All they'd have to be able to do is reliably classify it as *Tor* traffic. If they're willing to ban BitTorrent outright, for example, I don't see why they would have a problem with banning Tor outright, too.
That's cool, but is this really news that's Slashdot-worthy? Sites like LWN and KernelTrap have already reported this, and anyone who's interested in Linux development is pretty much guaranteed to follow the former at least, I think (and most likely the latter as well).
You got it all mixed up, folks. If anything, the headline should've been "IBM Adds Mainframe Chips to Videogame Consoles" when the PS3's architecture was first announced - it was always clear that the Cell would be used for more than just a console.
You're fundamentally misunderstanding what Wikipedia is about. Here's a hint: it's an encyclopedia, not a social project; the social project exists solely for the purpose of creating the encyclopedia.
Creating "offline" versions has ALWAYS been on the agenda. Not everyone has lots of bandwidth and a cheap broadband internet connection like us lucky folks in "western" countries; in fact, many people don't even have a computer of their own. For students etc. that don't and that can only use a computer at school, quite possibly without an Internet connection (or at least a decent and/or reliable one), an offline version will be very useful.
Anyone who opposes this simply wishes the human race to become extinct.
Wow... and YOU talk about others giving YOU a bad name? Here I thought saying "comparing others to Hitler (who was responsible for millions of deaths) is bad", and along comes Paulrothrock, accusing everyone who disagrees with him of wishing to cause *billions* of deaths.
This AP article actually claims that the planet's surface gravity is about 1.6 times that of Earth, so maybe he's really 625 pounds....wow, I shouldn't have pictured that.
Not to mention that "rocky" and "covered in an ocean" don't contradict each other, anyway, unless one were to believe that there is nothing below the ocean and that the entire planet consists of (pretty much) nothing but water.
Atheism is certainly not a religion, but I think that's just because it's not organised - it *is* a spiritual conviction (and I'm saying that as an atheist). A conviction based on considerations of plausibility, Occam's razor and so on, of course; a conviction that makes sense and doesn't just assert the existence of big bogeymen in the sky, flying spaghetti monsters and invisible pink unicorns secretly controlling the world; and a conviction that (some? many? most?) people would probably be willing to abandon if presented with strong actual evidence[1] that it is not, indeed correct, but a spiritual conviction nonetheless.
1. Given the claims typically made by religion, such evidence would have to be VERY strong indeed, and withstand a whole lot of attempts to deconstruct it over a very long period of time, but I think most atheists base their conviction on reason rather than irrational beliefs (like most "religious" people seem to do), and therefore, I think that most atheists would be able to willing to reconsider their conviction if provided with compelling, strong, well-tested evidence. But on the other hand, since I *am* an atheist, I think that all this is just a theoretical question, anyway.;)
Myself, I'd rather have a good camera (without a built-in phone) and a good phone (without a built-in camera). Seriously - when I want to take pictures, I'll use my camera, and when I want to make a phone call, I'll use my phone.
Camera phones are useful for people who want to take quick snapshots that they can MMS to their friends (or that they can show them on the phone in person later on), but little more. That doesn't mean that they're necessarily a bad idea, but they simply aren't the same as cameras, and given the size constraints on phones, they never will be, either (since you can't put a decent lense in a camera).
I don't buy into it because (a) these people aren't rational and (b) taking away their religion could make them worse - they could easily be converted into Stalinists or extreme nationalists.
Or, as the case may be, extreme earthists (to coin a new term).
No, you got that wrong - you left out the key part, namely that you shouldn't attribute to malice that which is ADEQUATELY explained by stupidity. In other words, if you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to create a fragile, elaborate construct that allows you to attribute something to stupidity, then maybe malice is the right explanation after all.
In other words, Hanlon's razor is only useful when coupled with Occam's razor. It's always *possible* to attribute things to stupidity rather than malice, but it's not always the "right" way to go.
On a side note the Geneva conventions are "quaint" and "obsolete," particularly when applied to warfare with cultures that don't recognize said conventions.
For that, you're going straight to my foe list. Good riddance, asshole.
Just out of curiosity, what business do the USA have criticising other country's copyright laws, anyway? If Canada - for example - told the USA that their copyright laws are inadequate and need to be overhauled, they'd quickly be told to mind their own damn business and not meddle in other countries' internal affairs - and rightfully so, too. Why do the USA think that they have the right to do the same thing?
Or, more specifically: why don't the PEOPLE see anything wrong with it when the administration(s) (both past and present) think they have the right to meddle in the affairs of other countries?
