When used properly, the registry really isn't all that bad. While I think.ini files were better, the registry isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, the security sucks. It is too easy to change things that shouldn't be changed. It is too easy to hide and bury things where they don't belong. Essentially, Microsoft was betting that application developers would be well-behaved when they wrote to the registry. They were, and are, very wrong.
I much prefer the idea of having two sets of.ini files. Put one in Program Files for global settings. This should be locked down just like the rest of Program Files, so admin/root is the only one who can make changes. Put per-user settings in Documents and Settings/username/Application Data. This is one of the things that Microsoft borrowed from Unix that works very well, but the real problem is that not all application developers give a shit about it. For example, both Doom 3 and World of Warcraft insist on placing configuration settings, save games, mods, etc. in Program Files. What the fuck? That is soooo last century, dudes. This is what makes it so difficult to run as a non-privileged user in Windows, which in turn leads to other problems: spyware, viruses, malware, etc.
Blame Microsoft all you want, but they really aren't to blame here. Granted they had a half-assed solution to a problem they didn't understand, but the thousands of application developers out there still don't have a clue even in 2006.
There are very few ways to take money out of the WoW economy, and gold-farmers artifically increase the supply of it.
I call bullshit. Gold farmers may behave differently than other players, but they are still players. They don't have some magical ability to increase the gold supply. What they do is tilt the balance of gold that is already there. They take gold from other people (generally people who buy gold from them and can afford their prices) and sell it back to them. It's rather silly overall, but hardly damaging to the economy. I have two level 60 characters on the same realm, both with epic mounts (and both spent 800g). I have a few hundred gold. If anything, this is because of the gold farmers. They jack up the prices on the auction house, and I undercut them and still make a lot of gold. Many people do this. About once a month I check a few of the bigger gold selling sites for prices on my server, and it seems like it works. Their prices go up, because we create scarcity. We, the normal players, make the gold while they do not. All it takes is a little brainpower to play their game and beat them at it.
Another big problem is the gold-farmers actually take over certain areas, where monsters have expensive drops.
Like anyone ever goes to Tyr's Hand anyway. Seriously, though, it isn't all that bad. Instances, by their very nature, aren't suceptible to farmers taking them over. I find that most of the high level areas have tons of regular players anyway, so farmers are forced to compete with the rest of us. For example, I use Icecap to make Major Mana Potions. The only place this spawns is in Winterspring, where I have a tough time harvesting any because players and gold farmers alike are farming it. But the gold farmers hardly have a monopoly on Icecap spawn locations. I do find farmers quite a bit in Burning Steppes where the orcs and dragonspawn can drop nice items. If only I had 12 hours a day to farm for blue items there...
You realize that these gold farmers work for companies that provide WoW and a computer, right? And that they work in cramped, hot cubicles in 12 hour shifts while they do their farming? It isn't exactly some guy who comes home from work, decides to earn a little extra money, and logs on to his computer and WoW account to sell gold. Not even close. Most gold farming companies are run like sweatshops.
Nobody ever accumulates much wealth by selling to NPC's anyway. It is by selling on the players market that you make significant sums of coin.
If I sell an item to you on the auction house, we trade an item for gold. You have less gold, I have more gold. Gold is neither created nor destroyed (well there is a cut that's taken, but it's not much). However, I regularly pick up all the vendor trash (gray items) when I run level 60 instances. I can make 4 or 5 gold each run. Some of the high level gray items will sell to a vendor for 1.5 gold. THAT is creating gold. I have more gold, you have the same amount. There is now more gold in the economy.
The Auction houses in Wow for instance, represent a capitalist economy with all the dynamics of supply and demand. That hardly eliminates gold farmers.
Yes, it is fairly capitalist in the sense that the money is in the hands of the people, not the government. In other news, the Atlantic Ocean is very wet. The real issue goes like this. I farm an item and sell it to you. I make gold. You level up and find a better item, and sell the old one to a vendor since it is soulbound. You create more gold. The net result is that you have a better item and there is more gold in the economy. As time goes on this effect becomes larger and larger. This is also why even low level herbs and minerals may sell for a few silver per stack on a new server, and 1 gold or more on an old server. As more people join the economy this gold creation force picks up steam and more and more gold gets created. Gold farmers have the goal of making sure that gold winds up in their hands so they can sell it to you.
