In sweden, we have "personal numbers".
They are given out rather freely, even though there are laws regulating who may keep a searchable register of them.
Anyway, they are by NO means secret.
But since nobody expects those numbers to be secret, nobody with half a brain would assume that knowledge of a persons number equates actually being that person.
Identity theft via SSN is only possible, because some idiot designed a system where your username is also your password.
The list of countries "hating" the US is more or less constant. Don't worry about those, since they know very well that they stand absolutely no chance against the US.
No, your real problem is that your list of friends is growing shorter at a rapid pace.
More and more countries are neutral vis a vis the US. Not actively working against it, but certainly not bothering to help.
Sure, You have all the firepower You need to fight your wars alone, but without the help of foreign intelligence, airstrips and military bases it is a lot harder.
And even though few states actively support terrorists, some start to care less and less about fighting them, as long as their targets are somewhere else...
"Oh, yeah? Then why aren't they offshoring the management jobs, too, huh?"
That, my friend, is the inevitable next step.
Programming jobs move to india for the simple reason that there are indian programmers just as skilled as american programmers, willing to do the same job for one tenth of their pay.
It is exactly the same reason sneakers are manufactures in east asia - they have workers just as skilled as americans only much cheaper. (Even if they don't run a sweatshop)
Soon the corporate owners will discover that there are also managers in india, just as good as american managers, willing to do the same job for one tenth of their pay.
(Yes I'm aware that there are some genius coders in the US that cannot simply be replaced. Likewise there are som genius managers and so on who will always support their cost. However, the bulk *is* replaceable, wether we like it or not.)
Yeah, but even so, the "second pass" would probably take almost as long as a complete translation, if they want a consistent language.
It is an interesting project though, copyright issues aside. Wonder how good/quick a distributed translation would be?
Side note: Many professionals already use machine translation for a first step, but then there is the slow and careful process of crafting the book in a new language, adapting it to a local mindset, making it more than just a translation.
One typical example of the hard work of a translator is, of course, Tolkiens works.
Should the translator treat middle earth and the shire as *our* earth and england, or as a fantasy world?
In the first case, you want to keep references to english customs, manners and names. Otherwise you might want to adapt the characters and places to your local culture.
Now, Harry Potter is explicitly in england, so this is not such a problem, but you still want to check your cultural bearings.
A description of a typically normal (muggle) meal for example might be considered exotic (or gross) by a muslim, hindu or jew. Which is better: to adapt their menu so that the passage wont steal attention from the story, or keep it?
"and how will all that new hardware prevent terrorist attacks?"
It won't. In any way.
There are very few armies in this world, who would not be able to wipe out any terrorist group anywhere, if only they knew who to fight.
But the thing about (successful) terrorists, is that you *never* know about them beforehand.
And once the deed is done, what can you do? Go after the ones responsible? They have dissapeared or are allready dead.
Retaliate on their supporters? Sure, and create a million new enemies, a hundred of which desperate enough to go on suicide missions.
No, to defeat terrorism You have to think like a terrorist. What are their goals? Why do they attack america? Is it just because they hate americans?
Beep! Wrong!
They attack america because they want america to strike back. Invading Iraq was doing Usama bin Laden the favour of a lifetime. His arch-enemy (Saddam) overthrown, and another country in chaos, providing fertile ground for new recruits.
To defeat terrorists, you must deny them what they want. Ignore their stings, however hard.
Protect yourselves (of course) Strike back when you can (of course) but remember that they *want* you to lose your temper. They *want* you to over react.
If I was installing security systems for a bank, I wouldn't trust *any* single employee. Convicted or not.
I would have absolutely no problem hiring known (ex) crackers to give advice and test the systems, but i would *not* trust them. Nor would I trust anyone else without that background. Simply too big temptations involved.
I would hire one team to design the system, another to test it and a third to run it.
That way I wouldn't have to trust anyone, since no one could easily abuse the system.
I got to Win 3.1 and then the server refused to serve me anymore.
You may call it slashdotting, but I say BLAME WINDOWS!
(Or perhaps it was just emulating the slow release process of Win -95)
Re:Hard to explain to CS people...
on
Game Theory at 190mph
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"It isn't without reason they call it "Chess at 200 mph.""