Its bounds? The EU pretty cannot overstep its bounds - if Microsoft wants to do business here, they'll have to play by the rules, just like - and this is important - EVERYONE ELSE. If they're unwilling to do that (and I'm not saying "unable or unwilling" since it's pretty much impossible for them to really be unable), well... nobody's forcing them to do business here. There's no dog-given right to act like an arse, and our politicians haven't been bought out 100% yet (just 99%).
On a side note, it's really rather funny to see that all the hatred for Microsoft on Slashdot suddenly vanish as soon as it's Microsoft vs. the EU - then suddenly, defending a fellow US-American company suddenly seems to become more important than pointing out how much Microsoft as a convicted monopolist engaged in illegal anti-competitive tactics is hurting innovation/the industry/society.
That may indeed be what they're counting on - the equivalent of the RIAA's "a settlement will be cheaper than a drawn-out court case" strategy. And add to that the fact that a precedent (Apple paying for the right to use this "patent") is valuable for them (obviously) *and* Apple (since it will make it more likely that Apple's competitors will be sued and lose money, too), and I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was settled out of court after a while "for an undisclosed sum" (which, given the mutual benefits, would probably be very small - significantly smaller than even the 20 million they're asking for now).
participating in our democracy to keep our troops as safe as possible - ensure they're not sent anywhere they don't need to be, and ensure they are well-equipped when they are sent there. This is what I think of when people say "support our troops".
Indeed, that's probably what most people think of when they hear taglines like that, but it's still an illusion. What are you ACTUALLY doing? Have you written to your congresscritters recently? Sent letters to your local newspaper, detailing your stance? Attended anti-war rallies and protests? *Organised* anti-war rallies and protests? Have you actually tried to make a difference in any way, or are you just using terms like "participating in our democracy" (which means what - casting a vote every couple of years?) to make yourself feel better and delude yourself into thinking that you're supporting anything or anyone except for yourself?
I'm not saying that you have to become a mercenary or a soldier to "support the troops"; you *can* do things even when you're just a private citizen in the USA. Cindy Sheehan is probably a good example; no matter whether you agree with her or what she does, you can't deny that she's being *active*. But how many people who claim to "support the troops" actually do that?
Of course it's not enough to just stick a "I support our troops" bumper sticker on your car. But it's also not enough to go to the ballot box every couple of years to cast your vote (and hoping it'll be counted), and it's also not enough to get het up and post comments on Slashdot.
(Not that I'm any better myself, of course, but then, I don't claim to "support our troops" - especially since they aren't my troops to begin with, anyway.)
I have no idea if the experiment in this article has anything to say about so-called "Bohmian mechanics," as the blurb was completely uninformative and I don't subscribe to Nature...
I indeed don't remember MSDOS 4.0, but I *do* remember that there was a 4.01; and contrary to what you might say, 4.0(1) did have some useful features, too, insofar as that it got rid of the 32 MB limit for hard disk partitions that 3.3 had. Admittedly, it did so in an unwieldy manner, and 5.0 was FAR superior to any MSDOS version that came before it, but it's inaccurate to say that 4.0(1) did not add any useful features.
Crooke has sued two very large firms that have more than enough money to defend themselves: Google and Wikipedia.
Wow... I've really got to applaud you for managing to stuff that many mistakes about Wikipedia into one sentence. Let's see: 1) Wikipedia is not a company, it's a project run by the Wikimedia Foundation. 2) The Wikimedia Foundation is not a company, either; they're a charitable non-profit organisation. 3) The Wikimedia Foundation, with 5 paid employees, is not "very large", even if you stretch the definition of "very large" a lot (urgh... I shouldn't talk about stretching after having read that goatse.cx story). And 4) the Wikimedia Foundation does not have a lot of money; they operate on a very tight budget, and while they probably will be able to defend themselves (FWIW, they might be able to get some pro bono defense, too - I suppose), they certainly are nowhere near an organisation you don't mess with because they have (near) limitless resources to throw behind any legal fight (like Google does, for example).
That being said, I agree that this can't really be classified as a SLAPP lawsuit; the very definition of "SLAPP" is "big guy sues small guy to shut small guy up", not the other way around.
Would you be OK with the postal services opening your mail and refusing to carry them if they didn't like their contents, or your phone company listening in to your calls and disconnecting you and/or refusing to allow you to call the same number again in the future based on what you're talking about?
