The "proof" is that of Theorem 7.3 page 29 in Li's paper, but I stopped reading it when I saw that he is extending the test function h from ideles to adeles by 0 outside ideles and then using Fourier transform (see page 31). This cannot work and ideles form a set of measure 0 inside adeles (unlike what happens when one only deals with finitely many places).
Well, looks like I have to eat some crow on this one...from the Clipperz general FAQ:
But then we liked the fact that "clipperZ" sounds like an hacker/anarchist jargon word. To us, it makes fun of the whole original clipper chip concept.
Sorry about that...move along, nothing to see here...
...I'm reminded of the sorry attempt by the US Government to introduce its version of DRM known as the "Clipper Chip." The F/OSS community isn't known for its attention-grabbing project names (think Gimp here), so this comes as no surprise. Still, am I the only one who, upon first sight, related "Clipperz" and "Clipper Chip"? Is this the best moniker the Cesares could come up with?
Which is amusing because most of those SUVs are over half crumple-zone by volume. There was a time when an SUV was a 4x4 vehicle made of steel that you drove because you needed to be able to go off road or lug all your belongings somewhere in the snow. Those days are long gone. Now it doesn't snow here anymore and an SUV is a minivan with a six-liter v8 purchased for ostentation and to satisfy latent napoleon complexes.
I'm convinced an SUV (a 2001 Tahoe) saved the lives of a few of my family members after they were T-boned by a Ford Expedition traveling about 50 MPH (the driver fell asleep and ran through a red light). The Tahoe was totaled. My family walked away from the accident.
Guess what? We bought another SUV.
I drive a Honda Accord. While I don't tempt fate and cut in front of 18-wheelers or try to beat cement mixers around curves, I'm also cognizant of the fact that if I'm involved in an accident with anything over 3000 pounds, I will most likely lose.
I guess if we all drove around in small Fiats, Fords, and Smart ForTwos and whatever else they drive in Europe, then we'd all be safe in our little 2000 pound cars. But the problem with telling the public they must give up their SUVs is that the collective weight distribution of vehicles on American roads are all over the map. Where I live (big commuting city), I'd estimate 1 out of 3 vehicles on the road are SUVs. Call me what you will, but my family's safety trumps the price of gas, greenhouse emissions, and dwindling fossil fuel supplies any day of the week. So, the SUV is the preferred mode of travel in the city for my family.
...the less upset I am that I wasn't able to get in on the OLPC "buy one and give a child a laptop" deal.
Seriously, I researched the hell out of this topic, and this is the first mention I've seen that the laptops call home (or wherever). Just what was the OLPC thinking?
Sure enough, I missed this link. Wow...far more sinister than I first suspected.
As an engineer today however, I have zero need for knowing trig simplification identities, calculus proofs, and the like beyond a high conceptual level, but I have far more need and usage of logical and discrete math fields, programming concepts, vector operations, statistical methods, and other "math" topics that are still completely absent from any high-school math curricula that I've seen.
And I'm afraid that you are, indeed, a victim. You see, the reason why you learn geometric proofs and calculus proofs is to assist with developing problem-solving skills that require an individual to reason a problem from start to finish, much like real life. It scares me that you claim, as an engineer, that all you need to know are the rote mechanics of math (and yes, that is what you describe: number crunching as opposed to critical problem analysis).
Unfortunately, at least in the US, proofs of any type are becoming rare to non-existent in many curricula. I see the direct result of this every day I'm in school and a student stares at me with a blank look on his/her face when I ask him/her to analyze and determine the best course of action for solving for some quantity X given Y and Z.
You didn't mention what type of engineer you are. Computer/software/hardware, perhaps? Then yes, I'd agree that programming logic, vector operations, and the like are probably a valuable intellectual commodity. But I know many engineers who work day in and day out designing things, and this takes more than a simplistic knowledge of how to perform statistical computations.
1. I've never assumed transactions on my merchant account were in any way "private."
2. I report all income from verifiable sources, because the alternative (getting caught) is just not something that is within my risk envelope.
3. I use a TIN (tax identification number) in lieu of my SSN. TINs are free, so there is no reason for anyone to be using an SSN for their business. In fact, the IRS permits income and expenses from an LLC to be reported under the rules for sole proprietorships, which means you get all the bennies from a sole proprietorship but without having to plaster your SSN all over the place.
