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#1: The Hugos are a juried award. Nope; they're a fan award. Anyone who is a member of that year's Worldcon can vote; all it takes is the money to pay for a voting membership. You don't even have to attend.

#2: The Hugos are only for SF. They tend to be given to SF works, but the criteria explicitly include fantasy.

#3: Why didn't <foo> win instead? Hugos are given based on year of first publication, so Lord of the Rings wasn't eligible this year. The movies will be eligible for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo, however.

#4: The plagiarism case. A Washington Post article and a transcript of an online chat with Stouffer give some more details, but I tend to side with the folks who doubt the claims she makes. They were going to make a billion dollars! All my records were lost when my roof collapsed! I talked to the (never-married) editor and his wife! You can't remove IE from Windows without breaking it! (Sorry, that last one was from someone else.)

#1: The Hugos are a juried award. Nope; they're a fan award. Anyone who is a member of that year's Worldcon can vote; all it takes is the money to pay for a voting membership. You don't even have to attend.

#2: The Hugos are only for SF. They tend to be given to SF works, but the criteria explicitly include fantasy.

#3: Why didn't <foo> win instead? Hugos are given based on year of first publication, so Lord of the Rings wasn't eligible this year. The movies will be eligible for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo, however.

#4: The plagiarism case. A Washington Post article and a transcript of an online chat with Stouffer give some more details, but I tend to side with the folks who doubt the claims she makes. They were going to make a billion dollars! All my records were lost when my roof collapsed! I talked to the (never-married) editor and his wife! You can't remove IE from Windows without breaking it! (Sorry, that last one was from someone else.)

You can read the story here, no registration required, courtesy of the Washington Post.

You can read the story here, no registration required, courtesy of the Washington Post.

Persistence of vision becomes really flakey at under 25 frames per second. With the overhead of stop bits, start bits, PPP protocol etc 28.8Kbits/sec is actually more like 22,000 bits/sec. That means that there are less than 900 bits to encode the delta between one frame and the next.

There might be something to be had out of using second order derivatives, a delta encoding of the delta encodings. There might be something to be had out of more powerfull delta encoding techniques, more complex transformations from one piece of screen to the next.

However the law of diminishing returns applies here and however good the delta encoding is, there is still the need to send key frames from time to time. At the very minimum once per scene change. In practice very much more often. It is quite likely that a scheme substantially better than MPEG is possible, but the scheme claimed is just too close to the fundamental limits.

There are two ways to cook a compression demo. The first is to pre-load the cached data, the second is to chose the content to be compressed very carefully. For example Larry King Live compresses quite well because the video shows only two talking heads from fixed camera angles. Star Trek TNG would be much harder because the camera is often moving.

Einstein reported that he was often acosted by people who would say something like 'how do we get to the next solar system if we can't go faster than the speed of light?', to which he would reply 'I don't set the laws of physics, I am just telling you what they are'.

Seems to me that the reason that so many people invested so much in Pixelon was that they believed that because they needed the solution so baddly, it had to exist, even if Shanon's law dictated otherwise.

Similar thinking runs rampant in the GOP mania for ABM technology. There has not been a single successful test that has not been cooked, in their last test the target had a radio beacon sending out its GPS measured position to the interceptor. But because they want to believe in the technology they will believe their own cooked figures and threaten MIT Professors that try to tell them they are being had with jail.

More information is available at the Washington Post article

The Washington Post article has quotes from the eff and American Library Association and a paragraph on Skylarov.

In 1992, a Brazilian president was impeached and legally removed from office for the way he handled campaign funds. OTOH, Bill Clinton wasn't even tried for the scandal he was involved regarding money, the "whitewater" non-affair. The only thing American electors were worried about was his sexual behavior. Is your girlfriend aware of the American political conditions?

Hick town eh?

Oh yeah, way out there in Fairfax County.

Funny, we have the NRO, one of the largest airports in the US, an 802.11b wireless network, SGI, a linux users group, and an Intel datacenter, not to mention also having a boatload of linux careers. Oh yeah, and don't forget that MAE-East often gets cut by cows chewing on the fiber out here in hickville. Oh, I forgot some little things like ThinkGeek, NSI, and ARIN.
Oh yeah, and that hick high school is getting me my CCNA.

