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Slashback: Hilbert's, Transgenic, Silicon 214

Posted by timothy from the stevens-pass-today dept.
Slashback tonight with another round of updates and corrections to recent stories, including transgenic fish, Hilbert's 16th problem, Microsoft's FAT patent plans, Utah's hyped public fiber network, and more. Read on for the details.

Still an acorn at this point. Jose Nazario writes with a correction to my recent post claiming that OpenBSD had gained a "fuzzy" user-profiling IDS. Jose writes: "It is NOT in tree. it is a privately developed research project. It is not an official project."

And Yes, the Apple I schematics were available, too. In response to the recent article about the freely available chip design from opencores.org implemented by Flextronics, Henry Keultjes offers a reminder that this is not the first time chip whose internals have been open for inspection:

"Happened quite some time ago with PowerPC. That's the essence of Microsoft's deal with IBM because without that Open Architecture Microsoft would have had to buy a lot more than it did. This for example is used in a roughly $150 French set-top box that has USB and, according to a friend in the UK who has tried that, runs just fine as a PC with the attached USB HDD, KB and rodent."

Could Wayne Inouye sell you an eMachine? After reading many pointed comments in the story about eMachine's Athlon offerings, arrasmith writes "To add to the topic of AMD64 eMachines and the launch of "I hate eMachine" posts I'll throw out why you should buy one.

eMachines are the number-3 seller of computers, only behind Dell and HP. If you are wondering about how that happened, you need to read about the new CEO.

Wayne Inouye has had some articles published about him in Business Week and Forbes. Great articles on how you can sell good computers at reasonable prices. And if you are wondering why eMachines is selling an AMD64 system read the Business Week article."

OK, as long as you buy it from us. Alien54 writes "As reported in the most recent Spyware Info Newsletter, Dell seems to have listened to the criticism handed to them last week, after their decision to forbid tech support persons from providing assistance to spyware-infected customers became public knowledge. They have partnered with PestPatrol, Inc. to sell Pest Patrol's spyware removal software to Dell customers. It is interesting to note that Dell does not recommend any freeware or shareware product because 'we cannot test these open source utilities reliably.' Which is simply silly, of course."

Utah may not be Utopia after all. brysnot writes "The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Utopia project, which plans to run fiber to every home in Utah, has miscalculated its 2003 budget and now needs each member cities to come up with an additional $250,000. Also reported is that 'Its largest member, Salt Lake City, is uncertain whether to provide financial backing to guarantee payment of the principal and interest on the bonds the project needs -- a development that could force the project to be scaled back.'"

Writes Lighthop "The best way to overcome Qwest's vast resources and well orchestrated opposition is for citizens and business owners to speak out and let their city council members know we support them in approving UTOPIA's funding. We have to be visible and give them some political cover.

The 18 UTOPIA member cities are Brigham City, Cedar City, Cedar Hills, Centerville, Layton, Lindon, Midvale, Murray, Orem, Payson, Perry, Riverton, Roy, Salt Lake City, South Jordan, Taylorsville, Tremonton and West Valley."

Hilbert's 16th is still a problem. commodoresloat writes "The work of Elin Oxenhielm, the 22-year old Swedish student who apparently solved part of the 16th Hilbert problem, is coming under heavy fire from some prominent mathematicians, including her own adviser, who said the work contained "serious mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see." Here's an article in English. Oxenhielm responded to the criticism by saying that the journal that accepted her work, which now owns the copyright, is responsible for any errors. More information on this weblog."

Periscope is up, showdown commences. McSpew writes "The Register states that Microsoft's patents on the FAT filesystem may be subject to new scrutiny, thanks to their announced plan to collect royalties from media and CE manufacturers. The Public Patent Foundation is behind the effort to get the USPTO to start from scratch with Microsoft's FAT patents."

FDA gives GM fish sales the eerie green light. fishfishfish writes "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Tuesday released a statement saying that it will not be stopping the sale of transgenic Zebra danios in the USA. The move could allow fish retailers in any U.S. state to sell the fish. Apart from California, where Arnie has banned them..."
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Slashback: Hilbert's, Transgenic, Silicon More

Slashback: Hilbert's, Transgenic, Silicon

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  • From her own adviser (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Adam_Trask ( 694692 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:04PM (#7707205)
    including her own adviser, who said the work contained "serious mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see."...
    We know geniuses tend to be social geeks, but getting that from your own adviser while you are still doing you PhD...wow! Good luck with that PhD!!
    • From the weblog:
      The fact is, though, that Zhou was an advisor for Oxenhielm's masters degree. She is neither her professor nor her current advisor.

