If I remember correctly its been several cases, most notably was a ruling that prevented a local government from forcing door-to-door religious salespeople from registering their real names before trying to convert residents. Generally the opinions have been that anonymous criticism of government is a good thing.
I'd rather that they couldn't find me in the first place.
Though I agree with the sentiment, these bloggers lost that ability when they gave their personal information to Twitter to set up their accounts. If they truly desired to speak anonymously, they shouldn't have coughed up personal information to a third party so easily. The individuals are not being forced to identify themselves, Twitter is being forced to identify their users. AFAIK, Twitter has no obligation to protect their anonymity.
For what its worth, my understanding of this situation is that their postings fall squarely into the realm of political criticism. The AG is (IMO) acting like a whiny child.
And a *blogger*, any, can NEVER be guilty.. of expressing their opinion or theories.
Unless those opinions and theories are libelous, hate speech, or represent credible imminent threats against another person. Americans enjoy a limited form of free expression, but there are some things that we are not able to freely express. That is a price we pay for enjoying the common protections of a civilized society; we give up the freedom to slander others in exchange for the protection from slander from others.
Not any more than one could expect otherwise. Free Speech protections don't include any measures to protect you from backlash from some stupid or defamatory things you say; it simply protects your right to speak freely. The process the GP describes is little more than a publicly accessible archive. Not dissimilar to video/audio recordings (except in terms of public accessibility). People are still bitten in the ass by spoken speech.
Your an American aren't you? Its ok, I am too. And though I agree that this law would be ridiculous and unfair in the US, it is awfully presumptuous to make a claim like that.
Germans are completely capable of governing themselves. My probably too simplistic understanding of German law is that it places a lot of responsibility on individuals to take reasonable steps to secure their property and be safe in their actions.
I live in a democratic, western country and not in America
I don't understand. My teachers told me that America was a bastion of Democratic decency surrounded by a sea of liberal socialist savages. I had no idea they had police in the wastelands...
"Owning a gun is a right, but you have an obligation to practice that right in a responsible manner."
No you don't, that's why it's called a right and not a privilege.
Its a Moral obligation, not necessarily a legal one. The same holds true for all our rights. The people that stand outside soldiers funerals claiming god is punished us for homosexuality are exercising their legal rights but failing to adhere their moral obligation to use that right responsibly.
Frankly, I don't see that the govt...at least the Federal Govt of the US should be able to mandate you wear a seatbelt. I think if you're a grown adult, you should be able to make that choice.
It is usually State and local Governments that enforce seat belt laws. They tend to exist because they reduce the risk of "exploding tube of toothpaste" type of fatalities during accidents. They serve the public good in two ways. 1) They keep healthcare and insurance costs low for everybody; fatal accidents or accidents with heavy injuries are very expensive to clean and rectify. 2) They make sure that our precious children aren't exposed to images of motorists transformed into a pile of chunky red salsa. Think of the children.
What state do you live in that requires you to lock and secure your weapons? I've never lived anywhere that requires that, hell in my state, you don't even have to register any of your weapons.
Massachusetts (for one). To own a Long Gun you need to pass a state safety course and register the gun with local police. Handguns require an additional safety course and approval from your local police chief. Concealed carry permits require even more course time, approval from local police chief, and usually an 18-24 month waiting period (during which if you even get a speeding ticket you are denied). All guns must be stored unloaded in a locked cabinet or case, or with a trigger lock. Birthplace of liberty my ass.
Makes perfect sense to me. If your goal is to remove the DRM from your old piece of software, why would you waste the time trying to figure it out yourself when you can just reach out and grab some patch that you know will work.
People that hate DRM and support piracy are looking at this and finding it amusing. Just remember that the fact that this crack worked so well means that Rockstar was able to easily move Max Payne 2 onto the Steam DRM/Delivery system. That pirates code helped make Rockstar more money (from one limited perspective).
Personally I think it was a dick move to not include it on the slim models without putting it very clearly on the packaging that it was a crippled machine, and not a real PS3.
I don't mean to be rude, but I think you might need to adjust your definition of crippled. It is still a 'real' PS3, still plays Blu-Rays, PS3 games, connects to PSN, etc. They removed a theoretically popular feature that very few people actually took advantage, and that posed a mild security/piracy risk to Sony. They didn't send killbots out to peoples homes to force the update. They simply stopped offering this completely extraneous feature, and stopped supporting it.
For what its worth, I agree that it was inconsiderate on Sony's part to go about it the way they did.
