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Slashback: Hollywood, Commons, Misidentification
Keeping America strong by making mislabeling the problem! It really isn't too late to avoid the worst of the Real-ID Act, and Bruce Scheier's essay on it should be required reading.
Needs more cowbell! c1one writes "In an update to the story Trent Reznor Challenges Music Norms, there has been an "Unofficial The Hand that Feeds Remix Contest." The contest has produced an extreme range of styles, from Hip-Hop to HeeHaw and even a few lounge versions, to name a few. The point though, is that after listening to almost 400 remixes, some of the tracks rival the level of professionalism and creativity found on some of the "official" halo releases. The contest deadline was 5/5/05 and voting by 20 appointed international judges ranging from a Berklee College of Music graduate and various studio engineers to a former Nothing Studio's intern has commenced. They will determine a top ten list using the "nine inch rating scale" that should be available to entertain and to vote on soon."
Graceful reactions are worth emulating. Author Will Iverson writes with a reaction to Simon Chappell's review of his book Apache Jakarta Commons :
"Hi Guys!
I would just like to respond regarding the Slashdot review as posted:
So... I don't know how negatively the review was influenced by the inclusion of the Apache material, but it is entirely above-board per the Apache license and essentially reciprocal - I'm giving the material in the book back to the community via a free license to download the material.
- The book itself is published under an open license - the material in the book will be available as a free electronic download in a few months.
- Yes, the last 125 pages *is* (for all intents and purposes) the printed javadoc. This was included at the request of the publisher, and it is valuable for some people.
Oh, and as an FYI, book writing is hardly a cash cow - I only wish. ;)
Cheers & best wishes,
Will Iverson
A classic case of Americans all looking alike. Of the post "German Robot Dogs Dominate 2005 RoboCup U.S. Open," Ethan Tira-Thompson writes "The linked article has it wrong -- the German team played CMU, not UT Austin. Major screwup on the AP's part, but they don't say who wrote the original article! "
Here's an excerpt from the team's CMU team's announcement:
From: Manuela Veloso Date: May 10, 2005 2:51:14 PM EDT To: scs-all@cs.cmu.edu Subject: US Open Champs :-)Hi,
We won the RoboCup US Open, in the AIBO league. We played UPenn in the final and won 2-1 in overtime. UPenn (Dan Lee) and UT Austin (Peter Stone) came second and third, playing very well and very close to us. They are great teams. Our team, CMDash'05 still has a long way to go to better prepare for the Internationl RoboCup in Japan in July :-)
Please congratulate the complete team for the USOpen victory:
Sonia Chernova, team leader, CSD PhD student, robot behaviors, motion learning Colin McMillen, CSD PhD student, teamwork, networking, goalie Paul Rybski, RI PostDoc, state estimation, multi-robot world modeling, behaviors Juan Fasola, CSD junior, vision, defender, behaviors, motion Felix vonHundelshausen, CSD PostDoc, vision Alex Trevor, CSD senior, vision Sabine Hauert, exchange CS Master student from Switzerland, localization, behaviors Raquel Ros Espinoza, visitor from Barcelona, behaviors, vision
and with the help at the Open of the veterans: Doug Vail, CSD PhD student, vision James Bruce, CSD PhD student, vision, motion"
Hey, they got most of it right. A Harvard Crimson story linked from a Slashdot post headlined "Mathematicians Become Hollywood Consultants" described Jonathan Farley, a math professor who co-founded a consulting agency to help Hollywood get mathematics right in movies an television shows. Farley wrote to point out that his neither a Harvard post-doctoral fellow nor a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, writing "I am not and never have been either. (I am a tenured professor elsewhere and have been for several years.) This was an incorrect statement initially made by poor reporters at the Harvard University student newspaper. " Farley points to this Boston Globe story which gets it right.
A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.
WAY TO GO SLASHDOT!
No longer are duplicate stories enough. Nor are duplicate stories on the same day or within the same hour. No, NOW WE DUPLICATE THE STORY WITHIN ITSELF!
Congratulations!
