This demonstrates the sheer stupidity of our so-called Democratic Governments. Once the pedophiles, terrorizers and crooks were the only ones who needed to encrypt their work. But governments are wasting so many tax payer dollars to spy on their own citizens for no good reason, that now the citizens are turning to encryption too. Now instead of having to concentrate on a small island of encrypted comms, Government will now have to sift through a sea of it.
We've got dumb and shady politicians (hey thanks for your FISA betrayal, Obama) and public servants more interested in building empires then generally protecting the people who pay their salaries (that's the taxpayer, not the politicians).
Too bad O'Reilly didn't sweet talk them into open sourcing it; It could have been O'Reilly's first animal book with a xenophobe on the front. Unfortunately here's the governments stupid answer on open-sourcing it:
"Well, no. There are no plans to make that available. And one of the issues that we have is that our spacecraft are designated as subject to international trafficking and arms regulations. So even â" ((Crypto regulations in exporting and such?)) Yeah. Yeah. I mean even though these are not military spacecraft, the technology used in them is space technology. And so the State Department does not allow us to release anything that we've done in terms of technical details to foreign scrutiny. Now, in fact as I said, we have a team of Canadians. The Canadians delivered our meteorology instruments, and we had to be very careful about our relationship with them and how much we could disclose to them."
I mean, Sheesh. So don't release the crypto-keys, dumbass. As for the rest of it, if anyone else wants to build their own mars space probe, all the more power too them. Government works aren't covered under copyright anyway. This is some petty-minded mulberry patch guarding by NASA. Try and see the bigger picture, guys. That's your job after all.
RTFA. They were going to ban other payment methods *except* PayPal. They got as far as demanding sellers accept PayPal payments, but the backdown means everyone still has the option of paying by other means.
BTW Someone above suggested maybe this was eBays idea all along? They back down, but they get a really nice runners-up prize...:-/
That, and thirty versions of CSI. Do they really expect us to watch that? The news is 30 minutes to spin, and they lied their asses to us during the Iraq War. If there are good shows, you can get them on the net. There's just no reason to watch TV anymore.
Up there with selling land on the moon, There have been many "Adopt a Star" scams like this by con artists and scammers. I've attached some below. That these astronomers are doing the same thing is shameful.
Star Registry from $15
Name a Star after Your Loved One
Unique and Personalized Gift
www.XXXXX.com
Name A Star From $19.95
Buy A Star? Yes. At StarNamer®.
Top quality with no compromises
www.XXXXX.net
Name a Star After Someone
A gift that will last a lifetime
Name a star! - Now only $18.95
XXXXX.com
Cool Gift- Name A Star
The Star Foundation will also
donate up to 25% to charity.
www.XXXX.net
25% to charity? How lovely. These astronomers obviously consider themselves a 'charity', but not even a tax deductible one. I hope these guys find themselves behind bars. This last one I didn't X-out:
Buy A Star
Bargain Buy A Star here!
Find, bid, win it on eBay Australia
www.ebay.com.au/Buy+A+Star
eBay has been spamming Australian customers with PR drivel like this one they sent me: "eBay challenges yesterday's Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) draft notice and is disappointed that the ACCC's current view delays the opportunity to provide consumers a more secure way to shop on eBay.com.au with confidence"
With confidence? I had a dispute where the seller did a runner. I thought PayPal protected me, but it turns out once the seller has taken the loot and run, tough luck. To try and pass this off as fighting for *us* is laughable. eBay looks out for eBay. Don't insult our intelligence by pretending this is anything other than a grab for more money.
> Dove faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The power the MPAA greasers have over government is amazing. Here an Australian who never made a cent from and had never stepped foot in the US was arrested by the Australian Police and extradited to the US where he now sits in prison. Australia is famous for not looking after their citizens, but extraditing someone for something like this is insane. His name is Hew Griffiths.
GTA is a good game, no worse than any episode of The Sopranos. I've played it heaps, but had no RL urges to shoot cops, run over pedestrians, steal cars or not pay a hooker.
The lawyers and moralists who got outraged at some pixelated lowpoly boobies need to get a life and a real job. Did they really think anyone would get out of bed for $5, head to Jack in the Box and declare "This tasty burger and beverage offsets the misery I experienced when I found and downloaded Hot Coffee"?
