The thing is reasonably neat. But come on, the price is ridicolous. £1299 ? That is like $2000 or something. It'd literally be cheaper to buy 2 complete laptops, ignore their internal screens, and use each of them to drive 2 external screens.
$200 ? Ok. $2000 ? Completely silly.
The last mile ain't that tricky in densily populated areas.
My neighbourhood just installed fiber-to-the-home to everyone (=aprox 200 houses) complete from the bottom up, starting by digging. Cost ? Sligthly over $100K, aproximately $500/house. That is not cost-prohibitive at all. True, currently we've only installed 1Gbps tranceivers and switching-gear, but changing that stuff is relatively cheap anyway since it doesn't require digging. (also doesn't require changing cabling, the physical fibre is tested to 100Gbps)
We don't use it really, aprox 20 Mbps for streaming TV, 1Mbps reserved (overkill, but what the hell) for voice-over-ip and a choice of 10, 25 or 50 Mbps internet. (symetrical)
You do ? I sure don't trust hand-tools to be exactly the size claimed. They're probably reasonably close, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find say some tool that is really a 2-inch tool relabeled and sold as a 5cm one, despite it really being 5.08cm
I do, generally, trust my doctor. But not blindly. If I for whatever reason think that something he says sounds dubious, and it is important, I can and *will* get a second opinion, regardless of if he recomends that or not.
I sure as *hell* don't trust general applications (like Excel) to do math correctly. Oh, they're probably sort of close most of the time, but -correct- ? I doubt it. I'm personally aware of atleast something like half a dozen smaller errors, and doubtlessly there's more. (for example: the rounding of financial numbers in the Norwegian version of Excel are not according to how the law says you *have* to do that, so anyone using it for accounting or for calculating invoices would be screwed)
I trust dedicated math-programs (like Maple and Matlab) somewhat more, beacuse they've been closely scrutinized over years by users who deeply care about getting the details rigth, nevertheless I'm certain they have bugs too.
And spell-checkers ? You got to be kidding me. They get *most* *grave* errors, but they don't even come anywhere half-close to being 100% correct. And there's large classes of errors where they help not at all. Like if you mis-spell head as "heed" they won't trigger because "heed" is a valid word. (but wrong)
That is not actually true. The leadership of Japan was never generally convinced that they could "win" a war against USA. Yamamoto, the chief commander of the Japanese navy, for example, had studied both at U.S Naval War College and at Harvard, and where personally opposing the attack on the U.S. atleast partly because he thougth that war unwinnable. After the attack he stated that he feared that all they had done was waking a sleeping giant and filling him with a terrible resolve. He was rigth. And he wasn't the only one in the Japanese leadership to think along such lines.
I'm still not seeing the connection to present day USA though. Yes your government is indebted. Yes part of the debt is held by foreigners. (most of it by private US citizens and corporations though) Yes this gives the same foreigners influence. (me for example ! each and every Norwegian owns US state-bonds and stock for aproximately $10.000, those who invested privately in addition owns more)
But get real. Your military isn't just the largest on the planet -- it is larger than the sum total of military spendings in ALL OTHER COUNTRIES COMBINED. This tends to be a shocking revelation to many Americans, but really, it is, and the fraction is growing by the minute.
You are planning to spend $533 billion on the military. The following places are: UK $66, France $60, Germany 57$, Japan $47. The world *TOTAL* spendings for 2007 are estimated to 1050 billion. So your spendings account for aproximately 51% of total spendings. Insane is a pretty weak word for it.
A concrete comparison ? USA spend $533 billion and has aprox 300 million inhabitants. So spendings are at $1800/inhabitant, or if you prefer, about 4.5% of GDP. Norway spends $4 billion and is about 4.6 million, so about $870/inhabitant. But we're also somewhat richer, so about 1.7% of GDP.
It may be as "unprepared" as you want (though I question if any other country has a military that much more "prepared" for an invasion), but USA being invaded military is currently just flat out impossible. Sure, you can suffer the occasional lost *battle*, but you sure as hell won't lose a *war* on your own soil. (not in the short to medium term anyway, if you're talking 20 years plus, then anything is *possible*, allthough not very *likely*)
I don't think so. Typical implementations use encryption, so that there is no way for you to know what kind of content you are forwarding.
It'd be sorta like claiming your ISP is guilty of copyrigth-violations if they forward encrypted packets to you that happen to contain a copyrigthed work distributed illegally.
If that view went trough, it'd essentially become illegal for anyone to forward encrypted packets to anyone.
Yeah. But onion routing is only one way of foiling traffic-analysis.
Downloading to a shared machine (with many users) that deliberately does not keep logs, and then transfering from that machine to your own using an encrypted protocol also works.
It does mean transfering the content twice -- first to the shared machine, and then from there to your own machine, but that isn't a very large price to pay.
But true, onion-routing is practical. And gets more practical as bandwith grows more than the content grows.
I've got the lowest speed offered by my ISP. 10Mbps symetrical. At that speed, downloading an album of music compressed to say 192Kbps takes on the order of half a minute. If it would instead take 5 minutes, but be untracable, that wouldn't be a huge price to pay at all. Yes it's an order of magnitude more, who cares, it's still 5 minutes.
