Slashback: Princeton, Terror, Farscape

Slashback tonight with more on whether Princeton really hates open source (hint: No.), the outcome of Australia's mp3s4free.net case, the Farscape-to-return saga, and other updates to recent and semi-recent Slashdot stories. Read on for the details.

"Frankly, sometimes the guy just ... says things." An anonymous reader writes "In a recent Slashdot article, it was reported that Howard Strauss, manager of technology and outreach at Princeton University, wrote a paper bashing the open source community. Princeton has now publicly denounced this article and stated its official policy towards open source."

(I don't know that it's fair to call Princeton's response a denunciation, but the school makes clear that a) Strauss was speaking on his own, not on behalf of the university and b) that Princeton uses, likes, supports, and develops plenty of open source software.)

Oh, they're only votes! tklancer writes "Remember the voting machine failures earlier this month? Well, now Fairfax County is going to investigate the failures in (hopefully) a bit more depth. Now if they'd only start talking about adding a paper trail ..."

Lik-Sang and Microsoft, back on merely uneasy terms. D4rkUnderlord writes "For those who forgot, Lik-Sang was taken down last year by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo for selling "Modification devices" (see CNN.com December 16, 2002). Lee sent us this article coming from a HK newspaper: [QUOTE] Have Found this tuesday in the South China Morning Post. Microsoft always get what it want Lee [/QUOTE] Read it here (scan of newspaper article). Note that lik-sang.com has been sold and put under new management last year, so nothing of these trials can or will affect lik-sang.com"

I wish people'd been this worked up about Northern Exposure. calethix writes "There's a news post over at Save Farscape regarding the return of Farscape as a 4 hour mini-series. There aren't a lot of details yet but it's supposed to air next year and has been confirmed by a solid source."

Much as I loathe and mock online petitions ... Hey, if it worked for Farscape, a television show with Alf at the wheel ... Dagrush writes "As you know, there was a slashdot story about how Saruman wa being cut from LotR:RotK. Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film. You can go here to add your name to the petition, as well as you comments. There are over 17000 signatures right now."

Follow the money, just don't say "terror." Best ID Ever! writes "CNN is reporting that the Policy Analysis Market is set to return, albeit without futures on 'violent events,' and without DARPA or other government involvement. As you may remember, the former DARPA project, under retired admiral John Poindexter's office, was shut down after being roundly condemned by politicians on both sides, leading to Poindexter's resignation. There seems to be a lot of interest in such 'information markets' lately, from the recently announced MIT Market to the long running Iowa Electronic Markets."

Next time they get tied to dingos. An anonymous reader writes "Australian University students Peter Tran, Charles Kok Hau Ng, and Tommy Le avoided jail when they were sentenced today. Charged with Internet piracy for running a file trade site the three copped a plea to reduced charges. Tran gets an 18-month suspended sentence and a $5,000 (Australian) fine. Ng got an 18-month suspended sentence and 200 hours community service. Le was only given community service. Needless to say the Australian record industry is complaining the three should do time, which could have meant five years behind bars. The judge ruled prison was not called for."

Comments

Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much as I loathe and mock online petitions ... Hey, if it worked for Farscape, a television show with Alf at the wheel ... Dagrush writes "As you know, there was a slashdot story about how Saruman wa being cut from LotR:RotK. Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film. You can go here to add your name to the petition, as well as you comments. There are over 17000 signatures right now."

Yeah... too bad it's way too late in the production process now to make such a change.

Re:Petition?

[wo1verin3]

No it isn't.

a) The footage is already complete and edited, as they were likely going to use it for the DVD

b) I worked in a movie theatre about 5-6 years back as a kid, movies would be updates in several cases AFTER it has already opened. We would recieve a new reel with additional/removed footage to replace the original reel with.

Re:Petition?

[jaxdahl]

What about the extended edition? They'll probably put it in there.

Re:Petition?

[RedWizzard]

Peter Jackson already said it was going into the extended edition.

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

...though hopefully we'll get him back on the (extended) DVD.

Re:Petition?

[JayBlalock]

Once again, if the people reading that petition would just read Jackson's letter to AICN talking about it, it would be a non-issue. He sounds regretful as anyone that it has to be taken out, but as he described it, the scene just did not work within the context of the theatrical cut of the film. If that's his decision as an experienced filmmaker, the "opinions" of tens of thousands who have never seen the scene at all, much less in context of an edited copy of the film, aren't going to sway him.

And besides that, he has stated it is most definately going in the Expanded Edition.

So this is really a whole hell of a lot of adieu about nothing.

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious -- what director would you have chosen?

News flash: the story was a fucking train wreck when Tolkien wrote it. The movies are already more entertaining than the books were. Let PJ finish the job in peace, and let's criticize RotK after it comes out, not before.

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is really a whole hell of a lot of adieu about nothing.

That should be "ado," as in commotion, not "adieu," which I believe means goodbye in French.

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

The books have certain strengths and certain weaknesses. In general, the movies are doing a good job capturing the strengths while leaving the weak parts out.

"Train wreck" is a bit of a troll, I'll grant you, but the truth is, the LotR series should be taught in English Lit classes as an example of how not to handle pacing in a novel.

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a petition to put the actual story and characters back in the film?

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

As if the "Lone Gunmen" petitions did any good.

The guys came back on the X-Files only to be gassed! I'm going to miss both shows.

Re:Petition?

[j3110]

Bah... It's never too late... I think I'll start a petition to get them to put Tom in LoTR:FoTR. He's cooler than that sissy Saruman anyhow.

Re:Petition?

[zerocool^]

Online petitions did *NOT* work for farscape. Certainly there were online petitions, but, dude, give scapers some credit.

SaveFarscape.com raised almost $100,000 in funds directed at convincing Sci-Fi and whoever else that they *would* spend money for farscape. That's not counting any labor, and all of the money spent on postage, paper, and envelopes of the THOUSANDS of letters sent to network exec's.

SaveFarscape has even gone so far as to do things like get a complete set of Farscape DVD's (about $450) into at least one library in every major metropolitan area in the U.S. - Over 80% of the U.S. has access to Farscape DVD's for free. Not to mention wacky things like BraScape, where female scapers mailed network exec's their netherwear to show that the demographic did, indeed, include female viewers. Or, how about working out a deal with the U.S. military to have DVD's at home bases for soldiers to watch at leisure?

Online petitions may have some relevance, but they certainly aren't what brought farscape back. Scapers put their money where their mouths were, and made a difference. In person, on paper, on the phone, and on the internet, they worked relentlessly.

~Will

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can somewaht back this up as a moviegoer. When Aliens opened up, a friend and I went to see it. It included the so called missing footage at the beginning where it depicted Newt and family finding the alien repository. There was no press about any special viewing, we went to see it a few days after it opened.

Since then, those scenes were only shown in 'Special edition footage' viewings and publications.

Re:Petition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope you don't mind if I make a few corrections:

• The amount of money donated is now calculated to be about 160.000$.
• The library project hasn't been that successful yet, you can get a list of the donated DVDs at http://www.wdsection.com/mickie/Library/LibraryQue ry_FE.html
• The army donations haven't been that extensive, we have managed to put at least one complete first season in every squadron of Maguire air force base, and in every Navy Liberty Center around the world, but we are still trying to get to every submarine, army base ...

The important thing to keep in mind is that our work is not yet done, we need to increase the fan base in order for the miniseries to have enough ratings so that producing a fifth season is a nobrainer, and that means word of mouth, and hopefully, more DVDs to donate.

So, if you were a fan of the show that never got into the SaveFarscape thing because you thought it was useless, you can still pitch in, we need all the help we can get, so please, visit our site: http://www.savefarscape.com.

Re:Petition?

[Clockwork Apple]

Troll? Fuck you fanboy.

Re:Petition?

[Wiwi Jumbo]

They'll just use this to screw people out of even more money...

First it'll be "Return of the King" then it'll be "Return of the King: Special Edition" with the scenes back in, then in a few more months it's be "Return of the King: Extended Edition" and a few more months after that "Return of the King SE: Extended Edition"

I'm kinda surprise I'm not hearing more negitive comments about what they're doing with these movies.

Re:Petition?

[TechnoLust]

So this is really a whole hell of a lot of adieu about nothing.
That's the best summation of the internet I've heard in a long time. ;-)

Re:Petition?

[geekoid]

Why would it not make sense in the movie, but would in the expanded version?
Oh right, money. I forgot about the post movie DVDs
"LOTR:Screw you" followed by "LOTR Screw you:special edition", then finally the "LOTR screw you we need to pay for hookers and coke edition".

Re:Petition?

[mcubed]

Not to mention wacky things like BraScape, where female scapers mailed network exec's their netherwear to show that the demographic did, indeed, include female viewers.

As Madame Chairman of Cross-Dressers for Farscape, I wish to highlight the important contributions made by our members in the campaign mentioned aboved. Not all Farscape fans who wear bras are women, ya know! We are an important, highly desireable demographic targeted by advertisers ranging from Gillette and Clinique (for all of their product lines) to Victoria's Secret. We feel that our support was instrumental in convincing the powers that be to go forward with producing the new shows.

Yours sincerely,
Victor/Victoria

Re:Petition?

[Danious]

Well, duh, Extended Edition won't just be theatrical + 7 mins of Chris Lee, there will be OTHER footage added which will give it context...

Gees mate, there's some right drongos here today.

P.S. Where me and PJ come from, we prefer sheep and weed to ho's and coke...

Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[Space cowboy]

"The judge ruled prison was not called for."

We could do with more of them over here in the UK....

Simon.

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[srn_test]

Back? What do you mean back?

Make your own damn judges.

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[Space cowboy]

Tell you what, you get to keep him, if you win on Saturday... can't say fairer than that, now, can I. I'm cuttin' me own throat here guv'nor!

Simon :-)

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[AnotherBlackHat]

"The judge ruled prison was not called for."

We could do with more of them over here in the UK....

Didn't you Brits already try letting people roam free in Austrailia instead of putting them in jail?

-- this is not a .sig

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[TDRighteo]

Hmmm. Then there's probably a lot of talk-back radio listeners in Australia who'd love some UK judges. Here the voices of protest are over lenient sentences - though normally for violent assualts and the like.

In this particular case, the Australian judge did what most Australian judges seem to like to do these days - look at whether the accused actually benifited from the crime and sentence accordingly. Had they sold the songs, he would have sent them to the slammer for sure.

It occurs that this precident does not bode well for ARIA and their ilk though, who had been hoping to use the courts to crack down.

Note: This was the "MPW3/WMA Land" case, where the students were as guilty as sin and admitted it too. The "mp3s4free.net" case is still going through the courts.

