Slashback: Porntrusion, Greenness, Rollercoaster

Tonight's Slashback includes updates on the state of MPlayer, Google's API release, DIY backyard transportation, and (thanks to politech) the "hidden camera" bill. Oh, and apparently, Mars is not the lush, green paradise you thought it might be. Read on for the details.

But what about the nude Russian girls who apparently need me? happyclam writes: "The text of the "hidden camera" bill has been posted at politechbot.com. Although we have already beat this one to death, I found the actual bill worth reading. One thing that had not been mentioned is that it allows for civil and criminal liability for spammers who email sexual advertisements without proper markings. Although I still prefer positive labeling (e.g. "kid-safe(tm)") to negative labeling (e.g. "socially questionable"), this bill does, I think, have a few good points to it. Read it."

DVDs want to be free. An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this email and the latest news the mplayer source code is finally 100% GPL compliant. Maybe an official Debian package will finally be released as well instead of the marillat release. Work on integrating the open source Xvid MPEG4 codec is coming along nicely as well."

Gravity always wins, but likes to play. mzdial writes: "On March 14 you did a piece on this Southern Indiana's man love of roller coasters and how he created his own in his backyard! The Indianapolis Star has done a wonderful story with video and photos about this wonderful contraption. You can find the article here."

They're greedy for hits. ruvreve writes "A follow-up to the recent article about Google's release of an API. This article talks about the apparent success of releasing the API. It mentions that about 10,000 people have signed up and they have received 25 implementations in the first week. It goes on to talk about how Google needs to capitalize on the ability to provide a 'profitable' web service and maintain its position as the number-one search engine."

Chasing green, wet shadows. young-earth writes "In a disappointing followup to this story, an article on astronomy.com shows that what was thought to be chlorophyll on Mars found in the Pathfinder expedition was most probably artifacts of the processing model used. However future missions will profit from the work being done now: "...developing new methods to enable future rovers to select appropriate targets on the martian surface for further spectroscopic or close-up microscopic examination". So maybe in another mission..."

Comments

Why must we leap to conclusions?

[cliffy2000]

"Mars must be green because we found what we THINK is chlorophyll!" *sigh* What ever happened to science.
-- Note: I'm aware of all the flaws in my argument. Yes, I know that theories are constantly being disproven and that science has and always will be based upon assumptions. But please let me rant. It's all I have.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[spike hay]

Scientists should stop realeasing info like that to the stupid press before their results are confirmed.

Remember when they said the mile-wide asteriod had a 1% chance of hitting in 2021? That got everybody all worked up. When I watched the news, the media spun it that the asteriod was definitely going to hit, just to sensationalize it. Then a few weeks later, the astronomers admitted they fucked up.

I guess scientists get their research bucks by having stories like these, though.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[s20451]

Scientists should stop realeasing info like that to the stupid press before their results are confirmed.

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but still. Suppose the research was suppressed due to lack of supporting evidence. The conspiracy theorists would have a field day with "the government" keeping news of "Martian chlorophyll" under wraps -- which means of course that there are secret Martian farms feeding an intelligent super-race, who built the Mars face, and so on. (Just imagine the Fox specials.) The point is that the scientists can't win, so they might as well disclose everything, even their screwups.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[Iamthefallen]

Money talks, meaning: That for scientists to get cash to keep investigating the asteroid and see if there is indeed a chance it will hit, they need to stir things up. If they'd said that they believe that there might be a million to one chance that an asteroid will pass earth in 20 years, who'd have funded continued research? But if they say that it is likely it will pose a serious threat, here, have another 50 million and some better equipment.

Now, a cynic might say that this kinda thing happens all the time after 9-11...Attack imminent, gimme money!

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell modded that as flamebait? How is that a troll? Moderators on Crack again. Can't people see that the point was just made that scientist realease their results too early??

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was that flamebait?

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[sam_handelman]

That's not flamebait, although he is mistaken. Immature, wrong press releases cost you funding. {JOKE}Science is not like IT, where famous screwups are more fundable than competent nobodies (anyone else remember that Dilbert episode?){/JOKE}

That said, I see no reason (I'm a biologist, not an astronomer) why alien cells would have chlorophyll. If they did find chlorophyll, it woul be a sign that we'd contaminated Mars with terrestrial cells.

Even if a Martian cell where photosynthetic, I would not expect it to express chlorophyll! Chlorophyll is long, big and complicated. An independently evolved protein, from an alien organism, would never look much like chlorphyll - the odds against such a coincidence are astronomical. Assuming the alien life had membranes, photosynthetic aliens MIGHT use a membrane-bound light-dependent electron pump like the ones found in chloroplasts and their bacterial cousins; however, since there are many, many classes of both light reactive molecules and of redox proteins (electron pumps) in terrestrial organisms, many of these proteins are not-at-all similar to one another, so even if an alien organism "worked the same" as a terrestrial chlorplast (chloroplasts are the cellular organelles in plants that harvest light) it'd have independently evolved proteins with similar functions, they wouldn't be chlorophyll, and they wouldn't be similar to chlorphyll in terms of sequence or overall shape. The odds are incredibly small! Even the twenty amino acids we use are a result of the original molecular evolution of terrestrial life; an alien organism might not have the same twenty (assuming that it had amino acids at all; we don't know enough to make a definitive conclusion, but nucleic acids and amino acids may be the only molecules in existence that could make a biological organism.)

All musings aside, the original poster was correct. Chlorophyll on Mars was a stupid thing to expect.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[MarkusQ]

Scientists should stop realeasing info like that to the stupid press before their results are confirmed.

...or we all should stop listening to the press when they publish half-baked science stories. Think about the motivations and potential to learn; any particular scientist who makes themeselves a laughing stock will learn, but they are more or less out of the game by that point. But a newspaper, etc. that suffers a decline in readership directly attributable to publishing half baked claims without a huge disclaimer (or a system, such as slashdot has, allowing readers to attach their own disclaimers) will still be in the game and they do learn. In fact, part of the reason the press sucks as much as it does is that they have been learning from us, the general public, what to print and what not to print. So when you see something like this, speak up!

-- MarkusQ

P.S. I think I've cancled three subscriptions to Scientific American on this principle so far. They don't seem to have learned yet, but I've enjoyed writing the letters.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[pedro]

I'm no biologist, but wouldn't the likelihood that carbon (the swiss army atom) be at the center of any expression of life, anywhere, constrain those expressions within a set of parameters fairly similar to our own?
IE: the 'metabolism of light' would most likely need iron, hence, chlorophyll?

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[dondelelcaro]

it'd have independently evolved proteins with similar functions, they wouldn't be chlorophyll, and they wouldn't be similar to chlorphyll in terms of sequence or overall shape.

