Slashdot Mirror

is that corporations will sue private citizens giving things away for free, claiming "unfair competition by [those people who damn well should be] the buying public."

Funny you should mention that.

Check This story from the Guardian out

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

The monarchy serves as a rather effective tourist attraction largely because of strange romantic notions that I for one don't really understand.
Over at http://www.republic.org.uk/faqs.htm the point is made that the Palace of Versailles has most visitors than Buckingham Palace and Windsor combined. In my own opinion, I doubt many tourists visit England to see the Queen. And remember, even without a monarch you can still have palaces and even a royal family! Just because you have titles "Queen of England", "Prince of Wales", etc. does not mean the holders of these titles have to be head of state.
I know a lot of republicans (in Ireland anyway) abhorr the use of titles, but not all republicans do.

It's not too easy to determine the amount of public money actually spent on the monarchy.
This is true. But the Guardian claimed that it cost about £36.8m in 2003 to keep the Queen. http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,12 47033,00.html

I think IBM had the ability to produce chips that were what Apple wanted in terms of power (as the article points out - the newer batch of PowerPC chips are more like what they want).

What does Intel have that IBM didn't? Better support for DRM type stuff in the processor. From http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/story/0,1 2449,1504558,00.html

Here's my theory. Steve Jobs has a long-term goal to position Apple as 'the' online media company. He already dominates the online music business with the iTunes/iPod combination. Now he wants to repeat the trick with online movies.

But Hollywood studios won't do a deal with him because they are worried about piracy. They want a platform with rock-solid 'digital rights management' (DRM) built in. And it just so happens that Intel has been moving technical mountains to build strong DRM into its processor architecture, whereas IBM doesn't see it as a priority.

Yeah, very few details.

Best I could find with a cursory search was from EurActiv (which looks like a pretty interesting site):
http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-1421 90-16&type=News

BBC sums it up pretty well:
"The proposal by the European Commission will now be discussed by member states and industry bodies.

EU officials hope agreement on a way to implement the idea can be reached by October."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4663731.stm

The Guardian:"EU plans online copyright licence":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,15 23746,00.html

"What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

"(1) The first thing we are calling you to is Islam. [...] (a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of discarding all of the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammed [...] It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme.

"(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you. (a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest. [...]

"(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. [...]

"If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. [...]

"This is our message to the Americans, as an answer to theirs. Do they now know why we fight them and over which form of ignorance, by the permission of Allah, we shall be victorious?"

"Letter to the American People", by Osama Bin Laden.

It wouldn't really surprise me if there were more to this than meets the eye. It is all rather convenient for those that need to justify their continued war with Eastasia.

History shows us that the corrupt powers make use of public fear of terrorism as a means of rallying public support for their own purposes.

It wouldn't be the first time the British government has artificially encouraged terrorist attacks on its' own citizenry, creating an environment of fear that benefits a larger agenda.

Also see:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukresponse/story/0,11017 ,751102,00.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2115371.stm
• http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Distribution/Redire ct_Artifact/0,4678,0-578140,00.html
• http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,8 37333,00.html

It wouldn't really surprise me if there were more to this than meets the eye. It is all rather convenient for those that need to justify their continued war with Eastasia.

History shows us that the corrupt powers make use of public fear of terrorism as a means of rallying public support for their own purposes.

It wouldn't be the first time the British government has artificially encouraged terrorist attacks on its' own citizenry, creating an environment of fear that benefits a larger agenda.

Also see:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukresponse/story/0,11017 ,751102,00.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2115371.stm
• http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Distribution/Redire ct_Artifact/0,4678,0-578140,00.html
• http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,8 37333,00.html

It wouldn't really surprise me if there were more to this than meets the eye. It is all rather convenient for those that need to justify their continued war with Eastasia.

History shows us that the corrupt powers make use of public fear of terrorism as a means of rallying public support for their own purposes.

It wouldn't be the first time the British government has artificially encouraged terrorist attacks on its' own citizenry, creating an environment of fear that benefits a larger agenda.

Also see:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukresponse/story/0,11017 ,751102,00.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2115371.stm
• http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Distribution/Redire ct_Artifact/0,4678,0-578140,00.html
• http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,8 37333,00.html

It wouldn't really surprise me if there were more to this than meets the eye. It is all rather convenient for those that need to justify their continued war with Eastasia.

History shows us that the corrupt powers make use of public fear of terrorism as a means of rallying public support for their own purposes.

It wouldn't be the first time the British government has artificially encouraged terrorist attacks on its' own citizenry, creating an environment of fear that benefits a larger agenda.

