Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> andrel wrote:
> 
>> (getting some girls to stand on scales was an interesting exercise).
> 
> ;-)
> 
>> Often the distribution of their heights was camel shaped.
> 
> Programming assignment grades follow a similar bimodal distribution. 
> Apparently some people "get" it, and others just don't.
> 
Yes, some students get height and others don't.


















































No that is not the reason of course. ;)

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>>
>> We were talking about a population, unless you can come up with a very 
>> good reason why certain extreme intelligences are more likely than 
>> others you may assume the distribution is gaussian 
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem).
> 
> Yes. But I can't say for sure (=mention as a fact) that the average line 
> goes exactly at 50% on population.
> 
If the central limit theorem applies (which quite possibly doesn't) than 
the average is far within 0.5 percent of the median for a population 
size like that of the UK. so 50% could be a rounded figure.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> Depends. If the key algorithm is still as weak, the cipher makes no 
> difference.
> 

Yes. But AFAIK the key algorithm on AES-encrypted ZIPs is improved. At 
least what I've heard it's a PITA to crack open (haven't tried myself - 
never had any need).

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:43:47 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> You can't even buy a hard drive that won't hold five Commodore Pet
>> computers worth of memory for every *bit* of memory a Commodore Pet
>> could address.
> 
> I'm trying to remember - what was the addressable space fro the Pet?  
> There were so many models, but the address space was the same on all of 
> them IIRC.

They were all limited to what the 6502 processor could handle, which was 
as has been said by others here.  Early Pets had only 8K of RAM 
installed, but some machines were bulked out to 32K.  To think that 
those things retailed for $1k in 1979 dollars...

Regards,
John

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Apparently some people "get" it, and others just don't.

Evidence suggests that if you can consistently apply nonsensical rules, 
you "get it". If you insist on making things make sense, it seriously 
interferes with learning to program.

Researchers gave people a series of things like

A = 1
B = 2
C = A + B
A = C + B
B = B + 2
D = A + C

and then asked for the values of everything after. Then they taught 
introductory computer classes. It didn't matter if people got the rules 
right (like if they used A=1 everywhere and B=2 everywhere, or whether 
they updated the variables in the order you'd expect if they're 
assignments), those people did better. Those who didn't follow any rules 
(like always using A=1 but updating B later) did more poorly in a 
statistically significant way.

It was an interesting paper.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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John VanSickle wrote:
> They were all limited to what the 6502 processor could handle,

Technically, some of them had bank-switched RAM, but I'm not counting 
that. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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>> Depends. If the key algorithm is still as weak, the cipher makes no 
>> difference.
> 
> Yes. But AFAIK the key algorithm on AES-encrypted ZIPs is improved. At 
> least what I've heard it's a PITA to crack open (haven't tried myself - 
> never had any need).

Unable to verify. If they changed the key algorithm then yes, otherwise 
no. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:07:48 +0200, andrel wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:21:48 +0200, scott wrote:
>> 
>>>>> Especially when some stupid system forces you to change it every
>>>>> month.
>>>> ...and this is bad because...?
>>> You try coming up with a different strong password every month, *and*
>>> remembering it without writing it down.  I doubt I'm the only user of
>>> this system who needs to write the password somewhere.  I wonder if
>>> security would actually be improved by removing the 1 month expiry.
>> 
>> There have been studies done that suggest that changes that are too
>> frequent reduce security for just this reason.
>> 
> Do you have a pointer?

Let me see if I can find it....The study I recall was from about 6 years 
ago.

http://www.rsa.com/blog/blog_entry.aspx?id=1286 is a more recent blog 
entry on the topic; it's not the study I was thinking of (since it's 
dated this year), but it explains the essence of what I recall from the 
study in question.

Jim

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On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:24:26 +0300, Eero Ahonen wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:06:01 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>> 
>>> Worrying fact: 50% of the population has below-average intelligence.
>>> (!!!)
> 
> So... If we have 4 men, with intelligences 1, 8, 9 and 9, the average is
> (1+8+9+9)/4=6,75, so 75% of men are more intelligent than average person
> (who, if he existed, would be over 6 times as intelligent as the dumpest
> one).

I think you just broke my brain. ;-)

>> LOL, but mathematically sound.  More worrying is the 80% who think
>> they're above average drivers.
> 
> Measuring a best driver is very relative. 

Absolutely; that's kinda the point of that old joke. :-)

> My opinion is that there's a
> triangle, having endpoints of speed, economy and safety. If the car
> won't move, you're safe and economic, but you're not getting anywhere.
> If you'll take a risk, you'll lose safety and economy and gain speed.
> And ie. when overtaking someone increasing speed might gain you safety,
> but it'll reduce the economy. So basically you can't have 100% of all
> three of them - increasing one decreases at least one other. People have
> different *opinions* of what's the best placement on this map, ie. what
> combination of the three they are heading for, so it's very easy to
> think that "I'm better than the average" for 80+%, since the goal is
> different. Who's the best driver for some (good speed, high safety,
> average economy for example) is the worst driver for some (who would
> prefer great economy, average safety and average speed).

That's an interesting perspective - I like the way you're thinking here.

> In my opinion, five nines of safety (99,999%), average economy and
> good/stable speed is the best spot to go for. But that's my *opinion*,
> not The Only Real Truth.

I would go with that as well.

Jim

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On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:19:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:03:55 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>> 
>>>>> a kernel-level debugger can see every octet of data in the machine's
>>>>> main RAM and swap file.
>>>> Hmmm, so you've reversed your opinion on whether or not a memory dump
>>>> is useful? ;-) <scnr>
>>> Useful for trying to grab somebody's credit card number? Absolutely!
>> 
>> And how exactly do you propose to do that?
> 
> It's pretty trivial, really.  Scan thru memory looking for 16 digits
> that match the LUHN 10 algorithm. That's what CardShark (FV's sample
> "encryption isn't good enough" program) did, in essence.

I was hoping Andy would answer the question, because I was attempting to 
make a point about kernel debugging. :-(

Jim

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