It's not entirely clear that the proteins wouldn't have similar tertiary and/or quatenary strucure, presuming that they had similar amino acid composition. Obviously, similarities in tertiary/quatenary structure do not necessarily indicate homology, but convergent evolution is not necessarily a phenomenon confined to earth.

Regardless, in this particular case, they were not testing the protein composition itself, but rather the spectroscopic composition of the protein (which could very easily have similar absorbance frequencies).

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

I don't think scientists release information to reporters at all. They release it to other scientists in some way (phone, researchpaper, whatever) stupied reporters read it and because of ignorance make the wrong assumptions.

I have no doubt that the scientist knows that his/her idees are not 100% certain and doesn't hide it.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[Chasuk]

Isn't science supposed to be testable? With Mars close enough that testing is within the realm of possibility, why publish this type of nearly-tabloid-like supposition prematurely?

Is real research really that hard up for media attention? Is science not "sellable" unless is about transporters and FTL devices?

That's my theory, which might also explain why charlatans such as John Edward and James von
Praagh receive such consistently high ratings...

The Gates Testimony - Why Microsoft Will Win

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[benjj]

Even if a Martian cell where photosynthetic, I would not expect it to express chlorophyll! Chlorophyll is long, big and complicated. An independently evolved protein, from an alien organism, would never look much like chlorphyll - the odds against such a coincidence are astronomical.

Chlorophyll is not a protein, so that argument doesn't apply. It's constructed from a porphyrin ring, much like haemoglobin

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[sam_handelman]

That's what I get for posting at 1 AM.

What I meant to say was that Photosystem II is big and complicated; it contains 50 chlorophyll molecules. The properties of chlorophyll, that make it desirable as a primary light harvesting molecule, are heavily bound up in the properties of Photosystem II. The structure of photosystem II also changes the "color" of the Chlorophyll somewhat; but, of course, the robots would extract the chlorophyll into an organic solvent so that would not be an issue. Other photosystems here on Earth contain chromophores that are totally different in color - this is why red algae is red and brown algae is brown (instead of green.) All terrestrial plants happen to contain chlorophyll as well, but there's no reason to think that would be the case on Mars. In fact, there are two totally different classes of molecules that harvest energy from light here on earth (at least; I'm referring to the non-metal-ion carrying chemicals in our eyes and in the eyes of insects) which might form the basis for alien photosynthesis.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[sam_handelman]

Chlorophyll contains Magnesium, not Iron.

That said, you could construct a photosynthetic organism around haemoglobin (which does contain Iron) instead of chlorophyll, and it would be a totally different color.

Re:Why must we leap to conclusions?

[GreyPoopon]

Scientists should stop realeasing info like that to the stupid press before their results are confirmed.

I think that a better idea may be to just stop reading media that sensationalizes information like that to such a radical degree. I'm not sure of the facts in this case, but if scientists told the reporter that they found elements with the apparent spectral signature of chlorophyll on Mars, and the reporter translated that to something like "Life on Mars" then the problem really lies in the reporter and the editors. It's really partly our fault. We eat this crap up, thus encouraging rags to print it. When we start getting more discriminating about our news sources, instead of using them as entertainment, this kind of thing will diminish.

The only problem with my idea is that we'd probably, at least in the short run, have a great deal of difficulty finding any news to read....

Nude Russian Girls

[ramoth4]

Why must we exploit our Comrades so...

mars

[joeldg]

That is disappointing about mars... I was really hoping to take my naked russian girls there with my dvd's and ride my rollercoaster.. oh.. I need some coffee....

Re:mars

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot to include the google API in your outing!

Re:mars

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you think he found those naked russian girls in the first place???

Re:mars

[rmarll]

You'll be in violation of the DCMA for playing those disc's in an illegal region, you know.

Re:mars

[Lord_Byron]

No, no you don't.

Google Ownz.

[bl1st3r]

No matter what, google rocks.

Re:Google Ownz.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad they don't believe in the Bill of Rights.

Re:Google Ownz.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter. Google still kicks ass.

civil and criminal liability

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

civil and criminal liability for spammers who email sexual advertisements

Wow, I didn't even realize that. One thing we've seem to lost focus on with the recent Supreme Court ruling negating the recent law banning virtual child pornography. The reason child pornography is banned is because it exploits children, and if it is virtual, no exploitation of children occurs. So the law against the virtual images was struck down. But, in the same affect, if a child is sent pornographic spam through email, it is potentially damaging, and I would argue that it is even more damaging than a piece of virtual child porn. So, why not create the same sort of punishments for people who purposefully expose children to pornographic material as there is for people who exploit children to make pornogaphic images? I think being labelled as someone convincted of a sex crime could be a real deterrent for spammers who would otherwise shoot a million pieces of spam shotgun-style to every email address at a particular domain.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

But, in the same affect, if a child is sent pornographic spam through email, it is potentially damaging, and I would argue that it is even more damaging than a piece of virtual child porn. So, why not create the same sort of punishments for people who purposefully expose children to pornographic material as there is for people who exploit children to make pornogaphic images?

Is seeing breasts and vaginas as harmful to kids as you seem to beleive? Probably not.

See Harmful to Minors for an interesting perspective.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it hurt him.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Harmful? Probably not. Disgusting? Probably so.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm... spammers tried as pedophiles...

That might well begin to deterr them.

Actually, filtering the inboxes of children for spam probably does more to protect them from pornography than all the webfilters combined...

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Galvatron]

Softcore may not be harmful, but look at some of the shit that's out there (for example, anything starring Rocco). I believe there is a lot of porn that children do not have the emotional maturity to deal with. Especially given how hesitant adults are to talk to children about sex, seeing hardcore porn is likely to give them warped views about how sex is supposed to be.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Puh-leese. I don't know who the hell this Rocco fella is, but I'll bet if it's disgusting enough children will not be interested in it. And what the hell is sex "supposed to be" like? There's no single answer to what sex is supposed to be like.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[PD]

I agree. And violent movies also give kids warped views about how killing is supposed to be.

(oops, forgot the sarchasm tag)

Remember folks, people who are busy fucking don't accidentally pick up a gun and shoot their neighbors in the process!

Concentrate on the violence. It's a real threat, as opposed to the boogeyman that we've made naked people having sex out to be. If parents don't want their kids to look at porn, they should monitor the kids. If parents don't monitor, then that means that they don't give a shit, and the government should either take the children away from unfit parents, or leave everyone alone.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[soxthemonkee]

So should the government take the kids away, or leave everyone alone? I'm cornfused!

Probably because I am a monkey!!! Give me a banana!!!

