Its even worse than that - the US Government isn't just suspending the rights of its own citizens, it affects EVERYONE who has to interact with them. I did not vote upon Canadian Representatives based on their policies of airport security because it wasn't an issue when the elections were held. Now that the issue has arisen and body Scanners are in Canadian Airports... wait who approved that? My Government? My government bowed to your government. And a dozen other countries along with it. I merely want to visit an American city for my vacation - I have high hopes though as I haven't heard any fondling stories taking place Canada (yet) because I don't believe our airport security HAS to take orders from the TSA and I don't think we've employed the "enhanced pat-down technique". This means I'm allowed to Opt out and get a regular pat down - but I don't know if thats the case in the UK - I believe the law there recently (might have changed) was that you might get selected for Body scanning (possibly at random) and if you are selected, you have two options: Take the scan or not fly. That is their only opt-out.
Really now - the worst part is - this is the case even if I don't plan to stay in the States. If I want to go to Mexico there will no doubt be a stopover somewhere Stateside. It doesn't seem fair that their airport security policy applies to me even if I'm only there for an hour inside the same airplane. Really, there should be another method to handle those flights if they are really concerned (segregrated runway, new terminal, etc).
Please - I know US Citizens don't have a whole lot of power when it comes to running your country, and that most of the time it's run by powers far beyond your control - but if there's ANYTHING I could ask from you guys, it's to create enough of an outcry over issues such as this that BOTH parties take a negative stance to it - like how it was important for the US to have a "Pull out of Iraq" plan for the last election even if not completely implemented or immediately soon, it pushed some steps in the right direction.
I mean I am not condoning everything the Chinese do but nationalism isn't always a bad thing and there wouldn't BE a cyber conflict without the US. Essentially what you've got is 1 country attacking another country and you've got 1 country attacking it's own citizens. Which is which and which is worse?
Would performance and the world perception of a US controlled internet really suffer if China was denied access to the root level?
I think it would. I wouldn't be surprised if China happens to hold some control over the network (if it exists much) in North Korea, and doing something like that might cause even more tensions in what is already a difficult situation.
IIRC apps promoting certain competing products or services have been banned from day 1 of the app store.
But there is a distinct difference between being "Banned" from the app Store and being "Rejected" from the App store. Being "Banned" from the store means you were in there at one point, ergo - its not being banned since day 1 - or it managed to sneak its way past that approval system.
No - it seems like someone with a business degree or someone in marketting simply made this decision. It's not about insecurities, or about desperation, or anything like "Oh noooeees!"
Its a "We don't want our competitors to be advertising their stuff on our devices." Just like I don't see too many ways to sync iTunes with my Xbox, but hey theres a full suite for zune!
It's just business as usual. Honestly I'm surprised it was allowed in the first place. Perhaps they managed to slip it past the approval stages by making it sound like the magazine was about actual robotic-human-cybernetic Androids.
If anything, he's only confirmed that his friends probably have some psychological disorder from serving in the army where preforming torture on captives has caused serious damage to their mental state, to the point where they find torturing each other enjoyable.
I'm no psychologist, but I do read up on it from time to time. These guys were probably regular morally decent men at one point - and after given the order to torture, none of them really WANTED to do it. Someone likely did (their CO or someone unafraid of such things) - and they all initially felt some subconcious remorse. Identifying with the victim, they now enact fantasies of torture, where they are reliving that traumatizing moment for each of them - and they don't mind doing it because they all enjoy it with each other.
Seriously - his friends should go seek therapy. I am not kidding.
I notice that these kinds of comments haven't spurred the massive debate (yet) that usually comes with them. Is it that those who disagree are staying silent out of respect for the recently deceased?
I'll just claim "Everything" than. Even you. Universe, and even stuff not in the Universe, if such stuff exists, I'm claiming it.
I think the issue arises when someone challenges and we need to defend our claims.
