Upon the table is a bundled stack of United States currency, totalling $1,000,000. One of the two doors, the one you entered through, is open. The second door is closed. Behind the second door is an adult human, who may be anyone, from anywhere in the world. The identity of this person is not known to you.

You are presented with two options:

(1) You may leave the room via the open doorway, leaving the bundle of money on the table. If you do this, the entire sum will be given to the person behind the closed door.
(2) You may take the entire bundle of money, and leave the room via the open doorway. If you do this, the person behind the closed door receives nothing.

Which option do you choose?

http://code.box.sk/newsread.php?newsid=948

There will be a second portion coming along as soon as I can finish it off.

Please stop asking. I have heard this question asked several times, by reporters from many different networks, and it is getting old.

You have been told time and again, and the answer is significant.

When interviewing search & rescue team members, STOP ASKING WHY THEY AREN'T DOING ANYTHING WITH THE DEAD BODIES. They are still trying to rescue LIVING HUMAN BEINGS from the area, some of whom may have been stranded for a week or more without food or clean water. Do you actually think that dirty, starving, possibly sick people should wait around and twiddle their thumbs while rescuers move corpses around the city?

It may sound harsh, and I mean no disrespect for the dead. But from where I'm sitting, it seems as though the dead bodies are in no hurry to get anywhere in particular. I am not so sure I would feel the same if I were stuck with my wife and family somewhere, in need of rescue.

So please, give it a rest. I know it makes for good shock value ("The situation is so awful that even dead bodies are being ignored and piling up in the street!"), but we are all aware that there are bodies everywhere.

Let the rescuers tend to the living first. That's more important.

This is an interesting read -- how gas prices work. Turns out that, while the overall dollar amount is the highest it's ever been, if you adjust for inflation we are actually better off now price-wise than we were in the early to mid 1980s.

Not that it makes me feel better, though.

This is all at the same gas station, one that tends to be average or lower in prices usually. Though my wife and I went to the store, and on the way passed a gas station that typically has higher per-gallon prices, and they were advertising $2.82. I have seen more variety in prices between gas stations than normal... usually most stations are within a few cents of each other.

This has to stop. Seriously. My monthly budget doesn't allow for the price of gasoline to double or triple -- let alone the minivan we just bought. In fact, I would venture to say that our entire economy could not stand up to such a quick and enormous increase in the price of gasoline. We're simply not rigged for it.

Take the bus? Even the transit system has to buy gas... so expect to see the fares go up.

Delivery trucks and planes also use gas, so expect a higher premium to be passed on for any shipped merchandise or any shipping services (expect to see postage stamps get more expensive soon).

Almost everything that we as a society do is somehow tied into the purchase and/or use of gasoline. From mowing your lawn, to going on vacation, to deciding whether or not to get a pizza delivered -- things are going to change.

Today when I drove to work, it was $2.99.

The sad realization I came to is that, no matter what happens with the current hostility in the middle east, gas prices will never go back down. Sure, they may slow their increases, but consider this... what would happen if, all of a sudden, gas prices dropped to $2.00/gallon? We would be overjoyed! Overjoyed! For $2.00/gallon???

Sure. Because we're used to paying so much more.

Prices continue to rise, but we as consumers continue to purchase SUVs, trucks, and minivans that guzzle fuel. Last week on the radio, they had people calling in to see who had the highest single gas purchase at a time. People called in with stories like, "Well, we usually go to the lake every weekend, so I have to fill up the Suburban and hook up the boat trailer. Costs me about $150 for gas for that day."

The bigger concern, as alluded to by that comment, is that we consumers are not doing anything to alter our fuel consumption habits. We continue to go to the lake every weekend (hey, it's summertime, right?), make quick trips to the grocery store for one or two items instead of one trip for a list of things (yeah, but we're getting low on cheese, and I feel like having nachos tonight), avoid carpooling or public transportation... in short, all we do about rising gas prices is grumble while we fill up.

Can you imagine the message it would send to the oil companies if for ONE DAY across the nation, nobody put gas in their vehicles? Just one single day of zero sales. Sometimes we forget the power we have en masse... demand is the stronger of the two market forces, no matter what the suppliers would have you think.

But it won't happen, because it's easier to complain than to take action. And so, gas prices will continue to rise. And someday we might be excited to be paying only $4.00 a gallon.

This is not a brand new idea; in fact, it often shows up in Hollywood in the "Intelligent supercomputer/alien intelligence becomes self-aware and attempts to kill off all humans" genre of film. And while this type of story does sell movie tickets, people who study the implications of the Singularity say that, while something like that could happen, it is not necessarily a given. (The idea is that an artificial intelligence can be given a "disposition" towards humans, to treat them with respect as the creators even though they may be inferior.)

The idea of a super-human intelligence becoming self-aware and able to re-program itself (or even reconstruct itself) to continually improve is captivating. I read the online novella The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect and have been awed by the possibilities ever since. (This story has the superintelligent computer able to manipulate any physical object in any way... which may or may not come to pass. But it is an interesting story nonetheless.)

Singularity experts indicate that, on or around the year 2020, there will be computers in common use that match or exceed the computing capacity of the human brain (this assertion is made using detailed information as to how much information a single neuron can process in a timeframe, and comparing that to instructions that microprocessors can perform). By the year 2035 or thereabouts, they expect that the functionality of the entire human brain can be reverse engineered and programmed into a computer. (Portions of the brain that have already been reverse engineered can be programmed with relatively simple algorithms, as I understand.)

