No, they can't, but on roads without some barrier in the median, the ambulance can just drive on the (now empty) other side of the road.
If a road really can't allow for any alternate routes for the emergency vehicle or enough space for people to pull over, they'll just have to keep the current behavior and suffer assholes using this device for their own ends.
Oh sure; any time a system like this is alterable in an untraceable way from a distance you're vulnerable to crap like this. My idea was more of a stop-gap measure.
One thing to do, then, would be to change the behavior of the traffic lights so that on receiving this signal, they go to four-way red. Since emergency vehicles can run red lights, it doesn't stop them, while simultaneously deterring civilians from using them.
(The trouble is the lack of feedback. You'd need some kind of indication that the other ways had gone to red before the ambulance driver will have confidence going through the intersection at full speed)
Generally speaking, one group of people makes one argument and another makes the other. The so-called "Slashdot community" is not homogeneous -- as you yourself demonstrate.
I have a few nits to pick with it, such as that I am not always connected to the internet and that Windows sometimes behaves irrationally when it expects an internet connection and none exists. From what I've heard of Longhorn, they seem to rely heavily on having an internet connection at all times.
Second, they just haven't managed the art of not requiring reboots for even minor patches, and until they do, I don't want them automatically installing them.
There are also legal concerns -- MS puts a EULA on every damn thing they write, including patches. Am I legally agreeing to that document if my operating system downloads and installs the patch code automatically? Their behavior in that regard has not been spotless. If I am given the opportunity to decline a given EULA, can I no longer download future patches from them?
What control do I have over what gets patched? I seem to recall that one of the CD DRM techniques required that a given driver be installed (and that not allowing Autoplay prevented that). If MS signs an agreement with that company to automatically "patch" Longhorn with that DRM, can I stop that installation to preserve my fair use rights to my CDs?
In short, I find the situation troubling, and that it requires scrutiny. If you choose to call that "blather", then fine. Or perhaps I should simply quote Walt Whitman:
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
This has been a big topic on the Dartmouth campus lately, with VoIP being set up campus-wide. There are lots of people who will just use it with their laptops, but several profs already have a nifty little device from Vocera which hangs around the neck on a lanyard and is mostly voice-driven. (The comparisons to a Star Trek communicator in the article are actually pretty apt, except for the size) Their CEO was just here a couple days ago giving a lecture on the device. Very cool stuff, though most of the software is necessarily server-side, and seems to cost a hefty amount.
It's partly being touted as an alternative to cell phones (reception sucks up here) but 802.11 reception is too limited to make it worthwhile for those of us who live off-campus. Still, I'll be watching carefully to see how it goes.
It occurs to me that one solution would be to require semi-randomization of the tag numbers. Assign number space (like IP addresses) to individual libraries. Those libraries would then be able to track which random number in that range belongs to each book, but the only thing an external snoop would be able to tell is that you have a book from that library. The only way to know what book that is would be to subpoena the library's records, and by doing that they'd know your reading habits anyway.
Nothing would stop the library from rotating tags, either, in case the Feds figured out that tag 4BD32F345A6672D44 is "The Anarchist Cookbook" -- they could take a minute and swap the tag with a Dr. Seuss book, or just throw it away and put in a new tag.
I think you've got something there. One of the reasons for the strong privacy concerns today is the spying that J. Edgar Hoover and his ilk did -- hidden behind their own secrecy, nobody knew what they knew or how they would use it. Eliminate the possibility of a Hoover Jr, and a lot of the threat goes away.
But you have utterly missed the point of both the phrase "information wants to be free" AND the current complaint.
The complaint as I understand it, is essentially that product placement is making an end run around the truth-in-advertising rules. Most of the time, that won't be the case -- it'll just be people using Macs in obvious ways, or a longer than necessary shot of someone drinking a Pepsi. But I can easily see something a lot closer to false advertising -- "Boy, I'm glad I had my Ford Explorer, or I would have rolled over in that accident for sure!" or, "I've been taking these pills I bought from a spammer, and my penis is actually larger!" If it's not obviously an advertisement, then there's a grey area. What if Honda paid to have their car shown surviving an impact test that it actually fails? It's fuzzy, and invites scrutiny. There's an effort being made to convince people of something that isn't true, but in the context of a broader program, it's harder to distinguish from the plot of the show.
I'm all for people developing a BS detector, but I wouldn't mind someone taking a look at these contracts to make sure that product placement isn't designed to mislead the audience about that product's performance.
As for information wanting to be free, there's a powerful corresponding need to keep the lies out. The one thing that kills a strong information culture is a prevalence of disinformation. That's why you don't see "hippies" decrying the efforts to debunk and ultimately suppress FUD -- it is not information, it seeks to discredit and destroy information, and replace it with half-truths and full lies.