I'm amazed the military hasn't come down on Sony like a ton of bricks -- a large investment bank certainly would have.
What recourse does the Air force have? Sony didn't reach into their data center and push the update to their cluster. From the Air Forces perspective, all Sony has done is modify their product so that future purchases will not fill their needs. All the Air Force can do is to not make future purchases of PS3's, which is something that they probably have no plans of doing in bulk anyway (except of course as the TFA states to replace dead units).
Sony is probably burning a bridge with the USAF, it was probably a really good marketing tool for them to be able to say the USAF uses a cluster of PS3's. I don't think Sony really cares.
If the USAF has a problem they are perfectly free to replace this system with something else, or can start manufacturing their own solution.
I think you are absolutely correct. That "sometimes" is something that people miss out on. Program keep in mind that each application requires its own careful consideration. I work on a program that uses a lot of different hardware, which is a mix of COTS and in-house tech. It is a BIG selling point that our program makes use of COTS hardware. It can make the initial design and development a bear, but once you have software and systems in place to integrate the various pieces of hardware it offers some cost savings during production. It all depends on what you are trying to build.
Is there COTS hardware that is built to do exactly/close to exactly what you want it to do? And does its manufacturer offer decent support and help troubleshoot systems integration issues? If the answer to both is Yes then you might be in a good place to use COTS. Or, if the equipment is simple enough that internal staff can reasonably be expected to be able to tear it apart and divine its inner workings without breaking the bank.
Some of the biggest headaches come when programs try to blend the two; trying to contract out developing or re-purposing someone else's in-house technology. Support and feedback during development can be a nightmare. But of course, if nothing currently exists for the application you need what other choice do you have?
In addition to the business brought in from repairing older shotguns, the manufacturer can expect to sell more new guns based on their reputation for continued support and service.
That happens to be one of the big draws of buying from the old school gun makers, they do tend to support their products for a long long time. The Mossberg 500 is a fantastic example. It is probably the best selling shotgun in the world, and the basic design has been unchanged for literally 50 years. People buy them because they know that their grandchildren will be able to send the gun back for service and repairs.
Back on topic; given that computing technology and entertainment trends are changing wildly, I have a hard time believing that anybody expects that every new smash hit multiplayer video game will remain relevant for 50 years. Every now and then you hit on something like Quake that the community supports in perpetuity, but it seems unreasonable to expect that id Software should be responsible for maintaining it.
Agreed. Just shutting off the flow is much more complicated at that depth than it might be on the surface. Dropping a cap on that they can run a hose to seems like really the best option. That way the flowing oil is captured in a tanker rather than loose on the surface. Just plugging the leak is not really an option. Its not a wine bottle, they can't just swim down and stuff a cork in it.
One comment I would make on your argument is that in the US, Employers typically offer healthcare as a benefit to attract and retain talent. Assuming, as you argue, that our military is entirely volunteer, you can consider soldiers as employees. Certainly after $100,000's and years of training, offering benefits like healthcare is a smart investment to retain your talent.
I disagree. Perhaps if serving in the military were mandatory (like some european states), then I might be so inclined to agree with you. But no one is forcing them to become soldiers,
Criminal courts frequently compel individuals to join the military as an alternative to prison (where we foot their healthcare bill anyway)..
I am surprised you've never heard of this thing called the Selective Service, which does in fact exist to compel people to join the military during times of need. You are also forgetting that the American military serves at the discretion of civilian leadership, which you absolutely have the power to influence through your vote.
Perhaps you should have paid more attention during civics classes, these are two incredibly major responsibilities that American citizens enjoy.
There's no real tangible evidence that having jarhead in harms way is doing anything for me, besides increasing my taxes. I am not concerned with terrorists in Iraq. I'd be concerned about Terrorists in my home country.
Really? This Times Square bomber received training and funding from Taliban personal at a Taliban facility in Pakistan. If your goal is stopping terrorists, where else would you want to put boots on the ground? Without those Devil Dogs out there kicking ass, those terrorists would be over here bombing our schools.
Americans have a lot to learn about sitting about and drinking.
With cricket you also get the excuse to visit exotic countries and then sit about and drink for 5 days in a row. Clearly cricket is by far a superior game.
Though I grant that Brits are able to sit and drink in wonderful locales, I feel obliged to direct your attention to the phenomenon of Nascar. Nascar, being a sport that consists entirely on a driver's ability to turn left, is perfectly suited to having spectators sit outside and drink.
I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I find it incredibly hard to accept the "he's stupid" hypothesis.