    • Re:From her own adviser (Score:5, Informative)

      by Noren ( 605012 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:22PM (#7707362)
      Zhou was her advisor when she got her Master's degree, but is no longer her advisor now that she's working on her PhD. From the blog cited in the story:
      Finally, I have a correction. I have spoken of Yishao Zhou as being both Elin Oxenhielm's professor and supervisor. The fact is, though, that Zhou was an advisor for Oxenhielm's masters degree. She is neither her professor nor her current advisor. And the paper submitted to Nonlinear Analysis isn't a paper that Zhou has been an advisor for.

    • Re:From her own adviser (Score:4, Funny)

      by kramer2718 ( 598033 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:30PM (#7707410) Homepage
      She's still very hot, and obviously very intelligent. I'm in love with her regardless whether or not the proof stands.

      • Re:From her own adviser (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "She's still very hot, and obviously very intelligent. I'm in love with her regardless whether or not the proof stands."

        1) Publish solutions to hilbert equations, along with cute photo
        2) ???
        3) Boyfriend

        (sorry!)
      • Yishao Zhou [bgu.ac.il]

        Two non-fugly math chicks! What are the chances?

        • Not impossible: Inevitable (Score:5, Funny)

          by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @09:05PM (#7707629) Journal

          Two non-fugly math chicks! What are the chances?

          Chances are probably not as bad as you might think. Two non-fugly math girls, lonely for a little love yet repulsed by the animate male lumps of lard and sweat surrounding them. Both so lonely, so sad. Trying to concentrate on their work. Young student huddled close together with advisor, going over a math problem. Then it happens! Zhou's hair brushes ever so lightly against Oxenheilm's cheek. They pull back from each other in surprise. They both felt it. And in that moment, their lives changed forever. It was unavoidable. It was their destiny. Their professional composure decays exponentially fast as they both realize the inexorable truth. They are going to have sex and there is nothing either of them can do to stop it. Is this attraction stable? Does it matter anymore?

          Clothes are pulled off each other in an optimal fashion. Each woman studies the continuous curvature of the other's body. Fingers trace the inflexion points, the saddle points, the contours, and then, utimately, the poles. Their fingers now slick with the complex residue of the other, their heart beats begin to constructively interfere with each other. The intensity of one heart increased by the feedback from the other. So wrong. So dangerous. So good.

          Groups give way to gropes. Rings give way to rimjobs. Fields give way to fondles. Their fingers, so skilled at manipulating mathematical equations, now find a use in manipulating each other's boundary layers. Both women writhe and squirm in unison until they are epsilon away from a mutual orgasm (epsilon -> 0 quadratically fast).

          And then it's over. No more theorems, lemmas, corrolaries or proofs. The two young women lie on the floor knowing that their relationship has changed forever. Without a word they clothe themselves and the impressionable young student leaves the office. Never again will they discuss this incident. This will be an isolated singularity hidden for all time in the vast infiniteness of time.

          GMD

        • ??

          Note to self: stop posting on Slashdot after 2-for-1 happy hour at Bennigans.

    • Zhou is protecting herself (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:35PM (#7707445) Journal

      Did you read the article that was linked to? Zhou's public comments are an attempt to distance herself from Oxenhielm. Oxenhielm thanks Zhou in her (possibly flawed) paper for assistance and Zhou is terrified that the community is going to laugh at her (Zhou). It's easy to forgive a youngster for getting excited and making mistakes but they would come down very hard on Zhou for letting stuff like this slip through. Effectively Oxenhielm has put Zhou's name on this work in spite of the fact that Zhou never reviewed it. You wouldn't want to be blamed for something you had no hand in, would you?

      Oxenhielm is probably too young to remember what happened to Ponds and Fleishman at University of Utah regarding cold fusion. Zhou wants to make sure that Oxenhielm doesn't take her down too when her proof gets shot down.

      GMD

  • Dell is mixing upo OSS with Shareware/Freeware... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Androgynous Coward ( 13443 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:07PM (#7707228)
    ...Dell does not recommend any freeware or shareware product becausefreeware or shareware product because 'we cannot test these open source utilities reliably.'

    Someone should inform Dell that freeware and/or shareware products are not necessarily open-source.

  • AMD 64bit CPU's and linux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:08PM (#7707238) Journal
    So, assuming I get hold of one of these AMD 64-bit boxes, how hard/easy is it to get Linux compiled for 64-bit. What are the pitfalls with gcc (is an int 64 bit in 64-bit mode ?)

    The only reviews I've seen are on Windows OS's running in 32 bit mode (why, for crying out loud, if linux runs on them cleanly...) I think I saw that RH and Suse have 64-bit offerings, but RH is expensive... never tried Suse ....