Information is indeed free. Lies are not.
Good Advertising is a Good Thing
on
Building Better Spam
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
We forget sometimes that advertising, when done right, plays a crucial information role in our economy. The quick and accurate dissemination of information is vital to keeping prices low and efficiency high -- not just advertising products to consumers, but to corporations, as well as advertising for jobs and soliciting services. (*ahem* Not those services)
The problem with spam is that it is bad advertising, and advertisers have not yet really caught on about how much it infuriates their potential customer base. I think you'll find that companies really paying attention to what works will eventually de-emphasize spam in favor of less-intrusive methods.
But the thing is, everyone here carries laptops anyway. We check our email fanatically from everywhere on campus, and often during class. (Unless my advisor's reading this, in which case I don't)
The rebooting question is tough; I haven't seen that yet. But then, cell phone reception up here is pretty good these days, and there are still POTS phones all over the place for those occasions -- which answers your blackout question too. Of course, this means that we can't go entirely over to VoIP, but I don't think that's really being planned anyway.
SCO is a member of Open Group, so that's not all that likely. Besides, I'd prefer to keep the ability to use "UNIX" purely a function of the operating system's virtues, not of politics.
Many, if not most, of us here cut our teeth on MS operating systems. They're good trainers and good toys. We were also bright enough to realize that there were some serious flaws there, and recognized a good/better thing when we saw it in Linux, MacOS, BSD, etc.
Besides, most of us were introduced to Steinbeck in High School too, and who here still reads him?:)
So what? They presumably allowed to use a kernel which may or may not use their code. Hell, that's part of the point -- Linux is for everyone, not just the nice guys.
I've never really understood all the crap about interference -- everything I've heard from the airline employees sounds like a voodoo-level understanding of electromagnetism. Cell phones are a problem? Then how come the use of cell phones by people outside the plane (both the phones themselves and the base stations) don't interfere? Radios are a problem? Then how come the actual radio broadcast signals don't interfere?
The main sources of serious RF noise on a plane are going to be the engines, which will dwarf damn near anything a passenger might bring on. I mean, come on -- jet fuel combustion versus a CD player??
The "per capita number of people" in Canada is ONE, just like in the United States. I suggest you look up the term "per capita" before you look like a complete retard using a phrase like that again.
For the entire history of the United States, it has been considered vital to maintain public libraries where everyone has free or nearly free access to books, journals, newspapers, and more recently, music and movies. With the exception of academic journals, publishers do not seem to have the right to extract fees from libraries beyond the initial cost of the book or CD or DVD, even though every person who goes into a library and reads or listens or watches represents, to the publisher, lost revenue.
Where, exactly, is the dividing line between an activity that is lionized as necessary to a healthy society (maintaining a good public library system) and an activity that is demonized as theft (maintaining a peer-to-peer file sharing system)? Isn't the end result largely the same -- the free dissemination of information to those unable or unwilling to pay for it? Should I not lend books and CDs to my friends? If I lend a CD to a friend, I understand that he is probably not allowed to rip MP3s from it, but am I still allowed to listen to the MP3s that I ripped from it?
It seems to me that there is really no effort being made at maintaining a proper balance between the rights of copyright holders, and the information needs of society. Unfortunately, this argument is being made over music where the downloaders are not perceived as having a real need -- but won't the legal precedents being set for music sharing apply to book and article sharing? Might not the type of requests made by the RIAA for names for file sharers be used to intimidate people distributing important political information (such as against whistleblowers, or people speaking out against the government?)
The RIAA claims "lost sales" damages all over the place, and other questioners have addressed some of the interesting logic/economics going into their claims. My question is, to what extent are their lost sales our problem? They lose sales whenever I borrow a CD at the library (Mind, I don't copy it, just listen a few times) or whenever I buy a used CD from a bargain store.
On the flip side, I understand that the RIAA makes a certain amount of money from every writable CD that I buy, regardless of its end use. Considering the extra money I paid, why can't I consider myself entitled to burn any RIAA music to that CD?
Bullshit. Coffee tastes great. It smells great, too. Most people drink bad coffee for the caffiene, but the fact that coffee ice cream (with nearly undetectable levels of caffiene) sells so well should demonstrate that people do indeed like the taste.
It also means that any given instance of police or government brutality is more likely to make it onto the evening news. Technology also allows us to prove when the government has done us wrong, and to organize people against it. Not a bad trade.
Slashdot Mirror
No, they can't, but on roads without some barrier in the median, the ambulance can just drive on the (now empty) other side of the road.
