That paper you linked did not sway me, in part because it was clearly written without an open mind. It uses phrases like "the only way to do X if you rule out Y is to theorize something clearly unreasonable" to make its points. If observations disprove one theory, it does not prove the only known alternative. It simply means that you should question some more of your assumptions to figure out what you missed.
Clearly not all matter is in stars, so if that is your definition, then some dark matter must exist. My BS subject refered to the theories that dark matter must be something undiscovered, because we can't seem to find enough to fit the Big Bang theory's predictions. I remain convinced that the percentage of dark matter necessary to make Omega equal to 1 does not fit with observation.
I don't pretend to know what the correct theory is, but I am convinced that the Big Bang is not accurate, and that there are forces/processes at work in the cosmos that are being thrown out prematurely because they contradict the Big Bang, thus preventing the most accurate theory from surfacing. Ned Wright's defenses and criticisms are not the open-minded evaluation that I was looking for.
Since you do cosmology research, I'm directing this question to you.
Do you believe that there "must" be more matter out there -- enough to satisfy the simulations that say there must be more? Do you believe that Dark Matter must exist to make the equations work out? Do you believe that the simulations (based on the Big Bang) are more likely to be right than our observations to date?
I certainly hope that someone in your position is aware of the researchers trying to disprove and move past the Big Bang theory. If you discount their findings and hang tight to the Big Bang theory, what do you find to be the most compelling pieces of data to support your position?
In short, I have been convinced that the Big Bang theory is not accurate. (Plasma cosmology is more compelling, but there are holes in that too. More work needs to be done regardless.) What would you say to try to talk me into believing in the Big Bang?
There is a problem of assumptions here. The reason all these simulations say that there is missing matter is that they share one faulty assumption -- the Big Bang. If you stop to consider for a second that maybe the Big Bang theory is just a theory, those simulations don't say anything except what MIGHT happen if the Big Bang theory were true. Since they show that lots of additional matter must exist, then either the theory is flawed or there must be more matter somewhere.
As more experiments and opbservations come in, we consistently see that any additional matter we find is not nearly enough to satisfy the simulations of the Big Bang. They've been trying to find this missing matter to "save the theory" for a long time now, and this is another pebble, but they haven't found it yet. I personally am convinced that the Big Bang is a defunct theory. You don't have to be convinced yet, but I am.
If you want something to chew on, read "The Big Bang Never Happened" by Eric J. Lerner. It has details and citations aplenty.
To those of you for whom this idea is new, remember this post. In ten years when everyone "knows" that the Big Bang is a dead theory, you can say that you knew that way back in 2005.
I had a similar experience with a free Showtime package from DirecTV, but they actually lied to me about it.
When I was offered the free package for six months, I specifically asked what would happen at the end of that six months. Would I automatically get billed for it? Or would I have to specifically request to keep the package? The DirecTV agent told me in no uncertain terms that I would NOT be billed autometically, but that I would be asked if I liked it and wanted to keep it.
Three months later (What? Did you think it would be six months?) I saw the charge show up on my automatic bill. Fortunately, it was all refunded when I pointed out their "mistake." They did not, however, extend my free Showtime for the remaining three months.
I believe in competition. I believe that when the cips are cheap, HP and other system manufacturers will sell reasonably priced systems. I believe that AMD will offer a competitive chip... eventually. I believe that there will always be choices.
--Sandy
PS - I agree with another poster that compilers for Itanium are way too complicated, by design. It sucks that there isn't a good compiler yet.
The contract you wish you had used is called an Input Agreement. It basically means that if they give feedback or input on your software, that you can use those comments as if they were your own.
You may have other legal avenues as mentioned by other posters, but this Input Agreement thing is what you should use in the future.
--Jaborandy
(IANAL, so I don't care what you do with my advice)
I am required by my employer to wear my ID badge so it is visible at all times. I have to scan it to gain entrance to my building, and it is occasionally visually inspected on top of that. To make this process simple, almost all of us wear our IDs on retractor clips on our belts.
My ID badge also has a smart-card chip in it. I put in the reader on my desk, enter my PIN, and log into the computer/network. I am required to lock my workstation when I leave my desk even momentarily, and auto-lock behavior is enforced if I forget. I can be fired if I am caught cheating on these security practices. Turst me, that's motivation to do things right.
