If this is indeed valid contact information for this capitalist bastard ^H^H^H^H^H^H person, then yeah, send him an e-mail telling him how wrong he is! But be articulate and polite, so we don't see an article in the LA Times where he says "The Internet is basically populated by ranting jerks and script kiddies, as well as those anarchistic hippies."
What a pointless piece. We're all frustrated about how quickly virii can waste time and money, abetted by dumb users, but death? Silly and obnoxious. It's not like many virus writers are that different from your average hacker: they are not gang raping babies, or beating up old ladies for their social security cheques. They are writing code! Granted, it's the code equivalent of spray painting obscenities on public buildings, or slashing people's tires in the parking lot, but I seriously doubt a computer virus , trojan or worm has ever caused a death or serious bodily injury (I don't count bruised fists from pounding on desks, or pulled-out hair here). It's vandalism, just of a type that's very hard to police and prosecute.
Ok, not the best example of a game that took many years to "perfect". I guess Daikatana isn't either...;-) Games are probably not a good example of "more dev time == better app" because gamers want the latest, bleeding-edge thing more than a "workhorse" (Half-Life is a workhorse, but its persistence is probably dependant on a steady supply of new mods/Counterstrike updates).
Well, we're maybe more like the slightly geeky, skinny younger sibling. Our older brother/sister is sometimes pretty nice, but as often as not says deeply hurtful things and doesn't seem to care how much their punches on the arm hurt us. Not to mention the bargains: "eat these worms and I'll give you a dollar... don't eat them and I'll pants you at school"...
Of course our space arm worked! That's one of our "niches" in space so far, and we do it damn well. Oh, and thanks to the rest of the world for building shuttles and stations to put the things on;-)
Your Bot wouldn't be too mobile with a Faraday Cage - the things have to be tethered to a 30 ft. groundspike to dissipate external electrical fields...
Anyone interested in the legal and moral ramifications of this case should read "The Transparent Society" by David Brin. Brin's argument is an unpopular one here (total privacy hurts the little guy more than it benefits us, including legal strong encryption etc.) but he has very good points about public surveillance. He advocates UK-style street surveillance cameras, with the footage available to everyone and not just the police. Unless people have the ability to "watch the watchers" as well as they can watch us, abuses WILL occur.
That said, IMO, This guy was pretty foolish, taking the tape to the police. On TV, "IA" (Internal Affairs) may look like they're out to get the beat cops for any little thing, but in reality the Blue Wall still thrives, and unless you have a good lawyer they will F**K you. Next time, take it to the PRESS! It may not be "just" but the spotlight of public attention might be the only way to force the police to respond appropriately.
OK, let's assume this IS a plane wreck, and not just an algal bloom, or a huge blob of toxic waste or whatever. What are the odds that it's Earhart's airplane? Some of you may recall that America and Japan had a little war in the Pacific Ocean a while ago, and both used a prodigious number of airplanes. Many of these are unaccounted for. It could be a B-17, a "Kate" flying boat or any number of other mid-sized planes that were tooling around the Pacific.
That said, it'd be nice if Amelia Earhart was finally laid to rest, even if not literally. She was a pioneer whose dedication and skill probably inspired many young women to the realization that there was more to life than being June Cleaver.
... they're called "laptops". OK, so they're not completely untouchable, but they're not nearly as easy to mess with as a desktop system. What limited mods can be done require a good deal more skill too. Maybe if similar desktop systems become the standard, more people who want to play around with hardware will be forced to improve their technical skills. But I can see that it'd just make computers even less understandable to "Joe Sixpack", who can currently swap in new cards/processor/RAM/HD on his desktop machine without being a l33t haXor or having a CS degree.
...Except that it probably is. I'm a little disappointed that the ship is essentially indistinguishable from ST:TNG ships, except maybe the nacelle design. If ST:TOS ships are any indication, Federation ships of that era should be pretty awkward looking (not that it matters in space). The interior shots shown look promising - a little harder-edged than other ST, without the white decor, mood lighting etc. that appeared in later ships we're familiar with. I would have liked something even closer to the Nostromo or the Sulaco from the "Aliens" movies (in style, not overall hull shape), but I guess this is still Trek. I guess they feel that a Trek audience doesn't want to see their heroes flying around in a more tin-bucket style of spaceship, even if it is in the "past".
Of course, the REAL question is... Klingons: forehead ridges or no? They may be forced to answer the question of why the Klingons "don't like to talk about that"!