If a road really can't allow for any alternate routes for the emergency vehicle or enough space for people to pull over, they'll just have to keep the current behavior and suffer assholes using this device for their own ends.
Oh sure; any time a system like this is alterable in an untraceable way from a distance you're vulnerable to crap like this. My idea was more of a stop-gap measure.
Do you not pull to the side of the road when there's an ambulance coming up from behind you?
One thing to do, then, would be to change the behavior of the traffic lights so that on receiving this signal, they go to four-way red. Since emergency vehicles can run red lights, it doesn't stop them, while simultaneously deterring civilians from using them.
(The trouble is the lack of feedback. You'd need some kind of indication that the other ways had gone to red before the ambulance driver will have confidence going through the intersection at full speed)
I have a few nits to pick with it, such as that I am not always connected to the internet and that Windows sometimes behaves irrationally when it expects an internet connection and none exists. From what I've heard of Longhorn, they seem to rely heavily on having an internet connection at all times.
Second, they just haven't managed the art of not requiring reboots for even minor patches, and until they do, I don't want them automatically installing them.
There are also legal concerns -- MS puts a EULA on every damn thing they write, including patches. Am I legally agreeing to that document if my operating system downloads and installs the patch code automatically? Their behavior in that regard has not been spotless. If I am given the opportunity to decline a given EULA, can I no longer download future patches from them?
What control do I have over what gets patched? I seem to recall that one of the CD DRM techniques required that a given driver be installed (and that not allowing Autoplay prevented that). If MS signs an agreement with that company to automatically "patch" Longhorn with that DRM, can I stop that installation to preserve my fair use rights to my CDs?
In short, I find the situation troubling, and that it requires scrutiny. If you choose to call that "blather", then fine. Or perhaps I should simply quote Walt Whitman:
This has been a big topic on the Dartmouth campus lately, with VoIP being set up campus-wide. There are lots of people who will just use it with their laptops, but several profs already have a nifty little device from Vocera which hangs around the neck on a lanyard and is mostly voice-driven. (The comparisons to a Star Trek communicator in the article are actually pretty apt, except for the size) Their CEO was just here a couple days ago giving a lecture on the device. Very cool stuff, though most of the software is necessarily server-side, and seems to cost a hefty amount.
It's partly being touted as an alternative to cell phones (reception sucks up here) but 802.11 reception is too limited to make it worthwhile for those of us who live off-campus. Still, I'll be watching carefully to see how it goes.
So stay up all night and watch the previous two on DVD beforehand. Then caffeinate like there's no tomorrow ;)
It occurs to me that one solution would be to require semi-randomization of the tag numbers. Assign number space (like IP addresses) to individual libraries. Those libraries would then be able to track which random number in that range belongs to each book, but the only thing an external snoop would be able to tell is that you have a book from that library. The only way to know what book that is would be to subpoena the library's records, and by doing that they'd know your reading habits anyway.
Nothing would stop the library from rotating tags, either, in case the Feds figured out that tag 4BD32F345A6672D44 is "The Anarchist Cookbook" -- they could take a minute and swap the tag with a Dr. Seuss book, or just throw it away and put in a new tag.
I think you've got something there. One of the reasons for the strong privacy concerns today is the spying that J. Edgar Hoover and his ilk did -- hidden behind their own secrecy, nobody knew what they knew or how they would use it. Eliminate the possibility of a Hoover Jr, and a lot of the threat goes away.
But you have utterly missed the point of both the phrase "information wants to be free" AND the current complaint.
The complaint as I understand it, is essentially that product placement is making an end run around the truth-in-advertising rules. Most of the time, that won't be the case -- it'll just be people using Macs in obvious ways, or a longer than necessary shot of someone drinking a Pepsi. But I can easily see something a lot closer to false advertising -- "Boy, I'm glad I had my Ford Explorer, or I would have rolled over in that accident for sure!" or, "I've been taking these pills I bought from a spammer, and my penis is actually larger!" If it's not obviously an advertisement, then there's a grey area. What if Honda paid to have their car shown surviving an impact test that it actually fails? It's fuzzy, and invites scrutiny. There's an effort being made to convince people of something that isn't true, but in the context of a broader program, it's harder to distinguish from the plot of the show.
I'm all for people developing a BS detector, but I wouldn't mind someone taking a look at these contracts to make sure that product placement isn't designed to mislead the audience about that product's performance.
As for information wanting to be free, there's a powerful corresponding need to keep the lies out. The one thing that kills a strong information culture is a prevalence of disinformation. That's why you don't see "hippies" decrying the efforts to debunk and ultimately suppress FUD -- it is not information, it seeks to discredit and destroy information, and replace it with half-truths and full lies.
