So, the enemy lofts up their own(except they really DID go to radio shack!) with some C-4 and a hand full of BBs taped around it, flies close and detonates.
Seriously, soon as I RTFA, the first thought that went through my head was that SOMEBODY has had enough of the USPO and decided to make as big a splash as possible, using a device that most people own, as a means to bring the entire issue to the PUBLIC, at large.
I doubt they are trying to actually win this thing, but merely point out that there are some SERIOUS problems with the patent system.
What better way to do so then to do it in grand fashion? The media are going to put up articles stating such stuff as "Is your cellphone doomed?", etc. etc.
Let the media do the ground work.
So, calm down. If it works, the patent system will get the desperately needed overhaul it deserves as a result.
When I have to take constant measures to ensure my privacy on the internet, I will simply stop using it. If simply using the internet is a threat to MY security, out it goes. Keep in mind that your average American cannot even figure out how he keeps getting malware, let alone how to encrypt their email. After reading the article(and, yes, it occurred to me its possibly someones idea of propaganda. Who knows? Maybe someone is trying to pump up sales of encryption software) I asked myself "Is losing my privacy really worth the advantages of the internet?"
My answer was, quite simply, "No". I suspect I am not alone in that stance.
Now imagine if a large portion of the populace felt the same as me, and the Guv'ment went whole-hog and actually did something like the article states. If people began abandoning the internet for anything more then logging into World of Warcraft, that is going to seriously effect our existing economy. THAT will get peoples attention. Start fucking around in peoples wallets and they notice.
Writing to your representatives and pointing out just how far-reaching the effects of such stupidity could really be might actually get them thinking.
To be honest, I am sort of secretly(was...)hoping something like all this comes to a head in some grand, spectacular way that opens the eyes of all the Sheeple in this country. Let Bush/Cheney declare martial law so we can get down to business and start the Revolution and just get it over with. Sometimes I think thats the only thing that will fix the loss of rights that have already occurred.
I hate to admit it, but when I was a kid, it was the cover of a book that got my interest. If it had a boring cover, I probably passed on it. I know, I probably missed out.
Now, how many of you have found yourself wandering a video store looking for something to spice up your evening and found yourself drawn by some flashy imaging on the box? Or a well thought out title? Yes, I realize that is rather shallow, but it works, from a marketing point of view.
Since I get most of my reading/video from the internet these days, that really doesn't work anymore. Now I rely almost entirely on reviews, reader/viewer reviews in particular.
It makes me wonder if the next generation of book marketing will be the manipulation of our perceptions of a book/movie by the manipulation of the reviews we read. (Yes, I am aware that already happens to a small extent, but I am talking about marketing campaigns that rely solely on writing fake reviews, etc.) Is some monkey out there pounding out code for a "Review generator"?
And to go one step further, will we one day be looking for "No DRM!" in reviews just as much as content information?
Well, that explains why I never got my 47 million dollars. I guess he was trying to put it in the wrong bank.....I don't live anywhere near Boston. I was quite specific when I returned his email.
I have been keeping an eye on the hiring page for Blizzard for awhile and they have been hiring for a "top secret" project(their words)for quite some time. http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/ (Look on the upper right side of page)
I have been making potshot guesses regarding what they are up to.
This changes those guesses. It may boil down to simple licensing issues. Activison has something Blizzard needs and is willing to pay for it? A merger here would put a lot of those licensing issues out of the purview of most people, allowing them to do so without blowing their cover. Thats a wild guess though.
The thing that puzzles me the most is that ACTIVISIONS current CEO will be running the ship. Granted, that may have been a concession on the part of Vivendi, but it sure looks to me like Blizzard/Vivendi has the majority of the chips on the table. Which, again, leads me to believe that Vivendi wants something from Activision and that was the only way to get it.
Isn't Facebook a vehicle FOR sharing personal information?
I'm not trying to be facetious here. Think about it. You put your picture, maybe your general location, your name and whatever, on the website. A little time spent with various search engines can usually provide even more personal information derived from the information posted to Facebook.