The idea that such an event may happen within my lifetime is enough to make me both excited and afraid. It has enormous implications for the physical world, as well as many spiritual/religious overtones.

The overall sentiment, that I agree with, is this: "if the Singularity CAN happen, then it WILL". Unless something massive occurrs to cease technological progress, I believe we will get there.

It's important.

This way, you won't be surprised when "We're borrowing a steam cleaner for a couple spots on the carpet," turns into "I need you to shampoo the entire carpet tonight. And the dining room rug."

I love my wife.

javascript:void(location.href='http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q='+document.getSelection())

This works delightfully well in the Firefox browser... whatever text is selected on the page will be passed via the document.getSelection() method to the dictionary.com lookup page. For IE, the following code should work:

javascript:void(location.href='http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q='+document.selection)

(The method name differs slightly between the two.)

I had intended to add this lookup feature as a context menu item in Firefox, but it looks like that's a much more elaborate process than I had expected. Also would be nice to have the results open in a separate tab or window... but for now, this does what I want it to.

For those not in the know, "WTF" is Internet shorthand for "What The ..." (I will leave "F" as an exercise for the reader). This site allows visitors to post program code from real-life production applications that, when looked at, makes one utter "WTF??" (either internally or aloud).

If you have not had any programming experience at all, you will likely not understand much of what is going on for most of the site's content. Languages making frequent appearances include Visual Basic, SQL, Java, JavaScript, and Perl, among others. Sometimes, the "WTF" in the code is so amazingly blatant and hits you in the face that you wonder what the developer must have been thinking, while other times it is so subtle that it only shows up after careful review.

The thing I like best about this site (in addition to making me feel better about my own meager coding skills) is the user comments section. Each entry (and there is usually at least one per day) will usually generate between 50-100 comments from readers... and I must say that the comments on this site are absolutely the most creative, well-formed, witty, and amusing out of every other single web site on the Internet. Even if you never read one line of the code, the comments will have you awed or in stitches (or both).

One item per day makes this site a quick read, but it is well worth the 5-10 minutes.

I just ran across this regexp used in a Perl module that validates email addresses according to the RFC standard:

http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html

Most regexps look like line noise, but this one takes the cake. I cannot fathom the number of man-hours it must have taken to compose and debug this one.

Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box is a couple years old, and is the first in a series of books that provide information on computer and network security by combining fictional narratives with genuine techniques. It is not written as a "how-to" guide, which makes it an easier read for a non-geek, though there is enough real technical information contained in the short stories to give a sysadmin or security enthusiast something to go on.

The book is divided into ten chapters (and an appendix that non-geeks may take a pass on), each one of which gives a short story dealing with some aspect of security. While there are clear roles associated with the protagonist in each story -- some white hat, some black -- overall the book does a nice job of presenting the information in a useful way without imposing morals on the reader.

The narratives are all more or less easy to follow (though a couple are somewhat long and dull), and help to illustrate good security by showing just how powerful poor security can be in the hands of an attacker. By riding shotgun on several different scenarios, you can spot the weak points and see where exactly vulnerabilities can be exploited. It shows that many networks, even those with SOME security in place, can often still be compromised relatively simply. Although it has been repeated to the point of being cliche, it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link -- and many times, the weakest link is plain human laziness or ignorance.

This book is a quick read; I finished it in a little over a week. However, the effect it has had on me will be much longer-lasting. Although it is a bit dated by modern standards, there is enough real information to serve as a reminder that, while it is easy to talk about security on a web forum, true security is found only when you roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. It is not always enough to assume you are secure simply because you know a thing or two about firewalls and Windows Update. Security is a process, and it ends up being a process that is never truly finished.

I would like to close by sharing a quote from the book that, for some reason, has stuck with me:

"What’s funny is that I’ve never needed to resort to some fancy theoretical
exploit that security researchers talk about, because the script kiddy stuff
usually works just fine. I’ve seen administrators go to great lengths to prevent
man-in-the-middle attacks. But I’ve never actually used such an attack
myself, I don’t know anyone else who has used one, and I don’t know
anyone who was ever a victim of one."

I highly recommend this book to anyone with a real interest in the guts of security. The dead tree edition retails for around US$50, though you can probably find a cheaper one used, or if you don't mind reading electronic copy (or if you have a printer that can handle it), you can download the eBook here: http://abel.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/~janos/pool/bookshelf/book/

I just ran across Google Earth the other day. In short, it is a humdinger of a GIS application that combines aircraft/satellite imagery with a host of other data that you can overlay.

For example, I wanted to locate my home. I could zoom in on the houses in my street, and see my house and yard clearly (and it looked like a car parked out front). I went into the "Driving Directions" module, and entered my work address. Not only does it give you directions, but it plots the route out on the map for you. You can also add or remove street names, restaurants, hospitals, ZIP code and city boundaries, census data, railroads, and almost anything else you can think of.

I was most interested in my hometown (naturally), though they claim to offer a comparable level of detail for most cities in the world. If that is the case, then Google has once again hit the Grand Information Nail on the head... the possibilities of a tool like this are almost endless.