The complexities in this problem are enormous so trivialising them is apparently interesting.
Maybe we'll just hook up slashdot to an artificial neural network and spend few hours teaching/programing it to do moderating and throw in a cpu and run a rule based system with a well defined set of rules (for detecting trolls, redundancies, etc.) and we're set. Piece of cake.
Somebody honestly thought that Microsoft would suddenly give out their most valuable asset, the proprietary office file format, and people would be free to use whatever they want..
Yes, about 5 out of every 10 mit undergraduate are women. And for those mathematically challenged, yes that means that for every male there is also a female. whether or not these geek girls are willing to "score" (the guys sure are) is more of an open question.
And you can't make a switching power supply that runs from a dc-source why?!?
Just because it has an oscillator (that is fed with somewhat clean dc, btw.) in the circuit does not make it an ac-dc supply. in ac-dc switching supplys you actually have to rectify the incoming ac and filter it before you can feed it to the switching section.
Why not just use the dc-input to run the internal oscillator and be off a lot easier. Couple of filters in front and some overvoltage protection and everything is fine.. Minimal power-loss too.
First of all you're talking about private universities! Even though they are u.s. government accreditated they are funded mostly from private funds. As an international undergrad at MIT I can tell you that not a penny of my financial aid is from the u.s. government. There are also severe restrictions on the amount of international undergraduate students allowed. I'm in a quota of 8% and my acceptance there is more of an anomality then a regularity. About 1000 students are admitted annually, of which about 80 are international.. Yup, americans do come first.
MIT is research oriented and their primary interest is in their graduate student body, about half of which is international. It seems that unfortunately usa doesn't have enough bright enough people of their own but as they are a private institution it is within their right to be very specific about who they admit. Whoever gets the job done the best gets in, but also whoever gets in works their ass off to benefit the research that they're part of. Graduate students at MIT are practically slaves and if someone gets immediate benefit from their work it is primarily the professor they work for and quite likely the sponsor of the research.
One interesting aspect of MIT is that no classified research of any sort is done on campus. Everything is completely open. It seems to be an institutewide principle that if a sponsor sets restrictions on disclosure of research their money will not be taken. Their recent decision seems to be an extension of this policy. MIT is not doing this just to protect it's international student body but everyone involved in research as they believe strongly that the scientific community should be as open as possible with as much peer collaboration as possible for that is the best way to advance our knowledge of science and engineering.
Too bad that most radio receivers also "transmit". Oscillators inside the radios tuner circuitry (and maybe elsewhere) could theoretically interfere with aircraft systems. It is really these oscillators and the potential EMI that they cause that is the reason for banning them.
If you want to read more about portable electronic devices and flying check this out.
On a separate note I do remember flying on an airline that had the pilot-ground communications as one of the inflight radio-channels.
According to the new MS licensing policy they will be now known as "My Licensed Computer, My Licensed Documents, My Licensed Music, etc.." You will have no option to run anything not preapproved by MS/RIAA/MPAA/etc.
It is funny that you should pick a mail fraud as a counterexample since that is in fact the oldest form of federal offence! And it doesn't even matter if it happens instate or not.
Mail Fraud is the oldest form of fraud statutorily regulated and prosecuted by our federal government. Like other forms of white collar fraud, the objective of mail fraud is to accomplish a desired result by deception, trickery, concealment, and/or dishonesty, albeit through the use of the United States Mail Service or other private/commercial interstate carriers. Statutorily regulated since 1872, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the authority of Congress to pass the statute.
I think we can pretty much call the issue closed. Just the fact that FBI came knocking on these peoples' doors more than confirms that their offense was of federal kind - that at least is logic that even you can't disagree with.
If you want a little reading on the subject try this.
One small excerpt: If you have been arrested or questioned by the police at the city, county, parish or state level, this usually indicates that you are suspected of a state crime.