I'm not even going to mention AOL, Erols, or the CIA.

But you get the picture.

- Cary

There's an article about the persecution of a CIA officer in connection with the Hanssen spy case. They picked out the wrong man and harrassed him and his family for two years. Competent investigation would have demonstrated his innocence quickly.

Then there is the article on Al Gore, Sr. He drew the FBI's fire for complaining about the treatment of a woman accused of the "crime" of having engaged in premarital sex.

You might want to check out your favorite bookseller for books on the FBI as well.

People who say "If you're innocent, you do have anything to worry about" should consider who is deciding what is innocent and what is not.

There's an article about the persecution of a CIA officer in connection with the Hanssen spy case. They picked out the wrong man and harrassed him and his family for two years. Competent investigation would have demonstrated his innocence quickly.

Then there is the article on Al Gore, Sr. He drew the FBI's fire for complaining about the treatment of a woman accused of the "crime" of having engaged in premarital sex.

You might want to check out your favorite bookseller for books on the FBI as well.

People who say "If you're innocent, you do have anything to worry about" should consider who is deciding what is innocent and what is not.

I posted this two days ago, but of course 2001-08-21 22:16:52 Mainstream DMCA Coverage(articles,money) (rejected) for some unknown reason :-(

The Washington Post has a small editorial regarding the dangers of the DMCA. Newsweek is carrying a similar piece [registration required]. Although this news is nothing new for the /. crowd, the Post is read regularly by members of congress and their staff. Maybe this is the kick-in-the-pants that congress needs to take another look at this terrible lobby. There is also a relevant discussion here on k5.

I posted this two days ago, but of course 2001-08-21 22:16:52 Mainstream DMCA Coverage(articles,money) (rejected) for some unknown reason :-(

The Washington Post has a small editorial regarding the dangers of the DMCA. Newsweek is carrying a similar piece [registration required]. Although this news is nothing new for the /. crowd, the Post is read regularly by members of congress and their staff. Maybe this is the kick-in-the-pants that congress needs to take another look at this terrible lobby. There is also a relevant discussion here on k5.

The Senate, in particular Sen. Daschle and the other Democrats, has already made it clear this morning that they will attempt to overturn what is from their point of view a ban. This article in the Washington Post is a fairly liberal take on the decision, and includes some comments by Daschle.

On the other hand, outright permission from the President would have resulted in an equally vicious attack from the Republican-led House of Representatives and conservatives. This article in the Washington Times is a good example of the typical mix of conservative responses.

At least the limited approach the President chose has a chance of standing up against the legislature. Regardless of your personal feelings about the politics or morality of the situation, I believe the President's decision was a fairly balanced approach to an extremely difficult issue.

There's a space in the URL that prevented it from working. Take it out and it works. The story is here.

Many people of a religious bent seem to be of the notion that this planet is special and unique, that we are THE (as in, the only) children of God, and that the idea of intelligent life out there is just so much poppycock. Were life to be discovered "out there", it would become rather more difficult to hold that position.

The last time slashdot carried an article about this same Viking 'life on Mars' experient, it was suggested the Gilbert V. Levin (the guy who created this experient) wasn't a member of the NASA religion (cult). The accusation was that NASA scientists believe they are THE special and unique group to discover life, and Levin is an outsider to this community. Specifically, here's the quote that appeared in the Washington Post story:

One of Levin's friends conjectures that Levin has suffered from not being a true member of the "life detection fraternity." "Gil's a sanitary engineer, he's not a biologist," said James S. Martin, who was the Viking project manager and who, at 80, still does some consulting work for NASA. "I've often wondered if one of his problems was that he wasn't a member of the club."

This Washington Post story obviously takes a slant towards Levin, but there are some interesting comments from NASA... that other experiments onboard Viking failed to confirm life, problems with Levin's approach, etc.

... would be to program our nanite to make fat cells revert back to 'stem cell mode' ( Washington Post article) and then reprogram them to turn into bone cells. Now we got this really fat fella with a sudden craving for calcium rich foods and who is developing a turtle like shell around his waist...