People can learn anything if it's in their best interests to do so.
I've seen some comments busting on the Fire comment. I agree that it's not a good one, so let me suggest a physical-world alternative:
You discover that a theater's reel-room lock can be bypassed with a credit card. You corroberate this by calling a friend in a neighboring city, and the doors in his theater are similarly weak. You are now the only two people who know that it is easier than expected to perform a criminal act against the theater.
Should you
Tell the theater and hope they fix it. If they don't fix it given a reasonable amount of time (How long does it take to order and replace a hundred doorknobs? Do you really think two weeks is enough time?), it's their own damn fault.
Tell everyone by posting it in the parking lot of the mall, and act surprised when every theater within the state is robbed.
Tell no one. Steal a print of the Lord of the Rings tonight and sell it on E-Bay.
Is this not a good analog of a digital security vulnerability? It's not a fire except in the figurative sense when it's being aggressively exploited. It's just like discovering a certain door can be bypassed with a particular trick that most doors aren't vulnerable too.
By the way, I'm not telling you where I live, because my front door was hung poorly. The stupid anti-creditcard-trick-tongue on it falls into the jam opening when you close the door all the way, so it's useless. I don't consider it a big risk most of the time, since I also have windows in my house, and if you steal physical stuff I can have the police go after you using physical evidence... but that's off-topic.
This wonderful name for a trinary bit was first brought to my attention by the wonderful commentary that accompanies this strip of one of my favorite web-comics.
Howard Tayler writes:
Note: Just as the hard-wiring of binary mathematics spun the entire twentieth century about a simple yes-no axis, the invention of the three-state switch promised to revolutionize twenty-fifth century computing. After all, with three states (negative, positive, and null charges) on nanoswitches, computers could now think in terms of yes, no, and maybe, greatly humanizing their internal logic.
This would have brought many, many more female engineers into the field of computer science (hence accelerating the pace at which computers could do useful things besides transmit, compress, and enhance pornography), except that the same abbreviational logic that turned "binary digit" into "bit" turned "trinary digit" into "tit." This nomenclatural error set computing back nearly three hundred years, and two entire generations of promising computer scientists were lost trying to keep abreast of bad puns.
Hidden Files: This makes me laugh. The author complains about cache files, and can't figure out the ASCII encoding of his attachments by Outlook Express. Pure paranoia.
Passport Terms of Use: They've been changed to correct this misunderstanding.
Spying: This is unconscionable, and would be illegal in the US because spam faxes are banned. Is this legal in the UK? If not, I highly doubt that this story is true.
Stealing information: Who knows what misunderstanding could have made some Taiwanese companies think this in '98. It's unsubstantiated, but I can't discount it.
NSA key: MS did deny NSA involvement. That key is there because the NSA required it for export purposes. Specifically, MS had to validate its crypto routines to make it harder for people to plug in strong crypto modules in violation of US export laws. MS signed crypto routines to tell the OS what strength it was. First of all, it was a signing key. Second of all, the NSA never had a copy of the keys. So yes, MS did deny NSA involvement. Third of all, I get the impression that MS doesn't care if you defeat this mechanism, since it's only there because the stupid US gov had dumb export laws, which have now been changed anyway.
portege00, you're a Slashdot M$ basher.
WinXP comes with a personal firewall. I'd happily hang that ass on the net, but that's a totally different conversation (win9x does suck, I agree. NT is the one that compares to linux).
You may be dismayed to learn that this is a feature of Internet Explorer. With Security Zones, you can set any url or domain to be in a particular zone, and have javascript either on or off in that zone. I use this method to tame cookies. My "trusted" zone is set to be much like medium-high security, except I get to approve all cookie dropping. Other zones do not even prompt me, they are just denied. When I see a legitimate use for a cookie, I "trust" that site to prompt me. The configurability of this system lets you do a lot to make your system more secure than the default.
I totally agree, although the insulting title is unnecessary.
