese authorities breaking into the accounts.
Where is the official link from Google explaining this? I saw an email from "Google", and writeup from the Guardian about that email. This sounds like a phishing attempt.
I understand why the initial reaction to these stories is always "omg this is crap". One point that I would like to raise though (which may or may not be relevant in this particular article, but certainly is true for other digital connectors) is that just because you are sending a digital signal does not mean that what goes in one side HAS to the same as what goes out the other. If you are talking about moving files around your hard drive, or the internet for that matter, then sure, a copy is a copy, bit for bit. That doesn't happen by accident though, rather it requires error checking and frequent retransmission (read about TCP/IP for example and you'll see what I mean). When you are working with a DAC however, such error correction and retransmission is not necessarily present. DACs take streams of 0's and 1's and convert them into a electrical potential at regular intervals. If a bit is wrong, the corresponding analog output will of course be wrong. Since there was signal before and after this erroneous one, however, the effect on the soundwave might be minimal. Think of a record that skips - you lose and regain signal. If the timespan over which this occurs is sort, you might not notice (or your system may simply be unable to respond). If this is the type of setup you are working with, then the quality of cable may in fact matter. A bad cable could mean internal reflections, dispersion, extinction, etc. For an internet connection this would mean higher average ping and lower bandwidth. For audio, it would mean reduced quality of sound reproduction.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind for a project like this is that you should do everything you can to ensure a high quality recording. Don't worry about transcription at this point - just focus on getting content. When algorithms (and computers) have improved in 5-10 years time you can do the transcription. It might even be useful to record the sessions with a video camera. Maybe speech recognition tech of the future will use lipreading in addition to the approaches that are used now.
It seems like there should be some way to "hack" the audio transcription that google offers through google voice or youtube. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to upload a file. With youtube, if you make a fake movie, it gives an error that it can't be transcribed. Getting google voice to work would require some sort of phone interface I suppose...
Like everyone else here, I have too many accounts with too many different sets of password rules. They all have memories and want to rotate often. My solution: I installed pgp and made an encrypted text file (1024 bit or something like that) with usernames and accounts in it. This means I have ONE password which I can change when I like.
Passphrases are not harder to brute force. In general if you have 26 random characters its hard to brute force.
But people aren't random number generators. If I were trying to brute force a password that required at least one special character, I think I would first try all combinations without special characters, and simply add ! at the end. Need a number? add a 1 to the beginning. I'm pretty sure a lot of people do it this way.
Another advantage of passphrases is that you get REALLY fast at typing them. People tend to type random alphanumeric passwords relatively slowly, probably because we are not used to typing them as often as, say, the word "the". It is a lot more difficult for someone to see what your password is if all of you fingers are moving across the keyboard at high speed.
Slashdot Mirror
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Distance
2^10 - 1
Right, and it's bad to turn off a car even for a second, and you're better off running the AC with the window open.
Set your watch ahead by 6 ms.
Why didn't they just keep the shuttles up in space when they were done with them? They could have been used as extra rooms on ISS, a new lab, etc etc.
I remember thinking it would be useful to use the SSID of wireless access points to issue commands to cameras to disable things like the flash (useful in an art gallery for instance). It turns out there are already a whole bunch of patents which have been issued in the last 10 years which cover this idea.
Now, back to high frequency trading. Why the push to faster transactions? The answer is simple: if you get there first, you do better. Believe it or not, firms with faster computers which are physically closer to the exchange have an advantage over those which are slower or farther away. The speed of light is actually something people consider when they are running financial transactions. If this seems ridiculous to you, it should. Traders argue that the existence of high frequency trading increases market liquidity. Let's assume for the moment that this is true (it's not 100% clear to me that it is) - is there a better way to achieve this goal? Everything I have read on this topic suggests that the typical business model is for large financial institutions to buy really expensive hardware which they place between legitimate buyers and sellers, siphoning off some cash in the process.
So, what is the alternative? How do we prevent time, money, and effort going into executing financial transactions on such ludicrous timescales?
I think the answer (as a Canadian I feel qualified to propose this), is that we need to establish Standard Financial Time. The concept is similar to Universal Time - if you want to build a railway, people need to agree what time it is. With SFT, exchanges need to establish the equivalent of a financial pulse. Transactions take place at regular intervals. The fact that you submitted your buy slightly before mine should mean nothing, provided they both arrive before the next beat. What should this timescale be? Well, if we want to have an efficient system (in the global sense), then everyone who would like to make a buy or sell offer needs to have an opportunity to do so. That means the pulse can be, at minimum, the time it takes to send a buy/sell order from any terminal in the world. For light to go from one side of the world to the other takes ~ 0.13 seconds. Anything faster than that, and you end up with financial types buying up computers in random spots on the earth trying to take advantage of information asymmetry due to the speed of light.