Access to the instant printing network?
on
Books on Demand
·
· Score: 2
I'm surprised that in this paranoid forum nobody's made the connection between this and the conditions attached to availability of DVD-R drives. Basically the system there is that you (the Little Guy) not only cannot REproduce copyrighted materials, but also cannot produce materials with YOUR copyright protection on them. For that you need a much more expensive "DVD-authoring drive". In other words, piracy aside, the ability to CREATE works on par with the Big Guys has been restricted by technology.
That said, who thinks that anything NOT published by a Big Publisher will be available from these printers? Say, if I make my self-published book "The 100 Greatest Publishing Conspiracies of All Time" into a PDF file (or whatever format is appropriate), who's to say that I'll be allowed into the game? After all, if I can essentially "publish" my book from a PC, sending a PDF file to the Insta-Book Network (who in effect become my "publisher" without having to exercise any editorial effort or control) then why would I ever take it to one of the old "dead tree publishers"? Who would ever publish with them again? They'll fight hard to control this technology, because it could easily make them redundant.
(This assuming the technology improves to reduce the per-copy price to what is now considered acceptable for mass-market books)
DNA sequencing is already done using an extremely inexpensive and idiot-proof process. So this technology could improve that perhaps in terms of speed and cost, which is always a Good Thing if you're a researcher!
I was thinking that this method could also be used to sequence proteins - a process which is now done using an automated process which can only produce (correct me if I'm wrong, and if I am I'll eat a bug) maybe 30 "letters" of sequence. Compare this to many hundreds at a run from DNA sequencing. If proteins could be sequenced hundreds of amino acids at a time, you could sequence a whole protein in one run. This would be better than the current method, where fragments are sequenced, and then the overlaps are compared to piece together the whole sequence.
There is in law enforcement a concept called "chain of evidence", which is why on TV cop shows they always have to sign items out of the evidence locker to examine them. This helps to reduce or prevent abuses by law enforcement personnel (there are hefty penalties for tampering). As for "planted" or evidence altered by others, there are pretty sophisticated physical forensics methods to detect tampering/discrepancies. The question here is: when electronic records (which can in theory be altered undetectably) become vital evidence, how do we obtain the same degree of protection?
I would say printouts of a file should be worthless (except, like everything else, to a stupid or gullible judge) as evidence in and of themselves. Of course, once the contents of the file have been confirmed by other methods, notarized text copies could be used for the convenience of courtroom/legal research use during the case. Notaries are not 100% untouchable of course, but they do have powerful disincentives to not bear false witness.
We've seen a thousand examples that show that judges nearly always trust the police and their "experts" when it comes to computer crime. If they say they have enough probable cause to arrest teenagers from their bedrooms, raid gaming publishers, sieze computers/phones/Gameboys etc. as evidence or as "proceeds of crime" then who is some judge (who spends too much time keeping up with the law to become a computer expert) to say otherwise? As we've seen, this opens the system up to myriad abuses, but I'm not sure what is the greater danger: police misconduct/corruption or the possibility that if swift action to obtain electronic evidence is NOT taken, that criminals (yes, there are BAD hackers/crackers out there) will have the opportunity to get to the records first and make them disappear. I'm NOT saying that police should have carte blanche to go digging in peoples' systems for evidence, but I do think that the ability to obtain accurate and trusted electronic records ultimately works to the advantage of the innocent accused.
I'm not sure if I have a coherent point here, I just thought I'd raise some points before the usual Slashdot flood of "police are evil and ignorant, they want to take my boxen" hits this story.
I like John Doggett and Monica Reyes too. They are a very DIFFERENT pair than Mulder and Scully, but not any less viable. And they haven't personally pissed off half of the U.S. government, which might work in their favour as investigators:-) Between this, and the fact that they are played by capable actors (Gish is good, Patrick is of course amazing), the show could be very good this season, as long as the writers keep their heads out of their asses. It almost makes me want GA to "retire" to the stage now for some well-deserved artistic exploration. We'll still have our tape collections for when we need a Scully fix after all:-) But I can see how the character could serve as a "bridge" for the audience, and a useful connection for the new agents (who are still pretty new to the alien/mutant/monster hunting game).