The other side of the issue you present is that some people do put more time in the game, and feel they should have greater rewards for it. To use Warcraft as an example, I only have the time to run the 5 and 10 man instances such as Blackrock Spire, Scholomance, etc. I will never have the uber elite items that drop from raid instances such as Onyxia. By your logic, we shouldn't even have Onyxia or Ragnaros or any of the other raid bosses. However, some people want more challenge than running Stratholme over and over. Blizzard added diversity because their player base is very diverse in terms of the amount of time they have available or even want to invest. I don't see raid instances or uber elites as a symptom of a broken game, I see it as a reward for people who have more time than I do.
Yes, the game has grinds -- gold, items, reputation, experience, etc. Nobody said you had to be king of the hill with thousands of gold, honored by all factions, level 60, all elite items, etc. Do what makes the game fun. While I don't support gold farming, I don't judge people who keep them in business. I deal with the ripple effect they have on the auction house market and do just fine. I have fun, gold buyers have fun, Blizzard and the farmers both get paid. The system works.
Given enough time, water will dissolve anything if it doesn't evaporate first. Enough time may mean thousands of years, such as with most plastics, or it might be a few seconds.
Taxes may be too high, but we still need them, and some people still don't pay what they owe. The U.S. government does provide many valuable services to its citizens, and many less valuable. Sure we'd be better off if we ditched massive money sinkholes such as social security and medicare (and truly fixed the problems they are a band-aid for), but still, we'd be short changed because some people refuse to pay what they owe in taxes.
I think the key here is that he is looking for innovative software that runs on Windows. Not necessarily Microsoft software. For example, Firefox and Thunderbird work in Windows just fine, although I don't consider either one particularly innovative. There are thousands upon thousands of programs that run in Windows. A very small portion of these are written by Microsoft. He is looking for the rest.
I think it will bite us, the western world, in the ass. It is part of a larger scheme on the part of China not only to be relevant, but to be a dominant economic and technological force. They already know we rely on them for cheap manufacturing. They already know they fund the U.S.'s massive deficit. Where do you think we get money to make up the difference in our federal budget? A large portion comes from bonds sold to foreign nations, of which China is a big player. They are holding our leash. They can yank us around any time they want, but for now, we are more useful to them if we both cooperate.
Notice that RedBerry is partially owned by the Chinese state, and while the article mentioned trademark cases, intellectual property "piracy" in China runs rampant under the nose of the government there. I doubt BlackBerry will have much of a choice but to accept this. Even when they enter the market there won't be much comptetition. Sure, they will sell some units and services, but really only so China can learn from it and make their RedBerry better. This is one piece of the puzzle. China does this with most products we export to them. Eventually they will catch up and even surpass our technological innovations, making the U.S. irrelevant and China the leader. It happened with Japan, it is sort of happening with Korea, and it will happen with China. The difference is, China is more isolationist. While all three of those countries use the U.S. for their own ends, China is the only one that, in the end, doesn't care what happens to us. Japan and Korea, at least, value us as a trade partner.
This is just another part of the bleak side of globalization. Welcome to the new milennium!
Funny thing, they are public docments. Altering then to hide the information is illegal.
Funny thing is, you are wrong. The Privacy Act of 1974 covers what to do with private data in government records at the federal level, and many states have similar provisions. Essentially the documents are public property, but specific personal details are not. For example, citing a court case, evidence, its outcome, etc. is public record. Giving the SSN of the person found guilty and the bank account number used to pay the fine is NOT public record.
Another example is declassified documents. Yes, they are public, but usually redacted. For example, giving information on an old military operation while redacting information that identifies the specific people involved. People that may very well still be in the military performing similar operations.
