First, I don't think anyone seriously considers that Silverlight is *probably* more secure than flash - just people have had less time to analyze it for exploits. Though, it is possible, I suppose, that it might be more secure.
Second, *even* if we allowed the hypothesis, for argument's sake, that Microsoft is acting to promote public awareness of this problem to promote it's own agenda, so what? Either this bug/exploit exists, or it doesn't exist, and it doesn't make it any more true or false just because Microsoft happens to be helping the problem to get attention (not that I am agreeing that is the case). If Microsoft *is* publicizing this, great - the more people that are aware of this, the more that will, hopefully, upgrade to a patched version of Flash and avoid getting Pwned.
"Show me". (For those from outside the US, Missouri has the nickname, "The 'Show Me' State"; so, saying you are from Missouri means you care more about someone showing you something than telling you about it). I can't speak, really, for what all employers are looking for, but my experience so far has demonstrated to me that most people are like the parent. They want you to show them you know what you are talking about, and are qualified to do the job they are hiring you for, and really don't care that much about *where* you got a degree.
Heck, right now I have a great job I got by impressing the interviewer, and by having good references from previous employers where I did good work, and I don't have a degree (yet - working on it). Granted, I'm doing Tech Support and QA, not development at this point, but I still think the point is valid that you can get any job that you can demonstrate competence at.
That is the crux of it, so my suggestion: wherever you end up, do something extracurricular that shows your competence. E.g. Work on an Open Source project that interests you, and document every contribution you make. Or, if not open source, start up/join some sort of student development group at your Uni and work on a project. Or enter some programming contests - even if you don't win, if you create good submissions, and hold on to them, you can show them to future potential employers. You might not even need to do something extracurricular - the school I'm currently at requires all seniors to do a project for graduation. I don't think it's just to make graduation harder - it forces students to take the time to do a project that they can show to employers after they graduate showing that they know how to apply the stuff they learned.
A lot of creative types - artists, photographers, graphic designers, writers, architects, etc, keep portfolios. There's no reason that CS majors can't develop their own 'portfolio'. Keep copies of assignments you are particularly proud of (you might not want to show employers your freshman year stuff, of course, but maybe there are some projects you did for Junior and Senior level classes that you think show off your abilities).
As for picking a school, that's a really hard one - something I've wrestled with too. Mostly, I've decided based on what's close and I can afford. But, if you have the luxury of making choices on less practical grounds, you might try to get a feel for what type of classes each offer, and pick based on which has classes that most interest you. Or, visit the campuses and try to talk to as many professors as possible - maybe sit in on a few classes to get an idea what each professor's teaching style is like. You can take the same class with two professor's, and have a dramatically different learning experience (my past two days of physics class has had one of the other professors teaching while the regular prof is at a conference, and I can barely understand the guy's accent, and can't make out his chicken scratch when he writes formulas up on the board, and I just generally don't think his explanations make a lot of sense - I'm *so* glad I don't have him normally - not that he isn't a nice guy, but I just have a hard time learning from him; whereas with the regular teacher, I do ok most of the time [admittedly, sometimes I have a little bit of a hard time following the math because he tends to go fast, but I pick up *enough* that I can make sense of the stuff in the book later]) .
It seems to me this whole Net Neutrality thing comes down to ISPs trying to double-dip. That is, the whole premise of the Internet infrastructure, up till now, as far as I understand it, is that I have *one single* company that I do business with - my ISP. This is true for content providers, who pay for T1/E1/OC3/OC48/whatever to connect to the Internet through *their* ISP, as well as for end users who do the same with their ISPs. My ISP in turn makes agreements with the other ISPs for fair data-passing and revenue sharing (e.g. Insert-Internet-Server-Here's ISP presumably pays an upstream provider to connect to their network, who in turn pays the end user's ISP to connect to their network - I suppose at some point for very large, long-haul providers, you have to start doing packet-level accounting to figure out which network is sending more data and which is receiving it, etc, etc.).
The point is, the Internet writ-large cannot possibly work, long-term, if every participant has to negotiate seperate deals with every other participant in the Internet, so we 'aggregate' the deals through our ISPs. When ATT, Verizon, Virgin, et. al all start trying to trash net neutrality, in effect, they've already setup those service agreements with all the ISP's but then they are trying to get *additional* revenue by forcing individual end-user's to pay a *second time*. So they are entering an agreement to provide service to, say, Slashdot's ISP, then not providing the service they are contractually obligated to provide to that ISP?
I just don't understand how all of this is NOT a breach of contract between ISPs?
Now, with all that said, I don't think there is a problem with doing Quality Of Service for specific protocols/ports. E.g. VoIP, Streaming video/audio, and games, should probably all get elevated priority over http transactions (it doesn't really matter if it takes another 1/4 second for a large image to load, but it does make a big difference if there is a 1/4 second lag for VoIP, media, and games. But if they are going to implement such quality of service routing, they should do it equally for all hosts on the Internet, not preferentially for some over others.
