Quick! Plant a bunch of trees for miles and miles around the possible impact sites so we can see if the resulting devastation is similar to what appears around Tunguska! This may be the only chance in our lifetimes to demonstrate that it wasn't Tesla to destroy Tunguska...
So howsabout a company releases a tricorder with cellphone capabilities... and a vibrating attachment for those who really do want their phones to be a damn orgasm.
I don't see why an open platform couldn't allow mobile devices to become all things to all people. It might not be that out-of-the-box, but if you can buy a handset that has all the hardware features you want and then can customize it with software that suits your needs, you've got a vision for a mobile computing device.
Biggest limitation I see is the data connection's speed and cost, and I don't see the big mobile phone companies doing much about that presently.
What concerns me most from this story has nothing to do specifically with the crime or the convict, but with the method that DHS used to make the connection. From this article, it is reasonable to suppose that DHS is performing very complicated analysis to investigate every innocent person they know about with every other person. Ostensibly, Linda Darby was "innocent" until they made the connection that she was originally Linda McElroy. The article suggests that the use of a similar SSN and DoB were the primary means for making the connection. If this is the case, what DHS is doing is unjust and probably unconstitutional. Treating every person as a suspect is a step in the wrong direction.
What I suspect actually happened is that Linda Darby needed to provide her SSN on some application for something recently and since identity theft has become a major problem over the last decade the agency that took her application found that the SSN belonged to multiple people and forwarded the information to the FBI for possible criminal investigation. This would automatically make Linda Darby a suspect for a crime which would justify the DHS trying to figure out who actually belonged to the SSN in question and who didn't, eventually giving DHS a justification for attempting to make a connection between Linda Darby and Linda McElroy. But the article doesn't go into this sort of detail and probably should.
Chorded Keyboards have been around for a long time, technologically speaking. It's great that you (and Trevor) are interested in learning about them, and that someone believes that mobile devices might increase their development and adoption rate. This just doesn't qualify as "news" in my book...
Why on Earth would you put your faith in a company?! If you've got to put your faith into something, try an idea like Jesus who at least promises eternal salvation for your troubles. Putting faith in any organization to always do good is just silliness. It's up to you to keep your eye on any organization which claims to be doing good in order to keep them in line.
And if you happen to think that Google or any other organization is stepping out of line, pipe up and tell them what you think they're doing wrong and how they can do right. Take action.
::Colz Grigor// This message was not brought to you by Google.
FTA: "DVD importer looks like it could work well, but it's illegal I think to backup DVDs even for personal use, right?"
When assumptions like this are made, even with slight question, it's clear that the author is misinformed and the MPAA has won.
For the record, at least in the United States, it's not illegal to create backups of any of your owned media, DVDs included. Doing so is protected as Fair Use of the copyright of which you have purchased a license. Selling or otherwise distributing your backup copies is not protected, however, and backups must be destroyed or transferred when the ownership of the original media license is transferred.
Of course, Fair Use goes out the window if you sign an agreement stating that you will obey certain provisions that work against Fair Use. But you'd never agree to such terms, right?
I regret to inform you that the firm which I represent has acquired a patent on "the desire of shooting people in the motherfucking head" technology, which you've included in your most recent post to Slash Dot.
The licensing fee for this technology is $100, however the penalty fee for utilizing the technology without first having acquired a license is $900, so we will be collecting $1,000 from you post haste.
All this debate about a "high-tech Santa" coming from the "Oh, we can't accept that he's a magical being" contingent is getting pathetic. All Heinlein quotes aside, the reason Santa can know who's naughty and who's nice without being accused of being a "Big Brother" by SlashDot and the reason that he can provide gifts to all the good little girls and boys in a single evening without being seen or captured is because he's magic! Get over it, all you hack scientists!
Many inventors have had one big invention, early on, that they were never able to top. The one we all know: Alexander Graham Bell. And then there's Eli Whitney, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Igor Sikorsky, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Steve Wozniak, Elias Howe... and this list is hardly all-inclusive.
Bram Cohen create an ingenious and highly beneficial technology. He may not be a Thomas Edison, but how many people can you name who had multiple disparate inventions? And does the fact that most inventors don't become household names make the inventions or the inventors any less of a person?
