theblackbox

http://www.survival-international.org/news/4783

check them out - probably my favourite charity of all time

But like another poster said - we are pattern recognition machines. Coincidences, faces, conspiracies and their ilk just leap to the forefront of our attention.... I wonder if their couldn't be a little bit of this phenomena at work in this study? Not read enough of the primary material to see if it's something they've consciously tried to factor out of the experiments

</alarmist diatribe>

Ahh, I missed that! That makes sense in terms of the Avalanche Effect - cheers for the knowledge

Say for instance you coded four stages:

1/ Generating a list of strings for analysis 2/ Parsing that list for sentences that made sense 3/ Hashing these sentences 4/ Comparing the hashes generated with the one being sought

to me it just looked as though a lot of gibberish was analysed because there is a lot more entropy than order to sift through and nobody tried step 2... does my logic make sense or am I getting mixed up and not really seeing the bigger picture?

I've not tried any crypto work before but this has really grabbed my interest. It just occurred to me however, that discarding lines of inquiry leading down the "BuGS bugs bUgs BUGs BLAnK BlAnK....." route in favour of something that made more sense grammatically could be a good tactic to save time?.... or it could just increase the overhead in generating the next hash?...

I think this is a superbly well phrased summary of my own (and dare I say the proverbial "hackers") beliefs.

[EDIT: Just finished reading the OP... From wikipedia Hubris: "a term used in modern English to indicate overweening pride, superciliousness, or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution or nemesis."

From OP: "An overgrown man-child and his precious collection can become a closed-loop co-dependency that functions as a moat"

I'm pretty sure that's a classic set up for Hubris? Well written piece methinks]

At the risk of being down modded myself for not contributing to the thread I just thought it might be worth pointing that out and reminding those that seem to have voted on this particular thread as though the emphasis was on humour.

I'm not exactly one to throw the first stone, as my karma/comments/submissions are far from exemplary, but I do try to stay in keeping with the ideals of the community.

EDIT: although it's well off topic, sorry EDIT': all I can find are the "babyface helps black CEOs" story... wasn't that one I read but it deals with similar findings

From blurb:

How have web companies like Google, YouTube and Yahoo! built successful businesses when most of their products are free?

That's the question Wired magazine's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson asks in his new book FREE. Gareth chats to him about 'freeconomics' and future business models for net content.

Chris also shares his passion for building DIY Drones. These are small unmanned aerial vehicles, built by amateur enthusiasts using 'open source' hardware.

Guess a google search /does/ cut it and I /was/ trying to troll the conversation

thank goodness I didn't make any points worth discussing!

/me is a bitter and sarcastic little troll today

It's statements like this that I think show how grossly misunderstood this whole debate is. Society? how so? modern society? the global village? Always!? Impossible. There is widespread belief that the human mind is pre-configured to attend to only a certain amount of individuals, and thus anthropologist believe that their was an upper limit on the size of human settlements for much of human evolution. There are still some tribes and groups that behave in such a way that I think shed's light on this issue. There are a group of Amish in USA that form communities no bigger than 124ish individuals (about the limit that psychologists believe we are capable of interacting with and knowing on the level we evolved to commune at). When the community exceeds this threshold, the population split and one group settle another village about a days travel away. I'd be willing to speculate that this type of communal migration is what burst the human population from it's African homelands. Each time a community became to big to handle, whereby I think I mean the potential for dissent crosses a threshold, it was better for the community to split than for this dissent to fester. This type of behavior can also be seen in some of the great apes.

I would argue then, that Society has not ALWAYS had the ability to censor it's citizens, but that the myriad communities of humanity have aggregated into a whole much more massive than can be sustainable with the old paradigm of being able to leave and settle a new community. This is no longer possible, and only seems so through the creation of new mediums to populate with those few dissenting pioneers.

4: Does exposure to secondhand smoke cause cancer?

Yes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the U.S. Surgeon General, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent)

3: Does secondhand smoke contain harmful chemicals?

Yes. Of the more than 4,000 chemicals that have been identified in secondhand tobacco smoke, at least 250 are known to be harmful, and 50 of these are known to cause cancer.

This is not _evidence_ that second hand smoking is dangerous to an individuals health. It is evidence that second hand smoke has the _potential_ to be dangerous to ones health as it contains chemicals that we know to be dangerous. It is the leap from that to legislating the behavior of the public, without a thought to stop at private smoking rooms, freedom of expression and the ability to choose not to associate with smokers.

Second hand smoke _probably_ is dangerous to health, but there is no hard evidence, just a line of reasoning that we all kind of agree with. I see that as a slippery slope. It won't be long before a line of reasoning tells us that fatty foods are dangerous to our health, so we are all to be put on rations, for the good of the nation! Then old age and mental stability are going to be a problem, bam, further medication to control our behavior. Our kids are out of control and roaming the streets!! Thank god the government is there to force feed the hoodie wearing little SOBs all kinds of prescription uppers and downers so we know they can have a normal life.

I don't want to troll the conversation into one only about the smoking ban - I was using it as an example of how government have already begun legislating behavior with arguable evidence [2]. Check out some of the laws concerning "extreme porn" for an even worse example of thought police.

[1] The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Coordinating Center for Health Promotion, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2006.

[2] http://www.nycclash.com/Zion-Skeptic-Science_And_SHS.html

it's an anti-smoking ban site, but they seemed pretty well rounded. Still, as I said, I don't want to hijack the thread.

For instance, smoking tobacco in public places? Now I was under the impression that not a single shred of evidence existed to back up the premise that second hand smoke is dangerous to your health. BUT, I would concede to the arguments that favour "common sense"... of course being in a smokey bar for hours on end is going to have a similar effect to smoking. What I don't agree with, however, is a government that is willing to mandate _laws_ on the premise of "common sense". If you don't want to breath other peoples smoke, don't associate with smokers. If porn offends you, watch something else! If you don't like what fascist say, speak louder than they do!

Haven't even read the OP yet, I just felt compelled to reply. You've hit the nail on the head.

[EDIT: read it! yep - nail, head, hit]

I had a quick look at the software, but couldn't be arsed to go beyond the "trial" limitations, but from what I saw the article is watered down and the author makes no attempt to range into the MANY areas open for debate. Like I said, language and etymology are interesting, but it's the theory that is interesting, I see little to no such thing here.

Not trying to call you out, gruseom - do a blog on it if it really interests you? I think it could make a very interesting topic, otherwise I wouldn't have made my comment in the first place.

One I've always loved, inscribed above the crypt containing the grave of Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Cathedral. Translated as: "Reader, if you seek his memorial, look around you"

Think that would work equally well for Tim O'Reilly, to the point of a nice Latin pun ;)