The data field used by MS Kerberos is being used within the spirit and letter of the spec, if you believe the original designers of Kerberos. Non-MS implementations don't look for a value in that field, and work as before. The only "incompatibility" involved is that non-MS software can't take advantage of the data in the field, and MS clients don't work without it. Don't buy Windows 2000 if you want to use a non-MS KDC. Furthermore, if MS had not used Kerberos, Linux machines would be totally unable to use MS servers for authentication. This use of standards benefits the Linux community, by allowing companies to use Linux on some of their desktops.
We all know that Linux does not have a standard for distributed group memberships. This is just one of the benefits of using Microsoft systems as servers. If some of your services don't need this functionality, then you are free to use MS Kerberos for authentication and use local authorization. For the rest of us, we take advantage of the features MS provides.
Why would you expect MS to give away its products and intellectual property for free? They produced software that allows easier management of larger distributed systems, that is better than what is available for Linux. Allowing their servers to take the place of other servers over Linux networks is in their interest. Allowing their workstations to access resources on Linux servers is in their interest, but their biggest profit comes from the whole package. We should not expect them to make it possible for someone using a Linux infrastructure to get the benefits MS is trying to make money off of. Their interest is best served by making people buy it from them if they want the MS features.
Bottom line: If you want distributed Authentication, any Kerberos implementation will do, including that from MS, for either servers or workstations. If you want the additional benefit of distributed authorization, everyone involved needs to speak that extended data field. Since that field is for third party use, MS made use of it. If you want the benefits that come from that MS field, use MS products all around. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy from them. If you want, you can define your own schema for that field, and try to sell that. MS did nothing wrong here.
"None of the law enforcement activities specified in the Bill is new. Covert surveillance by police and other law enforcement officers is as old as policing itself; so too is the use of informants, agents, and undercover officers"
To hand their analogy right back to them:
"If reading digital data is equivalent to the old use of covert operatives, then encryption is equivalent to closing the shutters so as not to be seen. Not handing over an encryption key is equivalent to not telling police what was said behind closed doors.
"As covert operations are as old a policing itself, you will find that the peoples' right to privacy is as old as humanity itself. Who can deny that it is a basic human right to have moments of privacy? And how can a civilized nation demand that its citizens incriminate themselves when they are questioned about those private moments?"
This law is an abomination, and should be struck down by the courts. Unlike the Parliament, the courts can strike down this law without proving themselves wrong.
This is not a Microsoft site. I would hope Microsoft knows better than that. This is simply a screen shot from someone who got a copy of the beta release, and it only reflects NDNet's choice of names.
That scary part of this article is the comment that the dragon has reached the point where it doesn't have to hide its claws. From my American perspective, China is the biggest threat to peace and stability. This is true in both electronic, conventional, and nuclear warfare.
The real point of this article is that China is trying to make itself powerful in any way it can. America is currently very vulnerable to electronic attack. So vulnerable that if an attack were mounted, we might not know how to react.
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we knew immediately what to do. It meant war. If China were to take down one of the Pentagon's networks for a few days, what would we do about it? The confusion it would generate is far more scary than even a clearly defined first strike. When people are confused, they make mistakes. Between China and the US, the mistakes could get big.
But enough talk about apocalypse... For now it is mostly just blustering. I think the best thing that could come out of this is that the US and other contries might develop electronic warfare departments of their own. If it hasn't happened already, I hope the US has plans in place detailing what we will do if we are attacked over the Net. I know we already have some sort of an electronic warfare division, but I'm sure the bulk of it is classified.
Do you think we'll see an official US govt. response to this newly publicised threat?
You said that you were interested in teaching. If this is the case, I think the degree is very necessary. Those who say it isn't really important are not teaching but working in the field.
In the workplace, it's true that performance is more important than degrees, but in academia it is exactly the opposite.
If you want to teach, I would recommend taking courses at a well-known University. If you have an idea of where you would like to teach, take courses there so you can get your foot further in the door by developing personal relationships with the local people in power.
To get a teaching job, anything you can do to improve your image as someone who appreciates traditionl learning is well worth it. Taking distance learning courses will only help you get a job teaching in a distance learning center.
Re: "You are taking industry goodwill from your old company to your new one. This case is usually for salespeople who have 'their' clients. Those clients might follow the salesperson rather than stick with the original company."