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Rocco Siffredi's Biography

(a.k.a. Rocco Tano, Rocco Safridi, Rock Sifferdy,
Rocco Carlucci, Rocco Carucci, Rocco Lorenz, Dario, Tano, Rocco)

This blonde Italian uber-stud ranks as the most popular male porn star in Europe and one of the top in the world. He's a muscular, well-built hunk who is one of the few modern pornsters who's uncircumcised. Rocco's known for his ultra-energetic sexing, and he is without a doubt one of the most tireless, insatiable studs ever to appear in hardcore. His sculpted good looks combine with his incredible sexual prowess to make him one of the most sought-after partners among porn starlets.

Rocco got into European porn in the mid-80's, but it was his performances in a string of 'Buttman' flicks in the early 90's that brought him to the attention of American fans. Rocco played John Stagliano's sidekick in quite a few of the hottest Buttman features, showing off his supercharged sexuality to a receptive U.S. audience. Some of his best work can be found in 'Buttman's European Vacation #01,' where he takes on Silver Forrest and Zara Whites in a pair of award-winning scenes. His trysting with Debbie Dee in 'Buttman's Big Tit Adventure #03' and with Ruby and Christi Lake in 'Buttman's Bend Over Babes #04' are among his other decorated performances.

Recently, Rocco's been producing and directing his own line of features for Evil Angel, all of which are filled to overflowing with his patented nasty hijinx. He hasn't turned his back on performing, though, winning another Best Couples Sex Scene Award from AVN for his work with Jenna Jameson in 'Jenna Loves Rocco.' The winner of the 1992 and 1995 AVN Male Performer of the Year Awards and the 1993, 1994 and 1995 Fans of X-Rated Entertainment Favorite Male Award, Rocco ranks at or near the top of any list of 90's porno studs.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's the idiot who keeps modding down perfectly acceptable comments on this story? I don't agree with the contents of the message, but I'd hardly call it Flamebait.

Re:civil and criminal liability

[Anonymous Coward]

silly prude, sex isn't bad!

There has never been a study linking porn to rape, child abuse, etc.

There have been MANY studies linking violance to abuse and murder, etc.

Even so, the religious right and their grip on the country keep telling us, "porn bad...sex bad...nudity bad...because the CHILDREN!...FAMILY VALUES! STRONG FAMILY! ...FOUNDATION OF AMERICA...SEX OFFENDERS...OVERSEXED COUNTRY..." instead of saying, "we, the religious right, are naturally prudish because of our religion. We have political power. We want everybody to be like us, therefore, we want you to do be afraid of sex also, so we're going to protect the CHILDREN [and, alas, the adults] from the DEVILS influence. As for violence, well, there is that whole NRA thing, so OK, shoot 'em if ya got 'em!"

Sick. A fun experiment: to go www.imdb.com and compare ratings and the reasons for those ratings that some of our more sexually evolved european friends give to films.

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex's PIN was 1979. It was also her year of birth. What a silly whore!

Speed vs. APIs

[zorba1]

One of the huge wins of Google in my mind is its roundtrip speed for returning search results.

Re:Speed vs. APIs

[zorba1]

(yes, mod me down, I hit submit too soon...I'm a loser).

To finish my thought: Is Google really planning on opening themselves up to the perf hit of a potentially huge amount of traffic against its web service? I imagine the resources needed to balance the demand could grow pretty quickly (while maintaining their current, excellent perf). Even if they charge money to use the service, it opens up their perf analyses to various external agents, some of which they only have partial control of.

Re:Speed vs. APIs

[jbum]

From the FAQ on Google:

7. What happens if I go over my limit of 1,000 queries?

If you make more than 1,000 queries in a day, our server will respond with a SOAP Fault stating that you exceeded your daily query total. You might want to get some sleep and start querying again tomorrow.

* * *

My first reaction on hearing about these APIs, where that they might be an attempt on Google's part to cut down on automated searching without getting a lot of bad PR. They're providing limits in the guise of generosity.

The fact is, it was already pretty trivial to search Google using plain old HTML (via Perl or Java, or whatever).

But now, if Google starts prohibiting folks from using such search-bots (that use the HTML interface to Google), they can say "Look, we provided an API for this purpose!"

Re:Speed vs. APIs

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a limit on the number of requests. Also, the SOAP API is just a more convienient way of getting search results back. See the Google HTML and you'll see clearly marked comments surrounding each search result so that software can parse it.

Re:Speed vs. APIs

[JordanH]

• But now, if Google starts prohibiting folks from using such search-bots (that use the HTML interface to Google), they can say "Look, we provided an API for this purpose!"

How could Google tell it's a bot or a human performing the search via the HTML interface? Speed of interaction? That's mostly limited by the time it takes to perform the query and display the results. The net can be laggy at times, making checks for speed of interaction problematic. In any case, some sort of delays, even somewhat randomized, could be programmed in to make the bot appear to be a human.

Re:Speed vs. APIs

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, this prevents "meta" search engines! Good catch.

Re:Speed vs. APIs

[cduffy]

Anyone running searches 24/7 without long delays between (to actually *read* the content) is probably a bot. Doesn't strike me as being something hard to spot.

Re:microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Please leave my ass out of this discussion.

It's quite sensitive, and often gets an ugly rash if the subject is too "rocking".

Re:Bizzare Love Triangle

[SweetAndSourJesus]

I was wondering where you were.
There you are.

So what was all that...

[Trogre]

... about "burn the GPL" posted on the MPlayer website previously?

I see they've changed the layout of their site now, but previously there was an anti-GPL logo with a spiel about why the developers hated it so much.

I guess a change of heart, or perhaps a change of developers? :)

In either case: good on you MPlayer developers, for a truly excellent piece of software.

Re:So what was all that...

[Anonymous Coward]

mplayer IS THE BEST VIDEO PLAYER i ever seen. Basically MPlayer was allways GPL but they included some code from other projects that was NOT GPL. So they couldn't release it as GPL. Now the code was obsoleted, so it has been removed making mplayer REALLY GPL. Some ppl complains about the video quality of mplayer. Well they are wrong. They just couldn't configure it. You see... too many ppl cannot ./configure;make;make install... Just have a quick/accurate look at the docs, and you will the power of mplayer. I'd like to add something else... It is really a shame about the fork of Nick Kurshev. He is such a great developer. Too bad about the fork... (I'm NOT saying mplayerxp is bad... not at all...).
Knightmare

Re:So what was all that...

[Trogre]

I agree.

I'm not sure what post-processing it employs in it's SDL output at least, but playing so-so quality AVI's in MPlayer yields a STAGGERINGLY better picture then the same file played under all recent versions of Windows Media Player.

They both seem to resolve the same level of detail, but there are little if any compression artifacts when viewed with MPlayer.

