Only reason I had the Last.fm app on my phone was because I could listen without either a) having to pay or b) getting stuck with a skip limit; though, to be honest, I haven't used it much as of late, being that I can get an actual decent radio station stream via TuneIn. Still sad to see it go this way though.
Those are separate issues altogether; as pertains to copyright, there's a pretty good leg to stand on, should that be the only item of complaint.
Harassment, which would more properly line up as a criminal action, could be pursued, but if the party publishing the images wasn't given notice to stop doing so (or ceased doing so once such notice was received), it'd be hard to make a case--and in this case, being that the captions were mostly juvenile garbage, it's hard to imagine a prosecutor pushing the complaint to begin with. As for defamation--libel, in this case--you would have to prove harm to the victimized party for it to have much chance; again, given the juvenile nature of the taunts, and the age of the victimized party, it wouldn't lead to much anyhow. Perhaps, as he reaches adulthood, should something like this cost him a lucrative job offer, it might be cleanly actionable, but that's a bit away.
Batting practice never compares to the real thing; it only makes you want the game to start even more. The same applies to masturbation. Ergo, porn makes the nerds want to engage in intercourse more, thus increasing their likelihood to enter the gene pool.
Even without the public interest, it will always exist in some dark corner of the internet; just because no one searches for it (or digs through pages and pages of results in character sets their browser doesn't know how to display to get to it), it will be somewhere. True, the publicity it's getting here will likely fuel this on a fair bit longer than it would ever go, but a few years down, there is always the possibility (with or without/. bringing it to the fore) that someone finds one of these images, thinks it amusing, and puts it out there again. Will it be of consequence to the party in the photo? Perhaps not, but it's there.
"News for nerds. Stuff that matters." may not be on the page, but it is still part of the title at the top of the window...maybe a mistake, idk.
Regardless, this is pertinent news for the nerdy folks, who may not have experience with breaking up with a loon--or breaking up whatsoever (you have to date before you can break up with someone, after all). It stands as a cautionary tale, that may well dissuade people from entering the dating pool, and subsequently the gene pool, which may in some way benefit society!
You're absolutely right, that could have been done. But really, once it's on the internet, no matter what you do, it's there for good; there's always a cached copy somewhere out there, or someone with a copy who would just be amused to put it back out there.
Scene: Guy running in dark street, jumping over blown over garbage cans, with blue and red lights flashing distantly. Audible panting heard by audience as the man runs.
Voice-over: In a real bind? Needing to leave no trace behind?
(Cut to clip of hand slamming down product)
Voice-over: NEW, Degree Double-Homicide. Ultra-Maximum, Uber-Clinical Strength Protection against perspiration. Dryness protection that won't break down until you break state lines.
Doesn't work, or goes a little haywire (drop of water on my phone's screen had my lock screen sliding what seemed to be 4 ways at once). The fun of electrical current and all that jazz. Makes me wonder a bit how it actually really works, never really delved into it at all (yes,/., I am aware there is a Wikipedia article present, I'm too lazy to go there and/or click a link to get there right now).
I hope all these hackers get butt raped. All they do is cause problems for everyone else on the platform. Awesome. You hacked it. Now we got cheaters. Good going.
The problems they 'cause' are mostly from knee-jerk reactions from the people manning the platform--in this case, Sony--clamoring to come up with a solution that inconveniences the sum-total of the end-users who likely aren't going to be taking the action Sony are attempting to prevent. And cheating? It's been happening for as long as there have been games, more so when you get online. Some of it's glitch exploitation, some of it is botting, some of it is hacking the game and altering its behaviour for a competitive advantage, and no matter what is done, it's going to happen. I resigned myself to this long ago, and as a result rarely playing games online (and usually then with people I know only).
And homebrew? Please, if they wanted to develop something they'd go through proper channels. Just a lame excuse to put emulators or some other stupid thing on yet another platform.
Perhaps they just want to make a nice little toy for themselves and, perhaps, a small group of others who might find enjoyment, without any intention of wide-scale distribution. If you've got an idea that you yourself don't think will be widely popular, you might not want to jump through the hoops and hurdles, pay any fees related to getting signed on as a developer, and so on (which might end up meaning a net loss). There are, believe it or not, valid reasons for homebrew software.
It would really depend on the ISP. If it's a fairly small one who touts this as a selling point, and some of the major players (Comcast, MediaCom, AT&T, and so on) are available options, then it becomes a little murky; did so-and-so choose this ISP because they cover tracks by default, or was there some other motive? And given that the major ISPs are more easily able to offer at least competitive rates for service (at least in and around where I am), if not better rates, the field of possibilities narrows.