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[Anonymous Coward]

the pussy whipped brits never win anything, and they're going to have that ball rammed up their collective arses this time too. hardy har har.

mod this down, but you know its true.

Re: Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[gidds]

Didn't you Brits already try letting people roam free in Austrailia instead of putting them in jail?

Erm, Australia is a jail. I mean, you don't think anyone could actually want to live there, do you?

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you Brits already try letting people roam free in Austrailia instead of putting them in jail?

Ha ha! That one will never get old!!

Re:Er, can we have that judge back, please ?

[Vermithrax]

Yes and we shipped all of the religious lunatics to the states, overall I think the criminals to australia was a more positive influence on the world

lol

[setzman]

"CNN is reporting that the Policy Analysis Market is set to return, albeit without futures on 'violent events,' and without DARPA or other government involvement.

Yeah, right. I'm absolutely certain that DARPA and other government agencies will stay out of this project, just because they say so.

Re:lol

[JayBlalock]

And from the reports I've read, the only change is in some wording. Things like "Ariel Sharon will be assassinated" are gone in favor of "Ariel Sharon will lose power." Which doesn't preclude violence being one method to that end.

Of course, go too far to the side of vagarity, and it suddenly becomes useless - or a matter of simple wagering rather than the complex interplay that the system's proponents claim.

Re:lol

[JoeBuck]

Unless they can make sure that it's not possible to profit by betting that an event will occur and then causing that event to occur, it could lead to damage. With the stock market, we have the SEC to prosecute folks for insider trading. With the futures market as Poindexter originally proposed it, a bin Laden type could buy futures on some type of terrorist attack, commit the attack, and then use the profits to fund more terror.

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

It has no usefulness to lose. The only way this could be used to predict events is if the people who have the power to make those events happen are given the opportunity to make money by predicting their actions. By taking the profit motive out of betting on an act you're about to commit, nobody's going to do it and the model will fail.

I think it was George Soros who declared that markets are an incredibly faithful simulation of how the world's complex systems work, while at the same time having no relation to reality.

Market "simulations" almost always fail. When they succeed, it's nearly always due to the "self-fulfilling prophecy due to profit motive" principle, not the magic of the market. And yes, once in a very blue moon, they work. But not this one.

My money's on this not getting modded up.

Re:lol

[JayBlalock]

I totally agree. I was just pointing out that even if you buy the idea that they're good predicters, making the choices overly vague will make it only slightly more accurate than John Edwards.

Re:lol

[laird]

"Unless they can make sure that it's not possible to profit by betting that an event will occur and then causing that event to occur, it could lead to damage."

The fact that people can manipulate the market based on special knowledge is one of the reasons that the whole scheme works. For example, if Assassin X knows that "President Y is going to die" because he's going to shoot him, then buys lots of futures on him dying, shoots him, and makes money on the market. In return for Assasin X making money, he's also provided a warning to President Y, because the stock price in "President Y is going to die" would go up. It's pretty horrifying (IMO) to reward assassins for successful assassinations, but the logic justifying the markets is that the market also gives you advanced warning of the assassination.

Re:lol

[Red Rocket]

Your scenario is plausible, but it is only one possible way that things might play out. If that was the only track things could take then the futures market would be feasible. Unfortunately, it's just as plausible that someone would buy futures contracts on some event (say, a "loss of a leader's power" *wink*wink*) with no intention of causing that event but with an expectation that the event would happen. Then, when the event didn't come to fruition and it looked like he was going to loose his shirt in the deal, he would have a large incentive to make that event happen in order to protect his investment. He could even profit from it. That scenario wouldn't create the advanced warning you envision but would, instead, bring about an unfortunate incident that wouldn't have happened had there not been a futures market. In fact the less likely the market says an event is to happen, the greater is the incentive to cause it to happen because the price of the contracts are cheaper for less likely events. It's like betting on a long shot in a horse race when you have uncontrolled access to the stables...too much opportunity for mischief.

Re:lol

[laird]

Well, the way other markets work (e.g. the stock market) you don't know WHY people buy up a stock, just that they did. So you can't tell whether "President X will die" went up because someone plans to do it himself or simply suspects that someone else will do so, but since people's money is on the line, in aggregate they make good predictions. In practice, these sorts of markets have been working well to predict all sorts of events for many years. It's hard to say why, exactly, markets generate better than average predictions, but they do so fairly consistently.

See http://www.longbets.org for an example of this sort of approach applied without the horrifying moral implications (all of the 'winnings' to go a charity of your choice. Some of the 'long bet' predictions being debated are: "By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event." "By 2050, we will receive intelligent signals from outside our solar system" "By 2007, the U.S. Government will intervene to prevent at least one of the Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs)/Regional Bell Operating Companines (RBOCs) (e.g. Verizon, SBC, Bell South, and EXCEPTING Qwest) from filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection." "In 2012, 75 percept of all revenue for enterprise software companies will be from subscription fees rather than license fees." There are tons of interesting bets at http://www.longbets.org/bets...

It's somewhat an outgrowth of the Delphi method (http://www.iit.edu/~it/delphi.html), invented back in 1964.

Re:lol

[Red Rocket]

Well, the way other markets work (e.g. the stock market) you don't know WHY people buy up a stock, just that they did. So you can't tell whether "President X will die" went up because someone plans to do it himself or simply suspects that someone else will do so, but since people's money is on the line, in aggregate they make good predictions.

I believe that this kind of market can provide accurate predictions when used in regulated environments, but my point was that it also has a fatal flaw when applied in this context and that, despite market forces, bad actors have too much opportunity to rig the system. That's a point that capitalism's "true believers" miss time and time again. They just seem to believe that everyone will behave as a good little cog in in the wheels of the bright, shiny market machine. But we know that they won't. Some people (especially people obsessed with money) will rig, lie, cheat, steal, kill, etc., etc., to gain an advantage over the next guy. When you lay that fabric over the natural affairs of the world, you're asking for big, big trouble.

In your example above, for instance, it doesn't matter whether the market has accurately predicted President X's fate or not. The market's very existance begins providing incentives for bad actors to start causing long shots to come true. That would eventually either errode the viability of the market because investors would lose faith in it, or start causing wild speculation on long shots because investors would flock to the less likely events expecting the odd miscreant's interference (which would, ironically, both flip the predictions on their heads and make the interference less likely.) So, eventually, it wouldn't matter whether a contract was up or down. Bad actors (unrestrained in the real world and beyond the reach of regulators) would undermine the predictability of the events being marketed. The market would eventually fail while having instigated havoc in the real world.

Strauss

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

In a recent Slashdot article, it was reported that Howard Strauss, manager of technology and outreach at Princeton University, wrote a paper bashing the open source community.

Fink doesn't reply to his email either. ;-)

I pity whoever was managing his mailspool after that got published...

YLFI

Re:Strauss

[Anonymous Coward]

Princeton's response is strange.

They say they run some servers and high-performce clusters on Linux, and that they run their administrative desktops on vendor-supported commercial software.

But that doesn't really answer the question. Do they use Linux on the desktop or not (because Linux is both "commercial" and "vendor-supported")?

Re:Strauss

[De]

No, Linux is an unsupported OS here on student PCs. That being said, I use it on my laptop without issues. There's a cluster on Linux PCs in the engineering building, ironically "donated by Microsoft Research"; but those are administered by the CS dept and not OIT.

Re:Strauss

[Anonymous Coward]

They mean Windows. You KNOW they mean Windows. Stop pretending that you don't understand a perfectly obvious statement because of some technicality in the language.

http://pictures.xbox-scene.com/4/lik-sang/scmp-lik

[Anonymous Coward]

the guy is blocking slashdot referrers. turn off referrer links or copy it into a new browser window.

Petition

[KentoNET]

The Sarumon petition is up to nearly 34000 signatures right now (7:07PM EST). Quite a leap, I'd say...

Re:Petition

[CrackHappy]

Does anyone here realize that putting your name on the petition is a complete waste of time? They're already making the copies to send to the theatres, there is NO WAY they could possibly re-edit the movie in time for release. I bet you anything though, that it WILL be on the EE edition... so just be patient guys... sheesh

Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[setzman]

Tran gets an 18-month suspended sentence and a $5,000 (Australian) fine. Ng got an 18-month suspended sentence and 200 hours community service. Le was only given community service. Needless to say the Australian record industry is complaining the three should do time, which could have meant five years behind bars.

They might have been extradited to Syria for torture.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Neop2Lemus]

NOT A TROLL! Someone is smoking crack.

As a Canadian I'd never visit the Middle East. They have a history of torturing anyone there who does not have a US citizenship.

Theres the case of William Sampson who was arrested for a terrorist bombing, was tortured until he made a public confession (which he later retracted), and finally, after several years was given a royal pardon and returned home (to Canada) this past year.

It happens. And the more people know about this sort of thing the sooner it may stop, or at least, the fewer victims there may be.

MOD PARENT UP!

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[setzman]

Will the moderator please post as AC and explain why this is Flamebait? Because it has "Muslim" and "torture" and "US" in the same post? If you read the entire post and think about it before you moderate, then you will realize that it is an attempt to point out abuses of the US legal system.

As for you on the right, it DOES NOT condone terrorism. It simply points to an article that shows how a innocent person was tortured by Syrians due to the idiocy of US authorities.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing. Highly recommended reading.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there should be an -1 Racist for mod's to show IP addresses of Anonymous Cowards who post shit like this. Either that or just totally delete it off the server. Who wants to read this? What moron thinks this is even funny?

Fucking grow up you worthless, racist scum.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[dreadnougat]

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0311/12/i_ins.00.ht ml

http://news4colorado.com/international/Canada-US -D eportation-ai/resources_news_html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/30/world/ ma in527560.shtml

Next time someone tells me that there is no free press in the US I think I'll point them to google. The fact that you did not see it because it was drowned out in other news does not mean that it was not in any US media.

I'll also point out that the US gov't is not blocking foreign news sites on the internet, so you are free to find pretty much whatever spin you want.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Malcontent]

Like most Americans I watch a lot of TV. Like most Americans I read the local newspaper every day. Like most Americans I have cable TV and access to 24 hours a day news.

Despite all that I was totally unaware of this story. Maybe CNN or CBS covered it one day for a minute or two but I must have missed that. There is endless coverage of Laci Peterson, and al-quaida but nothing on this. It seems to me that a story of magnitude should have gotten more coverage don't you? I for one think that it's more important then whose mouth Bill Clinton stuck his cock into don't you?

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most Americans you are a fucking retard and didn't notice this was in Canada, not in America.

"al-quaida", clever spelling there, too. Can you point to Afghanistan on an unlabeled map? What about Iraq?

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most Americans you are a fucking retard and didn't notice this was in Canada, not in America.