Give the guy credit for what he's done and maybe some encouragement to do more, but don't call these people failures. They've done more than most people ever will...
Cupertino, CA -- In an unusual move, Apple Computer, Inc., makers of the ubiquitous iPod, has filed civil litigation against an orca. The company has taken advantage of a loophole in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which allows organizations to sue members of other species in order to dispute alleged trademark abuses. "At issue in this case is an infringement on the use of the word 'Pod'," said a spokesperson for Apple. These killer whales have taken to referring to themselves as a "Pod", and we believe that their doing so dilutes the value of the word." When asked about the lawsuit, Ruffles, an Orca who claims to be a leader of "J-Pod", only replied "Grrrrrrrrrhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu".
I guess the irony here, kids, is that the front-running related article, right beneath the text of this article is yesterday's "Netflix Users Experience Paradox of Abundance".
So clearly the tools exist to check for similar content, which leaves me wondering which of the following is true:
A) The tools are not made available for editors to research if an article is going to be a duplicate, or B) The editors (okay, not all of them) don't bother researching...
\As I see this, this ruling is not a good thing. Bravo for the kid being victorious against the man and all, but boo hiss for society as a whole...
There is a law protecting the mailing addresses of city employees. Kokomo denied a request for e-mail addresses based on this law. The judge found that e-mail addresses were not covered by that law. In other words, what isn't legal in normal post-mail isn't necessarily illegal in e-mail.
I'm not quite sure what the repercussions will be, but this certainly will make for a more complicated system in Indiana.
Maybe we should ask the believers of Open Source. Surely they could explain why people would contribute their resources for the betterment of a particular project.
Or maybe we should ask the people who add articles to Wikipedia. I'm sure they'll have a good idea of why people want information to remain free.
Again, just because information is out there doesn't mean that it's accurate or complete. Providing a tool to capture more data will have the tendency of diluting the level of accuracy of available information.
If this data is ever going to become useful, Google will needs to create a system for moderation of informational accuracy and usefulness. Their page-ranking mechanism is a good start, but I just don't trust it to tell me that the first few results on a subject I'm researching are accurate.
This is why Google also needs a trust network. They certainly could begin to leverage Orkut to do this. I'd give more credence to an information source if I knew that someone in my trust network also gave credence to it.
Google doesn't seem to have a unified and communicated vision. Sure, they can hire the most talented engineers and they can keep cranking out the coolest toys, but what would actually move the internet forward is a way to combine all of those toys into a single, simple platform. For example, combine Orkut and page ranking. Rank my search results differently than someone else's because they have different trust relationships. In my opinion, Google has had only one real hit so far, and that's Google Earth. With that much corporate intelligence, I'd like to see Google doing more.
Good thing this system's running Linux. Otherwise, after a few month of regular cow usage it'd be loaded with malware, like your older relatives' computers. Teaching the cows healthy browsing habits might be easier...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why an open platform couldn't allow mobile devices to become all things to all people. It might not be that out-of-the-box, but if you can buy a handset that has all the hardware features you want and then can customize it with software that suits your needs, you've got a vision for a mobile computing device.
Biggest limitation I see is the data connection's speed and cost, and I don't see the big mobile phone companies doing much about that presently.
What I suspect actually happened is that Linda Darby needed to provide her SSN on some application for something recently and since identity theft has become a major problem over the last decade the agency that took her application found that the SSN belonged to multiple people and forwarded the information to the FBI for possible criminal investigation. This would automatically make Linda Darby a suspect for a crime which would justify the DHS trying to figure out who actually belonged to the SSN in question and who didn't, eventually giving DHS a justification for attempting to make a connection between Linda Darby and Linda McElroy. But the article doesn't go into this sort of detail and probably should.
And if you happen to think that Google or any other organization is stepping out of line, pipe up and tell them what you think they're doing wrong and how they can do right. Take action.
"DVD importer looks like it could work well, but it's illegal I think to backup DVDs even for personal use, right?"
When assumptions like this are made, even with slight question, it's clear that the author is misinformed and the MPAA has won.