Federal law enforcement agencies frequently encountered by defendants are:
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation 2. Criminal Division of the IRS (CID) 3. United States Secret Service etc...
I think you are wrong on this one. The crime was LOCAL. The ISP is within the state and so was the alleged uncapper.
True, but by using this facility it is possible to communicate interstate, correct? And in carrying out your fraud you are most likely engaging in interstate communications anyway (don't tell me these people were just downloading their neighbours webpages). I suppose it is for somewhat historical reasons and also practical considerations that wire frauds are generally considered federal crimes.
The cell call gets routed through some US based cellular provider for part of the trip. The call discusses some matter that is legal in Canada but illegal in the United States. Extending your example, I am now a wanted person in the US.
Shouldn't really be applicable. First off phone companies are common carriers and are not liable for whatever information is being conveyed. Secondly this could only be used against you if you were already under surveillance and a recording of your communication was made legally.
However, if you were to use a mobile phone with illegal modifications that somehow essentially result in you carrying out a fraud (faking your number, etc.) then you would definetly be wanted by the US federal government!
IANAL, but 18 USC 1343, makes it a Federal crime or offense for anyone to use interstate wire communications facilities in carrying out a scheme to defraud.
Since bidirectional cable networks are commonly used for transmission of network data in- and interstate pretty it is pretty much guaranteed that it falls under this criterium. From a legal standpoint it doesn't really matter if the fraud actually took place across state lines, just that a facility suitable for this purpose was used.
However, due to the rather global nature of internet it is highly unlikely that anyone using such a scheme would actually not invoke interstate (never mind intercontinental) communications. Thus pretty much making a waterproof case.
Yeah.. fortunately this only happens in prokaryotes. There are actually quite a few different ways but they are all only applicable to bacteria.
You have bacteriophages, viruses that can penetrate a bacterial cell, recombine with it's chromosome, eventually pulling out of the chromosome, killing the cell while doing it and taking some of the bacterial dna with them and repeating this (next recombination will include the dna from previously killed bacteria).
Bacteria can also have small chromosomes called plasmids that can have some interesting properties (such as resistance for antibiotics, etc.) If bacteria has an F plasmid it can have "sex" with a F- bacteria thus transferring it's reproduction capabilities and maybe something else too. This is how bacteria that due to some random mutation get resistant to antibiotics can spread this capability rather rapidly in a hospital.
Bactetria can also pick up random dna at will and integrate it into their chromosome thus maybe bringing in some useful capabilities. There are classic examples about this that anyone who took an introductory college biology course should know..
Might not work like that. Stock markets are notorius for not following common sense. A more likely scenario is that if a major player in a certain sector is doing bad most likely all of the stocks in that sector are going to suffer.
A good example would be nokia-ericson parallels. Even though nokia is consistently making a profit and even beating the market estimates its stock gets pounded by bad news coming from a mismanaged swedish mobile phone manufacturer. So when someones misfortune should be someone elses fortune it just ends up being a misery for everyone (at least stockholders).
Yeh.. but like I said. Divx is a subset of mpeg-4 standard. For every increment version they seem to get more compliant. They might have upgraded their encoders and decoders together and implemented some mpeg-4 feature that was not in 5.01. That doesn't mean they're not standards compliant but that they might be even more so. The key here is that a decoder needs to be as compliant as possible.
A lot of people seem to be concerned about if these divx enabled dvd players are codec-updateable when a new version of divx codec is released. Frankly as long as people follow standards there shouldn't be any problem.
The thing with mpeg-standards (divx is a subset of mpeg-4) is that they do not specify encoders, only decoders. That means that as long as a video stream is decodable by a standard decoder it is valid. Since mpeg compression relies hevily on the deficiencies in our visual systems it is really the tricks employed at encoder level that make the difference in quality (ie. discarding redundant information).