Well, you must be one of those Americans then, because it did happen in the US (the US Authorities sent him to Syria.

Who's the 'fucking retard' now?

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

"al-quaida", clever spelling there, too.

Actually, it's more correct. Try listening to an Arab say it sometime.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll teach you sand niggers to support terrorism.

Good thing you're posting as an AC. Otherwise someone might just decide to hunt your racist ass down and blow your head off.

Fucktard.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[dreadnougat]

That has nothing to do with freedom of speech, and is for the broadcaster to decide.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Malcontent]

Really? I have my doubts about that. The US govt controls which reporters they talk to and which they don't. Since most reporters simply parrot what the people in govt "leak" to them anyway they can't afford to be blacklisted.

Of course I have also read about news stations picking up the talking points from the political parties and making sure all the news is slanted to emphasize the official party line but that's probably just rumor.

So what is your opinion of why this story is not as important as Bill Clinton lying about his cock? Why did all major news stations decide that Bill Clintons cock was important enough to cover every day but the US sending people off to be tortured is not? There must be a reason.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[dreadnougat]

Well lets see... I live in Canada, and have therefore been bombarded by this. However, the reason this got less coverage is because fewer people would be willing to sit down and watch an hour of this. They've seen similar stories.

The story was in the press. They weren't blocked from showing it. There are many stories critical of the Bush administration, all over the American media, but you miss this one because the press decided that other things would be more appealing (such as which convenience stores have sold winning loto tickets) and you start screaming censorship.

(PS Bill Clinton got more news coverage because it was a huge scandal involving sex and a president.)

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Malcontent]

"I live in Canada, and have therefore been bombarded by this"

Since I live near the border I do have an occation to watch Canadian TV. I always find it amazing how different canadian coverage is compared to the US coverage.

Whether by hook or crook, censorship or bribery, stongarming or winking and nudging the canadian news is able to carry many more stories critical to US govt then the US media is.

Where there is smoke there is fire.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[dreadnougat]

No, it's because Canada's media is far more left wing, for the most part, and deem different stories more important. And if one says it is, the rest have to follow or lose viewers.

Re:Whew... Had they been Muslim and in the US...

[Malcontent]

You may be right. The US media may not have covered this because they so right wing.

Online petitions?

[quantaman]

Do they actually do anything? I'm sure there's lots of instances where there was an online petition and changes were made but I doubt those changes were because of the petitions. Do decision makers even pay any attention to these petions or do they figgure that because an online petition is much easier to put a name to than any other type of feedback the names are fairly worthless and they just ignore the petition. It could even do damage if people who feel they want to do something just put their name to an online petition feeling they've made a difference and don't take any furthur action that could of actually had an effect.

Re:Online petitions?

[itsnotthenetwork]

Actually, I think it helps. Even if it is ignored by the decision makers, they still know that someone went to the trouble of doing this. They must realize that there is an interest there.

Re:Online petitions?

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

Problem is, the attention paid by the decision maker is (generally) directly proportional to the product of the number of interested parties and the barrier of effort to them registering as an interested party. Online petitions have such a trivial barrier of effort and lack of actual strict controls on who gets involved ( i.e. customers? Random discontents? The same person 15,000 times? ) that I would be very unlikely to pay them any mind if a printout of one landed on my doorstop. Things like the Two Towers / Sep 11 petition did little to improve my view of the service.

I suspect I'm not alone in this view. I haven't looked at PO's page in a while - do they actually deliver the completed petition to the parties involved? The whole thing seems like a big scam to gather in paypal donations to me.

There are some markets ( internet technical / computer services / etc ) where these petitions might do better due to cultural bias and demographic within these industries. I don't think Big Film is one of these.

YLFI

Re:Online petitions?

[jon3k]

Depends on whether or not anyone is actually presented with this petition I suppose.

I'm sure if you said, look, we got 34,000 people to sign this, imagine how many more feel the same way, I'm sure they'd take it into serious consideration.

The question is who is this mythical third party called "they" ?

Re:Online petitions?

[Robotech_Master]

In the vast majority of cases, online petitions don't do a dickie-bird. But there are some cases where, if there are enough people who are signing the petition and taking other action as well, sometimes you can get through to the powers that be.

Case in point: Disney's original plan to release Princess Mononoke with no Japanese audio track only lasted about as long as it took for the fans to mobilize and produce a flood of petitions, emails, letters, and so on to David Jessen, the VP overseeing the project. Before you could say "tatarigama," the DVD release date was magically dropped back four months, and the Japanese soundtrack was added at such an 11th hour that the only indication on the packaging that the original Japanese language track was included was a sticker on the cellophane wrap.

And then there was the DVD of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Warner hadn't wanted to go to the trouble of producing a widescreen edition, reasoning that Charlie was a kiddie movie, and full-frame is more kiddie-movie-friendly. All the nostalgic movie buffs who wanted it in widescreen mobilized, and before you could say "Vermicious Knid," a widescreen edition was subsequently rushed out.

The thing is, in both those cases--and in the case of Farscape--the Internet activists didn't stop at online petitions. They made phone calls, they wrote letters (actual physical letters, not just email, though they sent email too), they collared executives at conventions, they did whatever else they could for publicity. An online petition is easy to ignore. Letters and phone calls are not so easy. And I don't know that I'd be so quick to call the Farscape campaign an unmitigated success, either--the goal of the 'scapers has always been for a whole new season, not just a 4-hour miniseries.

Re:Online petitions?

[Anomolous Cowturd]

They probably also realise that anyone with enough of a hardon over this movie to sign a petition is going to pay to see it six times over whether Saruman is in it or not. Then they're going to buy the standard edition dvd, the extended edition, the directors cut edition, the special collector's edition, and the trilogy boxed set the day they're released. I don't think The Man would really give two shits about this silly petition.

Re:Online petitions?

[Dalcius]

"Do decision makers even pay any attention to these petions or do they figgure that because an online petition is much easier to put a name to than any other type of feedback the names are fairly worthless..."

Yeah, but we're Slashdotters! We hardly take the time to read the article, much less sign up for a petition! :)

Re:Online petitions?

[Minna Kirai]

Before you could say "tatarigama,"

s/gama/gami
Tatarigama would be a "cursed toad".

Re:Online petitions?

[jooon]

Nah, petitions don't work. Just take a look at this petition against petition online.

Re:Online petitions?

[cpt kangarooski]

Well a cursed toad isn't good either, you know.

Irony

[Carnildo]

I like this bit from one of the piracy articles:

"Ironically, the sentencing came on the same day as a survey revealing many music industry professionals are active music pirates and believe current copyright laws are unfair and should be changed.

Of 200 artists, managers and record company staff who anonymously responded to an Australian survey, over three-quarters owned CD burners and almost half used them to illegally burn copies of CDs they had purchased. Of the 45 per cent who download music, 50 per cent never pay for it."

Princeton's Winner in IT

[back_pages]

"Frankly, sometimes the guy just ... says things."

Does anybody know if that's a real quote related to this situation? (I didn't find it in Princeton's statement about OSS, is there another link?

I, for one, wrote the author of the syllabus article an email stating that while I'm sure he doesn't represent Princeton and he's not a professor, it must be embarrasing for students at Princeton to be associated with a guy who publicly states that "modifying source code is extremely dangerous and very few people do it anyway." I didn't make a single argument about the merits of open source software - only that the guy should be ashamed of himself for being such a douche while leaning on his position at Princeton for credentials.

I would think that the fall freshman CS class would be better qualified to write an article than Howard Strauss based on the completely erroneous comments he gave in his editorial. I'm glad that Princeton is reacting to this guy running his mouth but I hope it's not too distracting to the CS students there.

And before you reply and blast me - yeah, I know he's not a professor, I know he's not speaking for the school. If the department manager from your medical school got on CNN.com and told the world that it's extremely dangerous to use vaccines and nobody does it anyway, you'd be embarassed nonetheless.

I'm sure that students at Princeton wish their school were on Slashdot for something more newsworthy, such as the 3rd fastest supercomputer.

Re:Princeton's Winner in IT

[jc42]

I would think that the fall freshman CS class would be better qualified to write an article than Howard Strauss based on the completely erroneous comments he gave in his editorial.

Yeah, but he'd probably argue that they don't count, because they are a tiny minority, and they're all the sort of weirdos that modify source code.

But then, I probably shouldn't be allowed to comment, either. After all, I get paid to modify source code. I do this nearly every day. Sometimes I even write source code from scratch.

I'd bet there even a few others like me among the /. readers.

Link problem

[dtfinch]

The Lik-Sang link leads to a noleech image.
Dragging the link to the address bar or copying and pasting the url should work for most people.

Damn I hate the 20 second wait on the "Post Comment" form. If you submit too soon, you have to go back and the countdown starts over.

Re:Link problem

[Nucleon500]

The owner of that webspace is stupid - in the time it took him to set up a redirect and copy a 1x1 gif, he could have just typed the article.

Today Nils Ahlswede and Alexander
Peter Kampl of Lik Sang International
Limited (Lik Sang) announced that
they have resolved their dispute with
Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft)
regarding Lik Sang's distribution and
pre-modified Xbox game consoles,
which had been made available through
the website www.lik-sang.com.

The resolution included, in addition to
the payment of an undisclosed sum, an
acknowledgement by Messrs.
Ahlswede and Kampl as well as Lik
Sang that these devices infringe
Microsoft's intellectual property rights
and circumvent the copy protection
system incorporated by Microsoft in its
Xbox video game system to prevent the
playing of counterfeit games.

Hong Kong, November 17, 2003

This press statement is made on behalf
of Alex Kampl.

Re:Link problem

[HeghmoH]

I've never noticed that the countdown starts over. When I submit too fast, and get the notice, I just hit back and then submit again and it goes through. Is this a new change?

Not the mp3s4free.net case!

[Chuck Chunder]

It's a completely different case. The three people who got charged were apparently involved in blatent copyright violation, ie offering and hosting other peoples copyrighted music for download.

The mp3s4free.net case involves linking, not hosting and targets a completely different set of people.

Re:Not the mp3s4free.net case!

[TDRighteo]

Yep. 100% completely different. The mp3s4free.net case is still going through the courts, and will be for some time. (The wheels of justice turn slowly in Australia just like everywhere else.)

For crying out loud, didn't anybody notice the words "MPW3/WMA Land" in BOTH the articles?????

I actually submitted (and had rejected) this story with the correct details to Slashdot about two days ago. The real story is apparently entirely too boring. ;-)

Petitions Are Pointless

[Mukaikubo]

Guys, you're missing the point. Farscape wasn't saved because of an empty list of signatures, although we had one that broke 100k.