When I was running a restaurant, the salesperson at Alliant Food Service quit to go to Hartford Provisions. He was barred by his contract from working with his old clients (me) for one year. Therefore our restaurant would have to have a different salesperson to either stay with the same company (Alliant) or switch to Hartford Provisions.
When we had a special event, however, we used the parent company of the restaurant to deal with the old salesperson at Hartford Provisions (for cheaper food, salesperson goodwill, etc) because technically we were then not the same client... even though the human involved was the same (me). This effectively broke the restrictions in his contract.
The point of this is that even in a case where the contract should have been enforceable, we were able to sneak around it somewhat.
In my area, TCI cable has a strict "no servers" policy that I would technically be violating, even though I have no plans to have a huge public server. This was a key factor in my decision to go with DSL. Before you buy, make sure you won't be violating their policies. It would be quite a hassle if they decided you were too much trouble and shut you off for something as silly as running an ssh server for your personal use. --Sandy
Slashdot Mirror
That paper you linked did not sway me, in part because it was clearly written without an open mind. It uses phrases like "the only way to do X if you rule out Y is to theorize something clearly unreasonable" to make its points. If observations disprove one theory, it does not prove the only known alternative. It simply means that you should question some more of your assumptions to figure out what you missed.
Clearly not all matter is in stars, so if that is your definition, then some dark matter must exist. My BS subject refered to the theories that dark matter must be something undiscovered, because we can't seem to find enough to fit the Big Bang theory's predictions. I remain convinced that the percentage of dark matter necessary to make Omega equal to 1 does not fit with observation.
I don't pretend to know what the correct theory is, but I am convinced that the Big Bang is not accurate, and that there are forces/processes at work in the cosmos that are being thrown out prematurely because they contradict the Big Bang, thus preventing the most accurate theory from surfacing. Ned Wright's defenses and criticisms are not the open-minded evaluation that I was looking for.
--Sandy
Since you do cosmology research, I'm directing this question to you.
Do you believe that there "must" be more matter out there -- enough to satisfy the simulations that say there must be more? Do you believe that Dark Matter must exist to make the equations work out? Do you believe that the simulations (based on the Big Bang) are more likely to be right than our observations to date?
I certainly hope that someone in your position is aware of the researchers trying to disprove and move past the Big Bang theory. If you discount their findings and hang tight to the Big Bang theory, what do you find to be the most compelling pieces of data to support your position?
In short, I have been convinced that the Big Bang theory is not accurate. (Plasma cosmology is more compelling, but there are holes in that too. More work needs to be done regardless.) What would you say to try to talk me into believing in the Big Bang?
Thanks,
Sandy
There is a problem of assumptions here. The reason all these simulations say that there is missing matter is that they share one faulty assumption -- the Big Bang. If you stop to consider for a second that maybe the Big Bang theory is just a theory, those simulations don't say anything except what MIGHT happen if the Big Bang theory were true. Since they show that lots of additional matter must exist, then either the theory is flawed or there must be more matter somewhere.
As more experiments and opbservations come in, we consistently see that any additional matter we find is not nearly enough to satisfy the simulations of the Big Bang. They've been trying to find this missing matter to "save the theory" for a long time now, and this is another pebble, but they haven't found it yet. I personally am convinced that the Big Bang is a defunct theory. You don't have to be convinced yet, but I am.
If you want something to chew on, read "The Big Bang Never Happened" by Eric J. Lerner. It has details and citations aplenty.
To those of you for whom this idea is new, remember this post. In ten years when everyone "knows" that the Big Bang is a dead theory, you can say that you knew that way back in 2005.
--Sandy
I had a similar experience with a free Showtime package from DirecTV, but they actually lied to me about it.
When I was offered the free package for six months, I specifically asked what would happen at the end of that six months. Would I automatically get billed for it? Or would I have to specifically request to keep the package? The DirecTV agent told me in no uncertain terms that I would NOT be billed autometically, but that I would be asked if I liked it and wanted to keep it.
Three months later (What? Did you think it would be six months?) I saw the charge show up on my automatic bill. Fortunately, it was all refunded when I pointed out their "mistake." They did not, however, extend my free Showtime for the remaining three months.
I wish I'd recorded that first conversation.