Anyone could simply say "Okay you've been granted the Sun. I now challenge your claim, the Sun is mine."
Which is one thing that kind of bothered me about the space race. How hard would it have been for the Russians to get up there, topple the flag and plan their own and say "Okay, now we own the moon."
6ms is long enough for something (like a balloon starting to pop) to happen.
Most people, if they try hard enough, can count to 10 aloud in 1 second. That means they are speaking with the capable thought around 100ms. Now, just imagine how high you can count in your mind, not speaking aloud, in 1 second. How many instant thoughts can you get? How many milliseconds is it to process the next number in your counting scheme for you?
Now try watching a baloon pop. Try capturing that moment where the shape is Juuuuust starting to rupture - even though it's no longer holding the air in. How fast do you think that went? It wasn't like 1ms, but it wasn't 100 either.
The big thing to consider is the technically difficult issue of trying to get the baloon to pop and take a picture based on "Light" - something I think the GP completely overlooked. The reason we use sound is because its easy to set up a trigger for that - because the trigger is actually the baloon popping, not our own specific timer. A baloon doesn't produce a flash of light when it pops - so you can't use light to set off your photo, unless you are trying to detect the difference in shape of the baloon on a really tiny scale and hope it sets off your radar triggers or something incredibly complex - because simply timing the photo with your needle doesn't always work.
but how on earth do you expect them how to understand fairly complex abstract concepts in a virtual world that most grown adults struggle with when they haven't even had a chance to see how the real world thing they are re-creating works?
That's because grown adults have had their "learning" hardwired once they reach a certain age.
The kid is 4, he's done his fair share of colouring, he's probably started playing with Lego, it's not as if he has no experience whatsoever with the real world. What WOULD you suggest to put on a laptop?
The Abstract kind of arts are the ones they are introduced to first. You give a kid crayons and paper and you don't instantly expect them to be drawing detailed schematics - no for the first bit they just scribble different colours on the page. Then over time they start drawing people, writing names, but still not proportional. Eventually they get to stick figures. Its a growing process.
Just like with Blender - I'm not expecting a nice 3D model to be the first thing they create, right off the bat. I might expect them to create some flat circles and maybe make a smily face out of basic shapes - if that.
If you were referring to the technical challenge that simply is "blender" - all of its hotkeys and somewhat Odd interface quirks - it only seems that way once you've used other modelling tools like Maya or 3DSmax or Softimage. To a 4 Year old those quirks won't be present.
If you are referring to the challenge of creating something complex when a child is four, then I revert to my previous example, your four year old won't be recreating the Mona Lisa either.
Maybe in his configured UI the Checkboxes were actually X's - and he thought an X beside the item means "Do Not Want" - a common mistake when using X-indicative checkboxes.
But really, it's no different than when I want to Install Adobe PDF Reader and work, and it's all "Hey, do you want the Google Toolbar? I'll just go ahead and check the box for you. I know that you waste a fraction of a second each time unchecking that box, and that frustrates a lot of IT professionals, but thats just how I roll. I mean, IE already has a built in "Search Bar" which most people who use Google will switch it to google instead of Live search, but the important thing is to find all the technically illiterate masses who use computers and make sure they have the Google Toolbar so they use Google more. God forbid if they don't like Bing as their default search provider they actually set Google as their home-page and just use Google anyways - THEY NEED THAT TOOLBAR.
Honestly, I used to be completely and utterly serenely happy with Google. They provided just the right services I wanted and genuinely stayed out of my way. I didn't really care if they were collecting information on me, they were so clever about it I didn't notice.
But nothing makes me angrier than this silly ridiculous "Add My Browser Toolbar" Bull that ALL these companies are working together on. I mean, if you already have the google Toolbar installed, instead of asking you if you want it again, Adobe Reader Installer knows that and will ask "Hey, do you want this free version of Norton?" Seriously? As if cramming 1 optional program down my throat was bad enough.