> "A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback.
It must have, since academics have time to explore the new depths of laziness.
Amen. The two most repressive regimes to enter now are America and Japan. Avoid them unless your idea of fun is absurd and intrusive security checks, arrogant airport officials and fingerprinting of innocent people. In Japan the police are now stopping white people in the streets and demanding to see ID. PCs contact a lot of personal info these days, and US airport officials love sticking their hands in other peoples drawers. A huge waste of people's time and money. In the end, it's the US and Japan that lose. Pretty much what Osama would want.
> If DARPA is now so desperate as to seek out totally random and unknown readers of slashdot...my god the US is screwed.
Stop your whining. Oh hello DARPA. It has to be Linux. Everything Linux. And Perl. If you use Linux and Perl you can do anything. I heard someone wrote a neuron library for Perl. Anyway, go to your boss and say 'LINUX AND PERL'. Hope this helps.
> If by "nonsensical" you mean predated by prior art, it would seem hard to prove that they should/did know of the prior art's existence.
So put the onus on them. Whether they did it through malice or neglect would influence the severity of the fine, but not committing the offense in the first place. Patents are supposed to be novel, useful and not obvious, but it's clear many patents esp. software are a lottery.
Patents have ceased to be about protecting intellectual property, and all about trying to get a monopoly advantage over the competition. Unfortunately the US Government has suckered other countries (hello Australia) to sign up for the US Patent System, so the world suffers from patent stupidity.
Know what would stop these nonsensical patent claims? Massive punitive damages. Hit trend with a $30M fine if they are found to have made a patent claim that turned out to be obviously bogus.
But I'm kidding myself. Congress who could stop this tomorrow doesn't give a damn. What do McCain, Hillary or Obama say about runaway patents. Not a damned thing.
Not to mention flying these things would suck up even more fuel, which would have to be shipped in addition to whatever is already being used.
Take a look at their web site: This smacks of cheap and nasty.
http://www.frontlineaerospace.com/
> I think it's Dell, who is charging you for the work involved in doing the downgrade
Extra work? Disagree. Year ago Toshiba let you choose between 95 and 98 preinstallations. Both came on preinstalled, you chose which one you wanted at start up. If there's any "extra work" it's because Dell did it the hard way. (And of course it's a chance for Dell to gauge customers).
And of course Balmer gets to pad the Vista sales figures. Gee Microsoft. Grow a brain and relaunch XP. These guys seem to think a mistake isn't a mistake as long as they don't admit it, even though everyone else knows it.
Damned thing broke lots of my Add-ons. Even though I installed FF3 in a separate directory, the stupid thing keeps the extensions in the *same* directory, even though they're incompatible between versions.
Firefox Developers: If you can't release a new version without breaking add-ons, don't release a new version at all. If your API is that fragile, you need to understand what APIs are.
I'm back at FF2.
It'll break your add-ons. Well, not all of them, but enough to produce problems. You can't install 3.0 alongside your 2.0 browser - there is some weird and stupid interaction which means even if you install it in separate directories, it will still kill your extensions. The new 3.0 extensions won't work if you try and start or retrograde to 2.0.
I'm unimpressed. Hey developers: What is your obsession with breaking Add-ons?
PS. It'll also log you out of all your web sites. What a complete pain in the ass!
XP is here. It works. It works well. It has drivers. It's fast.
Vista has been a complete disaster for Microsoft. It's here, but it doesn't work well, lacks drivers and is slower than molasses. The record 'sales' of Vista that Microsoft has been bragging about is only due to preinstallations, and everyone knows it.
I got Vista on a new laptop, loved the pretty colors but within a few months learned it was pure crap, deleted it, installed XP and never looked back.
Microsoft: It's time to fall on your sword. Admit that Vista was the disaster it is: Every else already knows that. Sanction the developers that screwed it up so badly, and Fire the bureaucrats who would rather see Microsoft go down the tubes that admit they made a huge mistake with Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
This demonstrates the sheer stupidity of our so-called Democratic Governments. Once the pedophiles, terrorizers and crooks were the only ones who needed to encrypt their work. But governments are wasting so many tax payer dollars to spy on their own citizens for no good reason, that now the citizens are turning to encryption too. Now instead of having to concentrate on a small island of encrypted comms, Government will now have to sift through a sea of it. We've got dumb and shady politicians (hey thanks for your FISA betrayal, Obama) and public servants more interested in building empires then generally protecting the people who pay their salaries (that's the taxpayer, not the politicians).