Probably because nascar is just as boring and slow as chess to watch.;-)
Seriously, I'm not just trying to make take a cheap shot, I do have a line of thought here.
I always find that games and sports, that are fun to participate in are the least fun to watch.
Soccer is incredebly fun to play, but I gladly admit that the game is slow to watch. (Unless you *really* care about the end score)
Hockey is the exact opposite, fun to watch, but just a crowded mess to play.
Me, I'd love to get behind the wheel of a racing car on the oval track and apply some of that game theory. But watching others is (IMHO) just plain dull.
The first requirement of a good SF work is (as many allready have pointed out) that it is good litterature by the same standard as any other writing. Believabel characters, intresting plot, enjoyable language and so on.
But the one thing that makes SF somehow different from other fiction is of course the tech.
I say there are two manageble ways of introducing fictous tech in a story.
It's just a matter of engineering
This is how Gibson and one of my favourites, Stephen Baxter, does it.
They take tech concepts and ideas that are OK in theory today and expand them. We know about nuclear fusion. From that, a working fusion plant is just a matter of engineering. We know about computers and the net. From that, a Gibsonian world or The Matrix is a mere extrapolation.
It's just there
If You cannot explain the marvelous tech, don't.
This is how Asimov does it. He does not lose precious story time on flawed explanations of an interstellar jump or a force field generator. It's just something thats there in the future.
The same strategy works well in variations of "War of the worlds". The aliens have alien technology. Accept it.
If you try to create a pseudo explanation of the tech marvels, You end in tedious technobabble, or new-ageish inventions like "midi chlorines" (sp) which just annoy the reader.
Some of his work (notably "Ring" or the manifold thrilogy) really has that makes-you-think quality, that makes good SF something more than just space operas.
Unpopular, a bit oversimplyfying, but nonetheless interesting.
Compare housing in america to housing in, say italy or greece. (or mexico for that matter.)
My feeling is that the widespread use of AC has made architects forget how you build a house for a hot climate. You don't have large south-facing windows. You have wooden or even stone floors and not a carpet. (Carpets are germ infested discusting things anyway) You have proper insulation and ventilation. You make sure that you get some freaking shade.
Or,... you just put in some AC, and hope that power will never be a problem.
Our favourite webserver: IIS...
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 2
IIS 4(?) had an extremly annoying bug.
If you set a session variable in asp, it did not halt execution until that variable was actually set. That meaned that code like:
Session("MyVar") = "I did this"
Response.write Session("MyVar") Might write the old value of Sesion("MyVar") or simply a blank.
Guess how strange bugs that could result in...
Re:Change or Delete the Data?
on
Data Quality Act
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Take it easy.
As I read is, it is about changing or deleting incorrect data, not questionable conclusions drawn from correct data.
If moderated wisely, this is a Good Thing. It might be a way to deal with those "estimations of lost revenue" that keeps popping up as soon as we don't buy enough copyrighted stuff...
Well, let's not get into a debate about which author or bok is better here, OK?
Sure, Rowling will never get the Nobel prize for litterature, but the HP books are still far ahead of most of the hype-only rubbish.
It will be quite interesting to find out if her trend of moving away from the lightweight adventure of the first two books and towards a more complex and darker story in the later two, will continue.
In the fourth book, there are caracters who cannot simply be classified as "good" or "bad". Thats more complex than one expects from a chilldrens book.
Anyway: You are free to have your own opinion about any book. Just remember that critizising the books that kids *do* read will not make them read the books you'd *like* them to read.
Yes, the harry Potter series is heavy marketed. That doesn't automatically make them rubbish.
I'm 30. I read everything from Harry Potter to Tolstoy. Sure, HP is not great litterature, but they are miles ahead of the "market-hype-only" books you make them out to be.
Give kids some credit. Hype alone does not sell these volumes.
Slashdot Mirror
They are given out rather freely, even though there are laws regulating who may keep a searchable register of them.
Anyway, they are by NO means secret.
But since nobody expects those numbers to be secret, nobody with half a brain would assume that knowledge of a persons number equates actually being that person.
