Sure almost every *chip* is capable of preventing simultaneous write and execute... but it is rare for the OS to be configured that way due to the surprising number of applications that want to write on code. VMs, in particular - Java, flash,.NET, custom library loaders in databases and web-servers, script interpreters in any sufficiently fancy application often optimize by throwing in a little code generation.
While, in theory, all this stuff can be done by only writing on code when it is created or loaded - and then changing the flags back to execute-only to run it... but big apps frequently want fine-grained control over which code to rewrite, and even the ability to patch instructions that another CPU might be about to execute.
Why is this needed? Take an example - a VM wants to be able to recompile frequently executed code *after* startup - probably at a function/method level since code all over the place might be calling into any particular class implementation. Having recompiled the subject code - all the code running should be migrated over to the new faster implementation. If you have to *stop* the system every time you do this, a lot of the performance advantages of dynamic recompilation get eaten - and it totally bollixes 'realtime' implementations (so do most of the garbage collecters, but not *all* thankfully).
So Either - the instructions that are calls to the old code have to actually be indirect off of function-pointers - always even for non-virtual code, and some big virtual function tables merely need to be updated on recompilation, or you allow static invocations - and have rewrite the call instructions underneath the running CPUs.
Thing is - na indirect (or virtual) function call *is* slower than a direct one - an extra memory access is required, and in big apps it is not reasonably to assume that code will usually be in cache - an extra dependent memory access is *not* the 'one tick' that some theorists claim - it can hit many hundreds of ticks in pathological situations - without even hitting disk.
So... while they don't *have* to have write on code... big applications want it for performance reasons.
In OO languages a pointer to an object works almost as well. The object pointed to in many implementations begins with a type field. This is usually a pointer to the class's virtual function table - usually implemented as a table of function pointers.
That is to say - if the object is referenced through a bad pointer, *and executes* any methods of that object's type - then it could be used to run someone elses code. They'll need to have filled some memory with something that can be interpreted as a virtual function table that points at something that can be interpreted as code. Which is doable.
If the processor/OS has set an app to able to write to it's executable memory, then it is vulnerable to this class of vulnerability.
Many OS's and C++, Objective C and *java* implementations default to this.
Pascal and perl used (maybe they still do) stubby things that required that the *stack* be executable, nevermind just data... *buffer overruns* are much easier when the stack is executable.
Java is interesting. Modern VMs do a lot of dynamic optimization - this means that they write on code that is actually running. They need OS permission to do so (in decent OSs?) so now you *have* to give the VM's process that permission in order to run Java. Now any dangling pointers in the VM implemention are potentially exploitable. Or if the memory manager has a bug and improperly deallocates an object... Or if the application has to call a library and that library accidentally accesses a reference to an object that was already released by java. Or maybe the app calls the OS - and the OS has a dangling pointer (say to a data structure that the Java VM needed to allocate). If you can fill the Java heap with executable exploit data, then if someone, anyone, jumps into it - they are toast.
I hope this helps. There is likely an actual paper that they will present. It will document one or several of the myriad ways to exploit dangling pointers - hopefully more efficiently than previously.
If a dangling pointer is followed into 'random memory' what are the odds it'll hit exploit code? Sometimes very low...
Oftentimes, however, the original value was off of the heap, so if one can make the app allocate a whole bunch of memory there might be even odds that the pointer will now point into that memory. If that memory consists of a huge header which can be *entered at any point* (eg: big pile of nops) and forwards execution along to the end where one has the exploit code proper... then you have an exploit.
See some other post about how to get from an ordinary pointer to an executable one (eg: a function pointer)... how rare are function pointers?
As an AC sibling points out - sucrose is a polysacharide.
While it is quickly broken down by enzymes into fructose and glucose, this takes place more gradually and thus has less of an effect on satiety than direct fructose consumption from HFCS.
Yeah, folks don't exercise enough and eat too much. You'd think we were born with some kind of urge to be lazy - as if there was selective pressure to be efficient with energy, even.;}
The FDA doesn't (I hope) have the mandate to enforce that folks eat less and exercise more. It *could* do something about HFCS, but the lobby is strong, and the case weak. Besides, HFCS is a US problem only, and the rest of the world has no shortage of obesity (and classic-er tasting coke).
TFA points out that the paper will be published in June, so nobody here can likely have read the paper, which hopefully, is still being edited for publication.
We have every right to be sceptical, they are releasing results to the Globe and Mail before they do to their journal or conference.