Even larger stuff, say something which is 1GB large. At line-speed that is 10 minutes. If it took an hour, but was untracable, again that'd be a reasonable enough trade-off.
And I'm being conservative here. You don't need to bounce the average packet trough 10 nodes to give plausible deniability. I doubt it's going to be possible to convict someone for something that it is, for example, 25% likely he is actually guilty of. (which would require bouncing packets trough on the average 3 dummy-nodes.)
True, but the real gains are achieved when you're allowed to be lossy.
If you're studying a picture, with your goal being to be able to answer human questions about that picture afterwards, you don't make any attempt whatsoever at remembering the precise pixel-by-pixel colours. Instead you focus on those parts of the contents most likely to be of human interest.
You take note of a "car" standing with the "side" towards you, perhaps the make. The colour. The fact that it's raining. That there's a girl sitting on the roof of the car.
You *don't* in any way shape or form have enough info to be able to reconstruct the image in a losslell manner. You are however able to summarize the picture in such a way that the most important parts of the actual content is included. But what is "important" depends on what you're going to need the info for and so requires intelligence.
A photographer migth instead notice the the picture is somewhat oversatured in colour, taken with a large aperture so the background is out of focus, too low resolution to use for a poster, taken without flash etc etc.
Both are equally "valid", but they serve completely different purposes.
True. It's exceedingly cheesy and very fan-boyish. Hi, the girls need to *undress* now to access whatever powers ! What an idea !
The actual game-mechanics are inferior to the ones in FF-X (or XII) too though. I agree it's not a bad game per se. It's just that it's also not a spectacularily *good* game.
Tried Shadow Hearts ?
That's a different kind of devastation. USA ain't a country bombed to ruins. USA ain't a country with a large fraction of its industrial capacity blown to smitherens. USA ain't a country with a significant portion of the 20-40 year olds killed, injuried or otherwise traumatized. USA ain't a country under occupation.
So, the situation isn't comparable in any way shape or form. I'm not *talking* of economical decline, that would be silly, since USA is actually at an all-time-high for industrial production and financial riches. (You may be in a depression 2 or 5 years from now, but you aren't currently)
I'm talking about the erosion of *values* of *democracy* of *freedom* of *liberty* of *privacy*. It's not the same thing.
There's only two significant players in the DSLR-for-prosumers market. Both have similar battery-life for similar cameras. I never actually tested the battery-life. My stated number was just based on impression, and certainly included lots of flash-use and LCD-use. (It's one of those DSLRs where the LCD can be used as a viewfinder)
Agreed. Allthough its getting to be less on an issue. Memory-cards are getting cheaper faster than the pixel-count of cameras are growing. (and for many people there's no reason really to go higher than say a 5-8Mpix camera)
For many people, this means memory-capacity is essentially infinite. A 1GB memory-chip that costs perhaps $20 will hold aproximately 1000 pictures taken with my wifes point-and-shoot. That *is* enough for most people, even for an extended vacation. And if it wasn't, a 4GB card ain't expensive...
You want to upload sometimes anyway, if for no other reason, to guard against the possibility of broken, missed or stolen equipment.
Batteries are more of an issue, if you're away from mains for longer periods. With my DSLR I can take about 150 pictures on a charge, which is decidedly not enough for say a week of backpacking.
The majority of us are spoon-fed propaganda from a very few media outlets, they see a story of common criminals inflicting pain on others, and then "getting off on a technicality" - and the justice system, with it's rights and loopholes, is blamed. So anger is directed there.
Your justice-system *is* infact getting ridicolous. What astonishes me is not that anger is directed there. But that not *enough* anger is directed there. I don't see why Americans stand for it. You guys used to mean it seriously when you said "justice for all". These days there's not much trace of a joke left when someone appends " who can afford it." to the above.
How long ago did SCO-vs-IBM start ? *what* is the rationale for making a system that makes it possible to completely stall for half a *decade* and not be told to "put-up-or-shut-up" ?
So when a leader steps forward, and does what this base of people want, he wins elections.
It is, unfortunately *much* worse than that.
Winner-takes-all ensures that you have only two important political parties.
Campaigning-rules are such that in aproximately 80% of your presidential elections, the candidate that spends the most money wins.
Winner-takes-all (yeah, I'm aware not all states have it) ensures that if you live in a state where one of the two parties has a solid majority, your vote *literally* is irrelevant.
The strange combination of per-state representatives in the electoral college means that the guy with the most votes doesn't nessecarily win.
The system actively encourages voting for the "lesser of two evils" rather than for the person you *actually* prefer. It's an "interesting" idea to have a "democratic" system that punishes people for voting for the man they consider best suited.
Pure and simple - the actions of the Bush Administration was the result of pressure to pander to the redneck base. And once they got in power, they robbed the treasury blind. Through outright fraud, war profiteering, bribery, etc. I hate to see these criminals go free, but it looks like they have the power to escape justice.
Only aslong as the US public accepts it, which I'm completely flabberghasted at. Why ? How did you cultivate such a large base of so stupid (I don't mean to be inflamatory, as you can clearly see, I'm a great fan of the values that USA used to represent, which is why I'm so saddened to see them go!) people ?
I generally do think that Americans are really good people - and that our system of government, with all it's flaws, is great.
