I use the VX revolution, and it's the only mouse that has ever made me happy. I mean, mice aren't the sort of things that people should get excited about. Unless they are wireless, work great on every surface, have great battery life, and share none of the usability flaws of other mice I have encountered (latency, jittering, mouse "going to sleep" and not wanting to wake up...)
(Unlike the Logitech MX-3000 mouse/keyboard combo, which disappointed me in more ways than any other piece of electronics I have bought.)
Yes. That's typical, in the US legal system. For example, if a patent is infringed upon, the owner of the patent can sue the the inventer/owner, the manufacturer, and the organization that is selling the infringing product.
(At least, this is my impression, and I don't remember where I heard or read this.)
If a senior manager runs a company into the ground, you can bet it's gonna be a black mark on his reputation. Much of how people do business and find jobs is through reputation and connections. Those connections won't do you much good if everybody know you are incompetent.
A state department laptop costs an average of $3000? That's completely insane! No (non-gaming) laptop costs that much unless you're just trying to burn money. This further reduces my faith in the abilities of the national government (and makes me feel really great about my taxes). =/
I agree. Around the time when SuSE had ReiserFS as the default filesystem, it still had a data-eating bug (at least, it did when I used it on slackware).
I like JFS a lot, because it seems to perform well on many small files, and if one does a lot of compilation or other management of small files, it's pretty nice. XFS seems to win the benchmarks for operations involving large files, but I find that on the occasions that I use huge files, I don't care so much about speed. JFS has made me happiest, among the filesystems I've used.
Yes, secrecy is often bad, and may be harmful to democracy. I think it is okay to use occasionally, however, as I have stated. That's why I think it's reasonable to allow this type of secrecy, only when it's okayed by one specific person, who is very busy with other matters. Hopefully, this will only be done with things that actually are important for national security.
If I were having surgery done by a robot, I'd want one that was running open source software. You'd go into surgery a guy and then you'd wake up as a girl. This is not a bug but a feature, because after much debate the developers collectively agreed girls are neat. I can't help but think this is an oblique reference to Pidgin.
I second this. "A Cartoon History of the Universe" was wonderful when I was growing up. My dad used to read it to me when I was very young, and it made me feel like I really understood the big bang, the origins of life, evolution, etc.
You're absolutely correct (and I'm not). However, see my post below, I redid the math, and I think it's right (the numbers are different, but it still supports my conclusion that driving is pretty safe).
You're right, as was the poster above you. My math was dead wrong. But this isn't:
Driving 9125 times with a 0.005% chance of death each time, the probability of living is 0.99995^9125 = 0.63
So, you've got a 37% chance of dying. This is obviously still not the correct percentage. If we say that there is only a 0.0005% chance of dying, the calculation yields a 4.4% chance of death. Still too much. So, even though I suck at math, driving is more than 1000x safer than an activity which causes 0.5% death.
And you're right that I'm making gross simplifications about what types of driving I'm considering, but the original AC post said "I wonder if he's ever stepped into a car?"
Care to show your math? Looks like rather egregious misuse of units to me. Kopiok implied that I was incorrect, and that getting in a car is not 100 or 1000 times safer than a 0.5% chance of death. I supposed that driving is merely 100x safer: a 0.005% chance of death (probability = 0.00005). Suppose a person takes this chance 2.5 times per day, 365 days, for ten years: 0.00005 * 2.5 * 365 * 10 = 0.45625 = 45%
If this were true, most Americans wouldn't live to be 40, they would die in car accidents. I claim that this percentage is dramatically wrong, and that driving is much, much safer than I just supposed. Probably 50,000 times safer than the original "0.5% chance of dying".
Suppose that driving carries a 0.005% chance of death, and that a person drives an average of 2.5 times per day for 10 years. This person has a 45% chance of dying in a car accident during those years. Because this calculation is wrong by more than one order of magnitude, driving must actually carry less than 0.0005% of death. I rest my case.
You're right; my example was, at best, mediocre. But in the real world, control of information is a powerful tool: the less you know about me, the less you can harm me/the more powerful I am. Hence, obscurity. I could probably come up with a hundred different examples where it would be dangerous or risky to publish information--some situations would be more serious than others. Some could reasonably be seen as a threat to U.S. national security. Information can be a weapon.