Identity theft via SSN is only possible, because some idiot designed a system where your username is also your password.
No, your real problem is that your list of friends is growing shorter at a rapid pace.
More and more countries are neutral vis a vis the US. Not actively working against it, but certainly not bothering to help.
Sure, You have all the firepower You need to fight your wars alone, but without the help of foreign intelligence, airstrips and military bases it is a lot harder.
And even though few states actively support terrorists, some start to care less and less about fighting them, as long as their targets are somewhere else...
Yes, I've been hired, stayed hired, and I've done interviews.
Don't forget one crucial thing while preparing yourself though:
Be yourself!
If you can't get the job being your regular self, you won't like the job and will have trouble keeping the job being your regular self.
Of course you should bother too look and act your best on the interview, but be yourself. Not some acted character you assume they want to see.
Oh, and good luck.
Are you aware that this is the exact same arguments used by the brits vis-a-vis their american colonies in the eighteenth century?
English money should stay in england. Not spreading wealth to that barbarian new world.
You remember how that ended?
That, my friend, is the inevitable next step.
Programming jobs move to india for the simple reason that there are indian programmers just as skilled as american programmers, willing to do the same job for one tenth of their pay.
It is exactly the same reason sneakers are manufactures in east asia - they have workers just as skilled as americans only much cheaper. (Even if they don't run a sweatshop)
Soon the corporate owners will discover that there are also managers in india, just as good as american managers, willing to do the same job for one tenth of their pay.
(Yes I'm aware that there are some genius coders in the US that cannot simply be replaced. Likewise there are som genius managers and so on who will always support their cost. However, the bulk *is* replaceable, wether we like it or not.)
Hey, isn't Baldrick (or rather the actor) actually into politics in britain?
Or is it someone else in the series?
Last time I checked, London was indeed well inside the borders of England.
It is an interesting project though, copyright issues aside. Wonder how good/quick a distributed translation would be?
Side note: Many professionals already use machine translation for a first step, but then there is the slow and careful process of crafting the book in a new language, adapting it to a local mindset, making it more than just a translation.
One typical example of the hard work of a translator is, of course, Tolkiens works.
Should the translator treat middle earth and the shire as *our* earth and england, or as a fantasy world?
In the first case, you want to keep references to english customs, manners and names. Otherwise you might want to adapt the characters and places to your local culture.
Now, Harry Potter is explicitly in england, so this is not such a problem, but you still want to check your cultural bearings.
A description of a typically normal (muggle) meal for example might be considered exotic (or gross) by a muslim, hindu or jew. Which is better: to adapt their menu so that the passage wont steal attention from the story, or keep it?
No, that was not my point.
There is a cruel but logical policy: Never give in to terrorist demands, since that will only encourage more terrorism.
By extension: Never let him provoke you into using *your* force to achieve *his* goals.
It won't. In any way.
There are very few armies in this world, who would not be able to wipe out any terrorist group anywhere, if only they knew who to fight.
But the thing about (successful) terrorists, is that you *never* know about them beforehand.
And once the deed is done, what can you do? Go after the ones responsible? They have dissapeared or are allready dead.
Retaliate on their supporters? Sure, and create a million new enemies, a hundred of which desperate enough to go on suicide missions.
No, to defeat terrorism You have to think like a terrorist. What are their goals?
Why do they attack america? Is it just because they hate americans?
Beep! Wrong!
They attack america because they want america to strike back. Invading Iraq was doing Usama bin Laden the favour of a lifetime. His arch-enemy (Saddam) overthrown, and another country in chaos, providing fertile ground for new recruits.
To defeat terrorists, you must deny them what they want. Ignore their stings, however hard.
Protect yourselves (of course) Strike back when you can (of course) but remember that they *want* you to lose your temper. They *want* you to over react.
Natalie Portman naked and petrified...
/. trolls ahead of their time or what?
Ar the
I would have absolutely no problem hiring known (ex) crackers to give advice and test the systems, but i would *not* trust them. Nor would I trust anyone else without that background. Simply too big temptations involved.
I would hire one team to design the system, another to test it and a third to run it.
That way I wouldn't have to trust anyone, since no one could easily abuse the system.