--Sandy
I believe in competition. I believe that when the cips are cheap, HP and other system manufacturers will sell reasonably priced systems. I believe that AMD will offer a competitive chip... eventually. I believe that there will always be choices.
--Sandy
PS - I agree with another poster that compilers for Itanium are way too complicated, by design. It sucks that there isn't a good compiler yet.
The contract you wish you had used is called an Input Agreement. It basically means that if they give feedback or input on your software, that you can use those comments as if they were your own.
You may have other legal avenues as mentioned by other posters, but this Input Agreement thing is what you should use in the future.
--Jaborandy
(IANAL, so I don't care what you do with my advice)
I am required by my employer to wear my ID badge so it is visible at all times. I have to scan it to gain entrance to my building, and it is occasionally visually inspected on top of that. To make this process simple, almost all of us wear our IDs on retractor clips on our belts.
My ID badge also has a smart-card chip in it. I put in the reader on my desk, enter my PIN, and log into the computer/network. I am required to lock my workstation when I leave my desk even momentarily, and auto-lock behavior is enforced if I forget. I can be fired if I am caught cheating on these security practices. Turst me, that's motivation to do things right.
People can learn anything if it's in their best interests to do so.
--Jaborandy
Why would you even trust the hash function?
-- Jaborandy
"I don't need to steeeenkin' computer"
You discover that a theater's reel-room lock can be bypassed with a credit card. You corroberate this by calling a friend in a neighboring city, and the doors in his theater are similarly weak. You are now the only two people who know that it is easier than expected to perform a criminal act against the theater.
Should you
Is this not a good analog of a digital security vulnerability? It's not a fire except in the figurative sense when it's being aggressively exploited. It's just like discovering a certain door can be bypassed with a particular trick that most doors aren't vulnerable too.
By the way, I'm not telling you where I live, because my front door was hung poorly. The stupid anti-creditcard-trick-tongue on it falls into the jam opening when you close the door all the way, so it's useless. I don't consider it a big risk most of the time, since I also have windows in my house, and if you steal physical stuff I can have the police go after you using physical evidence... but that's off-topic.
Cheers,
Sandy
This wonderful name for a trinary bit was first brought to my attention by the wonderful commentary that accompanies this strip of one of my favorite web-comics.
Howard Tayler writes:
Enjoy!
- Hidden Files: This makes me laugh. The author complains about cache files, and can't figure out the ASCII encoding of his attachments by Outlook Express. Pure paranoia.
-
Passport Terms of Use: They've been changed to correct this misunderstanding.
-
Spying: This is unconscionable, and would be illegal in the US because spam faxes are banned. Is this legal in the UK? If not, I highly doubt that this story is true.
-
Stealing information: Who knows what misunderstanding could have made some Taiwanese companies think this in '98. It's unsubstantiated, but I can't discount it.
-
NSA key: MS did deny NSA involvement. That key is there because the NSA required it for export purposes. Specifically, MS had to validate its crypto routines to make it harder for people to plug in strong crypto modules in violation of US export laws. MS signed crypto routines to tell the OS what strength it was. First of all, it was a signing key. Second of all, the NSA never had a copy of the keys. So yes, MS did deny NSA involvement. Third of all, I get the impression that MS doesn't care if you defeat this mechanism, since it's only there because the stupid US gov had dumb export laws, which have now been changed anyway.
portege00, you're a Slashdot M$ basher.WinXP comes with a personal firewall. I'd happily hang that ass on the net, but that's a totally different conversation (win9x does suck, I agree. NT is the one that compares to linux).
--Sandy
The data field used by MS Kerberos is being used within the spirit and letter of the spec, if you believe the original designers of Kerberos. Non-MS implementations don't look for a value in that field, and work as before. The only "incompatibility" involved is that non-MS software can't take advantage of the data in the field, and MS clients don't work without it. Don't buy Windows 2000 if you want to use a non-MS KDC. Furthermore, if MS had not used Kerberos, Linux machines would be totally unable to use MS servers for authentication. This use of standards benefits the Linux community, by allowing companies to use Linux on some of their desktops.
We all know that Linux does not have a standard for distributed group memberships. This is just one of the benefits of using Microsoft systems as servers. If some of your services don't need this functionality, then you are free to use MS Kerberos for authentication and use local authorization. For the rest of us, we take advantage of the features MS provides.