Re:So what was all that...

[Junta]

I'll agree they have a good player core, but someone on that projects needs to learn a thing or two about UI design. Their UI (when it doesn't crash), is horribly designed. No dnd, some of the dialogs are more counter-intuitive than normal, etc. It's like the eye-candy matters more than functionality, and I know that often is the case in multimedia apps, but mplayer takes it to an extreme.
But again I'll say a damn good core, best friggin asf/avi parser I've seen, MS's is crap compared to mplayers, of course, MS's parser is the worst of them all. I personally use PythonTheater because it integrates better with my enviornment, but if mplayer can get a good, consistent UI, I'll be first in line. Hell, I might write one for it when I get off my ass.

Re:So what was all that...

[tps12]

I thought it was a command line program...

Re:So what was all that...

[JabberWokky]

I thought it was a command line program...

It is.

He's not quite an idiot, though - there are a few gui interfaces for it, though, some downloadable from that webpage. It sounds like he's describing the GTK one. None of them are really all that great, but they aren't all that developed. I always view everything fullscreen on one of my monitors, and the wheelmouse fast forwards and rewinds, so I've never had a reason for a gui interface. Someone is working on an aRts interface, so there will be dozens of playlist and player interfaces for it as soon as that is done.

--
Evan

Re:So what was all that...

[Junta]

YEs, that is the design focus, but they have a gui if you pass special options at configure and runtime. I like GUI mode becuase I frequently am viewing many music videos, and it is much easier to use drag and drop to chose what I want to see next than it is to either type the line every time or to plan ahead of time which order I want to see them in and make a playlist, or to have a program randomly pick for me, I don't want to plan, but I still want control. That all said they are very talented developers, just not good at GUI design.

Re:So what was all that...

[spauldo]

IIRC, the gui (as of a month of two ago) was still quite unofficial - that's why it's not built by default.

Personally, while I build the gui whenever I build mplayer, I rarely use it. The command line is well suited for what I need, really. Plus the fact that it tries to mock xmms/winamp/etc. and doesn't use regular widgets - thus is way too small on a 17" monitor running 1600x1200.

Re:So what was all that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh cunti-bollocks. Just installed MPlayer beta, which works very nicely although I cannot get it to use DGA or XVIDIX on my old ATI Rage 128 based card - maybe I need to use XFree86 4.2, anyway, I digress.

I went to use MenuDrake to add it to my menus.

Now i have no f*cking menus. MenuDrake can see the menu configuration just fine, but KDE3 cannot. KDE3 must use a different menu format from KDE2. Arses. Time for a long slow painful menu rebuild using kmenuedit which I found afterwards on the command line, but which isn't in the KDE3 menu for some reason.

Re:So what was all that...

[jellybear]

How do you get the wheelmouse to fast forward and rewind? I always just use the arrow keys. Space bar pauses.

Re:So what was all that...

[Foogle]

What you're seeing probably aren't compression artifacts. Often when people's videos look crappy under Window Media Player, I find the problem is not the player, but their graphics card's handling of the video data. Going into the player's settings and turning off hardware acceleration usually fixes this problem.

Re:So what was all that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps they were sick of bitches that would NEVER EVEN LOOK AT THE DAMNED SOURCE complaining that it wasn't GPL'ed while they were working on a GPLable implimentation of the bits they borrowed from elsewhere.

Re:So what was all that...

[ethereal]

Menus on Mandrake are totally hosed - for one thing, if you customize your menus with kmenuedit, and then install a Mandrake package (not sure exactly what the trigger is) your menus are replaced with the default set. So I've started just backing up the menus whenever I change 'em, so that I can always fall back on a known good set.

For this (and a couple other reasons) I probably wouldn't install Mandrake on a new machine, unless it's for a new Linux user who won't be doing their own configuration.

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[pisdtal]

I hate that bank! They would break a freggin $10 bill because I wasnt a customer. I mean Im an American and it IS the Bank of America right?????
On my way out I ask one of 'thier' customer if HE could break my bill and he happily abliged.
God I hate that bank.!!!!

coaster video really good!

[tomdarch]

It's Real, so the 'video quality' sucks, but it's a really nicely done piece - well worth tracking down a Win or Mac box to see. As you see the builder creeping to the top of the hill on his little 'car' I was totally psyched to see the drop! While they tease you for a while, you do get to see the loop in action - it's real!

Re:coaster video really good!

[Anonymous Coward]

It works fine in Linux realplay as well.

Re:coaster video really good!

[Peyna]

I'm here in Indianapolis, so not too far from him (saw this story in the Star again today), who wants to get a group together and head out to ride this beast? =]

Re:coaster video really good!

[daeley]

You might want to call first. And don't call him a 'beast' to his face. ;)

Re:coaster video really good!

[Peyna]

I believe he had an open invitation for people to come ride it. It said so in the newspaper article, and I recall from the /. article as well.

"hidden cameras"

[56ker]

Talking of hidden cameras a great big post appeared outside our house today (which we assume is going to have a CCTV camera stuck on the top). Does anyone know if these need planning permission in the UK?

Re:"hidden cameras"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you ask someone who just might have an idea? You really gonna trust a post like this:

Hello mr. 56ker,

I have read your post and it was quite informative. I work for the planning dept. of the United Kingdom, and no you do not need any sort of permission to put a post in front of your house. Have a nice day!

John Q.
Head Director of the Planning Dept. of the United Kingtom (HDPDUK)

Re:"hidden cameras"

[Anonymous Coward]

Byelaws change from council to council, but there is generally a rule about anything under 8 feet being OK and not needing permission.

So people can put up a shed in their garden, or the bus company can put a bus shelter outside your house (as happened to me last year), without the need for permission.

Bear in mind that the council will get a cut from the revenue the camera generates (assuming it is a GATSO or equiv.) and they are very likely not to care about your opinion.

On the up side, cameras can easily be disabled in about 5 seconds with any aerosol paint :) Done often enough an the camera moves to another place.

Re:bah

[pisdtal]

I cant remember exactly which of our founding fathers said this but it was something like
"Someone that is willing to sacrifice thier freedom for security, even if for a short time, does not deserve that freedom to begin with."

Or something along those lines, I think it was Washington or Jefferson........ damn dead brain cells

Build your own....rice toilet?

[Racine]

Here's another DYI project that might be of interest to some people. A true 6.0 Litre, tuned exhaust, pimped out Rice Toilet . Some people really have too much time.

Re:Build your own....rice toilet?

[Anonymous Coward]

FUNNY! Oh, God, funny!

But "rice" toilet, twice in you post... RACE toilet??