You also have to consider that, in the US, the major ISPs really wouldn't voluntarily obfuscate data from the government, lest they either a) face legislation to make them not do so, or b) have to shell out a metric fuckton of cash into lobbying to make sure they would remain able to do so...neither of which is a financially sound option, when compared with the option of just not doing it for their subscribers--which they already do, thus no additional costs result.
Sum total, if an ISP were to do this in the US, it's most likely not to be one of the big ones, and given that, there's a stigma of guilt-by-association (or selection, if you will) for the little guy who is willing to take these steps.
Has anyone considered finding some way to put some sufficiently believable yet false information out in the public view that could really muck up their business plan? Maybe a Jimmy L. Brohlin, or a Bard S. Pittson...I'm sure someone out there has some sufficiently attractive nephews to pop out a few headshots...
As an American, let me apologise for our idiocy being lumped in with you foiks. I'm ashamed of some of the stuff our country comes up with, does, and so on...to have it attributed elsewhere, saddens me.
Silly poster, Google Street View can't set a president for anything; a precedent, perhaps...but I think we're getting a bit into apples and oranges here (or, at least, Red Delicious and Granny Smith). While Google went about collecting (wittingly or unwittingly) anything they could get, they weren't out to identify specific people, nor does it seem their intent was to collect the (personal) data for specific use in their site/marketing/etc. These blokes, however, are crawling for whatever personally identifiable data they can get with the express intent of marketing these people for the purposes of making their site more attractive to potential users/clients--their marketing ploy, really.
In the end, it could really backfire, as it seems pretty certain that they're going to run into users who (to themselves) inexplicably already exist on the site, without having registered previously, and start to smell that something's up.
A national(international if you will) database of spammers can be made and the top X off the list get their ips disconnected.
And how much work do you put in to determine the legitimacy of an IP, before you block it? Advertising yourself as something or someone you're not, if only taken at first glance, is pretty lucrative; it's only under scrutiny that a doppelganger can truly be found. If you block at first glance, you're going to piss off a fair number of legit users. Dig deeper, and it takes too long to be truly effective.
I'd imagine this sort of thing would have ideal application in an environment like the one Tony Stark works within (in the movies); wave your hands, make threatening-looking finger swipes, and shit happens.
All we need to complete the sequence is screens floating in mid-air, and giant armor suits that can do amazingly destructive things.
And the comments above were worried about the kitchen...no need for touching/swiping, a simple 'sudo make me a sandwich' will always do the trick.
If only Article V weren't so damn direct, such a drastic overhaul wouldn't be necessary, really; if the citizenry were able, independently of the state legislatures, bring about the question of amending the damn thing, and in sufficient numbers enact an amendment, many issues (copyright, DRM, P2P) could be solidly codified. Granted, such action could later be undone--see 18th and 21st Amendments--and the easier the process is to make a change, it becomes just as easy to revert if popular opinion swings (which, this day in age, means the money forces popular opinion to change).
That said, a new amendment is the best way to drive change, however difficult (and it is, as it was intended; it's only happened 17 times since this day in 1791); aside from outright, widespread, majority-or-better rebellion, a new Constitution really cannot happen, because the Constitution has no built-in kill switch or periodic review (like the Illinois state Constitution, which requires the question of a Constitutional remake to be brought once every 20 or 25 years)--though, perhaps, a 'Fuck This' amendment could do the trick, and good luck getting that done; do you really think we'd get anything near a ghost of a First Amendment if we gave the government a mulligan?
Overall, it's not necessarily the amount of computational power available that makes things happen; the extra power simply helps things happen faster. Having Petaflop systems available certainly helps out with the insanely complex tasks (like those in the medical and physics fields); the trickle-down of those developments also make for the nice shiny toys that we call phones. End of the day, though, to the casual user it means nearly nothing, except for when it affects the price tag and/or the performance of their Flash-based games.
In essence, the things we've found in the last, say, 18 years (base assumption, being that you call yourself a 'young man'--you could be a tad on either side, it's not a term i've used to describe myself (at 24 currently) in 4-5 years), would have been found with the systems of the day given sufficient time and ingenuity, without significant improvements on the hardware capabilities. The fact that the hardware is being pushed to the absolute limits is a byproduct of what I would consider to be human nature--to be the biggest, the best, the fastest, regardless of the goal; it's a natural progression of things, and where it has industrial implications, why not map those to the consumer sector? It certainly doesn't hurt (much), once it's proven to work well.
