Slashback: Scramjet, Golden Ears, Preciousness

Slashback tonight with a followup on the Australian scramjet test, comparing audio formats with numbers (not just complaining about them), and questionably reasonable ways to sneak abuse-begging Internet laws in "for the children," (or plaintiffs, as the case may be). Read on.

Everything that rises must come down under. spam-it-to-me-baby writes: "The Australian trial of a scramjet engine has fizzed. 'The experiment at the Department of Defence's Woomera Prohibited Area, 500 kilometres north of Adelaide, was not successful because the [United States-supplied] rocket experienced flight anomalies prior to the scramjet experiment,' an analysis of what went wrong says. Not to worry, another test is tentatively scheduled for next week, assuming researchers can work out what went wrong with this one on the way up."

Not to be confused with this previous scramjet test, also unsuccessful.

Ah, much better, I thought you were being unreasonable there for a minute. After Jamie drew attention to it in a Slashdot piece on Saturday, SafeSurf changed their legislative proposal. In Jamie's words, "Woo!"

That's not all he said, of course: "Please note that, now, they ONLY want to fine you thousands of dollars for failing to label anything you write that is harmful to an 8-year-old. What a relief! "The penalty for a first offense of failing to label or mislabeling material harmful to minors shall be limited to a fine of under five thousand dollars."

Bennett Haselton passed on this commentary as well:

"If you go to http://www.safesurf.com/online.htm in Netscape and "View Document Info", it shows it was last modified on October 29, 2001. (This function doesn't work in IE.)

The original OCPA is [at google]. SafeSurf apparently removed this paragraph from section 6:

Publishers may be sued in civil court by any parent who feels their children were harmed by the data negligently published. The parents shall be given presumption in all cases and do not have to prove that the content actually produced harm to their child, only that the material was severe enough to reasonably be considered to have needed a rating label to protect children.

and replaced it with:

Publishers may be sued in civil court by any parent who feels their children were harmed by the data negligently published. The parents/plantiffs shall be given presumption, if the case involves graphic images, and do not have to prove that the content actually produced harm to their child, only that the material was severe enough to reasonably be considered to have needed a rating label to protect children.

and then added three new paragraphs listing more exemptions from this rule."

Can you hear that pea through the mattresses? For the audio objectivists, a good update to CmdrTaco's recent MP3 v. Ogg Vorbis inquiry: E1ven writes: "Everyone is always arguing about whether Vorbis sounds better than MP3, or vice versa. Here is your chance to see who is right! ff123 is doing a set of Blind Listening tests and could use your help. The more ears the better!"

Comments

Sore Loser Post: Croteam Switches to Ogg Vorbis

[ewhac]

Since Ogg Vorbis got another mention, it may be worth mentioning that Croteam, creators of the surprise hit 3D shooter, Serious Sam, have announced that their upcoming sequel will have its music encoded using Ogg Vorbis, replacing MP3. Writes Alen Ladavac, "We've tried encoding all the music for SE with Oggdrop at 64kbps and the quality was perfect even at such low bitrate."

I submitted this to Slashdot two weeks ago, and it was rejected. (Hence, "Sore Loser" in the title.)

Schwab

Look to other sources for 'harmful' material first

[PM4RK5]

Having been in school for many years, I would think many things that people would come across in school would be more harmful than a lot of the things that can be found on the net. Yes, pr0n would fall under the category of harmful (and no, its one of the few that you're not exposed to in public school). For example, my social studies teacher showed a movie about the Civil War (I want to say "Glory" was the title.), but anyway, she got yelled at by many parents because it contained graphic images of a soldier getting his head blown up.

Welcome to the real world kiddies, violence happens and there isn't ANYTHING that you can do to stop it. I don't agree with the bill, as it would allow too many oo-they-have-money-so-lets-sue-them parents to take internet sites to court. And, it is especially bad for the children. When they get out to the real world, their parents won't be there anymore to sheild their eyes from the horrors of reality. Better let them see it while you're still there to explain it, than let them get smacked upside the head with reality when they turn 18 and/or go to college.

Honestly, this falls under the category of "political correctness." IMO, the world could use more political incorrectness. Also, by making it an offense to publish "harmful" material, it would drive more and more web hosting out of the USA, such that they couldn't be punished under that bill. In this economy and the shaky tech market, the last thing we need is to drive more business away from the USA.

We have freedom of speech? Not if any laws like these go into effect.

<SARCASM> (Note: Companies may like to check into the constitution before proposing legislation) </SARCASM>

scramjets

[child_of_mercy]

It's worth noting that Scramjets have no real civilian use.

Even the Passenger aircraft is a red herring, once you've boosted to Mach 8 why stay in the atmosphere?

Why not do a sub-orbital shot? be much quicker and easier.

Scramjets may get used for reconnaisance, but the only obvious application is super-fast cruise missiles, not bound by ballistic missile treaties.

Yes it's cool whizz-bang tech

But only in the same way an H-Bomb is.