Well, to be fair, a far larger number of companies have had very lucrative and stable relationships with MS than the converse.

...the major hardware OEMs Compaq, Dell, Gateway and all of the other hundreds of thousands of people around the world who've carved quite a decent living out of the MS umbrella of industry.

Must I remind you that making a profit is the aim of a company?

It might suprise some Slashdot readers to find that monetary success isn't an antithesis to Slashdot popularity. The technology industry is full of corporate giants with deep pockets and little critical focus (can't please everyone) by Slashdot readers. Take Cisco Systems and an example.

"Is there any limit to what you think you can put into the operating system at all?" [Steve Balmer] was asked.
"If you asked me as a matter of law, no, I don't think so," Ballmer replied after a little hemming and hawing. The only restriction he mentioned was that everything Microsoft integrates into its operating system should make good business sense and not be "frivolous."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/washtech/tech thursday/columns/dotcom/A55090-2001Jun27.html

And to the troll who suggested that Microsoft should be able to do anything they want: Microsoft has a monopoly. They can, on a whim, force companies to pay them money, even it means laying off employees: like when they tried to raise fees earlier this year but charitably gave a 6-month stay so companies could rebudget. They illegally attacked Java, fragmented it, and now refuse to support in XP. They forced Apple, a third company, to use their web browser or they would kill a completely unrelated product. This is not a company that you want to leave alone because they promise to be good.

It's time the US got as tough on them as they would on anyone who engages on illegal behavior.

• What I find intriguing about this is what might happen if (read: when) someone with an underdeveloped sense of ethics tries a similar technique on humans

Sure, life is cheap. Although it's maybe more likely that we'll come at it from the other side.

Let me present this to you. There are more differences between zebra and shetland pony DNA (and they can produce viable offspring) than there are between human and chimpanzee or even gorilla.

"In experiments by Carlos Moraes at the University of Miami, for example, cells that contained a mixture of human nuclear genes and chimpanzee or gorilla mitochondria generally survived"

Where do we draw the line? The experiments are going on right now. Time to decide.

Move to Herndon? I hear he has difficulty operating candles...

David Kaczynski, Teds' brother, was profiled in the Washington Post Magazine on Sunday.

Ah yes, remind me...

Which country has a higher percentage of its population in prison?

Which administration is more likely to launch a missile attack? Which may or may not hit its target?

Or crash their secret spy plane, for that matter?

Which country recently lost its seat on the U.N. human rights committee?

In other words, you probably have to buy one from Russia.

Yes, that could never happen. With Russia being so stable and all.

the US is pushing for increased Canadian border security and unified policies on security and entry into North America

No one ever gets anything past the Canadians.

suitcase nukes are low-yield.

Uhhhh... Yah.

After all, look how nice the world is being to China, what with giving them the Olympics and all (worked really well in Berlin in 1936, didn't it?).

This is Yes, you are absolutely right. Jesse Owens' televised humiliation of "Aryan superiority" having lead to WWII and all...

You have to understand that the Mutual Assured Destruction policies of the Cold War don't apply to unstable and fundamentalist regimes.

Hmm. Strange that the rest of the civilized world seems to disagree. Of course, I'm sure this is the only time that Bush would dare propose breaking an anti-nuke treaty. I mean, any guy who's cutting the EPA by 6.5% while giving an additional 13.6 billion to defense has his priorities totally straight. That, and his unbiased choices to head the EPA show that he isn't swayed by special interests. Which is why ultimately, other countries everywhere love and respect and cherish him and support his wise policies.

Don't let the facts stop you, though, Michael.

Yeah, whatever man.

W
-------------------

It is true that most African's live in the kind of abject poverty that most Westerners can't even imagine let alone endure. It is also true that [we lack] basic infrastructure like regular power supply, potable water, health care services, etc. but this doesn't mean that this should somehow preclude African's from the fruits of the 21st century.

It is in extremely poor taste for you to bash them for donating their time and resources to a society desperately in need.

I've never watched either show or felt any desire to do so, but I try to keep track of broadcasting shenanigans.