    Just curious. Pointers to informative articles would be welcome :-)

    Simon

    • Re:AMD 64bit CPU's and linux (Score:4, Informative)

      by Fulcrum of Evil ( 560260 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:17PM (#7707320)

      o, assuming I get hold of one of these AMD 64-bit boxes, how hard/easy is it to get Linux compiled for 64-bit. What are the pitfalls with gcc (is an int 64 bit in 64-bit mode ?)

      Here is a list [newsforge.com] of supported distros. And yes, I believe an int is 64 bits in 64 bit mode

      • This has been explained in the some other post, I just summarize that in the subject. Note that this is just a convention, and certain 64-bit systems do adopt different conventions such as 64-bit int's.

      • Re:AMD 64bit CPU's and linux (Score:5, Informative)

        by JoeBuck ( 7947 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @09:40PM (#7707817) Homepage

        No, on 64-bit Linux platforms int is still 32 bits, while long is 64 bits. Pointers are also 64 bits.

        The two most common C models are commonly referred to as ILP32 (int, long, pointers all 32 bit) or LP64 (long and pointer are 64 bit).

        • coding 64-bit apps on Unixes and Windows (Score:4, Informative)

          by LinuxParanoid ( 64467 ) * on Friday December 12, 2003 @11:53PM (#7708452) Homepage Journal

          In general, most Unixes and Linux (as you say) have adopted the LP64 model where longs/pointers are 64-bits and ints are 32 bits (some gory details here [yarchive.net]. (Cray's Unix is an exception; it's ILP64).

          Windows OSes however have adopted the LLP64 model where ints and longs are 32-bits still, but long longs and pointers are 64-bits (gory Windows details here [microsoft.com] and here [microsoft.com].)

          Both 32-bit Windows and Unix traditionally used ILP32, so the porting characteristics moving to 64-bit code are slightly different across the two platforms.

          --LinuxParanoid
    • An int *should* be 64 bits with a 64 bit processor. If not, somebody goofed up!

      ``RH is expensive...'' If it's Linux, they have to provide source for free, remember? The source they compiled from? Right?

      Though we've been primarily a Red Hat shop to date (with almost 300 RH8 boxes at the moment), we do have one copy of SuSe running - on our dual Opteron. Lovely software. We bought it with the system, but again - they have to provide free source!

      Of course, if you want free binaries, that could be a bi
      • An int *should* be 64 bits with a 64 bit processor. If not, somebody goofed up!
        I sure don't feel that way. Having 'long int' and 'int' mean the same thing seems pointles, and should 'short' mean 16 or 32 bits? Why not just do it like Sparc:

        char 1
        short 2
        int 4
        long 8
        long long 8
        void * 8
        float 4
        double 8
        long double 16

        I can't imagine there are modern general-purpose 64 bit platforms which don't handle 32 bit values efficiently.

        • int was defined in K&R1 to the best size for the CPU to deal with. Short and char could be shorter, long could be longer. Then they had a chart showing how several "common" machines implimented it, which included one machine that implimented all of the above types with 36 bits.

          I still think that int should be the easiest size for the machine to deal with. If your intiger math is all 64 bits, when I say int I mean that I don't want you take an extra step to make the result fit into 32 bits. If your

          • >I still think that int should be the easiest size for the machine to deal with.

            Correct, but any 64-bit CPU that I know about about instructions for manipulating 32bit variables easily too.
            These "64bit" CPU manipulate 32bit value as easily as 64bit values, which means K&R rules that the int should be the "natural" int of the CPU doesn't tell you anything about wether an int should be 32 or 64 bit..

            So I'm for the int=32bit and long=64bit rule..

      • "int" should but in't required be whatever type is native to the processor; but is required to be at least 16 bits (thanks to a requirement that it can hold values from INT_MIN to INT_MAX whose minimum and maximum values are -32767 and 32767 respectively.

        If your code cares beyond that, use the standard C types (defined in stdint.h) that specify the sizes.

        From the many year old C99 standard (part B.17 Integer types ):

        • If you want an exactly 64-bit type use an int64_t.
        • If you want an exactly 32-bit

    • Re:AMD 64bit CPU's and linux (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mcelrath ( 8027 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:40PM (#7707476) Homepage
      An int on a 64-bit CPU is 32-bits. A long int is 64 bits and an int* is 64 bits. Thus most C code is highly compatible. The fatal flaw being when programmers assume sizeof(int)=sizeof(int*) which fails.

