Yeah, well. you know.. things are not always so simple. See, I got a Wii a couple of days ago, and I was really thinking of getting some original games for it (I had read that they were like 50 dollars each, thought I could get used ones for less), however, It happens 50 bucks is for the US. Here they're selling for 75/120 dollars (depending on the game). That's US dollars in argentina. To give you an idea, 100 dollars is like 300 pesos. Now consider that I make around 3000 pesos a month. I'm certainly NOT paying 10% of my salary for a game, just because I live down at the end of the world and some companies think we're not worth as a market for their products (hence the imports and higher prices). However, I'm a gamer, I like games, and I want to play them, so I have no choice other than get copies and a modchip, or not play at all. The funniest thing is when company execs saying things like they don't do business here because of the piracy.. I truly believe it's all the way around, piracy is so high, because these kind of things have to get imported from wherever you can, at high costs.
If you think of it it's funny: in the countries where people have less money, things cost even more than where people might actually afford them.. ironic, isn't it?
Sorry, I did it the best I could. I'm from Argentina, and we speak spanish here, but I went to a french school and a friend of mine recently introduced me to this, which had me laughing for a couple of hours. Quebecois insulting is really a hard to master form of art:)
I agree the Amiga was a great piece of hardware, but the palette was 4096 colors, It could actually use 32 of them simultaneously on screen (at least the amiga 500, the amiga 2000 could go up to 4096 colors on-screen in HAM6). EGA displays could use 16 out of 64 if I'm not mistaken.
Also, such treaties usually come in the form of broader 'treaties' usually speaking of things like "free trade" and lots of stuff that look very nice on paper but usually end up fucking up the other party. Also, the 'agreement' to sign such treaties often go like "look, if you sign this, the IMF and friends might consider not blowing your economy to pieces for a few years".
"See, removing DRM doesn't make people want to buy more music!"
Probably not, but it won't make people buy less, and it surely will reduce production/distribution costs (no DRM-related development/soft/licenses/etc). So even if sales stay the same, they're better off without DRM.
The only case where they will want to keep DRM is if they're right and drm-free mp3s induce piracy to such an extent that they start loosing more money on that than what they save on avoiding DRM-related costs.
I don't think the problem has anything to do with you or him being a good or a bad admin. Your problem is workload. Obviously your work requires 24/7 attention. That, in my world, means more than one shift. You shouldn't be doing that alone; you should have at least 2 or 3 people that can take turns on watch, and if a problem arises, then the one on watch would handle it, only calling the others in extremely rare mega-urgent occasions. Meanwhile, the other two can enjoy their lives and forget about work until the next shift. Of course, that means pay 2 or 3 more salaries.. which your boss might not be happy to do ("why? if we're fine now?"). I've had a similar problem in a former job, "no need to hire, we're ok now", but we were busting our asses working till any hour in the night every day. So I quit:)
there's something to say about it: PS2 but no Wii?? fuck! I want it on the Wii!! there was a mock-up video on youtube about what it'd be like to fling clone troopers through walls by swinging your wiimote. I WANT that.
And since we're on the Wii + StarWars subject.. when are they going to release a lightsaberduel game for the wii? I mean, It's clearly what the console was designed for;) First time i saw it, the first thing that came to my mind was "DAMN! LIGHTSABER FIGHTS!!!". More so when we learned there was a speaker on it. Kinda like my ForceFX replica, except the blade is on the screen and it might actually cut stuff!.. I mean.. what the hell are they waiting for? SW fans have been waiting for this for AGES (there was even a guy who did something to capture a toy lightsaber movement with a webcam and use that as the interface for a duelling game.. sort of.. but I can't find the link:( ).
It's not shitty any more than any other easy-read, fantasy novel. They're not all Tolkiens or Ecos, you know. And that doesn't make a book BAD (or good either). Sales don't mean shit. HP sells like mad, and though it's certainly not shakespeare, it's quite enjoyable as a light, fun fantasy series. On the other hand, the Da Vinci Code also sells like hotcakes, and it's one of the biggest and smelliest piles of shit I've read in a long time.
Man, waking up and finding leftover cold pizza in the fridge is one of the best things in the world.
But when that's not possible, I usually take some cereal + milk, or just coffee. And the coffee I take usually at work.. then I have a good meal at noon.
Well then it's a matter of blacklisting more than fingerprinting. That kind of thing is done here also, for example a the entrance to football stadiums (hooligans, etc), but the blacklist maintained by the police is generated by the justice, only from people with national or international capture requests. Even then, automatic HITs (positives) are subject to confirmation by a fingerprint expert. This has already been done in every airport by just looking at people and having a list of 'bad guys' photographs. If I have to choose from checking my prints and just having someone decide if I look like one of the criminals on the list, I'd go for the prints, It's far more accurate. But of course, I'd rather not be checked at all...