American people are just as good and just as bad as people elsewhere. Your system of government, however, is more than flawed. It is fundamentally broken, and getting more broken all the time.
We just took our eyes off the ball for a generation or two. I think we'll survive. We'll suffer. For a decade or longer. But we'll survive. And hopefully, we'll have learned from these mistakes.
You're only going to recover if you start taking seriously your own values again. Limits on power. Respect for human rights. Freedom. Liberty. Responsibility. Justice for all. ("enemy combatants" inclusive!)
I hope you're right. I don't *think* you're right in the short to medium perspective (5-15 years), but I'd be absolutely deligthed if you are !
Everyone is happy that they failed. That's beyond debate.
But I want them to fail on a *larger* scale. Not just the individual terrorrists failing to acomplish their individual plans. True, I want that *too*, but it's not enough.
The larger goal of terrorists is to induce terror. To make people panic. To make people *scared*. Which they think will further their political/religious agenda.
I'm pointing out that I'm *not* scared. To the contrary, it appears to me that most of the so called terrorists are ridicolous clowns that couldn't bomb their way out of a paper-bag.
Yeah, thank goodness they can't. But also: If they think *this* is going to make us scared, they must be kidding.
I wondered about that. "announcing" a price-drop tend to make no sense whatsoever. It'll only ensure that sales (at current price) drop to near-zero since everyone who wants one, but are *not* desperate for one (if they where desperate for one, they'd have it already) will hold off buying atleast until the price actually does drop.
I guess when the price-drop is only a short time off this effect doesn't much matter.
What do you mean "all the other", FF-X was the first for PS2, there was a "sequel" to it, that frankly, wasn't very impressive, and FF-XI which is online-only some kind MMORPG thingie.
Sort of.
First, it is 5 years for everything with an expected lifespan in excess of *2* years. Really. It is strange, but really, an item with a expected life-span of 3 years is covered for 5 years.
But more importantly: It is not a warranty. It does not cover normal wear-and-tear, nor consumer-abuse. What it *does* cover is defects or weaknesses in materials or workmanship.
Also, the burden-of-proof rests on the manufacturer only in the first year, thereafter it's "most likely". So, in the first year, the manufacturer would have to replace such items for free, unless *he* can demonstrate that the failure is the result of abuse or normal wear.
In following 4 years though, you *do* have to demonstrate that it is likely (as in more likely than the alternative) that the defect is caused by weaknesses in material or workmanship. How easy this is depends on the details of the failure. If you can demonstrate that several other people with the same product has suffered the same failure-mode, your chances grow.
More importantly, in general *you* have the choice between repair and replacement, unless that would be an undue burden on the manufacturer. Which means that for a standard item, like an Xbox360, you can demand a replacement unit if the first one dies, you don't have to settle for having yours "repaired". If you *do* accept a repair, you have the rigth to borrow a similar unit for the duration of the repair if the repair will take more than 1 week.
This choice of replacement/repair does not apply when there it would be unreasonable, generally interpreted by the courts as a factor of 5 or so. So, if you buy a car, and then discover that one of the wheels is unbalanced, it'd be unreasonable to demand that the manufacturer replace the entire car. (fixing the problem is 3 orders of magnitude cheaper than replacing the car)
Read the law. It's not in legalese, but perfectly understandable Norwegian. (well, for folks knowing Norwegian anyway), knowing your rigths can and will save you a *lot* of money and trouble trough your life. And consumer-protection laws are just about the most useful laws to know.
Hi, I'm all with you, and very much critical of US foreign policy. I was only deliberately avoiding provoking because on Slashdot it only arouses flamage and results in little worthwhile discussion.
Interestingly, when I post critical questions from my account with the not-obviously-foreign URL/email/name, most people tend to agree, or if not, atleast consider some of the critique fair. But posting anything *too* critical of US-policy from my obviously-norwegian account has, in the past, always resulted just in flames.
Seriously, you guys are on good way to losing two of the biggest advantages you used to have. First, your friends. Did you know that the general public in Norway (and many other countries in Europe) considers USA a larger danger to world-peace than Iraq, Iran and North-Korea combined ? (ain't commenting on whether you really are, only on the fact that people *think* you are.)
Secondly, your image as being "the good guys". Maintaining that requires playing fair -EVEN- towards those people who do not extend the same courtesy to you. Even a mass-murderer gets a fair trial and a good defence-attorney. The whole Gitmo (and similar) affair have -SERIOUSLY- weakened your image as "the uprigth defender of peace, justice and democracy"
Most people I speak to don't understand. *every* person under arrest is either a criminal, or a POW. There *are* no "third" category. Or *shouldn't* be in a country ruled by law anyway. And the way Gitmo is deliberatedly placed outside of US borders, on *Cuba* of all things. It's hard not to think that this is done in order to be able to treat the prisoners in ways that would receive more protests where it on US soil.
Your economy is, in general, doing OK. Though I'm happy that I'm underinvested in dollars (and have been for half a decade), your war-efforts are, as you say, very expensive. And your trade-deficit is, frankly, not long-term sustainable. You cannot over decades continue to import more than you export, without the end-result being that you are owned by foreigners. (much of the trade-deficit is balanced by foreigners investing in the USA. But unlike the products imported, the ownership of US companies is an *investment* the imported goods are mostly *consumed*)
That's true, but you miss my point. Those of the US public who thinks going into Iraq was wrong *already* and from day *one* wanted the US troops back out of it. Convincing those ain't needed.