I sometimes get the impression that all of this ultimately boils down to the large backbone providers and broadband ISP's simply not wanting to upgrade their infrastructure to keep up with demand. After all, all this Net Neutrality business is completely irrelevant if there is enough bandwidth to meet demand. It's only relevant when there is simply not enough capacity to deliver all packets in a timely fashion. So, the ISP's are effectively admitting that they are not providing the bandwidth to their users that they *claim* they are, when they say that Net Neutrality is 'bollocks'.
I read most of the way through the letter. I'm quite impressed by the guy who wrote this. He does his freaking homework. I love how after spending the first 1/2 of the letter going into some detail about the homework he's done which show's there no possible way his product can be infringing Monster's current patents, he doesn't stop there. He then goes on the attack, bringing up their Bermuda "IP Holding Company" which he posit's they appear to be using as a tax shelter, and how me might blow down their little Bermuda shelter like a hurricane.
You mess with this guy and he's going to dig up every single skeleton in your closet and use it against you. I'd say this guy has shown he is *not* lazy, and will be *relentless*. Wow.
. ..means. "Reverse Engineering", I think is not the right term here. I think "applications" might be a better term, possibly. That is, you can possibly apply the scientific principle that has been discovered in this experiment to technologies such as you describe - e.g. using it to shield cities/property from damage.
I'm not a farmer, but if I were one, and my field got some peripheral seeding from a neighbor's farm, I'd have two questions:
1) The seeds have already been paid for - by my neighbor. How is this patent infringement? Sounds like double-dipping to me.
2) I'd ask them, at their expense, to go through my fields, identify all the incorrect plants, and please destroy them. That should remedy the patent infringement, get rid of the GM seeds which I didn't want, and not require me to pay a cent. Why can't they do that (because, of course, they don't want to pay for the infringement to be remedied, they want you to pay them for crops you never planted)?
I have one other question: Is it possible for GM crops to cross-polinate/infect non-GM varieties? I'd be truly ticked off if I had planted all my own seeds which weren't from Monsanto, only to be told I had to pay Monsanto because their product ruined/infected my fields.
I'm with you on that. "Hearsay" is not admissible as evidence in court proceedings, I believe (IANAL). Hearsay is when someone tries to testify to something they are not a direct witness of. . . "Well, Officer John told me that he clocked the defendant going X mph" would be hearsay, because he's simply relaying something he was told by someone else, as opposed to personal direct observation.
But, again, I'm not a lawyer, but I don't get how MA can get away with sending a different cop in place of the one who clocked you.
"you may only brake if it is safe to do so". That statement, at least legally, is flat out wrong in most jurisdictions in the US (I can't speak for the rest of the world).
If a child steps out in the road in front of you, and you slam on the brakes, and get rear-ended, that is somehow *your* fault? B.S. Since one never can predict when something unexpected will happen (by definition), it stands to reason you must *always* leave enough distance between yourself and the next car in front of you so that if he must slam on his brakes, you have sufficient reaction time to also brake and stop.
People don't like being told that they are at fault for hitting someone else's rear end, but the person in front has no way of controlling *you hitting them*. You are the only one that can prevent that.
The only exception I'd make to this is if some idiot just decides to slam on his brakes for no reason at all and causes an accident, but the basic principle is that, there are many reasons to *need* to brake, so you should always leave enough distance.
On to another of your statements "Furthermore, you're a bad driver if you pay constant attention to the car in front of you;". This I actually agree with, completely. Which is why it's so important to leave sufficient distance between you and the car in front of you - it gives a 'time cushion'. If you are 6 inches from the car in front of you, you basically *must* pay constant attention to the car in front of you. Whereas if there's 10 feet or so, you have more ability to pay attention to other things.
The only problem with the concept of assured distance is that, too often, other drivers take that distance as an invitation to cut in front of you, so in practice it's sometimes difficult to maintain assured distance. But, I think that would also be a valid defense in case of a collision with the person who just cut in front of you - that the person in front made an improper lane change, cutting off your assured distance, so that you were unable to stop in time.
I don't disagree with all your points, but I do think that, to some extent, a society has the right and even the imperative to consider the impact of behaviors that affect others (or may potentially affect others), and not just the individuals who engage in those activities.
To use something I think most people can agree on, we consider it 'wrong', *and* make it illegal to drive or operate other dangerous machinery while under the influence of any drug which reduces mental function and reflex, because it puts other people at significant risk of harm.
Now, the concern I would have with scientists using 'mind-enhancing' drugs is that, similar to sports, there is a potential that you set up a quid-pro-quo, a culture where you *must* use the drugs in order to hold a job, because it's just expected that everyone use the drugs (or maybe not expected that everyone use the drugs, but sets up the situation where the expectation for all scientists is a similar level of performance, which cannot realistically be achieved by most people without using the drugs).
So, the argument can be made that it is valid to outlaw the use of such drugs by individuals because of the impact it can have on the whole group.
I'm not saying that would necessarily happen, or even necessarily is happening, but I think the fact that so many scientists and mathematicians are resorting to these drugs at leasts suggests the hypothesis that this may already be happening.
