Here's a quote that I think shows up the FBI's mindset.
"There are worse things in your life than not having an absolute right to privacy. You can be murdered. You can be raped," he said.
To me rape is just a violent invasion of privacy. I feel raped everytime I hear about the government wanting to watch it's own citizens. Fear the government that fears it's citezens. I want governments to investigate crimes not treat their citizens like they've already commited one.
.... no need to look for any more planets. As soon as I finish my transdimensional warp hawking drive we'll just go take a look at them up close.
While this story is interesting it's getting old so they managed to notice yet another closely orbiting very large planet. So what. I'm quite sure given the amount of matter floating around the galaxy that most stars have managed to aquire a few planets.
Does anyone else feel cheated that they probably won't get to see the moon in person. Back in the early seventies people were already planning on having vacation spots on the moon by now. Most astronauts felt that we would have visited mars by now. We have the technology we need the drive.
I wouldn't have trolled this story but I can't stand to see an article with only two comments.
Does anyone remember the episode about the technomages? That had to have been my favorite. I only got to see it once even though the every other episode got played like five dozen times. We are now starting to see more of a generation gap in the hacker community when people ask why should babylon 5 be here.
I loved the show. Nobody complains when starwars gets all the articles.
Wasn't slashdot also included in that injunction? If so they now have links all the same mirror sites that 2600 had. Hmmmm after all the censorship articles do you think that slashdot will take this comment out or will they try to defend themselves if MPAA files for another injunction?
This really doesn't help...
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More on LinDVD
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· Score: 5
<60s style rant> ... in some ways this makes the situation worse. DeCSS was designed to provide a means to create a linux dvd player. However now the battle is more important then the original problem was. The lawsuites and prosocution of innocent people has changed what the battle is over. It started over the desire for a linux dvd player, it has become a fight for some of our fundamental rights.
This seems to be a way for the opposition to change the focus of the battle. Soon you'll hear them say "see if all of the linux users had just been willing to wait they would have had a *legal* means of viewing their dvds." Now fewer people are going to think that DeCSS is important. Fewer voices means less real change. Less chance of our being able to defend ourselves in the future. The outcome of the whole DeCSS problem is more important then if a few people want to watch dvds on linux.
None of us should use this dvd player. Not a single one of us should even buy a dvd. If we do, we are supporting their efforts, their lawsuites, and their PACs. If we want change we have to hit them where it hurts in the pocketbooks. </60s style rant>
.. up causes related to the internet and technology. They have both the lawers and the experiance to do some good. Also they are not afraid to fight something on a constitutional basis and take it to the supreme court if necesary.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the EFF is a little undergunned. With the help of the ACLU they should have both the expertise and the money to argue issues against large companies. The ACLU also has greater political power then most other organizations. Which means that if they continue to take an interest in digital free speech fewer stupid laws may get passed.
Slashdot just lost the prize for news for nerds
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Happy Pi Day!
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· Score: 1
Slashdot may have a lot of geeks and nerds but the site that this story is on is ****GEEKS ONLY****. (while checking for PC police the poster adds not that their is anything wrong with that.) If your having trouble figuring out what PC means in this context you belong on the other site.
I wanted to do a little trolling when I saw that they had a message board going. Not only was the message board really nifty looking but *they* require you to login. I noticed many fewer troll posts and very few offtopic posts. No moderation that I could see from a very brief examination.
... you dispoved the theory? Would they still pay?
BTW you can all quit trying I proved it last night and I found an easy way to factor extremely large numbers in a very small amount of time.
Ok I lied. I don't think that number theory is advanced enough to solve the problem. To me the problem is related to creating a function to generate primes.
<off topic>Part of the problem of factoring primes *indirectly* is knowing all the primes below a certain size. If we ever find an easy way of factoring large numbers the currently popular encryption routines will be useless. Someday I expect to see a function that will allow you to find the nth prime, but not soon. Unless of course the NSA already has such a function then I NEVER expect to see it, unless someone from outside of the united states finds it on their own.</off topic>
Their are of course other sets of prime numbers that would work for many of these I showed a few for 34. When I look at the numbers listed in this way I almost see a pattern but I can't connect the primes to the sum.
I'll probably tinker with the problem but it would probably be cheaper in terms of what my time is worth to buy lottery tickets. And I would probably have just as good of a chance winning the lottery as *I* would of solving this problem.
True but the cookie still tracks you, and what you are doing for the duration of each session. So that really doesn't completely solve the problem.
Since the above does not apply to windows. In windows you can always delete the cookie file/s when you close your connection. To get the same result. Internet Explorer and netscape store them in different places but both are easy to find.
in retrospect I think that if other ways of storing information had been used we would be better off. Have any of you tried to run a browser with cookies turned completely off. Their are *many* sites that will not even let you look around. I could live with haveing to log in to slashdot everyday and maybe haveing to log in to a couple of other sites that I have an account on, what I can't stand is the idea that people and corporations are able to some extent track what I do or where go while on the internet.