Why would you expect MS to give away its products and intellectual property for free? They produced software that allows easier management of larger distributed systems, that is better than what is available for Linux. Allowing their servers to take the place of other servers over Linux networks is in their interest. Allowing their workstations to access resources on Linux servers is in their interest, but their biggest profit comes from the whole package. We should not expect them to make it possible for someone using a Linux infrastructure to get the benefits MS is trying to make money off of. Their interest is best served by making people buy it from them if they want the MS features.
Bottom line: If you want distributed Authentication, any Kerberos implementation will do, including that from MS, for either servers or workstations. If you want the additional benefit of distributed authorization, everyone involved needs to speak that extended data field. Since that field is for third party use, MS made use of it. If you want the benefits that come from that MS field, use MS products all around. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy from them. If you want, you can define your own schema for that field, and try to sell that. MS did nothing wrong here.
--Sandy
"None of the law enforcement activities specified in the Bill is new. Covert surveillance by police and other law enforcement officers is as old as policing itself; so too is the use of informants, agents, and undercover officers"
To hand their analogy right back to them:
"If reading digital data is equivalent to the old use of covert operatives, then encryption is equivalent to closing the shutters so as not to be seen. Not handing over an encryption key is equivalent to not telling police what was said behind closed doors.
"As covert operations are as old a policing itself, you will find that the peoples' right to privacy is as old as humanity itself. Who can deny that it is a basic human right to have moments of privacy? And how can a civilized nation demand that its citizens incriminate themselves when they are questioned about those private moments?"
This law is an abomination, and should be struck down by the courts. Unlike the Parliament, the courts can strike down this law without proving themselves wrong.
--Sandy
This is not a Microsoft site. I would hope Microsoft knows better than that. This is simply a screen shot from someone who got a copy of the beta release, and it only reflects NDNet's choice of names.
--Sandy
The real point of this article is that China is trying to make itself powerful in any way it can. America is currently very vulnerable to electronic attack. So vulnerable that if an attack were mounted, we might not know how to react.
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we knew immediately what to do. It meant war. If China were to take down one of the Pentagon's networks for a few days, what would we do about it? The confusion it would generate is far more scary than even a clearly defined first strike. When people are confused, they make mistakes. Between China and the US, the mistakes could get big.
But enough talk about apocalypse... For now it is mostly just blustering. I think the best thing that could come out of this is that the US and other contries might develop electronic warfare departments of their own. If it hasn't happened already, I hope the US has plans in place detailing what we will do if we are attacked over the Net. I know we already have some sort of an electronic warfare division, but I'm sure the bulk of it is classified.
Do you think we'll see an official US govt. response to this newly publicised threat?
In the workplace, it's true that performance is more important than degrees, but in academia it is exactly the opposite.
If you want to teach, I would recommend taking courses at a well-known University. If you have an idea of where you would like to teach, take courses there so you can get your foot further in the door by developing personal relationships with the local people in power.
To get a teaching job, anything you can do to improve your image as someone who appreciates traditionl learning is well worth it. Taking distance learning courses will only help you get a job teaching in a distance learning center.
Good Luck,
Sandy
It was not moderated down. It started at zero because it was posted by an Anonymous Coward.
When I was running a restaurant, the salesperson at Alliant Food Service quit to go to Hartford Provisions. He was barred by his contract from working with his old clients (me) for one year. Therefore our restaurant would have to have a different salesperson to either stay with the same company (Alliant) or switch to Hartford Provisions.
When we had a special event, however, we used the parent company of the restaurant to deal with the old salesperson at Hartford Provisions (for cheaper food, salesperson goodwill, etc) because technically we were then not the same client... even though the human involved was the same (me). This effectively broke the restrictions in his contract.
The point of this is that even in a case where the contract should have been enforceable, we were able to sneak around it somewhat.
--Sandy
In my area, TCI cable has a strict "no servers" policy that I would technically be violating, even though I have no plans to have a huge public server. This was a key factor in my decision to go with DSL. Before you buy, make sure you won't be violating their policies. It would be quite a hassle if they decided you were too much trouble and shut you off for something as silly as running an ssh server for your personal use. --Sandy