The question is if they would correct misunderstandings like those over WMDs, the lack of a 9/11 to iraq link, US interrogation techniques, a real comparative threat anaylsis on how much danger we actually face from terrorist attacks within the US etc, or if they will simply give us the message of the administration.
If they honestly correct mistakes in the media, that would actually be nice. If they're just another tool to get propaganda to us, this is yet another sickening political move.
Heh, in 2001 I had this exact idea as part of my concept for a theoretical modular virus. Most of the things I envisioned in that concept have since been picked up by malware producers (for example, modular virii, multi-system virii, rootkits in a virus either as the main payload or to reinstall the payload(or a diff payload) after the system has been cleaned to mention a few which have gone into use on some scale since I came up with my idea), but there were a few tricks my concept had that I've yet to hear about in the wild, so I wont go into any of those details for fear of giving anyone ideas. (I have never developed, nor do I ever intend to develop this concept into an actual program. I'm morally opposed to virii... I was just thinking of the things I would be afraid to see in virii, and how one would go about dealing with something using concepts like what I envisioned.)
It also reminds me of a sorta funny virus killer that was my precursor idea to the modular concept in 2000: a virus which uses the same 'sploit as a previous virus. The goal: download a removal package, the patch to the 'sploit you used to get in, and a package to temporarily host all of the packages. Once it does this, it simply removes the old virus, patches the system, and hosts the files for a breif period of time(prolly around a day, definately no longer than a week... could also judge how long to host it off frequency of requests for the info) to allow the virus to P2P the files rather than place the load on a central server. Could also disable the network adapter for a period of time in there if needed to make sure it doesnt get reinfected during the removal/patching phases.
I decided against ever building such a virus-chaser because it's near as bad as the original virus. It's illegal, it could cause network congestion, and while it intends to do good, it's pretty immoral to install stuff on a system & patch it without the users consent.
Still, a funny concept, similar in some ways to the malware this article discusses.
PS, I know the plural of virus is viruses. Virii is just fun to say tho.
My friends mother used to be a VP at Cray before they merged with SGI. A large portion of the Cray management realized how inept the SGI people were when they got bought, and jumped ship after not too long. It came as no suprise to her when they did a poor job of doing much of anything with Cray & Tera Computer Company bought it off SGI in 2000.
For an example of the idiocy SGI had, they decided in the early/mid 90's to put in CAT 3 because it was slightly cheaper than CAT 5, only to realize about 2 years later they really did need CAT 5 & had to rip out all of the CAT 3 & replace it. Keep in mind at that point CAT 3 really wasnt much cheaper & it was pretty obvious it would be obsolete pretty quickly.
Unless they really cleaned house & got a lot of new blod in there, SGI's gonna go down again.
"Unfortunately, a lot of kids just don't get it that there's more to life beyond today"
Unfortunately you don't get there's a lot more to life than money. Money is a means to various services. Everyone needs to contribute to society in order to draw on the services of society. For those who no longer work, it's simply saying you've payed your dues(in the form of time) to society equivalent to those which you're drawing back from society.
To get those IRAs or dividends to the degree which you did, if you did it without advancing some field in a unique way, you had to work over 40 hours a week, had to work for the bulk of your life, or skimped and saved as much as theoretically possible. If you advanced an underdeveloped field, you benefitted society enough to deseve what you're getting*. If you worked significantly over 40 hours a week (unless you were one of the lucky few who truely enjoy their job) or if you skimped & saved every penny you could, imo you wasted a portion of your life... for possible returns. Albiet if you've reached the point of retirement those have payed off to a degree, but you're putting a down payment in either case, of significantly decreased short term enjoyment(which is guaranteed) for the chance or it paying off later. (what I mean by chance is both the method of investment, which carries risk, as well as the odds of survival for the # of years till it really pays off)
*undeveloped fields are systems which have not been fully developed, but are of benifit to society. Those who understand these systems both work them to their advantage as well as benifit the field to the gain of society as a whole.
-
There is no free lunch. There is no easy answer. IRA's, skimping and saving, or even comprehending a field which no one else does, these have costs(personal) or benifits(societally) which end up resulting in retirement at some earlier than otherwise possible point/a more comfortable retirement. But they're not free, dont delude yourself into thinking that. You payed for that money/month.
