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That's a reheat (and slight reworking) of this old piece.

Since most of the money is made in the first couple of weeks, there's not much time to gather statistics, analyze them, and do all the necessary number-crunching.

You can bet your ass that statistical analysis goes into planning for the larger movie theater chains. There are always surprises, but statistical estimates are used to schedule film rentals, showing times, and staff scheduling.

Now, applying that to ticket pricing... that just sounds like a lot of complexity for very little gain. If a movie draws a smaller crowd, it already gets a smaller "house" and fewer showings. Trying to draw a larger crowd with dynamic pricing sounds like Laffer Curve shenanigans with the deck stacked against you.

Also, in many cinemas it would be fairly easy to defeat the system: buy a ticket for the cheapest movie listed, then sneak into the theater for the movie you actually want to see. Policing this might cost more than the additional profit.

Bingo.

See Figure 1.[1],[2]

Not Food of the Gods.

It is indeed "Food of the Gods", Clarke's short story; see here. You may be thinking about H. G. Wells's earlier novel, also named "The Food of the Gods"

If UNIX hadn't arisen, we may very well be using a system that was based off of TOPS-20 or VMS instead.

The funny thing is that we actually are using a system which has its roots in VMS.

What does this has to do with hardware manufacturers

Hardware manufacturers make the choice as to whether or not to cryptographically lock down the products that they sell.

1) They make their choice because it's theirs, it's their right. 2) What does this has to do with the Kindle Fire?

There are several devices marketed for consuming that would be capable of being used for creating if not for such lockdown.

So?

Hardware manufacturers also make the choice as to how they segment the market and price their products. Video game console manufacturers, for example, charge an order of magnitude more for the creation device than for the consumption device.

Ever heard of terms like non sequitur and red herring?

At prices like these, nobody at home will be able to afford tools for creating;

People with a certain income level can. So your argument is false right there. therefore, nobody at home will have tools to create.

See above. You are simply taking a nice-to-have (not even a necessity) and you are trying to morph it into some sort of human right. But in reality, all you have is not an argument of ethics, but an argument of convenience based on your own biases and technical interests and predilections.

The sad part is that you (which I'm assuming is a college-educated person) don't even know the flaws in your logical arguments.

Nice how you ignore the possibility of a HS kid going to work part-time

I declined to mention this possibility because high school freshmen, sophomores, and juniors are under age 18 and therefore have severe state-imposed restrictions on how, where, and when they can work. Many states allow no employment at all for children under 16.

From personal experience, none of those restrictions stop a HS student to work at a cash register and save to buy his shit. Back in my day, that's how I saw kids buying their Apple II's and commodores (and later their 8086's). Now they do the same and buy their electronic modern equivalents. Some kids just work during the weekends, others (where states permit it) work full-time during summer.

And regardless of anything on the impositions between parent-children finances, hardware manufactures have no responsibility or obligation to care for meddling in them or to alleviate a minor's alleged financial hardship that prevents him from pursuing a nice-to-have (not necessary but a nice-to-have) ability to do content creation.

You keep bringing this as if this is proof enough that hardware manufactures must do something (is-ought meta-ethics problem?). Repeating this does not turn this opinion of yours into a logical consequence, especially when we consider the . Surely you should have learned this is college (on the laws that govern logical arguments and the epistemological nature of ethics.)

What does this has to do with hardware manufacturers

Hardware manufacturers make the choice as to whether or not to cryptographically lock down the products that they sell. There are several devices marketed for consuming that would be capable of being used for creating if not for such lockdown. Hardware manufacturers also make the choice as to how they segment the market and price their products. Video game console manufacturers, for example, charge an order of magnitude more for the creation device than for the consumption device. At prices like these, nobody at home will be able to afford tools for creating; therefore, nobody at home will have tools to create.

Nice how you ignore the possibility of a HS kid going to work part-time

I declined to mention this possibility because high school freshmen, sophomores, and juniors are under age 18 and therefore have severe state-imposed restrictions on how, where, and when they can work. Many states allow no employment at all for children under 16.