Also see:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukresponse/story/0,11017 ,751102,00.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2115371.stm
• http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Distribution/Redire ct_Artifact/0,4678,0-578140,00.html
• http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,8 37333,00.html

OK, fair point. There are some eyewitness accounts from The Guardian here and they seem to agree that a number of people did make it off the the bus, but it still looks fairly bad.

Apologies for any overreaction, no real work done here today as I'm still waiting for news from one friend 6 hours on.

The only flaw I have with your post is that we did not go crazy as you put it. We are not a police state. We are not randomly rounding up citizens and putting them in internment camps. The cops are not stopping us in the streets demanding to see our papers. Many say that not enough has been done... The USA has barely done anything to curb the illegal immigration (sorry, undocumented persons) problem, we can still buy our guns, have our protests, do everything we used to do.

When this is all analyzed, you're going to find that about 6 middle eastern people made their way into Great Britain about 8 months ago with fake visas, merged into society under the guise of "why are you predjudiced against me, I have done nothing wrong". Got a job, perhaps even into the trainyards as mechanics, cheap labor, or better yet as part of the "clean up crew" for Live8, who would suspect a janitor. They acquired their cell phones, smuggled their explosives, planted them over the weekend when noone was noticing. The G8 has been known for months, and you can even find a schedule w/ protests online. And today, day 2 of the summit, the world was quite surprised... for we had become complacent.

Anarchist groups haven't been involved in terrorism since the nineteenth Century and it's hard to believe they'd suddenly start now.

I don't know if it's Al Qaeda (my understanding is that the latter is more an umbrella term anyway, see here for an interesting discussion, the four or so paragraphs starting from "That would seem to cut out Asimov"), but that said, the only other movement I can see engaging in terrorism in Britain would be some sort of break-away Irish group, a disaffected wing of the IRA or something, and I really don't recall the IRA ever doing anything so big. Their worst attrocities were two incidents where they blew up pubs.

Realistically, Bin Laden's groups are the only likely culprits at this stage. I'm not sure I want to be proven wrong, because we'd be seeing a substantial new terrorist movement, be it the revival of a more extreme IRA or a third group.

Over a month old, too?

Simulated Universe
Posted by Zonk on 2005-06-03 20:25
from the not-the-matrix dept.

anonymous lion writes "A story in the Guardian Unlimited reports on The Millennium Simulation saying that it is 'the biggest exercise of its kind'. It required 25 million megabytes of memory to take our universe's initial conditions along with the known laws of physics to create this simulated universe." From the article: "The simulated universe represents a cube of creation with sides that measure 2bn light years. It is home to 20m galaxies, large and small. It has been designed to answer questions about the past, but it offers the tantalising opportunity to fast-forward in time to the slow death of the galaxies, billions of years from now."

http://management.silicon.com/government/0,3902467 7,39145066,00.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/04/brit_sacke d_for_newsnight/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1520 588,00.html

I've read it before somewhere, that's for sure...

Or rather, enough telling us how popular casual games are, how about a casual games section on the NYT? Of all the major newspapers on The Guardian have a dedicated games section, but even they just spend most of their time either republishing press releases from i-play or blogging about how casual games are sure to be the next big thing.

It's time for the casual games discussion to move on from just talk. I'm hoping that the Casual Games Conference will be the start of that, especially as 3rdsense will be speaking there ;)

Right.. because I'm sure New Hampshirians (Hampshirites? Hampshirees?) just love getting letters from outsiders who want to tell them how to run their government, and this doesn't have the possibility to backfire at all.

If you don't live in the town of Weare, these people aren't your representatives, and by trying to influence their decisions based on what you feel is right goes against everything a republic is supposed to be.

I fully hope the land is reclaimed, but I'm sure the people who live there are fully capable of deciding on their own. If they wanted our opinion, they'd solicit it.

It's hard to talk about what I think my greatest achievement is, because I feel like I'm seriously jerking off . . .

Maybe we can figure out how to get cheap energy from fusion before oil production peaks in 3 to 5 years time.

See here and here

But there's a good reason why the people staying at Guantanamo have no rights.

Cheney says that they are bad people

Seems that due process isn't needed if the government believes that you're a bad person.

Signature: Ironic (Possibly because of poor spelling)

Reply: Moronic (Probably because of learning the definition of irony from Alanis Morissette)

But here in the UK,we have the RIP Act which mandates disclosure of keys to authorities...