The tactic is aimed at convincing those of the US population that where *originally* convinced entering Iraq was the *rigth* thing to do that, infact, doing so is going to cost tons of young men (and a handful of women) their lives, and accomplish very little.
It appears to be working well too. Popular support for the Iraq operations have been declining steadily.
Sure, your are perfectly possible. But again: there's no indication whatsoever that any of it, or anything similar, happened. Furthermore the "draw attention away" argument is, frankly, silly.
What do you think, will this act *reduce* or *increase* the scrutiny over other actions performed by this group over the last few months/years ? It's kinda a no-brainer to say "increase", no ? In other words, if they *had* done anything of the sort you hypothesize, this act would draw attention *to* it. not *away* from it.
Furthermore, several items are just dumb. I don't see how being dumb helps in any way. Carrying a mobile phone, registered on your own name, having it turned on constantly, while on the run from the anti-terror-police. Sound like a clever thing to you ?
I agree, it was a piss-poor effort. I just don't see any plausible reason to assume that it was anything MORE than that.
Yeah. They're legal. You'd have known if you had bothered to read the actual text. To be prohibited, an image needs to be both:
Pornographic.
Extreme.
Pornographic is defined: appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.
But if an image is part of a series, or a context, such as the pictures in a tv-show are then: it appears that the series of images as a whole was not produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal, the image may, by virtue of being part of that narrative, be found not to be pornographic, even though it might have been found to be pornographic if taken by itself.
There is precisely -ZERO- distinctions between tv, movies and internet in the bill. The only distinction is that it is possible that still shots from a movie are pornographic, even though the movie as such may not be. But that is solely because the context is removed. So it's possible that *those*shots* are "solely or principally" for the purpose of sexual arousal, even though the movie as a whole was *not*.
Furthermore, "extreme" is defined, 99% of the stuff people in the BDSM-scene do would not qualify as extreme. To be extreme, an act needs to: (atleast one of:)
an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life,
an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in
serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals,
an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a
human corpse,
a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or
oral sex with an animal,
I think, actually, that in most jurisdictions most or all of these would be prohibited acts anyway, even given consent. (you may not, for example, in most jurisdictions, endanger someones life or mutilate them, not even if they request it)
I don't agree wit hthis bill. But it's not by fas as stupid as reading this slashdot-thread would have you believe. For starters, it doesn't sinle out the Internet in any way shape or form.
I am happy that nobody died. Nevertheless, this doesn't change the simple fact that a group of people, 8 people large, planning a terrorist-attack over a period of months, with an outcome such as this, has made a pathethic attempt.
pathetic:Arousing scornful pity or contempt, often due to miserable inadequacy.
There's nothing about congratulating. As I quite clearly stated -- the very limited damage was due to an almost unbelievable incompetance of the so-called 'terrorists', wannabes would almost be more apropriate. Seriously, 8 people put their mind to doing damage, and manage to come up with -zero- dead and a puny few million damages ?
There is no indication whatsoever that they carried trough *other* *unrelated* harmful acts, so your post amounts to completely groundless hypothethical "what-if".
What if they had instead blown up a 10 megaton atomic bomb at the Super Bowl. What if they had instead made the sun go Nova ! (wait, that'd toast Mekka too:-))
I get you. But I don't think I really agree with you. Oh, sure, without shadow of a doubt *some* people who place bombs or otherwise threathen public safety are batshit-crazy.
But not all of them. And besides, it's possible to be complete batshit crazy in one area, while nevertheless thinking clearly and reasoning intelligently in other areas.
Besides, some of it actually ain't crazy. Blowing up american soldiers occupying Iraq is, infact, quite likely to achieve or accelerate the goal of getting rid of the American troops in Iraq. Not by military defeat, but by virtue of defeating the US military machinery on the only field where it can realistically be beat today: In the court of public opinion in the USA.
When the months pass, and young American men who has done nothing wrong, and indeed are willing to put their lives on the line for defending something they believe in, keep dying and dying and dying, and no progress is in sigth, the American public tends to get fed up, and start asking questions as to what the soliders are supposed to *acomplish* anyway, and if there exists an actual plan for acomplishing it. Today less than 30% of the US public thinks Bush is doing a good job in Iraq.
Blowing up civilians in London is different. True. And I actually think it *increases* the chance that more Arabic countries will stay or become occupied. But evidently not everyone shares this belief.
I don't think that'll burn any karma. To the contrary it is pretty obvious, is it not ?
Arent's you just saying: "Those that are (for whatever reason) predisposed to believing unlikely claims in the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever, are more likely to believe unlikely claims despite the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever"
Yes, knowledge is dangerous. But ignorance is *MUCH* more dangerous.
Humans in the world today overwhelmingly suffer and die as a result of *lack* of knowledge. (or to some degree, lack of *application* of knowledge)
I live a *much* safer life because I live in a country where there are experts on explosives, poisons, dangerous creatures, radioactive substances, cancerous agents and firearms.