Man, this could have been my story. IT for 15 years, now (thankfully) out of the cube and doing things I want to do (teaching, running my own business, etc.). You know what got me out of the rut? Thinking about what I wanted in my obituary when I died:
Version A: Pongo dedicated 15 years of his life to the Big Corporation, helping them grow into the mammoth company they are now, lining CEO/CTO/CIO pockets with vast riches, and keeping the shareholders quite happy with ever-increasing dividends.
Version B: After a 15-year stint with the Big Corporation, Pongo dedicated his life to educating our future generations of young minds, empowering these students to pursue their dreams in math and science and to boldly take on new challenges and risks to ultimately better themselves and society.
Five years ago, had I been hit by a truck, Version A would have been in my obit. Thankfully, Version B will probably be the gist of my obit were I to be run over tomorrow (and I hope that doesn't happen, too much to do!).
BTW, in case you think you're the only one who hasn't figured out what they want to do when they grow up, these are some of the things I've done in past jobs:
Retail sales Petroleum engineer/oilfield roustabout/lease operator Safety engineer Customs inspector Pilot Air traffic controller IT consultant/software engineer/analyst College instructor High school teacher Independent IT consultant Automotive performance shop owner
The biggest thing you need to think about at the moment is health insurance. Let *no one* talk you out of making any decision that would affect your ability to cover you and your family. While it's possible to procure individual insurance, it's rather difficult and the premiums are prohibitively expensive. I have quit many "career" jobs in my lifetime, and the hardest part about leaving has *always* been continuation of health insurance benefits.
But in the end, your decision should be based upon the fact that you have X number of years left on this earth, so why waste them on something that doesn't interest you? I agree with you: IT is highly repetitive and quite boring, and it doesn't matter how much lipstick you put on the pig. I've done everything from algorithm development on high-resolution imaging satellites to having written a domain name registration system to support a catalog of 700,000 domain names, and everything in between. And you know what? Every damn pig looked the same.
Good luck...and remember, taking that first big step of turning in your resignation letter is a giant leap over the void. Make sure plans B, C, and D are in place before you take that step.
Can't help you with getting your laptops back, but I can give you a suggestion on how to force lowlife scum to pick your neighbor's house next time:
Dogs.
Not necessarily big, but loud. Most fucksticks who want your stuff don't want to deal with dogs, as there are far easier pickings right down the road. We have three. Homes have been broken into on either side of me, multiple times. I don't believe it's luck. Two border collies and a lab are simply a wrench in the works of a simple-minded shithead.
Believe me, someone wants in your house badly enough, no number of dogs, alarms, etc. will stop them. But the chances of someone wanting your stuff that badly are probably nil, and if they are willing to kill your dogs to get your stuff, they'll probably kill you too.
...at least from what I've seen in the several IT jobs I've had in as many years: What I've found is that I am often hired into an environment where the "old guard" aren't exactly technically proficient, but they remain thanks to their collective knowledge of the domain. Which isn't exactly a bad thing: All things considered, domain knowledge often trumps technical proficiency when it comes down to getting the job done.
Still, it's quite frustrating to join a group with a collective level of technical knowledge below one's own. Groups such as this are often resistant to suggestions from the new guy, and it's been my experience that it's the new hires that end up leaving.
The competition today consists of a handful sub-par free hosts with 50 MB, a crappily configured PHP 4.3 and don't ask for speed or availability.
Then you obviously haven't used the "new and improved" GMail interface lately. Much slower than the original, especially if you happen to use the web app for what it's for: Storing many e-mails. In fact, it's to the point where I use my GMail account as sparingly as possible.
I think that while Google probably works hard to improve scalability, its obvious just from using their apps that they are not quite keeping up with the user growth curve.
Please, editors, do your readers the courtesy of defining acronyms not in mainstream usage in your summaries. (Yes, even SANS failed to do so, but that's still no excuse.)
That may well be true, but once you are in a motorcycle accident, the chances of dying from injuries in that accident are much higher than in an auto accident (sorry, no stats on this, just lots of anecdotal evidence from folks who deal with this type of stuff).
Aviation is the same way: While chances are slight that you'll be in an aircraft accident, I can say with some degree of certaintly that uncontrolled descent into terrain is almost always 100% fatal.