That's not how it works. AFIS systems, especially criminal ones, don't take -ANY- sort of decision by themselves, they just do some matching on the DB, and produce 'candidates' list (ie: the list of prints that look the most like the one(s) you searched.) then an expert looks at the results, and resumes the identification visually, as they've been doing since fingerprint identification was invented. The system is mostly a HUGE time saver for identification experts. So, it's quite unlikely that they'll be checking your airport-scanned fingerprints against the whole database while you wait, as they can't possibly have as many experts checking prints, and would have to automate the process (allowing the system to declare HIT/NOHITs automatically, which means there'd be an error margin). If they did automate the process and actually look for your prints in the whole database, they should be trained and informed that any result from such a system is NOT definitive, and subject to an expert's confirmation to be taken seriously.
If they're doing anything else than just taking the prints and storing them (no, didn't read tfa.. will do later), most probably they'll be doing authentication rather than identification. That is, the first time they take your prints, store them on a DB related to your passport number for example. When you pass thru the airport again, you're re taken your prints, and they're searched on the DB by your passport number... if your record on the DB says there's your prints there, it will compare the prints it just scanned to the ones on the DB, if they match, no problem, if they don't, houston we have a problem (auth is way more accurate than ident when done automatically, and of course orders of magnitude faster).
but that's not the problem.. what really scares me is that they're (according to the summary) adding them to a CRIMINAL database!.. that's outright illegal in some countries, and it should well be!! Normally there's a civil database, which is used for civil ident (like say on a bank, or to get a new document or something), and only uses 2 or 6 fingers, non-rolled, which are not fit for matching against crime-scene-lifted partial prints (btw, its quite rare to find a complete, perfect print on a crime scene a la CSI or worse, national treasure.. BS). And then there's criminal systems which keep all 10 fingers, rolled, which can be used to search against crime-scene-lifted partial fps. Mixing the two sucks. Sadly It's also done here in Argentina when you get a passport, as they only have one AFIS system for the federal police, they use the same one both for criminals and for civilians.. (apparently we can't afford 2 systems). Records belong to one scope or the other depending on the ID type. The criminal record (if there's any) is kept elsewhere, on another system, and it's only referenced manually with a common key. Still sucks:(
Were they really breaking any laws? They never actually got a chance at the court, Sony filled various suits against them, and they went bankrupt because of the defense costs, they couldn't even actually defend themselves. I'm not saying they DIDN'T break any laws, I'm asking because I don't know, and we may never will.. getting out of business like that just because someone accuses you without you being able to defend yourself (financially).. that's shouldn't happen
I'm not ignoring it. I specifically addressed point 2) because I found 1) pretty clear. It was only 2) I didn't quite get. Getting paid for the patent: check. Preventing anybody else from patenting it: not really need a patent for that (except in the cases explained above about the eternal litigation and stuff).
I have a hard time trying to believe the stereotype of the bloodthirsty religious lunatic that runs up to massacre people just out of pure evil and blind, senseless hate. I'm not saying they're justified in any way, but it's hard to see just HOW different their line of thought can be from ours, and what the complete path (ie, from the basic education and environment, to the conclusion in 9/11) of these people's lives has been. I've certainly not seen any such analysis in any serious or objective way, and maybe it'd be really interesting to understand more profoundly how a human being goes to these ends.
(I know it's just fiction and not really any serious investigation on the subject, but I really liked how they did something like this on BSG when the people on new caprica start organizing the 'resistance')
I wonder if someone did something similar but relating 9/11. Like going all the way from joining al-quaeda to the final sequence with a flight sim over manhattan. And I don't mean a simple flash thingy, I mean something serious like this 'game'. What do you think would happen? (or maybe it already exists and I haven't seen it?)
wait.. I'm confused by 2).. if the ones who find it and publish the procedure and finding DON'T patent it, and *later* comes Big Business(tm) and tries to patent it.. wouldn't the patent be invalid because of prior art or something?
It's a trap!! if we start using the "relearning costs a lot!" argument, MS will later say "don't switch to linux! you have to retrain your staff, and look! even linux guys are saying retraining is a bitch!":)
*looks around with suspicion* Ok I'll be going back to my corner now..
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, well. you know.. things are not always so simple. See, I got a Wii a couple of days ago, and I was really thinking of getting some original games for it (I had read that they were like 50 dollars each, thought I could get used ones for less), however, It happens 50 bucks is for the US. Here they're selling for 75/120 dollars (depending on the game). That's US dollars in argentina. To give you an idea, 100 dollars is like 300 pesos. Now consider that I make around 3000 pesos a month.