Some people may say, "So what? These drugs are pretty harmless". That might be. I don't know enough about the drugs in question. I think there is an ethical argument, however, that people should not be put into the situation in the first place where they are effectively required to take a medically unnecessary drug (by which, I mean, not necessary to sustain your life or *normal* function - no enhanced function is not sustaining normal function).
Also, taking mind-enhancing drugs just seems like, I dunno, cheating. Other people would probably say it's not cheating - just unlocking your greatest potential. Other people might argue, "So what? Research is not sports; it's not about sportsmanship and fair play - it's simply about discovering new scientific and mathematical principles." Maybe. I'd still be very cautious about turning a blind eye to such drug use.
Thank you. I was wondering exactly the same thing - who measures gasoline in miles-of-gasoline-at-x-miles-per-gallon? I've never seen anyone measure gas that way.
To the GP, let me help simplify your expression:
N Miles * Gallons/XMiles = N/X Gallons.
So, that gives us 50000/25 = 2000 gallons.
There, isn't that much simpler? Of course, 50000 just sounds so much worse than 2000. (Not that 2000 sounds good mind you, but I sometimes wonder with these tortured derived units that people come up with, instead of using basic units, whether they are simply trying to inflate the number while still being, technically, correct?)
Pretty much. But, like I said, it doesn't seem to be the connection to the ISP - it seems to be the Internet at large. I do, from time to time, get downloads of 1mbps+. But, to give an example, last night I downloaded OpenOffice.org latest build using Bittorrent - it started out very slow, and eventually built up to a whopping 140 kbps I think.
Downloading Ubuntu updates (and I've tried various mirrors) will often be slow, but generally around 300-600kbps. It's just incredibly variable though. Sometimes I will get 2000, or 3000 kbps downloads. Very frustrating.
out of my current Internet connection. I don't get these broadband p!ssing contests. Such and such a country leads/trails the world in broadband connection speeds blah blah.
As the parent said, a fast connection to your ISP is relatively meaningless. I currently have TimeWarner RoadRunner cable. I can't complain about it *too* much. Overall it provides a pretty decent internet experience.
But, I know that the maximum download speed I ever got was somewhere around 6000 kbps (downloading a tv show from Amazon.com's Unbox service, and it surprised the hell out of me cause I had no idea the cable connection could even theoretically support that high of a speed), but most of the time, I don't get anywhere *close* to that. My maximum upload speed is somewhere between about 300-500 kbps (I haven't figured out exactly what it is yet).
However, in practice, most sites on the Internet are not able to push bits to me fast enough over the Internet to come anywhere close to making use of the speed I currently have. Getting another 100 mbps isn't going to help me *at all*, most of the time. A *good* server can usually send data to me at a rate of 200-400kbps. Bittorrent sometimes gives me 300-500kbps downloads, but more often than not, it's like 60kbps. When I'm uploading/seeding with Bittorrent, I rarely see Bittorrent's upload bandwidth top out higher than about 15 kbps (does TimeWarner throttle Bittorrent, or is there some other factor to blame here? I think I *should* be able to upload data to other computers at about 250-300 kbps, but never actually see that).
Anyhow, I won't care about a faster connection to my ISP until that connection is almost constantly saturated. I'd also rather see R&D/Investment go towards giving users a bit more upload capacity. The mindset that residential users shouldn't be hosting servers is kind of stupid, I think. Sure, most won't, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to argue the point too much on Slashdot that those who want to should be able to.
Slightly off-topic here, but since Intel HDA was brought up. . . I've been wondering about this, maybe someone could explain this to me. I have a Dell Inspiron laptop.
Under Windows, the sound card is detected as a SigmaTel HDA sound card, but under Linux, it shows up as Intel HDA. Does the laptop have 2 sound cards, and each O/S is detecting a different chip? Or is it just the same chip, but the drivers are named differently in the different O/S (that is, is "Intel HDA" really just SigmaTel?)
No, it's purporting to state a fact (whether that fact is true or not, I cannot verify), namely that terrorists are already recruiting engineers, because they already find engineers make good terrorists. Not advice.
Except engineers, I think, have a better sense of consequences than the general public, you know, if X then Y, such as:
If I blab about engaging in terrorist activities then 1 or more of the following could happen: A) My own terrorist cell leader puts a bullet in my brain for shooting my mouth off (or kills/abducts my wife, child, brother, sister, mother, father, etc), B) a US government agent of some sort puts a bullet in my brain, C) a US government agent grabs me and tortures me for info, D) the US agent doesn't arrest me, but does start spying on me, leading to my cell being compromised.
Seriously, very few engineers, no matter how proud they are of their work, are going to shoot their mouths off about it. Everyone they could possibly 'safely' tell about it *already knows*.
Uhh, hello, isn't that a bit of a leap, going from the statement "Engineers make good terrorists" to the statement "They are being likened to terrorists".
It doesn't appear anyone is *likening* engineers, in general, to terrorists. What they are saying is if you can recruit engineerss to your terrorist cause, that can benefit your cause, because they are good at solving problems and planning. Well, is that not true of engineers? I don't think you can *be* an engineer if that isn't true.