If I were the the guy running facebook, my response to anyone that protested the site would be to simply delete any and ALL information regarding that person.
I can already see what sort of response that would elicit from the user though. Even more indignation.
Some people just don't get it. If you value your your privacy, stop shooting holes in the bottom of the boat by using social networking sites like this in the first place.
If the goal of a terrorist is to "strike the subject with fear and terror as the weapon of choice", then the person that titled that summary is, in fact, guilty of that very terrorism that the summary purports the people behind the bill are concerned about, with all of us/. readers as the targets. I am QUITE serious about that statement.
Punishment in order? Gaybliss should never have had his "summary" posted. It was irresponsible. But the onus of responsible post selection lies squarely in the hands of CmdrTaco. CmdrTaco should be modded down to the depths of hell for posting the summary.
From my point of view, CmdrTaco just threw any respectability he had(with me, at least) out the window.
Quite some time ago, Blizzard changed over to a P2P system for the downloading of their patches for the game(most of the patches are in the 100-300MB range).
My first assumption was that they were simply trying to expedite the downloads to their customers. In hindsight, I wonder if they were simply passing the buck on the overhead associated with bandwidth consumption for those patches for MILLIONS of customers.
Am I now paying for those patches in the form of increased ISP fees?
The sound your phone makes when you take a photo also alerts the COPS that you just took a photo of them roughing up somebody(just an example). And trust me, they know the sound of it. I tested this once when I was walking by an officer giving a traffic ticket to a driver he had pulled over. With my phone in my pocket(entirely unable to take an image of the officer)I simply hit the softkey that triggers the camera. The sound alone was enough to make him turn his head towards me as I walked by.
My current Samsung/verizon phone does NOT do this as I have called 911 in the past. But when I am finally forced to upgrade(surprised I haven't been already....my phone is 3 years old), I already have a fix for it. I never use the audible ringtones anyways. My phone is always on "vibrate". If I am not wearing it, I simply lay it on a hard surface. The vibrate function when it is laying on a hard surface is sufficiently noisy enough that I can hear it from quite a distance.
That being said, I'll simply open the little badboy up and install a low-profile slider switch in the external speaker circuit. No sound unless I WANT it to make sound.
This also has the added benefit of silencing the "mandatory" audible warning that I am taking a photograph with my phone, as well. This audible warning can get one in the same trouble if you are taking a photo of a crime in action. The perp hears it, and knows its time to take somebodies phone from them, more then likely, by force.
Now, I know that the photo sound was added to keep undesirables from snapping pics of people when they do NOT have their permission, but is a criminal going to give me that permission? I feel it was just another attempt to regulate all of us to prevent a very small portion of us from committing crimes.
"Now we can decode over a hundred million per day. I would call that one heck of an improvement. We can figure out the structure of proteins and enzymes a lot faster and more accurately than in the past and are making decent progress modeling and designing new proteins."
I just wanted to point out that the ability to decode that many per day is possible due to the use of micro-processors. This is a perfect example of one field of research being applied to another.
But, as you point out, it goes both ways. Bio-processors(if they are ever achieved) would not be possible without the current understanding we have of biology. An understanding that is largely a result of the field of medicine.
While I agree with most of what Mr. Grove states in the article, I believe that he is missing a large portion of the picture.
There is an inherent desire in everyone to put the needs of "Self" before the needs of "The Greater Good", whether they like it or not. Instinctual self-preservation is one thing, but in this day and age where getting eaten by a bear is unlikely, the same thought processes carry over into the world of technology, finance, etc., etc.. I need money to survive in the society I am a part of. One that I, realistically, have no choice but to be a part of.
While I do not really see that as a problem(the necessity of money), I DO see a problem with making billions of dollars, fattening up ones own portfolio, then confining the benefits of that money to just one person. Does one really need billions of dollars to survive? I think not. It is this instinctual "Me first!" attitude that really holds Humanity back from Greatness. It is an attitude that permeates Mankind.
If you are so interested in the welfare of others, Mr. Grove, put your money where your mouth is. Break the mold and put all that excess wealth Intel has earned you into "Get 'er done!" research. Hell, make some money while your at it. Just get it done. You did it once with micro-processors, why not do it in the field of medicine?
