imagine taking a pic of the rings at that speed.. If taking it from above would be difficult, imagine taking it from the side... the rings are about 100m thick!
Compared to what they make a year, that low cost of living (for an American viewpoint) is extremely high. You can't feed a family of 10 with 10k a year, and even if you could, not many people are as lucky as to have a job that pays that much.
No solution will cover all bases, I think I don't need to say here that *any* system eventually is broken by someone who tries to get around it. Security systems like this one are not meant to be perfect.
However, that doesn't mean it's useless. The idea is to make forging or falsification more difficult (as much as possible), and police work easier or faster. Sure, eventually someone will make a false biometric passport, or a false plate. But how many people will do it? how many people will get one? how many people make false plates/get false plates NOW? If the technology can reduce the numbers significantly (they will never drop completely), then it might be worth using (I'm intentionally leaving privacy issues aside, that's another topic). It it can *help* policemen get a car thief, the it might be pretty useful. It doesn't have to be admisible as evidence, just give a lead to the cops, like where or who to look for. If, say, 80% of car robbers can't get around these measures, then i'd say it's a pretty good tool to reduce car theft, don t you think?
How many people in the US buy pirated software? how many people know how to get a keygen or a cracked exe or whatever, put it in the right place, etc? maybe a lot, but it's still probably a lot less people than would use pirated software if it was just a matter of plain copying.
The value of a system isn't in the cash-and-carry price of the components;
And here's me, saving money for more than 2 years to be able to buy me a notebook. I'd love to be able to tell that to the guys in the computer store. There's people with way too much money;-)
Any government (I do mean ANY) That is willing to machine gun (or run them over with tanks or whatever) it's citizens has lost the right to rule, in my not so humble opinion.
yeah, well, not that I like the chinese government, but i really think that particular comment was completely hypocritical from someone in whose country people are executed too. I mean, I don't think the difference between dying from machine gun fire or lethal injection matters much to the victim. Both ways they end up DEAD.
I totally agree. I got one in france for about 147 euros (with tax reduction). It simply rocks. good batery life, good bright backlit display, hi-res, lots of reading software, and the jog dial makes it super comfortable to page down eBooks (great when you use one hand to grip to something on the bus, and you only have the other hand to hold the clie AND scroll the pages). It's dragonball based so no mp3 or cpu consuming apps, but it's perfect for text. In fact, you can add an accesory to make it play mp3s but i don't know how much it costs.
the biggest downside i can think of is that you have to convert texts to pdb format before uploading to the clie.. but i don't mind that much. I usually take a couple of minutes to convert some txts, htmls, pdfs, etc to pdb, then upload them all to a 64mb memorystick and i'm ready for hours and hours of reading.
Not only that. Usually you try to understand what the client wants, and design the system to provide it. Then you write the detailed specs of *how* you do it, what kind of data you use, etc. Then you present all that to the customer, and have him sign it. It makes things a lot easier as clients sometimes tend to ask for changes in the middle of the development process, when all design has already been done, and half the code has been writtem.
Why on earth would I be prohibited from doing -ANYTHING- to my dvd after I legally purchased it? Distribution is restricted, but they can't tell you how you can USE things in your own home. You aren't licensing some work from them under restrictive conditions. You're BUYING a copy, which you can use for whatever you want as long as you don't redistribute the content (to oversimplify things a little). That's the point. They can't dictate what you can and what you cannot do with your own things in your own home. Sadly, companies are more and more moving towards a license-my-IP-for-use-as-I-tell-you scheme (in movies, music, software.. like office subscriptions or sun's licenses for java desktop) and awat from simply selling stuff. One of these days we'll find ourselves in a situation where we don't actually own anything of what we have, everything will be 'licensed' for a certain specific use. Personally, I think all this stinks.
Well, there was a project in colombia to issue an ID card with a 2d barcode on the back which contained your index fingers coded print minutiae. The authorities can then ask you for your id, and with a little device like the MorphoTouch, they can ask you to place your fingers in the optical reader and compare your prints with the ones coded in the card.
http://www.morpho.com/products/Morphotouch.html
If the fingers dont match, youll have to explain where you got that card, and authorities can even connect the morphotouch to a central AFIS (via modem, wifi, whatever) to check your real identity.
[sarcasm] Right, like, who cares if they tag homeless, right? after all it's not like they are people, or have any rights or anything... but if they try to tag decent, normal people like us, now THAT is too much, right? [/sarcasm]
Phew! Good thing I don't live in the US. Hope they don't start spreading those laws around the world though.. they've almost managed to extend some DMCA-style crap over south america with their infamous ALCA.