I also found this article: http://everything2.com/title/The+Cannabis+Decision+%2528German+Federal+Constitutional+Court%2529
... describing a 2003 decision overturning a lower court's ruling that the punishment for marijuana possession was disproportionately harsh compared to the punishment for alcohol abuse. No mention of the user's motives for consumption, BUT it did say that the states are not required to prosecute for possession of small amounts, and it was up to the states to decide how much constitutes a "small amount". Key quote: "Ultimately, the effect of the Court's decision has been to create a system in which cannabis has been de facto decriminalised. While each State has its own rules about what constitutes a "small amount" and is presumed to be for "personal consumption," there is, in reality, very little attempt to prosecute people for cannabis possession, sale, or distribution. In general, if a person has less than 6 g (more in some states) of any cannabis product, the most the police can do is confiscate it. "

I did my search first in English (Bundesverfassungsgericht + alcohol + marijuana | cannabis + intoxicated | intoxicating) and in German (Bundesverfassungsgericht + Spiritus + Marihuana | Cannabis | Hanf + Rausch | Berauschend)

I can't find the actual Slashdot post -- I never was able to figure out how to get the site search to work for me -- but here's the History of the World, According to Slashdot.
2.5 million B.C.: OOG the Open Source Caveman develops the axe and releases it under the GPL. The axe quickly gains popularity as a means of crushing moderators' heads.

100,000 B.C.: Man domesticates the AIBO.

10,000 B.C.: Civilization begins when early farmers first learn to cultivate hot grits.

3000 B.C.: Sumerians develop a primitive cuneiform perl script.

2920 B.C.: A legendary flood sweeps Slashdot, filling up a Borland / Inprise story with hundreds of offtopic posts.

1750 B.C.: Hammurabi, a Mesopotamian king, codifies the first EULA.

490 B.C.: Greek city-states unite to defeat the Persians. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the Greeks "get it".

399 B.C.: Socrates is convicted of impiety. Despite the efforts of freesocrates.com, he is forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock.

336 B.C.: Fat-Time Charlie becomes King of Macedonia and conquers Persia.

4 B.C.: Following the Star (as in hot young actress) of Bethelem, wise men travel from far away to troll for baby Jesus.

A.D. 476: The Roman Empire BSODs.

A.D. 610: The Glorious MEEPT!! founds Islam after receiving a revelation from God. Following his disappearance from Slashdot in 632, a succession dispute results in the emergence of two troll factions: the Pythonni and the Perliites.

A.D. 800: Charlemagne conquers nearly all of Germany, only to be acquired by andover.net.

A.D. 874: Linus the Red discovers Iceland.
A.D. 1000: The epic of the Beowulf Cluster is written down. It is the first English epic poem.

A.D. 1095: Pope Bruce II calls for a crusade against the Turks when it is revealed they are violating the GPL. Later investigation reveals that Pope Bruce II had not yet contacted the Turks before calling for the crusade.

A.D. 1215: Bowing to pressure to open-source the British government, King John signs the Magna Carta, limiting the British monarchy's power. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

A.D. 1348: The ILOVEYOU virus kills over half the population of Europe. (The other half was not using Outlook.)

A.D. 1420: Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press. He is immediately sued by monks claiming that the technology will promote the copying of hand-transcribed books, thus violating the church's intellectual property.

A.D. 1429: Natalie Portman of Arc gathers an army of Slashdot trolls to do battle with the moderators. She is eventually tried as a heretic and stoned (as in petrified).

A.D. 1478: The Catholic Church partners with doubleclick.net to launch the Spanish Inquisition.

A.D. 1492: Christopher Columbus arrives in what he believes to be "India", but which RMS informs him is actually "GNU/India".

A.D. 1508-12: Michaelengelo attempts to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling with ASCII art, only to have his plan thwarted by the "Lameness Filter."

A.D. 1517: Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door and is promptly moderated down to (-1, Flamebait).

A.D. 1553: "Bloody" Mary ascends the throne of England and begins an infamous crusade against Protestants. ESR eats his words.

A.D. 1588: The "IF I EVER MEET YOU, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS" guy meets the Spanish Armada.