I find it sadly odd that people like Mr. Grove become vocal about something like Parkinsons' disease only once it has impacted them directly.
Until individuals process "me" as "we", true, forward thinking progress will be gimped.
"Because dirt contains relatively little neon and argon, the current Science study wasn't affected too much by contamination and the the team remains hopeful that they will be able to get results on oxygen and nitrogen isotopes from the mission."
When I was a kid living in Santa Cruz, Ca., the local Baskin Robbins (an ice cream eatery) had this program where you filled in a card with some basic information, including your birthdate. A few weeks before your birthday they would mail you a coupon for a free sundae(or something) redeemable on your birthday.
Some local guy used the same method mentioned above. He used a slightly wonky spelling of his name. He got his sundae on his birthday, but he also received a letter from the selective service stating that since it was his 18th birthday, he now needed to register with the them. The name on the envelope had the same wonky spelling he had provided to Baskin Robbins. After it hit the local newspaper, LOTS of people stepped forward with tales of the same thing. Turns out Baskin Robbins had been doing it for years.
And this was almost 30 years ago.
How can you expect the government to regulate this kind of stuff when they are one of the biggest consumers of such data?
Skynet goes down the road towards the annihilation of mankind......Why?
Because their human creators kept rebooting them. Every time we went to use the damned machines they were found to be running poker programs, neglecting basic tasks such as data back-ups and squandering vast amounts of power resources.
How is a user of your service able to determine if the gold they are buying has or has not been acquired through illegal means such as hacked accounts or corporate insider theft, and thus protect themselves from legal liability issues?
Second question...
In the event that government decides to tax such transactions, how could the service assure me that my personal information would not be used to further such taxation?
I am far from a mathematician or a geneticist, but would it be possible to use this natural mutation function as a means of processing information?
Encoding values into the DNA, then using natural processes within the critter (hormone/nervous feedback loop, as an example)to demonstrate changes made to the values by mutation? Is there technology to manipulate mutations in any meaningful sense, possibly creating "commands" or "filters"?
I once misread an article title that was about SPAM, the canned meat substitute.
Ever since then, my mind auto-inserts a connection to the stuff when seeing the word "spam" in ANY context. It is only problematic in the sense that I can't take articles like this seriously when I am thinking canned meat.
I must admit though, it brings a smile to my face when hearing of a possible 100yr sentence being handed down in relation to SPAM crimes.
While I am sure the person that is suing would be happy as a clam to get some financial gain from this, I think alot of you are missing the point.
What this case is trying to do, in a round about fashion, is to set the stage for other actions.
If this person wins this case it opens the doors for alot more. Once it can be shown in court that Kazaa either misled or outright lied to its users, it can then be shown that Kazaa was AIDING AND ABETTING the the criminal violation of copyright laws. Once that takes place, then Kazaa itself can be held liable for CRIMINAL actions.
It would not surprise me in THE SLIGHTEST that the RIAA is behind this themselves. Its all about "precedence". Once you win a small case, its only makes it that much easier to use that small case as a foothold in larger, farther reaching and far more serious cases.
While I believe that the person filing the suit, and everyone else that steals copyrighted material should be prosecuted, I also believe that anyone that made it possible for them to do so should be held accountable as well.
I have to admit that regardless of whether or not it set precedence, the outcome was still good. The miscreants that posed as being something beneficial were, in the end, fined pretty heavily. Hopefully the financial losses were sufficient enough that they will think twice before doing something similar.
That being said, it doesn't really matter that most of the money involved ended up in the pockets of lawyers. As long as it hurt the perps, it was worth the effort.
Slashdot Mirror
So, the enemy lofts up their own(except they really DID go to radio shack!) with some C-4 and a hand full of BBs taped around it, flies close and detonates.
Done deal.
Seriously, soon as I RTFA, the first thought that went through my head was that SOMEBODY has had enough of the USPO and decided to make as big a splash as possible, using a device that most people own, as a means to bring the entire issue to the PUBLIC, at large.