Re:Build your own....rice toilet?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you modify import cars like the Civic Type R, you can 'Rice it out' by adding JDM 'Japanese Domestic Market' parts not usually available in the US

Re:Build your own....rice toilet?

[sharkey]

ROTFLMAO!

Re:Build your own....rice toilet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh! Thank you, I had no idea.

Mod that post up (Informative).

Re:Build your own....rice toilet?

[gosand]

Not to mention adding "stupid ass parts" that do absolutely nothing but advertise "adds XX horsepower". Like neon lights, clear lenses, fog lights, titanium/carbon fiber, coffee can mufflers, stickers that say "XXXX racing team", huge wings/spoilers, etc.

And here is a clue, if you add 3 parts that advertise "adds 10 HP", you don't get 30 HP. Learn something about engines, and listen to those that know what they are talking about. Bolt-on parts rarely add any HP, and you can't just add them all up to get your total HP. In fact, some of them rob you of HP.

(I have a 1988 BMW M3, an out-of-the-box engineered race car)

Re:Build your own....rice toilet?

[God! Awful]

I thought a toilet made entirely out of rice would have been funnier.

-a

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an illegal offshore account with them -- that is to say, I'm not in the US, and have a BoA account, which is tax exempt, because I'm not a US resident. And it's not quite enough to bother the authorities on either end.

Oh crap, I shouldn't have said it was offshore. Oh crap, I shouldn't have said I was a client. Oh crap, I certainly shouldn't have said it was illegal.

oops!

[flynt]

On March 14 you did a piece on this Southern Indiana's man love of roller coasters

There's a Freudian slip if there ever was one.

Re:oops!

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmm, man love.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

What an excellent contribution to this discussion!

I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[realgone]

Commencing not later than 12 months after the establishment of the new domain under section 102, any operator of a commercial Internet web site or online service that has as its principal or primary business the making available of material that is harmful to minors shall register such web site or online service with the new domain and operate such web site or online service under the new domain.

As written, this is laughably vague. Clearly, no company's primary business would be distributing harmful material to minors. For one thing, the lil' buggers don't have credit cards, so profits might be somewhat hard to come by at first. (Dang, there goes the IPO, Chester. Did you save the receipts on that new office furniture?) More appropriate would be to call it "material intended for adults but which may be judged to have a harmful effect on minors".

Here's something even more troubling. In the section where they attempt to define what's "harmful to minors", here's one of the acceptable standards:

...taking the material as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Again, incredibly vague and open to abuse. Under this definition, material which does have scientific, etc. value for adults but doesn't for minors would be fair game, right?

Shit! Time to pull down that AARP website fellers!

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[IanA]

umm.. it says
any operator of a commercial Internet web site or online service that has as its principal or primary business the making available of material that is harmful to minors

what this means is.. make a porn site for adults. that material is considered harmful to minors.

it's primary business therefore is making available said material... which is considered harmful to minors.

you're reading it as if it says the material is primarily marketed towards youngsters, which it does NOT imply in its wording

i might not have explained it well enough, but hopefully the point is understood.

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[brooks_talley]

...any operator of a commercial Internet web site or online service that has as its principal or primary business the making available of material that is harmful to minors...

In addition to being laughably vague, it's also unenforceable. It's clear that they wanted to avoid the whole community standards issue by using the language "is harmful to minors". However, they've put prosecutors in the position of having to prove that any given material is harmful to minors.

On the one hand, this could make all sorts of "normal" speech illegal: tobacco ads, discriptions of drunken nights at bars, encouragement to drop out of school, you name it. On the other hand, it doesn't necessarily cover anything in particular, so even the most hardcore porn could argue that it isn't "harmful to minors." Since there's no objective description included in the law, it will be up to prosecutors and juries to decide what constitutes "harmful," and that will lead to an uneven application of the law, which in turn will make it subject to invalidation by the courts.

My guess is that the law was never intended to be enforced. It's just asking to be struck down by the courts, but the congresspeople who vote for it can wave their little "Morally upright" flag come the next election.

Cheers
-b

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[realgone]

you're reading it as if it says the material is primarily marketed towards youngsters

Of course not. I'm suggesting the above language is ambiguous enough that it can be read any number of ways. And as we've seen time and time again, ambiguity in law is A Very Bad Thing(tm).

Let's use the same construction, different particulars. Hypothetical Bob runs a hunting shop. Its primary business is selling guns that kill people. Have any of Hypothetical Bob's guns ever been used to kill a person? Probably not. Does that change the validity of the sentence? Nope, since guns can still be used to kill people and Hypothetical Bob does sell the things. But, and here's the kicker, is it ambiguous and possibly misleading to characterize Bob's main business as selling items that kill people? Yes. Bob sells items. and the items may be put to certain ends, BUT those uses are intrinsic to the items themselves, not his sale of them.

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[GigsVT]

This whole bill seems like that game you play with fortune cookies, appending "in bed" to the fortune.

It's like they stuck "to minors" on the end of everything to make it "OK".

BTW- the way this bill is written, it looks like it condones sending sexual advertisement emails to minors, so long as they are properly marked.

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[nicething]

The above comment can be freed of potential pro/anti-gun polemics by replacing any mention of "guns" with either

A) Blunt objects
B) Lions
C) Seemingly-innocent handkerchiefs

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[armb]

> ...taking the material as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
> Under this definition, material which does have scientific, etc. value for adults but doesn't for minors would be fair game, right?

Right. If it's _also_ appealing or pandering to purient interest _and_ depicts sex etc. in a patently offensive manner. The lacking value bit is necessary but not sufficient.

Whether any such material exists (or even could exist) is another question, but if there is material is is obscene when considered with respect to minors and has redeeming value _for adults only_, why should that adult value affect its status with respect to minors?

As an example of the sort of thing this might be aimed at, there's a website out there somewhere with close up comparison photos of natural labias with the constructed ones of post-operative transexuals. If it's being viewed in a school library, it's probably not for its scientific value to adults (which is not to say it should or will actually be covered by this bill).

Re:I love the language in Sec. 103 of the bill

[arkanes]

BTW- the way this bill is written, it looks like it condones sending sexual advertisement emails to minors, so long as they are properly marked. In bed.

coaster video?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the roller coaster video on the geocities site? i dont see it on the main page with the story.

Re:coaster video?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's on the right hand bar

Re:bah

[JohnnyO]

I think this is what you are looking for...

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Re:Bizzare Love Triangle

[Anonymous Coward]

Orbital -- Speed Freak

(instrumental)

Re:bah

[pisdtal]

Or maybe it was Franklin :) Yeah thats it

Re:bah

[pisdtal]

Im just here to help :)
Good to know I get noticed

Wooooo Hoooo!!!