Arrogance is probably a better hypothesis. There's been a great deal of research done into the psychology and motivations of terrorists. Generally they look at Americans and our law enforcement agencies with disdain and contempt. Likely assuming we are too stupid and lazy to catch them before they can leave the country (which in this case was frustratingly close to happening).
Plus, I know some engineers that couldn't engineer their way out of a broom closet. They could draw up a wonderfully detailed CAD representation, and could run some fantastic structural analysis of its building materials. But put some real tools and materials in their hands and they turn useless.
Right, and when the population is like ten or so then two is a significant sample.
No, it's still not. A population of 10 tells you absolutely zilch about chess players as a group, or about high-ranked chess players as a subgroup. The sample itself is simply too small to say anything at all that's statistically meaningful.
And that's ignoring the fact that there are more like hundreds of professional chess players out there.
Right. Even assuming you have a sample of two from a population of ten super elite chess players you might pass significance tests (thats a very shaky might), but that does not at all mean that there is anything significant (in either the statistical or practical sense) about any results. 2 sets of data is just insufficient to meaningfully analyze, ESPECIALLY in social sciences that deal with human people.
The rest of your comment was dumb after I changed this part, so I ignored it.
Maybe you shouldn't have. Hacker made some very good points that had nothing to do with the energy source itself. Namely, that there would need to employ incredibly sophisticated materials and engineering science to build any kind of long term functioning electrolysis system that (I assume) would need to operate semi-autonomously with minimal maintenance.
The power source of this system seems like the easy part.
Bingo. I can't even remember offhand what I pay for Netflix. But the convenience of having both disk delivery AND streaming content on demand is fantastic. Granted the content available for streaming is mainly limited to crappy movies and old TV shows, but if I want a newer movie all I have to do is bump it up in my queue and it arrives three days later. The hardest part is remembering to put it back in the mail.
Slashdot Mirror
If I remember correctly its been several cases, most notably was a ruling that prevented a local government from forcing door-to-door religious salespeople from registering their real names before trying to convert residents. Generally the opinions have been that anonymous criticism of government is a good thing.
I'd rather that they couldn't find me in the first place.
Though I agree with the sentiment, these bloggers lost that ability when they gave their personal information to Twitter to set up their accounts. If they truly desired to speak anonymously, they shouldn't have coughed up personal information to a third party so easily. The individuals are not being forced to identify themselves, Twitter is being forced to identify their users. AFAIK, Twitter has no obligation to protect their anonymity.
For what its worth, my understanding of this situation is that their postings fall squarely into the realm of political criticism. The AG is (IMO) acting like a whiny child.
And a *blogger*, any, can NEVER be guilty.. of expressing their opinion or theories.
Unless those opinions and theories are libelous, hate speech, or represent credible imminent threats against another person. Americans enjoy a limited form of free expression, but there are some things that we are not able to freely express. That is a price we pay for enjoying the common protections of a civilized society; we give up the freedom to slander others in exchange for the protection from slander from others.
Not any more than one could expect otherwise. Free Speech protections don't include any measures to protect you from backlash from some stupid or defamatory things you say; it simply protects your right to speak freely. The process the GP describes is little more than a publicly accessible archive. Not dissimilar to video/audio recordings (except in terms of public accessibility). People are still bitten in the ass by spoken speech.
You absolutely cannot stop people from reselling crap they buy, whether with licenses, contracts, or agreements.
And likewise, Apple has the right to sell or to not sell to whomever they choose.
People figured it was nothing but an extra tax grab and got rid of it.
Not going to lie, I chuckled a little when I read this. Locals refer to MA as "Tax-achusetts" because of things like that.
German law needs to be changed.
Your an American aren't you? Its ok, I am too. And though I agree that this law would be ridiculous and unfair in the US, it is awfully presumptuous to make a claim like that.
Germans are completely capable of governing themselves. My probably too simplistic understanding of German law is that it places a lot of responsibility on individuals to take reasonable steps to secure their property and be safe in their actions.
I live in a democratic, western country and not in America
I don't understand. My teachers told me that America was a bastion of Democratic decency surrounded by a sea of liberal socialist savages. I had no idea they had police in the wastelands...
"Owning a gun is a right, but you have an obligation to practice that right in a responsible manner."
No you don't, that's why it's called a right and not a privilege.
Its a Moral obligation, not necessarily a legal one. The same holds true for all our rights. The people that stand outside soldiers funerals claiming god is punished us for homosexuality are exercising their legal rights but failing to adhere their moral obligation to use that right responsibly.
