Did you read TFA? His issue is not with a swastika appearing in the game itself, it's with the swastika appearing in a publicly accessible Xbox Live profile. Without any context whatsoever.
I don't think the most troubling part of what happened is that this guy didn't try to ensure his anonimity.
He didn't intend to make a bombthreat, hell, he didn't even make one. The fact that all hell breaks loose over something silly as this shows that the terrorists have won. Western society lives in fear, whether you like it or not.
If I have to pay extra for a blank CD to compensate for the pirating I'm suspected of using it for, then why shouldn't I use it for pirating? After all, I've already paid the fine, might as well do the crime.
Note: I live in the Netherlands, where it's still not illegal to copy/download movies or music, yet I still pay the extra tax on blank media.
Unreliable as in you get no guarantees if and when a message will actually be delivered. Try to find a carrier anywhere that offers you a contract with an SLA on SMS delivery.
Granted, you won't often run into problems with SMS, but if you are bound by an SLA with a customer, you'd better have your underpinning contracts (yay for ITIL terminology) at the same level as that SLA.
In The Netherlands we also (used to? I emigrated quite some time ago) have such a copyright tax on many media
We still have that copyright tax on cassette tape, cd-rom and dvd-r, but not on mp3 players, flash cards or hardrives. BUMA/STEMRA is pushing for it, but for now the politicians have put the plans on hold. At least until BUMA/STEMRA can show what they are actually doing with the money they get from this scheme, as it becomes more and more clear that it's all just sitting in a savings account without the artists seeing a penny of it.
It's not just that they are fed up with the slander.
The FTD software used to have what they called an 'NZB Button'. On the page with the information about the content you were looking for (filenames, size, description, etc.), there'd be a button which if clicked on directed you to an external usenet search engine, with the correct search terms already filled in. After talks between FTD and BREIN, FTD decided to remove this button, and to not allow their users to post direct links to nzb files, or nzb search engines. FTD did this to prevent BREIN from coming after them, they are not linking to any content whatsoever anymore. There's just users telling you what filenames to look for in which newsgroups.
So, here's FTD talking to BREIN, agreeing on taking these actions, taking away any shred of doubt that what they're doing is completely legal under Dutch law, when Tim Kuik comes along and happily continues to call them criminals.
In all fairness, there are third party plugins to the FTD software that re-enable this NZB button, but those are beyond FTD's control.
It's the same over here in the Netherlands. If you're lucky, you can find a 7" Xandros Eeepc, but that's about it. I found an online shop that imported from the UK, they had one 10" model with Linux on it. But when I ordered it, they weren't able to get them anymore. I ended up paying the MS tax, just because I wanted a netbook.
It doesn't really matter if we cannot travel faster than the speed of light so long as we can live long enough to get there.
Who cares if it takes 50 years to fly to Alpha Centauri if we can engineer ourselves to live for a thousand!
Either that, or we can just figure out how to get really close to the speed of light, and reap the benefits of time dilation to make the journey only last hours from the traveller's point of view.
If you have to hide your number you are likely up to no good, why not just make it illegal to hide your caller id
If you don't let the police into your house, you are likeley up to no good. Why not just get rid of search warrants and make it illegal to deny the police entry to your house?
Plasma is also an energy hog - typical 42" Plasma can suck 400w down, while same LCD takes 180w or so.
Although that LCD continuously uses that 180w, while the plasma only uses that 400w when showing a completely white screen. Energy use by plasma screens drops when displaying dark images, so make sure not to mistake peak usage for actual usage.
The reason they want you to turn off portable music players during takeoff isn't that they might interfere. Takeoff and landing are the parts of the flight with the most risk, they just want to make sure that you're not spending vital seconds trying to get your headphones off in case of an emergency.
Don't forget that China has a massive dollar reserve. They have the power to completely crash the value of the dollar by dumping their reserve on the global market. And if they would actually do this, every country with dollar reserves would follow to minimize their losses.
Their reserves would be hurt by a dollar crash ofcourse, but they'd have the 'bonus' of massively increasing prices on imported goods for the USA. Including oil, because if the dollar would crash, OPEC would most likely start pricing their barrels in Euros.