What if those decisions are done by automated systems rather than humans - would you feel better because you knew that no actual person was reading your mail and listening to your phone calls?
You might still say "they're free to do it, and I'm free to take my business elsewhere", but what if everyone does it, and if you had no other choice but to agree to it if you want to be able to send letters or call people on the phone? You might say "I'm gonna encrypt my letters and scramble my phone calls", but what if your postal services company and telco decided that that was against their ToS? Would you still say "I'll just take my business elsewhere"? And again, what if everyone did it and you COULDN'T take your business elsewhere?
Your rights are only worth anything as long as they are actually protected, and that includes protection against non-government entities as well. And while you may argue that forbidding these kinds of things would impinge on the companies' freedom to conduct their business the way they want to, also do keep in mind that non-interference is an essential counterpart to freedom - your right to swing your fist ends where my face starts, and arguably, the same thing applies here.
As long as you just stand somewhere swinging your fist, it may make some sense to say that I simply shouldn't go near you in order to avoid being hit, but if you deduce from that that you're always free to swing your fist, then do consider a situation where I'm in a group of people who're all swinging their fists, with nowhere left to go. Is it my fault then that I get beaten up?
So, yeah, I agree that it does fall under free speech rights, but I also think that saying "if it were a private company, nothing would be wrong with it" is fallacious.
Good news should be reported if it does matter, of course - but it should *matter*, instead of just being some irrelevant tidbit or heartwarming story that's only reported to meet some quota (whether it's set by the state, the network's CEO, or whoever).
In other words, for the purpose of determining what news is reported, those who make that decision should be agnostic as far as the "goodness" of the news is concerned. It simply shouldn't matter at all; disregard whether news items are good or bad, then rank them by importance, and report them in order until you run out of time. (A rather simplified algorithm, of course, but that's the gist of what it should be like.)
As soon as you start arguing that news should be more positive, or less depressing, or whatever, you should ask yourself what news are supposed to accomplish. Do you watch news to keep up your illusions about the world and avoid the cognitive dissonance caused by seeing that the real world is not the way you want it to be, or do you watch it because you want to know what the real world is really like, and do you think that the news should accurately report that?
You do have a right to not be interested in the real world, of course, and to keep your illusions, but I'd say it'd be better if you just didn't watch the news at all in that case; stick with comedy shows, cartoons, movies and so on, and pretend that everything's fine. But don't attempt to subvert the news to match your bias instead of reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? Speak for yourself, Planesdragon. Do you have any evidence to actually back up that claim?
All they'd have to be able to do is reliably classify it as *Tor* traffic. If they're willing to ban BitTorrent outright, for example, I don't see why they would have a problem with banning Tor outright, too.
That's cool, but is this really news that's Slashdot-worthy? Sites like LWN and KernelTrap have already reported this, and anyone who's interested in Linux development is pretty much guaranteed to follow the former at least, I think (and most likely the latter as well).
You got it all mixed up, folks. If anything, the headline should've been "IBM Adds Mainframe Chips to Videogame Consoles" when the PS3's architecture was first announced - it was always clear that the Cell would be used for more than just a console.
You're fundamentally misunderstanding what Wikipedia is about. Here's a hint: it's an encyclopedia, not a social project; the social project exists solely for the purpose of creating the encyclopedia.
Creating "offline" versions has ALWAYS been on the agenda. Not everyone has lots of bandwidth and a cheap broadband internet connection like us lucky folks in "western" countries; in fact, many people don't even have a computer of their own. For students etc. that don't and that can only use a computer at school, quite possibly without an Internet connection (or at least a decent and/or reliable one), an offline version will be very useful.
Wow... and YOU talk about others giving YOU a bad name? Here I thought saying "comparing others to Hitler (who was responsible for millions of deaths) is bad", and along comes Paulrothrock, accusing everyone who disagrees with him of wishing to cause *billions* of deaths.
I'm rather speechless indeed.
This AP article actually claims that the planet's surface gravity is about 1.6 times that of Earth, so maybe he's really 625 pounds. ...wow, I shouldn't have pictured that.
Not to mention that "rocky" and "covered in an ocean" don't contradict each other, anyway, unless one were to believe that there is nothing below the ocean and that the entire planet consists of (pretty much) nothing but water.
Atheism is certainly not a religion, but I think that's just because it's not organised - it *is* a spiritual conviction (and I'm saying that as an atheist). A conviction based on considerations of plausibility, Occam's razor and so on, of course; a conviction that makes sense and doesn't just assert the existence of big bogeymen in the sky, flying spaghetti monsters and invisible pink unicorns secretly controlling the world; and a conviction that (some? many? most?) people would probably be willing to abandon if presented with strong actual evidence[1] that it is not, indeed correct, but a spiritual conviction nonetheless.