One problem this does create is that it is possible now to have two buys for a single sell, or vice versa. Fortunately the fix is straightforward. You either match the buyer and seller by a random number or, if you want to get fancy, you do something like the single transferable vote. Every buy order consists of an initial offer and a max offer (think of what happens when you bid on ebay). This works out well for sellers since they will maximize their sale price, and it works for buyers because they can minimize their payout. No matter how you go about doing it, the monetary advantage to shorter ethernet cables goes away; that can only be a good thing.
This is really what OLPC was supposed to be. A $100 (or $200, whatever) ereader and laptop. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line people got more interested in trying to deploy untested educational software rather than make the ebook part work properly. It still doesn't.
It doesn't work past about zoom level 48-50. Fractals aren't supposed to have bottoms.
Nice job.
So what happens 20 Years from now when we all have robots connected to the internet living in our offices and houses?
This explains everything. It's the 13th colony.
Why is IPv6 not based on MAC adresses? I've never understood this. Every piece of electronics capable of connecting to a network has at least one unique hardware id already. Why do we need a new one? Is there are reason not to just use this number? Or have I misunderstood, and this actually IS the plan.
Well, that was fun while it lasted. Time to shut down the Internet.
Follow the link provided in the email and then press "FAQ" on the website. RTFE(Read the fucking email).
So your method of confirming that an email is real is to click on links in said email. Flawless.
Now the danger of unsecured wireless is no longer something that only tech heads know about. When you make it easy like this, it gets a lot of attention quickly. This makes it much more likely for websites to fix it. To be honest with you, I thought that gmail had been converted completely to SSL after the incident with Chinese authorities breaking into the accounts.
Where is the official link from Google explaining this? I saw an email from "Google", and writeup from the Guardian about that email. This sounds like a phishing attempt.
I understand why the initial reaction to these stories is always "omg this is crap". One point that I would like to raise though (which may or may not be relevant in this particular article, but certainly is true for other digital connectors) is that just because you are sending a digital signal does not mean that what goes in one side HAS to the same as what goes out the other. If you are talking about moving files around your hard drive, or the internet for that matter, then sure, a copy is a copy, bit for bit. That doesn't happen by accident though, rather it requires error checking and frequent retransmission (read about TCP/IP for example and you'll see what I mean). When you are working with a DAC however, such error correction and retransmission is not necessarily present. DACs take streams of 0's and 1's and convert them into a electrical potential at regular intervals. If a bit is wrong, the corresponding analog output will of course be wrong. Since there was signal before and after this erroneous one, however, the effect on the soundwave might be minimal. Think of a record that skips - you lose and regain signal. If the timespan over which this occurs is sort, you might not notice (or your system may simply be unable to respond). If this is the type of setup you are working with, then the quality of cable may in fact matter. A bad cable could mean internal reflections, dispersion, extinction, etc. For an internet connection this would mean higher average ping and lower bandwidth. For audio, it would mean reduced quality of sound reproduction.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind for a project like this is that you should do everything you can to ensure a high quality recording. Don't worry about transcription at this point - just focus on getting content. When algorithms (and computers) have improved in 5-10 years time you can do the transcription. It might even be useful to record the sessions with a video camera. Maybe speech recognition tech of the future will use lipreading in addition to the approaches that are used now.
Source?
It seems like there should be some way to "hack" the audio transcription that google offers through google voice or youtube. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to upload a file. With youtube, if you make a fake movie, it gives an error that it can't be transcribed. Getting google voice to work would require some sort of phone interface I suppose...
Like everyone else here, I have too many accounts with too many different sets of password rules. They all have memories and want to rotate often. My solution: I installed pgp and made an encrypted text file (1024 bit or something like that) with usernames and accounts in it. This means I have ONE password which I can change when I like.
Passphrases are not harder to brute force. In general if you have 26 random characters its hard to brute force.
But people aren't random number generators. If I were trying to brute force a password that required at least one special character, I think I would first try all combinations without special characters, and simply add ! at the end. Need a number? add a 1 to the beginning. I'm pretty sure a lot of people do it this way.
Another advantage of passphrases is that you get REALLY fast at typing them. People tend to type random alphanumeric passwords relatively slowly, probably because we are not used to typing them as often as, say, the word "the". It is a lot more difficult for someone to see what your password is if all of you fingers are moving across the keyboard at high speed.
For anyone that spends a lot of time on the command line, this is pretty huge.