This then causes the software end of things to be developed in a way that it can maximize its effectiveness with the hardware given--push the envelope to the furthest acceptable extent possible, even where it's not strictly necessary for the user's goal (though that's not what the hardware was really developed for). This is where the consumer comes in to play in the whole scheme. They see numbers and what their system is still able to do (even though it's not much more than their previous system, in most cases); the fancy numbers are bigger, and because the software keeps things where they are, the hardware must accelerate more to keep the consumers in awe.
In closing, this progression is meaningless, given indefinite time; it's necessary because of the need for consumer awe, and we only ever got to that point because the consumers want that awe. Nothing that has happened here is really that awesome; the capability was always there, the speed was not, and the speed really only occurred because consumers were told that they needed more power to do everything that they always did before, further driving the bleeding edge a little bit higher than it was.
Shit is blowing up and burning around you...and you do nothing because you don't believe you have the authority to do anything (at least, anything significant)?
One hell of a corporate indoctrination seminar that had to be. I'm sorry, but if it were me, shit were blowing up, flaming out, people getting killed, it really wouldn't matter to me who had told me I couldn't do X, Y, and/or Z, if X, Y, and/or Z could at least prevent things from going from worse to OMFG (and provided I had the ability to do those things--else I'd be all 'see ya later bye'). When it's life and limb, only the guy with a uniform, badge, and gun is in charge.
And which is the 'original' language (given that translation can be a bit tricky)?
In the States, for example, some contracts--and not to say that patents are any sort of contract; but to draw a parallel to something where competing versions might differ and become subject to a matter for the courts, who would need a single point of reference--are translated to Spanish, but include a clause that states, more or less, "In the case of conflict between this contract and any translated version, the English version shall be used to resolve any disputes arising from this agreement.". That's (mostly) when dealing with two separate languages; I'm sure, in the EU, the situation is a bit more muddled...
Slashdot Mirror
Only reason I had the Last.fm app on my phone was because I could listen without either a) having to pay or b) getting stuck with a skip limit; though, to be honest, I haven't used it much as of late, being that I can get an actual decent radio station stream via TuneIn. Still sad to see it go this way though.
Those are separate issues altogether; as pertains to copyright, there's a pretty good leg to stand on, should that be the only item of complaint.
Harassment, which would more properly line up as a criminal action, could be pursued, but if the party publishing the images wasn't given notice to stop doing so (or ceased doing so once such notice was received), it'd be hard to make a case--and in this case, being that the captions were mostly juvenile garbage, it's hard to imagine a prosecutor pushing the complaint to begin with. As for defamation--libel, in this case--you would have to prove harm to the victimized party for it to have much chance; again, given the juvenile nature of the taunts, and the age of the victimized party, it wouldn't lead to much anyhow. Perhaps, as he reaches adulthood, should something like this cost him a lucrative job offer, it might be cleanly actionable, but that's a bit away.
Batting practice never compares to the real thing; it only makes you want the game to start even more. The same applies to masturbation. Ergo, porn makes the nerds want to engage in intercourse more, thus increasing their likelihood to enter the gene pool.
Even without the public interest, it will always exist in some dark corner of the internet; just because no one searches for it (or digs through pages and pages of results in character sets their browser doesn't know how to display to get to it), it will be somewhere. True, the publicity it's getting here will likely fuel this on a fair bit longer than it would ever go, but a few years down, there is always the possibility (with or without /. bringing it to the fore) that someone finds one of these images, thinks it amusing, and puts it out there again. Will it be of consequence to the party in the photo? Perhaps not, but it's there.
And, couldn't the captioned works be considered derivative works, for purpose of commentary and satire?
"News for nerds. Stuff that matters." may not be on the page, but it is still part of the title at the top of the window...maybe a mistake, idk.
Regardless, this is pertinent news for the nerdy folks, who may not have experience with breaking up with a loon--or breaking up whatsoever (you have to date before you can break up with someone, after all). It stands as a cautionary tale, that may well dissuade people from entering the dating pool, and subsequently the gene pool, which may in some way benefit society!
You're absolutely right, that could have been done. But really, once it's on the internet, no matter what you do, it's there for good; there's always a cached copy somewhere out there, or someone with a copy who would just be amused to put it back out there.
See Also: Sony v George Hotz
I thought I had clicked to disable ads... Clicks the button again repeatedly
YRO = Your RIghts Online, or Your Rights, Online?