      The other posts in this thread indicating otherwise are wrong. An int is 32 bits on 64-bit archs under linux and gcc. (I know, I have 2 alphas and a sparc)

      -- Bob

      • Re:AMD 64bit CPU's and linux (Score:4, Insightful)

        by stonecypher ( 118140 ) <stonecypher@noSpam.gmail.com> on Friday December 12, 2003 @10:04PM (#7707959) Homepage Journal
        Insightfully wrong.

        A 64-bit platform is a platform which has been attacked by marketroids. The C Standard says nothing about the sizes of any of the base types in comparison to any of the various sizes a 64-bit platform might choose to support, rather referring only to comparisons: char may not be longer than int, short may not be longer than int, long may not be shorter than int, et cetera.

        Granted, many C compilers choose to ignore the advice of the standard, which is to implement int as the fastest integer type for native math, and implement it as a 32-bit because buttheads like you can't get through your thick skulls not to use raw types. But good compilers, and also good programmers, don't suffer such silly strictures.

        vu8 * clueBat = "rtfm";
        • Parent wrote:"The C Standard says nothing about the sizes of any of the base types in comparison to any of the various sizes a 64-bit platform might choose to support, rather referring only to comparisons: char may not be longer than int, short may not be longer than int, long may not be shorter than int, et cetera."

          Nonsense. ANSI C's description of requires that int's have a range of INT_MIN to INT_MAX, with a maximum value for INT_MIN being -32767 and INT_MAX being 32767. This implies a requirement

      • The length of data types are chosen by the compiler, not the chip. An int can be 256 bits on a 16 bit computer as long as it is no smaller than a char and no bigger than a long

        And while we are on the topic of "serious mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see", I would like to point out that the logic of your sig is flawed.

    • There is a standard notation for this sort of question.

      Most of us work with enviroments described best as ILP32. That is, ints, longs and pointers are 32 bits.

      So far as I have read, most of the time folks talk about 64 bit arches, they mean LP64 (ints are 32 bits, longs and pointers are 64 bits).

      Windows 3.1 (without win32 extensions) was IP16, for what that's worth. Ints and pointers were 16 bits, longs were 32.

  • the FDA? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mad_Rain ( 674268 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:10PM (#7707259) Journal
    So how come the Food and Drug Administration is the organization approving the sale of transgenic fish?

    Isn't there a more appropriate group to be handling this? Sure, let the FDA approve them if you plan on eating the fish, but I figured they were for display only. ;)

    • My understanding is that the FDA is the last agency to say either "this isn't under our jurisdiction" or "we see no problem with it". The other agencies that might be involved have already given it the green light.
    • Because a day-glow fish is highly likely to become food :)

    • they're not (Score:5, Informative)

      by dangermouse ( 2242 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:25PM (#7707378) Homepage
      If you read the statement [fda.gov], you'll see that they're not "approving" sales of the glofish. They're saying exactly what you are-- the glofish aren't in the FDA's bailiwick.
      Because tropical aquarium fish are not used for food purposes...

    • Re:the FDA? (Score:2, Funny)

      by iminplaya ( 723125 )
      " Isn't there a more appropriate group to be handling this?"
      Maybe the ASPCA? On the other hand the FDA is involved because there is going to be a lot of pledges eating them next fall.
    • Whom do you think is going to be called upon to deal with these little guys when you flush them into the sewer system?

      The apparent worry (not that I agree) is that some strange bio-compound will be turned loose on the general public, sort of like mercury in fish.

      I think that shopping cart handle that just came in from outside, where it was used as a perch by birds, would be more of a concern...
    • So how come the Food and Drug Administration is the organization approving the sale of transgenic fish?

      Depends. Do they also approve cat food? :-)

  • Why is there no law..... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Microsofts slave ( 522033 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:11PM (#7707273) Homepage Journal
    that makes it impossible for a patent holder to hold people hostage on a technology after it becomes ubiquitous.
    • because charging rents on the use of a patented invention is exactly the purpose of patents. they're very powerful, which is why they're limited in time and geography. they've also been pretty badly abused in the last few years, not in terms of charging license fees for legitimate patents, but in what one can ram through the pto.

      you may also, if you like, challenge the whole concept of people having the exclusive rights to an invention, no matter how radical and new. people have. myself, i think it's a
    • There's no market for such a law. Who would buy it?

    • There are rules that require disclosure of pending patents during standards body proceedings, which is where Rambus originally got into trouble (trick people into making something a standard, without mentioning that you have patent pending on it). But it appears that they won on appeal.

    • Why is there no law that makes it impossible for a patent holder to hold people hostage on a technology after it becomes ubiquitous?