Huh? The water plant probably uses open source software to run its security system, yet I can't bring up "the open source argument" ? The argument I was referring to is, "more eyes on the problem == more fixed bugs". This is the most common argument that I see against security by obscurity in the software context, but I don't think it would apply to this situation, because in this culture, physical security procedures are not changed in the same way that bugfixes are applied. (There's a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of "cover your own ass".)
Security by obscurity is bad, but there are two large holes in what you said:
1) Good security can be effectively supplemented by obscurity. No security system is perfect, and it's perfectly reasonable to make the system harder for an outsider to understand. (Please don't bring up the Open Source argument. A water purification plant isn't a fun software project, and people don't augment that type of security system for fun.)
2) You just advocated allowing somebody to broadcast, "Come poison this well! Here's most of the information you need to kill thousands/millions of people." This should be allowed because their security isn't good enough? Are you crazy?
Well, national security can be important, believe it or not. If somebody posted the floor plan and guard rotations for a large water processing plant, would you really want a law that said nobody could tell them to take down the information?
I think that requiring the president himself to okay the exceptions is a good way to keep them in check. Not that I trust his judgement, but the government shouldn't start censoring like crazy, because the president has better things to do with his time than sign censorship permission slips all day long.
...instead of picking your hobby as a means to make a living (and thereby destroying your hobby), pick something that you are good at but don't really like a lot, but that makes good money. Then at least you're pulling in a good check for your misery, and your hobby will remain enjoyable. That's an interesting point, though I would think that having more than one serious hobby would be a preferable solution. I hope it's not the only solution. I hope to continue to like programming after I graduate and begin work.
It wasn't me you replied to; I was just chiming in (sorry for being ambiguous). As for putting personal details online, I agree that it's often wise not to--jerks/criminals aside, I don't want things I say online to come back to haunt me.
Your annoyance on this topic just makes me more curious about where you work;). Ah, well, I probably wouldn't reveal personal information of that sort, either.
I reset the admin password on my windows laptop the other day, and it was fairly trivial. I was under the impression that if you use tools to reset the admin password (without knowing the old one), that would not give you access to old encrypted files. From the summary, this seems different, like a real back door.
I wonder what will happen when bad people get their hands on this technology?
I agree completely. User permissions are sufficient to run cronjobs, send spam, and (often) steal sensitive information. User permissions are not enough to keylog, but I'm sure a firefox profile directory is often worth as much as a keylogging session.
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I use the VX revolution, and it's the only mouse that has ever made me happy. I mean, mice aren't the sort of things that people should get excited about. Unless they are wireless, work great on every surface, have great battery life, and share none of the usability flaws of other mice I have encountered (latency, jittering, mouse "going to sleep" and not wanting to wake up...)
(Unlike the Logitech MX-3000 mouse/keyboard combo, which disappointed me in more ways than any other piece of electronics I have bought.)
I love the word "vicariously" in the statement. The judge basically told them that they can't even think about copyright violation.
Yes. That's typical, in the US legal system. For example, if a patent is infringed upon, the owner of the patent can sue the the inventer/owner, the manufacturer, and the organization that is selling the infringing product.
(At least, this is my impression, and I don't remember where I heard or read this.)
If a senior manager runs a company into the ground, you can bet it's gonna be a black mark on his reputation. Much of how people do business and find jobs is through reputation and connections. Those connections won't do you much good if everybody know you are incompetent.
A state department laptop costs an average of $3000? That's completely insane! No (non-gaming) laptop costs that much unless you're just trying to burn money. This further reduces my faith in the abilities of the national government (and makes me feel really great about my taxes). =/
I agree. Around the time when SuSE had ReiserFS as the default filesystem, it still had a data-eating bug (at least, it did when I used it on slackware).
I like JFS a lot, because it seems to perform well on many small files, and if one does a lot of compilation or other management of small files, it's pretty nice. XFS seems to win the benchmarks for operations involving large files, but I find that on the occasions that I use huge files, I don't care so much about speed. JFS has made me happiest, among the filesystems I've used.