Comma can make a difference there. Maybe the section is evolving from what it was. Or, maybe someone got a little jumpy.
Maybe they should sweat more
Scene: Guy running in dark street, jumping over blown over garbage cans, with blue and red lights flashing distantly. Audible panting heard by audience as the man runs.
Voice-over: In a real bind? Needing to leave no trace behind?
(Cut to clip of hand slamming down product)
Voice-over: NEW, Degree Double-Homicide. Ultra-Maximum, Uber-Clinical Strength Protection against perspiration. Dryness protection that won't break down until you break state lines.
Doesn't work, or goes a little haywire (drop of water on my phone's screen had my lock screen sliding what seemed to be 4 ways at once). The fun of electrical current and all that jazz. Makes me wonder a bit how it actually really works, never really delved into it at all (yes, /., I am aware there is a Wikipedia article present, I'm too lazy to go there and/or click a link to get there right now).
I hope all these hackers get butt raped. All they do is cause problems for everyone else on the platform. Awesome. You hacked it. Now we got cheaters. Good going.
The problems they 'cause' are mostly from knee-jerk reactions from the people manning the platform--in this case, Sony--clamoring to come up with a solution that inconveniences the sum-total of the end-users who likely aren't going to be taking the action Sony are attempting to prevent. And cheating? It's been happening for as long as there have been games, more so when you get online. Some of it's glitch exploitation, some of it is botting, some of it is hacking the game and altering its behaviour for a competitive advantage, and no matter what is done, it's going to happen. I resigned myself to this long ago, and as a result rarely playing games online (and usually then with people I know only).
And homebrew? Please, if they wanted to develop something they'd go through proper channels. Just a lame excuse to put emulators or some other stupid thing on yet another platform.
Perhaps they just want to make a nice little toy for themselves and, perhaps, a small group of others who might find enjoyment, without any intention of wide-scale distribution. If you've got an idea that you yourself don't think will be widely popular, you might not want to jump through the hoops and hurdles, pay any fees related to getting signed on as a developer, and so on (which might end up meaning a net loss). There are, believe it or not, valid reasons for homebrew software.
It would really depend on the ISP. If it's a fairly small one who touts this as a selling point, and some of the major players (Comcast, MediaCom, AT&T, and so on) are available options, then it becomes a little murky; did so-and-so choose this ISP because they cover tracks by default, or was there some other motive? And given that the major ISPs are more easily able to offer at least competitive rates for service (at least in and around where I am), if not better rates, the field of possibilities narrows.
You also have to consider that, in the US, the major ISPs really wouldn't voluntarily obfuscate data from the government, lest they either a) face legislation to make them not do so, or b) have to shell out a metric fuckton of cash into lobbying to make sure they would remain able to do so...neither of which is a financially sound option, when compared with the option of just not doing it for their subscribers--which they already do, thus no additional costs result.
Sum total, if an ISP were to do this in the US, it's most likely not to be one of the big ones, and given that, there's a stigma of guilt-by-association (or selection, if you will) for the little guy who is willing to take these steps.
Has anyone considered finding some way to put some sufficiently believable yet false information out in the public view that could really muck up their business plan? Maybe a Jimmy L. Brohlin, or a Bard S. Pittson...I'm sure someone out there has some sufficiently attractive nephews to pop out a few headshots...
As an American, let me apologise for our idiocy being lumped in with you foiks. I'm ashamed of some of the stuff our country comes up with, does, and so on...to have it attributed elsewhere, saddens me.
Silly poster, Google Street View can't set a president for anything; a precedent, perhaps...but I think we're getting a bit into apples and oranges here (or, at least, Red Delicious and Granny Smith). While Google went about collecting (wittingly or unwittingly) anything they could get, they weren't out to identify specific people, nor does it seem their intent was to collect the (personal) data for specific use in their site/marketing/etc. These blokes, however, are crawling for whatever personally identifiable data they can get with the express intent of marketing these people for the purposes of making their site more attractive to potential users/clients--their marketing ploy, really.
In the end, it could really backfire, as it seems pretty certain that they're going to run into users who (to themselves) inexplicably already exist on the site, without having registered previously, and start to smell that something's up.
A national(international if you will) database of spammers can be made and the top X off the list get their ips disconnected.
And how much work do you put in to determine the legitimacy of an IP, before you block it? Advertising yourself as something or someone you're not, if only taken at first glance, is pretty lucrative; it's only under scrutiny that a doppelganger can truly be found. If you block at first glance, you're going to piss off a fair number of legit users. Dig deeper, and it takes too long to be truly effective.