Too bad O'Reilly didn't sweet talk them into open sourcing it; It could have been O'Reilly's first animal book with a xenophobe on the front. Unfortunately here's the governments stupid answer on open-sourcing it:
"Well, no. There are no plans to make that available. And one of the issues that we have is that our spacecraft are designated as subject to international trafficking and arms regulations. So even â" ((Crypto regulations in exporting and such?)) Yeah. Yeah. I mean even though these are not military spacecraft, the technology used in them is space technology. And so the State Department does not allow us to release anything that we've done in terms of technical details to foreign scrutiny. Now, in fact as I said, we have a team of Canadians. The Canadians delivered our meteorology instruments, and we had to be very careful about our relationship with them and how much we could disclose to them."
I mean, Sheesh. So don't release the crypto-keys, dumbass. As for the rest of it, if anyone else wants to build their own mars space probe, all the more power too them. Government works aren't covered under copyright anyway. This is some petty-minded mulberry patch guarding by NASA. Try and see the bigger picture, guys. That's your job after all.
RTFA. They were going to ban other payment methods *except* PayPal. They got as far as demanding sellers accept PayPal payments, but the backdown means everyone still has the option of paying by other means.
BTW Someone above suggested maybe this was eBays idea all along? They back down, but they get a really nice runners-up prize... :-/
That, and thirty versions of CSI. Do they really expect us to watch that? The news is 30 minutes to spin, and they lied their asses to us during the Iraq War. If there are good shows, you can get them on the net. There's just no reason to watch TV anymore.
How about doing neither: There are far more deserving charities out there.
Up there with selling land on the moon, There have been many "Adopt a Star" scams like this by con artists and scammers. I've attached some below. That these astronomers are doing the same thing is shameful.
Star Registry from $15 Name a Star after Your Loved One Unique and Personalized Gift www.XXXXX.com
Name A Star From $19.95 Buy A Star? Yes. At StarNamer®. Top quality with no compromises www.XXXXX.net
Name a Star After Someone A gift that will last a lifetime Name a star! - Now only $18.95 XXXXX.com
Cool Gift- Name A Star The Star Foundation will also donate up to 25% to charity. www.XXXX.net
25% to charity? How lovely. These astronomers obviously consider themselves a 'charity', but not even a tax deductible one. I hope these guys find themselves behind bars. This last one I didn't X-out:
Buy A Star Bargain Buy A Star here! Find, bid, win it on eBay Australia www.ebay.com.au/Buy+A+Star
eBay has been spamming Australian customers with PR drivel like this one they sent me: "eBay challenges yesterday's Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) draft notice and is disappointed that the ACCC's current view delays the opportunity to provide consumers a more secure way to shop on eBay.com.au with confidence"
With confidence? I had a dispute where the seller did a runner. I thought PayPal protected me, but it turns out once the seller has taken the loot and run, tough luck. To try and pass this off as fighting for *us* is laughable. eBay looks out for eBay. Don't insult our intelligence by pretending this is anything other than a grab for more money.
Fire the Vista guys on the way out. Reinstate XP, and we'll overlook this little racketeering monopoly thing. Ok?
The power the MPAA greasers have over government is amazing. Here an Australian who never made a cent from and had never stepped foot in the US was arrested by the Australian Police and extradited to the US where he now sits in prison. Australia is famous for not looking after their citizens, but extraditing someone for something like this is insane. His name is Hew Griffiths.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/australia-hands-over-man-to-us-courts/2007/05/06/1178390140855.html
GTA is a good game, no worse than any episode of The Sopranos. I've played it heaps, but had no RL urges to shoot cops, run over pedestrians, steal cars or not pay a hooker. The lawyers and moralists who got outraged at some pixelated lowpoly boobies need to get a life and a real job. Did they really think anyone would get out of bed for $5, head to Jack in the Box and declare "This tasty burger and beverage offsets the misery I experienced when I found and downloaded Hot Coffee"?
> "A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback. It must have, since academics have time to explore the new depths of laziness.