I dunno about Battlestar Galactica (As the Space Channel ads here put it "Who knew the future would look so much like the 70's?") but Bab5 was much "harder" SF than a lot of stuff on TV. Just watching the Starfury fighters fire maneuvering thrusters to move, and doing that strafing thing where the ship is pointed at 90 degrees to the movement vector and blasting away, reminds me how "soft" Star Wars and Trek really are:-) What? Spaceships don't fly the way airplanes do? Who knew! Even "Space: Above and Beyond" didn't have that degree of "realism".
(A physics model I *ache for* in a space sim, by the way)
AFAIK, everywhere else in Canada is like here (Guelph, Ontario, in my case). There is one cable internet provider here - Rogers@home. If you don't like it (ie. if you don't like paying through the nose, and having so-so service) then either go with Bell Sympatico (not bad from what I hear, but also $$), or rot with the rest of the modem-using losers. Which I will probably be soon, as I cannot afford $50/month just for a decent 'net connection...:-(
There's a substantial "Mars underground" which claims that NASA's predictions of >$100 billion to go to Mars are basically bullshit. For a detailed breakdown, see the book "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. If the cost of a crewed mission to Mars is even down into the single-digit billions, $500 million Cdn. would be a substantial contribution. Of course, since such an effort would use a lot of off-the-shelf components and technology, and not produce a vast research and development boondoggle for G.W. Bush's aerospace industry buddies, it's unlikely to "fly".
Whichever poster made the comment that the Canadian Mars program would be based in Shawinigan (our Prime Minister's home constituency) hit the nail on the head. The reasons we have not landed on Mars yet are primarily a) politics, and b) the small minded greed of our leaders.
Packet loss is *Infinitely* worse than a little latency! I don't play Q3 (slow comp) but I'm a Counterstrike addict, and I can't count the number of times when I've clicked the mouse button and no bullets came! That's packet loss for ya - the packet saying "fire" just... vanishes. And in a one-shot, one-kill game like CS, that's a killer - literally. Since it seems to happen a lot during comp-heavy times (ie. large firefights) it's especially bad. But I guess it's an accurate simulation of your gun jamming:-)
I believe that it's been determined that TV transmissions aren't of sufficient strength to reach other star systems at detectable levels. I seem to recall reading an article in some science mag (ooh, great reference, NSA!) that said that we'd have to use many times our entire planet's energy output to send a listenable radio signal to a semi-distant system (ie. not Alpha Centauri). And that's a directed beam, not just "leakage". Don't stock up on canned food yet, the aliens probably won't be coming to shut down MTV any time soon.
One of the uses for Freenet I noticed on the "What is Freenet?" page:
Efficient distribution of high-bandwidth content: Freenet's adaptive caching and mirroring is being used to distribute Debian Linux software updates and to combat the Slashdot effect.
So Slashdotters: you are not only helping to further the discussion of a free Internet, but you're in a sense a driving force in its technological development as well...
I tend to use keyboard actions to navigate web pages and browser menus - alt(backarrow), PGDN, PGUP etc. Saves on moving the mouse around, especially when your mouse sensitivity is set as high as mine (for gaming) and it's hard to keep the pointer on those darn menu items... Personally, I wouldn't want to use this kind of interface much.
I do think it's good that unusual and innovative methods of software control are being tried out, especially in a respected piece of software like Opera. Maybe this will get the ball rolling, but to tell you the truth I can't see this sort of thing being standard in any M$ apps any time soon. Users who need the Paperclip to help them "save as" aren't going to like the mousing equivalent of waving one's hands in the air:-) Maybe it could be implemented as a "power user" setting.
God, is there even ONE place in the universe that we can maybe keep our idiotic warlike toys out of? Bad enough that there are so many weapons on Earth, how can you so casually suggest that they should be placed in space as well? To do so would be criminal, and I wouldn't blame some orbiting ET's if they exterminated all of us just to make sure.
Make sure you let the artist know that what their record company told them is a lie, in every case where one of these discs is released. This is my e-mail to Charley Pride's website:
I just read a couple of stories on how Charley's new CD will be released in a "copy-protected" format unreadable by CD-ROM drives. Geez, do you guys even know what a mess you've attached yourselves to? I mean, this CD won't even be RedBook compliant - technically, it shouldn't even be advertised or sold as an "audio CD"! I just bought a new set of computer speakers that, in comparison, make my stereo sound like a cheap kitchen radio, and if any more of these "protected" CD's come out, I won't be able to play them in my CD-ROM. And with a 3% chance they won't even play on my stereo, I guess I (and, I'm sure, many others) just won't buy them at all. Good move, guys.