Altering public documents to the extent of redacting personal information, which is what this article is about, most certainly is legal and often required. However, you are an anonymous coward -- obviously someone redacted your user account so I don't know who you are.
This whole "licensing technology" thing confuses them.
They innovate so much that they've invented everything in computer science. What is left for them to license? Automobile technology? Drugs? Swinging sideways?
And he thinks that Microsoft would be deterred by a boycott?
I think overall he had some good ideas in his essay, but this point in particular gave me second thoughts. Boycotting Microsoft makes about as much sense as... I can't think of a witty comparison. It just doesn't make sense. Free software may have good alternatives, but boycotting a monopoly doesn't work. Get in your time machine and boycott AT&T back in their time. Good luck. I hope you like the postal service.
I think the best solution to this patent nonsense is first to state more clearly what is and what is not patentable. Don't rely on judicial review or years of "this is the way it's been done" crap. Next, implement a system like what we do with juries. Maintain a roster of people who are educated in a given field, and let them serve for a week approving patents. Much like jury duty this would be a civic responsibility, but would pay better. Give them a patent per day to research and give the stamp of approval or toss it. Finally, because this system would get backed up very quickly, change the system so patents are not valid when filed, but when approved. Inventors would have incentive to patent only the best ideas, to keep the system flowing smoothly.
Yes, we can. However, there are only specific charges you may make. As an example, Eldred v Ashcroft. Eldred sued the government all the way to the Supreme Court before unfortunately losing.
Homeland security is much more concerned with conducting surveillance on American citizens and watching what WE do than what any supposed terrorists are doing.
I disagree. I think Homeland Security is more concerned with looking busy and giving the appearance of security than actually improving security. You are correct, however, that the problem with our government is not Bush and Friends, it is systemic all the way to the post-WW2 politicians who got the Arabs pissed at us in the first place. This is true especially of the 1970s, although OPEC is partly to blame. Who wouldn't want to hate them?
BTW, am I the only one who finds it odd that the Department of Defense attacks other countries (e.g. Iraq) while the Department of Homeland Security defends our country?
It's not just about being able to reproduce events or perform experiments in a laboratory to prove a point, it's about evidence. While we cannot reproduce the Big Bang except for a simplified computer simulation which is based on evidence we already have (and therefor cannot really "prove" anything, as you'd be running in circles), we can find evidence in our universe, figure out what it means, prove or disprove a theory, move forward, come up with a new theory, and so on. The Big Bang and evolution are the results of hundreds of years of scientific observation and research. One by one, we've ruled out many other possibilities, and these theories remain as quite viable. This is why they are still theories, however -- while we can disprove many other hypotheses, we cannot prove the Big Bang. Evolution is a little bit easier to prove, but we still have doubts about specific details.
I was thinking about this specifically when I wrote that. I know it ran into problems before, but I really do think it's the most fair solution. What I don't propose is creating a derivative work, or editing, or anything. More like an overlay. Is it okay when a movie airs on TV and the censors beep out words, blur certain areas of a picture, or crop the frame to remove a large "objectionable" piece? Digital TV is the enabler for this scenario. Simply have another channel of data along with the image and sound that has censorship metadata. When a character swears, this channel would have a beep in it. Frontal nudity? blur out the nipples or whatever else. The key is that the end user has the choice to turn this on or leave it off. I would turn it off and watch the unbastardized movie. My ultra-conservative goes to church 8 times a week neighbor across the street would be able to shield her brain from reality.
It's no coincidence that 16x9 is closer to the human eyes' viewing area. While our natural field of vision is not a rectangle nor is it consistent from one person to another, in general, we see the world in wide"screen".
You know, I look at that and wonder.. reminds me of MS, they can't solve a problem themselves so beat it out of someone else who might have the solution. Except this is the government, I'm afraid to see how far they'll go to do what they want... I'm not just being paranoid am I?
What they're doing is trying to set up a case to argue that Congress needs to legislate more censorship and regulations to protect Americans from our own freedoms. What they should do is get their goddamn hand out of the pot and let the market decide what it needs. Do people want web filtering to protect their children? Let them pay for filters, or even better, take a hands-on approach with their children online. Either way, this is between consumers and producers. I don't see how the government belongs in this picture.