Amen. The two most repressive regimes to enter now are America and Japan. Avoid them unless your idea of fun is absurd and intrusive security checks, arrogant airport officials and fingerprinting of innocent people. In Japan the police are now stopping white people in the streets and demanding to see ID. PCs contact a lot of personal info these days, and US airport officials love sticking their hands in other peoples drawers. A huge waste of people's time and money. In the end, it's the US and Japan that lose. Pretty much what Osama would want.
> If DARPA is now so desperate as to seek out totally random and unknown readers of slashdot...my god the US is screwed.
Stop your whining. Oh hello DARPA. It has to be Linux. Everything Linux. And Perl. If you use Linux and Perl you can do anything. I heard someone wrote a neuron library for Perl. Anyway, go to your boss and say 'LINUX AND PERL'. Hope this helps.
Mod parent insightful
> If by "nonsensical" you mean predated by prior art, it would seem hard to prove that they should/did know of the prior art's existence. So put the onus on them. Whether they did it through malice or neglect would influence the severity of the fine, but not committing the offense in the first place. Patents are supposed to be novel, useful and not obvious, but it's clear many patents esp. software are a lottery. Patents have ceased to be about protecting intellectual property, and all about trying to get a monopoly advantage over the competition. Unfortunately the US Government has suckered other countries (hello Australia) to sign up for the US Patent System, so the world suffers from patent stupidity.
Know what would stop these nonsensical patent claims? Massive punitive damages. Hit trend with a $30M fine if they are found to have made a patent claim that turned out to be obviously bogus. But I'm kidding myself. Congress who could stop this tomorrow doesn't give a damn. What do McCain, Hillary or Obama say about runaway patents. Not a damned thing.
Not to mention flying these things would suck up even more fuel, which would have to be shipped in addition to whatever is already being used. Take a look at their web site: This smacks of cheap and nasty. http://www.frontlineaerospace.com/
They haven't built the thing! Look at this photo - it cracked me up! http://www.frontlineaerospace.com/images/stories/press_images/VSTAR_Resupply_1.jpg Someone has copypasted a 3DSMAX model, at that textured by someone who clearly doesn't know how to use the UVW Wrap function. Look at the sides.
Someone moderated this a troll...
Complaining about broken Add-ons is a troll?
About time Slashdot moderated the 'moderators'.
> I think it's Dell, who is charging you for the work involved in doing the downgrade
Extra work? Disagree. Year ago Toshiba let you choose between 95 and 98 preinstallations. Both came on preinstalled, you chose which one you wanted at start up. If there's any "extra work" it's because Dell did it the hard way. (And of course it's a chance for Dell to gauge customers).
And of course Balmer gets to pad the Vista sales figures. Gee Microsoft. Grow a brain and relaunch XP. These guys seem to think a mistake isn't a mistake as long as they don't admit it, even though everyone else knows it.
Damned thing broke lots of my Add-ons. Even though I installed FF3 in a separate directory, the stupid thing keeps the extensions in the *same* directory, even though they're incompatible between versions. Firefox Developers: If you can't release a new version without breaking add-ons, don't release a new version at all. If your API is that fragile, you need to understand what APIs are. I'm back at FF2.
It'll break your add-ons. Well, not all of them, but enough to produce problems. You can't install 3.0 alongside your 2.0 browser - there is some weird and stupid interaction which means even if you install it in separate directories, it will still kill your extensions. The new 3.0 extensions won't work if you try and start or retrograde to 2.0. I'm unimpressed. Hey developers: What is your obsession with breaking Add-ons? PS. It'll also log you out of all your web sites. What a complete pain in the ass!
XP is here. It works. It works well. It has drivers. It's fast. Vista has been a complete disaster for Microsoft. It's here, but it doesn't work well, lacks drivers and is slower than molasses. The record 'sales' of Vista that Microsoft has been bragging about is only due to preinstallations, and everyone knows it. I got Vista on a new laptop, loved the pretty colors but within a few months learned it was pure crap, deleted it, installed XP and never looked back. Microsoft: It's time to fall on your sword. Admit that Vista was the disaster it is: Every else already knows that. Sanction the developers that screwed it up so badly, and Fire the bureaucrats who would rather see Microsoft go down the tubes that admit they made a huge mistake with Vista.