You may call it slashdotting, but I say BLAME WINDOWS!
(Or perhaps it was just emulating the slow release process of Win -95)
Probably because nascar is just as boring and slow as chess to watch.
Seriously, I'm not just trying to make take a cheap shot, I do have a line of thought here.
I always find that games and sports, that are fun to participate in are the least fun to watch.
Soccer is incredebly fun to play, but I gladly admit that the game is slow to watch. (Unless you *really* care about the end score)
Hockey is the exact opposite, fun to watch, but just a crowded mess to play.
Me, I'd love to get behind the wheel of a racing car on the oval track and apply some of that game theory. But watching others is (IMHO) just plain dull.
Baxters sf makes yoou think: "All right. Those theories could be true, now whats left is just engineering..."
"Ring" is really very good. Also check out the manifold sequence ("Time", "Space" and "Origin")
The first requirement of a good SF work is (as many allready have pointed out) that it is good litterature by the same standard as any other writing. Believabel characters, intresting plot, enjoyable language and so on.
But the one thing that makes SF somehow different from other fiction is of course the tech.
I say there are two manageble ways of introducing fictous tech in a story.
It's just a matter of engineering
This is how Gibson and one of my favourites, Stephen Baxter, does it.
They take tech concepts and ideas that are OK in theory today and expand them. We know about nuclear fusion. From that, a working fusion plant is just a matter of engineering. We know about computers and the net. From that, a Gibsonian world or The Matrix is a mere extrapolation.
It's just there
If You cannot explain the marvelous tech, don't.
This is how Asimov does it. He does not lose precious story time on flawed explanations of an interstellar jump or a force field generator. It's just something thats there in the future.
The same strategy works well in variations of "War of the worlds". The aliens have alien technology. Accept it.
If you try to create a pseudo explanation of the tech marvels, You end in tedious technobabble, or new-ageish inventions like "midi chlorines" (sp) which just annoy the reader.
Anyway, my
Have You missed Stephen Baxter?
Some of his work (notably "Ring" or the manifold thrilogy) really has that makes-you-think quality, that makes good SF something more than just space operas.
Just heard about someone in the project team testing the laser, by lighting a cigarette on it.
:-)
Oh and the proper message to send is "FIRST POST" of course
Them console thingies don' even have a decent roguelike on them.
Compare housing in america to housing in, say italy or greece. (or mexico for that matter.)
My feeling is that the widespread use of AC has made architects forget how you build a house for a hot climate. You don't have large south-facing windows. You have wooden or even stone floors and not a carpet. (Carpets are germ infested discusting things anyway) You have proper insulation and ventilation. You make sure that you get some freaking shade.
Or,... you just put in some AC, and hope that power will never be a problem.
If you set a session variable in asp, it did not halt execution until that variable was actually set. That meaned that code like:
Session("MyVar") = "I did this"
Response.write Session("MyVar")
Might write the old value of Sesion("MyVar") or simply a blank.
Guess how strange bugs that could result in...
As I read is, it is about changing or deleting incorrect data, not questionable conclusions drawn from correct data.
If moderated wisely, this is a Good Thing. It might be a way to deal with those "estimations of lost revenue" that keeps popping up as soon as we don't buy enough copyrighted stuff...
Well...
.htm.vir)
I tried this on one of our IIS machines, but the virus protection took care of it immediately (renaming the file to
Sure, Rowling will never get the Nobel prize for litterature, but the HP books are still far ahead of most of the hype-only rubbish.
It will be quite interesting to find out if her trend of moving away from the lightweight adventure of the first two books and towards a more complex and darker story in the later two, will continue.
In the fourth book, there are caracters who cannot simply be classified as "good" or "bad". Thats more complex than one expects from a chilldrens book.
Anyway: You are free to have your own opinion about any book. Just remember that critizising the books that kids *do* read will not make them read the books you'd *like* them to read.
Yes, the harry Potter series is heavy marketed. That doesn't automatically make them rubbish.
I'm 30. I read everything from Harry Potter to Tolstoy. Sure, HP is not great litterature, but they are miles ahead of the "market-hype-only" books you make them out to be.
Give kids some credit. Hype alone does not sell these volumes.