It's pretty much MADD, but this time on an economic level.
Anyone can investigate to their heart's content. You don't need a license, unless you want your results to be used as evidence in a court. Just as the police are bound by rules to insure they respect your basic freedoms, so are private companies/individuals.
Disclaimer: INALANEAA (I am not a lawyer and not even an american)
They should just shut up and read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett:
"Gods on the Discworld exist as long as people believe in them and their power grows as their followers increase. This is a philosophy echoing the real-world politics of the power of religion and is most detailed in the novel Small Gods. If people should cease believing in a particular god (say, if the religion becomes more important than faith) the god begins to fade and, eventually, will "die", becoming little more than a faded wispy echo."
Here in the Netherlands 90% of all the highways have traffic detection and automated speed limits. However this does not prevent the shockwaves and is not proved by any data
It's hard to get that data, because nobody bothers keeping those automated speed limits. I've tried to follow those automated limits, but people just passed me left and right, looking at me like I was the one causing the traffic jam.
And that's the problem. I can't say much about IBM or MIT, but I can say something about HP as I've been one of their employees. IIRC, they have 2 blocks, the second one came from their taking over of Compaq (which had it from when they took over DEC).
The problem is that they use a lot of those adresses for internal machines, that should really be using NAT for. I mean, I would setup a VPN tunnel from home and get a 15.x.x.x adress assigned. So yeah, they use the addresses, but what's the point?
It's not actually compulsory for super-powers to go straight to the nuclear option on day 1
I'm sure it isn't, but I can think of a few options that fit somewhere in the middle on the scale of 'satellites being shot down' to 'global nuclear war'. Also, I like to think ahead.
Most "high end electronics" consumers do not have the knowledge or tech savvy to make such a decision, and will continue to buy the "latest and greatest" they are told to buy - unless it sufficiently curtails their actions. Most of the people who will be affected by such a theoretical move (by the CPU manufacturers) are the tech savvy computer community - not the computer users who are otherwise (technologically) computer illiterate.
How long do you think it will take for them to get educated once they notice their 20Gb of downloaded mp3's won't play anymore?
Slashdot Mirror
Did you read TFA? His issue is not with a swastika appearing in the game itself, it's with the swastika appearing in a publicly accessible Xbox Live profile. Without any context whatsoever.
If you have control over that many computers, there are far more interesting/lucrative things you can do than just wiping them all.
I don't think the most troubling part of what happened is that this guy didn't try to ensure his anonimity.
He didn't intend to make a bombthreat, hell, he didn't even make one. The fact that all hell breaks loose over something silly as this shows that the terrorists have won. Western society lives in fear, whether you like it or not.
If I have to pay extra for a blank CD to compensate for the pirating I'm suspected of using it for, then why shouldn't I use it for pirating? After all, I've already paid the fine, might as well do the crime.
Note: I live in the Netherlands, where it's still not illegal to copy/download movies or music, yet I still pay the extra tax on blank media.
SMS is unreliable? Where?
Unreliable as in you get no guarantees if and when a message will actually be delivered. Try to find a carrier anywhere that offers you a contract with an SLA on SMS delivery. Granted, you won't often run into problems with SMS, but if you are bound by an SLA with a customer, you'd better have your underpinning contracts (yay for ITIL terminology) at the same level as that SLA.
We still have that copyright tax on cassette tape, cd-rom and dvd-r, but not on mp3 players, flash cards or hardrives. BUMA/STEMRA is pushing for it, but for now the politicians have put the plans on hold. At least until BUMA/STEMRA can show what they are actually doing with the money they get from this scheme, as it becomes more and more clear that it's all just sitting in a savings account without the artists seeing a penny of it.
It's not just that they are fed up with the slander.
The FTD software used to have what they called an 'NZB Button'. On the page with the information about the content you were looking for (filenames, size, description, etc.), there'd be a button which if clicked on directed you to an external usenet search engine, with the correct search terms already filled in. After talks between FTD and BREIN, FTD decided to remove this button, and to not allow their users to post direct links to nzb files, or nzb search engines. FTD did this to prevent BREIN from coming after them, they are not linking to any content whatsoever anymore. There's just users telling you what filenames to look for in which newsgroups.