Has anybody tried uninstalling and Re-installing adobe reader with all of the Auto-Opted-In "Side Packages" to see exactly how many companies have kissed Adobes ass? I'm now curious but I wouldn't want to do it on my machine. (I totally need to virtualize my workstation...)
That'd be the best time to learn it. Because kids actually LIKE learning if its stuff they are interested in.
The other thing kids love to do? Create stuff. Notice Play Dough, Lego, Kinex, and the hundreds of other popular kids toys which aren't much of anything but materials to build with?
Blender is exactly that kind of tool - the only think you need to do is show him the basics. Make a cube, make a sphere, resize, rotate, the normal stuff. If you simply do it the long way he'll pick it up quickly. If he is interested he might youtube "blender" and see some cool stuff, and then you just have to watch out, he'll be working at Pixar before he's out of Highschool.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Other fun creative tools I found when I was younger was a free version of Flash, some simple music software, and I wish I had known about Audacity a lot sooner (or that it was even around when I was younger). I don't know why, but in the ages from 4-7, I had this odd fascination with slowing down, or speeding up, or reversing, or echoing my voice or other voices merely in the windows Sound Recorder. I must have spent HOURS just fiddling around with all the combinations and permutations of those effects - mastering speaking backwards and how to make it sound like you actually just fell down a bottomless pit. I dunno, maybe it was just me, or maybe kids like playing with Sound as much as they do like playing with Dough - or playing with light (aka colouring).
It specifically says "A special frequency of UV" - I imagine you can't really go quicker or slower than that value by much. It's not so much as "Why UV" as "Why THAT Frequency in particular".
What you are asking is like, Why 'Visible light'? But the Article specifically says 'yellow'.
I imagine that might help you solve the mysteries of how this device works. But I'm personally. not interested enough to look any further.
Assange? He could be a pedophile rapist who is completely self centered and arrogant and a total douchebag about it all - or he could be a living saint ---
Point is, it has no bearing on whats going on. He is simply doing his job as a journalist - and it has nothing to do with him. Could he be doing it for personal gains? Yes. Could he just be inflating his ego by doing all this? Absolutely.
None of it matters. What matters is that the story is getting out. If the government is going to ensure that YOU can't keep secrets, by harmful body scanners, deep packet inspection, warrant-less searches - why on Earth should we listen to a "Defense Advisory Notice" to keep THEIR secrets? If we have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to hide, simple as that.
I am perfectly fine with the government controlling the media, as long as they respect my privacy and stay the eff out of my life.
They also say they don't use the full power of the technology, and refrain from reading email and analyzing sensitive online activities
Okay - so say my sensitive online activity includes compulsively looking up pornography. How exactly, are you going to determine that its the kind of activity I don't want you to be inspecting, WITHOUT INSPECTING IT?
Yes but its an editor's job to review that kind of thing before putting it on the front page - or at least appending an update to the bottom of the article (as they sometimes do for bigger stories)
I am not a police officer, nor in most places am I required to report non-violent crimes.
On moral grounds I would not report drug dealers anymore than prostitutes or homosexuals in the military. I also will not report those hacking devices they own for fun or profit. What police state do you live in?
I live in Canada, where, if you know where someone is selling drugs, you are expected to report it to the police - but there is not really a consequence if you don't, since usually there is no way to pin it to you.
If however, they found out that you were directing people to the drug dealer, with either an undercover agent or some paper trail or something - than you can be convicted as an accomplice.
I suspect it is very much the same way in the United States.
Slashdot Mirror
Not hard pressed at all.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1842100&cid=34041512
I'm sure at least ONE of those posters is over the age of 10.