      Because I've already patented it! And companies are paying me millions _not_ to license it to Congress.

    • Re:Why is there no law..... (Score:4, Informative)

      by stonecypher ( 118140 ) <stonecypher@noSpam.gmail.com> on Friday December 12, 2003 @10:08PM (#7707982) Homepage Journal
      It's called "Submarining a patent." Read Title III [techlawjournal.com].

      The real problem is how difficult it is to define whether a product has become ubiquitous. For a lesson in how difficult that is, refer to CompuServe's superficially compelling arguments about the dominance of JPEG that allowed them to fool a judge into thinking the resurfacing of the LZ patents was okay. Sometimes a patent really can't be judged in time, and sometimes a company gets into commercialization beforehand knowing fully well that it'll have to stop; see the issue with the chemical that made wacky wall walkers, and Klutz Press.

  • Conspiracy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfmiller ( 119037 ) * on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:12PM (#7707278) Homepage Journal
    If one were a conspiracy theorist, and I am not, one might postulate that dell ether now or in the future plans to install spyware themselves and that open source programs would mess this up. Therefore they have told there techs not to recommend any of them, and now have found a willing corp. that will agree with them about the difference between marketing tools and spyware. Bu there is of course no proof and since I am not a conspiracy theorist, I will not make such accusations.

    IANACT

    JFMILLER
    • well.. it's even more conspiracy that they are now probably only able to tell you about a commercial product that costs money to use.. ..as a problem solver to a problem every single one(that has internet and uses internet explorer) of their customers will have(that is, an extra cost they don't tell the customer up front about when they buy the computer).

      for pest patrol i guess this will be a huge thing though, having shitloads of drones hurled their way without knoweledge of anything better/free.

      in any o
    • Sorry I just burned my mod points, or I'd give this +1 insightful.

  • "we can not test"... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dbc ( 135354 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:17PM (#7707318)
    Well, they don't mention *why* they can not test. In a past life, I have managed both hardware and software validation laboratories. It is an expensive proposition to do it well. Windows is the worst.. Between 95, 95osr1, 95osr2, 98, 98se, 98me, variants of 2000... and the fact that every application install is an OS upgrade because of DLL-Hell... and then add in a zillion flavors of language support (OK, I was running 98me with the left-to-right Hebrew keyboard, the German version of Visual Studio, and Oriental character file name support...) ... oh, now cross all these with hardware variation, chipset, cpu, what-have-you.

    So, personally, I can well believe that *if* they looked at the cost of validating some particular build of some particular OSS software for download from their web site, that they would conclude that it cost too much. So "We can't because it costs too much" is a reasonable response. Chicken, yes, and maybe doesn't server the customer the best possible way, but reasonable.

    Of course, every time I've dealt with Dell in the past they've been idiots, so that might be a reason, too.
    • The true answer is

      "We can not find someone else to blame or talk to when it doesn't work like it should."

      I've seen it tons of times with OpenSource, Freeware and Shareware...people are hesitant to use it as a solution - not because it isn't up to the task, but if there is something that goes wrong, they can't call the company and get someone else to look at it, fix it, etc... someone to escalate the problem to.
      • quite true. non-self-supporting users are looking for someone who will shoulder the support burden. inserting one's self in the middle can lead to customer satisfaction issues if not well handled.

  • Open source testing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gid13 ( 620803 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:20PM (#7707345)
    I suspect the reason they don't endorse anything open source is because if an open source project gives Dell a cut of the sale it's still nothing.

    I wonder if the claim they can't reliably test them would fall under false advertising or libel or something similar. Free software has a hard enough time getting accepted without the big companies that the masses haven't yet learned not to trust spreading complete crap like this.
    • I wonder if the claim they can't reliably test them would fall under false advertising or libel or something similar. Free software has a hard enough time getting accepted without the big companies that the masses haven't yet learned not to trust spreading complete crap like this.

      I doubt it. They only have to prove that by their definition, under their peculiar set of circumstances, "they" "can not" "reliably" "test" "those open source products" (the ones they have had time and inclination to look at).

  • Drawing the Hardware/Software line (Score:5, Insightful)

    by segment ( 695309 ) <sil&politrix,org> on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:28PM (#7707399) Homepage Journal
    Dell seems to have listened to the criticism handed to them last week, after their decision to forbid tech support persons from providing assistance to spyware-infected customers became public knowledge.

    I'm all for helping people when necessary, and I would agree with Dell for not wanting to waste their own money on people's stupidities.