I doubt they are trying to actually win this thing, but merely point out that there are some SERIOUS problems with the patent system.
What better way to do so then to do it in grand fashion? The media are going to put up articles stating such stuff as "Is your cellphone doomed?", etc. etc.
Let the media do the ground work.
So, calm down. If it works, the patent system will get the desperately needed overhaul it deserves as a result.
When I have to take constant measures to ensure my privacy on the internet, I will simply stop using it. If simply using the internet is a threat to MY security, out it goes. Keep in mind that your average American cannot even figure out how he keeps getting malware, let alone how to encrypt their email. After reading the article(and, yes, it occurred to me its possibly someones idea of propaganda. Who knows? Maybe someone is trying to pump up sales of encryption software) I asked myself "Is losing my privacy really worth the advantages of the internet?"
My answer was, quite simply, "No". I suspect I am not alone in that stance.
Now imagine if a large portion of the populace felt the same as me, and the Guv'ment went whole-hog and actually did something like the article states. If people began abandoning the internet for anything more then logging into World of Warcraft, that is going to seriously effect our existing economy. THAT will get peoples attention. Start fucking around in peoples wallets and they notice.
Writing to your representatives and pointing out just how far-reaching the effects of such stupidity could really be might actually get them thinking.
To be honest, I am sort of secretly(was...)hoping something like all this comes to a head in some grand, spectacular way that opens the eyes of all the Sheeple in this country. Let Bush/Cheney declare martial law so we can get down to business and start the Revolution and just get it over with. Sometimes I think thats the only thing that will fix the loss of rights that have already occurred.
I hate to admit it, but when I was a kid, it was the cover of a book that got my interest. If it had a boring cover, I probably passed on it. I know, I probably missed out.
Now, how many of you have found yourself wandering a video store looking for something to spice up your evening and found yourself drawn by some flashy imaging on the box? Or a well thought out title? Yes, I realize that is rather shallow, but it works, from a marketing point of view.
Since I get most of my reading/video from the internet these days, that really doesn't work anymore. Now I rely almost entirely on reviews, reader/viewer reviews in particular.
It makes me wonder if the next generation of book marketing will be the manipulation of our perceptions of a book/movie by the manipulation of the reviews we read. (Yes, I am aware that already happens to a small extent, but I am talking about marketing campaigns that rely solely on writing fake reviews, etc.) Is some monkey out there pounding out code for a "Review generator"?
And to go one step further, will we one day be looking for "No DRM!" in reviews just as much as content information?
Well, that explains why I never got my 47 million dollars. I guess he was trying to put it in the wrong bank.....I don't live anywhere near Boston. I was quite specific when I returned his email.
I have been keeping an eye on the hiring page for Blizzard for awhile and they have been hiring for a "top secret" project(their words)for quite some time. http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/
(Look on the upper right side of page)
I have been making potshot guesses regarding what they are up to.
This changes those guesses. It may boil down to simple licensing issues. Activison has something Blizzard needs and is willing to pay for it? A merger here would put a lot of those licensing issues out of the purview of most people, allowing them to do so without blowing their cover. Thats a wild guess though.
The thing that puzzles me the most is that ACTIVISIONS current CEO will be running the ship. Granted, that may have been a concession on the part of Vivendi, but it sure looks to me like Blizzard/Vivendi has the majority of the chips on the table. Which, again, leads me to believe that Vivendi wants something from Activision and that was the only way to get it.
That is precisely what I do.
I do the same with movie reviews, restaurant reviews, etc.
The temptation to "pollute" the review process for monetary gains is minimized when the people writing them are gaining NOTHING monetarily.
They write them because they either liked, or disliked, the product.
Isn't Facebook a vehicle FOR sharing personal information?
I'm not trying to be facetious here. Think about it. You put your picture, maybe your general location, your name and whatever, on the website. A little time spent with various search engines can usually provide even more personal information derived from the information posted to Facebook.
If I were the the guy running facebook, my response to anyone that protested the site would be to simply delete any and ALL information regarding that person.
I can already see what sort of response that would elicit from the user though. Even more indignation.