Farscape was saved because thousands of fans went out and DID THINGS. Things which required time, effort, and yes, money. Seeing so many invest so much in so many ways finally convinced *someone* out there that bringing back the show was a financially worthy decision.

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[s33l3t]

hmmm.... starting to sound a lot john edwards.. im getting something a J or H. yeah my harry. ok and hes dead. YES. and when he was alive you both . "DID THINGS".. YES. Elaberate plz "DID THINGS" just makes you another cold reader.

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[Anthony Boyd]

"DID THINGS".. YES. Elaberate plz

Well, you can visit savefarscape.com and go into their forums to see all the things that the group has done. But I'll give you a short list from memory, some of which I chipped in to pay for (and many others made FAR more impressive donations than I did):

• sent flowers to sci-fi headquarters
• sent boatloads of letters to sci-fi headquarters, too
• purchased TV ads after the last show to promote savefarscape.com
• purchased other TV ads over the course of the last 10 months or so
• purchased ad space on the FRONT COVER of Variety magazine
• networked at sci-fi conventions to help generate new fans of the show
• sent chocolates & gifts (repeatedly) to the show creators & actors
• started an advertiser list, and began emailing any company that ran ads during Farscape, thanking them and making sure to purchase their products
• policing our own, trying to limit the hatemail and rants that typify other hardcore fan movements (you catch more flies with honey and all that)
• a few thousand people actually offered to pitch in about $1,000 US dollars each to finance a movie, but that went nowhere (I think they only accumulated about 3 or 4 million dollars, not enough for a movie, but a really good showing)

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[Mukaikubo]

I must have blown 50 bucks or so in the first week of the campaign... heehe... If you remember someone who became infamous for sending gaudy amounts of postcards to Bonnie Hammer really early on, that was me. Also submitted the first Farscape Cancelled story to slashdot (back before I even registered). Best 50 bucks I've spent in years.

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

Best 50 bucks I've spent in years.

Yes. The show is coming back for a (last huzzah?) miniseries, so I would agree that your money, along with that of others, was indeed well-spent. The campaign actually worked!

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[s33l3t]

that is so gay, everyone who took part in that could have used their time more wisely.

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[shiffman]

First of all, I find it difficult to take someone seriously who uses gay as a perjorative. In this context it doesn't even make sense.

But with that said, I firmly believe that the folks who threw their energy into the Save Farscape campaign did indeed use their time wisely. They felt a connection that's rare in the world of mass entertainment, to the stories being told, to those who told the stories and to others who shared that connection. I'm pleased and more than a little bit proud to be one of them.

Scapers are some of the brightest, most interesting and all around nicest people I know. We'd begun getting benefits from the campaign right from the beginning. And not just the unprecedented press coverage, either. But the notes of thanks from cast and crew, who aren't used to having their fans tell them how much their work means to them. And the Scaper community, which gets a little bigger every day; that's been the best part of all of this.

If Sci Fi had been half as good at promoting Farscape as its fans have been since the cancellation, none of this would have been necessary. I'm sure the makers of the DVDs are thrilled that an obscure cancelled low-rated show is doing such good business for them.

Re:Petitions Are Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: How do you keep a mindless Slashdotter occupied for hours?

Click here for answer!

There was already a sentence...

[ErikTheRed]

Needless to say the Australian record industry is complaining the three should do time, which could have meant five years behind bars. The judge ruled prison was not called for.

Isn't listening to most of the crap put out by RIAA companies punishment enough???

Re:There was already a sentence...

[Rheingold]

And if that isn't enough, sitting through drooling lawyers for umpteen hours should have been.

Yes it is.

[eddy]

But the DVDs are already being distributed, and the movie on the [non-extended] DVD and the movie in the theatre is supposed to be the same.

This petition is utterly futile.

Re:Yes it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

What? The dvd is being distributed before the release of the movie?

Re:Yes it is.

[wo1verin3]

>> the movie on the [non-extended] DVD and the
>> movie in the theatre is supposed to be the
>> same.

The problem is money. There will be an extended DVD with scenes, we already know this. As for the movie and the non-extended SUPPOSED to be the same, it wouldn't be unheard of for a company (believe it or not, Hollywood is in it for the money) to go against tradition and make changes to the film.

Secondly, DVDs being distributed? If so, I would imagine illegally and that the DVDs themselves haven't entered mass production meaning they could easily be changed.

Re:Yes it is.

[eddy]

Got my versions a little mixed up there (oh, my, this has been a bad day), but it doesn't really change things. Jackson has already explained why he cut Saruman, in detail. It makes sense. He probably didn't like it, but the movie is still 3h21m or whatever -- and he probably had to fight to get to go over 3h to begin with.

I think it sucks, but I also don't think there's even a remote possibility of this changing. Jackson is done with the movie. I imagine the reels are already done or close to it.

Re:Yes it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

"He probably didn't like it, but the movie is still 3h21m or whatever -- and he probably had to fight to get to go over 3h to begin with.

I spent almost two minutes trying to parse 3h21m out of 1337 speak.

Re:Yes it is.

[yerricde]

Secondly, DVDs being distributed?

I'm guessing "DVDs distributed" refers to copies distributed e.g. to Academy critics for Oscar consideration.

Re:Yes it is.

[geekoid]

We're talking about an industry that changed some parts of superman afer its release to New your and Hollywood.
It would not be inconcievable for them to change on this point.

Naturally, if this petition works, I will taunt every future post you make. ;)

I used those electronic voting machines...

[Ayanami Rei]

and they worked fine.

The election lady got all patronizing with me, like I didn't understand how to use a touch screen. I was done voting before I could tell her to shut the hell up.

I was kind of annoyed by the lack of curtains though.

(well, it's no so bad since the LCDs are difficult to read from the side, and the ballots are randomly generated so you can't tell who others are voting for by "finger location")

And even if the "x" disappeared, the user gets a chance to review the votes that will be cast near the end of the session, and the front and back arrows allow you to revisit and modify your choices for each race.
Just fix it! What's the chance it'll disappear again? (Sounds like a UI bug... only happens periodically according to election officials).

I hope by next year they update the firmware or something. Erratic behavior during something as constrained as a poll is unacceptable. JUST USE A FUCKING WEB BROWSER AND CSS IF YOU CAN'T DESIGN A GUI.

Re:I used those electronic voting machines...

[The Wicked Priest]

"They worked fine"? How do you know? Sure, it may have looked fine from your end, but did it count your vote correctly? You've got no way of telling. The worst voting machine problems I've heard about have shown up as irregular vote tallies (e.g., the 144,000 votes from a 19,000-voter district), not as user-visible errors.

Re:I used those electronic voting machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

> (e.g., the 144,000 votes from a 19,000-voter district)

They didn't happen to come from some suburb of Salt Lake City, did they?

Re:I used those electronic voting machines...

[cyberElvis]

I was also annoyed by the lack of privacy. Sure the machines appeared to work but we have no way of knowing if the vote was actually counted. With some very close races in my district I would like to see a re-vote.

Sillness

[pavon]

Yay, lets all go sign a petition saying that we think a movie would be better when edited a certain way, when we have not seen either of the options, and have no idea which one really is better! Just like my public education taught me, "An uninformed opinion is better than no opinion at all" ;)

Seriously, where is the poll for letting Peter Jackson who is a much better director and producer than I will ever be, make the decision based on his expert opinion.

Re:Sillness

[MyMarty]

As for letting Peter Jackson decide for himself - who's betting that Saruman will be in the director's cut?

it WILL be on the EE

[dpilot]

So don't cave into the temptation to buy the August release, unless you want both versions. Quoth Scottie, "Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame on me." Anyone for three?

Re:it WILL be on the EE

[CrackHappy]

I have to... I'm such a goddamned hypocrite too.... I just cannot wait. I'm such an American consumer, always instant gratification...

*sigh*

Re:it WILL be on the EE

[dreadnougat]

Just rent it when you want to watch it before the EE comes out :)

Voting machines with paper trail? Here how!

[B.D.Mills]

Why don't they do the voting machines like this?

When a vote is cast, the machine punches holes in a paper card. The paper card is then transferred to a card reader and the vote on the card is read. If the vote read from the paper card matches the vote that was cast, the paper card is transferred to a secure box and the electronic vote is recorded. If the card cannot be read, it is destroyed, and the machine shuts down until someone can service it.

This simple technique creates a paper audit trail, and provides a backup method of tallying votes. Recounts actually become possible.

Re:Voting machines with paper trail? Here how!

[Talinom]

A friend of mine who lives in Florida made life difficult for people down there. Perhaps you know him. His name is Chad.

Re:Voting machines with paper trail? Here how!

[PurpleBob]

If the card cannot be read, it is destroyed, and the machine shuts down until someone can service it.

There's a good way to bring an election to a screeching halt.

Just stick unreadable cards into voting machines all over a precinct containing lots of voters whom you disagree with.

Re:Voting machines with paper trail? Here how!

[Anonymous Coward]

In my region, voting machines consist of marking who you voted for with a marker. Which is then scanned and dropped into a box. So computer + paper trail.

Also, for federal/provincial elections we still use good ole paper and pen.

Re:Voting machines with paper trail? Here how!

[DataCannibal]

No1 No! No! No! No!

No fucking machines !

Bits of paper where you make a cross on which are counted by people with other people watching. What's so cimplicated about that ?

Re:Voting machines with paper trail? Here how!

[Phroggy]

Wait, is he that guy who got pregnant?

Time better spent elsewhere...

[squiggleslash]

Hey, if it worked for Farscape, a television show with Alf at the wheel ... Dagrush writes "As you know, there was a slashdot story about how Saruman wa being cut from LotR:RotK. Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film. You can go here to add your name to the petition, as well as you comments. There are over 17000 signatures right now."

What about starting off by asking the Wachowskis to completely remake the Matrix sequels - with less Hollywood cliches and a bit more umpth.

Re:Time better spent elsewhere...

[bernywork]

Agreed. They had a certain amount of oomph to them, but they need to go back to how they were before they did the first matrix and rewrite the sequels.

The graphics in the sequels were brilliant, the amount of work that they put in I can't take away from them. I still liked the sequels, but they just weren't enough of a mind fsck like the first one was, and that I would have liked to have seen more, even if it meant having to wait years for it.

Berny

Re:Time better spent elsewhere...

[jdray]

Ah, once virginity is breeched, you can never have the experience again. All subsequent fsckings are somehow shadows of the first one.

Re:Farscape?

[Wraithlyn]

You must be new here ;)

Northern Exposure?

[gmhowell]

Ummm... Did you actually watch the last season of Northern Exposure? That series definately went on at least one season too long. I present this as evidence in support.

Compare with this.