The problem is, I don't know if I can see a real problem with this. I mean, by pushing the ability to have users easily be able to print photos online, they'll find that their revenue is increased, and Microsoft benefits from the 'tippage' from this usage. I would imagine that those companies that work with Microsoft would do better than those that don't...But then again, who is MS to dictate to other industries how competition is going to be handled...The companies pay for the convenience of Microsoft pushing users to their site. Who knows, only time will tell how succesful this is..For all we know, this could backfire horribly in MS's face when it comes time for the companies to pay their dues. I'm sure extortion, which is pretty similar to what Microsoft is doing, is illegal in at least SOME areas in the world ;)

Apparently, you don't live in the DC metro area. If you trust the police and the local government to not abuse the authority that you give them, you deserve what they will do to you. I live in Philly, I watched the DNC and the police reaction. I think that Philly cops are 99% great people doing a 99% great job. It's the 1% bad cop, and that 1% bad job that bother me. That 1% makes camera systems like this terrifying.

itachi

Microsoft Breakup Decision Overturned by the Court of Appeals

Judge Jackson had compared Microsoft to "drug traffickers".

by Michael Jennings

(Thursday, June 28, 2001) Today the Court of Appeals handling the Microsoft anti-trust case overturned the lower court's decision to split Microsoft into two or more companies. The breakup would have placed the Microsoft Windows operating system in one company and created a second business for everything else.

This decision of the Court of Appeals has been widely recognized as fair because of the behaviour of the judge of the lower court, in which he had not given the required appearance of impartiality. Judge Jackson had, for example, compared Microsoft to "drug traffickers", and Bill Gates to Napoleon. (See page 111 of the Court's decision [PDF format]).

The Court of Appeals found that Judge Jackson's 206-page Findings of Fact, in which Microsoft was found to have engaged in illegal conduct, was entirely acceptable. It was his conduct outside the courtroom that was a violation of the code of conduct for United States judges. (For more about this, see pages 111 to 115 of the decision.)

Earlier, many people had praised Judge Jackson's skill in handling the case inside the courtroom. Technically oriented observers considered the Findings of Fact to be very well informed.

However, the penalty that Judge Jackson recommended for Microsoft was voided because of his public misconduct. The Court of Appeals directed that a new district judge examine the case, using the Findings of Fact as a starting point.

The story is very widely reported. For examples, see: ABC, AP, BBC, Washington Post, Seattle Times, CNet, The Industry Standard, Reuters, Guardian, Motley Fool, and MSNBC. The NY Times article requires that you register. Registration is free.

Silicon Valley.com said "[Microsoft] can continue its brutal practices for a while longer..."

There were two parts to the anti-trust case, 1) the Findings of Fact, in which Microsoft was found to have engaged in illegal activity, and 2) the remedy, which is what would happen as a result of the court finding illegal activity. Judge Jackson had ordered that Microsoft be broken into two companies. It is only this second part, the remedy, that has been voided (vacated) by the Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals wrote, "We vacate the judgment on remedies, because the trial judge engaged in impermissible ex parte [outside the court] contacts by holding secret interviews with members of the media and made numerous offensive comments about Microsoft officials in public statements outside of the courtroom, giving rise to an appearance of partiality."

The Court of Appeals added, "Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process."

The ruling of the Court of Appeals was unanimous, by a 7-0 vote.

More links:

Open Secrets.org report on Microsoft soft money donations

Common Cause report on Microsoft political contributions

Antitrust Law and Economics Review

Older Articles:

Microsoft Unfazed by Threat of New Antitrust Suits (Thursday, June 21, 2001)

What, me worry? Microsoft's Ballmer stays cool, confident, composed. (PC World, June 17, 1998)

Michael Jennings
Futurepower®
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.

Tel: (503) 233-7820
Fax: (419) 781-4606
E-Mail: jennings_michael @ hotmail.com (remove spaces)

Futurepower is a registered trademark.
Copyright 2001

Ok. First, let's define some terms. From Merriam-Webster: Activism: a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.