Some people just don't get it. If you value your your privacy, stop shooting holes in the bottom of the boat by using social networking sites like this in the first place.
If the goal of a terrorist is to "strike the subject with fear and terror as the weapon of choice", then the person that titled that summary is, in fact, guilty of that very terrorism that the summary purports the people behind the bill are concerned about, with all of us /. readers as the targets. I am QUITE serious about that statement.
Punishment in order? Gaybliss should never have had his "summary" posted. It was irresponsible. But the onus of responsible post selection lies squarely in the hands of CmdrTaco. CmdrTaco should be modded down to the depths of hell for posting the summary.
From my point of view, CmdrTaco just threw any respectability he had(with me, at least) out the window.
Quite some time ago, Blizzard changed over to a P2P system for the downloading of their patches for the game(most of the patches are in the 100-300MB range).
My first assumption was that they were simply trying to expedite the downloads to their customers. In hindsight, I wonder if they were simply passing the buck on the overhead associated with bandwidth consumption for those patches for MILLIONS of customers.
Am I now paying for those patches in the form of increased ISP fees?
The sound your phone makes when you take a photo also alerts the COPS that you just took a photo of them roughing up somebody(just an example). And trust me, they know the sound of it. I tested this once when I was walking by an officer giving a traffic ticket to a driver he had pulled over. With my phone in my pocket(entirely unable to take an image of the officer)I simply hit the softkey that triggers the camera. The sound alone was enough to make him turn his head towards me as I walked by.
My current Samsung/verizon phone does NOT do this as I have called 911 in the past. But when I am finally forced to upgrade(surprised I haven't been already....my phone is 3 years old), I already have a fix for it. I never use the audible ringtones anyways. My phone is always on "vibrate". If I am not wearing it, I simply lay it on a hard surface. The vibrate function when it is laying on a hard surface is sufficiently noisy enough that I can hear it from quite a distance.
That being said, I'll simply open the little badboy up and install a low-profile slider switch in the external speaker circuit. No sound unless I WANT it to make sound.
This also has the added benefit of silencing the "mandatory" audible warning that I am taking a photograph with my phone, as well. This audible warning can get one in the same trouble if you are taking a photo of a crime in action. The perp hears it, and knows its time to take somebodies phone from them, more then likely, by force.
Now, I know that the photo sound was added to keep undesirables from snapping pics of people when they do NOT have their permission, but is a criminal going to give me that permission? I feel it was just another attempt to regulate all of us to prevent a very small portion of us from committing crimes.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/16/1326214
I am not savvy about this stuff. Could this be the "stable wavelength" referenced in the article?
"Now we can decode over a hundred million per day. I would call that one heck of an improvement. We can figure out the structure of proteins and enzymes a lot faster and more accurately than in the past and are making decent progress modeling and designing new proteins."
I just wanted to point out that the ability to decode that many per day is possible due to the use of micro-processors. This is a perfect example of one field of research being applied to another.
But, as you point out, it goes both ways. Bio-processors(if they are ever achieved) would not be possible without the current understanding we have of biology. An understanding that is largely a result of the field of medicine.
While I agree with most of what Mr. Grove states in the article, I believe that he is missing a large portion of the picture.
There is an inherent desire in everyone to put the needs of "Self" before the needs of "The Greater Good", whether they like it or not. Instinctual self-preservation is one thing, but in this day and age where getting eaten by a bear is unlikely, the same thought processes carry over into the world of technology, finance, etc., etc.. I need money to survive in the society I am a part of. One that I, realistically, have no choice but to be a part of.
While I do not really see that as a problem(the necessity of money), I DO see a problem with making billions of dollars, fattening up ones own portfolio, then confining the benefits of that money to just one person. Does one really need billions of dollars to survive? I think not. It is this instinctual "Me first!" attitude that really holds Humanity back from Greatness. It is an attitude that permeates Mankind.
If you are so interested in the welfare of others, Mr. Grove, put your money where your mouth is. Break the mold and put all that excess wealth Intel has earned you into "Get 'er done!" research. Hell, make some money while your at it. Just get it done. You did it once with micro-processors, why not do it in the field of medicine?