Re:bah it was Benjamin Franklin

[Anonymous Coward]

he is the one credited with that statement i believe, and i thought it was more like "He who is willing to sacrifice freedoms for security deserves neither." or somesuch

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

*clap*

Good episode, wonderful piece. I only read the /. article, so I have no clue what the bank has to do with anything, but bravo anyway. Brought a laugh to my day.

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

You had a wife as a whore???? How much did it cost a night?!??! Must have been freaking expensive, but I hope you took full advantage of her!

To the victor go the spoils!

[taya0001]

I think thats how it goes. We should at least get something back for all that hard work we did saving the free world

Re:To the victor go the spoils!

[Anonymous Coward]

free world? come on...

Re:Paula Zahn nude?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! fuck Paula Zahn. What about Laurie Dewh(sic) on FOX. look at those lip. that gal is fucking hot!

That's not why the Supremes ruled...

[MyNameIsFred]

The Supreme Court did not rule that since its virtual its ok. They ruled that the definition of child pornography, as defined in the statute was too broad. For example, they were concerned that your typical Hollywood summer teen flick arguably fell under the statute's definition -- adults with make-up so that they appear to be younger than 18, pretending to have sex -- in other words virtual sex with minors. The Supreme Court ruled First Amendment protections for these types of films were important and that the statute was too vague.

Re:That's not why the Supremes ruled...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, would society really be hurt if films like American Pie were banned? Not really.

APIs sucessful?

[NickRob]

Yes, a lot of people got a lot of play out of them, but more and more developers are finding that they aren't that great. Dave Winer has found that they were great... for about a week and then just tinkered with other things. Yes, we do care about search, but we all no the url google.com. How can the APIs help out that much?

Re:APIs sucessful?

[Anonymous Coward]

[zellers at basilsoft.com]

I would much rather have an API, SOAP, XML-RPC or otherwise, that produces a consistent result than scraping the html and hoping that it doesn't change.

The API isn't great, but its a start. And its very easy to use. People that can only program in Visual Basic or AppleScript are going to be able to use to probe the knowledge base that is google like they used to be able to probe /usr/dict/words.

You may not see MS Word implementing a "Whats Related" menu item, but I guarentee you will see third party tools that take advantage of the API. And that are only feasable because the API exists.

Re:APIs sucessful?

[Rubbersoul]

well the releasing of api's can help alot, for both google and for other users. CNN business of all places had a story on this (you can see it here

One of the things it talks about in the article is how some users have incorporated the apis into new project already. It is kind of cool, you should check it out so you can see just how the API's and be successful.

Re:APIs sucessful?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can the APIs help out that much?

If they allow me to implement a ``Search by regexp'' function, then I can see unlimited possibilities ...for solving crosswords, at least.

SIRCML

[simeon_pimpmaster]

"on this Southern Indiana's man love of roller coasters"

Southern Indiana has "man love" for roller coasters? mmmmmmmm, man love.

Re:SIRCML

[Peverbian]

"this Southern Indiana's man love", does this mean that there are other Southern Indianas that are looking for a good time?

Single Midwestern State seeks Territory with large panhandle & good looking borders.

Or maybe good ol' Indiana should just hook up with the russian gals.

-Peverbian

Re:Bizzare Love Triangle

[SweetAndSourJesus]

I think you should know that I hold a patent on the (instrumental) joke. Or maybe I don't.

You'll be hearing from my lawyers soon. Or maybe you won't.

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[tps12]

Haha. That sucks. I always went to the bank at home (key bank or something) to trade in my coins. No rolls or anything, I'd just go in there with an old brown paper bag full of pennies and watch the teller count them out on the counter. Haha. That fucking ruled.

Re:FLASH BANNER ON /. HOME

[Anonymous Coward]

Boycott /. this weak then

Re:bah

[tps12]

I don't think Washington would have been likely to have said that. Jefferson yes (before he became president and became our first dictator), but Washington wasn't into that whole enlightenment thing.

Google's future profitability

[Anonymous Coward]

Will show what the future of the internet we want to live in will look like. Our internet, not Jeff Bezos or the RIAA's.

Perltop - GTK/Perl desktop environment.

Re:Google's future profitability

[Anonymous Coward]

Will show what the future of the internet we want to live in will look like. Our internet, not Jeff Bezos or the RIAA's.

Okay, I am going to say this slowly:

Google != The Lord

People act like it's the second coming. Anyone who thinks Google is out there 'fighting' (but who?) for them personally is severely delusioned. Just because they make a product you like doesn't mean they're in business just to give you a personal utopia. That's like saying 'Coca Cola's profitability will show everyone the future world _we_ want. Not Yoohoo's or Tropicana's'. They make a good search engine, now get over it.

gravity

[yanyan]

Funny you should mention gravity.. i somehow remember a user's plan file that i got to read when i ran finger on our company mail server. It went,

There's no such thing as gravity... the Earth sucks!

Oh okay.. i admit it was funny at first.. but, oh nevermind..

Holy Shit! We're In The News!

[Stephen VanDahm]

They pulled into Ivers' driveway, knocked on the door and asked to take some pictures, which they posted on a Web site that subsequently crashed because it attracted so many hits.

Yep, that was us, all right.

Re:Holy Shit! We're In The News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Stephen,
You have no life.
--Your Best Friend

Re:Holy Shit! We're In The News!

[sharkey]

And now, Yahoo has shut down the pictures due to exceeded bandwidth.

Cry Havoc! And let loose the DoS of Slashdot!

Sexual advertisements without proper markings

[galaga79]

I wonder if this bill comes into effect if it will make filtering out spam a lot easier. I use the very basic elm filter, which can be used to filter mail according to words in the headers, and despite it's simplicity it can be quite effective at targetting spam. Just looking for the keywords of mortgage, insurance, stocks etc it reduces my spam quite signifiantly.

Yet it's hard to catch spam of a sexual nature because that sort of mail is often quite deceptive in use of the subject headings. Quite often I open a message with innocous the subject of "Hey there" only to discover it's either some girl who likes to 'ride' horses or wants to me pay her college fees via her private webcam.

Whether this bill comes into effect, and they actually manage to enforce is a whole other issue.

All In One

[Shriek]

Greedy green, wet martians googling over nude russian girls while throwing DVDs at a roller coaster

If Mars is really green, then that explains...

[AnimeFreak]

...why aliens are green themselves!

You'd sort-of think that it is weird that the aliens that visit us are green instead of some other colour if they come from Mars.

Re:If Mars is really green, then that explains...

[Grail]

Humans are from Earth, but aren't blue.

Re:If Mars is really green, then that explains...

[Matthaeus]

No. By and large, we're more the color of the land we live on as viewed from space. Tan or brown. With some exceptions, of course.

Re:If Mars is really green, then that explains...