The criticisms in the grandparent were entirely applicable to TFA - the globe and mail article.
Yep, exactly, and I totally consider it a truly bizarre assumption that Penrose holds there.
I am forced to assume that it is important for his notion of identity, to have a free will that is capable at least of thinking whatever it is possible to think. He likely refines this formally as the ability to 'prove what is provable' - since if we *couldn't* prove certain things that are actually provable, then we clearly wouldn't have the ability to think whatever was thinkable, or possibly to think whatever we want preventing free will. Can't be certain which beef he has that drives his assumption - there are likely several more possible motivations, though Penrose claims at least not to be motivated by spirituality in this argument.
Any discussion of AI and computability must acknowledge the wonderful Godel Escher and Bach: An eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. ISBN-10: 0465026567 ISBN-13: 978-0465026562
Hofstadter is less rigorous, and is mostly just trying to show how neat these areas of math are - and how they relate to consciousness, intelligence, identity, knowledge etc... If you haven't read it already I think you'd really, really, enjoy it. He also assumes things more along the lines of how I think - so I can claim his arguments are more 'sound' than Penrose. Penrose does a commendable job of logically carrying his position, but his assumptions are crazy - I accuse him of an 'unsound' analysis.;}
Thanks for taking the time to read my post - there's no way I'm getting modded up on something that long.
I had mod points too (or at least I did earlier today), could have just hit him with the trusty 'overrated'. Sigh.
You made a number of spurious statements to support your thesis that IBM made a big assumption:
It is possible that brain activity occurs via the microtubules, but this has not been well shown.
Quantum physics is not *efficient* to simulate on modern computers, as the non-deterministic aspects tend to drive the model exponential. This does not prevent extremely large deterministic computers from modelling inefficiently, nor does it prevent prevent Quantum Computers from modelling more quickly (kudos to other reply who posted this point faster).
That theory of consciousness is not a particularly scientific theory. I say this since the fundamental thesis appears to be that there is 'something about consciousness' that prevents it from being possible to be simulated on a computer, as opposed to a more specific thesis. Care seems to have been taken to avoid testable claims, like the ability to solve particular classes of problem on a computer, or the ablility for a computer to pass some sort of Turing test. The heavy reliance on a slippery definition of 'consciousness' is critical. Lastly the main authors are not supporting their cases by publishing papers in decent journals, but instead by selling books and videos.
Even Penrose (of string theory fame), attempting the Lucasian argument in An Emperor's New Mind, resorted to choosing 'a mathematicians' ability to, in principle, prove any true theorem.' as the most viable testable aspect of consciousness. Since a computer will always (because of Godel's incompleteness) have statements that it cannot prove, Penrose argued that a mathematician must thus be more than any computer could be. The supposition that a mathematician's ability to freely choose between formal systems gives it the ability to prove anything is a bit of an eye popper for me, even with Penrose's 'in principle' tacked on.
Penrose followed the rebuttal well: In the same way that any computer is existing within a formal system, and thus is unable to prove certain theorems (Godel's), humans exist in physical reality - which is simulable (yes, including quantum physics) by either a large or quantum computer, given all the physics known to science at this time. This means that anything subject to known physical laws can prove no more than whatever some astronomical ultra-computer capable of simulating that subject, could prove.
The result of this painful train of thought, for Penrose, was the supposition that there must be some fundamental new physics, operating within the brain, that enables us to have the potential to solve any mathematical problem for which a solution is out there. Penrose hopes that this physics is lingering near the microtubules, but he is totally clear that it is not normal Quantum Physics, since that doesn't escape computer simulable activity.
I am not bringing up Penrose as a Straw-man - I feel he did the best job of analyzing and supporting the position. In particular, I am not saying 'blah - just Penrose et. al. not understanding what the scientific method is' In fact Penrose is well aware of the scientific method, and classifies definitions of science along a strong-weak path with strong-definitions requiring that theories be thoroughly disproven to be considered scientific. He considers his own views - namely that a scientific theory should be disprovable 'in principle', to be a weaker than normal definition.
Penrose's knowledge of computation and physics, and the quality of his arguments, far surpass the other writers in this area. He is the only fair target. Besides, his webpages have never used the blink tag. Penrose is cited on the parent's link, but it is hard to criticise the position of that linked author without having bought their video or book.