Well, it's nice that for once they at least TRY to understand people from other cultures. However, I'm not sure a simulator is the best way to do it (no, I didn't RTFA.. yet, I'll do it when my boss leaves the office:).
I'd send some anthropologists to do that job, but hey, that's just me.
As someone said before, I don't think usability can be thought in terms of "what grandma can use". I don't think such a thing is possible or even desirable (except for the companies wich only want to sell sell sell). You can make a friendly UI, easy to learn, but at some point you *have* to learn about some basic computer related concepts to understand what you're doing and what you can and cannot do with your PC. Granted you shouldn't need to read a 500-page manual, but at least some basic concepts (what parts make up a computer, what is an OS, an application, etc), it's not a matter of users caring about it, it's a matter of NEED, they need to know this, as they need to know that their car has an engine, four wheels, and it runs on gasoline and not alcohol (except if you live in brazil). Whatever tool you use, you ALWAYS have to learn at least the minimum about how it works in order to use it properly. Call me a zealot, but I don't agree with the MS-view of computers in which even a monkey can use a computer. Computers are NOT simple. They are NOT toasters. They are complex tools that require some knowledge to be used. If you want to use them, you should expect to sit down and read a manual or two, or take a course or have someone explain to you how it works. Otherwise, go buy a dvd/vcr/typewriter/hi-fi/etc.
This doesn't mean that overly complex UIs are ok either. Most people won't want that, no, but what i mean with all this is that maybe at some point it's not ease of use in the sense of how the UI looks or how many clicks you have to do to do something, but the coherence of it all. I think it's far more important to follow the same concepts everywhere in your system. For example, if you have to do something to configure your video card, you should look for something SIMILAR to configure your sound card.
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50.000 mph !
imagine taking a pic of the rings at that speed.. If taking it from above would be difficult, imagine taking it from the side... the rings are about 100m thick!
Absolutely! i can't wait to get hires pics ;)
/. =P
I'd get my own site, but it'd take away the fun of whining in
I submitted a story about this at 7 am, but it got rejected.. go figure.
Anyway, there's already some interesting photos, and more will be arriving during the day. check NASA TV for live video from mission control.
Compared to what they make a year, that low cost of living (for an American viewpoint) is extremely high.
You can't feed a family of 10 with 10k a year, and even if you could, not many people are as lucky as to have a job that pays that much.
It's the same discussion as with biometrics.
No solution will cover all bases, I think I don't need to say here that *any* system eventually is broken by someone who tries to get around it. Security systems like this one are not meant to be perfect.
However, that doesn't mean it's useless.
The idea is to make forging or falsification more difficult (as much as possible), and police work easier or faster. Sure, eventually someone will make a false biometric passport, or a false plate. But how many people will do it? how many people will get one? how many people make false plates/get false plates NOW?
If the technology can reduce the numbers significantly (they will never drop completely), then it might be worth using (I'm intentionally leaving privacy issues aside, that's another topic).
It it can *help* policemen get a car thief, the it might be pretty useful. It doesn't have to be admisible as evidence, just give a lead to the cops, like where or who to look for. If, say, 80% of car robbers can't get around these measures, then i'd say it's a pretty good tool to reduce car theft, don t you think?
How many people in the US buy pirated software? how many people know how to get a keygen or a cracked exe or whatever, put it in the right place, etc? maybe a lot, but it's still probably a lot less people than would use pirated software if it was just a matter of plain copying.
Nope, I live in Argentina. ;-)
but it could be worse.. i could live in Argentina AND be an open source programmer!
The value of a system isn't in the cash-and-carry price of the components;
;-)
And here's me, saving money for more than 2 years to be able to buy me a notebook.
I'd love to be able to tell that to the guys in the computer store.
There's people with way too much money
Any government (I do mean ANY)
That is willing to machine gun (or run them over with tanks or whatever) it's citizens has lost the right to rule, in my not so humble opinion.
yeah, well, not that I like the chinese government, but i really think that particular comment was completely hypocritical from someone in whose country people are executed too.
I mean, I don't think the difference between dying from machine gun fire or lethal injection matters much to the victim. Both ways they end up DEAD.
I totally agree. I got one in france for about 147 euros (with tax reduction). It simply rocks. good batery life, good bright backlit display, hi-res, lots of reading software, and the jog dial makes it super comfortable to page down eBooks (great when you use one hand to grip to something on the bus, and you only have the other hand to hold the clie AND scroll the pages).
It's dragonball based so no mp3 or cpu consuming apps, but it's perfect for text. In fact, you can add an accesory to make it play mp3s but i don't know how much it costs.
the biggest downside i can think of is that you have to convert texts to pdb format before uploading to the clie.. but i don't mind that much. I usually take a couple of minutes to convert some txts, htmls, pdfs, etc to pdb, then upload them all to a 64mb memorystick and i'm ready for hours and hours of reading.