If intercepted communications are encrypted (encoded and made secret), the act will force the individual to surrender the keys (pin numbers which allow users to decipher encoded data), on pain of jail sentences of up to two years

Someone posting one's definition of irony on Slashdot to make fun of someone else while being completely ignorant of the real definition of irony in the first place thus making a complete jerk and idiot out of oneself.

This is one of the areas of damage done by the Bush administration that I think doesn't get nearly
enough attention. With the current state of affairs, there is arguably no way for a conscientious American to serve their country through the military.

What nonsense. The number of people whose mind's have been changed by the Bush administration are few and far between. To the extent that anyone's minds have been changed they have largely changed to be closer to the views of the Bush administration by the attacks of Al Qaeda and company.

Your list of ways to serve is rather anemic, and a bit revealing. Here is an entire page of links to organizations and programs for patriotic Americans to aid their country and the service members defending us from the butchers who have stated they have the right to kill four million Americans. This isn't Vietnam where we can just pack up and leave and nothing bad happens to us, they came to our country and intend to destroy us. How many remember that Bin Laden's first demand (Q2) to America was that if we want his organization to stop attempting mass murder against Americans that we become a Muslim nation, which for him would be a Muslim of a very specific extremist, intolerant sect? (I can already hear the pathetic, deranged howls about the "right wing Christian theocracy we live under" now.) Well, just keep donating to the ACLU, I'm sure they will be keeping us safe from suicide bombers in our shopping malls with all that they do.

Somehow I'm not able to shed any tears for poor little Target and Toys R Us. I suspect that they are big boys who can take care of themselves when it comes to Amazon.

If this story is true, 'Toys R Us' deserve nothing more than to be screwed into bankruptcy on all sides.

Even if it weren't, what you say stands; they'd do the same to anyone else in a heartbeat. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Even if there is doubt about how such people should be classified (as POW or to be set free), article 5 insists that they "shall enjoy the protection of the present convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal"

Nice that RMS realises he's writing for a UK audience, but we say "program" not "programme".
Here you go, the Grauniad's own style guide.

...to imagine a world of 2050.

It's not easy.

However, I have some puzzle pieces.

One of the characters is raised by the N'th generation upgrade of his parent's pokemon data. They started on the Gameboy, transfered them to the N64, then the GameCube games, and then with Revolution, to the Nintendo servers, where the pokemon AI were continually upgraded until such an age where people purchased back the hosting of their pokemon, who were, at that point, highly intelligent creatures.

There is a religious group called "The Explainers," which is basically the organized scientific perspective of today, combined with a story describing the recognized myth of Prometheus, the Enlightenment, and a metaphysics of progress. They formed out the realization on behalf of scientists and the non-religious public, that they need to actively combat a growing religious throwback conservatism, that is aggressively using virtual reality technologies to keep our minds in the middle ages and the BCs.

But really, it's just incredibly difficult to write a story like this. The changes that we'll likely see in the next 20 years are, frankly, shocking. We will see sophisticated AIs, significantly easier programming, the merging of the online and offline worlds, people being turned into robots in the workplace, robots being able to do most every physical labor. No telling when we'll get the Augmented Reality vision displays: 10 years? 20 years? Probably not much longer than that, given that we already have displays based on projecting laser light directly into the eye.

And then there's the mass public organizing going on online, and all these changes in how we think about and organize information...

Really, it's very hard to just project 20 years into the future, let alone 50.

The screen may look great, but the DRM on that thing makes it a total joke. But here's something interesting from that review page:

This article
http://books.guardian.co.uk/ebooks/story/0,11305,1 200034,00.html

mentions that the device runs on "Sony Linux" - if Sony is using any version of Linux in devices that they're mass marketing, then right now they are either violating the GPL, or somewhere they have an FTP site where you can download all of the source code for operating this device. If the former, then someone needs to bitch-slap them hard. If the latter, then it's time we made "OpenMG" live up to its name and got some other implementations running (e.g., accessing NetMD on platforms other than Windows).

How about hot ducks fucking hot dead ducks? http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/st ory/0,9865,1432991,00.html

How is it lawful?

Iraq was not invading any other countries.

The U.N. had not explicitly authorized invasion.

Really. It was very, very illegal. You can say that it was the right thing to do, in spite of that. But it was NOT a legal war.

Richard Perle even came out and said it:

"I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

and also

"international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone"

Here's the article.

Hey, how come when I filled out my college apps I couldn't check 'French'?