Its even worse than that - the US Government isn't just suspending the rights of its own citizens, it affects EVERYONE who has to interact with them. I did not vote upon Canadian Representatives based on their policies of airport security because it wasn't an issue when the elections were held. Now that the issue has arisen and body Scanners are in Canadian Airports... wait who approved that? My Government? My government bowed to your government. And a dozen other countries along with it. I merely want to visit an American city for my vacation - I have high hopes though as I haven't heard any fondling stories taking place Canada (yet) because I don't believe our airport security HAS to take orders from the TSA and I don't think we've employed the "enhanced pat-down technique". This means I'm allowed to Opt out and get a regular pat down -
but I don't know if thats the case in the UK - I believe the law there recently (might have changed) was that you might get selected for Body scanning (possibly at random) and if you are selected, you have two options: Take the scan or not fly. That is their only opt-out.
Really now - the worst part is - this is the case even if I don't plan to stay in the States. If I want to go to Mexico there will no doubt be a stopover somewhere Stateside. It doesn't seem fair that their airport security policy applies to me even if I'm only there for an hour inside the same airplane. Really, there should be another method to handle those flights if they are really concerned (segregrated runway, new terminal, etc).
Please - I know US Citizens don't have a whole lot of power when it comes to running your country, and that most of the time it's run by powers far beyond your control - but if there's ANYTHING I could ask from you guys, it's to create enough of an outcry over issues such as this that BOTH parties take a negative stance to it - like how it was important for the US to have a "Pull out of Iraq" plan for the last election even if not completely implemented or immediately soon, it pushed some steps in the right direction.
Okay - then which is worse?
I mean I am not condoning everything the Chinese do but nationalism isn't always a bad thing and there wouldn't BE a cyber conflict without the US. Essentially what you've got is 1 country attacking another country and you've got 1 country attacking it's own citizens. Which is which and which is worse?
Those are pretty weird DNS names - and that's some serious latency. How many hops did it have to go through?
Would performance and the world perception of a US controlled internet really suffer if China was denied access to the root level?
I think it would. I wouldn't be surprised if China happens to hold some control over the network (if it exists much) in North Korea, and doing something like that might cause even more tensions in what is already a difficult situation.
IIRC apps promoting certain competing products or services have been banned from day 1 of the app store.
But there is a distinct difference between being "Banned" from the app Store and being "Rejected" from the App store. Being "Banned" from the store means you were in there at one point,
ergo - its not being banned since day 1 - or it managed to sneak its way past that approval system.
This seems like an act of desperation.
No - it seems like someone with a business degree or someone in marketting simply made this decision. It's not about insecurities, or about desperation, or anything like "Oh noooeees!"
Its a "We don't want our competitors to be advertising their stuff on our devices." Just like I don't see too many ways to sync iTunes with my Xbox, but hey theres a full suite for zune!
It's just business as usual. Honestly I'm surprised it was allowed in the first place. Perhaps they managed to slip it past the approval stages by making it sound like the magazine was about actual robotic-human-cybernetic Androids.
Common might have been too strong of a word.
I've seen it happen, more than thrice, lets just put it that way.
Exactly.
If anything, he's only confirmed that his friends probably have some psychological disorder from serving in the army where preforming torture on captives has caused serious damage to their mental state, to the point where they find torturing each other enjoyable.
I'm no psychologist, but I do read up on it from time to time. These guys were probably regular morally decent men at one point - and after given the order to torture, none of them really WANTED to do it. Someone likely did (their CO or someone unafraid of such things) - and they all initially felt some subconcious remorse. Identifying with the victim, they now enact fantasies of torture, where they are reliving that traumatizing moment for each of them - and they don't mind doing it because they all enjoy it with each other.
Seriously - his friends should go seek therapy. I am not kidding.
I notice that these kinds of comments haven't spurred the massive debate (yet) that usually comes with them. Is it that those who disagree are staying silent out of respect for the recently deceased?
And yes - I know he claimed it for Mankind - but why use a US flag in that case...
I'll just claim "Everything" than. Even you. Universe, and even stuff not in the Universe, if such stuff exists, I'm claiming it.
I think the issue arises when someone challenges and we need to defend our claims.