Not only that.
Usually you try to understand what the client wants, and design the system to provide it. Then you write the detailed specs of *how* you do it, what kind of data you use, etc. Then you present all that to the customer, and have him sign it. It makes things a lot easier as clients sometimes tend to ask for changes in the middle of the development process, when all design has already been done, and half the code has been writtem.
Why on earth would I be prohibited from doing -ANYTHING- to my dvd after I legally purchased it?
Distribution is restricted, but they can't tell you how you can USE things in your own home. You aren't licensing some work from them under restrictive conditions. You're BUYING a copy, which you can use for whatever you want as long as you don't redistribute the content (to oversimplify things a little).
That's the point. They can't dictate what you can and what you cannot do with your own things in your own home.
Sadly, companies are more and more moving towards a license-my-IP-for-use-as-I-tell-you scheme (in movies, music, software.. like office subscriptions or sun's licenses for java desktop) and awat from simply selling stuff.
One of these days we'll find ourselves in a situation where we don't actually own anything of what we have, everything will be 'licensed' for a certain specific use.
Personally, I think all this stinks.
Well, there was a project in colombia to issue an ID card with a 2d barcode on the back which contained your index fingers coded print minutiae. The authorities can then ask you for your id, and with a little device like the MorphoTouch, they can ask you to place your fingers in the optical reader and compare your prints with the ones coded in the card.
http://www.morpho.com/products/Morphotouch.html
If the fingers dont match, youll have to explain where you got that card, and authorities can even connect the morphotouch to a central AFIS (via modem, wifi, whatever) to check your real identity.
Am I the only one that read the title and thought "what?? a mouse with two motherboards?? Eh?!?!"
and then read the rest =P
"The only winning move is not to play.
How about a nice game of chess?"
-- WOPR
[sarcasm]
Right, like, who cares if they tag homeless, right? after all it's not like they are people, or have any rights or anything...
but if they try to tag decent, normal people like us, now THAT is too much, right?
[/sarcasm]
I guess you mean it shouldn't take more than 640k of RAM.. but who would need more than that anyway? =)
whatever happened to 3dwm??
With any luck it'll get to be like Marvin!
Phew! Good thing I don't live in the US. Hope they don't start spreading those laws around the world though.. they've almost managed to extend some DMCA-style crap over south america with their infamous ALCA.
Well, that depends!
Are we talking about an African sweaty, unwashed three-hundred-pound nerd or an European sweaty, unwashed three-hundred-pound nerd?
Nice article, except for one little detail:
How can one talk about controversial games and not mention Leisure Suit Larry!?!?!
Well, it's nice that for once they at least TRY to understand people from other cultures. However, I'm not sure a simulator is the best way to do it (no, I didn't RTFA.. yet, I'll do it when my boss leaves the office :).
I'd send some anthropologists to do that job, but hey, that's just me.
It used to be "Bribing"
Then it was "lobbying"
Now it's "Spending Strategically"
bs
Just like windows, if you have a problem difficult to solve, just sleep/reboot, and try again ;)
As someone said before, I don't think usability can be thought in terms of "what grandma can use". I don't think such a thing is possible or even desirable (except for the companies wich only want to sell sell sell). You can make a friendly UI, easy to learn, but at some point you *have* to learn about some basic computer related concepts to understand what you're doing and what you can and cannot do with your PC. Granted you shouldn't need to read a 500-page manual, but at least some basic concepts (what parts make up a computer, what is an OS, an application, etc), it's not a matter of users caring about it, it's a matter of NEED, they need to know this, as they need to know that their car has an engine, four wheels, and it runs on gasoline and not alcohol (except if you live in brazil). Whatever tool you use, you ALWAYS have to learn at least the minimum about how it works in order to use it properly. Call me a zealot, but I don't agree with the MS-view of computers in which even a monkey can use a computer. Computers are NOT simple. They are NOT toasters. They are complex tools that require some knowledge to be used. If you want to use them, you should expect to sit down and read a manual or two, or take a course or have someone explain to you how it works. Otherwise, go buy a dvd/vcr/typewriter/hi-fi/etc.
:)
This doesn't mean that overly complex UIs are ok either. Most people won't want that, no, but what i mean with all this is that maybe at some point it's not ease of use in the sense of how the UI looks or how many clicks you have to do to do something, but the coherence of it all. I think it's far more important to follow the same concepts everywhere in your system. For example, if you have to do something to configure your video card, you should look for something SIMILAR to configure your sound card.
oops.. gotta get back to work