A.D. 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu unites the feuding pancake-eating ninjas of Japan.

A.D. 1611: Mattel adds Galileo Galilei to its CyberPatrol block list for proposing that the Earth revolves around the sun.

A.D. 1688: In the so-called "Glorious Revolution", King James II is bloodlessly forced out of power and flees to France. ESR again triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

A.D. 1692: Anti-GIF hysteria in the New World comes to a head in the infamous "Salem GIF Trials", in which 20 alleged GIFs are burned at the stake. Later investigation

There already is... It's called bitchslap:

http://everything2.com/user/BelDion/writeups/Signal+11

Ahem

http://everything2.com/user/dogganos/writeups/Thermodynamics+limits+on+cryptanalysis

Who cares about Moore's law. Read that.

Now it STILL might get broken. Attacks better than brute force are always the largest threat. However nobody need worry about the brute force computer to break their codes. Not even quantum computers help here, by the way. See Grovers Algorithm. Preview: "Grover's algorithm is a quantum algorithm for searching an unsorted database with N entries in O(N1/2) time and using O(log N) storage space" Not so good.

"If you push something hard enough, it will fall over."

'nuff said.

Okay. I'll bite.

Yes encrypting the data is good enough http://everything2.com/title/Thermodynamics+limits+on+cryptanalysis and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover's_algorithm (if quantum computers come up then grover's algorithm still isn't much use. See the max speedup of the algorithm)

However...
effing HOW? I can't even get people to use PARAMETERIZED QUERIES. How in the HELLS am I going to get them to use a crypto system?

Sure, I can make it easy to some degree, but then how do we do queries on anything but the unencrypted bits? Sure, there are ways (oh there are ways. Each more devilishly complex and mathematically involved than the last)

Than we have to store the keys. So many keys... and the IVs and the data to know what information they point to >_<

Now where to put the keys... gonna need to be FAST and reliable. Gee, it sure would be nice if someone had an infrastructure for that sort of thing... Aww hell.

First, write two letters...

http://everything2.com/user/Igloowhite/writeups/You+love+these+machines.+These+machines+are+dead%253A+a+love+story. First thing I thought of when I heard about this story

Quote from http://everything2.com/title/Thou+hast+lost+an+eighth%2521 - to stop me wasting my time re-wording;-

A warning that first appeared in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Earning all eight pieces of the ankh is a major part of the aforementioned quest. You have to act in harmony with all eight virtues in order to earn each piece. If you act unvirtuously, by cheating a blind herb-seller, attacking a peaceful citizen, etc., you will lose that virtue. If you've earned that virtue's piece of the ankh, you will also lose that eighth.
On the Ultima-related newsgroups, "Thou hast lost an eighth!" is used as a rebuke when someone asks a stupid question.
"Thou hast lost an eighth" also appears in Doom II -- when you want to quit the game, the confirmation dialog occasionally warns you that "Thou hast lost an eighth" for wanting to quit!

The checks and balances inside the Iranian government exist, I just didn't think it within the scope of my answer to include them. The Iranian Parliament is tasked with duties of the Legislative branch, and has the power to impeach the President, the President has the Executive branch and is tasked with carrying out the laws, and the Supreme Leader has the power to appoint the Judicial branch and is head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and is chosen via indirect election (unlike the US where the President appoints judges).

Iran's entire Constitution is worth a read. It was designed to be a representative democracy yet incorporate the idea that sovereignty rests with God instead of people. The checks and balances are not as powerful as they are in the US, given that Iran places much bigger emphasis on the Judiciary.

How is Israel "keeping the Middle East nuclear-free" when it is widely regarded to have at least 100 nuclear weapons of its own? The Dimona Nuclear Complex is not exactly a secret.

"We're All Missing the Point on Computer Security"

Yep- that article was written ten years back, but it couldn't be more insightful and ahead-of-its-time in the context of this discussion.

H2G2 is predated by Everything, started in 1998 by Nathan of this parish.

At the time it really felt as if we were building something akin to a Hitch Hiker's Guide.

The earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia was made by Rick Gates in 1993,[1] but the concept of an open source web-based online encyclopedia was proposed a little later by Richard Stallman around 1999. Wikipedia was formally launched on 15 January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger using the concept and technology of a wiki pioneered by Ward Cunningham.

I wonder where in the timeline fits Everything. You know, Rob Malda's other project besides Slashdot. I seem to recall it being around '98-'99. E2 has a 1999 timestamp.

If you were all on polyphasic sleeping schedules (like the Everyman or Uberman), it would make this more feasible. But with monophasic sleeping you're just asking for a whole host of problems I'm sure everybody else has already pointed out.

If you were all on polyphasic sleeping schedules (like the Everyman or Uberman), it would make this more feasible. But with monophasic sleeping you're just asking for a whole host of problems I'm sure everybody else has already pointed out.

Sadly traps like these are a time-honoured ingredient in adventure games... you reminded me of this ancient E2 node, well worth a read. http://everything2.com/title/King%2527s+Quest+5+design+flaw

"We expected a Limewire topology to be as reliable as a Phone companyi topology and oddly enough that bit us in the ass."

Yeah - I mean, with a phone company topology, it'd be impossible for, say, 50% of AT&T's long distance network to be shut down by a software bug, wouldn't it?

No point looking for the original document -- it was in Swedish.

Uff da!

The upshot: use QKD to transmit the key, then rely on classical encryption schemes

Only if you want a point to point link between you and everyone you need to talk to (amazon, gmail, etc) or trust the intermediate nodes (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, the government who can wiretap anything they damn well please by court order)

Then again, computing power increases so quickly that I doubt AES will be secure for long.

Yes it will.

> It certainly allows for information to be transmitted faster then 'c'. See what Einstein called "Spooky Action at a Distance."

Einstein, so far as I know, didn't like the idea of quantum entanglement (hence the SPOOKY part), and thought it was probably impossible. He proposed the EPR paradox to try and show that quantum theory was inconsistent. He hated the idea of quantum information traveling faster than light. It turns out that he was wrong- entanglement happens- but you can't transmit classical information via entanglement.

>Your confusion is assuming Fate and Free Will are mutually exclusive.
I didn't say anything about that; how does this follow from saying "nothing travels faster than light"?

> a) You are assuming that Causality is some sort of "Law", and
Well, yes. Sort of. If you can travel faster than light, you can travel back in time (or send information back in time). If you can do that, you can break causality. Eg: the grandfather paradox. This is the paradox generated with the Tachyon pistol thought experiment I referenced earlier. If I can send a signal faster then light, then it will arrive before it was sent. What if I fire a deadly tachyon pistol at my own head? I'll be dead before I pulled the trigger! That makes no sense- if I'm dead, who pulled the trigger? There's no "law" saying nonsensical things can't happen, but life would sure get interesting if we worked out FTL communication.

> b) You and/or the author doesn't seem to be aware of, or understand the concept of time lines,
Furthermore, Time is not absolute, it is relative. FTL doesn't break causality.

A time line? I could tell you what a "world-line" is (in the context of special relativity), it's the path of an object, describing every time and space coordinate where it's present. Time indeed isn't absolute, you can (for example) dilate time if you move faster. But this is special relativity again, which requires nothing to travel faster than c... so it's not much help to your case.

Here's what I mean by a paradox. If I can measure someone's intuitive reaction to a stimulus before it happens, what happens if I set up the following test protocol?
1. If subject appears to be intuiting stimulus A, computer shows stimulus B.
2. If subject appears to be intuiting stimulus B, computer shows stimulus A.

Subject intuits stimulus A. What does the computer show? If it shows B, then the subject's intuition was wrong. If it shows A, then the subject must have intuited stimulus B, which (s)he didn't.

As to the Einstein quote: I find it odd that you're using "intuition" to mean knowing things before they happen. Wiktionary defines it a Immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes. It's immediate cognition, not "precognition". So I find it hard to believe that Einstein took intuition to mean uncanny pre-knowledge of future events.

Seriously.