By the above definition of "activism," I think that emailing and/or calling a company to express polite opposition to one of its policies qualifies. If you disagree with this, please cite your sources, and explain why you consider them to be more reliable than Mirriam-Webster.

> you sound more like an environmentalist than someone who has a clue.

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> Firstly where do you see any mention of activism in any
> of the articles linked?

This link [3rd link in the article] contains: But based on your feedback, we are happy to continue to offer access to the Solaris 8 Foundation Source.

> Secondly if you think someone is going to sit through millions
> of email if they were spammed...

I assume you mean "sift?" No, I don't think for a minute that a human being is going to manually parse every email coming into a company. Many companies use mail server software to perform tasks like this (i.e. routing email based on receiver, subject or content). Also, most companies have multiple incoming email addresses, and sometimes they make these publically available. If you pick the right ones, you can often get a human being at the other end. Furthermore, if you use a decent subject line, you can get their attention and present your case without them having to read the email.

And if you just reach some marketing droid who doesn't care, and who creates some sort of rule to route all related email to /dev/null, you've gained a small victory by making him/her realize that many people are pissed off.

> ...you're off your rocker

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> Emails such as those are almost always sent to a null account.

First, I doubt you can prove that. Second, are you saying that because I may not be heard I shouldn't even try? Is that your logic? "It's too hard, so just give up." Cynicism may sound cool on Slashdot, but it's no way to run your life.

> Company X will not listen to you.

Provably false. I've received numerous emails back from companies I've contacted. Some are personal, some are canned. Either way you're point's disproven.

> Company X has a paid staff that looks into how the company
> is going to make money.

Missing the point. Often, companies employ professionals in a "Marketing department." Their role is to sell the company's product and make the company look good in public. These people are notoriously sensitive to criticism, and it's part of their job to parse that criticism and relay it up the food chain.

> You know that thing called money right?

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> Company X's bottom line is keeping investors happy on
> returns, not what the consumer wants as most people would
> like to think.

False dichotomy. Companies keep investors happy by keeping the stock profitable. They often do this my selling large amounts of product to consumers. Ergo, a company's bottom line is often (not always) inextricably tied to kepping consumers happy.

Bridgestone would agree with me. They've lost over US$1.3 billion in less than a year, and their sales are off 50%. Killing your customers is the antithesis of keeping them happy.

> Clearly this is where you sound more like a 15 year old
> rebel without a cause, as opposed to someone with a clue.

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> This whole article has nothing to do with activism
> on any scale, so where did you get this rant from?

Already proven false: see above. Also, here's another quote from a different story, "Critics Force Microsoft To Drop Smart Tags." To be fair, Microsoft didn't really say that consumer feedback was the primary motive for the decision, but did say that "external feedback" was one of the motives. Nearly every published article I've seen (a couple dozen) expressed skepticism at Microsoft's stated motives, and the consensus is that they dropped Smart Tags because they were getting beaten bloody by the press (not coincidently, almost all users of Windows and IE). It's not solid proof, but it's close enough for me.

> Who threw a collective shit fit[?]

Well, nearly all of the technology press, for one. That's pretty important, eh? A Yahoo News search turned up 41 Smart Tag articles, nearly all of which are negative. There have been some positive articles, but most people hated the idea. Many who hated it let Microsoft know.

> Do you think the people at MS care at this point what someone,
> especially someone using alternatives to MS, thinks?

Yes, I do, and it's provably true. Microsoft responded nearly instantly to Smart Tag criticism. Microsoft responds fast and vociferously to many criticisms; if they didn't listen, they wouldn't resond. Duh.

> especially someone using alternatives to MS

IMHO, these people more than most, actually. They don't need to convince Joe Sixpack to use Windows - he buys a Gateway and uses whatever Gateway feeds him. People using non-MS products, however, often convince other people to switch away from MS products. Just my opinion, though.

> They just beat the Department of Justice

Not yet, they haven't. They may prevail in the end, but the case is far from over.

> which paves the way for them to do whatever they like

This is hard to argue with; they've shown nothing but contempt for the government, and they'll probably continue to do so.

> Surely you'd have to be kidding yourself if you think MS'
> backing off Smart Tags for now has anything to do with
> someone bitching about it.