Privacy should be by default not something that you have to beg for or opt out of programs to get. "Opt out", people should have to Opt in. Ad companies say that consumers want targeted adds. I don't, if I want to buy something I don't mind searching a little or doing some research. If your a company that uses banner advertising I choose not to buy from you more then I might otherwise.
When I want to buy a product I want to buy it for the right reasons. It should be the best quality and value around. I don't want to buy something because company foo has better phsychologists then company bar. If you don't think advertising works your wrong. Companies that will downsize to save a few bucks will continue with costly advertizing campaigns because they know that they work.
There are things in life and yes even things on the internet that are worse then cookies. Losing my privacy is one of the things that I hate the most about this new "information age" we live in. I have emails that I don't want, phone calls that I don't want, mail that I don't want, and tv commercials that I don't want. All of them trying to sell me services or things that I really don't want.
Most of the time when I moderate I try to just look for good comments and moderate them up. The last time I had moderator access I used all 5 points moderating comments down. That was in the first 15 posts of one story.
Slashdot needs more moderators or more points per session or both. Something like 10 points to use in 2 days. That would get some things done.
Windows really is that bad. I enjoyed using a computer more when windows 3.1 was the latest thing. I have two computers with windows installed. Both of these two computers will have a fit if left on for more then 12 hours. After 12 hours the system may not crash but if you try to shut it down it hangs. One of these computers is running windows 98 and the other is running 98 second edition. If I didn't need windows to run games on I would delete the windows partitions on both computers and run Linux, Beos, or hell dos would even be better.
One of the funniest things that I ever read was in a computer magazine. The article was talking about windows and it said that you should always install the latest version and even if you didn't you should format you harddrive and reinstall windows every 6 months or so to keep errors low. It's funny but true. With linux I never worry about leaving my computers on I never have to worry that I won't be able to shut them down properly. I'm not saying that linux is perfect either, though. I have crashed programs in linux and had everything lock up.
I want to try Beos. Does anyone know if the free release is out yet? I'm to lazy to go look.:)
Maybe this one will have the dinosaur pack eating all of the worlds lawers not just a few unlucky people. When they finishe maybe they will start on the politicians and corporate CEOs.
All kidding asside this is cool. I like this kind of story. It's good science and something a little different. **** are you listening *****
As the above post stated paleontologists have to do lots of hypothysizing, on very little data. Most of the paleontologists that I've talked to or have seen on TV have a little more imagination then other scientists. And they seem to be a little less afraid of being proven wrong. It's always good to here of a new discovery that gives them a little bit more concrete knowledge.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm what if...... These were only the babies and the reason that they were found together is that they had just hatched. The adults would then be truly huge. Ooooops to much crack in my cereal this morning. Forget the above paragraph I would erase it but I've forgotten how to use the backspace key.
we can get them to mirror DecSS source code as an electronic text. Or maybe one of us should right a historical account of the whole DecSS affair and include the source code to show exactly what started the whole affair and then have them mirror it. I do think that what project Gutenburg is doing is *very* good for society as a whole. I used several of the texts from project Gutenburg in my college english classes. If I happened to have a few 19th century books laying around the house I would definately scan them in and send them to the project. That's one of the main problems with the project, nothing modern is going in. I wonder if project Gutenburg would accept origianl works from internet authors, on subjects like computer programming or networking. I think that maybe I'll write a begginers book on java programming and submit it to see if they will accept it. Lots of the readers here on slashdot have aquired vast amounts of knowledge and maybe some of them would be willing to share that knowledge with others. (ahemmm useful knowledge not an Idiots guide to being a troll:) ) [please to do not hurt me with your trollish powers you must only use them for the good of mankind.]
... had the same drive that got us to the moon. We would already hava landed on mars and had a research station on the moon. Sending robots to mars is a great way to learn about the planet, but the only way people are going to get excited about mars missions is when a person is on his/her way to Mars.
The way our country and society is heading I would volonteer to be the first to go. Let the MPAA try to serve me with a warrent on the moon. The interplanatery lag would suck but I wouldn't have much competition for bandwidth.
And the common "their encryption sucks, it's their fault" argument is trash. If someone breaks into your house because they could smash down your door, is it your fault that you didn't have steel bars? It's a question of whether or not reverse engineering like this is legal, not a "you suck, get better" situation.
What has happened here is that someone did an expert(at least compared to the people that did the programming) analysis of a cryptographic aproach. Something that is specifically allowed under US law.