[Grail]

Monkeys live in trees. I don't know of many monkeys that are green.

I think someone is trying to practice selective perception :)

Re:If Mars is really green, then that explains...

[Matthaeus]

No...but one doesn't often see leaves the size and shape of monkeys, though. They're more colored to blend in with the bark of the trees. But you could just as easily use the male peacock, which is designed (evolved?) to be as ostentatious as possible and not blend into anything.

DVD support in distros?

[galaga79]

Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but will the GLPing of mplayer improve the chances of default DVD support in any of the Linux distros? Or does the problem in regards to the legality of compiled DeCSS libraries/code still stop this from happening? This is not a troll by any means, I just don't fully understand the situation.

Re:DVD support in distros?

[pa-guy]

Probably not gonna happen. The author(s) of mplayer are very clear about the fact that mplayer contains no decss code. You can --optionally link to this code at compile-time. This of course means that you have the required libs/headers on your system. This also means that in certain countries you have broken the law (DMCA anybody?).

Re:DVD support in distros?

[ebyrob]

One of the primary arguments against DeCSS was that it provided no "useful" functionality other than decryption and ran on an already supported platform (Windows). Foolish as it may seem, courts don't seem to support the practice and learning that comes from such implementations. Since the mplayer stuff runs on an unsupported platform and provides a lot more functionality than DeCSS, it has a lot better chance of holding up in court.

The question is, which distribution wants to take that kind of legal risk?

Of course, no one is going to go after you for downloading or building mplayer, giants aren't very good at swatting flies. So it's only distribution that might get you into trouble.

Re:DVD support in distros?

[rneches]

Their web site explains the licencing problems they've had pretty clearly.

Part of the reason is because they can't distribute binary packages. There are legal reasons, but at this stage of develpment it doesn't make sense for them to worry about bugs in binary distributions. Linux kernel developers will give you similar rhetoric about supporting binary drivers. It's technically doable, but it's so much more work than dealing with source that it's not worth their time.

There are also technical reasons (like a lack of runtime CPU detection, so you kinda have to compile it locally).

It also appears that they needed to use non-GPLed codecs in their earlier releases. I think they are either removing them in the .90 release, or they are migrating to GPL-friendly codecs.

Read their website - it explains pretty much everything.

Re:DVD support in distros?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit.

Since mplayer is now useful without any non-GPL code, the legal reasons are gone.
And Linux distro vendors _do_ ship binary (i.e., precompiled) kernels (which means that support burden lies with the distro vendor, not the kernel developers).
And current versions of mplayer _do_ have runtime CPU detection.

Re:DVD support in distros?

[rneches]

Sigh.

You know, if you're going to argue with someone, it helps if you don't refute your own points.

• I was (rather obviosly) speaking about the historical state of mplayer as it pertains to this latest release.
• Of course support for binary only drivers is the responsibility of their respective developers. That's why I was drawing the comparison. The mplayer developers don't have time to deal with people's random binary distributions of their project. The kernel developers don't have time to deal with people's binary-only drivers. For essentially the same reasons.
• Yes, current versions have runtime CPU detection. I'm glad you were able to read the .90pre1 changelog.

To everyone else - I apologize for feeding the troll.

What is "harmful to minors"?

[Pseudonym]

I don't know about you, but I would have thought that selling, say, darkroom chemicals counts as making available material which is harmful to minors.

After going to such detail in explaining what they mean by porn later (and doesn't it make for fascinating reading), you'd think they'd be a bit more explicit here.

Re:What is "harmful to minors"?

[GreyPoopon]

...be a bit more explicit here.

Pun intended?

Googles hits

[Hyperfrog]

I don't believe that Google is greedy for hits... but I do believe in common sense. Three cheers for google and their wonderful API.

Re:bah

[Akumapwr]

Okay, this is getting to be enough. THIS idiotic post has been POSTED a ga-zillion times. Thank You for your wisdom Johnny0Loser. This must stop, my eyes are going to BLEED if this may contine on slashdot. That QUOTE from Benjamin shitnklin needs to die in hell.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh sure, let's give up our freedoms in exchange for tougher penalties for spammers.

Marked as -1, Troll

To think the Slashdot moderation system is supposed to represent fairness, when all it represents are the opinions of the moderator. Zealotry? Oh yes.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

What story is this in reference to?

MPlayer alternative

[Anthony Boyd]

The Xine video player has a feature set similar to MPlayer, but also comes with courteous developers and a ton of RPMs for easy installation on a variety of Linux distros. DEBs too.

Re:MPlayer alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohh lay off the mplayer guys. IMO, they used to be a bit spikey to deal with and their attitude to redhat was obnoxious in the extreme*... but they seem to have mellowed a bit - and mplayer is very good.

*To the mplayer guys... disagreeing with 2.96 is one thing - saying it miscompiles your code is an entirely valid complaint. But repeatedly whining about it, making people attempting to compile your code on redhat type "i hate redhat, and all their works of evil". three times before allowing compilation is just obnoxious (ok, so that's an exaggeration, but not by much).

Re:MPlayer alternative

[ethereal]

Really, considering the quality of the playback, etc., from mplayer, I didn't find the installation to be too complicated. They told you exactly what to download from where, what to type, etc. to get it working. For a guy who claims not to speak English very well, the setup instructions were easier to follow than some I've read that were written by native English speakers :) And it does work and work well, even on a K6-2/350, sans a couple quibbles I have with their GUI. And I'm even using an old version - time to upgrade tonight.

Frankly, I don't care how spikey they are to work with, because the product works great for multimedia on Linux.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

That QUOTE from Benjamin shitnklin needs to die in hell.

Whoa there partner! Freedom requires eternal vigilance - which is what is accomplished by vigilantly repeating that wonderful Ben Franklyn/Tom Jefferson quote. :)

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

You don't know me, but I was standing in the line behind you when you poured your fucking sack of change on the counter. The other 3 counters were taken by 2 senior citizens and some puerto rican who couldn't speak english trying to cash a forged welfare check. If I ever meet you I will kick your ass.

Thank you.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

I kill you with one punch in your stupid head. Go fuck yourself in the face, bitch-made nigger.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Reload the story page, set your threshold to -1 and search for the thread titled "bah". It's been censored by some biased moderator who should have his moderation privileges revoked.

Re:Paula Zahn nude?

[Anonymous Coward]

I almost started watching the LPGA today.

almost

So true

[Afrosheen]

My friend's pc is identical to mine with two exceptions: his is all scsi and runs XP. Mine runs mandrake 8.2. When we download and watch movies at the office, he always wants me to launch it in Mplayer because the playback is much cleaner and reliable. Mediaplayer will puke on the codec from time to time and give a nice 'blork' in the audio stream to boot. Mplayer never does this and is easier to skip around in during playback.