Any idiot can figure out how to make a fertilizer-bomb. If anything amazes me with the London-incident it is the amateurishness of it all. Pathethic, frankly. Not even a -single- fatality ? *8* people plan a "terrorist"-attack, and they, combined, don't even manage to kill a *single* human being ? Pathethic is to weak a word for performances such as these.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is reasonably neat. But come on, the price is ridicolous. £1299 ? That is like $2000 or something. It'd literally be cheaper to buy 2 complete laptops, ignore their internal screens, and use each of them to drive 2 external screens. $200 ? Ok. $2000 ? Completely silly.
The last mile ain't that tricky in densily populated areas. My neighbourhood just installed fiber-to-the-home to everyone (=aprox 200 houses) complete from the bottom up, starting by digging. Cost ? Sligthly over $100K, aproximately $500/house. That is not cost-prohibitive at all. True, currently we've only installed 1Gbps tranceivers and switching-gear, but changing that stuff is relatively cheap anyway since it doesn't require digging. (also doesn't require changing cabling, the physical fibre is tested to 100Gbps) We don't use it really, aprox 20 Mbps for streaming TV, 1Mbps reserved (overkill, but what the hell) for voice-over-ip and a choice of 10, 25 or 50 Mbps internet. (symetrical)
You do ? I sure don't trust hand-tools to be exactly the size claimed. They're probably reasonably close, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find say some tool that is really a 2-inch tool relabeled and sold as a 5cm one, despite it really being 5.08cm
I do, generally, trust my doctor. But not blindly. If I for whatever reason think that something he says sounds dubious, and it is important, I can and *will* get a second opinion, regardless of if he recomends that or not.
I sure as *hell* don't trust general applications (like Excel) to do math correctly. Oh, they're probably sort of close most of the time, but -correct- ? I doubt it. I'm personally aware of atleast something like half a dozen smaller errors, and doubtlessly there's more. (for example: the rounding of financial numbers in the Norwegian version of Excel are not according to how the law says you *have* to do that, so anyone using it for accounting or for calculating invoices would be screwed)
I trust dedicated math-programs (like Maple and Matlab) somewhat more, beacuse they've been closely scrutinized over years by users who deeply care about getting the details rigth, nevertheless I'm certain they have bugs too.
And spell-checkers ? You got to be kidding me. They get *most* *grave* errors, but they don't even come anywhere half-close to being 100% correct. And there's large classes of errors where they help not at all. Like if you mis-spell head as "heed" they won't trigger because "heed" is a valid word. (but wrong)
That is not actually true. The leadership of Japan was never generally convinced that they could "win" a war against USA. Yamamoto, the chief commander of the Japanese navy, for example, had studied both at U.S Naval War College and at Harvard, and where personally opposing the attack on the U.S. atleast partly because he thougth that war unwinnable. After the attack he stated that he feared that all they had done was waking a sleeping giant and filling him with a terrible resolve. He was rigth. And he wasn't the only one in the Japanese leadership to think along such lines.
I'm still not seeing the connection to present day USA though. Yes your government is indebted. Yes part of the debt is held by foreigners. (most of it by private US citizens and corporations though) Yes this gives the same foreigners influence. (me for example ! each and every Norwegian owns US state-bonds and stock for aproximately $10.000, those who invested privately in addition owns more)
But get real. Your military isn't just the largest on the planet -- it is larger than the sum total of military spendings in ALL OTHER COUNTRIES COMBINED. This tends to be a shocking revelation to many Americans, but really, it is, and the fraction is growing by the minute.
You are planning to spend $533 billion on the military. The following places are: UK $66, France $60, Germany 57$, Japan $47. The world *TOTAL* spendings for 2007 are estimated to 1050 billion. So your spendings account for aproximately 51% of total spendings. Insane is a pretty weak word for it.
A concrete comparison ? USA spend $533 billion and has aprox 300 million inhabitants. So spendings are at $1800/inhabitant, or if you prefer, about 4.5% of GDP. Norway spends $4 billion and is about 4.6 million, so about $870/inhabitant. But we're also somewhat richer, so about 1.7% of GDP.
It may be as "unprepared" as you want (though I question if any other country has a military that much more "prepared" for an invasion), but USA being invaded military is currently just flat out impossible. Sure, you can suffer the occasional lost *battle*, but you sure as hell won't lose a *war* on your own soil. (not in the short to medium term anyway, if you're talking 20 years plus, then anything is *possible*, allthough not very *likely*)
I don't think so. Typical implementations use encryption, so that there is no way for you to know what kind of content you are forwarding.
It'd be sorta like claiming your ISP is guilty of copyrigth-violations if they forward encrypted packets to you that happen to contain a copyrigthed work distributed illegally.
If that view went trough, it'd essentially become illegal for anyone to forward encrypted packets to anyone.
