GIF's are fairly inflexible when it comes to formats. They have to be LZW compressed. They have to have less than 256 colours. They have to have a power of 2 colours (The LZW packing format that GIF uses would allow any arbitrary number of colours, but there are only 3 bits for depth in the format) There is no flag for compression on or off, and no flag for different types of compression.
Uncompressed GIF's are possible. LZW uses a system wwhere a number greater than 256 means a compressed or control code, and a number less than 256 means a plain colour. Uncompressed GIF's just use values less than 256. Its actually anti compressed because it needs at least 9 bits to store each value.
True, but the LZW compression algorithm still has its uses. It compresses text down considerably. It could probably use lossiness to squish real world images down quite considerably too.
I think upsetting the applecart can be achieved as long as you use the right methodology.
This essentially invloves disproving a theory without tellling anyone, finding an experiment that will prove your theory and disproved established theory, and publishing the experiment, noting surprise about how it seems to contradict established theory. Then wait a few years and publish a theory about how to explain it.
How is this any different from any other form of science?
Science should check the results of predictions, and if the predictions are wrong, use these results to correct or disprove the theory.
Admittedly a lot of scientists can be too arrogant to admit that their theory might be wrong. I don't think they deserve to be called scientists either (even if they do turn out to be right).
You don't need to. A snail experiences relativistic effects, just in too small a way to measure. Sufficiently accurate scientific clocks can measure the effect caused by travelling at airliner speeds for several hours. (I've seen this demonstrated)
The official line (at least last time I heard) was that they used it to upload software updates. What I don't see is why do they need a decoder card when all the information could be uploaded through the phone line?
Does this work both ways? I think we should tell these people everything they want to know about us, after all this is the hackers way. It seems unfair that some companies should have to pay for this information, especially since there is no guarantee that its accurate, because it is obtained in rather a roundabout way.
In return, I want to know absolutely everything about everyone who works for or owns the company, source code for all software they use, detailed diagrams of all hardware, and details on how to build my own version.
A random trawl found mostly defensive posts, but also one accusing someone of getting their legal advice from a tea lady. Probably be hard to get that one to stand up as libel though.
Shame he doesn't have a web site (well, if he did, he wouldn't anymore). www.godfreynet.co.uk is just a parked domain name. No possible way of claiming that Godfrey is libelling someone.
Because Mr. Godfrey objected to an article posted in his name, I suggest that all articles that alledge to be from Mr. Godfrey are cancelled from all ISP's unless he specifically confirms to each ISP that he wrote them.
Generally by having a very large reserve of libel cash, the money to defend themselves agressively, and by getting the facts essentially right but blowing things out of proportion.
They also have the ability to use the libel laws to defend themselves (and their owners) against attacks from other publications.
This works for the prisoners dilemma. How well does it work if there's the possibility of escalation? If one side attempted this in the cold war, then we would still have had an arms race. (Speculation. of course)
Leaving the country because you think that the society is wrong is selfish. If it is wrong then you should attempt to change it, not leave everyone else there.
According to a lawyer friend of mine, thats perfectly okay. Although if you say the UK government is run by weenies, then the person you're libelling is a little bit abstract. You could claim that the UK government is actually run by Brussels and you meant that they were weenies. Then you could claim that by weenies, you meant people from Vien.
The UK didn't really have much choice. The agreement was a 100 year lease. Doing anything other than return the country would have been considered interfering in another country's politics. It could also be argued that Britain generously used a treaty to help give Hong Kong 100 years of freedom.
Then there's the odd fact that Chinese rule really isn't considered too harsh by quite a lot of people in Hong Kong (What are they? The Honkongese?).
the publisher is considered to be the writer, the publisher, the distributor and the retail outlet that sells the material!
Yup. Seems kind of stupid when put to the logical extreme though. If ISP X is a publisher, then so is their upstream provider. Since there is no central point of distribution on the internet (Well, there's LINX, but not all traffic goes through there), it would be possible to sue your own provider for distribution of a site on a totally different server. Now, could you sue yourself under the same laws?
With the typical/. readers skills in computers, coupled with a shortage of skilled programmers in China, I'd suggest that everyone moves to China and tries to get a job working for the censorship organisations. Obviously as a censor, you would require unprohibited access to the internet, and there are no restrictions as to what you put on a site as far as copyright goes.
My (somewhat naive) view is that we need some new laws that should say:
The ISP is not responsible for usenet postings made to a different server (Seems obvious, but the law doesn't seem to distinguish between the WorldWideWeb and the rest of the internet) The ISP only has to permanantly remove libelous material if a court considers it libelous. (rationale: Things can be unpublished on the web much more quickly than with paper. It should not be up to the ISP to consider what is libelous. Thats what the courts are for) Any damages should be against the creator of the site.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd prefer a CD writer and no floppy.
GIF's are fairly inflexible when it comes to formats. They have to be LZW compressed. They have to have less than 256 colours. They have to have a power of 2 colours (The LZW packing format that GIF uses would allow any arbitrary number of colours, but there are only 3 bits for depth in the format) There is no flag for compression on or off, and no flag for different types of compression.
Uncompressed GIF's are possible. LZW uses a system wwhere a number greater than 256 means a compressed or control code, and a number less than 256 means a plain colour. Uncompressed GIF's just use values less than 256. Its actually anti compressed because it needs at least 9 bits to store each value.