I've gotten the impression that divx has just gotten more standards compliant with every increment version and has picked up some useful tricks for greating a better bitrate/quality ratio. As long as they stick to mpeg-4 compliance and the decoder chips are also standards compliant there shouldn't be any problems with future versions of the divx codec.
Re:What about GPL?? Sources??
on
Xandros 1.0
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Okay.. let me clarify myself after spending a lengthy period of time reading the gpl carefully.
1. Everyone who has the binary and is licensed to use it is entitled to the source code(to my understanding excludes some random person stealing the binary). 2. Everyone who had a license to the original work or any derivative works of the original work also has a license for the modified version (even if it is distributed for a 99$ fee - perfectly acceptable). 3. Distributor of modified version to my understanding is not required to provide either the binary or a source to a third party (original version license holder) but if this third party happens to come across the binary somehow they have the same rights as anyone who acquired it directly from the provider of modified version. 4. A third party can acquire a license also if someone who bought the software from you distributes it to them. 5. If a third party has acquired the binary and have a license to use it they can demand the source code and the provider must provide it or they are in violation of gpl.
Now, I wonder what the implications are for a case where a third party original license holder who does not have the modified binary "steals" it from somewhere. Technically it is not even a theft since they were licensed to use the software anyway.
Re:What about GPL?? Sources??
on
Xandros 1.0
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Incorrect!
GPL faq says: Section 2 says that modified versions you distribute must be licensed to all third parties under the GPL. "All third parties" means absolutely everyone--but this does not require you to *do* anything physically for them. It only means they have a license from you, under the GPL, for your version.
Translation: If you take a GPL'd program and make modifications it and release that program you must make the modifications available to anyone who had a license to the original program or any derivative version of it!
Yeah.. Single variable calculus is single variable calculus no matter where you take it but I believe that in MIT they go through the material a little faster than in other schools and the workload given as homework or problemsets is enormous. I might be mistaken but I got the impression that MIT calculus 1 covers in a little over 3 months what other schools would spend the whole school year on.
One of the nice things with for example the math classes is that you can take the basic.01 version (nothing special just the usual stuff),.01A (spend six weeks on what most schools do in a full year),.013A (calculus with applications),.014 (LOTS of theory, everything proven rigorously, only future mathematicians need bother).
I should also point out that in addition to just the basic math classes there are roughly 150 additional courses(undergraduate and graduate combined) offered every year by just the math department with topics ranging from introductory courses in microlocal analysis to things like supersymmetric quantum field theories, cryptography/-analysis, wavelets, computational molecular biology, Stochastic Processes, Lie algebra, etc.. (yes there is lots of overlap between departmental topics)
There's also 3 dozen more departments to choose from all with rather extensive course offerings. Just the summary listing in the course catalog with a one or two sentence description for every course takes about 350 pages.
People going to mit tend to be little above average also. I've met few different students who are triple gold medalists in international math olympiads. Having looked at the questions and not really understanding where to even start with the problems I felt kind of dumb.. If you feel like being an mit math major take a look at this
Phuuh.. Because it doesn't run X11 as default you say it is not a unix! How did a windowing system suddenly become unix?
Technically when you're talking about unix you're referring to a trademarked owned by Open Group but practically we mean posix compliance and os x does a pretty decent job at this.
It doesn't matter if it runs by a means of a sledgehammer as an output device and a chess table as an input device as long as it otherwise conforms to posix specification (api, shell, utilities) you can for all practical purposes call it a unix..
MIT actually does that. Once admitted you're required to take a writing test that is waived only if you got 5 in ap english. If you don't pass this test you need to take a course in english composition. You're also required to take humanities subjects throughout your studies and two out of these eight required courses have to be communication intensive(verbal/writing).
Slashdot Mirror
The complexities in this problem are enormous so trivialising them is apparently interesting.
Maybe we'll just hook up slashdot to an artificial neural network and spend few hours teaching/programing it to do moderating and throw in a cpu and run a rule based system with a well defined set of rules (for detecting trolls, redundancies, etc.) and we're set. Piece of cake.