Both have a bit of a premium on them, I got my ATP toughdrive for 65 after shipping, it looks like the lexar jumpdrive's $71 for a 2 gig. Compare these to around 35-40 with shipping for a cheap 2 gig USB keychain. (all of these prices were similar when I purchased & are current for dealtime's listings ATM)
I'm not sure who if anyone is actually selling the 4 gig modles of the ATP drive atm. The price searchign sites I use dont have a listing for the name or modle #, and a google of the modle # only turned up the manufacturer site.
Re:How about some more *durable* flash drives?
on
16GB Flash USB Dongle
·
· Score: 1
I agree durability is key(no pun intended).
Thats why I ended up purchasing a 2 gig ATP toughdrive.
http://flash.atpinc.com/products/view.php?product_ id=1178 (256 meg-4 gig drives)
The lexar jumpdrive sport you mentioned is now selling 2 gig versions.
http://store.lexar.com/?category=23&subcategory=19 &productid=JDSP2GB-231
Both have a bit of a premium on them, I got my ATP toughdrive for 65 after shipping, it looks like the lexar jumpdrive's $71 for a 2 gig. Compare these to around 35-40 with shipping for a cheap 2 gig USB keychain. (all of these prices were similar when I purchased & are current for dealtime's listings ATM)
I'm not sure who if anyone is actually selling the 4 gig modles of the ATP drive atm. The price searchign sites I use dont have a listing for the name or modle #, and a google of the modle # only turned up the manufacturer site.
I recently got a 2 gig ATP toughdrive which I use to hold my communications(IM, email, IRC, and RSS), commonly needed basic apps, and a pile of apps for finding and fixing most problems, in particular in network issues where usb is the best way to ge apps on there anyway.
Miranda IM, doesnt need any files outside of the base folder to operate, so my IM client, RSS feeds, gmail, and IRC, as well as all their logs, are on my USB drive. Quite nice to have a single log file between many computers with this. Miranda also supports other plugins so you can tailor it to what you like.
Firefox, winrar, winamp, adobe acrobat, daemon tools etc Video codec packs, divfix P2P software, (bitlord & revconnect) spyware removal tools(a number of various automated utilities I keep relatively up to date, as well as hijack this & a # of other similar things to find problems manually) putty, a port forward testing app, a couple port scanners, process explorer partition magic, easy recover pro, win 2k resource kit, winternals admin pak NTFS DOS, damn small linux
I also have a bit of spare space yet, which I use to drag around the most recent week of the daily show, or to drag specific media around to show to someone.
I live in St Paul MN, and was just listening to a story about this on MPR. It sounds like the emphasis was on the lack of proof they cause harm. Mike hatch, the ex-attourney general currently running for govenor, is now attemping to get said proof according to the statement he made today... so dont expect this issue to stay dead. Before elections I expect to see more of a fuss on this issue in MN.
I think this post is on the money.
I took a writers workshop a few years back with Patricia C. Wrede who's the author of the Dealing with Dragons among other books(including some sci-fi like a # of star wars novels). She stressed that you're allowed to have 1 suspension of disbeleif, generally which the premise your world is based around. After that, everything's got to be beleivable.
For this reason iirc she said writing fantasy's easier than sci-fi, because sci-fi's based off tech we extrapolate will be possible, and so needs to be based to a degree in how we beleive science works atm. Whereas fantasy's world layout is generally easier to incorporate into this suspension of disbeleif & so it's much easier to basically do what you want without making the person aware again of that suspension, and while we're willing to suspend our disbeleif, we really dont like to be dragged out of the world by being reminded of it.
I just heard of the system, havent actually seen it... but if it's as I heard it is, imo it's a far superior party system. From what I heard: some students at harvey mudd made something which impressed me more in terms of automating parties... it simply mixes drinks. And by simply I mean it could hold something like a dozen different types of boozes and you could give it a drink name it had programmed and it would pour and mix the correct amounts of the various alcohols(and non-alcoholic beverages should one desire). iirc it could also measure fluid levels and know which drinks it could or couldnt make based on how much of each alcohol it had left.
Sure, the MIT system touches on more things. But blinds, music, lights, party effects(especially if it's a pre-existing single system with basically on/off) are all really simple things to do, even when inebriated. On the other hand streamlining the process of making drinks is nice with a larger croud. Second, always being able to quickly mix up a good drink is an honest improvement over what an inibriated person could do easily/quickly.
So, as far as parties, imo the harvey mudd system does more for you, even tho it touches on fewer different systems.
In the summer of '99 I read a # of articles talking about the effects of driving shortly after waking up &/or while tired. The results clearly put the chances of an accident on par with drunk driving.