Save your breaking and entering analogies for piracy. This was an act of free speech consumers have a right to know what they are paying for. The list of blocked sites should not be encrypted with anything more powerfull then a simple shift cipher to keep children from looking at the list in a text browser. The person that bought the program has the *RIGHT* to know what sites are being blocked.
This encryption scheme is not a method to stop piracy or digital theft. It has one reason for existance, which is to keep people from knowing what sites and what rules are used to block sites. Reverse engineering is completely legal. Therefor if they don't want to see their precious list fall into the wrong hands they should use a decent encryption algorithm.
This does not make me proud to be an american, hell it doesn't even make me proud to be a human. What will it take for all of this stupidity on the part of the patent office to stop? Maybe when the director's child gets sick and he/she realizes that the child might have been cured had the information needed been publicly avaliable.
Profit should never be put before the good of any human and definately not before the good of the whole human race. How can a discovered moloculer sequence possibly be patentable. This is a molocule that occurs naturally not one that is created in a lab. I hope that sometime in the near future we as a society decide that humanity is more important then profit.
How are other contries handling DNA patents? Maybe they'll all be brighter then the US and refuse to honour DNA patents as any truly civilized country should.
I would rather see every process possible on a computer be patented then on single gene of any living creature not created in a lab. And since none have yet been created I don't want to see any gene patented.
To a great extent I agree with katz. Ideas are not property and are not owned by anyone. At the same time I can see how someone that invested a large amount of time or money developing an idea would like to get fair compensation. Some of what has resulted is just practical but most is greed. The RIAA is showing an increase in profits but at the same time is yelling about lost revenue. This reminds me of the overblown claims of software makers that say that they lose millions to piracy each year. These people are making assumptions. If I download a mp3 I was not interested in buying the cd, as a matter of fact I would not have bought the cd at all. If a band that I like releases a new cd I usually go out and buy it. On the other hand my downloads have on occasionally prompted me to go out and buy a cd by allowing me to listen to music that I would not have otherwise have gotten to hear. The same goes for computer software. Most people who download pirated software would not have been willing to buy the software anyway. No money lost if someone gets the program for free rather then doing without to keep from paying outrageous prices for unknown software.
Imagine for a moment that discoveries as fundamental to computer science as Euclid's algorithm or recursion had been patented. Patents such as these could have hurt the development of computer science. These ideas are *worthy* of patents unlike most that are now being rewarded. That's what has me worried patents could eventually slow development of new ideas and progress. The ideas most important to today's society are also the ones that are most qualified to be patented. The useless patents like one click don't bother me since they will not hinder farther development in computer science. However the life of a patent is much to long for the rapid pace of development in computer technology. For instance new techniques that could be useful for voice recognition will probably be patented but by the time they become public domain computers will have advanced to a sufficient degree to allow a less efficient algorithm to be used.
Ideas should not be patentable but implementations should be. For example let's say that I invent a new compression scheme for video that is twice as good a current schemes and yields better quality. The algorithm should be public domain any implementation that I create from the algorithm should be mine alone. This allows one to take advantage of a new discovery and get that discovery implemented before others while still allowing the public to have any useful information for farther study.
Most people are more then willing to pay to have the details of a process hidden from them. Probably more then 80% of the slashdot readership would be able and willing to implement most algorithms, however probably only about 5%(just a guess:) ) of the computer users on the net would be able or willing to implement the same algorithms. Most would prefer to have a binary for Linux or a self-installing package for windows even if they had to pay for it.
Value added that's what we're always talking about with Linux distro's. People are willing to pay for a good product with decent support and extras even if they could get the same no frills product for free with a little work. This is where people should be trying to make money not by patenting every idea that they can think of or discover.
Music and literature are another story. These people actually invent something new not an idea but an experience. True, the experience is no less valuable for being shared but these artists should be supported because they are valuable to society. What I as a consumer choose not to support is a corporate piracy that steals money from these artists. For now I have no choice maybe that will change in the future I would/will pay the artist for the rights to listen to a song(in any way I choose) and I would love a way to do that directly. For instance I would be willing to pay an artist $1 a song, for any song that I like if in return I get the right to listen copy or play the song in any fashion that I choose. I find it ironic that the true thieves (RIAA, MPAA) are so established and ingrained in our culture that we the consumers and the artists themselves no longer recognize these vultures for what they are. They take the creations of the artist and market it to people while keeping most of the profits for themselves.
Music and literature are unique in the art world. They were the first forms of cheap transportation for ideas. And with that comes the ability for easy replication. Other artists, painters, sculptors, and highly skilled craftsman create physical objects that are relatively hard to replicate perfectly. Look at how society handled the printing press. Before the printing press all work was free to copy if you could get the owner (the person or organization that had the work created not the artist) of the piece to allow you to do so. Since the printing press ideas have become commodities instead of universal truths. We should all be glad that some of the greatest minds in history have been willing to share freely with the world. While the lesser minds have clung to the few original ideas that they have created like a starving man might clutch a loaf of bread.