I don't have any problem with the statement, "[Engineers] think differently than other people." I don't think that sounds like a stereotype. If other people thought like engineers, they'd likely *be* engineers. It takes a certain mindset, and a certain capacity to think logically and analytically to be an engineer. Unfortunately, this mindset doesn't necessarily inherently exclude any thought patterns which lead someone to become a terrorist in the first place. (After all, one man's terrorist is often another man's freedom fighter or courageous defender of the faith).
Are all engineers the *same*? No. Is there a certain commonality they share in how they think / solve problems which is not shared with the general public? I think the answer is likely yes.
I don't get it. How will passing more laws change that criminals will resort to crime to make easy money? Aside from the fact the government didn't present evidence that it's occuring, *even if it is*, how will these new laws make any difference? It's kind of analogous to laws against gun ownership. Even if you pass a law against gun possession/buying/selling, criminals will still obtain the guns, and will still have a black market in guns. I mean, the terrorists are *gasp* making money off the opium trade in Afghanistan, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out they're making money off of gun running / arms sales. I'm not saying they are, but the point is, just because you criminalize something doesn't make it stop happening to any significant extent. Often it just makes the illegal conduct even *more* lucrative.
I've noticed a trend in modern politics that the answer to problems with people breaking the law is to pass more laws. Instead of, you know, trying to enforce the laws we already have. Of course, the new laws never seem to hit their nominal 'target' but instead hit other targets. In this case, isn't *selling* pirated copyrighted materials already a *criminal* offense? I was always understanding that individual, not-for-profit copying was a civil matter, while commercial piracy was a criminal matter. Is that not the case?
More great 'leadership' from our do-nothing government.
Well, if you are trying to look at it from a programming standpoint, instead of normal language standpoint, then the above construction means if you didn't abandon it, you better suppress it or conceal it, otherwise you can't patent it (because the not only applies to the abandoned). *grin*
However, I think, translating from English to C, the above is roughly equivalent to:
Except, now that you've unplugged them from their network, they presumably can no longer do their job effectively either. I mean, they are provided network access because they, presumably, have some legitimate business need to communicate with others. . . like sending/receiving email, printing to a network printer, accessing file shares, maybe accessing network-hosted company apps / web apps.
In practice, some workers would be able to do very little of what their job requires without network access. Now, *Internet* access is a different story (or might be) - you might program your router to block all traffic from/to that user that is destined for / originates from external addresses.
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but maybe the point of this exercise wasn't *just* about scaring people, but about trying to educate them in such a way that they remember the lesson? So, it could have a longer term positive impact that you credit it.
They will still need to conduct something like this once every year or two, though, you're right, because 1) yes, people will tend to become complacent, even if they now know better, and 2) Turnover (not apple or cherry) - old people leaving, new recruits joining, need to educate the new guys (and gals).
Plus, the information gathered in this exercise (not the data entered by the people on the phishing site, but the lessons learned by Command about the phishing attack and what made it succeed) could help them to review and re-write training material / procedures, and policies, to help them tighten up their security longer term. Although, we are talking about the military so who knows? (I kid, I kid. . . honestly, the military for the last 20 or so years has been doing, as far as I can tell, a pretty impressive job of re-inventing itself, and becoming much less bureaucratic than it used to have a reputation for being).
I thought that modern codecs compress audio data by removing audio information deemed 'unimportant'. Codecs targetted at voice-only applications, I've always thought, were far more aggressive in this 'filtering out' of 'unneeded' audio information that more general-purpose compression like mp3, aac, ogg, etc. So, I would think that the codecs would normally tend to reduce the capability to do stegonography to begin with. Of course, someone might code up a new (or modified) version of the coded that is still compatible with other codecs, but still generates audio data that other implementations would normally filter out during encoding.
So, why not just have some equipment at the VoIP gateway that that just 'more aggressively' filters out background noise (e.g. re-compress the data, to make sure non-audible audio data is stripped out)? Why bother with adding random noise? If you remove the background noise, you can plausibly 'sell' that as increasing call quality while reducing bandwidth usage, and it would, I think, have the side-effect of also having the possibility to disrupt some stegonographic techniques, whereas adding random noise to my phone call is just degrading the quality of my calls and increasing my bandwidth usage.
I mean, since know one knows what's going to happen, that must mean there is a chance the Large Hadron Collider could just spontaneously create some banana splits, right?
So, every time the griefer kills me, it's even easier for him to kill me the next time? If you did have some sort of level loss, you'd have to limit it to one or two levels. Otherwise, the strong would just dominate the weak, and keep them down. I'd quit a game where I worked for 3 months to raise a character to level 30, then some joker decides to take me down to level 25.
I mean, I understand, you want a system where actions have consequences. It's just that, well, usually that just gives a tool to the griefers to make like more miserable.
Slashdot Mirror
First, I don't think anyone seriously considers that Silverlight is *probably* more secure than flash - just people have had less time to analyze it for exploits. Though, it is possible, I suppose, that it might be more secure.