Incidentally, highschool students will on average go to sleep sometime after midnight(I cant recall the specific avg'd time) regardless of when they have to get up for school, as was cited in a # of articles discussing late starts for high school.
When combined, it means we're putting the worst drivers in our society on the road when they're in a state equivalent of being drunk daily during the school year.
Top this off with how these sleepy students perform in class. Tho the studies I read didnt compare it to being drunk, the scores are significantly lower on average with a 7:30 start vs 9:30, which in retrospect are similar in magnitude, once again, to being drunk.
Anyhoo, between these 2 reasons, it's pretty clear the early start times for highschools are somewhere between stupid & dangerous. Especially when one looks at the statistics for how elementry students would acheive with the early start, combined with the fact they arent dricing to school. Yet the elementry students get the latest start in most places because parents fear having them standing out on street corners in the dark before sunrise. (This is just plain silly in MN where I live when they end up standing out in the dark anyway 1/2 the school year)
Re:Unlikely, but exciting if they pull it off
on
Writing Genetic Code
·
· Score: 1
It's not really casting about in the dark, we've got plenty of organisms around to examine and reverse engineer. Sure, it took millions of years thru evolution, but that's not at all the approach they'll be taking. While they dont want to pull the basic stuff we've been doing with genetic splicing, I'm sure there will be sections of DNA from other organsims they use, and sections that are similar but different in some key way or another than existing organsims.
The shortcuts we take often seem to get results much faster and cause side effects we didnt forsee. This compared to evolution is sort of a brute force method, but one which weeds out very detrimental side effects(or the side effects weed out other organsims), so the unforseen side effects on the scale of synthesized(sp?) items isnt there.
heh, funny you mention why hot pizza burns your mouth. Most people assume it's the oil/cheese... but it's actually the sauce. The specific heat of water is much higher than that of oil, which means the oil heats up quicker, but also loses its heat quicker. Top this with the insulating effect the cheese gives the sauce, and the sauce can end up staying overly hot for quite some time. Anyhoo, im not sure quite why a study of that would be needed, but I for one find looking at it from the angle of specific heat is pretty interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
The question is if they would correct misunderstandings like those over WMDs, the lack of a 9/11 to iraq link, US interrogation techniques, a real comparative threat anaylsis on how much danger we actually face from terrorist attacks within the US etc, or if they will simply give us the message of the administration.
If they honestly correct mistakes in the media, that would actually be nice.
If they're just another tool to get propaganda to us, this is yet another sickening political move.
Sadly I think the 2nd is more likely.
Heh, in 2001 I had this exact idea as part of my concept for a theoretical modular virus. Most of the things I envisioned in that concept have since been picked up by malware producers (for example, modular virii, multi-system virii, rootkits in a virus either as the main payload or to reinstall the payload(or a diff payload) after the system has been cleaned to mention a few which have gone into use on some scale since I came up with my idea), but there were a few tricks my concept had that I've yet to hear about in the wild, so I wont go into any of those details for fear of giving anyone ideas. (I have never developed, nor do I ever intend to develop this concept into an actual program. I'm morally opposed to virii... I was just thinking of the things I would be afraid to see in virii, and how one would go about dealing with something using concepts like what I envisioned.)
It also reminds me of a sorta funny virus killer that was my precursor idea to the modular concept in 2000: a virus which uses the same 'sploit as a previous virus. The goal: download a removal package, the patch to the 'sploit you used to get in, and a package to temporarily host all of the packages. Once it does this, it simply removes the old virus, patches the system, and hosts the files for a breif period of time(prolly around a day, definately no longer than a week... could also judge how long to host it off frequency of requests for the info) to allow the virus to P2P the files rather than place the load on a central server. Could also disable the network adapter for a period of time in there if needed to make sure it doesnt get reinfected during the removal/patching phases.
I decided against ever building such a virus-chaser because it's near as bad as the original virus. It's illegal, it could cause network congestion, and while it intends to do good, it's pretty immoral to install stuff on a system & patch it without the users consent.
Still, a funny concept, similar in some ways to the malware this article discusses.
PS, I know the plural of virus is viruses. Virii is just fun to say tho.
My friends mother used to be a VP at Cray before they merged with SGI. A large portion of the Cray management realized how inept the SGI people were when they got bought, and jumped ship after not too long. It came as no suprise to her when they did a poor job of doing much of anything with Cray & Tera Computer Company bought it off SGI in 2000.