That said, I obviously disagree with his position, and that of the parent. In particular, obviously, none of this series of experiments at IBM can or will shed
Why would a lawmaker want to pursue such a reform? Wouldn't that just piss off almost all the lobbies and people with enough income to make good use of a tax deduction?
I'd love to see such a reform - but who would support it financially?
Not to imply that our laws are written within a corrupt framework; well, perhaps I do suspect that.
If folks were armed, then they could have shot him when they saw him shooting people?
So, then, he wouldn't have gone in with a pistol and a bunch of bullets - he might have have used a bomb instead.
Many, many more students have been killed in several mass murders at universities in Baghdad - just within the last few months. Iraq is drowning in guns, and there are armed guards everywhere on campuses. It is unclear how much the guns help.
It is caused by the exaustion of IDs in the low 24 bits of the ID. The field was intended to roll over back to 0 since the majority of the IDs are only needed temporarily. Unfortunatly they bugged the implementation, failing to preserve the 8 high bits (normally FF) in all rollover cases thus generating much internal confusion.
The problem was exascerbated by the new guard scripts which really burned through the IDs fast.
A tested patch is clearly only a short way away.
This story broke about 4 or 5 days ago... and the longer you put off patching the more likely the problem is to hit.
you do realise i was joking, right? Nup, hadn't a clue... this is/. afterall.;}
Yep, looking back, the tongue is right there in the cheek, but your exasperation is real... and its not like I don' feel that way myself often. 'Must - shake - pointy hair'd man - harder - not smart enough yet.'
Ya, I agree - if only clever, patient explanations were enough... man, that would rock.
Cassandra:
( greek character cursed to see the future but have noone believe her)
Clever:
It is one type of clever to see that the world is different from the one other folks are acting towards.
It is another to understand why they are acting as they do. Sometimes it is actually, ignorance, but not as often as we often suspect. Rarely is it stupidity.
Incompetence, for example, has more to do with considering the appearence of action more important than the consequences.
Social or even contractual forces can mean that while something might be clearly very unsafe, to act otherwise would be to implicitly accuse someone else of being incorrect. This is very hard for some people.
It is completely different kind of clever, to be able to convince folks of stuff - presumably after having the identified actual propblems, and some real reasons the folks had for overlooking them.
Risk:
Analysing risk is something humans do amazingly, shockingly, poorly. Even without the bizarre political portrayals shown in the news media we (humans) cannot think about risk clearly. Without studying gambling in depth, it is extremely hard for folks to decide on actions when 'playing' - even when the odds are known and the results openly available.
Chanting:
Lastly, just let me imagine how you would respond if someone repeated 'Nothing is safe online!' several times at you. You might think: 'But, I thought that already - why are they repeating it rather than explaining, expanding... now I am sceptical - what are they selling? Now I need to re-check my previous assumption that the internet was unsafe, and figure out exactly where, how badly and even 'if' the internet is unsafe.';}
Personally, repetition freaks me out. I almost get a panic response. I can't watch TV, listen to the radio, or play WoW without risking intense stress. I have noticed that most folks are not affeected this way, however. they will eventually find it irritating, but not as quickly as I would hope... and what's more, in the meantime they are slightly hypnotized - often coming away with the words and idea still spinning in thier heads. This is normal folks in regular situations, not brain-damaged, stoned, tired, stressed or otherwise overly impaired humans - ie: not the ones we usually call stupid.
So - the question of 'reputation': 'Hard to shake' the reports of a former team-mate? This is primary research, and the results are bloody testable. Screw reputation. This is cricism is expected, required and to be commended. Taleyarkhan is surely not surprised that folks are jumping on every issue that they can find. If his sonofusion is replicated then he will be a hero. In life in general: *every* accuser of corruption is attacked as a liar. This is not fun - folks don't do this normally unless they really saw something worrisome. The accusation invariably gets themselves investigated as well, and usually by folks sympathetic to the accused. It is *not* easy to make allegations, and folks with even a hair of power constantly bury any and all criticism. Seriously, whistleblowing is not fun - not in academia, not in industry, not in public service, not in religious institutions... nowhere.
His research has been published and folks are replicating (and, of course, mostly failing to replicate) his results. Discussions of the results (and non-results) are ensuing. This is satisfactory science. He was mocked for leaving his name off of a couple of papers that were by *very* close colleagues, which is fair too.