Not every submission needs a pithy comment or lame headline.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[applef00]

Being from Washington state and having driven past Roslyn (the town where "Northern Exposure" was filmed) more times than I'd care to think about (granny lives in Yakima), I may be biased. But I really enjoyed it right up until the end. I think it remained funny and entertaining all the way through its run. Granted, the last season wasn't quite as good as the earlier seasons, but it was still a good show. Many, many series have a down year (or years) and don't get cancelled. Anyhow, just the opinion of someone who watches way too much TV.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[fermion]

The television world is full of shows that have gone on too long. There were many reasons to cancel these shows, either because a major character left, or the jokes got old, or the acting got lame, or the writing got lame.

Farscape is a good show. The fact that it was another rehash of a human bringing "superior" values to the ignorant races of the universe, and those western values it espoused were characterized as the values of earth, notwithstanding. I have seen most of farscape. It certainly needs closure, if not another season or two.

I would say that Northern Exposure had the advantage of being allowed closure. I would also say that the network did not take it too seriously and it caused the last season to be lame. I would also say that the story of a person being significantly changed by the places he or she goes, while still maintaining core values, is a much more interesting story and realistic story than the traditional western proselytizing.

OTOH, you evidence is pointless. Just because the group of readers feel that Farscape never had to "Jump the Shark" does not mean it didn't. And if farscape did not fall into this trap, does not mean that the writers really should have tried to pull a stunt to make the show survive. Perhaps not "jumping the shark" was an irresponsible or uncreative act on the part of the production team? Perhaps the stunts pulled on NE demostrated the care and commitment the production company had for the show?

Re:Northern Exposure?

[/dev/trash]

The last season is not to be mentioned by the True Hardcore fan lest it taints his memory of the other great seasons.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact that it was another rehash of a human bringing "superior" values to the ignorant races of the universe"

I never got that from Farscape. The only "superior" value he brought was compassion, and it's mainly the peacekeepers that lack that. Otherwise, the show usually revolves around the stupid, backward, physically inferior human who just happens to keep being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[gmhowell]

OTOH, you evidence is pointless.

My 'evidence' was a joke. You might want to ask the doc to up your medication.

And if farscape did not fall into this trap, does not mean that the writers really should have tried to pull a stunt to make the show survive.

Depends on the goal. Commercial success: maybe. Artistic success: definately not.

Perhaps not "jumping the shark" was an irresponsible or uncreative act on the part of the production team?

'Uncreative'?? Most of the 'creative' moves are so hackneyed and obvious that they fall into categories. Perhaps you remember the Poochie episode of the Simpsons? Adding a new character is not 'creative'.

Or... Maybe you took my joke and are running with it? Nah, too subtle for /.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[brainthought]

Northern Exposure was perhaps the best thing to come from CBS for the whole of the 1990's. It was sad to see it fall apart so bad when Rob Morrow's character (Fleischman)left, and the addition of the wholy uninteresting Paul Provenza (Dr. Capra) in the final season. Fleischman I could make a connection with, stranger in a strange land sort of dynamic. Capra was just sort of there. I mean, the great parts of the show were the ones where the town of Cicely was having somesort of community event of which Fleischman would have to be clued in to. Capra never seemed to care or even be involved really.

The worst part of it all though was the final episode, the events just didn't make since. Holling went into "rut", as we are told he does every year, which was never introduced before. Chris and Ed talk about how they used to sit around and drink beer, while the whole of the series remarks how Ed never drank and would even be the only person with milk on the table at Maurice's dinners.

I know i'm being a bit of a "fanboy" about this, but the rating were tanking in that final year and everyone knew it, so at least Northern Exposure got to have a final episode. Shamed they wasted the opportunity.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[Hoarke42]

In the same vein, I really hope the rumored Rocky sequel they're planning on doing will be called Rocky V.

Re:Northern Exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

My 'evidence' was a joke. You might want to ask the doc to up your medication.

ditto

Information Markets

[Del Mar]

I seem to remember a whole Exchange set up for Information Markets in John Brunner's, The Shockwave Rider. I wonder how John Brunner feels about that right now? Science Fiction as prophesy? Copywrite infringement? May DARPA should give him a cut?

Re:Information Markets

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how John Brunner feels about that right now? Science Fiction as prophesy? Copywrite infringement? May DARPA should give him a cut?

He's dead, Del.

DARPA and Brunner

[sbszine]

I'm reading John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider at the moment, and the DARPA Policy Analysis Market seems eerily similar to Brunner's idea of Delphi boards. Interestingly, in the novel the government manipulates the odds slightly in order to undermine dissent. People checking the Market for (rigged) odds of an event happening might conclude that a vote against the government or a protest against a controversial policy would be pointless.

Linkfest: look here here and here.

A joking quote, that's all :)

[timothy]

No one linked to the Strauss story said this; I wrote that headline in the mode of a baffled friend of coworker of his explaining this seemingly random vitriol, seeming ignorance of the Princeton computer community, etc. Sorta like "... it's always the quiet ones, isn't it?"

Sorry for any confusion.

timothy

Speed of the Judicial system in Australia

[chrome]

Wow, that was pretty fast.

Does the US operate that quickly? Or is it much slower?

In Japan, it would take about 3 years, if they even bothered to file suit.

Re:Speed of the Judicial system in Australia

[yerricde]

Does the US operate that quickly?

Look at how long this SCO malarkey has been going on.

A case of mass yellow journalism

[HarveyBirdman]

As you may remember, the former DARPA project, under retired admiral John Poindexter's office, was shut down after being roundly condemned by politicians on both sides, leading to Poindexter's resignation.

Possibly one of the single most misreported stories in the history of journalism. A potentially valuable and brilliant analysis tool was scrapped becase mankind is composed of mainly ignorant, spewing pustules masquerading as evolved bipeds. Most people I talked to thought it was an actual market for betting on terrorism. When I told them I knew one of the guys who did some early work on the idea, and that it was just a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats, they simply would not listen. Everyone just followed their ideological bias, and the truth be damned, as usual.

We have the most unrestrained press in civilization's history, and we're lucky if we can find an actual scrap of truth with a magnifying glass.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Loki_1929]

"Most people I talked to thought it was an actual market for betting on terrorism."

Let's see, people are staking on the uncertain outcome of future events, (betting) such as assassinations, coups, and bombings (terrorism). You know... that sounds a bit like betting on terrorism.

"a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats"

Ahh, yes, like a crystal ball for the masses! Listen, would you be at all offended if me and a couple guys 'set up a futures market' (bet) for "elusive human threats" to your family? You know, things like your kids being kidnapped, your wife getting murdered, your mother having a heart attack? Or more to the point, would you be offended if I collected my ten grand because some mugger killed your wife for $20 and jewelry?

When you bet (and that's exactly what it is) on things like bombings, you're betting on peoples' wives, sons, daughters, mothers, and friends dying horrible, senseless deaths. When you bet on a coup happening in, say, Jordan, you're betting on whether the freedom of millions of Jordanians disappears forever. There's a reason the program was dropped - the essence of what makes a human being a human being could'nt allow such repugnancy at the hands of elected and publicly-funded government. It's absolutely disgusting in the most horrifying sense of the word.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[fishbonez]

It was shut down because John Poindexter was running the project. Eveyone assumed they had run that ass clown out of town long ago. They were absolutely shocked that he had weaseled his way back into government and that he was once again associated with something that sounded untoward. No one was going to sit down and analyze the merits of the system itself. Johnnyboy has the permanent stench of scandal and everyone knew it. The administration quickly dumped him and the project as a result.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[qtp]

The administration quickly dumped him and the project as a result.

The administration dumped the propject because too many of thier own people were describing this as a "Terrorism Futures Market".

They dumped Poindexter because it turned out that some of the public actually remembered who that assfuck really is.

Now if the general public would realize that the only people who would hire people like Poindexter (convicted of fraud and conspiracy against the federal government in an act of supporting terrorism) and Rummsfeld (convicted of conspiracy against the federal etc) are cut from the same cloth, then perhaps we wouldn't have Bush in the White House.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[sammyo]

Yes, quite to the point. I wasn't sure I agreed with the methodology but the silliness surrounding the poor researchers was amazing. It seems the major initiative in the *war on terror* is to take nail scissors away from me as I board a plane. The one thing that worries me about the terrorists is the folks 'defending' me.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lord Omlette]

They weren't going to bet, they were going to speculate and/or hedge. ...

*cough*

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[cduffy]

Listen, would you be at all offended if me and a couple guys 'set up a futures market' (bet) for "elusive human threats" to your family? You know, things like your kids being kidnapped, your wife getting murdered, your mother having a heart attack? Or more to the point, would you be offended if I collected my ten grand because some mugger killed your wife for $20 and jewelry?

Actually, no, I wouldn't be upset about you collecting your $10K -- presuming, of course, that you hadn't actually had a hand in the event.

If the futures market in question was part of a program to prevent muggings such as that which harmed my wife, then the (very personal) example of the severity of the problem it seeks to resolve (ie. muggings) would make me even more of a supporter.

Maybe I'm missing some wiring -- but my "repugnant" sense isn't going of at all. The acts themselves, repugnant, no doubt. Being rewarded for effectively predicting them (and, in doing so, making it easier for efforts to prevent such acts to be effectively focused), though? I simply don't see (or feel in my gut) anything wrong with it at all.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[mcpkaaos]

and we're lucky if we can find an actual scrap of truth with a magnifying glass.

And so you come to Slashdot? That reminds me of an old saying. I think our esteemed President said it best: "There's an old saying in Tennessee--I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee--that says, fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled again."

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[HarveyBirdman]

I'll grant you that. Poindexter was the last person I would have chosen, management skills or not. I'd have found some unknown project manager with a decent record and ample experience.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[HarveyBirdman]

Congratulations. You're a perfect example of what I was complaining about.

It's absolutely disgusting in the most horrifying sense of the word.

What is? The yellow journalism, or the fact that you are STILL trapped in the fanatsy world it constructed? You haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, and you don't have a single scrap of the truth in you possession in this matter.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[HeghmoH]

Umm, there already exists a futures market for personal theats to life and limb, it's called insurance. Although kidnap and murder insurance is somewhat rare, health and life insurance is extremely common. Typically the payoff is different, the insurance companies collect when people don't get ill or die, but they're still betting on it.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[squaretorus]

Buying shares in an oil company moving into virgin territory, a drugs company pushing poorly researched drugs on 'test markets' or Monsanto-clones it just as much a bet on human suffering.

Buy shares in a Isreali tech company? South African diamond mine? michael jackson CD? alll potentially a similar thing. It just depends how wide you draw your circle of influence.