    Now I work at an ISP and sub as IT staff at a mid sized college every here and there. (Fixing T1's, students' comps, all sorts of shit) main causes of students' issues? Spyware. I visited I think 80% of the campus based students for the same shit... Joe football player wants VirtuaGirl on his machine and clicks on everything in existence... Result? Spyware, viruses, and trojans. One chick had a 8k phone bill on her cellphone because she kept her info on a backdoored machine. All this after they receive bulletins, I've told the same ones over and over, etc.

    I would side with Dell, just think about the costs of a persons moronicy on the Dell level. So you have say low ball figure of 100,000 morons calling you because they've just downloaded garbage...

    TS = Tech Support (low ball salary) $10.00 an hour...

    DU = duration of call say 5 minutes

    CL = Calls (per 8 hour day)

    Whats that an extra +1000 tech support staff that need to be hired? 20mill per year thrown away on morons...

    • Re:Drawing the Hardware/Software line (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cant_get_a_good_nick ( 172131 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @09:00PM (#7707593)
      I think you're being a bit harsh. Part of it is a lot of this crap comes from holes in software. Is someone who got rooted (can I say Administrator'ed?) because of an IE hole a moron? And before you say "patch your systems" I can say zero-day exploits and unpatched holes in IE.

      But lets say thats just part of the issue, most people are running unpacthed versions of Windows, using IE (unpacthed IE, shudder). They're browsing the web because . . . they bought the computer to browse the web. They're opening email attachments because . . . attachments are made for you to open. They're using the machien for what it's designed for. They're doing what all the nice shiny pretty people in the commercials say they can do.

      Closest real world analogy I can think of would be:
      guy comes home. Guy doesn't lock door. Robber comes in, beats guy up. Guy goes to hospital, but insurance refuses to pay because he was too stupid to lock the dorr, so go bleed somewhere else.

      Would never happen. We'd just solve the problem. Even the door angle is too simplistic, for most people it would be closer to "robber comes in through grate at bottom of building that connects through shaft which goes to his room". Non obvious stuff.

      The issue is computers are immature. Neither windows nor Unix were originally designed to be in a hostile network environment. UNIX has improved a lot more than Windows has, but there are still flaws. Until we redesign everything to live in a hostile world, we will have issues. Until then, it will be us morons who program the systems, and the marketing morons who sell a bill of goods that can't be delivered.
      • guy comes home. Guy doesn't lock door. Robber comes in, beats guy up. Guy goes to hospital, but insurance refuses to pay because he was too stupid to lock the dorr, so go bleed somewhere else.

        Guy comes home after hospitalization and again leaves door open. Do you expect me to pity him? Ever hear the saying fool me once shame on you... etc etc...

    • I disagree that Dell is particularly a hardware company in the first place. They don't make hardware any more than they make software, what they do is put together the hardware, software, and support in a convenient package for the end-user. As for the morons, well, they pay the bills. Apparently Dell thinks pleasing the customer plus their cut of the Pest Patrol proceeds will boost their profit, so where is the problem again?
  • The move could allow fish retailers in any U.S. state to sell the fish. Apart from California, where Arnie has banned them...

    Are they completely illegal, or is it just illegal to sell them? Could I legally bring them from another state into California?
    • You can bring one into Cali, they are just banned from being sold there.
    • Just release them into Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side. Of course they will freeze to death, but that is a different issue.
      • I have heard that one of the reasons they are illegal in Cali is concern that they will be released and will interfere with salmon. I am no biologist (IANAB?) but I fail to see how little glowing fish will interfere with much larger salmon. I don't see them doing any more damage than little non-glowing fish...
        • Maybe the salmon will be distracted. "Ooh! Look at the little glowing fish! I've lost all interest in spawning!"

          • Re:They could swim into the state. (Score:4, Funny)

            by Daniel_Staal ( 609844 ) <DStaal@usa.net> on Friday December 12, 2003 @10:58PM (#7708226)
            "Ooh! Look at the little glowing fish! I've lost all interest in spawning!"

            *Sigh*. No, this is closer: "I'm sorry, I just can't do this with it glowing at me!"

            "Ok, I'll get him out of the stream." (Pause, splash) "Now, where were we..."

            (Fishy noises)

            "I just can't... I can't stop thinking about it glowing at me."

            "It's gone. It can't be glowing at you now."

            "But I can't get it out of my head!"

            "What is it, really? Am I to fat? To thin? To red? Not red enough? What? Last night you had a headache, the night before that it was your 'time of the month', before that... Don't you love me anymore?"

            "I... I don't know. I'm not sure I do."

            "What happened? What went wrong?"

            "I'm not sure. I think we just grew apart. Please, let's not talk about it now. I... I need to sleep."

            "Fine."