For the record, at least in the United States, it's not illegal to create backups of any of your owned media, DVDs included. Doing so is protected as Fair Use of the copyright of which you have purchased a license. Selling or otherwise distributing your backup copies is not protected, however, and backups must be destroyed or transferred when the ownership of the original media license is transferred.
Of course, Fair Use goes out the window if you sign an agreement stating that you will obey certain provisions that work against Fair Use. But you'd never agree to such terms, right?
Right?
Perhaps, but behind the scenes, SCO is paying me $666 per license for my intellectual property.
Please allow me to introduce myself...
I regret to inform you that the firm which I represent has acquired a patent on "the desire of shooting people in the motherfucking head" technology, which you've included in your most recent post to Slash Dot.
The licensing fee for this technology is $100, however the penalty fee for utilizing the technology without first having acquired a license is $900, so we will be collecting $1,000 from you post haste.
Many inventors have had one big invention, early on, that they were never able to top. The one we all know: Alexander Graham Bell. And then there's Eli Whitney, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Igor Sikorsky, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Steve Wozniak, Elias Howe... and this list is hardly all-inclusive.
Bram Cohen create an ingenious and highly beneficial technology. He may not be a Thomas Edison, but how many people can you name who had multiple disparate inventions? And does the fact that most inventors don't become household names make the inventions or the inventors any less of a person?
Give the guy credit for what he's done and maybe some encouragement to do more, but don't call these people failures. They've done more than most people ever will...
Cupertino, CA -- In an unusual move, Apple Computer, Inc., makers of the ubiquitous iPod, has filed civil litigation against an orca. The company has taken advantage of a loophole in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which allows organizations to sue members of other species in order to dispute alleged trademark abuses. "At issue in this case is an infringement on the use of the word 'Pod'," said a spokesperson for Apple. These killer whales have taken to referring to themselves as a "Pod", and we believe that their doing so dilutes the value of the word." When asked about the lawsuit, Ruffles, an Orca who claims to be a leader of "J-Pod", only replied "Grrrrrrrrrhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu".
I guess the irony here, kids, is that the front-running related article, right beneath the text of this article is yesterday's "Netflix Users Experience Paradox of Abundance".
::Colz Grigor
So clearly the tools exist to check for similar content, which leaves me wondering which of the following is true:
A) The tools are not made available for editors to research if an article is going to be a duplicate, or
B) The editors (okay, not all of them) don't bother researching...
Hrmmmm...
I can see their slogan now...
It's oKay to bGay...
Ugh.
Does anyone else find it humorous that it was through this article that I learned that Paris Hilton was in a car crash? ::Colz Grigor
Get 'im, everyone! He's a goddamn time traveler!!!
There is a law protecting the mailing addresses of city employees. Kokomo denied a request for e-mail addresses based on this law. The judge found that e-mail addresses were not covered by that law. In other words, what isn't legal in normal post-mail isn't necessarily illegal in e-mail.
I'm not quite sure what the repercussions will be, but this certainly will make for a more complicated system in Indiana.
It's milking the IP!!!
So... how do underwear gnomes fit in?
But the Cringely clock is still ticking...
Or perhaps it would be safer if we didn't...
On my screen it says you get paid $0.40 for that task.
I wonder if Amazon is playing the dynamic pricing game again...
Or maybe we should ask the people who add articles to Wikipedia. I'm sure they'll have a good idea of why people want information to remain free.
If this data is ever going to become useful, Google will needs to create a system for moderation of informational accuracy and usefulness. Their page-ranking mechanism is a good start, but I just don't trust it to tell me that the first few results on a subject I'm researching are accurate.
This is why Google also needs a trust network. They certainly could begin to leverage Orkut to do this. I'd give more credence to an information source if I knew that someone in my trust network also gave credence to it.
Google doesn't seem to have a unified and communicated vision. Sure, they can hire the most talented engineers and they can keep cranking out the coolest toys, but what would actually move the internet forward is a way to combine all of those toys into a single, simple platform. For example, combine Orkut and page ranking. Rank my search results differently than someone else's because they have different trust relationships. In my opinion, Google has had only one real hit so far, and that's Google Earth. With that much corporate intelligence, I'd like to see Google doing more.