One of the most irritating things I find about television is the censorship. Even on shows that are above average as far as the brainpower of their target audience (e.g. Mythbusters), I find that I have to listen to goddamn beeps and blips all the time. I say let them swear, and don't censor it. If people don't like it, they won't watch, and will hopefully tell the producers why. Even better, implement some sort of on-demand filtering so my cable box censors it if I choose. Conservative Christian? Turn it on. Everyone else? Turn it off, enjoy the language. The same it true of the Internet. I don't want the FCC or Congress telling me what I can and cannot see or do online. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. If I choose not to expose myself or my children to certain content, I will either not go to those sites, or I will allow the free market to provide content filtering software to me.
By the way, I don't usually watch much TV. Partly because of the mind-numbing dullness and idiocy, partly because I cannot stand censorship. I want my swear words!
And if you think about it, the "E" in EU is for Europe which is not a part of the U.S. that last time I looked.
Sure, except England is a major player in the EU, and Tony Blair is George Bush's bitch. Sovereignty and jurisdiction don't matter when you have a puppet in the UK.
I don't have HDTV, because when I visited the local big box retailer, I was not at all impressed with the quality. The channel I was watching had a HDnet bug, so I'm pretty sure it was a native HD signal and not upconverted. However, the quality was just horrendous. The picture had visible artifacts throughout - not typical pixelization you see on a bad MPEG-2 SD feed, but just general fuzziness that was not at all like the crisp, sharp picture everybody says HDTV has. The 36" NTSC TV next to the HDTV had a far cleaner picture.
Granted, the difference could be chalked up to signal quality, but if they can't get a clean signal at the store, I don't think I'd have better luck at home.
I'm not going to pay $2500 more for a DRM-restricted TV with worse picture quality than the current standard.
HDTV relies heavily on a good signal. Think of it this way. There are tons of MPEG videos on the internet, some work safe, some not (you know what I'm talking about). Usually they are low resolution compared to a 1024x768 or higher monitor. Stretching them to the full display shows tons of artifacts, because there is not enough signal data for a clean picture. HDTV is no different. Most DVDs are compressed lightly and look beautiful on an HDTV, even at 480p resolution. Each pixel is crisp and clear, there are few if any artifacts, and the color is precise. Comparing this to NTSC is like comparing a Pinto and a Mustang. Sure, the Mustang isn't the best sports car, but I'd much rather drive that than the Pinto.
I've seen some shabby HDTV displays, e.g. S-video hookup into a widescreen HDTV monitor. That or buggy HDTV feeds, even at Best Buy. I think they have a satellite feed, and I guess they have problems sometimes. At least Best Buy knows enough to use component or DVI. My advice to you is to look around a little bit more. I own a 36" CRT HDTV. It's at the low end of HDTVs, but a million times better than any NTSC TV I've ever seen. It even supports DVI, so I won't be locked out of the new formats (although they won't look much better, at least I can buy new DVDs in higher resolutions for my next TV).
Since a lot a gatherings happen in cities it shouldn't be too much of a problem. A good portion of the airspace over a city is prohibited to commercial aircrafts for all kind of reasons (sound nuisance being one of them)
Interesting. I flew in over downtown Cleveland several times, and from living there for a good number of years, I know that airplanes definitely fly in over the city to land at the airport. Usually they take off the opposite direction, but still, they fly over a populated, urban area.
I like the peanut butter idea. I have sitting here unsolicited email from Citi Financial urging me to claim some free money from a local branch. Unfortunately there is no reply envelope, but this experiment is well worth the price of a stamp and envelope. They are even so kind as to give me the address of the local branch and their national junk mail distribution center. How generous of them! I had better return the favor...
Slashdot Mirror
When used properly, the registry really isn't all that bad. While I think .ini files were better, the registry isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, the security sucks. It is too easy to change things that shouldn't be changed. It is too easy to hide and bury things where they don't belong. Essentially, Microsoft was betting that application developers would be well-behaved when they wrote to the registry. They were, and are, very wrong.