There are no black and white 'cross this line into evil' boundaries. I bought a pair of jeans from Gap this year - I feel bad about it. Some people will happily make 1000 homes income-less to improve their dividends next year without a second thought. Some people will bet on when the next 9-11 will happen and be disappointed when they get it wrong.

That said - I doubt too many people are sitting today thinking "fuck - should have had a few grand on an attack on british overseas interests this month"

Another point. I have life insurance so that if I die for some reason my dependents get a shitload of money. Its all grey!

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[saforrest]

When I told them I knew one of the guys who did some early work on the idea, and that it was just a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats, they simply would not listen. Everyone just followed their ideological bias, and the truth be damned, as usual.

As I understand it, the plan here was to use the fact that the stock market has a phenomenally good record at predicting sudden acts, even sudden individual acts. We've all heard of the blip on the stock markets on Sept. 10th, etc., etc.

The problem I see with actually betting on terrorism is that the exploitation is too obvious for people to behave normally. The stock market serves best as a predictive tool when the players are concerned about only one thing: profit.

As other posters have mentioned, one is potentially creating or abetting all kinds of human suffering across the globe when one plays the stock market. However, though I can deal with eating a burger, I don't particularly want to see the dead cow. Similarly, investors as a group are likely to feel a little uncomfortable betting on the next bombing on Israel, and this discomfort is going to interfere with their game.

There are two solutions: take the events being bet on and abstract them away to the point where investors don't really know what the hell they're betting on, or make investors more amoral.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[OwnedByTwoCats]

I bet on something tragic happening to human beings closest to me. I place this bet knowing that the house has an edge against me.

The house calls my betting "purchasing life insurance".

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[HarveyBirdman]

No, it was the *futures* market that was the model, and an entirely different animal that the basic stock exchange.

And, for the last goddamn blessed time (see what I mean about the yellow part of the journalism?), it was not someplace a person could actually wager real money on events. That was just the statistical model.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[saforrest]

And, for the last goddamn blessed time (see what I mean about the yellow part of the journalism?), it was not someplace a person could actually wager real money on events. That was just the statistical model.

Well, in that case, my argument still applies, but for a different reason: instead of of guilt interfering with the normal incentive for acquisition, there is no incentive for acquisition at all, because acquisition is simply impossible.

As some guy said in this Wired article, the whole of the predictive power of futures markets is the fact that money or reputation is on the line. If it isn't, the predictive power of the system is greatly diminished, if not gone entirely.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lars T.]

Or, even closer to the point, would he be offended if you collected those ten grand because you killed his wife to get those $10,000?

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lars T.]

And who would be better suited to effectively predicting those things than somebody with inside knowledge? So we'll have these people winning: the terrorists, the Mafia playing terrorists and CIA agents stuffing their pension funds instead of preventing those attacks.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[cduffy]

The terrorists win big only at the risk of revealing their identities and/or plans -- as they invest in cash in something they intend to do, they cause the price to rise, which informs the authorities to guard against that event (not to mention raising a huge red flag over the relevant investor). With regard to the mafia, the additional disincentive applies that the "killing-innocents" thing would be quite severely out-of-character. As for the spectre of CIA agents not doing their job, I'd expect that the risk of losing their pension plans would be more than sufficient disincentive to avoid attempting to augment them in a manner leaving them open to not only enforced unemployment but prosecution as well.

In any event, remember that this program only covered middle-east (as opposed to domestic) events; nobody could have used it to make money off the twin towers falling.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lars T.]

So how many CIA employees lost their jobs because they completely missed 9/11? And the Mafia would never kill innocents, sure.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[cduffy]

Would it be more convincing to you if I also pointed out that the US Mafia is typically fairly regional in operational scope -- and that the middle east is rather outside said scope? What if I reiterated that the Middle East the only place whose events this program was proposing to sell futures on? (And no, organized crime doesn't kill innocents much -- especially not on purpose. You want to argue that point? Go find data!)

"Completely missing" 9/11 is also much, much less severe than demonstrating that one believes some event likely (by investing in it) and still failing to respond to it professionally. I can think of at least a few criminal charges that would almost certainly apply; the DOJ's lawyers could no doubt do better.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lars T.]

Drugs. Period. (BTW with Mafia I'm not only talking about Italians or Italo-Americans, I gladly mix in the Triads, the Columbian drug cartells and all other organized crime, including WASPs)

And ignoring all evidence pointing to 9/11 cost more than 3000 lives. What's a couple of Arabs, Turks or old Europeans compared to ten grand on your bank account compared to that.

Last but not least, the CIA actually makes the Mafia look like a philantropic society, they have murdered hundreds of innocents and looked away on many thousands more. Including (very deadly) terror attacks to frame Communist terrorists. And they did drug traffic on a large scale.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[cduffy]

Okay, using your wider definition of OC, I'll grant your argument to the effect that several OC groups are not particularly intent upon avoiding civilian casualties. (I don't entirely agree with this -- civilian causalties are bad policy, as they tend to bring down law enforcement, and there's typically no need for them unless the civilian is in some way involved with said group -- and thus no longer a civilian).

I honestly know where you're going with the 9/11 / Arabs, Turks or old Europeans / $10K thing. Are you trying to take the perspective that CIA agents are highly corruptible? Sure, I'll gladly stipulate that point if you like -- but whether the CIA needs to be fixed is entirely irrelevant to whether a futures market is an effective means of predicting, and thus responding to, likely terrorist events.

Anyhow, you haven't responded to the more substantial point -- particularly, that for anyone to make a substantial amount of money off "predicting" a given future which they then cause to occur, they need to invest enough money in it to raise the price and, in doing so, bringing down scrutiny on themselves and heightening the security efforts intended to prevent the event. Hence, this market is unsuitable for any such unsavory group -- and could easily lead to the capture of those involved in an attack if they're so stupid as to use it.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lars T.]

A) You spread the money over several straw man.

B) For somebody willing to kill himself and others for free, $100 from the evil US government for the family is the icing on the cake.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[cduffy]

You mean "front men", not "straw men". Nonetheless -- any purchase that's large enough to make a substantial amount of profit is large enough to raise the price enough to get attention. Spreading out who put in the cash is only good to a point -- it means more people involved (who could possibly rat), more overhead (administrative and otherwise) and generally more hassle.

As for (B), what's your point? Financing a terrorist organization takes real money, not $100 here or there. If the organization only gets $100 out of an investment in its upcoming actions, then the time and risk involved are more expensive than the return.

And frankly -- do you expect this thing would be running without a quiet background investigation of those who place winning bets, particularly those who aren't known foreign policy analysts? If the paper trail is analyzed properly, the extra evidence that $100 winning results in (who *are* the front men for this organization, anyhow?) is more than worth the payout.

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[Lars T.]

straw man.

And, yeah, I must be imagining all those suicide bombers. They can't do it for free, it's not a good business model!

Re:A case of mass yellow journalism

[cduffy]

Ahh, yup -- that's a valid definition of straw man I was previously unaware of. Thanks.

And, yeah, I must be imagining all those suicide bombers. They can't do it for free, it's not a good business model!

The suicide bombers themselves may operate for free. A larger terrorist organization, however, most certainly doesn't. Acquiring weapons, fake documentation and passports, bribing law enforcement, recruiting -- all these things take money.

If terrorism didn't require funding, would you hear about the funds of those suspected of providing the multiple millions involved being frozen?

Open source at Princeton

[XiChimos]

I research in the CS department at Princeton, and am a member of many open-source development projects. So before somebody attacks the entire school, just know that most people GPL their work.

WinXP voting machines

[TomDLux]

Does anyone have a photo of a voting machien displaying the Blue Screan of Death?

Re:WinXP voting machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I can give you a photo of my linux box crashing if you want.

No, not really

[chriso11]

I'm not sure if you watched both versions of FOTR, but based on that alone I'm willing to sign a petition. Watching the theatrical release with the stupid stair-jumping in Moria annoyed me to no end. When I watched the extended version there were so many other scenes which added to story so much more than the stupid stair-jumping scenes. At that point, I viewed Peter Jackson's judgement as lame.

It's a shame you had to ruin your insightful post

[Anonymous Coward]

...with a malapropism -- in French, no less. The word is `ado,' jackass. `Adieu' is French for `goodbye.'

Please God don't do this

[Anthony Boyd]

Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film.

I'm afraid this will likely offend some of the hardcore LOTR fans, and they probably have mod points. But I have to put this as clearly and bluntly as possible: Peter Jackson is a better fucking director than you are. You'll get your 7 minutes on the DVD. The theatrical release will already be long. PJ has seen the footage, and you have not. For all of these reasons, leave him alone.

Re:Please God don't do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh, shit, he's right goddamn it. How can I take my signature back? Though still, I hate it when any director fucks with the book.

Re:Please God don't do this

[jfmiller]

Allow me to put this in More polite, but equally emphatic of terms:
J.R.R. Tolkien is a better author then Peter Jackson, especially of his own Trilogy!

JFMILLER

Re:Please God don't do this

[dvdeug]

J.R.R. Tolkien is a better author then Peter Jackson

Tolkien wrote books. He did not write a movie script. If you want the text of the books to scroll up your screen, there's programs to do that, and the text is out there. If you want a movie, on the other hand, then you need to accept that every word in the books won't literally appear on the screen.

Re:Please God don't do this

[HeghmoH]

And just in case you can't tell the difference between books and film: Peter Jackson is a better fucking director than J.R.R. Tolkien, even if he weren't already dead!.

Re:Please God don't do this

[Syberghost]

J.R.R. Tolkien is a better author then Peter Jackson, especially of his own Trilogy!

Three 10-hour long movies wouldn't have made it to theaters. Peter Jackson is a better director than J.R.R. Tolkien would have been.

Re:Please God don't do this

[Dinny]

Maybe, but that doesn't mean J.R.R. Tolkien is a good author. I think he had great ideas and an amazing to ability to build rich and involved world. But the man did not do the ideas into paragraphs and chapters thing very well. He is definatlly the worst author of material that I like.

If you really think Tolkien should be followed in this reguard what about the hours of elvish songs from all of the movies?

Re:Please God don't do this

[geekoid]

"Peter Jackson is a better fucking director than you are."

true, but he is still making the movies in a way that is a complete disservice to the books, and shows and utter lack of understanding of any of the intricasies and overall themes that take place.
He has turned important points into irrelevencies, turned a herioc character into a joke because he happens to be short, etc...

so, yeah, he is a etter director then me, but that doesn't make him a good one.

Farscape

[Samus]

Funny now that I look back on my TV viewing habits since Farscape got cancelled. I haven't watched anything with regularity on SciFi since. If I am looking for something on I don't even normally surf to the SciFi channel. Ever since they did that whole realignment away from space/scifi oriented shows I have ditched it. If Farscape came back to a venue like showtime I would actually subscribe just to watch it. I do however plan to watch the Battlestar Gallactica series they'll be running. That should be cool no matter how much they change it around.