GIFs are lossy too if you have more than 256 colours.
PNG isn't though is it?
True, but the LZW compression algorithm still has its uses. It compresses text down considerably. It could probably use lossiness to squish real world images down quite considerably too.
I think upsetting the applecart can be achieved as long as you use the right methodology.
This essentially invloves disproving a theory without tellling anyone, finding an experiment that will prove your theory and disproved established theory, and publishing the experiment, noting surprise about how it seems to contradict established theory. Then wait a few years and publish a theory about how to explain it.
How is this any different from any other form of science?
Science should check the results of predictions, and if the predictions are wrong, use these results to correct or disprove the theory.
Admittedly a lot of scientists can be too arrogant to admit that their theory might be wrong. I don't think they deserve to be called scientists either (even if they do turn out to be right).
You don't need to. A snail experiences relativistic effects, just in too small a way to measure. Sufficiently accurate scientific clocks can measure the effect caused by travelling at airliner speeds for several hours. (I've seen this demonstrated)
Yup. Then there's the fact that they've had cloaking technology for a considerable amount of time, so their planes aren't visible to most satelites.
The official line (at least last time I heard) was that they used it to upload software updates. What I don't see is why do they need a decoder card when all the information could be uploaded through the phone line?
Does this work both ways? I think we should tell these people everything they want to know about us, after all this is the hackers way. It seems unfair that some companies should have to pay for this information, especially since there is no guarantee that its accurate, because it is obtained in rather a roundabout way.
In return, I want to know absolutely everything about everyone who works for or owns the company, source code for all software they use, detailed diagrams of all hardware, and details on how to build my own version.
Does this sound fair?
When it came to naming the ship, someone said "I think Beagles a nice name", so they called it the Beagle.
My wild guess is that since each ship had to have its own name, and a lot of ships were being built they decided to start a dogs series of names.
It also goes into a lot of detail about trivialities. There are also no photos (unless I missed them. The articles too long)
A random trawl found mostly defensive posts, but also one accusing someone of getting their legal advice from a tea lady. Probably be hard to get that one to stand up as libel though.
I think the point is that open source isn't guarenteed to be secure. Don't rely on it unless you know its been tested thouroughly.
Shame he doesn't have a web site (well, if he did, he wouldn't anymore). www.godfreynet.co.uk is just a parked domain name. No possible way of claiming that Godfrey is libelling someone.
Because Mr. Godfrey objected to an article posted in his name, I suggest that all articles that alledge to be from Mr. Godfrey are cancelled from all ISP's unless he specifically confirms to each ISP that he wrote them.
Generally by having a very large reserve of libel cash, the money to defend themselves agressively, and by getting the facts essentially right but blowing things out of proportion.
They also have the ability to use the libel laws to defend themselves (and their owners) against attacks from other publications.
This works for the prisoners dilemma. How well does it work if there's the possibility of escalation? If one side attempted this in the cold war, then we would still have had an arms race. (Speculation. of course)
Leaving the country because you think that the society is wrong is selfish. If it is wrong then you should attempt to change it, not leave everyone else there.
According to a lawyer friend of mine, thats perfectly okay. Although if you say the UK government is run by weenies, then the person you're libelling is a little bit abstract. You could claim that the UK government is actually run by Brussels and you meant that they were weenies. Then you could claim that by weenies, you meant people from Vien.
They love to queue up all the time,
Like Russia
they are always stopping work so they can take "afternoon tea",
Also Like Russia. I think we (the UK) should form an economic community with them.
The only problem I can see is that they need to drive on the right side of the road,
The hell we do. You lot should drive on the left - The way God intended!
and the fog in London town really is as bad as its reputation.
I don't think we can compete with the smog of LA. I'm proud that you consider us worthy competitors though.
The UK didn't really have much choice. The agreement was a 100 year lease. Doing anything other than return the country would have been considered interfering in another country's politics. It could also be argued that Britain generously used a treaty to help give Hong Kong 100 years of freedom.
Then there's the odd fact that Chinese rule really isn't considered too harsh by quite a lot of people in Hong Kong (What are they? The Honkongese?).
the publisher is considered to be the writer, the publisher, the distributor and the retail outlet that sells the material!
Yup. Seems kind of stupid when put to the logical extreme though. If ISP X is a publisher, then so is their upstream provider. Since there is no central point of distribution on the internet (Well, there's LINX, but not all traffic goes through there), it would be possible to sue your own provider for distribution of a site on a totally different server. Now, could you sue yourself under the same laws?
With the typical /. readers skills in computers, coupled with a shortage of skilled programmers in China, I'd suggest that everyone moves to China and tries to get a job working for the censorship organisations. Obviously as a censor, you would require unprohibited access to the internet, and there are no restrictions as to what you put on a site as far as copyright goes.
My (somewhat naive) view is that we need some new laws that should say:
The ISP is not responsible for usenet postings made to a different server (Seems obvious, but the law doesn't seem to distinguish between the WorldWideWeb and the rest of the internet)
The ISP only has to permanantly remove libelous material if a court considers it libelous. (rationale: Things can be unpublished on the web much more quickly than with paper. It should not be up to the ISP to consider what is libelous. Thats what the courts are for)
Any damages should be against the creator of the site.