Anyone could simply say "Okay you've been granted the Sun. I now challenge your claim, the Sun is mine."
Which is one thing that kind of bothered me about the space race. How hard would it have been for the Russians to get up there, topple the flag and plan their own and say "Okay, now we own the moon."
6ms is long enough for something (like a balloon starting to pop) to happen.
Most people, if they try hard enough, can count to 10 aloud in 1 second. That means they are speaking with the capable thought around 100ms. Now, just imagine how high you can count in your mind, not speaking aloud, in 1 second. How many instant thoughts can you get? How many milliseconds is it to process the next number in your counting scheme for you?
Now try watching a baloon pop. Try capturing that moment where the shape is Juuuuust starting to rupture - even though it's no longer holding the air in. How fast do you think that went? It wasn't like 1ms, but it wasn't 100 either.
The big thing to consider is the technically difficult issue of trying to get the baloon to pop and take a picture based on "Light" - something I think the GP completely overlooked. The reason we use sound is because its easy to set up a trigger for that - because the trigger is actually the baloon popping, not our own specific timer. A baloon doesn't produce a flash of light when it pops - so you can't use light to set off your photo, unless you are trying to detect the difference in shape of the baloon on a really tiny scale and hope it sets off your radar triggers or something incredibly complex - because simply timing the photo with your needle doesn't always work.
Sound is simply the simplest way.
but how on earth do you expect them how to understand fairly complex abstract concepts in a virtual world that most grown adults struggle with when they haven't even had a chance to see how the real world thing they are re-creating works?
That's because grown adults have had their "learning" hardwired once they reach a certain age.
The kid is 4, he's done his fair share of colouring, he's probably started playing with Lego, it's not as if he has no experience whatsoever with the real world. What WOULD you suggest to put on a laptop?
The Abstract kind of arts are the ones they are introduced to first. You give a kid crayons and paper and you don't instantly expect them to be drawing detailed schematics - no for the first bit they just scribble different colours on the page. Then over time they start drawing people, writing names, but still not proportional. Eventually they get to stick figures. Its a growing process.
Just like with Blender - I'm not expecting a nice 3D model to be the first thing they create, right off the bat. I might expect them to create some flat circles and maybe make a smily face out of basic shapes - if that.
If you were referring to the technical challenge that simply is "blender" - all of its hotkeys and somewhat Odd interface quirks - it only seems that way once you've used other modelling tools like Maya or 3DSmax or Softimage. To a 4 Year old those quirks won't be present.
If you are referring to the challenge of creating something complex when a child is four, then I revert to my previous example, your four year old won't be recreating the Mona Lisa either.
Maybe in his configured UI the Checkboxes were actually X's - and he thought an X beside the item means "Do Not Want" - a common mistake when using X-indicative checkboxes.
But really, it's no different than when I want to Install Adobe PDF Reader and work, and it's all "Hey, do you want the Google Toolbar? I'll just go ahead and check the box for you. I know that you waste a fraction of a second each time unchecking that box, and that frustrates a lot of IT professionals, but thats just how I roll. I mean, IE already has a built in "Search Bar" which most people who use Google will switch it to google instead of Live search, but the important thing is to find all the technically illiterate masses who use computers and make sure they have the Google Toolbar so they use Google more. God forbid if they don't like Bing as their default search provider they actually set Google as their home-page and just use Google anyways - THEY NEED THAT TOOLBAR.
Honestly, I used to be completely and utterly serenely happy with Google. They provided just the right services I wanted and genuinely stayed out of my way. I didn't really care if they were collecting information on me, they were so clever about it I didn't notice.
But nothing makes me angrier than this silly ridiculous "Add My Browser Toolbar" Bull that ALL these companies are working together on. I mean, if you already have the google Toolbar installed, instead of asking you if you want it again, Adobe Reader Installer knows that and will ask "Hey, do you want this free version of Norton?" Seriously? As if cramming 1 optional program down my throat was bad enough.