For an example of the idiocy SGI had, they decided in the early/mid 90's to put in CAT 3 because it was slightly cheaper than CAT 5, only to realize about 2 years later they really did need CAT 5 & had to rip out all of the CAT 3 & replace it.
Keep in mind at that point CAT 3 really wasnt much cheaper & it was pretty obvious it would be obsolete pretty quickly.
Unless they really cleaned house & got a lot of new blod in there, SGI's gonna go down again.
"Unfortunately, a lot of kids just don't get it that there's more to life beyond today"
Unfortunately you don't get there's a lot more to life than money. Money is a means to various services. Everyone needs to contribute to society in order to draw on the services of society. For those who no longer work, it's simply saying you've payed your dues(in the form of time) to society equivalent to those which you're drawing back from society.
To get those IRAs or dividends to the degree which you did, if you did it without advancing some field in a unique way, you had to work over 40 hours a week, had to work for the bulk of your life, or skimped and saved as much as theoretically possible. If you advanced an underdeveloped field, you benefitted society enough to deseve what you're getting*. If you worked significantly over 40 hours a week (unless you were one of the lucky few who truely enjoy their job) or if you skimped & saved every penny you could, imo you wasted a portion of your life... for possible returns. Albiet if you've reached the point of retirement those have payed off to a degree, but you're putting a down payment in either case, of significantly decreased short term enjoyment(which is guaranteed) for the chance or it paying off later. (what I mean by chance is both the method of investment, which carries risk, as well as the odds of survival for the # of years till it really pays off)
*undeveloped fields are systems which have not been fully developed, but are of benifit to society. Those who understand these systems both work them to their advantage as well as benifit the field to the gain of society as a whole.
-
There is no free lunch. There is no easy answer. IRA's, skimping and saving, or even comprehending a field which no one else does, these have costs(personal) or benifits(societally) which end up resulting in retirement at some earlier than otherwise possible point/a more comfortable retirement. But they're not free, dont delude yourself into thinking that. You payed for that money/month.
And not even before microsoft was a monopolistic behemoth... but now I'm dating myself.
I agree durability is key(no pun intended)._ id=1178 (256 meg-4 gig drives)
9 &productid=JDSP2GB-231
Thats why I ended up purchasing a 2 gig ATP toughdrive.
http://flash.atpinc.com/products/view.php?product
The lexar jumpdrive sport you mentioned is now selling 2 gig versions.
http://store.lexar.com/?category=23&subcategory=1
Both have a bit of a premium on them, I got my ATP toughdrive for 65 after shipping, it looks like the lexar jumpdrive's $71 for a 2 gig. Compare these to around 35-40 with shipping for a cheap 2 gig USB keychain. (all of these prices were similar when I purchased & are current for dealtime's listings ATM)
I'm not sure who if anyone is actually selling the 4 gig modles of the ATP drive atm. The price searchign sites I use dont have a listing for the name or modle #, and a google of the modle # only turned up the manufacturer site.
I agree durability is key(no pun intended). Thats why I ended up purchasing a 2 gig ATP toughdrive. http://flash.atpinc.com/products/view.php?product_ id=1178 (256 meg-4 gig drives)
The lexar jumpdrive sport you mentioned is now selling 2 gig versions.
http://store.lexar.com/?category=23&subcategory=19 &productid=JDSP2GB-231
Both have a bit of a premium on them, I got my ATP toughdrive for 65 after shipping, it looks like the lexar jumpdrive's $71 for a 2 gig. Compare these to around 35-40 with shipping for a cheap 2 gig USB keychain. (all of these prices were similar when I purchased & are current for dealtime's listings ATM)
I'm not sure who if anyone is actually selling the 4 gig modles of the ATP drive atm. The price searchign sites I use dont have a listing for the name or modle #, and a google of the modle # only turned up the manufacturer site.
I recently got a 2 gig ATP toughdrive which I use to hold my communications(IM, email, IRC, and RSS), commonly needed basic apps, and a pile of apps for finding and fixing most problems, in particular in network issues where usb is the best way to ge apps on there anyway.
Miranda IM, doesnt need any files outside of the base folder to operate, so my IM client, RSS feeds, gmail, and IRC, as well as all their logs, are on my USB drive. Quite nice to have a single log file between many computers with this. Miranda also supports other plugins so you can tailor it to what you like.