Second, *even* if we allowed the hypothesis, for argument's sake, that Microsoft is acting to promote public awareness of this problem to promote it's own agenda, so what? Either this bug/exploit exists, or it doesn't exist, and it doesn't make it any more true or false just because Microsoft happens to be helping the problem to get attention (not that I am agreeing that is the case). If Microsoft *is* publicizing this, great - the more people that are aware of this, the more that will, hopefully, upgrade to a patched version of Flash and avoid getting Pwned.
"Show me". (For those from outside the US, Missouri has the nickname, "The 'Show Me' State"; so, saying you are from Missouri means you care more about someone showing you something than telling you about it). I can't speak, really, for what all employers are looking for, but my experience so far has demonstrated to me that most people are like the parent. They want you to show them you know what you are talking about, and are qualified to do the job they are hiring you for, and really don't care that much about *where* you got a degree.
Heck, right now I have a great job I got by impressing the interviewer, and by having good references from previous employers where I did good work, and I don't have a degree (yet - working on it). Granted, I'm doing Tech Support and QA, not development at this point, but I still think the point is valid that you can get any job that you can demonstrate competence at.
That is the crux of it, so my suggestion: wherever you end up, do something extracurricular that shows your competence. E.g. Work on an Open Source project that interests you, and document every contribution you make. Or, if not open source, start up/join some sort of student development group at your Uni and work on a project. Or enter some programming contests - even if you don't win, if you create good submissions, and hold on to them, you can show them to future potential employers. You might not even need to do something extracurricular - the school I'm currently at requires all seniors to do a project for graduation. I don't think it's just to make graduation harder - it forces students to take the time to do a project that they can show to employers after they graduate showing that they know how to apply the stuff they learned.
A lot of creative types - artists, photographers, graphic designers, writers, architects, etc, keep portfolios. There's no reason that CS majors can't develop their own 'portfolio'. Keep copies of assignments you are particularly proud of (you might not want to show employers your freshman year stuff, of course, but maybe there are some projects you did for Junior and Senior level classes that you think show off your abilities).
As for picking a school, that's a really hard one - something I've wrestled with too. Mostly, I've decided based on what's close and I can afford. But, if you have the luxury of making choices on less practical grounds, you might try to get a feel for what type of classes each offer, and pick based on which has classes that most interest you. Or, visit the campuses and try to talk to as many professors as possible - maybe sit in on a few classes to get an idea what each professor's teaching style is like. You can take the same class with two professor's, and have a dramatically different learning experience (my past two days of physics class has had one of the other professors teaching while the regular prof is at a conference, and I can barely understand the guy's accent, and can't make out his chicken scratch when he writes formulas up on the board, and I just generally don't think his explanations make a lot of sense - I'm *so* glad I don't have him normally - not that he isn't a nice guy, but I just have a hard time learning from him; whereas with the regular teacher, I do ok most of the time [admittedly, sometimes I have a little bit of a hard time following the math because he tends to go fast, but I pick up *enough* that I can make sense of the stuff in the book later]) .
It seems to me this whole Net Neutrality thing comes down to ISPs trying to double-dip. That is, the whole premise of the Internet infrastructure, up till now, as far as I understand it, is that I have *one single* company that I do business with - my ISP. This is true for content providers, who pay for T1/E1/OC3/OC48/whatever to connect to the Internet through *their* ISP, as well as for end users who do the same with their ISPs. My ISP in turn makes agreements with the other ISPs for fair data-passing and revenue sharing (e.g. Insert-Internet-Server-Here's ISP presumably pays an upstream provider to connect to their network, who in turn pays the end user's ISP to connect to their network - I suppose at some point for very large, long-haul providers, you have to start doing packet-level accounting to figure out which network is sending more data and which is receiving it, etc, etc.).
The point is, the Internet writ-large cannot possibly work, long-term, if every participant has to negotiate seperate deals with every other participant in the Internet, so we 'aggregate' the deals through our ISPs. When ATT, Verizon, Virgin, et. al all start trying to trash net neutrality, in effect, they've already setup those service agreements with all the ISP's but then they are trying to get *additional* revenue by forcing individual end-user's to pay a *second time*. So they are entering an agreement to provide service to, say, Slashdot's ISP, then not providing the service they are contractually obligated to provide to that ISP?
I just don't understand how all of this is NOT a breach of contract between ISPs?
Now, with all that said, I don't think there is a problem with doing Quality Of Service for specific protocols/ports. E.g. VoIP, Streaming video/audio, and games, should probably all get elevated priority over http transactions (it doesn't really matter if it takes another 1/4 second for a large image to load, but it does make a big difference if there is a 1/4 second lag for VoIP, media, and games. But if they are going to implement such quality of service routing, they should do it equally for all hosts on the Internet, not preferentially for some over others.
I sometimes get the impression that all of this ultimately boils down to the large backbone providers and broadband ISP's simply not wanting to upgrade their infrastructure to keep up with demand. After all, all this Net Neutrality business is completely irrelevant if there is enough bandwidth to meet demand. It's only relevant when there is simply not enough capacity to deliver all packets in a timely fashion. So, the ISP's are effectively admitting that they are not providing the bandwidth to their users that they *claim* they are, when they say that Net Neutrality is 'bollocks'.