While I feel that people should be compensated for their work I do not think that people have a right to lock away ideas that would benefit society. For instance if a major oil company were to file a large number of patents on electric transportation then keep these patents from public use to increase peoples reliance on oil. This is an extreme case true, but to some extent patents prevent society from utilizing to a large extent the products of research.
Part of the problem is with corporations. Corporations are treated as legal entities by law and society. However a corporation is just a machine. A machine? Yes, a corporation is a human creation with only one goal to create wealth. A Corporation has no conscience and only one goal to please the stockholders. The best corporations for a time have honorable individuals running them. Individuals with both the stockholders and societies best interest at heart. These are the exception not the rule. The other part of the problem is the current democratic election process. Any person willing to spend millions of dollars for a job that pays less then $500,000 is already corrupt. Where does all of that money come from? Corporations. The government officials know that the American people's votes are biddable. They also know who their constituents are. Not the activist who happened to vote this election but the corporate sponsor who gives the official the money needed to stay in power. Again not every politician is corrupt but the decent caring ones are the exception.
Copyrights are fine they protect an artist and they are easy for individuals to obtain. If an individual creates a unique work of art or idea the work that went into its creation should be compensated. However, fair compensation does not imply that any idea or work of art should be kept from the public domain for an extended period of time. Copyrights should not be used to keep publicly valuable works from becoming public domain in a reasonable amount of time.
We don't have to completely scrap all of our old protections but maybe if we did it would be for the best. Does anyone besides me think that society would survive without patents and copyrights? A true artist works for the joy of the art only a sellout performs for money alone.
Sorry my post was somewhat tangent to yours. I do think your right that Mr. Haselton's actions could very well be viewed as illegal by our courts.
I hope that the court can see that this law is taking away a major right. They should see that this law is keeping the public from knowing when a company is acting unethicaly. A couple of good examples would be this case, and anytime a company is violating a consumers privacy by sending private information without the consumers knowledge like realplayer did.
You might say that I am a mild anarchist. Maybe a republican:) haha. I think that the less the government governs the better off we all are. You're right we do need laws. I just think that we need far fewer then what we have.
Again I stand by what I said if I find a law to be morally dispicable then I will do what I know to be right. I believe less in utilitarianism then in Kant's philosophy of personel responsibility. Having said that I realize that breaking any law can have consequences and that must be weighed against the benifit to society and oneself.
Trying to reuse these probes would be a little like donating old trash 80 computers to schools to upgrade and teach children with. The distances involved in interplanetary travel are to great for it to be practical, since it takes so long to go to say jupiter or saturn and back. By the time the probe returned to earth technology would have advanced enough to make it cheaper to build a completely new probe.
It would be nice to get some of these probes back, though just to study the prolonged effects of radiation and extremes on the components. And if nothing else it would be cool to go to a museum and look at THE probe that had been to jupiter and back.
As a society we sometimes tend to view things as either right or wrong based on their legality. Just because something -may- be illegal does not make it unethical. And just because something is legal does not mean that it is ethical. Take slavery it was legal before the cival war but it was never ethical.
I as an individual will do whatever I feel is right legal or not. If that means finding ways to crack encryption then posting programs anonamously then that's what I'll do.
If I have a copy of some software and I want to look and see what it's doing I'll do so regardless of what the law says. I agree with all the posters that this law sucks and I'll do anything in my power to help get it overturned. Until it is overturned or at least diminished I will continue to do what I see as right.
You're right. Sorry I meant the percentage of computer users that have the level of technical knowledge needed to install linux are not as common as they used to be. Not that long ago it took at least a little technical knowledge to even be able to use the internet or a computer. Now more people buying computers know nothing about how or why they work. While the number of people with the knowledge to install linux HAS grown the percentage of computer users able to do so has shrunk. Sorry next time I'll be more clear.
I agree with you to some extent. What I meant by the statement that when someone needs help with windows they can get someone to help them is that more people are proficient in windows then linux. So, it is much more likely that someone will be able to find help with a windows machine if they are haveing trouble.
Linux is still not ready for newbies. Having said that if one is comfortable with computers and not afraid of messing around with partitions and operating systems, linux is easy enough to use and help can be found online.
BTW I've had to reinstall windows at least four times in the last year a couple of times each on two computers. I've given up trying to help EVERYONE(read this as "lusers") with their computer. I only help people that are not afraid of their own machines and are truly trying to learn how to use it. I no longer help people that are going to depend on me to do every little thing for them. I won't refuse to help people that use MS software but I do refuse to help people that won't even attempt to learn what the machine they bought is doing.