Yes, secrecy is often bad, and may be harmful to democracy. I think it is okay to use occasionally, however, as I have stated. That's why I think it's reasonable to allow this type of secrecy, only when it's okayed by one specific person, who is very busy with other matters. Hopefully, this will only be done with things that actually are important for national security.
Wouldn't a taser kill a person that old and weak? I don't know the answer, but I would think that a taser could stop her heart...
I second this. "A Cartoon History of the Universe" was wonderful when I was growing up. My dad used to read it to me when I was very young, and it made me feel like I really understood the big bang, the origins of life, evolution, etc.
You're absolutely correct (and I'm not). However, see my post below, I redid the math, and I think it's right (the numbers are different, but it still supports my conclusion that driving is pretty safe).
You're right, as was the poster above you. My math was dead wrong. But this isn't:
Driving 9125 times with a 0.005% chance of death each time, the probability of living is
0.99995^9125 = 0.63
So, you've got a 37% chance of dying. This is obviously still not the correct percentage. If we say that there is only a 0.0005% chance of dying, the calculation yields a 4.4% chance of death. Still too much. So, even though I suck at math, driving is more than 1000x safer than an activity which causes 0.5% death.
And you're right that I'm making gross simplifications about what types of driving I'm considering, but the original AC post said "I wonder if he's ever stepped into a car?"
I'm sorry, I ought to eat my shoe... I really shouldn't try to do math in public...
0.00005 * 2.5 * 365 * 10 = 0.45625 = 45%
If this were true, most Americans wouldn't live to be 40, they would die in car accidents. I claim that this percentage is dramatically wrong, and that driving is much, much safer than I just supposed. Probably 50,000 times safer than the original "0.5% chance of dying".
Suppose that driving carries a 0.005% chance of death, and that a person drives an average of 2.5 times per day for 10 years. This person has a 45% chance of dying in a car accident during those years. Because this calculation is wrong by more than one order of magnitude, driving must actually carry less than 0.0005% of death. I rest my case.
You're right; my example was, at best, mediocre. But in the real world, control of information is a powerful tool: the less you know about me, the less you can harm me/the more powerful I am. Hence, obscurity. I could probably come up with a hundred different examples where it would be dangerous or risky to publish information--some situations would be more serious than others. Some could reasonably be seen as a threat to U.S. national security. Information can be a weapon.
Security by obscurity is bad, but there are two large holes in what you said:
1) Good security can be effectively supplemented by obscurity. No security system is perfect, and it's perfectly reasonable to make the system harder for an outsider to understand. (Please don't bring up the Open Source argument. A water purification plant isn't a fun software project, and people don't augment that type of security system for fun.)
2) You just advocated allowing somebody to broadcast, "Come poison this well! Here's most of the information you need to kill thousands/millions of people." This should be allowed because their security isn't good enough? Are you crazy?
Well, national security can be important, believe it or not. If somebody posted the floor plan and guard rotations for a large water processing plant, would you really want a law that said nobody could tell them to take down the information?
I think that requiring the president himself to okay the exceptions is a good way to keep them in check. Not that I trust his judgement, but the government shouldn't start censoring like crazy, because the president has better things to do with his time than sign censorship permission slips all day long.
...instead of picking your hobby as a means to make a living (and thereby destroying your hobby), pick something that you are good at but don't really like a lot, but that makes good money. Then at least you're pulling in a good check for your misery, and your hobby will remain enjoyable. That's an interesting point, though I would think that having more than one serious hobby would be a preferable solution. I hope it's not the only solution. I hope to continue to like programming after I graduate and begin work.It wasn't me you replied to; I was just chiming in (sorry for being ambiguous). As for putting personal details online, I agree that it's often wise not to--jerks/criminals aside, I don't want things I say online to come back to haunt me.
Your annoyance on this topic just makes me more curious about where you work ;). Ah, well, I probably wouldn't reveal personal information of that sort, either.
I wonder what will happen when bad people get their hands on this technology?
I agree completely. User permissions are sufficient to run cronjobs, send spam, and (often) steal sensitive information. User permissions are not enough to keylog, but I'm sure a firefox profile directory is often worth as much as a keylogging session.