I much prefer the idea of having two sets of .ini files. Put one in Program Files for global settings. This should be locked down just like the rest of Program Files, so admin/root is the only one who can make changes. Put per-user settings in Documents and Settings/username/Application Data. This is one of the things that Microsoft borrowed from Unix that works very well, but the real problem is that not all application developers give a shit about it. For example, both Doom 3 and World of Warcraft insist on placing configuration settings, save games, mods, etc. in Program Files. What the fuck? That is soooo last century, dudes. This is what makes it so difficult to run as a non-privileged user in Windows, which in turn leads to other problems: spyware, viruses, malware, etc.
Blame Microsoft all you want, but they really aren't to blame here. Granted they had a half-assed solution to a problem they didn't understand, but the thousands of application developers out there still don't have a clue even in 2006.
I happen to be an NCO (aka sergeant) in the military. You, sir, are full of shit.
There are very few ways to take money out of the WoW economy, and gold-farmers artifically increase the supply of it.
I call bullshit. Gold farmers may behave differently than other players, but they are still players. They don't have some magical ability to increase the gold supply. What they do is tilt the balance of gold that is already there. They take gold from other people (generally people who buy gold from them and can afford their prices) and sell it back to them. It's rather silly overall, but hardly damaging to the economy. I have two level 60 characters on the same realm, both with epic mounts (and both spent 800g). I have a few hundred gold. If anything, this is because of the gold farmers. They jack up the prices on the auction house, and I undercut them and still make a lot of gold. Many people do this. About once a month I check a few of the bigger gold selling sites for prices on my server, and it seems like it works. Their prices go up, because we create scarcity. We, the normal players, make the gold while they do not. All it takes is a little brainpower to play their game and beat them at it.
Another big problem is the gold-farmers actually take over certain areas, where monsters have expensive drops.
Like anyone ever goes to Tyr's Hand anyway. Seriously, though, it isn't all that bad. Instances, by their very nature, aren't suceptible to farmers taking them over. I find that most of the high level areas have tons of regular players anyway, so farmers are forced to compete with the rest of us. For example, I use Icecap to make Major Mana Potions. The only place this spawns is in Winterspring, where I have a tough time harvesting any because players and gold farmers alike are farming it. But the gold farmers hardly have a monopoly on Icecap spawn locations. I do find farmers quite a bit in Burning Steppes where the orcs and dragonspawn can drop nice items. If only I had 12 hours a day to farm for blue items there...
You realize that these gold farmers work for companies that provide WoW and a computer, right? And that they work in cramped, hot cubicles in 12 hour shifts while they do their farming? It isn't exactly some guy who comes home from work, decides to earn a little extra money, and logs on to his computer and WoW account to sell gold. Not even close. Most gold farming companies are run like sweatshops.
Nobody ever accumulates much wealth by selling to NPC's anyway. It is by selling on the players market that you make significant sums of coin.
If I sell an item to you on the auction house, we trade an item for gold. You have less gold, I have more gold. Gold is neither created nor destroyed (well there is a cut that's taken, but it's not much). However, I regularly pick up all the vendor trash (gray items) when I run level 60 instances. I can make 4 or 5 gold each run. Some of the high level gray items will sell to a vendor for 1.5 gold. THAT is creating gold. I have more gold, you have the same amount. There is now more gold in the economy.
The Auction houses in Wow for instance, represent a capitalist economy with all the dynamics of supply and demand. That hardly eliminates gold farmers.
Yes, it is fairly capitalist in the sense that the money is in the hands of the people, not the government. In other news, the Atlantic Ocean is very wet. The real issue goes like this. I farm an item and sell it to you. I make gold. You level up and find a better item, and sell the old one to a vendor since it is soulbound. You create more gold. The net result is that you have a better item and there is more gold in the economy. As time goes on this effect becomes larger and larger. This is also why even low level herbs and minerals may sell for a few silver per stack on a new server, and 1 gold or more on an old server. As more people join the economy this gold creation force picks up steam and more and more gold gets created. Gold farmers have the goal of making sure that gold winds up in their hands so they can sell it to you.