Slashdot Mirror
.... no need to look for any more planets. As soon as I finish my transdimensional warp hawking drive we'll just go take a look at them up close.
While this story is interesting it's getting old so they managed to notice yet another closely orbiting very large planet. So what. I'm quite sure given the amount of matter floating around the galaxy that most stars have managed to aquire a few planets.
Does anyone else feel cheated that they probably won't get to see the moon in person. Back in the early seventies people were already planning on having vacation spots on the moon by now. Most astronauts felt that we would have visited mars by now. We have the technology we need the drive.
I wouldn't have trolled this story but I can't stand to see an article with only two comments.
Does anyone remember the episode about the technomages? That had to have been my favorite. I only got to see it once even though the every other episode got played like five dozen times. We are now starting to see more of a generation gap in the hacker community when people ask why should babylon 5 be here.
I loved the show. Nobody complains when starwars gets all the articles.
Notice that the other dos attacks earlier this year targeted sites that might link to DeCSS or have articles about the same.
Wasn't slashdot also included in that injunction? If so they now have links all the same mirror sites that 2600 had. Hmmmm after all the censorship articles do you think that slashdot will take this comment out or will they try to defend themselves if MPAA files for another injunction?
<60s style rant>
... in some ways this makes the situation worse. DeCSS was designed to provide a means to create a linux dvd player. However now the battle is more important then the original problem was. The lawsuites and prosocution of innocent people has changed what the battle is over. It started over the desire for a linux dvd player, it has become a fight for some of our fundamental rights.
This seems to be a way for the opposition to change the focus of the battle. Soon you'll hear them say "see if all of the linux users had just been willing to wait they would have had a *legal* means of viewing their dvds." Now fewer people are going to think that DeCSS is important. Fewer voices means less real change. Less chance of our being able to defend ourselves in the future. The outcome of the whole DeCSS problem is more important then if a few people want to watch dvds on linux.
None of us should use this dvd player. Not a single one of us should even buy a dvd. If we do, we are supporting their efforts, their lawsuites, and their PACs. If we want change we have to hit them where it hurts in the pocketbooks. </60s style rant>
.. up causes related to the internet and technology. They have both the lawers and the experiance to do some good. Also they are not afraid to fight something on a constitutional basis and take it to the supreme court if necesary.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the EFF is a little undergunned. With the help of the ACLU they should have both the expertise and the money to argue issues against large companies. The ACLU also has greater political power then most other organizations. Which means that if they continue to take an interest in digital free speech fewer stupid laws may get passed.
Slashdot may have a lot of geeks and nerds but the site that this story is on is ****GEEKS ONLY****. (while checking for PC police the poster adds not that their is anything wrong with that.) If your having trouble figuring out what PC means in this context you belong on the other site.
I wanted to do a little trolling when I saw that they had a message board going. Not only was the message board really nifty looking but *they* require you to login. I noticed many fewer troll posts and very few offtopic posts. No moderation that I could see from a very brief examination.
... you dispoved the theory? Would they still pay?
BTW you can all quit trying I proved it last night and I found an easy way to factor extremely large numbers in a very small amount of time.
Ok I lied. I don't think that number theory is advanced enough to solve the problem. To me the problem is related to creating a function to generate primes.
<off topic>Part of the problem of factoring primes *indirectly* is knowing all the primes below a certain size. If we ever find an easy way of factoring large numbers the currently popular encryption routines will be useless. Someday I expect to see a function that will allow you to find the nth prime, but not soon. Unless of course the NSA already has such a function then I NEVER expect to see it, unless someone from outside of the united states finds it on their own.</off topic>
6 = 3 + 3
8 = 5 + 3
10 = 7 + 3
12 = 7 + 5
14 = 11 + 3
16 = 11 + 5
18 = 11 + 7
20 = 13 + 7
22 = 11 + 11
24 = 13 + 11
26 = 13 + 13
28 = 17 + 11
30 = 17 + 13
32 = 19 + 13
34 = 17 + 17 = 23 + 11 = 3 + 31 = 5 + 29
36 = 19 + 17
38 = 19 + 19
40 = 23 + 17
42 = 23 + 19
44 = 31 + 13
46 = 23 + 23
48 = 29 + 19
Their are of course other sets of prime numbers that would work for many of these I showed a few for 34. When I look at the numbers listed in this way I almost see a pattern but I can't connect the primes to the sum.
I'll probably tinker with the problem but it would probably be cheaper in terms of what my time is worth to buy lottery tickets. And I would probably have just as good of a chance winning the lottery as *I* would of solving this problem.
Thanks changed.
True but the cookie still tracks you, and what you are doing for the duration of each session. So that really doesn't completely solve the problem.