Somebody honestly thought that Microsoft would suddenly give out their most valuable asset, the proprietary office file format, and people would be free to use whatever they want..
Pigs will fly if that day ever comes!
Plus you can tell all your friends that you landed an internship at a fortune 500 company.. just leave out the fact that you flip burgers.
Yes, about 5 out of every 10 mit undergraduate are women. And for those mathematically challenged, yes that means that for every male there is also a female. whether or not these geek girls are willing to "score" (the guys sure are) is more of an open question.
And this hurts the US National Security?!? WTF!?!
And you can't make a switching power supply that runs from a dc-source why?!?
Just because it has an oscillator (that is fed with somewhat clean dc, btw.) in the circuit does not make it an ac-dc supply. in ac-dc switching supplys you actually have to rectify the incoming ac and filter it before you can feed it to the switching section.
Why not just use the dc-input to run the internal oscillator and be off a lot easier. Couple of filters in front and some overvoltage protection and everything is fine.. Minimal power-loss too.
Umm.. maybe because of buildings?
What a bunch of FUD!
First of all you're talking about private universities! Even though they are u.s. government accreditated they are funded mostly from private funds. As an international undergrad at MIT I can tell you that not a penny of my financial aid is from the u.s. government. There are also severe restrictions on the amount of international undergraduate students allowed. I'm in a quota of 8% and my acceptance there is more of an anomality then a regularity. About 1000 students are admitted annually, of which about 80 are international.. Yup, americans do come first.
MIT is research oriented and their primary interest is in their graduate student body, about half of which is international. It seems that unfortunately usa doesn't have enough bright enough people of their own but as they are a private institution it is within their right to be very specific about who they admit. Whoever gets the job done the best gets in, but also whoever gets in works their ass off to benefit the research that they're part of. Graduate students at MIT are practically slaves and if someone gets immediate benefit from their work it is primarily the professor they work for and quite likely the sponsor of the research.
One interesting aspect of MIT is that no classified research of any sort is done on campus. Everything is completely open. It seems to be an institutewide principle that if a sponsor sets restrictions on disclosure of research their money will not be taken. Their recent decision seems to be an extension of this policy. MIT is not doing this just to protect it's international student body but everyone involved in research as they believe strongly that the scientific community should be as open as possible with as much peer collaboration as possible for that is the best way to advance our knowledge of science and engineering.
Too bad that most radio receivers also "transmit". Oscillators inside the radios tuner circuitry (and maybe elsewhere) could theoretically interfere with aircraft systems. It is really these oscillators and the potential EMI that they cause that is the reason for banning them.
If you want to read more about portable electronic devices and flying check this out.
On a separate note I do remember flying on an airline that had the pilot-ground communications as one of the inflight radio-channels.
According to the new MS licensing policy they will be now known as "My Licensed Computer, My Licensed Documents, My Licensed Music, etc.." You will have no option to run anything not preapproved by MS/RIAA/MPAA/etc.
It is funny that you should pick a mail fraud as a counterexample since that is in fact the oldest form of federal offence! And it doesn't even matter if it happens instate or not.
.
Mail Fraud is the oldest form of fraud statutorily regulated and prosecuted by our federal government. Like other forms of white collar fraud, the objective of mail fraud is to accomplish a desired result by deception, trickery, concealment, and/or dishonesty, albeit through the use of the United States Mail Service or other private/commercial interstate carriers. Statutorily regulated since 1872, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the authority of Congress to pass the statute.
I think we can pretty much call the issue closed. Just the fact that FBI came knocking on these peoples' doors more than confirms that their offense was of federal kind - that at least is logic that even you can't disagree with.
If you want a little reading on the subject try this
One small excerpt:
If you have been arrested or questioned by the police at the city, county, parish or state level, this usually indicates that you are suspected of a state crime.