            "Um, could you sleep on the other side of the streambed..."

            And it is all due to a glowing fish...

  • The journal is not responsible for the errors. (Score:5, Informative)

    by mathematician ( 14765 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:44PM (#7707497) Homepage
    Oxenhielm responded to the criticism by saying that the journal that accepted her work, which now owns the copyright, is responsible for any errors.

    As one who has refereed math papers, I think that this is not true. When I am sent a letter asking me to referee, I am asked to comment on how important the result is, and I am asked to assess how correct the paper is, but often I am explicitly told that errors in the paper are the responsibility of the author, and not the referee.

    • From the Instructions for Authors [elsevier.com] for the Journal Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods & Applications:

      Disclaimer. Whilst every effort is made by the publishers and editorial board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or statement appears in this journal, they wish to make it clear that the data and opinions appearing in the articles and advertisements herein are the sole responsibility of the contributor or advertiser concerned. Accordingly, the publishers, the editorial board and edito

    • This might simply be shaky english. Yes, the author is ultimately responsible, and errors appear in refereed papers all the time. Nevertheless, a legitimate response to criticism is, "Hey, it passed peer review." In effect, it raises the bar for criticism. The fact that at least a couple of presumably qualified reviewers failed to find errors doesn't mean that there aren't any, but they are unlikely to be glaring or trivial.
    • Next paper I publish I'm gonna use this as the disclaimer:

      The author would like to thank Dr. X, Dr. Y, and 2 anonymous referees for several helpful suggestions. But while the author is delighted to share credit for any useful ideas in the present paper, he selfishly insists on retaining full blame for any errors or ommisions.
  • "I refer to Nonlinear Analysis. They have evaluated the paper, they accepted it for publication and they have the copyright of its contents - and thus they are responsible for its correctness," Oxenhielm told Aftenposten English.

    This sounds very unprofessional and unscientific. I hope this is a misunderstanding on the side of Aftenposten. Otherwise this seems like a stupid publicity stunt. I wonder if we have to pay a $699 license to access the original paper ;-).

  • Little math discrepency? (Score:5, Informative)

    by kwalker ( 1383 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:55PM (#7707570) Journal
    According to the SLTrib article:

    "...needs member cities to pony up an additional $250,000 so it can continue to pursue its bond offering."

    So it looks like they're just $250k short, not $4.5 million short as the poster seemed to indicate. In fact, if I'm reading this right, it means each city would only need to come up with ~$14k each, if they're going to split it equally.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @08:59PM (#7707589)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I believe that ownership only applies to the specific text and images and not the actual proof itself.
    • I have always found that directly e-mailing the author of any paper buried like this always results in them getting a copy to me. Academics are great about stuff like that. Wonderful people. I'll never forget asking for a copy of one wavelet paper from a researcher at an Italian University and three days later this enormous box full of copies of every paper the author had written turned up on my doorstep - and I don't even live on the same continent as Italy.
  • If she developed some new techniques in solving the problem or made some advance into solving the problem, then that's important enough. Math is a collaborative science, too, in any case...if she's not right, someone could build on her work and improve it.

  • Math? Blech (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @09:14PM (#7707674) Homepage Journal
    Can anybody give me a layman's version of what this mystical math problem is? The f'n article thinks I already know this.

    • Re:Math? Blech (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ioldanach ( 88584 )
      The problem isn't really distillable into layman's terms. If you aren't a mathematician you probably won't understand it. I've taken enough calculus to know I have no idea what the problem wants. :)

      You can find a technical description Here [planetmath.org], however.

  • Here's an idea for Dell... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bckrispi ( 725257 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @09:18PM (#7707691)
    Instead of making their customers jump through hoops to remove the preinstalled spyware, why don't they grow a pair and forbid the crap from being installed in the first place??? Don't they have some kind of say-so in what gets loaded on their products? Shouldn't they be held accountable for protecting their customers' privacy? As the saying goes: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem". It looks like Dell has already determined which side of the line they want to be on.

  • FAT Patents (Score:2, Informative)

    by certsoft ( 442059 )
    As was pointed out numerous times in the original slashdot article, the patents refer to long file names. If you don't implement them, then no problem, so why insist on saying the patent is on FAT?

  • But what matters is that she is good at lovin'

  • The Governator (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @09:45PM (#7707854) Homepage Journal
    it will not be stopping the sale of transgenic Zebra danios in the USA. [...] Apart from California, where Arnie has banned them...

    Apparently, Arnold want to be the only genetically modified organism in California...

  • What do you need? What will it cost you?