I'm certainly NOT paying 10% of my salary for a game, just because I live down at the end of the world and some companies think we're not worth as a market for their products (hence the imports and higher prices).
However, I'm a gamer, I like games, and I want to play them, so I have no choice other than get copies and a modchip, or not play at all.
The funniest thing is when company execs saying things like they don't do business here because of the piracy.. I truly believe it's all the way around, piracy is so high, because these kind of things have to get imported from wherever you can, at high costs.
If you think of it it's funny: in the countries where people have less money, things cost even more than where people might actually afford them.. ironic, isn't it?
Sorry, I did it the best I could. I'm from Argentina, and we speak spanish here, but I went to a french school and a friend of mine recently introduced me to this, which had me laughing for a couple of hours. :)
Quebecois insulting is really a hard to master form of art
Heh That would be:
"Fuck off! / Tabarnak ton camp, criss d'asti de chien sale, man!"
I agree the Amiga was a great piece of hardware, but the palette was 4096 colors, It could actually use 32 of them simultaneously on screen (at least the amiga 500, the amiga 2000 could go up to 4096 colors on-screen in HAM6).
:)
EGA displays could use 16 out of 64 if I'm not mistaken.
Ahh those were the days
Also, such treaties usually come in the form of broader 'treaties' usually speaking of things like "free trade" and lots of stuff that look very nice on paper but usually end up fucking up the other party. Also, the 'agreement' to sign such treaties often go like "look, if you sign this, the IMF and friends might consider not blowing your economy to pieces for a few years".
"See, removing DRM doesn't make people want to buy more music!"
Probably not, but it won't make people buy less, and it surely will reduce production/distribution costs (no DRM-related development/soft/licenses/etc). So even if sales stay the same, they're better off without DRM.
The only case where they will want to keep DRM is if they're right and drm-free mp3s induce piracy to such an extent that they start loosing more money on that than what they save on avoiding DRM-related costs.
And I honestly doubt that is the case.
I don't think the problem has anything to do with you or him being a good or a bad admin. Your problem is workload. Obviously your work requires 24/7 attention. That, in my world, means more than one shift. You shouldn't be doing that alone; you should have at least 2 or 3 people that can take turns on watch, and if a problem arises, then the one on watch would handle it, only calling the others in extremely rare mega-urgent occasions. Meanwhile, the other two can enjoy their lives and forget about work until the next shift. :)
Of course, that means pay 2 or 3 more salaries.. which your boss might not be happy to do ("why? if we're fine now?"). I've had a similar problem in a former job, "no need to hire, we're ok now", but we were busting our asses working till any hour in the night every day. So I quit
there's something to say about it: PS2 but no Wii?? fuck!
;) First time i saw it, the first thing that came to my mind was "DAMN! LIGHTSABER FIGHTS!!!". More so when we learned there was a speaker on it. Kinda like my ForceFX replica, except the blade is on the screen and it might actually cut stuff!.. I mean.. what the hell are they waiting for? SW fans have been waiting for this for AGES (there was even a guy who did something to capture a toy lightsaber movement with a webcam and use that as the interface for a duelling game.. sort of.. but I can't find the link :( ).
I want it on the Wii!! there was a mock-up video on youtube about what it'd be like to fling clone troopers through walls by swinging your wiimote. I WANT that.
And since we're on the Wii + StarWars subject.. when are they going to release a lightsaber duel game for the wii? I mean, It's clearly what the console was designed for
It's not shitty any more than any other easy-read, fantasy novel. They're not all Tolkiens or Ecos, you know. And that doesn't make a book BAD (or good either).
Sales don't mean shit. HP sells like mad, and though it's certainly not shakespeare, it's quite enjoyable as a light, fun fantasy series. On the other hand, the Da Vinci Code also sells like hotcakes, and it's one of the biggest and smelliest piles of shit I've read in a long time.
Man, waking up and finding leftover cold pizza in the fridge is one of the best things in the world.
But when that's not possible, I usually take some cereal + milk, or just coffee. And the coffee I take usually at work.. then I have a good meal at noon.
So it IS a communist government.
Democracy and communism aren't mutually exclusive, you know.
Yeah, if you were a bit distracted, you might miss the 'l' there.. as a typo it'd have been quite funny :)
Well then it's a matter of blacklisting more than fingerprinting. That kind of thing is done here also, for example a the entrance to football stadiums (hooligans, etc), but the blacklist maintained by the police is generated by the justice, only from people with national or international capture requests. Even then, automatic HITs (positives) are subject to confirmation by a fingerprint expert.
This has already been done in every airport by just looking at people and having a list of 'bad guys' photographs. If I have to choose from checking my prints and just having someone decide if I look like one of the criminals on the list, I'd go for the prints, It's far more accurate.