Federal law enforcement agencies frequently encountered by defendants are:
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation
2. Criminal Division of the IRS (CID)
3. United States Secret Service
etc...
I think you are wrong on this one. The crime was LOCAL. The ISP is within the state and so was the alleged uncapper.
True, but by using this facility it is possible to communicate interstate, correct? And in carrying out your fraud you are most likely engaging in interstate communications anyway (don't tell me these people were just downloading their neighbours webpages). I suppose it is for somewhat historical reasons and also practical considerations that wire frauds are generally considered federal crimes.
The cell call gets routed through some US based cellular provider for part of the trip. The call discusses some matter that is legal in Canada but illegal in the United States. Extending your example, I am now a wanted person in the US.
Shouldn't really be applicable. First off phone companies are common carriers and are not liable for whatever information is being conveyed. Secondly this could only be used against you if you were already under surveillance and a recording of your communication was made legally.
However, if you were to use a mobile phone with illegal modifications that somehow essentially result in you carrying out a fraud (faking your number, etc.) then you would definetly be wanted by the US federal government!
IANAL, but
18 USC 1343, makes it a Federal crime or offense for anyone to use interstate wire communications facilities in carrying out a scheme to defraud.
Since bidirectional cable networks are commonly used for transmission of network data in- and interstate pretty it is pretty much guaranteed that it falls under this criterium. From a legal standpoint it doesn't really matter if the fraud actually took place across state lines, just that a facility suitable for this purpose was used.
However, due to the rather global nature of internet it is highly unlikely that anyone using such a scheme would actually not invoke interstate (never mind intercontinental) communications. Thus pretty much making a waterproof case.
Maybe because it is technically a wire fraud which by definition is a federal offense. Hence by jurisdiction this is fbi's case.
Yeah.. fortunately this only happens in prokaryotes. There are actually quite a few different ways but they are all only applicable to bacteria.
You have bacteriophages, viruses that can penetrate a bacterial cell, recombine with it's chromosome, eventually pulling out of the chromosome, killing the cell while doing it and taking some of the bacterial dna with them and repeating this (next recombination will include the dna from previously killed bacteria).
Bacteria can also have small chromosomes called plasmids that can have some interesting properties (such as resistance for antibiotics, etc.) If bacteria has an F plasmid it can have "sex" with a F- bacteria thus transferring it's reproduction capabilities and maybe something else too. This is how bacteria that due to some random mutation get resistant to antibiotics can spread this capability rather rapidly in a hospital.
Bactetria can also pick up random dna at will and integrate it into their chromosome thus maybe bringing in some useful capabilities. There are classic examples about this that anyone who took an introductory college biology course should know..
They do have force.. or more exactly momentum!
E=hf=mc^2 -> m=hf/c^2
v=c, p=mv=hf/c
Might not work like that. Stock markets are notorius for not following common sense. A more likely scenario is that if a major player in a certain sector is doing bad most likely all of the stocks in that sector are going to suffer.
A good example would be nokia-ericson parallels. Even though nokia is consistently making a profit and even beating the market estimates its stock gets pounded by bad news coming from a mismanaged swedish mobile phone manufacturer. So when someones misfortune should be someone elses fortune it just ends up being a misery for everyone (at least stockholders).
Yeh.. but like I said. Divx is a subset of mpeg-4 standard. For every increment version they seem to get more compliant. They might have upgraded their encoders and decoders together and implemented some mpeg-4 feature that was not in 5.01. That doesn't mean they're not standards compliant but that they might be even more so. The key here is that a decoder needs to be as compliant as possible.
A lot of people seem to be concerned about if these divx enabled dvd players are codec-updateable when a new version of divx codec is released. Frankly as long as people follow standards there shouldn't be any problem.