Re:Farscape

[jdray]

That's interesting. I could post exactly the same text (including the .sig), because I find myself in the same situation. 'Course, that would get me modded -1:Redundant. Thbbttt...

Looks like Slashdotters like Saruman

[chad9023]

I just posted my signiture on the petition, looks like there's now over 34,000, double what was reported in the Slashback.

Remember Ed Felten?

[Goonie]

Professor Edward Felten is on the faculty at Princeton, and he's featured on Slashdot on a regular basis on DMCA issues (on the side of the angels).

Not to mention that there are three (IIRC) Turing Award winners at Princeton, amongst other leading lights of theoretical computer science. That, and when Princeton is sitting on a multi-billion dollar endowment, they don't really have to care all that much about what /. says about them :)

Re:Remember Ed Felten?

[back_pages]

That's good to know (and it is news to me.) I'm not suggesting that people at Princeton is crying over the coverage here at Slashdot, but rather that I'm sure the students would rather have their school's merits in the press (at Slashdot and elsewhere) rather than this Howard Strauss character.

It's not as though Princeton's reputation as a fine university is being seriously tarnished, but it is probably more tactful to keep the loose cannons in your own garage, if that makes sense.

Sadly...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty certain that many of these folks petitioning to bring back Saruman or Farscape probably do not vote in off-year elections. I hope I'm wrong.

Why not start a drive for changes that affect real people instead of whether a fellow appears in a movie? Ah, well...I guess I'll go see what's on my TiVo.

Re: Betting on terror.

[Artifakt]

When people bet on a non-terrorist event, isn't there still a chance of something tragic happening?
If I sell company X short in the stock market, isn't there a good chance that, if I make money, it correlates with a bunch of company X's employees being out of a job?
If I invest in an insurance company, aren't I 'betting' that the actuarial tables will be right often enough for me to make money? Hey, that sounds like I'm making my money from human misery. If your wife dies, and she's insured with company Y, then (theoretically) I have incentive to hope it was suicide, so her policy doesn't pay off. Surely it adds to your suffering if a representitive from that company checks on the cause of death, and you may find even the hint of it offensive. Why does society allow such a thing? (Retorical question - In some cases, it catches the "bereved" who slipped arsenic in her tea and is crying crocodyle tears, and that alone is a powerful incentive to allow it, just like we allow police or DAs to do some things we normally find offensive, like shouting, asking leading questions, or deliberately misquoting testimony in an attempt to catch a witness off balance, in the hopes of catching more criminals.)
The point is, I'm not causing that misery. My actions correlate with that misery, but correlation does not imply causation. Why is it OK for me to trade in normal futures or insurance, but not in this? I understand that you are offended by A but apparently not B, what I'm not seeing here is what makes A and B unequal, by your description. Or are you equally offended by people selling stocks short, or betting that a drought will push up the price of corn this fall.
In your example, one problem is apparent. If I fould out my recently kidnapped child had been the subject of a betting pool, I would have a strong suspicion that among you and that "couple of guys". someone had possibly done more than bet, but had acted to influence the odds of winning. However disgusting or horrifying I might find the bet, I'm pretty certain I would find the existence of a causative link a lot more disgusting and horrifying.
If it happened to me, my emotions would probably equate the two, but if it happened to someone else and I had to do jury duty should I listen to those emotions or to reason? I could sentence a kidnapper to death for the death of the victim. I don't think I could give two mooks who were betting on whether the victim would be found alive, in the hearing of the parents, a death sentence, no matter how stupid and insensitive they were. Yes I think what they were doing was wrong, but if I thought phrases like "most horrifying" and "absolutely disgusting" applied, then I could support most severe or absolutely maximum penalties.
I honestly deplore the idea of a speculative market ala John Poindexter's plan. I think it would be a bad thing. But your arguement isn't making the issues any clearer.

Voting machines and paper trails: an idea.

[Ironmaus]

Okay, so the idea behind electronic voting is to reduce time and lessen paper waste, right? But we don't want to totally eliminate a paper trail because that's fucking insane, right?

Why not have an electronic voting machine that spits out a register the size of an ATM-receipt. The voter can confirm their selections and drop it in the box on the way out the door. If a recount is necessary because the voting booth has turned into HAL-9000, we just flip through the receipts. Has no one come up with this idea before? Am I oversimplifying this issue?

Bzzzt, wrong, thank you for playing...

[IBitOBear]

In that scenerio (machine punches card, varifies punch, stores card) there are two flaws:

1) [trivial but obvious] proving that the physical card path works and "never" experiences an error. "Oh looky, I got it wrong, but the same internal corruption made the 'wrong' card not get diverted to the shreader so it went into the "good vote" box. I'll print another card, still wrong, repeat misroute. RESULT: 20 voters and 3000 ballots in recount box.

1a) [Same thing] but valid votes are lost because little paper routing thing gets stuck sending everything to shreader. RESULT: 20 voters but no ballots in recount box.

Lesson 1: printers *JAM* all the time, paper path handling is one of the *MOST* falable tasks in all of computer science.

2) [Earthshatteringly serious] If the error/exploit is in the code *BEFORE* the card punch activity, then the gaming of the election cant be caught because both the recount and the electronic version were tampered with uniformly. The recount box is just a double-thick lie.

Lesson 2: unless the person can see and check the recount tidbit via low-tech means (e.g. by reading it in daily human language), there is no *real* paper trail.

===

The answer that works:

0) All components must be open source so the equipment, and the recount equipment can be verified.

1) Full (touch screen/whatever) automated voting interface.

2) Said interface prints a card-stock ballot that has the name/issue voted for written/spelled out in english (spanish, whatever) in no uncertian terms and presents that card to the voter IN THE BOOTH.

2a) The card stock ballot also contains a bar-code/dot-region/magnetic ink/whatever machine-readable and key-signed representation of the entire ballot *with* a serial/uniquely generated number, and the voter station software version and checksum in the signature.

2a) THE BALLOT SIGNATURE WILL CONTAIN THE CHECKSUM FOR THE BALLOT INPUT FILE. (we don't want to see "well of course Bush won, in one third of the machines in half of florida, the ballot source datafile didn't mention Gore so they couldn't vote for him on those machines.")

3) The interface asks "is your ballot correct?"

3a) if you say no, the ballot is recorded with its number in the "disparaged ballot at this station" database and the IN BOOTH SHREDER (or at least disposal slot) is used (preferably with scanner to validate that the ballot was, in fact, discarded.)

3b) If you say yes, the machine directs you to take the ballot to the ballot box and stores the ballot information in the "valid ballot from this station" database.

4) Over at the ballot box, the valid ballot is scanned into the "valid ballot at this box" database and then deposited into the locked box.

5) A voter may return to any voting station prior to actually casting their vote into the ballot box, with that ballot printed but not cast and scan-and-shred it, which will make the necessary disparaged ballot record and allow the voter to make their new ballot.

WE THUS BENEFIT FROM THE FOLLOWING CHECKS AND BALANCES:

A) Total number of ballots printed should match total number of ballots disparaged plus total number of ballots cast.

B) Valid Vote tallies from the individual stations should match Valid Vote tallies from the ballot boxes.

C) Each paper ballot is key-signed so its contents can be veried as valid at the machine readable level.

D) Simple recounts would consiste of rescanning, a full audit recount would consist of scanning the ballots in a machine which is programmed to recreate on the display what the ballot should have printed on it. (So a human can read both the screen and the paper to verify that what was printed in words matches what was printed in machine readable format.)

E) While there will end up being some irregularities because of things like a person voting at the station but then not depositing their ballot, and some slack will be added to the system, anyth

Editorial Comments

[descil]

"Farscape, a television show with Alf at the wheel"

While Farscape is a little ... odd, it's obviously interesting to the /. community, or it wouldn't be part of the so-called "news" that's published here.

So don't bash it, k? It's just your personal opinion; if you want to make a personal comment about Farscape or anything else, why don't you post a comment to your own story? Powertripping might be fun, but it's rather unprofessional.

Re:Editorial Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I really didn't expect to get flamed by someone(who? oh well...) for that one.

But I'm a sucker, so I'll fall for the obvious bait.

Does it ever suck that you have nothing better to do with your time than insult losers? Nobody wants to read our little argument.

-Descil (posted as AC so nobody has to read it)

Re:Editorial Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Au contraire. I love pointless little arguments between vapid positions. But yours smacks more of the "don't ever offend anybody" speech police, so you win the moron contest.

Re:Editorial Comments

[HeghmoH]

Get real. Both the editors and story submitters splatter their personal opinions all over everything they write. But of course this only bothers you when they do it to your favorite show, right? Take a deep breath and remember that it's just pixels on your screen....

Re:Editorial Comments

[njak]

Maybe if you had bothered to watch more than the first episode or two, you would have seen it was a show for intelligent, selective viewers with a sophisticated sense of humor. It requires a high level of education necessary to understand the writing and an attention span to follow the story from week to week. It's not your father's scifi and it certainly is NOT StarGate where you can tune in every 2-3 weeks and keep up.

The campaign to get the show back succeeded BECAUSE of the type of viewer the show attracted.

And believe me, Alf would not have lasted 2 seconds on this show before someone would have blown him to smithereens or cooked him for dinner.

Yum, Alf stew! Better than any food cubes available in the Uncharted Territories.

Re:Editorial Comments

[HeghmoH]

Your comment would make sense if I hadn't ever watched Farscape. But in fact I watched Farscape fairly religiously for about two years. The difference between us is not that you watched Farscape and I didn't; the difference is that I have the maturity not to blow up any time somebody I don't even know makes a joke at the expense of something I like. It is possible to both like a show and not go crazy every time somebody makes a bad comment about it.

Only two, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Tarjan and Andrew Yao.... A seriously theoretical bunch.

Re:Only two, I think

[Goonie]

I stand corrected...I (mistakenly) thought Brian Kernighan also received a Turing Award. Of course, in the "well-known CS people at Princeton list" there's also Sedgewick, whose algorithms textbook is one of the most popular introductory textbooks on the topic.

Re:Only two, I think

[Ivan Raikov]

I stand corrected...I (mistakenly) thought Brian Kernighan also received a Turing Award. Of course, in the "well-known CS people at Princeton list" there's also Sedgewick, whose algorithms textbook is one of the most popular introductory textbooks on the topic.