So pick your odds...you want to fly or ride a bike, go right ahead, with the understanding that if you do find yourself in an impending accident situation, your odds of survival aren't so hot...
"Chemical methylation of inorganic mercury with methylcobalamin"
Wow. How far we've come in 25 years. Probably time to start researching the long-term chronic effects of mercury poisoning. I see that dimethymercury was one of the byproducts...
Interesting article. I designed a science fair project in high school around methyl mercury. Remember synthesizing it using some sort of substitution reaction, used methylcobalamin (a derivative of vitamin B-12) and some mercury salt that was available in the school lab. Used a spectroscope on various solutions (as I recall, they were various shades of red).
Wish someone had enough sense to mention "fume hood" and "gloves" to me. I don't even think I wore goggles. Maybe this explains some things, 25 years later...
Unfortunately it will take only one mistake by one employee to ruin it for everyone.
Only in an organization run by an IT staff that doesn't have a clue. In any other company, said employee would simply be put on a very short leash, or shown the door.
With all the restrictions on tools and languages, it seems like our IT holds us back more often than pushing us forward.
Beware of any job where IT support calls the shots. That is an incredibly inane and inefficient business model. IT support is exactly that: They are there to support development efforts, not to hinder them with brain-damaged policies usually written and enforced by CTOs that don't have a clue and administered by low-paying drones who substitute authority for what they lack on the pay scale.
Why even bother working for a company like that? With the upswing in IT, you sound like you've got way more than enough experience to find a job elsewhere.
...the last few gigs I've worked, there have been little to no restriction on what we could download on our Linux/Windows servers and workstations. We were tasked with a job, and granted the level of trust and discretion needed to get the job done.
Why would I work at a company that expects me to play the game with my hands tied behind my back?
As usual, another non-story about Google framed as an earth-moving event.
In the FWIW dept: I spent several hours this afternoon monitoring the #gsoc forum. Kudos to lh for taking the time to critique the rejectees, I'm sure it was not easy.
It's apparent that the main criteria used to determine who gets a mentor org slot is (1) the size of the organization, (2) whether an org participated in years past, and (3) the quality of the ideas list. (Yes, all three criteria were confirmed at one point or another during the afternoon.) By my count, more than half of the 2008 mentoring orgs participated in 2007. When asked how this can possibly inject innovation and new ideas into the OSS community, one Google staffer replied that it's all about the students, and larger orgs can mentor more students than can smaller orgs. As for the ideas list: We were rejected on a technicality in that we didn't specify the *difficulty level* for each idea in our list.
So what did I come away with? A process that rewards organizations that seem to already have the resources necessary to attract new developers, and a process that falls back on technicalities to determine, in part, who makes the short list and who doesn't.
As one Google sysop replied rather testily to someone, "it's *our* money, so we can do what we want." Don't know if I'll waste my time again next year, since we will only be able to surmount just one of the three most heavily-weighted criteria. But at least now, we have a good idea of what the selection process entails.
I'm icon-impaired. Seriously. My mind cannot make the subconscious connection between an icon or graphic and what said graphic is supposed to represent. Over the years, I've forced myself to recognize a floppy disk as "save," and a printer as "print". The rest mean nothing to me. When I use OpenOffice or any other graphic-intensive program, I must either (1) memorize various keyboard shortcuts, or (2) hover over the toolbar icons to find the one I want. For obvious reasons, my editor of choice is one that doesn't require me to decode icons. Nearly every graphical "decode" operation requires conscious thought as well as a process of elimination to narrow down the choices to a set of possibilities from which I will (hopefully) select the correct one. Many times I'm wrong.
Almost everything I do is on the CLI. I've been programming for nearly two decades, and I have no problems selecting textual tokens out of a field of similar-looking text. But give me a set of small, information-deprived graphics to decode, and I fall flat on my face.
I can't be alone in this. Surely others have this same cognitive disability.
Slashdot Mirror
The "proof" is that of Theorem 7.3 page 29 in Li's paper, but I stopped reading it when I saw that he is extending the test function h from ideles to adeles by 0 outside ideles and then using Fourier transform (see page 31). This cannot work and ideles form a set of measure 0 inside adeles (unlike what happens when one only deals with finitely many places).