Incidentally, it is totally possible to calculate a number of distances in an image of a rectilinear object (like a house or kitchen) by assuming that planes are at right (or other known) angles. One can then estimate on planes other than the reference plane. Any planes that are at a shallow angle to the viewer will generate crappy numbers, of course, and the more angles you are away from the reference, the more error will accumulate. Lens distortion is pretty frightening on a lot of cameras - I'd be curious if the software can measure it, or otherwise attempt to ameliorate that source of error.
Whether this software is effective in practice would likely require trying it, and having actual (as opposed to hypothetical) accuracy requirements for your estimates.
IQ is the most weakly correlated with breeding of the features you mention. The wealth, education and class levels of people are very strongly correlated, but it is not even remotely clear that this is more than the common effect of security on progeny numbers seen in many fish, mammals and birds.
The phenomenon is that many critters have *more* children which they care for poorly when they are low on resources or under stress. The assumption we like to make is that the critter is estimating the survivability of it's kids low, and thus going buckshot rather than sniper since it is dark (low chance of success).
Of course if there are so few resources that the critter can't even create kids eg: starving, then that will dominate and fewer kids will be expected again.
Bizarre, lucas has posted previously about frustrations in Switzerland not being able to fire high-school aged techie apprentices.
This person may actually believe the things said, at least those about students.
You are suggesting that students in public school are wasting their time unless they are doing schoolwork (?) at school computers, and thus should be forced to 'get a job', perhaps flipping burgers. You add that you can't harrass or damage people via the internet.
If the first assertions are intended to annoy those of us who didn't get excellent grades, it does. The second point is hoping to annoy women, the computer literate? It is too obviously false to get folks to bite on I expect, though.
To get people to flame you back properly you need to personify the types of folks who they already dislike. I think you were shooting for the attributes: sexist, computer ignorant, tax-obsessed, conservative, and elitest. I think you went too broad - that archetype, while it exists (perhaps it has an MBA even), is not one that folks here have to deal with often enough.
Try on the tech issues... there are some subtle rifts in the community which you might be able to exploit there. The gaming threads should be a good sandbox.
It will even likely be possible, based on the ratios of products to Po-10, to calculate quite accurately when the Polonium was produced and refined.
Polonium works a lot better when folks with resources don't notice it. The victim turns up dead, mysteriously. In this situation it has been making regular world news, and the stuff has left a sparkly trail. Hopefully right back to whoever converted it into a poison from the less leaky compounds that it is normally kept in.
... the patrons of the spam, especially by phone. Support costs money. 877 numbers cost money. Email is easier to type, but it doesn't always get a response from the recipient.
>>... is there enough information to reverse engineer it?
There is. The article gets to the point at the very end, and frustratingly turns out to be hype for the upcoming release of what it does. The point is that they found significantly more text (than had been previously found) by using x-ray tomography to show slices of its internals. The text they found included the manual which was conveniently written in greek.
Apparently it turns out that the previous attempts to reverse engineer what it does were somewhat off.
I agree with the above poster: it is not really news yet - they are merely about to present their results. Hate. Hype.
Like the highlander, and perhaps siamese fighting fish, there can be only one Pope.
Look to the history of the anti-popes: the poor losers in the pope-Pope debates. As fortunes (and armies) shift some popes have been deemed anti-popes after a time as pope, only to be re-pope'd after they (or a friend) regained the papacy. History has been ambivalent about certain popes - switching between pope* and anti-pope as many as six times over centuries of historical debate.
Personally, I've always been afraid my Pope will dash himself senseless against the mirror.
PS: I certainly wouldn't be one to criticise the Holy See's position on AIDS. Considering what they'll do to each other, I am truly terrified of the treatments for mere lay-people.
* er - the one I am thinking about is still under serious consideration for a re-instatement. This would mean that it should be capitalized: 'switching between Pope and anti-pope'.
Somewhat offtopic, but copyright infringement should deny suffrage?
I know this is a day old, but wouldn't this be a very serious problem in the US? The high general population ratio and over-representation of minorities and poor in the judicial system would lower the quality of democracy. The current administration uses the expression 'bring democracy to the people' as justification for some pretty heavy shit - seems kinda hypocritical.
Does the US actually deny over 1% of its population the right to vote?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure almost every *chip* is capable of preventing simultaneous write and execute... but it is rare for the OS to be configured that way due to the surprising number of applications that want to write on code. VMs, in particular - Java, flash, .NET, custom library loaders in databases and web-servers, script interpreters in any sufficiently fancy application often optimize by throwing in a little code generation. ... big applications want it for performance reasons.