;)
1. Given the claims typically made by religion, such evidence would have to be VERY strong indeed, and withstand a whole lot of attempts to deconstruct it over a very long period of time, but I think most atheists base their conviction on reason rather than irrational beliefs (like most "religious" people seem to do), and therefore, I think that most atheists would be able to willing to reconsider their conviction if provided with compelling, strong, well-tested evidence. But on the other hand, since I *am* an atheist, I think that all this is just a theoretical question, anyway.
Myself, I'd rather have a good camera (without a built-in phone) and a good phone (without a built-in camera). Seriously - when I want to take pictures, I'll use my camera, and when I want to make a phone call, I'll use my phone.
Camera phones are useful for people who want to take quick snapshots that they can MMS to their friends (or that they can show them on the phone in person later on), but little more. That doesn't mean that they're necessarily a bad idea, but they simply aren't the same as cameras, and given the size constraints on phones, they never will be, either (since you can't put a decent lense in a camera).
Or, as the case may be, extreme earthists (to coin a new term).
No, you got that wrong - you left out the key part, namely that you shouldn't attribute to malice that which is ADEQUATELY explained by stupidity. In other words, if you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to create a fragile, elaborate construct that allows you to attribute something to stupidity, then maybe malice is the right explanation after all.
In other words, Hanlon's razor is only useful when coupled with Occam's razor. It's always *possible* to attribute things to stupidity rather than malice, but it's not always the "right" way to go.
For that, you're going straight to my foe list. Good riddance, asshole.
Just out of curiosity, what business do the USA have criticising other country's copyright laws, anyway? If Canada - for example - told the USA that their copyright laws are inadequate and need to be overhauled, they'd quickly be told to mind their own damn business and not meddle in other countries' internal affairs - and rightfully so, too. Why do the USA think that they have the right to do the same thing?
Or, more specifically: why don't the PEOPLE see anything wrong with it when the administration(s) (both past and present) think they have the right to meddle in the affairs of other countries?
Its bounds? The EU pretty cannot overstep its bounds - if Microsoft wants to do business here, they'll have to play by the rules, just like - and this is important - EVERYONE ELSE. If they're unwilling to do that (and I'm not saying "unable or unwilling" since it's pretty much impossible for them to really be unable), well... nobody's forcing them to do business here. There's no dog-given right to act like an arse, and our politicians haven't been bought out 100% yet (just 99%).
On a side note, it's really rather funny to see that all the hatred for Microsoft on Slashdot suddenly vanish as soon as it's Microsoft vs. the EU - then suddenly, defending a fellow US-American company suddenly seems to become more important than pointing out how much Microsoft as a convicted monopolist engaged in illegal anti-competitive tactics is hurting innovation/the industry/society.
That may indeed be what they're counting on - the equivalent of the RIAA's "a settlement will be cheaper than a drawn-out court case" strategy. And add to that the fact that a precedent (Apple paying for the right to use this "patent") is valuable for them (obviously) *and* Apple (since it will make it more likely that Apple's competitors will be sued and lose money, too), and I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was settled out of court after a while "for an undisclosed sum" (which, given the mutual benefits, would probably be very small - significantly smaller than even the 20 million they're asking for now).
Indeed, that's probably what most people think of when they hear taglines like that, but it's still an illusion. What are you ACTUALLY doing? Have you written to your congresscritters recently? Sent letters to your local newspaper, detailing your stance? Attended anti-war rallies and protests? *Organised* anti-war rallies and protests? Have you actually tried to make a difference in any way, or are you just using terms like "participating in our democracy" (which means what - casting a vote every couple of years?) to make yourself feel better and delude yourself into thinking that you're supporting anything or anyone except for yourself?
I'm not saying that you have to become a mercenary or a soldier to "support the troops"; you *can* do things even when you're just a private citizen in the USA. Cindy Sheehan is probably a good example; no matter whether you agree with her or what she does, you can't deny that she's being *active*. But how many people who claim to "support the troops" actually do that?
Of course it's not enough to just stick a "I support our troops" bumper sticker on your car. But it's also not enough to go to the ballot box every couple of years to cast your vote (and hoping it'll be counted), and it's also not enough to get het up and post comments on Slashdot.