Mplayer needs to get popular on windows, it's not like it has much competition anyway.

Re:So true

[Anonymous Coward]

Mplayer needs to get popular on windows, it's not like it has much competition anyway.

They haven't done, and aren't planning to do, a Windows release, for legal reasons involving the asf codec.

Re:bah

[Afrosheen]

Yeah, screw the founding fathers. What did they know anyway, people act like they built the foundation for america or something. Retards.

New MPlayer seems really promising

[prospective_user]

Well, it seems that while the new mplayer 0.90pre1 is technically quite good, it's most important improvement now is the "feature" of being completely GPL now, according to the news of the mplayer site.

This means that it can now be integrated in all distributions without packagers worrying of legal problems (which obviously includes Debian). A side effect (and equally important, in my opinion) is that this move makes this player available to a larger audience (exposing its remaining bugs and lack of portability to more people) and, of course, benefiting a larger part of the people that install Linux.

So, please, if you can download it, compile it and report bugs that you find (including people using different architectures). This way, we can all have a first-class, flexible, free movie player for many Operating Systems.

And contrary to popular belief, if you make a good bugreport, the mplayer team is very friendly fixing the bugs you find.

Of course, nobody would see a Doctor saying only "Hey, Doc, I am sick." and expecting a complete diagnostic. The same applies, evidently, to software development.

Real Player for *NIX

[dorward]

While hard to find, the UNIX binaries for Real Player are still available (including Linux). If you want to contaminate your system with non-free software (like me) then use the link above.

nice but no cigar

[Quietti]

As it doesn't support WMV files (Quicktime is already nice, though), its use is extremely limitted to me. Supporting de-facto standards like Windows Media Player simply cannot be avoided, like it or not.

Violence in the media is the problem

[SgtChaireBourne]

According to the APA and AMA, viewing violence causes violence. It's now established and not controversial except when it comes to ratings. See reports like "Big World, Small Screen", 1992, from the APA. Or books like "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society", by David Grossman, published by Little, Brown and Co, 1995.

As PD points out, "people who are busy fucking don't accidentally pick up a gun and shoot their neighbors in the process!" The main problem with pr0n is the potential for social isolation and commodification of humans.

Re:Violence in the media is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, because we all know the reason those ghetto kids are so violent is that they watch so much TV. Likewise for high-school shooters. They weren't acting out against being bullied, they killed their peers because Doom took away their self-control. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Forget the Roller Coaster

[(outer-limits)]

This is the REAL news. I-465 'ramp' renamed I-865

FROM WEDNESDAY'S STAR

Safety concerns prompt change for spur linking I-65 in Boone County to the Indianapolis bypass.

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[(outer-limits)]

Bank of America, is that run by the same people who run Air America?

On the topic of MPlayer...

[Da w00t]

Which I might ass is a kick ass movie player for linux -- Last I checked, the documentation says that you *can not* distribute binary forms of the application because

1. the source code licenses prohibit it
2. the binaries are compled for a specific arch (eg, k6 3dNOW v.s. MMX, v.s. MMX2, and SSE)

What changed?

Re:On the topic of MPlayer...

[Anonymous Coward]

The documentation you're looking at is likely outdated. The code has been gradually moved over and rewritten (as well as relicenced to be GPL) and mplayer now has runtime CPU detection.

You can still build it for a specific x86 architecture, and/or link it to non-GPL code however, but the GPLed ffmpeg plugin, and runtime CPU detection make precompiled binaries a reality.

Obsession with terrorism.

[ZigMonty]

Is real research really that hard up for media attention? Is science not "sellable" unless is about transporters and FTL devices?

Not to mention that *every* scientific discovery reported must fight bioterrorism. This is really starting to piss me off. Example: that mobile phone hack that uses the RF chip to detect a protein (IIRC). This has obvious medical applications, as well as tricorder-style remote sensing applications. But what does the media hype its use as? It can detect... anthrax!!! Yippee. How many people did the anthrax kill? Now, how many die from salmonella poisoning? This is something that this hack could help detect, assuming salmonella has at least one unique protein.

Note: I may be way off on it's detection abilities but you get the point. The media is obsessed with a high-profile, low-incidence disease. Hell, more people die from the flu.

Re:Obsession with terrorism.

[PopeFelix]

I intend to develop an application of the recent swing patent that combats bioterrorism.

"A method of swinging side-to-side and whacking any terrorists that get in one's way with a stick."

Re:Obsession with terrorism.

[ZigMonty]

LOL,

The sad thing is with the current state of the USPTO you could probably patent your idea and have it granted. And have the media put you on a pedestal for helping the <stupid name>War on Terror<\stupid name>.

Always remember: if people like you don't innovate, the terrorists have won.

Religious fervor

[Convergence]

So...

Does this mean that all religion and cult websites also have to register themselves under this domain? There is lots of evidence of the harmful effects of religious fervor, especially on impressionable children..(See 9/11, Jenin, etc.)

To protect our children, we must require that churches, too, must register under the new domain.

Have you seen the average russian woman?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, why in gods own name would you want to see one nude? Big, hairy, burly women who drink and smoke too much and speak english like a vietnamese hooker. No thanks... only about 1 in 1000 russian women are worth looking at for more than 5 seconds. They are enough to make a blind man's fingers puke!

Re:Have you seen the average russian woman?

[GeneralEmergency]

You clearly have never been to Moscow. I remember thinking "Man, have we been lied to or what?".

Stunningly beautiful eye candy everywhere. The babushka image is a bunch of media CRAP!

Now wait....

[Wntrmute]

We've got things more interesting than that going on. How about the fact that due to jail overcrowding, we're letting prostitutes and pot smokers off with just a ticket?

Why not in a Euro distro

[grahamsz]

I dont see why a eurocentric distro like suse couldn't include decss code since they dont have to worry about the dcma.

Re:Welcome to BankofAmerica_ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

people like you help the world to suck. and my god, looking at your other posts, you're *really* helpful...

WMV files do work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to post anonymously, but I'm too lazy to log in.

My girlfriend decided to dive head first into linux about two months ago, since Win98 had so many problems with installing on her computer.

Her first major project was to be able to watch all the movies available at consumptionjunction, including the wmv files. It took her all of one week with minimal help from me (teaching her the ./configure; make; make install method, as well as looking through INSTALL and README files) to get wmv files to play without sound.

Turns out they would play fine with sound once we disabled the crappy via onboard sound and used a real soundcard.

Now while it was a real pain in the ass for her to get it working, it does work.

Sorry man

[Anonymous Coward]

trollnet died. We're in #trolltalk on slashnet now.