...would hear the voice of Heath Ledger? I don't get it.
Well, looks like I have to eat some crow on this one...from the Clipperz general FAQ:
But then we liked the fact that "clipperZ" sounds like an hacker/anarchist jargon word. To us, it makes fun of the whole original clipper chip concept.
Sorry about that...move along, nothing to see here...
...I'm reminded of the sorry attempt by the US Government to introduce its version of DRM known as the "Clipper Chip." The F/OSS community isn't known for its attention-grabbing project names (think Gimp here), so this comes as no surprise. Still, am I the only one who, upon first sight, related "Clipperz" and "Clipper Chip"? Is this the best moniker the Cesares could come up with?
Which is amusing because most of those SUVs are over half crumple-zone by volume. There was a time when an SUV was a 4x4 vehicle made of steel that you drove because you needed to be able to go off road or lug all your belongings somewhere in the snow. Those days are long gone. Now it doesn't snow here anymore and an SUV is a minivan with a six-liter v8 purchased for ostentation and to satisfy latent napoleon complexes.
I'm convinced an SUV (a 2001 Tahoe) saved the lives of a few of my family members after they were T-boned by a Ford Expedition traveling about 50 MPH (the driver fell asleep and ran through a red light). The Tahoe was totaled. My family walked away from the accident.
Guess what? We bought another SUV.
I drive a Honda Accord. While I don't tempt fate and cut in front of 18-wheelers or try to beat cement mixers around curves, I'm also cognizant of the fact that if I'm involved in an accident with anything over 3000 pounds, I will most likely lose.
I guess if we all drove around in small Fiats, Fords, and Smart ForTwos and whatever else they drive in Europe, then we'd all be safe in our little 2000 pound cars. But the problem with telling the public they must give up their SUVs is that the collective weight distribution of vehicles on American roads are all over the map. Where I live (big commuting city), I'd estimate 1 out of 3 vehicles on the road are SUVs. Call me what you will, but my family's safety trumps the price of gas, greenhouse emissions, and dwindling fossil fuel supplies any day of the week. So, the SUV is the preferred mode of travel in the city for my family.
...the less upset I am that I wasn't able to get in on the OLPC "buy one and give a child a laptop" deal.
Seriously, I researched the hell out of this topic, and this is the first mention I've seen that the laptops call home (or wherever). Just what was the OLPC thinking?
Sure enough, I missed this link. Wow...far more sinister than I first suspected.
As an engineer today however, I have zero need for knowing trig simplification identities, calculus proofs, and the like beyond a high conceptual level, but I have far more need and usage of logical and discrete math fields, programming concepts, vector operations, statistical methods, and other "math" topics that are still completely absent from any high-school math curricula that I've seen.
And I'm afraid that you are, indeed, a victim. You see, the reason why you learn geometric proofs and calculus proofs is to assist with developing problem-solving skills that require an individual to reason a problem from start to finish, much like real life. It scares me that you claim, as an engineer, that all you need to know are the rote mechanics of math (and yes, that is what you describe: number crunching as opposed to critical problem analysis).
Unfortunately, at least in the US, proofs of any type are becoming rare to non-existent in many curricula. I see the direct result of this every day I'm in school and a student stares at me with a blank look on his/her face when I ask him/her to analyze and determine the best course of action for solving for some quantity X given Y and Z.
You didn't mention what type of engineer you are. Computer/software/hardware, perhaps? Then yes, I'd agree that programming logic, vector operations, and the like are probably a valuable intellectual commodity. But I know many engineers who work day in and day out designing things, and this takes more than a simplistic knowledge of how to perform statistical computations.
...and a couple of reasons come to mind:
1. I've never assumed transactions on my merchant account were in any way "private."
2. I report all income from verifiable sources, because the alternative (getting caught) is just not something that is within my risk envelope.
3. I use a TIN (tax identification number) in lieu of my SSN. TINs are free, so there is no reason for anyone to be using an SSN for their business. In fact, the IRS permits income and expenses from an LLC to be reported under the rules for sole proprietorships, which means you get all the bennies from a sole proprietorship but without having to plaster your SSN all over the place.
Really, there's nothing here.