So, here's FTD talking to BREIN, agreeing on taking these actions, taking away any shred of doubt that what they're doing is completely legal under Dutch law, when Tim Kuik comes along and happily continues to call them criminals.
In all fairness, there are third party plugins to the FTD software that re-enable this NZB button, but those are beyond FTD's control.
It's the same over here in the Netherlands. If you're lucky, you can find a 7" Xandros Eeepc, but that's about it. I found an online shop that imported from the UK, they had one 10" model with Linux on it. But when I ordered it, they weren't able to get them anymore.
I ended up paying the MS tax, just because I wanted a netbook.
It doesn't really matter if we cannot travel faster than the speed of light so long as we can live long enough to get there.
Who cares if it takes 50 years to fly to Alpha Centauri if we can engineer ourselves to live for a thousand!
Either that, or we can just figure out how to get really close to the speed of light, and reap the benefits of time dilation to make the journey only last hours from the traveller's point of view.
You call it hyperbole, I call it pointing out the slippery slope.
If you have to hide your number you are likely up to no good, why not just make it illegal to hide your caller id
If you don't let the police into your house, you are likeley up to no good. Why not just get rid of search warrants and make it illegal to deny the police entry to your house?
Plasma is also an energy hog - typical 42" Plasma can suck 400w down, while same LCD takes 180w or so.
Although that LCD continuously uses that 180w, while the plasma only uses that 400w when showing a completely white screen. Energy use by plasma screens drops when displaying dark images, so make sure not to mistake peak usage for actual usage.
Unless ofcourse, as some might argue, this has already happened.
It might look mean, but it can be easily tamed by turning it into a sailboat and drowning it.
The reason they want you to turn off portable music players during takeoff isn't that they might interfere. Takeoff and landing are the parts of the flight with the most risk, they just want to make sure that you're not spending vital seconds trying to get your headphones off in case of an emergency.
I'd love to say I was preoccupied with a Double D, but alas, I'm posting on /.
Don't forget that China has a massive dollar reserve. They have the power to completely crash the value of the dollar by dumping their reserve on the global market. And if they would actually do this, every country with dollar reserves would follow to minimize their losses.
Their reserves would be hurt by a dollar crash ofcourse, but they'd have the 'bonus' of massively increasing prices on imported goods for the USA. Including oil, because if the dollar would crash, OPEC would most likely start pricing their barrels in Euros.
It's pretty much MADD, but this time on an economic level.
Anyone can investigate to their heart's content. You don't need a license, unless you want your results to be used as evidence in a court. Just as the police are bound by rules to insure they respect your basic freedoms, so are private companies/individuals.
Disclaimer: INALANEAA (I am not a lawyer and not even an american)
Mod parent up.
If flight plans of Air Force One are being sent over a public network in plaintext, it doesn't matter in whose mailbox they end up really.
Here in the Netherlands 90% of all the highways have traffic detection and automated speed limits. However this does not prevent the shockwaves and is not proved by any data
It's hard to get that data, because nobody bothers keeping those automated speed limits. I've tried to follow those automated limits, but people just passed me left and right, looking at me like I was the one causing the traffic jam.
They do actually USE those addresses, you know.
And that's the problem. I can't say much about IBM or MIT, but I can say something about HP as I've been one of their employees. IIRC, they have 2 blocks, the second one came from their taking over of Compaq (which had it from when they took over DEC).
The problem is that they use a lot of those adresses for internal machines, that should really be using NAT for. I mean, I would setup a VPN tunnel from home and get a 15.x.x.x adress assigned. So yeah, they use the addresses, but what's the point?
It's not actually compulsory for super-powers to go straight to the nuclear option on day 1
I'm sure it isn't, but I can think of a few options that fit somewhere in the middle on the scale of 'satellites being shot down' to 'global nuclear war'.
Also, I like to think ahead.