This would be like driving around in a car that had unpickable locks, un breakable glass, would not damage you or itself when you hit a wall, etc. Then if it was discovered that, for example, a certian acid could melt your locks and let someone in, they'd send you new locks that were impervious to that...It is only when you connect to the internet and every asshat is free to try and do all sorts of things they shouldn't are you in any danger.
No, its more like somebody figures out a way to disable your car's engine, but then that disabling process jumps from car to car on the highway so that soon major traffic jams and accidents are happening all over the world causing interruptions in the goods and services that we depend on.
Just wait untill there are deaths or serious monetary loss from one of these viruses (like a train collision or something), and then heads will begin to roll. So far not enough damage has been done, but that doesn't mean it won't eventually happen.
When I search [google.com] for "Apple", the first hit I get is:
Apple... Visit the Apple Store
But why should Apple Computer come up first. Why shouldn't a site on apple trees come up first. By what method does Google promote some sites and not others. Is there a certain randomness in Google searches? No, it produces the same result every time. Is it the number of times the word "apple" is mentioned on the site? I would be less suspicious if the result was different everytime and commercial sites came up first, because that would just reflect the current status of the web. Perhaps some single words would not promote businesses first.
Hmmm, a search for "cars" produces "cars.com" as the first entry but "car talk" as the second. And there are some clubs and such. Not too commercial. "volkswagon" produces all kinds of commerical volkswagon sites. "University" produces actual university sites (stanford is first), not pages simply containing the word "university". Perhaps Google gives preference to the page title over and above the words in the page. Perhaps its the keywords, but the word university appears in the keywords once in the documents I looked at. So why does Stanford get prominance? Luck?
Well, than it's back to what I've been saying for ages. Quit buying RIAA music, tell your friends, and ask they tell their friends. When RIAA members see their sales go down by even 30%, I suspect that they would start putting pressure on RIAA to tone it down.
Nah, they'll just blame the 30% decrease on P2P file sharing and legislate a tax on computer equipment to make up the difference.
Further, it is interesting that Skynet is not hardware, it is self-aware software that uses the entire Internet as its corporal host, so to speak. I doubt the script writer was the first to come up with that idea, I'm sure its been floating around AI circles for some time now, but it was nevertheless a new concept for me to ponder.
The first time I saw this concept was in a short story by Aurthur C. Clarke called Dial F for Frankenstein (for Playboy in 1965- and no I did not read it in Playboy:-), in which the wordwide network of telphones and integrated systems becomes self aware and calls everyone on earth with a garbled message in the middle of the night. Somebody has it online if you want to read it.
I've posted before to this board that I dislike the increasing reliance on CGI in films. A fair point to make is that once upon a time The Last Starfighter was considered pixel-perfect, but now look. CGI dates a film really fast, because graphics improve all the time.
I agree that the reliance on CGI is unfortunate, but only in the sense that it has become gratuitous- i.e. substituting effects for plot, acting, and rationality. But I don't think we should have a problem with 'dated' effects. Some of the old Harryhausen (sp?) flicks like Jason and the Argonauts look a little silly effects-wize now, but they are still really cool. If you have a good story (like Toy Story 2) it doesn't matter if the FX appear dated in the future to me. Last Starfighter's problem was that it was an effect in search of a plot, and not the other way around.
Um, am I to take it the "stomp Linux" in quotes implies that Ballmer said this?
No, that was an interpretation. What actually happened is he took off his shoe, banged it on the desk repeatedly and shouted "Linux, we will bury you!"
Paradox induces a cascading feedback loop of self-modifying universes (each inducing a time-traveller who goes back and causes another chage) until the sequence halts with a universe in which time travel is not developed.
So this time traveler is about to step in his time travel machine for the first time, when suddenly another time travel machine appears beside him. The occupant get out, shoots the time traveler, destroys the original machine, and leaves. All fixed up.
Obligatory Bevis & Butthead joke
on
Haiku vs Spam
·
· Score: 1
I believe that elongated ads were first dreamed up by Ray Bradbury in Farenheit 451. You were only able to see them for what they were while traveling on the extremely fast mass transit. At least it sticks out in my mind that way- its been a long time since I read it.
In Lookers, actors and actresses are being replaced with computer-generated equivalents, to optimize their impact in advertisements. A techno-thriller "ahead of its time."
While we're at it, could someone invent the "Looker" guns that put people in stasis so you can rob them, run away from them, etc. The movie had some cool ideas. Bad acting though.
That explains a lot. R2 doesn't fly in episodes 4-6 because he forgot he can.
Yah, don't forget Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have their memories erased as well- so they forget R2 and C3PO. Oh wait, Annakin has his memory erased too, so he doesnt think to look for his son on Tatooine. But no- that will interfere with the new Darth Vader clip inserted into Episode IV where he goes down to Tatooine to have a few drinks with his former owner. Etc. Etc. Bleh.