Check again, they might have changed it to 'Freedom', although even that senator has changed his tune: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,149156 7,00.html

They're going to have to also put a pretty good wine cellar on that spacecraft. I can visualize an angry Astronaut 1, sitting at the dinner table in front of his Chateaubriand, glaring at hungover Astronaut 2 while angrily barking the question "Any wine left?", just about a month before they get to Mars. Space madness indeed.

Meanwhile, Astronaut 3 will have to be keeping an eye on the History Eraser Button.

Mmmmm...chicken pot pie...chocolate covered raisins...glazed ham!

And if they happen to be Taikonauts: "Honey, this chicken kung pow is...(drum roll)...OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!"

If No2ID believes important factual information is being suppressed by the media maybe a blog similar to groklaw.net could go some way to redress the balance. I am sure there are lazy journalists - if all the leg-work is done I'm sure it will receive wider coverage.

The media are gradually waking up. There's still evidence of widespread bias at the BBC though.

No2ID's own website

Spyblog ID Card section

http://www.no2id-petition.net/
I beg to differ... Read the radio button text immediately above the submit button.

"like to support the NO2ID campaign" - yeah I see your point. "Like to" is different from "do support" but it is clumsy language.

For example, even if we block the Bill, Blair has promised to introduce the same database via the "royal prerogative" that covers e-passports.

THAT is newsworthy. If backed with credible evidence that would be a dynamite headline.

Guardian article

If Blair makes a threat like that before parliament has voted it shows two things:

That Blair considers it likely that over half the MPs will oppose the bill.
That Blair does not intend to respect the democratic process.

Both of these play straight into the hands of the National ID opposition.

Yeah, if we could get anyone to take notice. Ironic really... ;)

That is not always the case. I have an interesting blog, IMO, but how many people does it appeal to? I cover neurological disabilities like AD/HD, Depression, and tic disorders and how to cope with them WITHOUT medication - and always with a bit of humor mixed in. Mine is a lone voice out there. I've been blogging for six months and I have 4 readers subscribed to my feed. Four. I've been searching for just as long for blogs like mine and can't find them so one would think that I would corner the market. And I do to the extent that the market allows. People find my site mostly by searching for info on the topics I mentioned. But how many people are looking for that info?

Wil Wheaton says he has a cold and 140 people wish him well. I write an essay on blogging or psychotropic meds and they are met with silence. That may sound like sour grapes, but the raw fact is that I'm not a celebrity. He is. Getting heard above the din of thousands of blogs is tough to do without money, connections, or fame. My site is simply lost in the confusion no matter how well written I think it is. Check out this excellent news story about the problem: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,69 03,972764,00.html. Freedom of speech is nothing more than an exercize in vain futility if nobody is there to hear what you have to say.

So here's a shamless plug. Read my blog
http://thesplinteredmind.blogspot.com/ and let me know there whether I'm wasting a bit of your life by speaking or not. Heaven knows I could use the activity in the comments section. ;)

Well unlucky for you it could be more like £300
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0 ,,1505880,00.html
Maybe because your a student they'll let you off some or give you another loan...

The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.

I have to completely disagree with that statement. Mac has 3% of the OS market share compared to Linux at 1%.

OSS has been in the mainstream going on about 5 years now and both Windows and Apple have competed great including the fact the OSS is "free".

Ok, but I reckon of the people that drop out, your list of 10 is "a few people".

In the UK (as of 2004) 14% of students drop out (see http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/ 0,9830,1315791,00.html). As UK uni's awarded half a million (http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/graduati on/story/0,12760,1387845,00.html) qualifications last year that would appear to be about 70,000 drop-outs. If say 3-4,000 of those dropped out because they were too smart I'd call that more than a few.

Of course one needs to define "smart" here. Presumably we're talking pure intelligence and not business sense.

The counterpoint is that I often thought I'd have been better off _financially_ not going to Uni. In any case - I'll wait for your list. :0)>

Ok, but I reckon of the people that drop out, your list of 10 is "a few people".

In the UK (as of 2004) 14% of students drop out (see http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/ 0,9830,1315791,00.html). As UK uni's awarded half a million (http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/graduati on/story/0,12760,1387845,00.html) qualifications last year that would appear to be about 70,000 drop-outs. If say 3-4,000 of those dropped out because they were too smart I'd call that more than a few.

Of course one needs to define "smart" here. Presumably we're talking pure intelligence and not business sense.

The counterpoint is that I often thought I'd have been better off _financially_ not going to Uni. In any case - I'll wait for your list. :0)>

Latest news suggests that support for the proposed ID card and database system is rapidly dropping:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0 ,,1505880,00.html

It seems that, like Australia, the more people learn about the true costs and problems in the system the less they like it...