(Not that I'm any better myself, of course, but then, I don't claim to "support our troops" - especially since they aren't my troops to begin with, anyway.)
Thanks, David. Maybe you should.
I indeed don't remember MSDOS 4.0, but I *do* remember that there was a 4.01; and contrary to what you might say, 4.0(1) did have some useful features, too, insofar as that it got rid of the 32 MB limit for hard disk partitions that 3.3 had. Admittedly, it did so in an unwieldy manner, and 5.0 was FAR superior to any MSDOS version that came before it, but it's inaccurate to say that 4.0(1) did not add any useful features.
That line perfectly sums up what's wrong with the world today.
Wow... I've really got to applaud you for managing to stuff that many mistakes about Wikipedia into one sentence. Let's see: 1) Wikipedia is not a company, it's a project run by the Wikimedia Foundation. 2) The Wikimedia Foundation is not a company, either; they're a charitable non-profit organisation. 3) The Wikimedia Foundation, with 5 paid employees, is not "very large", even if you stretch the definition of "very large" a lot (urgh... I shouldn't talk about stretching after having read that goatse.cx story). And 4) the Wikimedia Foundation does not have a lot of money; they operate on a very tight budget, and while they probably will be able to defend themselves (FWIW, they might be able to get some pro bono defense, too - I suppose), they certainly are nowhere near an organisation you don't mess with because they have (near) limitless resources to throw behind any legal fight (like Google does, for example).
That being said, I agree that this can't really be classified as a SLAPP lawsuit; the very definition of "SLAPP" is "big guy sues small guy to shut small guy up", not the other way around.
Yeah, great idea!
1. Sign up and opt in to use this feature
2. Use TrackMeNot to make it useless
3. Profit!
Seriously, wouldn't it be easier to, you know, just refrain from opting in?
There's some folks working on scaling, too. ;) I wonder where I'll get a 4096 CPU machine, though...
Would you be OK with the postal services opening your mail and refusing to carry them if they didn't like their contents, or your phone company listening in to your calls and disconnecting you and/or refusing to allow you to call the same number again in the future based on what you're talking about?
What if those decisions are done by automated systems rather than humans - would you feel better because you knew that no actual person was reading your mail and listening to your phone calls?
You might still say "they're free to do it, and I'm free to take my business elsewhere", but what if everyone does it, and if you had no other choice but to agree to it if you want to be able to send letters or call people on the phone? You might say "I'm gonna encrypt my letters and scramble my phone calls", but what if your postal services company and telco decided that that was against their ToS? Would you still say "I'll just take my business elsewhere"? And again, what if everyone did it and you COULDN'T take your business elsewhere?
Your rights are only worth anything as long as they are actually protected, and that includes protection against non-government entities as well. And while you may argue that forbidding these kinds of things would impinge on the companies' freedom to conduct their business the way they want to, also do keep in mind that non-interference is an essential counterpart to freedom - your right to swing your fist ends where my face starts, and arguably, the same thing applies here.
As long as you just stand somewhere swinging your fist, it may make some sense to say that I simply shouldn't go near you in order to avoid being hit, but if you deduce from that that you're always free to swing your fist, then do consider a situation where I'm in a group of people who're all swinging their fists, with nowhere left to go. Is it my fault then that I get beaten up?
So, yeah, I agree that it does fall under free speech rights, but I also think that saying "if it were a private company, nothing would be wrong with it" is fallacious.
Good news should be reported if it does matter, of course - but it should *matter*, instead of just being some irrelevant tidbit or heartwarming story that's only reported to meet some quota (whether it's set by the state, the network's CEO, or whoever).
In other words, for the purpose of determining what news is reported, those who make that decision should be agnostic as far as the "goodness" of the news is concerned. It simply shouldn't matter at all; disregard whether news items are good or bad, then rank them by importance, and report them in order until you run out of time. (A rather simplified algorithm, of course, but that's the gist of what it should be like.)
As soon as you start arguing that news should be more positive, or less depressing, or whatever, you should ask yourself what news are supposed to accomplish. Do you watch news to keep up your illusions about the world and avoid the cognitive dissonance caused by seeing that the real world is not the way you want it to be, or do you watch it because you want to know what the real world is really like, and do you think that the news should accurately report that?
You do have a right to not be interested in the real world, of course, and to keep your illusions, but I'd say it'd be better if you just didn't watch the news at all in that case; stick with comedy shows, cartoons, movies and so on, and pretend that everything's fine. But don't attempt to subvert the news to match your bias instead of reality.