Yeah. But onion routing is only one way of foiling traffic-analysis. Downloading to a shared machine (with many users) that deliberately does not keep logs, and then transfering from that machine to your own using an encrypted protocol also works. It does mean transfering the content twice -- first to the shared machine, and then from there to your own machine, but that isn't a very large price to pay. But true, onion-routing is practical. And gets more practical as bandwith grows more than the content grows. I've got the lowest speed offered by my ISP. 10Mbps symetrical. At that speed, downloading an album of music compressed to say 192Kbps takes on the order of half a minute. If it would instead take 5 minutes, but be untracable, that wouldn't be a huge price to pay at all. Yes it's an order of magnitude more, who cares, it's still 5 minutes. Even larger stuff, say something which is 1GB large. At line-speed that is 10 minutes. If it took an hour, but was untracable, again that'd be a reasonable enough trade-off. And I'm being conservative here. You don't need to bounce the average packet trough 10 nodes to give plausible deniability. I doubt it's going to be possible to convict someone for something that it is, for example, 25% likely he is actually guilty of. (which would require bouncing packets trough on the average 3 dummy-nodes.)
True, but the real gains are achieved when you're allowed to be lossy. If you're studying a picture, with your goal being to be able to answer human questions about that picture afterwards, you don't make any attempt whatsoever at remembering the precise pixel-by-pixel colours. Instead you focus on those parts of the contents most likely to be of human interest. You take note of a "car" standing with the "side" towards you, perhaps the make. The colour. The fact that it's raining. That there's a girl sitting on the roof of the car. You *don't* in any way shape or form have enough info to be able to reconstruct the image in a losslell manner. You are however able to summarize the picture in such a way that the most important parts of the actual content is included. But what is "important" depends on what you're going to need the info for and so requires intelligence. A photographer migth instead notice the the picture is somewhat oversatured in colour, taken with a large aperture so the background is out of focus, too low resolution to use for a poster, taken without flash etc etc. Both are equally "valid", but they serve completely different purposes.
True. It's exceedingly cheesy and very fan-boyish. Hi, the girls need to *undress* now to access whatever powers ! What an idea ! The actual game-mechanics are inferior to the ones in FF-X (or XII) too though. I agree it's not a bad game per se. It's just that it's also not a spectacularily *good* game. Tried Shadow Hearts ?
That's a different kind of devastation. USA ain't a country bombed to ruins. USA ain't a country with a large fraction of its industrial capacity blown to smitherens. USA ain't a country with a significant portion of the 20-40 year olds killed, injuried or otherwise traumatized. USA ain't a country under occupation.
So, the situation isn't comparable in any way shape or form. I'm not *talking* of economical decline, that would be silly, since USA is actually at an all-time-high for industrial production and financial riches. (You may be in a depression 2 or 5 years from now, but you aren't currently)
I'm talking about the erosion of *values* of *democracy* of *freedom* of *liberty* of *privacy*. It's not the same thing.
There's only two significant players in the DSLR-for-prosumers market. Both have similar battery-life for similar cameras. I never actually tested the battery-life. My stated number was just based on impression, and certainly included lots of flash-use and LCD-use. (It's one of those DSLRs where the LCD can be used as a viewfinder)
Agreed. Allthough its getting to be less on an issue. Memory-cards are getting cheaper faster than the pixel-count of cameras are growing. (and for many people there's no reason really to go higher than say a 5-8Mpix camera)
For many people, this means memory-capacity is essentially infinite. A 1GB memory-chip that costs perhaps $20 will hold aproximately 1000 pictures taken with my wifes point-and-shoot. That *is* enough for most people, even for an extended vacation. And if it wasn't, a 4GB card ain't expensive...
You want to upload sometimes anyway, if for no other reason, to guard against the possibility of broken, missed or stolen equipment.
Batteries are more of an issue, if you're away from mains for longer periods. With my DSLR I can take about 150 pictures on a charge, which is decidedly not enough for say a week of backpacking.
The majority of us are spoon-fed propaganda from a very few media outlets, they see a story of common criminals inflicting pain on others, and then "getting off on a technicality" - and the justice system, with it's rights and loopholes, is blamed. So anger is directed there.
Your justice-system *is* infact getting ridicolous. What astonishes me is not that anger is directed there. But that not *enough* anger is directed there. I don't see why Americans stand for it. You guys used to mean it seriously when you said "justice for all". These days there's not much trace of a joke left when someone appends " who can afford it." to the above.
How long ago did SCO-vs-IBM start ? *what* is the rationale for making a system that makes it possible to completely stall for half a *decade* and not be told to "put-up-or-shut-up" ?
So when a leader steps forward, and does what this base of people want, he wins elections.
It is, unfortunately *much* worse than that.
Pure and simple - the actions of the Bush Administration was the result of pressure to pander to the redneck base. And once they got in power, they robbed the treasury blind. Through outright fraud, war profiteering, bribery, etc. I hate to see these criminals go free, but it looks like they have the power to escape justice.
Only aslong as the US public accepts it, which I'm completely flabberghasted at. Why ? How did you cultivate such a large base of so stupid (I don't mean to be inflamatory, as you can clearly see, I'm a great fan of the values that USA used to represent, which is why I'm so saddened to see them go!) people ?
I generally do think that Americans are really good people - and that our system of government, with all it's flaws, is great.
American people are just as good and just as bad as people elsewhere. Your system of government, however, is more than flawed. It is fundamentally broken, and getting more broken all the time.
We just took our eyes off the ball for a generation or two. I think we'll survive. We'll suffer. For a decade or longer. But we'll survive. And hopefully, we'll have learned from these mistakes.