Since the above does not apply to windows. In windows you can always delete the cookie file/s when you close your connection. To get the same result. Internet Explorer and netscape store them in different places but both are easy to find.
in retrospect I think that if other ways of storing information had been used we would be better off. Have any of you tried to run a browser with cookies turned completely off. Their are *many* sites that will not even let you look around. I could live with haveing to log in to slashdot everyday and maybe haveing to log in to a couple of other sites that I have an account on, what I can't stand is the idea that people and corporations are able to some extent track what I do or where go while on the internet.
Privacy should be by default not something that you have to beg for or opt out of programs to get. "Opt out", people should have to Opt in. Ad companies say that consumers want targeted adds. I don't, if I want to buy something I don't mind searching a little or doing some research. If your a company that uses banner advertising I choose not to buy from you more then I might otherwise.
When I want to buy a product I want to buy it for the right reasons. It should be the best quality and value around. I don't want to buy something because company foo has better phsychologists then company bar. If you don't think advertising works your wrong. Companies that will downsize to save a few bucks will continue with costly advertizing campaigns because they know that they work.
There are things in life and yes even things on the internet that are worse then cookies. Losing my privacy is one of the things that I hate the most about this new "information age" we live in. I have emails that I don't want, phone calls that I don't want, mail that I don't want, and tv commercials that I don't want. All of them trying to sell me services or things that I really don't want.
Most of the time when I moderate I try to just look for good comments and moderate them up. The last time I had moderator access I used all 5 points moderating comments down. That was in the first 15 posts of one story.
Slashdot needs more moderators or more points per session or both. Something like 10 points to use in 2 days. That would get some things done.
Another suggestion AC posts start out at -1.
Windows really is that bad. I enjoyed using a computer more when windows 3.1 was the latest thing. I have two computers with windows installed. Both of these two computers will have a fit if left on for more then 12 hours. After 12 hours the system may not crash but if you try to shut it down it hangs. One of these computers is running windows 98 and the other is running 98 second edition. If I didn't need windows to run games on I would delete the windows partitions on both computers and run Linux, Beos, or hell dos would even be better.
:)
One of the funniest things that I ever read was in a computer magazine. The article was talking about windows and it said that you should always install the latest version and even if you didn't you should format you harddrive and reinstall windows every 6 months or so to keep errors low. It's funny but true. With linux I never worry about leaving my computers on I never have to worry that I won't be able to shut them down properly. I'm not saying that linux is perfect either, though. I have crashed programs in linux and had everything lock up.
I want to try Beos. Does anyone know if the free release is out yet? I'm to lazy to go look.
Maybe this one will have the dinosaur pack eating all of the worlds lawers not just a few unlucky people. When they finishe maybe they will start on the politicians and corporate CEOs.
......
All kidding asside this is cool. I like this kind of story. It's good science and something a little different. **** are you listening *****
As the above post stated paleontologists have to do lots of hypothysizing, on very little data. Most of the paleontologists that I've talked to or have seen on TV have a little more imagination then other scientists. And they seem to be a little less afraid of being proven wrong. It's always good to here of a new discovery that gives them a little bit more concrete knowledge.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm what if
These were only the babies and the reason that they were found together is that they had just hatched. The adults would then be truly huge.
Ooooops to much crack in my cereal this morning.
Forget the above paragraph I would erase it but I've forgotten how to use the backspace key.
we can get them to mirror DecSS source code as an electronic text. Or maybe one of us should right a historical account of the whole DecSS affair and include the source code to show exactly what started the whole affair and then have them mirror it. I do think that what project Gutenburg is doing is *very* good for society as a whole. I used several of the texts from project Gutenburg in my college english classes. If I happened to have a few 19th century books laying around the house I would definately scan them in and send them to the project. That's one of the main problems with the project, nothing modern is going in. I wonder if project Gutenburg would accept origianl works from internet authors, on subjects like computer programming or networking. I think that maybe I'll write a begginers book on java programming and submit it to see if they will accept it. Lots of the readers here on slashdot have aquired vast amounts of knowledge and maybe some of them would be willing to share that knowledge with others. (ahemmm useful knowledge not an Idiots guide to being a troll :) ) [please to do not hurt me with your trollish powers you must only use them for the good of mankind.]
... had the same drive that got us to the moon. We would already hava landed on mars and had a research station on the moon. Sending robots to mars is a great way to learn about the planet, but the only way people are going to get excited about mars missions is when a person is on his/her way to Mars.
The way our country and society is heading I would volonteer to be the first to go. Let the MPAA try to serve me with a warrent on the moon.
The interplanatery lag would suck but I wouldn't have much competition for bandwidth.
What has happened here is that someone did an expert(at least compared to the people that did the programming) analysis of a cryptographic aproach. Something that is specifically allowed under US law.