Yes. I would absolutely say that.
Frankly, I don't see that the govt...at least the Federal Govt of the US should be able to mandate you wear a seatbelt. I think if you're a grown adult, you should be able to make that choice.
It is usually State and local Governments that enforce seat belt laws. They tend to exist because they reduce the risk of "exploding tube of toothpaste" type of fatalities during accidents. They serve the public good in two ways. 1) They keep healthcare and insurance costs low for everybody; fatal accidents or accidents with heavy injuries are very expensive to clean and rectify. 2) They make sure that our precious children aren't exposed to images of motorists transformed into a pile of chunky red salsa. Think of the children.
What state do you live in that requires you to lock and secure your weapons? I've never lived anywhere that requires that, hell in my state, you don't even have to register any of your weapons.
Massachusetts (for one). To own a Long Gun you need to pass a state safety course and register the gun with local police. Handguns require an additional safety course and approval from your local police chief. Concealed carry permits require even more course time, approval from local police chief, and usually an 18-24 month waiting period (during which if you even get a speeding ticket you are denied). All guns must be stored unloaded in a locked cabinet or case, or with a trigger lock. Birthplace of liberty my ass.
Makes perfect sense to me. If your goal is to remove the DRM from your old piece of software, why would you waste the time trying to figure it out yourself when you can just reach out and grab some patch that you know will work.
People that hate DRM and support piracy are looking at this and finding it amusing. Just remember that the fact that this crack worked so well means that Rockstar was able to easily move Max Payne 2 onto the Steam DRM/Delivery system. That pirates code helped make Rockstar more money (from one limited perspective).
I just did this in wolfram and it correctly parsed the statement and gave me the answer of "8".
Asking how many planets are in the fridge gave me information for William "The Refrigerator" Perry...
Awesome find my friend. I regret that you posted as AC, and that I don't have any Mod points right now, because that is awesome.
Personally I think it was a dick move to not include it on the slim models without putting it very clearly on the packaging that it was a crippled machine, and not a real PS3.
I don't mean to be rude, but I think you might need to adjust your definition of crippled. It is still a 'real' PS3, still plays Blu-Rays, PS3 games, connects to PSN, etc. They removed a theoretically popular feature that very few people actually took advantage, and that posed a mild security/piracy risk to Sony. They didn't send killbots out to peoples homes to force the update. They simply stopped offering this completely extraneous feature, and stopped supporting it.
For what its worth, I agree that it was inconsiderate on Sony's part to go about it the way they did.
I'm amazed the military hasn't come down on Sony like a ton of bricks -- a large investment bank certainly would have.
What recourse does the Air force have? Sony didn't reach into their data center and push the update to their cluster. From the Air Forces perspective, all Sony has done is modify their product so that future purchases will not fill their needs. All the Air Force can do is to not make future purchases of PS3's, which is something that they probably have no plans of doing in bulk anyway (except of course as the TFA states to replace dead units).
Sony is probably burning a bridge with the USAF, it was probably a really good marketing tool for them to be able to say the USAF uses a cluster of PS3's. I don't think Sony really cares.
If the USAF has a problem they are perfectly free to replace this system with something else, or can start manufacturing their own solution.
I think you are absolutely correct. That "sometimes" is something that people miss out on. Program keep in mind that each application requires its own careful consideration. I work on a program that uses a lot of different hardware, which is a mix of COTS and in-house tech. It is a BIG selling point that our program makes use of COTS hardware. It can make the initial design and development a bear, but once you have software and systems in place to integrate the various pieces of hardware it offers some cost savings during production. It all depends on what you are trying to build.
Is there COTS hardware that is built to do exactly/close to exactly what you want it to do? And does its manufacturer offer decent support and help troubleshoot systems integration issues? If the answer to both is Yes then you might be in a good place to use COTS. Or, if the equipment is simple enough that internal staff can reasonably be expected to be able to tear it apart and divine its inner workings without breaking the bank.
Some of the biggest headaches come when programs try to blend the two; trying to contract out developing or re-purposing someone else's in-house technology. Support and feedback during development can be a nightmare. But of course, if nothing currently exists for the application you need what other choice do you have?
In addition to the business brought in from repairing older shotguns, the manufacturer can expect to sell more new guns based on their reputation for continued support and service.
That happens to be one of the big draws of buying from the old school gun makers, they do tend to support their products for a long long time. The Mossberg 500 is a fantastic example. It is probably the best selling shotgun in the world, and the basic design has been unchanged for literally 50 years. People buy them because they know that their grandchildren will be able to send the gun back for service and repairs.