While, in theory, all this stuff can be done by only writing on code when it is created or loaded - and then changing the flags back to execute-only to run it... but big apps frequently want fine-grained control over which code to rewrite, and even the ability to patch instructions that another CPU might be about to execute.
Why is this needed? Take an example - a VM wants to be able to recompile frequently executed code *after* startup - probably at a function/method level since code all over the place might be calling into any particular class implementation. Having recompiled the subject code - all the code running should be migrated over to the new faster implementation. If you have to *stop* the system every time you do this, a lot of the performance advantages of dynamic recompilation get eaten - and it totally bollixes 'realtime' implementations (so do most of the garbage collecters, but not *all* thankfully).
So Either - the instructions that are calls to the old code have to actually be indirect off of function-pointers - always even for non-virtual code, and some big virtual function tables merely need to be updated on recompilation, or you allow static invocations - and have rewrite the call instructions underneath the running CPUs.
Thing is - na indirect (or virtual) function call *is* slower than a direct one - an extra memory access is required, and in big apps it is not reasonably to assume that code will usually be in cache - an extra dependent memory access is *not* the 'one tick' that some theorists claim - it can hit many hundreds of ticks in pathological situations - without even hitting disk.
So... while they don't *have* to have write on code
In OO languages a pointer to an object works almost as well. The object pointed to in many implementations begins with a type field. This is usually a pointer to the class's virtual function table - usually implemented as a table of function pointers.
That is to say - if the object is referenced through a bad pointer, *and executes* any methods of that object's type - then it could be used to run someone elses code. They'll need to have filled some memory with something that can be interpreted as a virtual function table that points at something that can be interpreted as code. Which is doable.
If the processor/OS has set an app to able to write to it's executable memory, then it is vulnerable to this class of vulnerability.
Many OS's and C++, Objective C and *java* implementations default to this.
Pascal and perl used (maybe they still do) stubby things that required that the *stack* be executable, nevermind just data... *buffer overruns* are much easier when the stack is executable.
Java is interesting. Modern VMs do a lot of dynamic optimization - this means that they write on code that is actually running. They need OS permission to do so (in decent OSs?) so now you *have* to give the VM's process that permission in order to run Java. Now any dangling pointers in the VM implemention are potentially exploitable. Or if the memory manager has a bug and improperly deallocates an object... Or if the application has to call a library and that library accidentally accesses a reference to an object that was already released by java. Or maybe the app calls the OS - and the OS has a dangling pointer (say to a data structure that the Java VM needed to allocate). If you can fill the Java heap with executable exploit data, then if someone, anyone, jumps into it - they are toast.
I hope this helps. There is likely an actual paper that they will present. It will document one or several of the myriad ways to exploit dangling pointers - hopefully more efficiently than previously.
If a dangling pointer is followed into 'random memory' what are the odds it'll hit exploit code? Sometimes very low...
Oftentimes, however, the original value was off of the heap, so if one can make the app allocate a whole bunch of memory there might be even odds that the pointer will now point into that memory. If that memory consists of a huge header which can be *entered at any point* (eg: big pile of nops) and forwards execution along to the end where one has the exploit code proper... then you have an exploit.
See some other post about how to get from an ordinary pointer to an executable one (eg: a function pointer)... how rare are function pointers?
As an AC sibling points out - sucrose is a polysacharide.
;}
While it is quickly broken down by enzymes into fructose and glucose, this takes place more gradually and thus has less of an effect on satiety than direct fructose consumption from HFCS.
Yeah, folks don't exercise enough and eat too much. You'd think we were born with some kind of urge to be lazy - as if there was selective pressure to be efficient with energy, even.
The FDA doesn't (I hope) have the mandate to enforce that folks eat less and exercise more. It *could* do something about HFCS, but the lobby is strong, and the case weak. Besides, HFCS is a US problem only, and the rest of the world has no shortage of obesity (and classic-er tasting coke).
For being a hypocritical goof.
TFA points out that the paper will be published in June, so nobody here can likely have read the paper, which hopefully, is still being edited for publication.
We have every right to be sceptical, they are releasing results to the Globe and Mail before they do to their journal or conference.
The criticisms in the grandparent were entirely applicable to TFA - the globe and mail article.
Yep, exactly, and I totally consider it a truly bizarre assumption that Penrose holds there.