But of course, I'd rather not be checked at all...
That's not how it works. AFIS systems, especially criminal ones, don't take -ANY- sort of decision by themselves, they just do some matching on the DB, and produce 'candidates' list (ie: the list of prints that look the most like the one(s) you searched.) then an expert looks at the results, and resumes the identification visually, as they've been doing since fingerprint identification was invented. The system is mostly a HUGE time saver for identification experts.
:(
So, it's quite unlikely that they'll be checking your airport-scanned fingerprints against the whole database while you wait, as they can't possibly have as many experts checking prints, and would have to automate the process (allowing the system to declare HIT/NOHITs automatically, which means there'd be an error margin). If they did automate the process and actually look for your prints in the whole database, they should be trained and informed that any result from such a system is NOT definitive, and subject to an expert's confirmation to be taken seriously.
If they're doing anything else than just taking the prints and storing them (no, didn't read tfa.. will do later), most probably they'll be doing authentication rather than identification. That is, the first time they take your prints, store them on a DB related to your passport number for example. When you pass thru the airport again, you're re taken your prints, and they're searched on the DB by your passport number... if your record on the DB says there's your prints there, it will compare the prints it just scanned to the ones on the DB, if they match, no problem, if they don't, houston we have a problem (auth is way more accurate than ident when done automatically, and of course orders of magnitude faster).
but that's not the problem.. what really scares me is that they're (according to the summary) adding them to a CRIMINAL database!.. that's outright illegal in some countries, and it should well be!! Normally there's a civil database, which is used for civil ident (like say on a bank, or to get a new document or something), and only uses 2 or 6 fingers, non-rolled, which are not fit for matching against crime-scene-lifted partial prints (btw, its quite rare to find a complete, perfect print on a crime scene a la CSI or worse, national treasure.. BS). And then there's criminal systems which keep all 10 fingers, rolled, which can be used to search against crime-scene-lifted partial fps. Mixing the two sucks. Sadly It's also done here in Argentina when you get a passport, as they only have one AFIS system for the federal police, they use the same one both for criminals and for civilians.. (apparently we can't afford 2 systems). Records belong to one scope or the other depending on the ID type. The criminal record (if there's any) is kept elsewhere, on another system, and it's only referenced manually with a common key.
Still sucks
Were they really breaking any laws? They never actually got a chance at the court, Sony filled various suits against them, and they went bankrupt because of the defense costs, they couldn't even actually defend themselves. .. that's shouldn't happen
I'm not saying they DIDN'T break any laws, I'm asking because I don't know, and we may never will.. getting out of business like that just because someone accuses you without you being able to defend yourself (financially)
I'm not ignoring it. I specifically addressed point 2) because I found 1) pretty clear. It was only 2) I didn't quite get.
Getting paid for the patent: check.
Preventing anybody else from patenting it: not really need a patent for that (except in the cases explained above about the eternal litigation and stuff).
Precisely.
I have a hard time trying to believe the stereotype of the bloodthirsty religious lunatic that runs up to massacre people just out of pure evil and blind, senseless hate.
I'm not saying they're justified in any way, but it's hard to see just HOW different their line of thought can be from ours, and what the complete path (ie, from the basic education and environment, to the conclusion in 9/11) of these people's lives has been. I've certainly not seen any such analysis in any serious or objective way, and maybe it'd be really interesting to understand more profoundly how a human being goes to these ends.
(I know it's just fiction and not really any serious investigation on the subject, but I really liked how they did something like this on BSG when the people on new caprica start organizing the 'resistance')
Yeah, well, the idea was to 'play' it from the terrorists perspective.
I wonder if someone did something similar but relating 9/11. Like going all the way from joining al-quaeda to the final sequence with a flight sim over manhattan.
And I don't mean a simple flash thingy, I mean something serious like this 'game'. What do you think would happen?
(or maybe it already exists and I haven't seen it?)
wait..
I'm confused by 2)..
if the ones who find it and publish the procedure and finding DON'T patent it, and *later* comes Big Business(tm) and tries to patent it.. wouldn't the patent be invalid because of prior art or something?
Indeed they are!
It's a trap!! :)
if we start using the "relearning costs a lot!" argument, MS will later say "don't switch to linux! you have to retrain your staff, and look! even linux guys are saying retraining is a bitch!"
*looks around with suspicion*
Ok I'll be going back to my corner now..
Yeah.. right.. thanks for the advice, Captain Planet.
(Man, I can't believe I remember that show.. I mean.. the power of HEART?? pfff)
Damn, I think it broke again.. sorry about that.
No, it's three AXES. What you're talking about are DIRECTIONS.