Has anybody tried uninstalling and Re-installing adobe reader with all of the Auto-Opted-In "Side Packages" to see exactly how many companies have kissed Adobes ass? I'm now curious but I wouldn't want to do it on my machine. (I totally need to virtualize my workstation...)
That'd be the best time to learn it. Because kids actually LIKE learning if its stuff they are interested in.
The other thing kids love to do? Create stuff. Notice Play Dough, Lego, Kinex, and the hundreds of other popular kids toys which aren't much of anything but materials to build with?
Blender is exactly that kind of tool - the only think you need to do is show him the basics. Make a cube, make a sphere, resize, rotate, the normal stuff. If you simply do it the long way he'll pick it up quickly. If he is interested he might youtube "blender" and see some cool stuff, and then you just have to watch out, he'll be working at Pixar before he's out of Highschool.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Other fun creative tools I found when I was younger was a free version of Flash, some simple music software, and I wish I had known about Audacity a lot sooner (or that it was even around when I was younger). I don't know why, but in the ages from 4-7, I had this odd fascination with slowing down, or speeding up, or reversing, or echoing my voice or other voices merely in the windows Sound Recorder. I must have spent HOURS just fiddling around with all the combinations and permutations of those effects - mastering speaking backwards and how to make it sound like you actually just fell down a bottomless pit. I dunno, maybe it was just me, or maybe kids like playing with Sound as much as they do like playing with Dough - or playing with light (aka colouring).
It specifically says "A special frequency of UV" - I imagine you can't really go quicker or slower than that value by much. It's not so much as "Why UV" as "Why THAT Frequency in particular".
What you are asking is like, Why 'Visible light'? But the Article specifically says 'yellow'.
I imagine that might help you solve the mysteries of how this device works. But I'm personally. not interested enough to look any further.
You know whats odd?
If this was previously thought to be impossible - you'd think it would have much larger implications.
Perhaps they should have said previously thought to be improbable?
This is exactly the point that needs to be made:
Assange? He could be a pedophile rapist who is completely self centered and arrogant and a total douchebag about it all - or he could be a living saint ---
Point is, it has no bearing on whats going on. He is simply doing his job as a journalist - and it has nothing to do with him. Could he be doing it for personal gains? Yes. Could he just be inflating his ego by doing all this? Absolutely.
None of it matters. What matters is that the story is getting out. If the government is going to ensure that YOU can't keep secrets, by harmful body scanners, deep packet inspection, warrant-less searches - why on Earth should we listen to a "Defense Advisory Notice" to keep THEIR secrets? If we have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to hide, simple as that.
I am perfectly fine with the government controlling the media, as long as they respect my privacy and stay the eff out of my life.
Its a stupid thing for them to say that too...
They also say they don't use the full power of the technology, and refrain from reading email and analyzing sensitive online activities
Okay - so say my sensitive online activity includes compulsively looking up pornography. How exactly, are you going to determine that its the kind of activity I don't want you to be inspecting, WITHOUT INSPECTING IT?
Yes but its an editor's job to review that kind of thing before putting it on the front page - or at least appending an update to the bottom of the article (as they sometimes do for bigger stories)
Right. Of course!
Brown would have been a much better choice.
But I did get this box of great door props the other day from Fedex.
Just jammed the rod right under the door at the office, works like a charm.
Of course not. But where is it published that the government can hijack the DNS?
I am not a police officer, nor in most places am I required to report non-violent crimes.
On moral grounds I would not report drug dealers anymore than prostitutes or homosexuals in the military. I also will not report those hacking devices they own for fun or profit. What police state do you live in?
I live in Canada, where, if you know where someone is selling drugs, you are expected to report it to the police - but there is not really a consequence if you don't, since usually there is no way to pin it to you.
If however, they found out that you were directing people to the drug dealer, with either an undercover agent or some paper trail or something - than you can be convicted as an accomplice.
I suspect it is very much the same way in the United States.