I read most of the way through the letter. I'm quite impressed by the guy who wrote this. He does his freaking homework. I love how after spending the first 1/2 of the letter going into some detail about the homework he's done which show's there no possible way his product can be infringing Monster's current patents, he doesn't stop there. He then goes on the attack, bringing up their Bermuda "IP Holding Company" which he posit's they appear to be using as a tax shelter, and how me might blow down their little Bermuda shelter like a hurricane.
You mess with this guy and he's going to dig up every single skeleton in your closet and use it against you. I'd say this guy has shown he is *not* lazy, and will be *relentless*. Wow.
. . .means. "Reverse Engineering", I think is not the right term here. I think "applications" might be a better term, possibly. That is, you can possibly apply the scientific principle that has been discovered in this experiment to technologies such as you describe - e.g. using it to shield cities/property from damage.
I'm not a farmer, but if I were one, and my field got some peripheral seeding from a neighbor's farm, I'd have two questions:
1) The seeds have already been paid for - by my neighbor. How is this patent infringement? Sounds like double-dipping to me.
2) I'd ask them, at their expense, to go through my fields, identify all the incorrect plants, and please destroy them. That should remedy the patent infringement, get rid of the GM seeds which I didn't want, and not require me to pay a cent. Why can't they do that (because, of course, they don't want to pay for the infringement to be remedied, they want you to pay them for crops you never planted)?
I have one other question: Is it possible for GM crops to cross-polinate/infect non-GM varieties? I'd be truly ticked off if I had planted all my own seeds which weren't from Monsanto, only to be told I had to pay Monsanto because their product ruined/infected my fields.
I'm with you on that. "Hearsay" is not admissible as evidence in court proceedings, I believe (IANAL). Hearsay is when someone tries to testify to something they are not a direct witness of. . . "Well, Officer John told me that he clocked the defendant going X mph" would be hearsay, because he's simply relaying something he was told by someone else, as opposed to personal direct observation.
But, again, I'm not a lawyer, but I don't get how MA can get away with sending a different cop in place of the one who clocked you.
"you may only brake if it is safe to do so". That statement, at least legally, is flat out wrong in most jurisdictions in the US (I can't speak for the rest of the world).
If a child steps out in the road in front of you, and you slam on the brakes, and get rear-ended, that is somehow *your* fault? B.S. Since one never can predict when something unexpected will happen (by definition), it stands to reason you must *always* leave enough distance between yourself and the next car in front of you so that if he must slam on his brakes, you have sufficient reaction time to also brake and stop.
People don't like being told that they are at fault for hitting someone else's rear end, but the person in front has no way of controlling *you hitting them*. You are the only one that can prevent that.
The only exception I'd make to this is if some idiot just decides to slam on his brakes for no reason at all and causes an accident, but the basic principle is that, there are many reasons to *need* to brake, so you should always leave enough distance.
On to another of your statements "Furthermore, you're a bad driver if you pay constant attention to the car in front of you;". This I actually agree with, completely. Which is why it's so important to leave sufficient distance between you and the car in front of you - it gives a 'time cushion'. If you are 6 inches from the car in front of you, you basically *must* pay constant attention to the car in front of you. Whereas if there's 10 feet or so, you have more ability to pay attention to other things.
The only problem with the concept of assured distance is that, too often, other drivers take that distance as an invitation to cut in front of you, so in practice it's sometimes difficult to maintain assured distance. But, I think that would also be a valid defense in case of a collision with the person who just cut in front of you - that the person in front made an improper lane change, cutting off your assured distance, so that you were unable to stop in time.
I don't disagree with all your points, but I do think that, to some extent, a society has the right and even the imperative to consider the impact of behaviors that affect others (or may potentially affect others), and not just the individuals who engage in those activities.
To use something I think most people can agree on, we consider it 'wrong', *and* make it illegal to drive or operate other dangerous machinery while under the influence of any drug which reduces mental function and reflex, because it puts other people at significant risk of harm.
Now, the concern I would have with scientists using 'mind-enhancing' drugs is that, similar to sports, there is a potential that you set up a quid-pro-quo, a culture where you *must* use the drugs in order to hold a job, because it's just expected that everyone use the drugs (or maybe not expected that everyone use the drugs, but sets up the situation where the expectation for all scientists is a similar level of performance, which cannot realistically be achieved by most people without using the drugs).
So, the argument can be made that it is valid to outlaw the use of such drugs by individuals because of the impact it can have on the whole group.
I'm not saying that would necessarily happen, or even necessarily is happening, but I think the fact that so many scientists and mathematicians are resorting to these drugs at leasts suggests the hypothesis that this may already be happening.
Some people may say, "So what? These drugs are pretty harmless". That might be. I don't know enough about the drugs in question. I think there is an ethical argument, however, that people should not be put into the situation in the first place where they are effectively required to take a medically unnecessary drug (by which, I mean, not necessary to sustain your life or *normal* function - no enhanced function is not sustaining normal function).