I think it gets the point across. Now whether Charley checks his own e-mail or lets some record company flack do it instead is another story...
Slashdot Mirror
If this is indeed valid contact information for this capitalist bastard ^H^H^H^H^H^H person, then yeah, send him an e-mail telling him how wrong he is! But be articulate and polite, so we don't see an article in the LA Times where he says "The Internet is basically populated by ranting jerks and script kiddies, as well as those anarchistic hippies."
What a pointless piece. We're all frustrated about how quickly virii can waste time and money, abetted by dumb users, but death? Silly and obnoxious. It's not like many virus writers are that different from your average hacker: they are not gang raping babies, or beating up old ladies for their social security cheques. They are writing code! Granted, it's the code equivalent of spray painting obscenities on public buildings, or slashing people's tires in the parking lot, but I seriously doubt a computer virus , trojan or worm has ever caused a death or serious bodily injury (I don't count bruised fists from pounding on desks, or pulled-out hair here). It's vandalism, just of a type that's very hard to police and prosecute.
Ok, not the best example of a game that took many years to "perfect". I guess Daikatana isn't either... ;-) Games are probably not a good example of "more dev time == better app" because gamers want the latest, bleeding-edge thing more than a "workhorse" (Half-Life is a workhorse, but its persistence is probably dependant on a steady supply of new mods/Counterstrike updates).
Of course our space arm worked! That's one of our "niches" in space so far, and we do it damn well. Oh, and thanks to the rest of the world for building shuttles and stations to put the things on ;-)
Your Bot wouldn't be too mobile with a Faraday Cage - the things have to be tethered to a 30 ft. groundspike to dissipate external electrical fields...
That said, IMO, This guy was pretty foolish, taking the tape to the police. On TV, "IA" (Internal Affairs) may look like they're out to get the beat cops for any little thing, but in reality the Blue Wall still thrives, and unless you have a good lawyer they will F**K you. Next time, take it to the PRESS! It may not be "just" but the spotlight of public attention might be the only way to force the police to respond appropriately.
That said, it'd be nice if Amelia Earhart was finally laid to rest, even if not literally. She was a pioneer whose dedication and skill probably inspired many young women to the realization that there was more to life than being June Cleaver.
... they're called "laptops". OK, so they're not completely untouchable, but they're not nearly as easy to mess with as a desktop system. What limited mods can be done require a good deal more skill too. Maybe if similar desktop systems become the standard, more people who want to play around with hardware will be forced to improve their technical skills. But I can see that it'd just make computers even less understandable to "Joe Sixpack", who can currently swap in new cards/processor/RAM/HD on his desktop machine without being a l33t haXor or having a CS degree.
Of course, the REAL question is... Klingons: forehead ridges or no? They may be forced to answer the question of why the Klingons "don't like to talk about that"!
That said, who thinks that anything NOT published by a Big Publisher will be available from these printers? Say, if I make my self-published book "The 100 Greatest Publishing Conspiracies of All Time" into a PDF file (or whatever format is appropriate), who's to say that I'll be allowed into the game? After all, if I can essentially "publish" my book from a PC, sending a PDF file to the Insta-Book Network (who in effect become my "publisher" without having to exercise any editorial effort or control) then why would I ever take it to one of the old "dead tree publishers"? Who would ever publish with them again? They'll fight hard to control this technology, because it could easily make them redundant.
(This assuming the technology improves to reduce the per-copy price to what is now considered acceptable for mass-market books)
As a fellow Canadian... I LOVE YOU, MAN! Great post, rock on!
I was thinking that this method could also be used to sequence proteins - a process which is now done using an automated process which can only produce (correct me if I'm wrong, and if I am I'll eat a bug) maybe 30 "letters" of sequence. Compare this to many hundreds at a run from DNA sequencing. If proteins could be sequenced hundreds of amino acids at a time, you could sequence a whole protein in one run. This would be better than the current method, where fragments are sequenced, and then the overlaps are compared to piece together the whole sequence.
There is in law enforcement a concept called "chain of evidence", which is why on TV cop shows they always have to sign items out of the evidence locker to examine them. This helps to reduce or prevent abuses by law enforcement personnel (there are hefty penalties for tampering). As for "planted" or evidence altered by others, there are pretty sophisticated physical forensics methods to detect tampering/discrepancies. The question here is: when electronic records (which can in theory be altered undetectably) become vital evidence, how do we obtain the same degree of protection?