Save your breaking and entering analogies for piracy. This was an act of free speech consumers have a right to know what they are paying for. The list of blocked sites should not be encrypted with anything more powerfull then a simple shift cipher to keep children from looking at the list in a text browser. The person that bought the program has the *RIGHT* to know what sites are being blocked.
This encryption scheme is not a method to stop piracy or digital theft. It has one reason for existance, which is to keep people from knowing what sites and what rules are used to block sites. Reverse engineering is completely legal. Therefor if they don't want to see their precious list fall into the wrong hands they should use a decent encryption algorithm.
This does not make me proud to be an american, hell it doesn't even make me proud to be a human. What will it take for all of this stupidity on the part of the patent office to stop? Maybe when the director's child gets sick and he/she realizes that the child might have been cured had the information needed been publicly avaliable.
Profit should never be put before the good of any human and definately not before the good of the whole human race. How can a discovered moloculer sequence possibly be patentable. This is a molocule that occurs naturally not one that is created in a lab. I hope that sometime in the near future we as a society decide that humanity is more important then profit.
How are other contries handling DNA patents? Maybe they'll all be brighter then the US and refuse to honour DNA patents as any truly civilized country should.
I would rather see every process possible on a computer be patented then on single gene of any living creature not created in a lab. And since none have yet been created I don't want to see any gene patented.
America sucks I want to move to mars.
To a great extent I agree with katz. Ideas are not property and are not owned by anyone. At the same time I can see how someone that invested a large amount of time or money developing an idea would like to get fair compensation. Some of what has resulted is just practical but most is greed. The RIAA is showing an increase in profits but at the same time is yelling about lost revenue. This reminds me of the overblown claims of software makers that say that they lose millions to piracy each year. These people are making assumptions. If I download a mp3 I was not interested in buying the cd, as a matter of fact I would not have bought the cd at all. If a band that I like releases a new cd I usually go out and buy it. On the other hand my downloads have on occasionally prompted me to go out and buy a cd by allowing me to listen to music that I would not have otherwise have gotten to hear. The same goes for computer software. Most people who download pirated software would not have been willing to buy the software anyway. No money lost if someone gets the program for free rather then doing without to keep from paying outrageous prices for unknown software.
:) ) of the computer users on the net would be able or willing to implement the same algorithms. Most would prefer to have a binary for Linux or a self-installing package for windows even if they had to pay for it.
Imagine for a moment that discoveries as fundamental to computer science as Euclid's algorithm or recursion had been patented. Patents such as these could have hurt the development of computer science. These ideas are *worthy* of patents unlike most that are now being rewarded. That's what has me worried patents could eventually slow development of new ideas and progress. The ideas most important to today's society are also the ones that are most qualified to be patented. The useless patents like one click don't bother me since they will not hinder farther development in computer science. However the life of a patent is much to long for the rapid pace of development in computer technology. For instance new techniques that could be useful for voice recognition will probably be patented but by the time they become public domain computers will have advanced to a sufficient degree to allow a less efficient algorithm to be used.
Ideas should not be patentable but implementations should be. For example let's say that I invent a new compression scheme for video that is twice as good a current schemes and yields better quality. The algorithm should be public domain any implementation that I create from the algorithm should be mine alone. This allows one to take advantage of a new discovery and get that discovery implemented before others while still allowing the public to have any useful information for farther study.
Most people are more then willing to pay to have the details of a process hidden from them. Probably more then 80% of the slashdot readership would be able and willing to implement most algorithms, however probably only about 5%(just a guess
Value added that's what we're always talking about with Linux distro's. People are willing to pay for a good product with decent support and extras even if they could get the same no frills product for free with a little work. This is where people should be trying to make money not by patenting every idea that they can think of or discover.
Music and literature are another story. These people actually invent something new not an idea but an experience. True, the experience is no less valuable for being shared but these artists should be supported because they are valuable to society. What I as a consumer choose not to support is a corporate piracy that steals money from these artists. For now I have no choice maybe that will change in the future I would/will pay the artist for the rights to listen to a song(in any way I choose) and I would love a way to do that directly. For instance I would be willing to pay an artist $1 a song, for any song that I like if in return I get the right to listen copy or play the song in any fashion that I choose. I find it ironic that the true thieves (RIAA, MPAA) are so established and ingrained in our culture that we the consumers and the artists themselves no longer recognize these vultures for what they are. They take the creations of the artist and market it to people while keeping most of the profits for themselves.
Music and literature are unique in the art world. They were the first forms of cheap transportation for ideas. And with that comes the ability for easy replication. Other artists, painters, sculptors, and highly skilled craftsman create physical objects that are relatively hard to replicate perfectly. Look at how society handled the printing press. Before the printing press all work was free to copy if you could get the owner (the person or organization that had the work created not the artist) of the piece to allow you to do so. Since the printing press ideas have become commodities instead of universal truths. We should all be glad that some of the greatest minds in history have been willing to share freely with the world. While the lesser minds have clung to the few original ideas that they have created like a starving man might clutch a loaf of bread.