Also, taking mind-enhancing drugs just seems like, I dunno, cheating. Other people would probably say it's not cheating - just unlocking your greatest potential. Other people might argue, "So what? Research is not sports; it's not about sportsmanship and fair play - it's simply about discovering new scientific and mathematical principles." Maybe. I'd still be very cautious about turning a blind eye to such drug use.
"Don't Lase me, Bro!"
Fixed it for you.
Thank you. I was wondering exactly the same thing - who measures gasoline in miles-of-gasoline-at-x-miles-per-gallon? I've never seen anyone measure gas that way.
To the GP, let me help simplify your expression:
N Miles * Gallons/XMiles = N/X Gallons.
So, that gives us 50000/25 = 2000 gallons.
There, isn't that much simpler? Of course, 50000 just sounds so much worse than 2000. (Not that 2000 sounds good mind you, but I sometimes wonder with these tortured derived units that people come up with, instead of using basic units, whether they are simply trying to inflate the number while still being, technically, correct?)
Pretty much. But, like I said, it doesn't seem to be the connection to the ISP - it seems to be the Internet at large. I do, from time to time, get downloads of 1mbps+. But, to give an example, last night I downloaded OpenOffice.org latest build using Bittorrent - it started out very slow, and eventually built up to a whopping 140 kbps I think.
Downloading Ubuntu updates (and I've tried various mirrors) will often be slow, but generally around 300-600kbps. It's just incredibly variable though. Sometimes I will get 2000, or 3000 kbps downloads. Very frustrating.
Uhhhm,
I'll take a stab. It'd be like the head of the US DEA being on a fictional TV series where the main characters get super powers from smoking crack?
Just because it's fiction, doesn't make it less ironic.
out of my current Internet connection. I don't get these broadband p!ssing contests. Such and such a country leads/trails the world in broadband connection speeds blah blah.
As the parent said, a fast connection to your ISP is relatively meaningless. I currently have TimeWarner RoadRunner cable. I can't complain about it *too* much. Overall it provides a pretty decent internet experience.
But, I know that the maximum download speed I ever got was somewhere around 6000 kbps (downloading a tv show from Amazon.com's Unbox service, and it surprised the hell out of me cause I had no idea the cable connection could even theoretically support that high of a speed), but most of the time, I don't get anywhere *close* to that. My maximum upload speed is somewhere between about 300-500 kbps (I haven't figured out exactly what it is yet).
However, in practice, most sites on the Internet are not able to push bits to me fast enough over the Internet to come anywhere close to making use of the speed I currently have. Getting another 100 mbps isn't going to help me *at all*, most of the time. A *good* server can usually send data to me at a rate of 200-400kbps. Bittorrent sometimes gives me 300-500kbps downloads, but more often than not, it's like 60kbps. When I'm uploading/seeding with Bittorrent, I rarely see Bittorrent's upload bandwidth top out higher than about 15 kbps (does TimeWarner throttle Bittorrent, or is there some other factor to blame here? I think I *should* be able to upload data to other computers at about 250-300 kbps, but never actually see that).
Anyhow, I won't care about a faster connection to my ISP until that connection is almost constantly saturated. I'd also rather see R&D/Investment go towards giving users a bit more upload capacity. The mindset that residential users shouldn't be hosting servers is kind of stupid, I think. Sure, most won't, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to argue the point too much on Slashdot that those who want to should be able to.
Slightly off-topic here, but since Intel HDA was brought up. . . I've been wondering about this, maybe someone could explain this to me. I have a Dell Inspiron laptop.
Under Windows, the sound card is detected as a SigmaTel HDA sound card, but under Linux, it shows up as Intel HDA. Does the laptop have 2 sound cards, and each O/S is detecting a different chip? Or is it just the same chip, but the drivers are named differently in the different O/S (that is, is "Intel HDA" really just SigmaTel?)
No, it's purporting to state a fact (whether that fact is true or not, I cannot verify), namely that terrorists are already recruiting engineers, because they already find engineers make good terrorists. Not advice.
Except engineers, I think, have a better sense of consequences than the general public, you know, if X then Y, such as:
If I blab about engaging in terrorist activities then 1 or more of the following could happen: A) My own terrorist cell leader puts a bullet in my brain for shooting my mouth off (or kills/abducts my wife, child, brother, sister, mother, father, etc), B) a US government agent of some sort puts a bullet in my brain, C) a US government agent grabs me and tortures me for info, D) the US agent doesn't arrest me, but does start spying on me, leading to my cell being compromised.
Seriously, very few engineers, no matter how proud they are of their work, are going to shoot their mouths off about it. Everyone they could possibly 'safely' tell about it *already knows*.
Uhh, hello, isn't that a bit of a leap, going from the statement "Engineers make good terrorists" to the statement "They are being likened to terrorists".
It doesn't appear anyone is *likening* engineers, in general, to terrorists. What they are saying is if you can recruit engineerss to your terrorist cause, that can benefit your cause, because they are good at solving problems and planning. Well, is that not true of engineers? I don't think you can *be* an engineer if that isn't true.