We've seen a thousand examples that show that judges nearly always trust the police and their "experts" when it comes to computer crime. If they say they have enough probable cause to arrest teenagers from their bedrooms, raid gaming publishers, sieze computers/phones/Gameboys etc. as evidence or as "proceeds of crime" then who is some judge (who spends too much time keeping up with the law to become a computer expert) to say otherwise? As we've seen, this opens the system up to myriad abuses, but I'm not sure what is the greater danger: police misconduct/corruption or the possibility that if swift action to obtain electronic evidence is NOT taken, that criminals (yes, there are BAD hackers/crackers out there) will have the opportunity to get to the records first and make them disappear. I'm NOT saying that police should have carte blanche to go digging in peoples' systems for evidence, but I do think that the ability to obtain accurate and trusted electronic records ultimately works to the advantage of the innocent accused.
I'm not sure if I have a coherent point here, I just thought I'd raise some points before the usual Slashdot flood of "police are evil and ignorant, they want to take my boxen" hits this story.
I like John Doggett and Monica Reyes too. They are a very DIFFERENT pair than Mulder and Scully, but not any less viable. And they haven't personally pissed off half of the U.S. government, which might work in their favour as investigators :-) Between this, and the fact that they are played by capable actors (Gish is good, Patrick is of course amazing), the show could be very good this season, as long as the writers keep their heads out of their asses. It almost makes me want GA to "retire" to the stage now for some well-deserved artistic exploration. We'll still have our tape collections for when we need a Scully fix after all :-) But I can see how the character could serve as a "bridge" for the audience, and a useful connection for the new agents (who are still pretty new to the alien/mutant/monster hunting game).
Thank you all for your suggestions :-)
(A physics model I *ache for* in a space sim, by the way)
AFAIK, everywhere else in Canada is like here (Guelph, Ontario, in my case). There is one cable internet provider here - Rogers@home. If you don't like it (ie. if you don't like paying through the nose, and having so-so service) then either go with Bell Sympatico (not bad from what I hear, but also $$), or rot with the rest of the modem-using losers. Which I will probably be soon, as I cannot afford $50/month just for a decent 'net connection... :-(
Whichever poster made the comment that the Canadian Mars program would be based in Shawinigan (our Prime Minister's home constituency) hit the nail on the head. The reasons we have not landed on Mars yet are primarily a) politics, and b) the small minded greed of our leaders.
Packet loss is *Infinitely* worse than a little latency! I don't play Q3 (slow comp) but I'm a Counterstrike addict, and I can't count the number of times when I've clicked the mouse button and no bullets came! That's packet loss for ya - the packet saying "fire" just... vanishes. And in a one-shot, one-kill game like CS, that's a killer - literally. Since it seems to happen a lot during comp-heavy times (ie. large firefights) it's especially bad. But I guess it's an accurate simulation of your gun jamming :-)
I believe that it's been determined that TV transmissions aren't of sufficient strength to reach other star systems at detectable levels. I seem to recall reading an article in some science mag (ooh, great reference, NSA!) that said that we'd have to use many times our entire planet's energy output to send a listenable radio signal to a semi-distant system (ie. not Alpha Centauri). And that's a directed beam, not just "leakage". Don't stock up on canned food yet, the aliens probably won't be coming to shut down MTV any time soon.
Efficient distribution of high-bandwidth content: Freenet's adaptive caching and mirroring is being used to distribute Debian Linux software updates and to combat the Slashdot effect.
So Slashdotters: you are not only helping to further the discussion of a free Internet, but you're in a sense a driving force in its technological development as well...
I do think it's good that unusual and innovative methods of software control are being tried out, especially in a respected piece of software like Opera. Maybe this will get the ball rolling, but to tell you the truth I can't see this sort of thing being standard in any M$ apps any time soon. Users who need the Paperclip to help them "save as" aren't going to like the mousing equivalent of waving one's hands in the air :-) Maybe it could be implemented as a "power user" setting.
God, is there even ONE place in the universe that we can maybe keep our idiotic warlike toys out of? Bad enough that there are so many weapons on Earth, how can you so casually suggest that they should be placed in space as well? To do so would be criminal, and I wouldn't blame some orbiting ET's if they exterminated all of us just to make sure.