While I feel that people should be compensated for their work I do not think that people have a right to lock away ideas that would benefit society. For instance if a major oil company were to file a large number of patents on electric transportation then keep these patents from public use to increase peoples reliance on oil. This is an extreme case true, but to some extent patents prevent society from utilizing to a large extent the products of research.
Part of the problem is with corporations. Corporations are treated as legal entities by law and society. However a corporation is just a machine. A machine? Yes, a corporation is a human creation with only one goal to create wealth. A Corporation has no conscience and only one goal to please the stockholders. The best corporations for a time have honorable individuals running them. Individuals with both the stockholders and societies best interest at heart. These are the exception not the rule. The other part of the problem is the current democratic election process. Any person willing to spend millions of dollars for a job that pays less then $500,000 is already corrupt. Where does all of that money come from? Corporations. The government officials know that the American people's votes are biddable. They also know who their constituents are. Not the activist who happened to vote this election but the corporate sponsor who gives the official the money needed to stay in power. Again not every politician is corrupt but the decent caring ones are the exception.
Copyrights are fine they protect an artist and they are easy for individuals to obtain. If an individual creates a unique work of art or idea the work that went into its creation should be compensated. However, fair compensation does not imply that any idea or work of art should be kept from the public domain for an extended period of time. Copyrights should not be used to keep publicly valuable works from becoming public domain in a reasonable amount of time.
We don't have to completely scrap all of our old protections but maybe if we did it would be for the best. Does anyone besides me think that society would survive without patents and copyrights? A true artist works for the joy of the art only a sellout performs for money alone.
Sorry my post was somewhat tangent to yours. I do think your right that Mr. Haselton's actions could very well be viewed as illegal by our courts.
:) haha. I think that the less the government governs the better off we all are. You're right we do need laws. I just think that we need far fewer then what we have.
I hope that the court can see that this law is taking away a major right. They should see that this law is keeping the public from knowing when a company is acting unethicaly. A couple of good examples would be this case, and anytime a company is violating a consumers privacy by sending private information without the consumers knowledge like realplayer did.
You might say that I am a mild anarchist. Maybe a republican
Again I stand by what I said if I find a law to be morally dispicable then I will do what I know to be right. I believe less in utilitarianism then in Kant's philosophy of personel responsibility. Having said that I realize that breaking any law can have consequences and that must be weighed against the benifit to society and oneself.
Trying to reuse these probes would be a little like donating old trash 80 computers to schools to upgrade and teach children with. The distances involved in interplanetary travel are to great for it to be practical, since it takes so long to go to say jupiter or saturn and back. By the time the probe returned to earth technology would have advanced enough to make it cheaper to build a completely new probe.
It would be nice to get some of these probes back, though just to study the prolonged effects of radiation and extremes on the components. And if nothing else it would be cool to go to a museum and look at THE probe that had been to jupiter and back.
As a society we sometimes tend to view things as either right or wrong based on their legality. Just because something -may- be illegal does not make it unethical. And just because something is legal does not mean that it is ethical. Take slavery it was legal before the cival war but it was never ethical.
I as an individual will do whatever I feel is right legal or not. If that means finding ways to crack encryption then posting programs anonamously then that's what I'll do.
If I have a copy of some software and I want to look and see what it's doing I'll do so regardless of what the law says. I agree with all the posters that this law sucks and I'll do anything in my power to help get it overturned. Until it is overturned or at least diminished I will continue to do what I see as right.
You can't legislate morality.
You're right. Sorry I meant the percentage of computer users that have the level of technical knowledge needed to install linux are not as common as they used to be. Not that long ago it took at least a little technical knowledge to even be able to use the internet or a computer. Now more people buying computers know nothing about how or why they work. While the number of people with the knowledge to install linux HAS grown the percentage of computer users able to do so has shrunk. Sorry next time I'll be more clear.
I agree with you to some extent. What I meant by the statement that when someone needs help with windows they can get someone to help them is that more people are proficient in windows then linux. So, it is much more likely that someone will be able to find help with a windows machine if they are haveing trouble.
Linux is still not ready for newbies.
Having said that if one is comfortable with computers and not afraid of messing around with partitions and operating systems, linux is easy enough to use and help can be found online.
BTW I've had to reinstall windows at least four times in the last year a couple of times each on two computers. I've given up trying to help EVERYONE(read this as "lusers") with their computer. I only help people that are not afraid of their own machines and are truly trying to learn how to use it. I no longer help people that are going to depend on me to do every little thing for them. I won't refuse to help people that use MS software but I do refuse to help people that won't even attempt to learn what the machine they bought is doing.