The Communist mafia government is doing a lot more than censoring a website. And their technocrats will continue to exploit tech companies like Microsoft more for population control, just as the Nazis did IBM, then create their own homegrown versions they can control better, without even the possibiity that discussions like this one could interfere.

FWIW, I note that Bush's grandfather, Prescott, sold Nazi war bonds illegally, funding bullets and bombs killing American soldiers, until shut down by the US government under the "Trading With the Enemy" laws. And I further note that Prescott's financial parnership with the Nazis extended back into the early 1930s, as Bush backed Fritz Thyssen, who in turn backed Hitler in his early rise to power. This kind of corporate backing of nominal "enemies" is nothing new, and a greater threat today than ever.

They should have just asked this guy. He memorized Pi to 22,514 digits. I'm sure with incentive he could take it out to 40,000.

Therefore, kings are less likely than presidents to misuse the wealth of their country; the hereditary sovereign will want to avoid exploiting his subjects so heavily...as to reduce his future earnings potential to such an extent that the present value of his estate actually falls.

True, but wouldn't the people themselves, if allowed to rule, have an even greater desire to improve conditions in the long term? The "most profound national instinct."

Not voting isn't always indicative of laziness. In the recent general/council elections in the UK I intentionally spoiled my ballot paper. Some (a majority? It really can't be idleness) people, recognising that they don't support either the system or any of its participants would not think to spoil their paper. They were counted as apathetic, and once more the politicians feigned caring.

We recently had a spot of bother trying out new voting methods ourselves. Politicians and political parties were willing to conspire to commit fraud knowing they could be caught by some simple checking.

Actually it isn't just one incident. The Bush Administration has been trying to tell scientists what to think since 2000. This may just be the most egregious example of distorting scientific conclusions. There was a House investigation into the issue, and was covered on slashdot before. Worse, the administration attitude toward science is affecting public discourse more generally. This is truly unprecedented and it really is a problem with the Bush Administration. "FUD" has nothing to do with it.

Maybe they work at the White House, funded by the oil industry to select "winning" research.

I made no ill informed comment. The cleric that planned & conspired to blow up that Bali nightclub got 30 months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,1 429404,00.html

VHS beat Beta because of proliferation, NOT because of quality

VHS had two hour capability, Betamax had one hour.

Sony kept Betamax to themselves. VHS was a consortium and many companies built VHS machines.

The vaunted quality of Betamax was only on the video, and not enough to really notice, given how crappy TV is anyway; the audio was worse. A small loss in quality, probably not even noticeable most of the time, in exchange for double the time was a pretty good deal to most people, and then throw in competition from multiple manufacturers and lower prices and different features and lots of choices, and Betamax was doomed.

Here are some links:

Guardian/a

of this story.

about supply chain behind the article writer's dell notebook: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1464454,00.h tml

http://www.indexmundi.com/indonesia/gdp.html

And as Bill Gates's personal wealth is esitmated at $46.5 billion

http://www.marxist.com/scienceandtech/bill_gates_c apitalism.htm

And Ballmer's worth is $12 billion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1 046102,00.html

And Paul Allen is worth $20.5 billion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1 046102,00.html

you have the top three at Microsoft worth approximate 9% of the entire Indonesian GDP. And Microsoft is pissed, i.e., the greedy plutocrats and lawyers who run Microsoft are pissed, that a nation where the average wage slave makes about $80 - $100 a month

http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/63.htm

has found that it makes economic sense to pirate an OS that costs more than an average month's wages?

Geee - poor babies. Greedy motherfuckers. Almost as evil as the slime moulds who run Indonesia...

RS

http://www.indexmundi.com/indonesia/gdp.html

And as Bill Gates's personal wealth is esitmated at $46.5 billion

http://www.marxist.com/scienceandtech/bill_gates_c apitalism.htm

And Ballmer's worth is $12 billion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1 046102,00.html

And Paul Allen is worth $20.5 billion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1 046102,00.html

you have the top three at Microsoft worth approximate 9% of the entire Indonesian GDP. And Microsoft is pissed, i.e., the greedy plutocrats and lawyers who run Microsoft are pissed, that a nation where the average wage slave makes about $80 - $100 a month

http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/63.htm

has found that it makes economic sense to pirate an OS that costs more than an average month's wages?

Geee - poor babies. Greedy motherfuckers. Almost as evil as the slime moulds who run Indonesia...

RS