You're only going to recover if you start taking seriously your own values again. Limits on power. Respect for human rights. Freedom. Liberty. Responsibility. Justice for all. ("enemy combatants" inclusive!)
I hope you're right. I don't *think* you're right in the short to medium perspective (5-15 years), but I'd be absolutely deligthed if you are !
Everyone is happy that they failed. That's beyond debate.
But I want them to fail on a *larger* scale. Not just the individual terrorrists failing to acomplish their individual plans. True, I want that *too*, but it's not enough.
The larger goal of terrorists is to induce terror. To make people panic. To make people *scared*. Which they think will further their political/religious agenda.
I'm pointing out that I'm *not* scared. To the contrary, it appears to me that most of the so called terrorists are ridicolous clowns that couldn't bomb their way out of a paper-bag.
Yeah, thank goodness they can't. But also: If they think *this* is going to make us scared, they must be kidding.
I wondered about that. "announcing" a price-drop tend to make no sense whatsoever. It'll only ensure that sales (at current price) drop to near-zero since everyone who wants one, but are *not* desperate for one (if they where desperate for one, they'd have it already) will hold off buying atleast until the price actually does drop. I guess when the price-drop is only a short time off this effect doesn't much matter.
What do you mean "all the other", FF-X was the first for PS2, there was a "sequel" to it, that frankly, wasn't very impressive, and FF-XI which is online-only some kind MMORPG thingie.
Sort of. First, it is 5 years for everything with an expected lifespan in excess of *2* years. Really. It is strange, but really, an item with a expected life-span of 3 years is covered for 5 years. But more importantly: It is not a warranty. It does not cover normal wear-and-tear, nor consumer-abuse. What it *does* cover is defects or weaknesses in materials or workmanship. Also, the burden-of-proof rests on the manufacturer only in the first year, thereafter it's "most likely". So, in the first year, the manufacturer would have to replace such items for free, unless *he* can demonstrate that the failure is the result of abuse or normal wear. In following 4 years though, you *do* have to demonstrate that it is likely (as in more likely than the alternative) that the defect is caused by weaknesses in material or workmanship. How easy this is depends on the details of the failure. If you can demonstrate that several other people with the same product has suffered the same failure-mode, your chances grow. More importantly, in general *you* have the choice between repair and replacement, unless that would be an undue burden on the manufacturer. Which means that for a standard item, like an Xbox360, you can demand a replacement unit if the first one dies, you don't have to settle for having yours "repaired". If you *do* accept a repair, you have the rigth to borrow a similar unit for the duration of the repair if the repair will take more than 1 week. This choice of replacement/repair does not apply when there it would be unreasonable, generally interpreted by the courts as a factor of 5 or so. So, if you buy a car, and then discover that one of the wheels is unbalanced, it'd be unreasonable to demand that the manufacturer replace the entire car. (fixing the problem is 3 orders of magnitude cheaper than replacing the car) Read the law. It's not in legalese, but perfectly understandable Norwegian. (well, for folks knowing Norwegian anyway), knowing your rigths can and will save you a *lot* of money and trouble trough your life. And consumer-protection laws are just about the most useful laws to know.
Hi, I'm all with you, and very much critical of US foreign policy. I was only deliberately avoiding provoking because on Slashdot it only arouses flamage and results in little worthwhile discussion.
Interestingly, when I post critical questions from my account with the not-obviously-foreign URL/email/name, most people tend to agree, or if not, atleast consider some of the critique fair. But posting anything *too* critical of US-policy from my obviously-norwegian account has, in the past, always resulted just in flames.
Seriously, you guys are on good way to losing two of the biggest advantages you used to have. First, your friends. Did you know that the general public in Norway (and many other countries in Europe) considers USA a larger danger to world-peace than Iraq, Iran and North-Korea combined ? (ain't commenting on whether you really are, only on the fact that people *think* you are.)
Secondly, your image as being "the good guys". Maintaining that requires playing fair -EVEN- towards those people who do not extend the same courtesy to you. Even a mass-murderer gets a fair trial and a good defence-attorney. The whole Gitmo (and similar) affair have -SERIOUSLY- weakened your image as "the uprigth defender of peace, justice and democracy"
Most people I speak to don't understand. *every* person under arrest is either a criminal, or a POW. There *are* no "third" category. Or *shouldn't* be in a country ruled by law anyway. And the way Gitmo is deliberatedly placed outside of US borders, on *Cuba* of all things. It's hard not to think that this is done in order to be able to treat the prisoners in ways that would receive more protests where it on US soil.
Your economy is, in general, doing OK. Though I'm happy that I'm underinvested in dollars (and have been for half a decade), your war-efforts are, as you say, very expensive. And your trade-deficit is, frankly, not long-term sustainable. You cannot over decades continue to import more than you export, without the end-result being that you are owned by foreigners. (much of the trade-deficit is balanced by foreigners investing in the USA. But unlike the products imported, the ownership of US companies is an *investment* the imported goods are mostly *consumed*)
That's true, but you miss my point. Those of the US public who thinks going into Iraq was wrong *already* and from day *one* wanted the US troops back out of it. Convincing those ain't needed.