I don't have any problem with the statement, "[Engineers] think differently than other people." I don't think that sounds like a stereotype. If other people thought like engineers, they'd likely *be* engineers. It takes a certain mindset, and a certain capacity to think logically and analytically to be an engineer. Unfortunately, this mindset doesn't necessarily inherently exclude any thought patterns which lead someone to become a terrorist in the first place. (After all, one man's terrorist is often another man's freedom fighter or courageous defender of the faith).
Are all engineers the *same*? No. Is there a certain commonality they share in how they think / solve problems which is not shared with the general public? I think the answer is likely yes.
I don't get it. How will passing more laws change that criminals will resort to crime to make easy money? Aside from the fact the government didn't present evidence that it's occuring, *even if it is*, how will these new laws make any difference? It's kind of analogous to laws against gun ownership. Even if you pass a law against gun possession/buying/selling, criminals will still obtain the guns, and will still have a black market in guns. I mean, the terrorists are *gasp* making money off the opium trade in Afghanistan, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out they're making money off of gun running / arms sales. I'm not saying they are, but the point is, just because you criminalize something doesn't make it stop happening to any significant extent. Often it just makes the illegal conduct even *more* lucrative.
I've noticed a trend in modern politics that the answer to problems with people breaking the law is to pass more laws. Instead of, you know, trying to enforce the laws we already have. Of course, the new laws never seem to hit their nominal 'target' but instead hit other targets. In this case, isn't *selling* pirated copyrighted materials already a *criminal* offense? I was always understanding that individual, not-for-profit copying was a civil matter, while commercial piracy was a criminal matter. Is that not the case?
More great 'leadership' from our do-nothing government.
Well, if you are trying to look at it from a programming standpoint, instead of normal language standpoint, then the above construction means if you didn't abandon it, you better suppress it or conceal it, otherwise you can't patent it (because the not only applies to the abandoned). *grin*
However, I think, translating from English to C, the above is roughly equivalent to:
bool ElligibleForPatent( const patent_t * x)
{
if (!abandoned(x) && !suppressed(x) && !concealed(x))
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
Hope that clears it up.
Except, now that you've unplugged them from their network, they presumably can no longer do their job effectively either. I mean, they are provided network access because they, presumably, have some legitimate business need to communicate with others. . . like sending/receiving email, printing to a network printer, accessing file shares, maybe accessing network-hosted company apps / web apps.
In practice, some workers would be able to do very little of what their job requires without network access. Now, *Internet* access is a different story (or might be) - you might program your router to block all traffic from/to that user that is destined for / originates from external addresses.
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but maybe the point of this exercise wasn't *just* about scaring people, but about trying to educate them in such a way that they remember the lesson? So, it could have a longer term positive impact that you credit it.
They will still need to conduct something like this once every year or two, though, you're right, because 1) yes, people will tend to become complacent, even if they now know better, and 2) Turnover (not apple or cherry) - old people leaving, new recruits joining, need to educate the new guys (and gals).
Plus, the information gathered in this exercise (not the data entered by the people on the phishing site, but the lessons learned by Command about the phishing attack and what made it succeed) could help them to review and re-write training material / procedures, and policies, to help them tighten up their security longer term. Although, we are talking about the military so who knows? (I kid, I kid. . . honestly, the military for the last 20 or so years has been doing, as far as I can tell, a pretty impressive job of re-inventing itself, and becoming much less bureaucratic than it used to have a reputation for being).
I thought that modern codecs compress audio data by removing audio information deemed 'unimportant'. Codecs targetted at voice-only applications, I've always thought, were far more aggressive in this 'filtering out' of 'unneeded' audio information that more general-purpose compression like mp3, aac, ogg, etc. So, I would think that the codecs would normally tend to reduce the capability to do stegonography to begin with. Of course, someone might code up a new (or modified) version of the coded that is still compatible with other codecs, but still generates audio data that other implementations would normally filter out during encoding.
So, why not just have some equipment at the VoIP gateway that that just 'more aggressively' filters out background noise (e.g. re-compress the data, to make sure non-audible audio data is stripped out)? Why bother with adding random noise? If you remove the background noise, you can plausibly 'sell' that as increasing call quality while reducing bandwidth usage, and it would, I think, have the side-effect of also having the possibility to disrupt some stegonographic techniques, whereas adding random noise to my phone call is just degrading the quality of my calls and increasing my bandwidth usage.
I mean, since know one knows what's going to happen, that must mean there is a chance the Large Hadron Collider could just spontaneously create some banana splits, right?
Yumm. . .
So, every time the griefer kills me, it's even easier for him to kill me the next time? If you did have some sort of level loss, you'd have to limit it to one or two levels. Otherwise, the strong would just dominate the weak, and keep them down. I'd quit a game where I worked for 3 months to raise a character to level 30, then some joker decides to take me down to level 25.
I mean, I understand, you want a system where actions have consequences. It's just that, well, usually that just gives a tool to the griefers to make like more miserable.