Firefox, winrar, winamp, adobe acrobat, daemon tools etc
Video codec packs, divfix
P2P software, (bitlord & revconnect)
spyware removal tools(a number of various automated utilities I keep relatively up to date, as well as hijack this & a # of other similar things to find problems manually)
putty, a port forward testing app, a couple port scanners, process explorer
partition magic, easy recover pro, win 2k resource kit, winternals admin pak
NTFS DOS, damn small linux
I also have a bit of spare space yet, which I use to drag around the most recent week of the daily show, or to drag specific media around to show to someone.
I live in St Paul MN, and was just listening to a story about this on MPR. It sounds like the emphasis was on the lack of proof they cause harm. Mike hatch, the ex-attourney general currently running for govenor, is now attemping to get said proof according to the statement he made today... so dont expect this issue to stay dead.
Before elections I expect to see more of a fuss on this issue in MN.
I think this post is on the money. I took a writers workshop a few years back with Patricia C. Wrede who's the author of the Dealing with Dragons among other books(including some sci-fi like a # of star wars novels). She stressed that you're allowed to have 1 suspension of disbeleif, generally which the premise your world is based around. After that, everything's got to be beleivable. For this reason iirc she said writing fantasy's easier than sci-fi, because sci-fi's based off tech we extrapolate will be possible, and so needs to be based to a degree in how we beleive science works atm. Whereas fantasy's world layout is generally easier to incorporate into this suspension of disbeleif & so it's much easier to basically do what you want without making the person aware again of that suspension, and while we're willing to suspend our disbeleif, we really dont like to be dragged out of the world by being reminded of it.
I just heard of the system, havent actually seen it... but if it's as I heard it is, imo it's a far superior party system.
From what I heard: some students at harvey mudd made something which impressed me more in terms of automating parties... it simply mixes drinks. And by simply I mean it could hold something like a dozen different types of boozes and you could give it a drink name it had programmed and it would pour and mix the correct amounts of the various alcohols(and non-alcoholic beverages should one desire). iirc it could also measure fluid levels and know which drinks it could or couldnt make based on how much of each alcohol it had left.
Sure, the MIT system touches on more things. But blinds, music, lights, party effects(especially if it's a pre-existing single system with basically on/off) are all really simple things to do, even when inebriated.
On the other hand streamlining the process of making drinks is nice with a larger croud. Second, always being able to quickly mix up a good drink is an honest improvement over what an inibriated person could do easily/quickly.
So, as far as parties, imo the harvey mudd system does more for you, even tho it touches on fewer different systems.
In the summer of '99 I read a # of articles talking about the effects of driving shortly after waking up &/or while tired. The results clearly put the chances of an accident on par with drunk driving. Incidentally, highschool students will on average go to sleep sometime after midnight(I cant recall the specific avg'd time) regardless of when they have to get up for school, as was cited in a # of articles discussing late starts for high school. When combined, it means we're putting the worst drivers in our society on the road when they're in a state equivalent of being drunk daily during the school year. Top this off with how these sleepy students perform in class. Tho the studies I read didnt compare it to being drunk, the scores are significantly lower on average with a 7:30 start vs 9:30, which in retrospect are similar in magnitude, once again, to being drunk. Anyhoo, between these 2 reasons, it's pretty clear the early start times for highschools are somewhere between stupid & dangerous. Especially when one looks at the statistics for how elementry students would acheive with the early start, combined with the fact they arent dricing to school. Yet the elementry students get the latest start in most places because parents fear having them standing out on street corners in the dark before sunrise. (This is just plain silly in MN where I live when they end up standing out in the dark anyway 1/2 the school year)
It's not really casting about in the dark, we've got plenty of organisms around to examine and reverse engineer. Sure, it took millions of years thru evolution, but that's not at all the approach they'll be taking. While they dont want to pull the basic stuff we've been doing with genetic splicing, I'm sure there will be sections of DNA from other organsims they use, and sections that are similar but different in some key way or another than existing organsims. The shortcuts we take often seem to get results much faster and cause side effects we didnt forsee. This compared to evolution is sort of a brute force method, but one which weeds out very detrimental side effects(or the side effects weed out other organsims), so the unforseen side effects on the scale of synthesized(sp?) items isnt there.
heh, funny you mention why hot pizza burns your mouth. Most people assume it's the oil/cheese... but it's actually the sauce.
The specific heat of water is much higher than that of oil, which means the oil heats up quicker, but also loses its heat quicker. Top this with the insulating effect the cheese gives the sauce, and the sauce can end up staying overly hot for quite some time.
Anyhoo, im not sure quite why a study of that would be needed, but I for one find looking at it from the angle of specific heat is pretty interesting.