Let's not also forget that Turing himself got his Ph.D. in Princeton, and some of the most brilliant mathematicians and computers scientists of the century worked there at one point or another.

paper trail

[spnbs]

Funny that this should appear today. Just a half hour ago, I was sitting in a room listening to a talk by Rebecca Mercuri, one of the big names in Electronic Voting theory. She even talked about the Fairfax situation. You wouldn't believe the horror stories she had to tell about electronic voting.

But anyways, it's not enough that there be a paper trail. The trail needs to be voter verified. That is, the voter must be able to inspect the paper record that the machine creates to make sure it is accurate. Of course, this isn't all. You also want to make sure that the paper is in the vote counting critical path (ie, the machine isn't printing one thing but recording something else which is used to do the counting). One way to do this is to perform all counting using optical recognition on the paper trail. There are other more complicated ways to do this as well, but the simplier the better. After all, your average American needs to be able to trust that his/her vote is counted. With the current crop of black box voting machines, this just isn't possible.

Strauss article infantile and baseless

[Ars-Fartsica]

I have read his article a few times now and still can't see what point he is trying to express. His basic argument seems to be:

Oh heaven forbid you can actually get good software for free!

So what of it? He makes no useful statements about the quality, support, or costs of any of the software in question. My thinking is that he is probably a moron (look at what he does for a living) who gets his kicks writing vapid screeds for non-publications.

Farscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, just put a bullet in it already. I'm so weary of the constant whining.

Get over it. No one watched it.

Very weak clarification by Princeton

[InodoroPereyra]

It is really striking how it took them so long to emit such a weak statement. They would have been better off saying that Howard Jones did only speak by himself, and that Princeton uses and develops open source software.

First of all: they present a dichotomy between commercial and open source software. Commercial as opposed to open source. This is plain wrong. JBoss is commercial and open source. RedHat too. SuSE, Mandrake, God, should I keep listing ? They meant to say proprietary vs. open source. The problem is, thy are implying that open source cannot be commercial, and this is a dangerous misunderstanding.

Second error: they imply that proprietary software usually offers better support (though some times it is the other way around). They definetly don't understand the open software model, but they should get informed before writting an official letter. In the open software model, support, customization and services is pretty much all you can sell. And that's where you put your effort.

Finally, an academic institution should prefer, if at all possible, an open source / free software solution rather than a proprietary solution. Why ? Because it is built with an open, peer reviewed method, which is really what the academia is all about. They choose, instead, the classical use the best tool for the job motto, that seems to more appropriate for a commercial company than for a University.

As I said, pretty weak clarification IMHO ...

Re:Very weak clarification by Princeton

[GarfBond]

Small things to pick with you at.

In the course of actually running the University, as in stuff that might be used entirely by staff and administration (e.g. people who have no interest in open source and just want their desktops to work), then the "best tool for the job" is a perfectly fine line of reasoning. I agree with you though, that open source just jives better with academic philosophies though, and probably should be used as much as is reasonably possible (e.g. if you need something to work *now* and OSS doesn't do it (yet) then by all means go find some closed source stuff). Academia is all about sharing knowledge anyway.

Re:Very weak clarification by Princeton

[Syberghost]

SuSE, Mandrake, God, should I keep listing ?

It's not spelled "God", it's spelled "Debian".

No, I'm New Here

[New Here]

No, I'm New Here

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Wraithlyn]

LOL.. what, do you go around looking for "You must be new here" comments to pounce on? ;) Welcome to Slashdot, in any case. :)

Petition

[Tom7]

There are over 17000 signatures right now.

Given that the movie will be released Dec 17, I don't think so!

Not surprising.

[blair1q]

How could the home of the 8-tab root password hate "open" anything?

not a forum..

[Suppafly]

[QUOTE] Have Found this tuesday in the South China Morning Post. Microsoft always get what it want Lee [/QUOTE]

BBCode doesn't work here.. sorry.

Information Markets won't work

[nutshell42]

This information markets are the most stupid thing I've ever heard. To get rich on the stock market you don't try to predict what the future is going to look like, you predict what others think that the future is going to look like.

I don't think anyone here doubts that SCO's going to be in the gutter in a year or two the latest but to get rich we should have bought their stock nevertheless.

If information markets will be as reliable at foretelling the future as the stock market is today why don't we simply roll a die instead?

Talking about LOTR....

[waitigetit]

After seeing Matrix Revolutions, it struck me how similar the story is to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, almost to the point of plagiarism. I'll list the most striking similarities:

- In both movies the enemy threatens to completely eradicate the entire world of free men.
- Two lovers (ok maybe not) go straight into to the heart of enemy territory, while their friends are fighting the real battle elsewhere.
- Saviour motif. Both feature the protagonist sacrificing themselves to save the world.
- Those mountains near Machine City with the thunderstorms around them. Mordor anyone?
- Sentinels and orcs are both mindless subhuman cannonfodder, too dumb and incompetent to do any actual harm to any of the protagonists. Both can be killed without any consideration or remorse whatsoever.
- The totally superfluous lovestory thrown in.
- Both movies advocate the use of child soldiers "if it's really important."
- Similar taglines: "This Christmas the journey ends" vs. "Everything that has a beginning has an end"
- The personification of the enemy in the form of a big eye.
- The protagonist basically fights the enemy with it's own weapons, and is heavily confused about this.
- They are both epic trilogies, and are produced at around the same time. This is of course pretty much a given, but it reminds me how a lot of spectacular blockbuster movies have some sort of cheap knock-off twin at the same time: for instance Twister/Night of the Twisters, or Gladiator/The Arena.
- Hugo Weaving. "Welcome to Rivendell Mr. Anderson". Or possibly "Hobbits... are a disease". His contempt for men seems similar in both movies.

Re:Talking about LOTR....

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Joseph Campbell. The epic format tends to have certain structural elements that are built right in, and I think that if you dig hard enough, you will always find them in these sorts of stories. That said, it's interesting that epics have become popular again.

there's one problem with that...

[Firehawk]

J.R.R. Tolkien is already dead and can't have any more say in the production of the movie based on his books...

Just pointing out the obvious ...

Re:It's a shame you had to ruin your insightful po

[3.5 stripes]

Exactly, like shakespear would have written anything in french.

wait just a minute...

[maxpublic]

Let me get this straight: copyright violation is a criminal, not a civil, offense in Australia? Did I miss something from the article?

Max

*Seven* minutes of Saruman?!

[MilenCent]

Let's see, if memory serves Saruman has a substantial role to play at the very end of Return of the King, but there's also some unfinished business with him at the end of The Two Towers which would have been pushed into the third movie, which is more central to the plot I guess since it helps focus Sauron's attention on the wrong hobbit.

So:
1. Before edits: 7 minutes of Saruman.
2. After edits: No Saruman at all.

I'm guessing that either way we're not going to get the Scouring of the Shire, which is one of my favorite parts of the trilogy, seeing as it takes place after Sauron's actual defeat and as we all know, the end of the movie must take place as soon as possible after the death of the bad guy.

And what about the appendices?? Please tell me that they're leaving all those wonderful goodies about the Red Book and the line of Aragorn and Galadrial's implied dwarf fetish!

Re:*Seven* minutes of Saruman?!

[RasputinAXP]

I'm guessing that either way we're not going to get the Scouring of the Shire

NO. NO WE'RE NOT.

DOES THIS HAVE TO BE REITERATED EVERY TIME SOMETHING COMES UP ABOUT ROTK?

I mean, seriously, people. We've been told that the Scouring isn't going to be in the movie for...oh, three years now. Three years is a long time. Long enough for people to find out that the Scouring isn't in the movie, at least.

Or you'd think they'd figure it out by now.

Re:*Seven* minutes of Saruman?!

[MilenCent]

To reply in kind:

YES. YES IT DOES HAVE TO BE REITERATED WHEN I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT.

You see, I don't go to RotK fansites, movie gossip sites, entertainment news sites, or however many variations of Ain't It Cool News as there almost certainly are.

I *do* go to Slashdot, granted, there's a certain simularity there, but I don't typically read every comment about LotR movies.

I vigorously stand up for my right to be ignorant, for those oh-so-blissful few moments during the calm before the marketing storm, about the contents of multi-zillion dollar fantasy epics, sci-fi trilogies, action movies, etc. I will never equate "writing for those who know intimate details of upcoming film inclusions" with "writing for a general audience," and I hate to say it, but I kind of resent the implication that I have to have some kind of advanced degree in ReturnKingology in order to write about the damn --yes, damn-- movie. I thought the time I put into my undergrad, during which I tackled the Silmarillion to the great expense of my social life, took care of that.

In any case, I thought the whole post was a thinly-veiled attempt to allude to some elf queen/dwarf nookie. I feel no love from this room.

That's nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't remember, Frodo visited Gondor on his way to Mordor in the movie Two Towers. The lack of Saruman is nothing compared to this ridiculous change.

ROTK

[forkboy]

Just wait for the extended edition DVD to come out. You know they'll have the material on it.

FYI, some limited locations on the day of the release of RotK, are playing the extended edition of all three movies back to back. You might get to see your 7 minutes there.

I think you've misread how to abuse the system

[fizbin]

The standard argument against the market goes like this:

See, I'm not worried about the person who collected some money because their bet against me or my family happened to pay off. I'm worried about the person who just "lost" the $10,000 that they had put up to back the bet.

Think about it: suppose I don't like, say, the King of Jordan. Suppose I make it very profitable for someone if he should die before the end of the year. Essentially, I've managed to hire an assassin, without having to deal with all that messy money laundering stuff

Except, of course, that this won't quite work because if I began to sell suspiciously low-priced options against his majesty's continued longevity, the options would quickly be bought by a large number of speculators with the effect of distributing the payout far and wide. It would be easy in a system like this to guarantee that if I wanted a certain leader to die, in the event of an assassination, I would lose a large amount of money. It would be very hard, however, to concentrate the money gained so that an assassin could be paid for out of my monetary loss. (This is the effect of open trades combined with standardized and small contract sizes)

I happen to think that a better argument against the market is that it wouldn't actually produce any useful information (magical belief in "the power of markets" notwithstanding, markets can't aggregate information that isn't there) and would antagonize foreign leaders to the detriment of the US's diplomatic interests.

But Jackson wouldn't need to alter the movie.

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . it's way too late in the production process now to make such a change.

Seven minutes is about the right length for a "cartoon" before the main feature. Presented that way, we'd all get to see it, but it wouldn't mess up the pacing/continuity of the movie itself.

purple color scheme...

[ProfKyne]

Why was this filed as an "Apache" article?

Let's end this thread here.

[cduffy]

There are lots of people making better counterarguments to your original post than me. Frankly, I'd rather see those arguments answered rather than draw this praticular discussion thread on further.

Petition update

[taernim]

Over 41,000 signatures now for the LoTR: RoTK petition!