Back on topic; given that computing technology and entertainment trends are changing wildly, I have a hard time believing that anybody expects that every new smash hit multiplayer video game will remain relevant for 50 years. Every now and then you hit on something like Quake that the community supports in perpetuity, but it seems unreasonable to expect that id Software should be responsible for maintaining it.
Agreed. Just shutting off the flow is much more complicated at that depth than it might be on the surface. Dropping a cap on that they can run a hose to seems like really the best option. That way the flowing oil is captured in a tanker rather than loose on the surface. Just plugging the leak is not really an option. Its not a wine bottle, they can't just swim down and stuff a cork in it.
After all, he's the President, and you're goofing off on company time.
I'm not sure what your driving at there friend, but my gut is telling me that I don't like it.
One comment I would make on your argument is that in the US, Employers typically offer healthcare as a benefit to attract and retain talent. Assuming, as you argue, that our military is entirely volunteer, you can consider soldiers as employees. Certainly after $100,000's and years of training, offering benefits like healthcare is a smart investment to retain your talent.
I disagree. Perhaps if serving in the military were mandatory (like some european states), then I might be so inclined to agree with you. But no one is forcing them to become soldiers,
Criminal courts frequently compel individuals to join the military as an alternative to prison (where we foot their healthcare bill anyway). .
I am surprised you've never heard of this thing called the Selective Service, which does in fact exist to compel people to join the military during times of need. You are also forgetting that the American military serves at the discretion of civilian leadership, which you absolutely have the power to influence through your vote.
Perhaps you should have paid more attention during civics classes, these are two incredibly major responsibilities that American citizens enjoy.
There's no real tangible evidence that having jarhead in harms way is doing anything for me, besides increasing my taxes. I am not concerned with terrorists in Iraq. I'd be concerned about Terrorists in my home country.
Really? This Times Square bomber received training and funding from Taliban personal at a Taliban facility in Pakistan. If your goal is stopping terrorists, where else would you want to put boots on the ground? Without those Devil Dogs out there kicking ass, those terrorists would be over here bombing our schools.
!
Americans have a lot to learn about sitting about and drinking.
With cricket you also get the excuse to visit exotic countries and then sit about and drink for 5 days in a row. Clearly cricket is by far a superior game.
Though I grant that Brits are able to sit and drink in wonderful locales, I feel obliged to direct your attention to the phenomenon of Nascar. Nascar, being a sport that consists entirely on a driver's ability to turn left, is perfectly suited to having spectators sit outside and drink.
I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I find it incredibly hard to accept the "he's stupid" hypothesis.
Arrogance is probably a better hypothesis. There's been a great deal of research done into the psychology and motivations of terrorists. Generally they look at Americans and our law enforcement agencies with disdain and contempt. Likely assuming we are too stupid and lazy to catch them before they can leave the country (which in this case was frustratingly close to happening).
Plus, I know some engineers that couldn't engineer their way out of a broom closet. They could draw up a wonderfully detailed CAD representation, and could run some fantastic structural analysis of its building materials. But put some real tools and materials in their hands and they turn useless.
Right, and when the population is like ten or so then two is a significant sample.
No, it's still not. A population of 10 tells you absolutely zilch about chess players as a group, or about high-ranked chess players as a subgroup. The sample itself is simply too small to say anything at all that's statistically meaningful.
And that's ignoring the fact that there are more like hundreds of professional chess players out there.
Right. Even assuming you have a sample of two from a population of ten super elite chess players you might pass significance tests (thats a very shaky might), but that does not at all mean that there is anything significant (in either the statistical or practical sense) about any results. 2 sets of data is just insufficient to meaningfully analyze, ESPECIALLY in social sciences that deal with human people.
The rest of your comment was dumb after I changed this part, so I ignored it.
Maybe you shouldn't have. Hacker made some very good points that had nothing to do with the energy source itself. Namely, that there would need to employ incredibly sophisticated materials and engineering science to build any kind of long term functioning electrolysis system that (I assume) would need to operate semi-autonomously with minimal maintenance.
The power source of this system seems like the easy part.
One Word... Netflix
Bingo. I can't even remember offhand what I pay for Netflix. But the convenience of having both disk delivery AND streaming content on demand is fantastic. Granted the content available for streaming is mainly limited to crappy movies and old TV shows, but if I want a newer movie all I have to do is bump it up in my queue and it arrives three days later. The hardest part is remembering to put it back in the mail.