Information is indeed free. Lies are not.
We forget sometimes that advertising, when done right, plays a crucial information role in our economy. The quick and accurate dissemination of information is vital to keeping prices low and efficiency high -- not just advertising products to consumers, but to corporations, as well as advertising for jobs and soliciting services. (*ahem* Not those services)
The problem with spam is that it is bad advertising, and advertisers have not yet really caught on about how much it infuriates their potential customer base. I think you'll find that companies really paying attention to what works will eventually de-emphasize spam in favor of less-intrusive methods.
But the thing is, everyone here carries laptops anyway. We check our email fanatically from everywhere on campus, and often during class. (Unless my advisor's reading this, in which case I don't)
The rebooting question is tough; I haven't seen that yet. But then, cell phone reception up here is pretty good these days, and there are still POTS phones all over the place for those occasions -- which answers your blackout question too. Of course, this means that we can't go entirely over to VoIP, but I don't think that's really being planned anyway.
No, I don't think it does. Not from my lab, at least.
And actually, it's only those words where you dropped a final vowel that I had to stop and figure out what you're saying.
SCO is a member of Open Group, so that's not all that likely. Besides, I'd prefer to keep the ability to use "UNIX" purely a function of the operating system's virtues, not of politics.
Many, if not most, of us here cut our teeth on MS operating systems. They're good trainers and good toys. We were also bright enough to realize that there were some serious flaws there, and recognized a good/better thing when we saw it in Linux, MacOS, BSD, etc.
:)
Besides, most of us were introduced to Steinbeck in High School too, and who here still reads him?
You recommended their services in the past? Ewww...
I should point out that I just installed CD1 on my Athlon XP and it seems to be working fine so far, though I'm not quite finished.
So what? They presumably allowed to use a kernel which may or may not use their code. Hell, that's part of the point -- Linux is for everyone, not just the nice guys.
I've never really understood all the crap about interference -- everything I've heard from the airline employees sounds like a voodoo-level understanding of electromagnetism. Cell phones are a problem? Then how come the use of cell phones by people outside the plane (both the phones themselves and the base stations) don't interfere? Radios are a problem? Then how come the actual radio broadcast signals don't interfere?
The main sources of serious RF noise on a plane are going to be the engines, which will dwarf damn near anything a passenger might bring on. I mean, come on -- jet fuel combustion versus a CD player??
The "per capita number of people" in Canada is ONE, just like in the United States. I suggest you look up the term "per capita" before you look like a complete retard using a phrase like that again.
For the entire history of the United States, it has been considered vital to maintain public libraries where everyone has free or nearly free access to books, journals, newspapers, and more recently, music and movies. With the exception of academic journals, publishers do not seem to have the right to extract fees from libraries beyond the initial cost of the book or CD or DVD, even though every person who goes into a library and reads or listens or watches represents, to the publisher, lost revenue.
Where, exactly, is the dividing line between an activity that is lionized as necessary to a healthy society (maintaining a good public library system) and an activity that is demonized as theft (maintaining a peer-to-peer file sharing system)? Isn't the end result largely the same -- the free dissemination of information to those unable or unwilling to pay for it? Should I not lend books and CDs to my friends? If I lend a CD to a friend, I understand that he is probably not allowed to rip MP3s from it, but am I still allowed to listen to the MP3s that I ripped from it?
It seems to me that there is really no effort being made at maintaining a proper balance between the rights of copyright holders, and the information needs of society. Unfortunately, this argument is being made over music where the downloaders are not perceived as having a real need -- but won't the legal precedents being set for music sharing apply to book and article sharing? Might not the type of requests made by the RIAA for names for file sharers be used to intimidate people distributing important political information (such as against whistleblowers, or people speaking out against the government?)
The RIAA claims "lost sales" damages all over the place, and other questioners have addressed some of the interesting logic/economics going into their claims. My question is, to what extent are their lost sales our problem? They lose sales whenever I borrow a CD at the library (Mind, I don't copy it, just listen a few times) or whenever I buy a used CD from a bargain store.
On the flip side, I understand that the RIAA makes a certain amount of money from every writable CD that I buy, regardless of its end use. Considering the extra money I paid, why can't I consider myself entitled to burn any RIAA music to that CD?
Bullshit. Coffee tastes great. It smells great, too. Most people drink bad coffee for the caffiene, but the fact that coffee ice cream (with nearly undetectable levels of caffiene) sells so well should demonstrate that people do indeed like the taste.
It also means that any given instance of police or government brutality is more likely to make it onto the evening news. Technology also allows us to prove when the government has done us wrong, and to organize people against it. Not a bad trade.