The question is, why?
They have over 5,000,000 subscribers and rake in millions of dollars per month. Their shit doesn't stink.
The other side of the issue you present is that some people do put more time in the game, and feel they should have greater rewards for it. To use Warcraft as an example, I only have the time to run the 5 and 10 man instances such as Blackrock Spire, Scholomance, etc. I will never have the uber elite items that drop from raid instances such as Onyxia. By your logic, we shouldn't even have Onyxia or Ragnaros or any of the other raid bosses. However, some people want more challenge than running Stratholme over and over. Blizzard added diversity because their player base is very diverse in terms of the amount of time they have available or even want to invest. I don't see raid instances or uber elites as a symptom of a broken game, I see it as a reward for people who have more time than I do.
Yes, the game has grinds -- gold, items, reputation, experience, etc. Nobody said you had to be king of the hill with thousands of gold, honored by all factions, level 60, all elite items, etc. Do what makes the game fun. While I don't support gold farming, I don't judge people who keep them in business. I deal with the ripple effect they have on the auction house market and do just fine. I have fun, gold buyers have fun, Blizzard and the farmers both get paid. The system works.
Given enough time, water will dissolve anything if it doesn't evaporate first. Enough time may mean thousands of years, such as with most plastics, or it might be a few seconds.
Taxes may be too high, but we still need them, and some people still don't pay what they owe. The U.S. government does provide many valuable services to its citizens, and many less valuable. Sure we'd be better off if we ditched massive money sinkholes such as social security and medicare (and truly fixed the problems they are a band-aid for), but still, we'd be short changed because some people refuse to pay what they owe in taxes.
I think the key here is that he is looking for innovative software that runs on Windows. Not necessarily Microsoft software. For example, Firefox and Thunderbird work in Windows just fine, although I don't consider either one particularly innovative. There are thousands upon thousands of programs that run in Windows. A very small portion of these are written by Microsoft. He is looking for the rest.
I think it will bite us, the western world, in the ass. It is part of a larger scheme on the part of China not only to be relevant, but to be a dominant economic and technological force. They already know we rely on them for cheap manufacturing. They already know they fund the U.S.'s massive deficit. Where do you think we get money to make up the difference in our federal budget? A large portion comes from bonds sold to foreign nations, of which China is a big player. They are holding our leash. They can yank us around any time they want, but for now, we are more useful to them if we both cooperate.
Notice that RedBerry is partially owned by the Chinese state, and while the article mentioned trademark cases, intellectual property "piracy" in China runs rampant under the nose of the government there. I doubt BlackBerry will have much of a choice but to accept this. Even when they enter the market there won't be much comptetition. Sure, they will sell some units and services, but really only so China can learn from it and make their RedBerry better. This is one piece of the puzzle. China does this with most products we export to them. Eventually they will catch up and even surpass our technological innovations, making the U.S. irrelevant and China the leader. It happened with Japan, it is sort of happening with Korea, and it will happen with China. The difference is, China is more isolationist. While all three of those countries use the U.S. for their own ends, China is the only one that, in the end, doesn't care what happens to us. Japan and Korea, at least, value us as a trade partner.
This is just another part of the bleak side of globalization. Welcome to the new milennium!
Funny thing, they are public docments. Altering then to hide the information is illegal.
Funny thing is, you are wrong. The Privacy Act of 1974 covers what to do with private data in government records at the federal level, and many states have similar provisions. Essentially the documents are public property, but specific personal details are not. For example, citing a court case, evidence, its outcome, etc. is public record. Giving the SSN of the person found guilty and the bank account number used to pay the fine is NOT public record.
Another example is declassified documents. Yes, they are public, but usually redacted. For example, giving information on an old military operation while redacting information that identifies the specific people involved. People that may very well still be in the military performing similar operations.