Man, this could have been my story. IT for 15 years, now (thankfully) out of the cube and doing things I want to do (teaching, running my own business, etc.). You know what got me out of the rut? Thinking about what I wanted in my obituary when I died:
Version A: Pongo dedicated 15 years of his life to the Big Corporation, helping them grow into the mammoth company they are now, lining CEO/CTO/CIO pockets with vast riches, and keeping the shareholders quite happy with ever-increasing dividends.
Version B: After a 15-year stint with the Big Corporation, Pongo dedicated his life to educating our future generations of young minds, empowering these students to pursue their dreams in math and science and to boldly take on new challenges and risks to ultimately better themselves and society.
Five years ago, had I been hit by a truck, Version A would have been in my obit. Thankfully, Version B will probably be the gist of my obit were I to be run over tomorrow (and I hope that doesn't happen, too much to do!).
BTW, in case you think you're the only one who hasn't figured out what they want to do when they grow up, these are some of the things I've done in past jobs:
Retail sales
Petroleum engineer/oilfield roustabout/lease operator
Safety engineer
Customs inspector
Pilot
Air traffic controller
IT consultant/software engineer/analyst
College instructor
High school teacher
Independent IT consultant
Automotive performance shop owner
The biggest thing you need to think about at the moment is health insurance. Let *no one* talk you out of making any decision that would affect your ability to cover you and your family. While it's possible to procure individual insurance, it's rather difficult and the premiums are prohibitively expensive. I have quit many "career" jobs in my lifetime, and the hardest part about leaving has *always* been continuation of health insurance benefits.
But in the end, your decision should be based upon the fact that you have X number of years left on this earth, so why waste them on something that doesn't interest you? I agree with you: IT is highly repetitive and quite boring, and it doesn't matter how much lipstick you put on the pig. I've done everything from algorithm development on high-resolution imaging satellites to having written a domain name registration system to support a catalog of 700,000 domain names, and everything in between. And you know what? Every damn pig looked the same.
Good luck...and remember, taking that first big step of turning in your resignation letter is a giant leap over the void. Make sure plans B, C, and D are in place before you take that step.
From the same article:
Methanol itself is not toxic; rather, the toxicity is due to the accumulation of its metabolites -- formaldehyde and formic acid.
Wow. By the same token, antifreeze (ethylene glycol) isn't really toxic. It's just the metabolites that will do you in.
Can we just permanently ban Wikipedia references here and stop the madness?
Can't help you with getting your laptops back, but I can give you a suggestion on how to force lowlife scum to pick your neighbor's house next time:
Dogs.
Not necessarily big, but loud. Most fucksticks who want your stuff don't want to deal with dogs, as there are far easier pickings right down the road. We have three. Homes have been broken into on either side of me, multiple times. I don't believe it's luck. Two border collies and a lab are simply a wrench in the works of a simple-minded shithead.
Believe me, someone wants in your house badly enough, no number of dogs, alarms, etc. will stop them. But the chances of someone wanting your stuff that badly are probably nil, and if they are willing to kill your dogs to get your stuff, they'll probably kill you too.
Dogs are the ticket. Think about it.
...at least from what I've seen in the several IT jobs I've had in as many years: What I've found is that I am often hired into an environment where the "old guard" aren't exactly technically proficient, but they remain thanks to their collective knowledge of the domain. Which isn't exactly a bad thing: All things considered, domain knowledge often trumps technical proficiency when it comes down to getting the job done.
Still, it's quite frustrating to join a group with a collective level of technical knowledge below one's own. Groups such as this are often resistant to suggestions from the new guy, and it's been my experience that it's the new hires that end up leaving.
Then you obviously haven't used the "new and improved" GMail interface lately. Much slower than the original, especially if you happen to use the web app for what it's for: Storing many e-mails. In fact, it's to the point where I use my GMail account as sparingly as possible.
I think that while Google probably works hard to improve scalability, its obvious just from using their apps that they are not quite keeping up with the user growth curve.
Please, editors, do your readers the courtesy of defining acronyms not in mainstream usage in your summaries. (Yes, even SANS failed to do so, but that's still no excuse.)
That may well be true, but once you are in a motorcycle accident, the chances of dying from injuries in that accident are much higher than in an auto accident (sorry, no stats on this, just lots of anecdotal evidence from folks who deal with this type of stuff).