    I set up an uncompressed Knoppix on a dual-boot for an eMachine dial-up user new to linux. Didn't go badly. 64 meg video was OK. Response was OK. There was a proprietary modem driver available with a crippled demo download that installed fine. If you just need a computer and can get a good price, I wouldn't knock it.

  • Author's responsibility (Score:5, Informative)

    by Phragmen-Lindelof ( 246056 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @01:05AM (#7708723)
    In mathematics, the accuracy of a proof is the responsibility of the author. A referee will attempt to determine the correctness of a proof but neither an editor nor a referee is ultimately responsible. Publishing an incorrect proof is not always bad; the "Yamabe conjecture" arose from a paper by Yamabe in 1960 (Osaka Math. Journal, Vol. 12, pp. 21-37) which was accepted as correct. (Rick Schoen provided a correct proof for the case of compact manifolds in 1984 and, for example, Zhiren Jin provided a counterexample for noncompact manifolds in 1986.) However, claiming that the publisher is responsible for errors is silly and unprofessional.

  • eMachines T6000 is now in my hands (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fo0bar ( 261207 ) * on Saturday December 13, 2003 @01:07AM (#7708733)
    I am now the first owner of an eMachines T6000 in Reno (which isn't too suprising considering this town...)

    After reading the original story, I tracked down the bestbuy.com page for it, and it said that they had pickup service for this specific item at the local best buy. I called them up and spent about a half hour on the phone while they tracked them down. Turns out they didn't even have them on the floor yet.

    I hopped in the car and drove down. Turns out they had 5 in, and I was buying the first one. Nifty. I literally just got back about 10 minutes ago and have just plugged it in, so I don't have much of a review yet, except for this: the 32-bit Windows XP Home that was preloaded took a little under 4 seconds to go from the end of the computer's POST to a start menu.

    20:58 <@xi> that is pretty fast
    20:59 <@xi> now imagine how fast a *real* OS will boot

    I am currently downloading the gentoo amd64 livecd.

  • on Oxenhielm's paper (Score:5, Informative)

    by varaani ( 77889 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @01:17AM (#7708781)
    (disclaimer: my background in dynamical systems, much less this particular problem, is not that strong)

    The second part of Hilbert's 16th problem deals with limit cycles, the way things will go on eventually in dynamical systems if they are not disturbed externally. The subproblem 2/3 of this problem (it's the indexing that makes math complicated..) asks if there exists an upper bound on the number of different limit cycles one can have in the system.

    Oxenhielm attacks the problem by considering first a special case called the Lienard equation and approximating its solution by harmonic oscillation. The proof begins: "Noticing that the state variable x of the Lienard equation (1) behaves approximately like a sine function in simulations (see Fig.1),we assume -- in order to make a good approximation of x -- that both state variables are dominated by a harmonic term ...."
    Now, to my engineer's eyes, the functions in Fig.1 seem more like triangular waves, with definitely more than one single frequency component. Yet the accuracy of the approximation has not been considered at all in the paper. Also, 'proof by looking at results of simulations' is not really valid if you don't have any other evidence.

    Another bad part is on page 6, where it is claimed that "Note that the method of describing functions may be used in a similar manner as in the proof above,to find the upper bounds for the Hilbert number in any planar polynomial vectorfield. Thus, it is possible to completely solve the second part of Hilbert's 16th problem by using this approach."
    Wait a minute, how did that happen? What if the harmonic approximation fails on other than Lienard equations? It might just work, I have no idea, but this assertment hardly proves the fact.

    Note however that this is very different from Andrew Wiles' proof of the Fermat conjencture. While very few people in the world could understand the odd-hundred pages of Wiles' proof, Oxenhielm's paper is just eight pages of much more accessible mathematics.

    But I have a paper in the review process myself, and sure as hell would hate to see nonqualified people discussing its validity publicly, so maybe I'll just shut up now :)

    • Oxenhielm attacks the problem by considering first a special case called the Lienard equation and approximating its solution by harmonic oscillation. The proof begins: "Noticing that the state variable x of the Lienard equation (1) behaves approximately like a sine function in simulations (see Fig.1),we assume -- in order to make a good approximation of x -- that both state variables are dominated by a harmonic term ...."

      You'fe heard of the race horse trainer who hires a physicist to help prepare his ho

  • I'm a vegetarian, but last time I was down in Austin [austin.tx.us], my buddy Sam [slashdot.org] has this bright idea to order lunch from Hilbert's [rr.com]. It's a fuckin' buger joint. The bastard kept reassuring me that it would be ok, but they totally fucked up my order. I hate sam now....

    I would have to say that this was personally first problem with Hilbert's, but it was such a large problem that I will never order food from them again.

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