Altering public documents to the extent of redacting personal information, which is what this article is about, most certainly is legal and often required. However, you are an anonymous coward -- obviously someone redacted your user account so I don't know who you are.
This whole "licensing technology" thing confuses them.
They innovate so much that they've invented everything in computer science. What is left for them to license? Automobile technology? Drugs? Swinging sideways?
And he thinks that Microsoft would be deterred by a boycott?
I think overall he had some good ideas in his essay, but this point in particular gave me second thoughts. Boycotting Microsoft makes about as much sense as... I can't think of a witty comparison. It just doesn't make sense. Free software may have good alternatives, but boycotting a monopoly doesn't work. Get in your time machine and boycott AT&T back in their time. Good luck. I hope you like the postal service.
I think the best solution to this patent nonsense is first to state more clearly what is and what is not patentable. Don't rely on judicial review or years of "this is the way it's been done" crap. Next, implement a system like what we do with juries. Maintain a roster of people who are educated in a given field, and let them serve for a week approving patents. Much like jury duty this would be a civic responsibility, but would pay better. Give them a patent per day to research and give the stamp of approval or toss it. Finally, because this system would get backed up very quickly, change the system so patents are not valid when filed, but when approved. Inventors would have incentive to patent only the best ideas, to keep the system flowing smoothly.
Here's the first result returned by Google for those of us who are lazy:a t.bushisms.reut/
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/01/15/offbe
You can't sue the government.
Yes, we can. However, there are only specific charges you may make. As an example, Eldred v Ashcroft. Eldred sued the government all the way to the Supreme Court before unfortunately losing.
Homeland security is much more concerned with conducting surveillance on American citizens and watching what WE do than what any supposed terrorists are doing.
I disagree. I think Homeland Security is more concerned with looking busy and giving the appearance of security than actually improving security. You are correct, however, that the problem with our government is not Bush and Friends, it is systemic all the way to the post-WW2 politicians who got the Arabs pissed at us in the first place. This is true especially of the 1970s, although OPEC is partly to blame. Who wouldn't want to hate them?
BTW, am I the only one who finds it odd that the Department of Defense attacks other countries (e.g. Iraq) while the Department of Homeland Security defends our country?
It's not just about being able to reproduce events or perform experiments in a laboratory to prove a point, it's about evidence. While we cannot reproduce the Big Bang except for a simplified computer simulation which is based on evidence we already have (and therefor cannot really "prove" anything, as you'd be running in circles), we can find evidence in our universe, figure out what it means, prove or disprove a theory, move forward, come up with a new theory, and so on. The Big Bang and evolution are the results of hundreds of years of scientific observation and research. One by one, we've ruled out many other possibilities, and these theories remain as quite viable. This is why they are still theories, however -- while we can disprove many other hypotheses, we cannot prove the Big Bang. Evolution is a little bit easier to prove, but we still have doubts about specific details.
I was thinking about this specifically when I wrote that. I know it ran into problems before, but I really do think it's the most fair solution. What I don't propose is creating a derivative work, or editing, or anything. More like an overlay. Is it okay when a movie airs on TV and the censors beep out words, blur certain areas of a picture, or crop the frame to remove a large "objectionable" piece? Digital TV is the enabler for this scenario. Simply have another channel of data along with the image and sound that has censorship metadata. When a character swears, this channel would have a beep in it. Frontal nudity? blur out the nipples or whatever else. The key is that the end user has the choice to turn this on or leave it off. I would turn it off and watch the unbastardized movie. My ultra-conservative goes to church 8 times a week neighbor across the street would be able to shield her brain from reality.
It's no coincidence that 16x9 is closer to the human eyes' viewing area. While our natural field of vision is not a rectangle nor is it consistent from one person to another, in general, we see the world in wide"screen".
You know, I look at that and wonder.. reminds me of MS, they can't solve a problem themselves so beat it out of someone else who might have the solution. Except this is the government, I'm afraid to see how far they'll go to do what they want... I'm not just being paranoid am I?