Aviation is the same way: While chances are slight that you'll be in an aircraft accident, I can say with some degree of certaintly that uncontrolled descent into terrain is almost always 100% fatal.
So pick your odds...you want to fly or ride a bike, go right ahead, with the understanding that if you do find yourself in an impending accident situation, your odds of survival aren't so hot...
25 years later, and here's the abstract I used for the science lab (of course, my version was a paper copy obtained through interlibrary loan):
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1971Sci...172.1248I
"Chemical methylation of inorganic mercury with methylcobalamin"
Wow. How far we've come in 25 years. Probably time to start researching the long-term chronic effects of mercury poisoning. I see that dimethymercury was one of the byproducts...
Interesting article. I designed a science fair project in high school around methyl mercury. Remember synthesizing it using some sort of substitution reaction, used methylcobalamin (a derivative of vitamin B-12) and some mercury salt that was available in the school lab. Used a spectroscope on various solutions (as I recall, they were various shades of red).
Wish someone had enough sense to mention "fume hood" and "gloves" to me. I don't even think I wore goggles. Maybe this explains some things, 25 years later...
Is that less than or greater than a shitload?
Just want to make sure I get this right...
Only in an organization run by an IT staff that doesn't have a clue. In any other company, said employee would simply be put on a very short leash, or shown the door.
Beware of any job where IT support calls the shots. That is an incredibly inane and inefficient business model. IT support is exactly that: They are there to support development efforts, not to hinder them with brain-damaged policies usually written and enforced by CTOs that don't have a clue and administered by low-paying drones who substitute authority for what they lack on the pay scale.
Why even bother working for a company like that? With the upswing in IT, you sound like you've got way more than enough experience to find a job elsewhere.
...the last few gigs I've worked, there have been little to no restriction on what we could download on our Linux/Windows servers and workstations. We were tasked with a job, and granted the level of trust and discretion needed to get the job done.
Why would I work at a company that expects me to play the game with my hands tied behind my back?
As usual, another non-story about Google framed as an earth-moving event.
...but how, exactly, is this "news for nerds"?
Please don't fill space with bullshit articles that have nothing to do (except at a very tenuous level) with technology.
In the FWIW dept: I spent several hours this afternoon monitoring the #gsoc forum. Kudos to lh for taking the time to critique the rejectees, I'm sure it was not easy.
It's apparent that the main criteria used to determine who gets a mentor org slot is (1) the size of the organization, (2) whether an org participated in years past, and (3) the quality of the ideas list. (Yes, all three criteria were confirmed at one point or another during the afternoon.) By my count, more than half of the 2008 mentoring orgs participated in 2007. When asked how this can possibly inject innovation and new ideas into the OSS community, one Google staffer replied that it's all about the students, and larger orgs can mentor more students than can smaller orgs. As for the ideas list: We were rejected on a technicality in that we didn't specify the *difficulty level* for each idea in our list.
So what did I come away with? A process that rewards organizations that seem to already have the resources necessary to attract new developers, and a process that falls back on technicalities to determine, in part, who makes the short list and who doesn't.
As one Google sysop replied rather testily to someone, "it's *our* money, so we can do what we want." Don't know if I'll waste my time again next year, since we will only be able to surmount just one of the three most heavily-weighted criteria. But at least now, we have a good idea of what the selection process entails.
I'm icon-impaired. Seriously. My mind cannot make the subconscious connection between an icon or graphic and what said graphic is supposed to represent. Over the years, I've forced myself to recognize a floppy disk as "save," and a printer as "print". The rest mean nothing to me. When I use OpenOffice or any other graphic-intensive program, I must either (1) memorize various keyboard shortcuts, or (2) hover over the toolbar icons to find the one I want. For obvious reasons, my editor of choice is one that doesn't require me to decode icons. Nearly every graphical "decode" operation requires conscious thought as well as a process of elimination to narrow down the choices to a set of possibilities from which I will (hopefully) select the correct one. Many times I'm wrong.
Almost everything I do is on the CLI. I've been programming for nearly two decades, and I have no problems selecting textual tokens out of a field of similar-looking text. But give me a set of small, information-deprived graphics to decode, and I fall flat on my face.
I can't be alone in this. Surely others have this same cognitive disability.
...does the government dock your paycheck?