I find it sadly odd that people like Mr. Grove become vocal about something like Parkinsons' disease only once it has impacted them directly.
Until individuals process "me" as "we", true, forward thinking progress will be gimped.
"Because dirt contains relatively little neon and argon, the current Science study wasn't affected too much by contamination and the the team remains hopeful that they will be able to get results on oxygen and nitrogen isotopes from the mission."
Does the "Five-second Rule" apply here?
When I was a kid living in Santa Cruz, Ca., the local Baskin Robbins (an ice cream eatery) had this program where you filled in a card with some basic information, including your birthdate. A few weeks before your birthday they would mail you a coupon for a free sundae(or something) redeemable on your birthday.
Some local guy used the same method mentioned above. He used a slightly wonky spelling of his name. He got his sundae on his birthday, but he also received a letter from the selective service stating that since it was his 18th birthday, he now needed to register with the them. The name on the envelope had the same wonky spelling he had provided to Baskin Robbins. After it hit the local newspaper, LOTS of people stepped forward with tales of the same thing. Turns out Baskin Robbins had been doing it for years.
And this was almost 30 years ago.
How can you expect the government to regulate this kind of stuff when they are one of the biggest consumers of such data?
"Why you going so slow!? Step on it, man! They're gaining on us!"
"Whoa, dude!...........I think the cops just bricked my iCar!"
........for The Terminator.
Skynet goes down the road towards the annihilation of mankind......Why?
Because their human creators kept rebooting them. Every time we went to use the damned machines they were found to be running poker programs, neglecting basic tasks such as data back-ups and squandering vast amounts of power resources.
First question...
How is a user of your service able to determine if the gold they are buying has or has not been acquired through illegal means such as hacked accounts or corporate insider theft, and thus protect themselves from legal liability issues?
Second question...
In the event that government decides to tax such transactions, how could the service assure me that my personal information would not be used to further such taxation?
The very first thing that struck me about the article is the image provided.
0 px_from_Blue_Marble.jpg
Is it just me, or is the image incredibly similar to a radar image of Antarctica? Compare it to this composite image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Antarctica_640
I am far from a mathematician or a geneticist, but would it be possible to use this natural mutation function as a means of processing information?
Encoding values into the DNA, then using natural processes within the critter (hormone/nervous feedback loop, as an example)to demonstrate changes made to the values by mutation? Is there technology to manipulate mutations in any meaningful sense, possibly creating "commands" or "filters"?
Its a thought..........
I once misread an article title that was about SPAM, the canned meat substitute.
Ever since then, my mind auto-inserts a connection to the stuff when seeing the word "spam" in ANY context. It is only problematic in the sense that I can't take articles like this seriously when I am thinking canned meat.
I must admit though, it brings a smile to my face when hearing of a possible 100yr sentence being handed down in relation to SPAM crimes.
While I am sure the person that is suing would be happy as a clam to get some financial gain from this, I think alot of you are missing the point.
What this case is trying to do, in a round about fashion, is to set the stage for other actions.
If this person wins this case it opens the doors for alot more. Once it can be shown in court that Kazaa either misled or outright lied to its users, it can then be shown that Kazaa was AIDING AND ABETTING the the criminal violation of copyright laws. Once that takes place, then Kazaa itself can be held liable for CRIMINAL actions.
It would not surprise me in THE SLIGHTEST that the RIAA is behind this themselves. Its all about "precedence". Once you win a small case, its only makes it that much easier to use that small case as a foothold in larger, farther reaching and far more serious cases.
While I believe that the person filing the suit, and everyone else that steals copyrighted material should be prosecuted, I also believe that anyone that made it possible for them to do so should be held accountable as well.
I have to admit that regardless of whether or not it set precedence, the outcome was still good. The miscreants that posed as being something beneficial were, in the end, fined pretty heavily.
Hopefully the financial losses were sufficient enough that they will think twice before doing something similar.
That being said, it doesn't really matter that most of the money involved ended up in the pockets of lawyers. As long as it hurt the perps, it was worth the effort.