What they're doing is trying to set up a case to argue that Congress needs to legislate more censorship and regulations to protect Americans from our own freedoms. What they should do is get their goddamn hand out of the pot and let the market decide what it needs. Do people want web filtering to protect their children? Let them pay for filters, or even better, take a hands-on approach with their children online. Either way, this is between consumers and producers. I don't see how the government belongs in this picture.
One of the most irritating things I find about television is the censorship. Even on shows that are above average as far as the brainpower of their target audience (e.g. Mythbusters), I find that I have to listen to goddamn beeps and blips all the time. I say let them swear, and don't censor it. If people don't like it, they won't watch, and will hopefully tell the producers why. Even better, implement some sort of on-demand filtering so my cable box censors it if I choose. Conservative Christian? Turn it on. Everyone else? Turn it off, enjoy the language. The same it true of the Internet. I don't want the FCC or Congress telling me what I can and cannot see or do online. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. If I choose not to expose myself or my children to certain content, I will either not go to those sites, or I will allow the free market to provide content filtering software to me.
By the way, I don't usually watch much TV. Partly because of the mind-numbing dullness and idiocy, partly because I cannot stand censorship. I want my swear words!
And if you think about it, the "E" in EU is for Europe which is not a part of the U.S. that last time I looked.
Sure, except England is a major player in the EU, and Tony Blair is George Bush's bitch. Sovereignty and jurisdiction don't matter when you have a puppet in the UK.
I don't have HDTV, because when I visited the local big box retailer, I was not at all impressed with the quality. The channel I was watching had a HDnet bug, so I'm pretty sure it was a native HD signal and not upconverted. However, the quality was just horrendous. The picture had visible artifacts throughout - not typical pixelization you see on a bad MPEG-2 SD feed, but just general fuzziness that was not at all like the crisp, sharp picture everybody says HDTV has. The 36" NTSC TV next to the HDTV had a far cleaner picture.
Granted, the difference could be chalked up to signal quality, but if they can't get a clean signal at the store, I don't think I'd have better luck at home.
I'm not going to pay $2500 more for a DRM-restricted TV with worse picture quality than the current standard.
HDTV relies heavily on a good signal. Think of it this way. There are tons of MPEG videos on the internet, some work safe, some not (you know what I'm talking about). Usually they are low resolution compared to a 1024x768 or higher monitor. Stretching them to the full display shows tons of artifacts, because there is not enough signal data for a clean picture. HDTV is no different. Most DVDs are compressed lightly and look beautiful on an HDTV, even at 480p resolution. Each pixel is crisp and clear, there are few if any artifacts, and the color is precise. Comparing this to NTSC is like comparing a Pinto and a Mustang. Sure, the Mustang isn't the best sports car, but I'd much rather drive that than the Pinto.
I've seen some shabby HDTV displays, e.g. S-video hookup into a widescreen HDTV monitor. That or buggy HDTV feeds, even at Best Buy. I think they have a satellite feed, and I guess they have problems sometimes. At least Best Buy knows enough to use component or DVI. My advice to you is to look around a little bit more. I own a 36" CRT HDTV. It's at the low end of HDTVs, but a million times better than any NTSC TV I've ever seen. It even supports DVI, so I won't be locked out of the new formats (although they won't look much better, at least I can buy new DVDs in higher resolutions for my next TV).
Since a lot a gatherings happen in cities it shouldn't be too much of a problem. A good portion of the airspace over a city is prohibited to commercial aircrafts for all kind of reasons (sound nuisance being one of them)
Interesting. I flew in over downtown Cleveland several times, and from living there for a good number of years, I know that airplanes definitely fly in over the city to land at the airport. Usually they take off the opposite direction, but still, they fly over a populated, urban area.
I like the peanut butter idea. I have sitting here unsolicited email from Citi Financial urging me to claim some free money from a local branch. Unfortunately there is no reply envelope, but this experiment is well worth the price of a stamp and envelope. They are even so kind as to give me the address of the local branch and their national junk mail distribution center. How generous of them! I had better return the favor...