I'd suggest that he seek asylum on the island nation of Fernando Poo, but that might create an international crisis that leads us to the brink of nuclear war.

why not "kinetic bombardment" or something similar...

I always thought these were kind of a neat idea: Kinetic Harpoon

You know that Islam doesn't recognize the separation of church and state, don't you?

The separation of Church and state that you are familiar with is a result of the United States constitution. It is certainly not required by Christianity, and until relatively recently most European nations were under the control of the Church. Even the Kings of England, historically resistant against Catholicism, once sworn loyalty to the Pope.

I'm afraid that Islamic areas are always going to run into this problem because of the bad precedent set early in Islam's history - when church and state were one entity, and presumably, that's the way "God wanted it".

The power of the Catholic Church was essentially unchallenged on mainland Europe for the better part of two millennia. Wars were waged in the name of the Church, resulting in the deaths of millions. New branches of Christianity that threatened the power of the Church were decried as heresies and brutally suppressed, with entire cities being slaughtered ( "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius." ). Before you are so critical of others, you might want to remember the phrase: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

---Of topic again-- Lets say that someone, in a foreign country (maybe in Canada ) writes articles, or better comments, in sites (forums?) like http://www.kuro5hin.org/ or http://everything2.com/ and slashdot.... - He is using the same alias in all these comments of his - A significant percentage of his comments are strange for 99% of people who read them. Many times he takes advantage of general topics to unfold his ideas about .hmmm lets say fringe concepts. This ideas usually are not understood, people think that they are crap, that he has overreacting imagination, or he is very good at science fiction stories. Many (maybe) are laughing and they just go ahead shaking their heads “O my God he is lunatic”. After all, concepts he is talking about are not of this earth. When this ‘someone’ writes a long comment, often he ends with something like ” As usual, absorb at your own risk” Lets say now, that someone else, in another foreign country (maybe in Greece), after he has read many of this comments, he try (by taking advantage of the communication possibilities internet has to offer), to say hallo and even exchange thoughts.. Things maybe just as simple.and of course there is not always success. Just a thought..

Chupacabra, slang, Spanish. Translation: "Goat Sucker". The Chupacabra is a possibly/probably mythical creature which tends to only "appear" in areas with a large hispanic population, rumored to drink the blood of animals, especially/initially goats. (Hence the name.) It is rumored to be a medium-sized creature, similar to a cross between a dog and a lizard. It's said to be capable of walking bipedally. There are occasional reports of missing organs in (or more to the point, not in) the victims of its attacks, as well. There are no known/reported attacks on humans.

In 1995, the Chupacabra was blamed for the deaths of many turkeys, rabbits, goats, cats, dogs, horses, and cows in Puerto Rico. One resident claimed that they saw it, and that it resembled a tailless monkey. Then, on May 2, 1996, a goat was found in South Texas dead with "telltale marks of the Chupacabra". As the year continued, attacks were reported in both Mexico and Miami.

The Chupacabra has been believed both to be a unique creature, and only one of many. Rumors run the predictable gamut of possibilities from alien pet to failed experiment. Debunked sightings (complete with photographic evidence) have included a photo of an owl, and roadkill which was "a chow cross with mange". (Duane G. Ellen, duane@conterra.com)

You are definately a racist, according to th PC crowd.

Who exactly are this "PC crowd" who state that *all* black people (as opposed to American ones) are "African American"?

While there probably *are* some people who genuinely espouse the stereotypical "gone mad"-type political correctness, a lot of it appears to be strawman-type misrepresentation and assumption by those who disagree with it, or just assume that something is going to be the case. Oh, interesting article here, by the way.

Anyone who has extra-dark skin, or is distantly related to someone who might have had such a condition, cannot be called Black, or any other term relating to their skin color, or their ancesters skin color. The only approved term is "African American".

Well, in the US perhaps.

Tutu has been reported to be African American in numerous magazine articles, so that should be considered official canon.

Why does that follow or make it "official"? It could simply mean that the article writers were simply over-sensitive to the *perceived* wishes of others (and desire not to be seen as causing offense).

Or it could be that they were simply stupid and/or lazy.