The tactic is aimed at convincing those of the US population that where *originally* convinced entering Iraq was the *rigth* thing to do that, infact, doing so is going to cost tons of young men (and a handful of women) their lives, and accomplish very little.
It appears to be working well too. Popular support for the Iraq operations have been declining steadily.
Sure, your are perfectly possible. But again: there's no indication whatsoever that any of it, or anything similar, happened. Furthermore the "draw attention away" argument is, frankly, silly.
What do you think, will this act *reduce* or *increase* the scrutiny over other actions performed by this group over the last few months/years ? It's kinda a no-brainer to say "increase", no ? In other words, if they *had* done anything of the sort you hypothesize, this act would draw attention *to* it. not *away* from it.
Furthermore, several items are just dumb. I don't see how being dumb helps in any way. Carrying a mobile phone, registered on your own name, having it turned on constantly, while on the run from the anti-terror-police. Sound like a clever thing to you ?
I agree, it was a piss-poor effort. I just don't see any plausible reason to assume that it was anything MORE than that.
Pornographic is defined: appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.
But if an image is part of a series, or a context, such as the pictures in a tv-show are then: it appears that the series of images as a whole was not produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal, the image may, by virtue of being part of that narrative, be found not to be pornographic, even though it might have been found to be pornographic if taken by itself.
There is precisely -ZERO- distinctions between tv, movies and internet in the bill. The only distinction is that it is possible that still shots from a movie are pornographic, even though the movie as such may not be. But that is solely because the context is removed. So it's possible that *those*shots* are "solely or principally" for the purpose of sexual arousal, even though the movie as a whole was *not*.
Furthermore, "extreme" is defined, 99% of the stuff people in the BDSM-scene do would not qualify as extreme. To be extreme, an act needs to: (atleast one of:)- an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life,
- an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in
serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals,
- an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a
human corpse,
- a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or
oral sex with an animal,
I think, actually, that in most jurisdictions most or all of these would be prohibited acts anyway, even given consent. (you may not, for example, in most jurisdictions, endanger someones life or mutilate them, not even if they request it) I don't agree wit hthis bill. But it's not by fas as stupid as reading this slashdot-thread would have you believe. For starters, it doesn't sinle out the Internet in any way shape or form.I am happy that nobody died. Nevertheless, this doesn't change the simple fact that a group of people, 8 people large, planning a terrorist-attack over a period of months, with an outcome such as this, has made a pathethic attempt.
pathetic:Arousing scornful pity or contempt, often due to miserable inadequacy.
I think that covers it pretty well, actually.There's nothing about congratulating. As I quite clearly stated -- the very limited damage was due to an almost unbelievable incompetance of the so-called 'terrorists', wannabes would almost be more apropriate. Seriously, 8 people put their mind to doing damage, and manage to come up with -zero- dead and a puny few million damages ? There is no indication whatsoever that they carried trough *other* *unrelated* harmful acts, so your post amounts to completely groundless hypothethical "what-if". What if they had instead blown up a 10 megaton atomic bomb at the Super Bowl. What if they had instead made the sun go Nova ! (wait, that'd toast Mekka too :-))
I get you. But I don't think I really agree with you. Oh, sure, without shadow of a doubt *some* people who place bombs or otherwise threathen public safety are batshit-crazy.
But not all of them. And besides, it's possible to be complete batshit crazy in one area, while nevertheless thinking clearly and reasoning intelligently in other areas.
Besides, some of it actually ain't crazy. Blowing up american soldiers occupying Iraq is, infact, quite likely to achieve or accelerate the goal of getting rid of the American troops in Iraq. Not by military defeat, but by virtue of defeating the US military machinery on the only field where it can realistically be beat today: In the court of public opinion in the USA.
When the months pass, and young American men who has done nothing wrong, and indeed are willing to put their lives on the line for defending something they believe in, keep dying and dying and dying, and no progress is in sigth, the American public tends to get fed up, and start asking questions as to what the soliders are supposed to *acomplish* anyway, and if there exists an actual plan for acomplishing it. Today less than 30% of the US public thinks Bush is doing a good job in Iraq.
Blowing up civilians in London is different. True. And I actually think it *increases* the chance that more Arabic countries will stay or become occupied. But evidently not everyone shares this belief.
I don't think that'll burn any karma. To the contrary it is pretty obvious, is it not ?
Arent's you just saying: "Those that are (for whatever reason) predisposed to believing unlikely claims in the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever, are more likely to believe unlikely claims despite the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever"
Sounds very unsurprising to me.
Agreed. It's completely silly.
Yes, knowledge is dangerous. But ignorance is *MUCH* more dangerous.
Humans in the world today overwhelmingly suffer and die as a result of *lack* of knowledge. (or to some degree, lack of *application* of knowledge)
I live a *much* safer life because I live in a country where there are experts on explosives, poisons, dangerous creatures, radioactive substances, cancerous agents and firearms.
Any idiot can figure out how to make a fertilizer-bomb. If anything amazes me with the London-incident it is the amateurishness of it all. Pathethic, frankly. Not even a -single- fatality ? *8* people plan a "terrorist"-attack, and they, combined, don't even manage to kill a *single* human being ? Pathethic is to weak a word for performances such as these.