;}
I am forced to assume that it is important for his notion of identity, to have a free will that is capable at least of thinking whatever it is possible to think. He likely refines this formally as the ability to 'prove what is provable' - since if we *couldn't* prove certain things that are actually provable, then we clearly wouldn't have the ability to think whatever was thinkable, or possibly to think whatever we want preventing free will. Can't be certain which beef he has that drives his assumption - there are likely several more possible motivations, though Penrose claims at least not to be motivated by spirituality in this argument.
Any discussion of AI and computability must acknowledge the wonderful Godel Escher and Bach: An eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. ISBN-10: 0465026567 ISBN-13: 978-0465026562
Hofstadter is less rigorous, and is mostly just trying to show how neat these areas of math are - and how they relate to consciousness, intelligence, identity, knowledge etc... If you haven't read it already I think you'd really, really, enjoy it. He also assumes things more along the lines of how I think - so I can claim his arguments are more 'sound' than Penrose. Penrose does a commendable job of logically carrying his position, but his assumptions are crazy - I accuse him of an 'unsound' analysis.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post - there's no way I'm getting modded up on something that long.
I had mod points too (or at least I did earlier today), could have just hit him with the trusty 'overrated'.
Sigh.
You made a number of spurious statements to support your thesis that IBM made a big assumption:
It is possible that brain activity occurs via the microtubules, but this has not been well shown.
Quantum physics is not *efficient* to simulate on modern computers, as the non-deterministic aspects tend to drive the model exponential. This does not prevent extremely large deterministic computers from modelling inefficiently, nor does it prevent prevent Quantum Computers from modelling more quickly (kudos to other reply who posted this point faster).
That theory of consciousness is not a particularly scientific theory. I say this since the fundamental thesis appears to be that there is 'something about consciousness' that prevents it from being possible to be simulated on a computer, as opposed to a more specific thesis. Care seems to have been taken to avoid testable claims, like the ability to solve particular classes of problem on a computer, or the ablility for a computer to pass some sort of Turing test. The heavy reliance on a slippery definition of 'consciousness' is critical. Lastly the main authors are not supporting their cases by publishing papers in decent journals, but instead by selling books and videos.
Even Penrose (of string theory fame), attempting the Lucasian argument in An Emperor's New Mind, resorted to choosing 'a mathematicians' ability to, in principle, prove any true theorem.' as the most viable testable aspect of consciousness. Since a computer will always (because of Godel's incompleteness) have statements that it cannot prove, Penrose argued that a mathematician must thus be more than any computer could be. The supposition that a mathematician's ability to freely choose between formal systems gives it the ability to prove anything is a bit of an eye popper for me, even with Penrose's 'in principle' tacked on.
Penrose followed the rebuttal well: In the same way that any computer is existing within a formal system, and thus is unable to prove certain theorems (Godel's), humans exist in physical reality - which is simulable (yes, including quantum physics) by either a large or quantum computer, given all the physics known to science at this time. This means that anything subject to known physical laws can prove no more than whatever some astronomical ultra-computer capable of simulating that subject, could prove.
The result of this painful train of thought, for Penrose, was the supposition that there must be some fundamental new physics, operating within the brain, that enables us to have the potential to solve any mathematical problem for which a solution is out there. Penrose hopes that this physics is lingering near the microtubules, but he is totally clear that it is not normal Quantum Physics, since that doesn't escape computer simulable activity.
I am not bringing up Penrose as a Straw-man - I feel he did the best job of analyzing and supporting the position. In particular, I am not saying 'blah - just Penrose et. al. not understanding what the scientific method is' In fact Penrose is well aware of the scientific method, and classifies definitions of science along a strong-weak path with strong-definitions requiring that theories be thoroughly disproven to be considered scientific. He considers his own views - namely that a scientific theory should be disprovable 'in principle', to be a weaker than normal definition.
Penrose's knowledge of computation and physics, and the quality of his arguments, far surpass the other writers in this area. He is the only fair target. Besides, his webpages have never used the blink tag. Penrose is cited on the parent's link, but it is hard to criticise the position of that linked author without having bought their video or book.
That said, I obviously disagree with his position, and that of the parent. In particular, obviously, none of this series of experiments at IBM can or will shed
Why would a lawmaker want to pursue such a reform? Wouldn't that just piss off almost all the lobbies and people with enough income to make good use of a tax deduction?
I'd love to see such a reform - but who would support it financially?
Not to imply that our laws are written within a corrupt framework; well, perhaps I do suspect that.
If folks were armed, then they could have shot him when they saw him shooting people?
m m
So, then, he wouldn't have gone in with a pistol and a bunch of bullets - he might have have used a bomb instead.