The thing with mpeg-standards (divx is a subset of mpeg-4) is that they do not specify encoders, only decoders. That means that as long as a video stream is decodable by a standard decoder it is valid. Since mpeg compression relies hevily on the deficiencies in our visual systems it is really the tricks employed at encoder level that make the difference in quality (ie. discarding redundant information).
I've gotten the impression that divx has just gotten more standards compliant with every increment version and has picked up some useful tricks for greating a better bitrate/quality ratio. As long as they stick to mpeg-4 compliance and the decoder chips are also standards compliant there shouldn't be any problems with future versions of the divx codec.
Okay.. let me clarify myself after spending a lengthy period of time reading the gpl carefully.
1. Everyone who has the binary and is licensed to use it is entitled to the source code(to my understanding excludes some random person stealing the binary).
2. Everyone who had a license to the original work or any derivative works of the original work also has a license for the modified version (even if it is distributed for a 99$ fee - perfectly acceptable).
3. Distributor of modified version to my understanding is not required to provide either the binary or a source to a third party (original version license holder) but if this third party happens to come across the binary somehow they have the same rights as anyone who acquired it directly from the provider of modified version.
4. A third party can acquire a license also if someone who bought the software from you distributes it to them.
5. If a third party has acquired the binary and have a license to use it they can demand the source code and the provider must provide it or they are in violation of gpl.
Now, I wonder what the implications are for a case where a third party original license holder who does not have the modified binary "steals" it from somewhere. Technically it is not even a theft since they were licensed to use the software anyway.
Incorrect!
GPL faq says:
Section 2 says that modified versions you distribute must be licensed to all third parties under the GPL. "All third parties" means absolutely everyone--but this does not require you to *do* anything physically for them. It only means they have a license from you, under the GPL, for your version.
Translation: If you take a GPL'd program and make modifications it and release that program you must make the modifications available to anyone who had a license to the original program or any derivative version of it!
Yeah.. Single variable calculus is single variable calculus no matter where you take it but I believe that in MIT they go through the material a little faster than in other schools and the workload given as homework or problemsets is enormous. I might be mistaken but I got the impression that MIT calculus 1 covers in a little over 3 months what other schools would spend the whole school year on.
.01 version (nothing special just the usual stuff), .01A (spend six weeks on what most schools do in a full year), .013A (calculus with applications), .014 (LOTS of theory, everything proven rigorously, only future mathematicians need bother).
One of the nice things with for example the math classes is that you can take the basic
I should also point out that in addition to just the basic math classes there are roughly 150 additional courses(undergraduate and graduate combined) offered every year by just the math department with topics ranging from introductory courses in microlocal analysis to things like supersymmetric quantum field theories, cryptography/-analysis, wavelets, computational molecular biology, Stochastic Processes, Lie algebra, etc.. (yes there is lots of overlap between departmental topics)
There's also 3 dozen more departments to choose from all with rather extensive course offerings. Just the summary listing in the course catalog with a one or two sentence description for every course takes about 350 pages.
People going to mit tend to be little above average also. I've met few different students who are triple gold medalists in international math olympiads. Having looked at the questions and not really understanding where to even start with the problems I felt kind of dumb.. If you feel like being an mit math major take a look at this
Getting a little outdated since Scott already got him the sharks with freaking laser beams in the new movie(not really that good a movie)..
Phuuh.. Because it doesn't run X11 as default you say it is not a unix! How did a windowing system suddenly become unix?
Technically when you're talking about unix you're referring to a trademarked owned by Open Group but practically we mean posix compliance and os x does a pretty decent job at this.
It doesn't matter if it runs by a means of a sledgehammer as an output device and a chess table as an input device as long as it otherwise conforms to posix specification (api, shell, utilities) you can for all practical purposes call it a unix..
MIT actually does that.
Once admitted you're required to take a writing test that is waived only if you got 5 in ap english. If you don't pass this test you need to take a course in english composition. You're also required to take humanities subjects throughout your studies and two out of these eight required courses have to be communication intensive(verbal/writing).