I do think this; see above. Do you have a better explanation? In absence of convincing evidence either way, rational people are free to disagree. The only "evidence" most people have is the prepared speech of a Microsoft spokesdroid, which has evidently convinced very few people.

> Again your dissillusioned by thoughts of grandeur ... your
> original post sounds like nothing but someone who's been
> playing quake too long, and thinking they're some sort of
> "Cyber Super Hero"

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> I rest my case

I'm not sure what you mean by this. But if you really rest your case, then I sugest that you've lost. I've demolished nearly every point you've made. Not difficult, since nearly every phrase you typed contained one or more logical fallacies. Personally I think you're just another dumb-fuck troll. But hey, that's just my opinion.

"We all say so, so it must be true!"

You know, when I was in high school, I had an underground newspaper.

This quote is by Steve Ballmer, from the Washington Post op-ed piece:

"because Windows has real-time communications built into it"

I don't think he knows what "real" or "time" mean, and he especially doesn't know what "real-time" means.

--Blair

An excerpt: I tried AOL Time Warner's competing "You've Got Lackeys" a few years ago, but found its virtual agents a bunch of weenies. Not their fault. Microsoft wrote code into Internet Windows that tripped them up when they attempted Web chores. No wonder nine out of 10 professionals today subscribe to Microsoft agents.

An excerpt: I tried AOL Time Warner's competing "You've Got Lackeys" a few years ago, but found its virtual agents a bunch of weenies. Not their fault. Microsoft wrote code into Internet Windows that tripped them up when they attempted Web chores. No wonder nine out of 10 professionals today subscribe to Microsoft agents.

Publishers say the decision means they now must begin removing hundreds of thousands of articles, photos and drawings from their digital archives.

Yeah, or actually pay royalties to the freelancers. So it looks as if the net effect of this decision is going to be the removal of lots of valuable content from digital archives and not, in fact, increased revenue for freelance authors.

Crap.

---

Real Estate Goes Online
.com: New online venture lets homeowners play percentage game.

Real Estate Goes Online
.com: New online venture lets homeowners play percentage game.

btw. I hate it when people say "real-ator".And "nuke-ular". Makes me twitchy.

More from the Post

It is hard to imagine a more definitive study in a real population, so those people who jump to explain this away show their lack of interest in actual evidence.

Hmm, see also this column in the Washington Post.

The BBC also had an article on it a few days ago here.
The Washington Post has this little piece on the creature.
The NYTimes didn't seem to have anything. Discover as linked in the story has the best coverage, but the font the story is in is really small.

The Washington Post which has the story, with a quick review of the laws and issues, here.

European Panel Probing NSA Departs Abruptly

So when I click on the link in the story, I currently get a 404 page. So I tried to find the
story by going to the WP's Metro section, where I found a story titled "here we go again and again". Clicking on that headline give me a really hilarous test page.

Someone's having troubles...

So when I click on the link in the story, I currently get a 404 page. So I tried to find the
story by going to the WP's Metro section, where I found a story titled "here we go again and again". Clicking on that headline give me a really hilarous test page.

Someone's having troubles...

Probably not. After all, no one pays for TV that has ads. Wait a minute. I pay for CNN, Weather Channel, and other stuff on cable. You know, this just might work.

All joking aside, satellite radio is a good idea. Anyone who lives in an area that Clear Channel has moved into is looking forward to actual choices. (Can anyone in the DC area tell me the difference between DC101 and WHFS?) Those who live in rural areas with only one FM "rock" (which is actually top 40) one country and one NPR station will also love this. Frank Ahrens, a reported/commentator for the Washington Post has written extensively about this.

It did sound systemic: they all had trouble accessing their hard drives

Good to see scientists fighting back so vigourously!

The Washington Post has what little there is to tell on this page

A killer whale looking thing flying at 65,000 feet. I cannot wait to hear what the UFO watchers have to say about this

DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A442 63-2001Apr20.html

With all the other things that need addressing in Congress, *why* are the Republican "leaders" so concerned about interfering with the right of a local municipality (in this case Arlington County VA) to decide what the name of a train station should be?