Many, many more students have been killed in several mass murders at universities in Baghdad - just within the last few months. Iraq is drowning in guns, and there are armed guards everywhere on campuses. It is unclear how much the guns help.
eg:
(45 dead) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6396301.st
(70 dead) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6266707.st
- the one near the Pointy-Hair'd VP's office.
Which will jam.
Then you can enjoy the inevitable company-wide memo.
Bonus:
New hires, even many years later, will be boggled by the 'No CDs or DVDs!' signs on all the shredders.
It is caused by the exaustion of IDs in the low 24 bits of the ID. The field was intended to roll over back to 0 since the majority of the IDs are only needed temporarily. Unfortunatly they bugged the implementation, failing to preserve the 8 high bits (normally FF) in all rollover cases thus generating much internal confusion.
The problem was exascerbated by the new guard scripts which really burned through the IDs fast.
I feel strangely dirty...
;}
As if I somehow was paid for something that should have been freely given.
Next time I leave out the link.
A tested patch is clearly only a short way away.
c hnotes12.htm
This story broke about 4 or 5 days ago... and the longer you put off patching the more likely the problem is to hit.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_pat
Yep, looking back, the tongue is right there in the cheek, but your exasperation is real... and its not like I don' feel that way myself often. 'Must - shake - pointy hair'd man - harder - not smart enough yet.'
Ya, I agree - if only clever, patient explanations were enough... man, that would rock.
Cassandra:
( greek character cursed to see the future but have noone believe her)
Clever:
It is one type of clever to see that the world is different from the one other folks are acting towards.
It is another to understand why they are acting as they do. Sometimes it is actually, ignorance, but not as often as we often suspect. Rarely is it stupidity.
Incompetence, for example, has more to do with considering the appearence of action more important than the consequences.
Social or even contractual forces can mean that while something might be clearly very unsafe, to act otherwise would be to implicitly accuse someone else of being incorrect. This is very hard for some people.
It is completely different kind of clever, to be able to convince folks of stuff - presumably after having the identified actual propblems, and some real reasons the folks had for overlooking them.
Risk:
Analysing risk is something humans do amazingly, shockingly, poorly. Even without the bizarre political portrayals shown in the news media we (humans) cannot think about risk clearly. Without studying gambling in depth, it is extremely hard for folks to decide on actions when 'playing' - even when the odds are known and the results openly available.
Bruce Schneier, as usual, has an insightful rant^Hessay on the topic, The Psychology of Security: http://www.schneier.com/essay-155.html
Chanting:
Lastly, just let me imagine how you would respond if someone repeated 'Nothing is safe online!' several times at you. You might think: 'But, I thought that already - why are they repeating it rather than explaining, expanding... now I am sceptical - what are they selling? Now I need to re-check my previous assumption that the internet was unsafe, and figure out exactly where, how badly and even 'if' the internet is unsafe.'
Personally, repetition freaks me out. I almost get a panic response. I can't watch TV, listen to the radio, or play WoW without risking intense stress. I have noticed that most folks are not affeected this way, however. they will eventually find it irritating, but not as quickly as I would hope... and what's more, in the meantime they are slightly hypnotized - often coming away with the words and idea still spinning in thier heads. This is normal folks in regular situations, not brain-damaged, stoned, tired, stressed or otherwise overly impaired humans - ie: not the ones we usually call stupid.
So - the question of 'reputation': 'Hard to shake' the reports of a former team-mate? This is primary research, and the results are bloody testable. Screw reputation. This is cricism is expected, required and to be commended. Taleyarkhan is surely not surprised that folks are jumping on every issue that they can find. If his sonofusion is replicated then he will be a hero.
In life in general: *every* accuser of corruption is attacked as a liar. This is not fun - folks don't do this normally unless they really saw something worrisome. The accusation invariably gets themselves investigated as well, and usually by folks sympathetic to the accused. It is *not* easy to make allegations, and folks with even a hair of power constantly bury any and all criticism. Seriously, whistleblowing is not fun - not in academia, not in industry, not in public service, not in religious institutions... nowhere.
His research has been published and folks are replicating (and, of course, mostly failing to replicate) his results. Discussions of the results (and non-results) are ensuing. This is satisfactory science. He was mocked for leaving his name off of a couple of papers that were by *very* close colleagues, which is fair too.