Please lets keep down the "your papers please" posts, these ID's will have RFID, 'they' will be able to check you papers anytime, anyplace. I'm sure putting your ID in an anti-static bag to prevent reading will not be very popular with 'the man.'
;)
And by the way, I grow more fond of my sig at every posting.
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
"It really isn't too late to avoid the worst of the Real-ID Act, and Bruce Scheier's essay on it should be required reading."
Yes, definitely! I really like the points he makes, such as that REAL ID is bad because:
- Real addresses on all cards, even for undercover police officers
- Insecure RFID technology allowing unauthorized access
- Machine readable = ATM > 7-11's Database > Choicepoint > Spammers and Identity Theifs
- Expensive ($120 million estimated per state!) and unfunded! The last thing we need are more deficits!
- Power grab by national government
And the best of all, besides it probably decreasing security:
- Polls overwhelmingly show no one wants it! And over 600 organizations oppose it!
Now, if that doesn't sound like a completely botched-up job, I don't know what is.
"Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write it should be hard to understand."
REAL ID requires that driver's licenses contain actual addresses, and no post office boxes. There are no exceptions made for judges or police -- even undercover police officers. This seems like a major unnecessary security risk.
Yeah, because everybody know that undercover police officers take their real ID papers with them under cover. [/sarcasm]
If there's a need to keep the address of judges and police officers secret, then allow them to list FAKE addresses, or rather an address that is re-routed through a mail screening service. Don't allow any Tom, Dick, and Harry to list their address as
Box 5, Jean Climax' Barber, Maildrop and Internet Café.
REAL ID also prohibits states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens. This makes no sense, and will only result in these illegal aliens driving without licenses -- which isn't going to help anyone's security.
How does that make no sense? Like, knowing who people are before giving them identification? If they drive so horribly without a license, what would make them try to get one?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Just a comment. I wanted to say how much I enjoy reading the stories posted on Slashdot, and participating in the interesting discussions. People express lot of different points of view that I never would have thought of on my own.
Just a comment. I wanted to say how much I enjoy reading the stories posted on Slashdot, and participating in the interesting discussions. People express lot of different points of view that I never would have thought of on my own.
I presume that all of the REAL ID attributes that are applied to driver's licenses are also applied to state identifications? I have not seen that addressed anywhere.
See, I have a problem with that. Driving is a privilege and not a right. If you don't want to participate, just don't get a license and don't drive. However, existing is not an option and to do anything (get a library card, bank account, internet access, rent an apartment, get a job) you have to have an identification card.
So the only way to avoid the requirements of this REAL ID thing is to remove yourself entirely from the technological, social and economic grids. You won't be able to live anywhere, buy anything or work anywhere. So as long as you can do without that, you'll be okay.
The dupes just keep getting closer together, don't they? The dupes just keep getting closer together, don't they?
No, the answer is simpler than that. You see, they are running Linux, which runs X-Window. In X, you select some text and click the middle mouse button on another window to paste your selection. However, the mid-button is less used than the left one, so the contacts get dirty. When they clicked the mid button, the dirty contacts bounced and registered two clicks, so the selected text was pasted twice.
Write your GOVERNORS people! The national association of governors isn't a fan of the act and they want to protest it. WRITE YOUR GOVERNOR!!!!! it may still be able to be stopped
Yes, states and the federal government are both funded by taxes, but they are different pools of money from different sources. The federal tax base consists primarily of funds collected via the federal income tax, with small amounts coming from import tariffs and the like. States each choose how to raise money and usually have their own income taxes, but those are usually much lower and supplemented by sales taxes and possibly property taxes (although property tax tends to go to municipalities, at least it does where I'm from).
In any case, the reason unfunded mandates matter is because the federal government effectively tells the states how to spend their money, irrespective of any budgetary plans each state might have. In effect, the federal government gets to claim it's being more fiscally responsible than it really is because these expenditures aren't showing up on its balance sheet, while the states incur extra debt. Worse, the burden of a program like REAL ID will vary by state; those states with relatively sophisticated driver licenses probably won't have to spend as much on compliance as other states.