You mean we're getting rid of the TSA?!
I'd imagine this sort of thing would have ideal application in an environment like the one Tony Stark works within (in the movies); wave your hands, make threatening-looking finger swipes, and shit happens.
All we need to complete the sequence is screens floating in mid-air, and giant armor suits that can do amazingly destructive things.
And the comments above were worried about the kitchen...no need for touching/swiping, a simple 'sudo make me a sandwich' will always do the trick.
If only Article V weren't so damn direct, such a drastic overhaul wouldn't be necessary, really; if the citizenry were able, independently of the state legislatures, bring about the question of amending the damn thing, and in sufficient numbers enact an amendment, many issues (copyright, DRM, P2P) could be solidly codified. Granted, such action could later be undone--see 18th and 21st Amendments--and the easier the process is to make a change, it becomes just as easy to revert if popular opinion swings (which, this day in age, means the money forces popular opinion to change).
That said, a new amendment is the best way to drive change, however difficult (and it is, as it was intended; it's only happened 17 times since this day in 1791); aside from outright, widespread, majority-or-better rebellion, a new Constitution really cannot happen, because the Constitution has no built-in kill switch or periodic review (like the Illinois state Constitution, which requires the question of a Constitutional remake to be brought once every 20 or 25 years)--though, perhaps, a 'Fuck This' amendment could do the trick, and good luck getting that done; do you really think we'd get anything near a ghost of a First Amendment if we gave the government a mulligan?
Overall, it's not necessarily the amount of computational power available that makes things happen; the extra power simply helps things happen faster. Having Petaflop systems available certainly helps out with the insanely complex tasks (like those in the medical and physics fields); the trickle-down of those developments also make for the nice shiny toys that we call phones. End of the day, though, to the casual user it means nearly nothing, except for when it affects the price tag and/or the performance of their Flash-based games.
In essence, the things we've found in the last, say, 18 years (base assumption, being that you call yourself a 'young man'--you could be a tad on either side, it's not a term i've used to describe myself (at 24 currently) in 4-5 years), would have been found with the systems of the day given sufficient time and ingenuity, without significant improvements on the hardware capabilities. The fact that the hardware is being pushed to the absolute limits is a byproduct of what I would consider to be human nature--to be the biggest, the best, the fastest, regardless of the goal; it's a natural progression of things, and where it has industrial implications, why not map those to the consumer sector? It certainly doesn't hurt (much), once it's proven to work well.
This then causes the software end of things to be developed in a way that it can maximize its effectiveness with the hardware given--push the envelope to the furthest acceptable extent possible, even where it's not strictly necessary for the user's goal (though that's not what the hardware was really developed for). This is where the consumer comes in to play in the whole scheme. They see numbers and what their system is still able to do (even though it's not much more than their previous system, in most cases); the fancy numbers are bigger, and because the software keeps things where they are, the hardware must accelerate more to keep the consumers in awe.
In closing, this progression is meaningless, given indefinite time; it's necessary because of the need for consumer awe, and we only ever got to that point because the consumers want that awe. Nothing that has happened here is really that awesome; the capability was always there, the speed was not, and the speed really only occurred because consumers were told that they needed more power to do everything that they always did before, further driving the bleeding edge a little bit higher than it was.
Epic sequence. And no C-C-C-Combo-Breaker over 2h07m to boot.
I'd say the weather prediction software is about 60% more accurate...
Shit is blowing up and burning around you...and you do nothing because you don't believe you have the authority to do anything (at least, anything significant)?
One hell of a corporate indoctrination seminar that had to be. I'm sorry, but if it were me, shit were blowing up, flaming out, people getting killed, it really wouldn't matter to me who had told me I couldn't do X, Y, and/or Z, if X, Y, and/or Z could at least prevent things from going from worse to OMFG (and provided I had the ability to do those things--else I'd be all 'see ya later bye'). When it's life and limb, only the guy with a uniform, badge, and gun is in charge.
And which is the 'original' language (given that translation can be a bit tricky)?
In the States, for example, some contracts--and not to say that patents are any sort of contract; but to draw a parallel to something where competing versions might differ and become subject to a matter for the courts, who would need a single point of reference--are translated to Spanish, but include a clause that states, more or less, "In the case of conflict between this contract and any translated version, the English version shall be used to resolve any disputes arising from this agreement.". That's (mostly) when dealing with two separate languages; I'm sure, in the EU, the situation is a bit more muddled...