Or all of the above. :-)

Bennington College.

I'm willing to bet that you know lots of people with both guns AND carry permits, but they're well aware of your irrational fear of inanimate objects so they just don't tell you.

Funny, but there's an even more likely possibility - people that don't like guns hang out with others that feel the same way. It's like how deeply religious people might say "I just don't know ANY Atheists, I guess there aren't many of them!"...

Oh, and as for the 'irrational fear of inanimate objects', I think that fearing (say) a chair would be irrational. Fearing a gun in the hand of someone willing to shoot it is slightly more rational. I know, I know, guns don't kill people.

NIPRNET, not like my mangled spelling.

It's the DOD network for unclassified but sensitive data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIPRNet

http://everything2.com/title/NIPRNET

Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval for the Commodore Amiga, right?

I can't believe no one's posted Guy Steele's Magic/More Magic story, yet:

        http://everything2.com/user/Accipiter/writeups/Magic

Bah! I've got you beat. What's a disk drive? I loaded my programs from cassette.

Most of them were hand-assembled Z80 machine code POKE'd into memory from DATA statements. Oh the joys of teaching yourself machine language!

Bah! I've got you beat. What's a disk drive? I loaded my programs from cassette.

Most of them were hand-assembled Z80 machine code POKE'd into memory from DATA statements. Oh the joys of teaching yourself machine language!

LOAD "*", 8, 1

'nuff said.

"Taken aback "Really, why?"
-"We have proof, when PI is expended out to (some number), there is a message"..."

Duh.

http://everything2.com/title/Converting+Pi+to+binary%253A+Don%2527t+do+it%2521

The LEMV will hover above Afghanistan at 20,000ft, equipped with the sort of super-powerful cameras that can read a signature on a letter from four miles away. It will be, Taylor says, ‘an unblinking eye’, recording every move made on the ground. In theory, no one will be able to plant a roadside bomb – a device which has claimed the lives of so many British soldiers – without the cameras seeing who did it and, more importantly, where they came from. And, if the LEMV is a success, it could prove to be a tipping point, ushering in a new age of airships.

Talk about big brother...

Welcome to the dawning of a new era.
The HappyFun Syndicate is recruiting! Not interested? I think we can persuade you otherwise!

Thus speaks a man who has never experienced the addictive tab-craziness of TV Tropes ;)

Or Wikipedia. Or Encyclopedia Dramatica. Or Ward's Wiki and Everything2, which were probably the originators of this densely hyperlinked style that encourages hyperbrowsing.

Once Hitler had England, the rest of Europe and Russia sewn up...

...which was never going to happen, with or without the U.S. First, the Nazis didn't have the naval power for an invasion of Britain; second, the Germans lost 4.3 million men in their futile attempt to take the U.S.S.R.; the USSR lost 7 million. Indeed, some people argue that the U.S.S.R. should get the most credit for defeating Hitler. Wanna-be rulers of the world, take note: never get involved in a land war in Asia.

between Germany and the Japanese the US would have been fucked

Japan had no interest in invading the U.S. The Pacific war was a war between expansionist imperial powers over colonies/territories. It was the U.S. response to Pearl Harbor that made it into total war and an existential conflict for Japan.

Had the Allies lost WWII, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would have increased their territory, and their brutal policies would have killed millions more than they did. It would have been bad. But they would not have ruled the world, any more than the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. or the British Empire did. The idea that we'd be speaking German or Japanese here in the U.S. had the war gone different is part of WWII mythology, often involved to justify the U.S.'s use of nuclear weapons against Japan.

No, rational ignorance doesn't factor into it. If people were rational optimizers with an objective of favorably altering the outcome, they'd quickly find out that even the cost of going to the polls to vote isn't worth the extremely small chance of the increase in marginal utility. Thus they wouldn't vote at all. Yet this is not what happens in the real world, hence people aren't rational optimizers, W5.

I am lazy :) http://everything2.com/title/A+good+programmer+is+a+lazy+programmer

Anyway, I did look up the Monsanto article on wikipedia (more laziness). The Indian suicide claims have been debunked by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Hence, FUD.