Perhaps due to the lens issues of modern (small lens) cameras.
c tionID=154&articleID=403323
This review claims more modest accuracy of 93% and 95% for outdoor ranges. (40', 30'):
http://www.remodeling.hw.net/industry-news.asp?se
Incidentally, it is totally possible to calculate a number of distances in an image of a rectilinear object (like a house or kitchen) by assuming that planes are at right (or other known) angles. One can then estimate on planes other than the reference plane. Any planes that are at a shallow angle to the viewer will generate crappy numbers, of course, and the more angles you are away from the reference, the more error will accumulate. Lens distortion is pretty frightening on a lot of cameras - I'd be curious if the software can measure it, or otherwise attempt to ameliorate that source of error.
Whether this software is effective in practice would likely require trying it, and having actual (as opposed to hypothetical) accuracy requirements for your estimates.
Hate to feed a troll but:
IQ is the most weakly correlated with breeding of the features you mention. The wealth, education and class levels of people are very strongly correlated, but it is not even remotely clear that this is more than the common effect of security on progeny numbers seen in many fish, mammals and birds.
The phenomenon is that many critters have *more* children which they care for poorly when they are low on resources or under stress. The assumption we like to make is that the critter is estimating the survivability of it's kids low, and thus going buckshot rather than sniper since it is dark (low chance of success).
Of course if there are so few resources that the critter can't even create kids eg: starving, then that will dominate and fewer kids will be expected again.
Bizarre, lucas has posted previously about frustrations in Switzerland not being able to fire high-school aged techie apprentices.
This person may actually believe the things said, at least those about students.
You are suggesting that students in public school are wasting their time unless they are doing schoolwork (?) at school computers, and thus should be forced to 'get a job', perhaps flipping burgers. You add that you can't harrass or damage people via the internet.
If the first assertions are intended to annoy those of us who didn't get excellent grades, it does. The second point is hoping to annoy women, the computer literate? It is too obviously false to get folks to bite on I expect, though.
To get people to flame you back properly you need to personify the types of folks who they already dislike. I think you were shooting for the attributes: sexist, computer ignorant, tax-obsessed, conservative, and elitest. I think you went too broad - that archetype, while it exists (perhaps it has an MBA even), is not one that folks here have to deal with often enough.
Try on the tech issues... there are some subtle rifts in the community which you might be able to exploit there. The gaming threads should be a good sandbox.
Hence it was made recently.
It will even likely be possible, based on the ratios of products to Po-10, to calculate quite accurately when the Polonium was produced and refined.
Polonium works a lot better when folks with resources don't notice it. The victim turns up dead, mysteriously. In this situation it has been making regular world news, and the stuff has left a sparkly trail. Hopefully right back to whoever converted it into a poison from the less leaky compounds that it is normally kept in.
Support costs money. 877 numbers cost money.
Email is easier to type, but it doesn't always get a response from the recipient.
>> ... is there enough information to reverse engineer it?
There is. The article gets to the point at the very end, and frustratingly turns out to be hype for the upcoming release of what it does. The point is that they found significantly more text (than had been previously found) by using x-ray tomography to show slices of its internals. The text they found included the manual which was conveniently written in greek.
Apparently it turns out that the previous attempts to reverse engineer what it does were somewhat off.
I agree with the above poster: it is not really news yet - they are merely about to present their results. Hate. Hype.
Like the highlander, and perhaps siamese fighting fish, there can be only one Pope.
Look to the history of the anti-popes: the poor losers in the pope-Pope debates. As fortunes (and armies) shift some popes have been deemed anti-popes after a time as pope, only to be re-pope'd after they (or a friend) regained the papacy. History has been ambivalent about certain popes - switching between pope* and anti-pope as many as six times over centuries of historical debate.
Personally, I've always been afraid my Pope will dash himself senseless against the mirror.
PS: I certainly wouldn't be one to criticise the Holy See's position on AIDS. Considering what they'll do to each other, I am truly terrified of the treatments for mere lay-people.
* er - the one I am thinking about is still under serious consideration for a re-instatement. This would mean that it should be capitalized: 'switching between Pope and anti-pope'.
Somewhat offtopic, but copyright infringement should deny suffrage?
I know this is a day old, but wouldn't this be a very serious problem in the US? The high general population ratio and over-representation of minorities and poor in the judicial system would lower the quality of democracy. The current administration uses the expression 'bring democracy to the people' as justification for some pretty heavy shit - seems kinda hypocritical.
Does the US actually deny over 1% of its population the right to vote?