It's fairly well known now that email is mostly ignored by Congresscritters. They can't tell for sure if the email is coming from one of their constituents, it's too easy to do, and they get too many of them.
Ironically, if the passport system was in place, they might be more willing to pay attention to that email. Quoth the article:
"At the government-leaders conference, attended by representatives of 75 countries, Microsoft presented a blueprint for its "e-government" strategy that suggests they use Passport to verify the identity of visitors to their Web sites. It also suggested that its bCentral business Web site could be used to process business tax payments and that citizens could use its MSN Web site to handle address changes and voter registration"
Who saw the headline and thought that they had finally invented giant EMP-bombs, a-la science fiction?
I remember a Star Trek episode where they didn't explode the real bombs but only simulated ones, and people just had to report to the extermination chambers. Maybe we can do that now.
Granted for some geeks like myself, who sit in front of there computers almost 18 hours out of any given day, it might make some sense, but people like myself probably only account for about 1.5% of the population.
Yeah, but we are the 1.5% of the population with the highest salaries. I think it will work. Demographically, high end product ads will work better on internet radio than regular radio. My local FM rock station runs ads for manufacturing companies seeking to hire people, condoms, and low-income homes. I guess we don't fit their average listener.
Time scale always annoyed me. Click on the sink and it takes 20min (game time) to put away the dishes....
I kinda don't get why anybody likes this game at all. I got it for a Christmas present and I started playing it. My Sim kept leaving trash all around his house- so I had to make him go around and clean up all the time. I said to myself "Shoot, I gotta clean up in the real world all the time, what's so fun about cleaning up in the virtual world?" Honestly, the game is so much like real life that it becomes just as tedious as real life. I play games to get away from reality, not to experience more of it.
This is just another attempt for a loser to try and cash in. If you can't beat them at their own game, file suit.
Did you ever consider that maybe Sun, Oracle, HP, Apple, etc. don't wish to break the law in order to compete with Microsoft? Microsoft got where they are now by breaking the law. Their insistance that we don't believe we broke the law so it did not happen not withstanding.
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright
Once again a logical fallacy regarding this law. Just because this law cannot be used to bring action against copyright violations, does not mean that there are no other laws that can bring action against copyright violators.
The so called "fair use" provision is not there. They just wanted to restrain the scope of the law so it would not be abused. It says nothing about existing copyright law. (BTW: I believe in fair use, I just don't see it here).
Also, one thing you'll notice is that the MPAA isn't making exactly the same claims that the RIAA was. And honstly movie piracy isn't such What the MPAA is saying is that movie piracy is going to hurt them in the future and it's also keeping them from jumping on the digital TV, movie thing (thats why we need the SSSCA!).
I don't think movie piracy will ever really hurt the movie industry even when it does get as easy as ripping off songs. The reason is, you just cannot duplicate the movie going experience on your DVD or home computer. When LOTR comes out, I don't want to see it on my laptop- I want to see it on the big screen with a big crowd.
Sure I might want to watch it on my laptop later- but I will buy or rent the DVD with all the cool extra footage and quality. A friend of mine actually did download a copy of LOTR and he showed some of it to me- but somehow it cheapened the experience. I thought "Gee, I really want to see this in the theatre again before I see it on the small screen.
Downloading songs is completely different. You can duplicate the exact experience of listening to the CD. Or near enough where it threatens the sale of the CD.
I actually bought a version of PGP Personal Security 7.0.3 from these guys.
Er, what happens to all the files people encrypted with PGP ten years from now when their personal versions no longer run on the new OSs? If PGP Personal Security is rendered obsolete, will there be a way to retrieve those files, or should they be unencrypted now and re-encrypted with something that is going to stick around?
I've got some pretty important.pgp files lying around. Should I switch to something else or am I not understanding something here?
What about getting laws that say that unsolicitated mail is illegal? Shouldn't that do the trick? Anybody got some good reason for why laws like this shouldn't come true?
We could pass all the laws in the West we want but they would be completely unenforceable in Asia.
Perhaps an international body of enforcers could be set up similar to the WTO where fines or punishment could be meted out with the full backing of each nation. But that's not likely to happen seeing as there is little money involved- unlike trade.
Copyright is essential, but it has been taken a bit too seriously lately.
Agreed. From the article at the New York Times:
If it wasn't for the law, ``digital archives could inexpensively make the other 9,853 books published in 1930 available to the reading public starting in 2005,'' he wrote. If the law ``still stands, we must continue to wait, perhaps eternally, while works disappear and opportunities vanish.''
Once again we see that money interests in Washinton continue to threaten our culture and freedoms. Lobbyists for publishing industries keep upping the anti on copyright duration for their own greed and pride. Meanwhile the works themselves come under threat of extinction. I hope there can be some kind of rebound effect soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, can infrasound be reproduced in the lab. I would love to use this for my next annual Halloween party.
This would be like driving around in a car that had unpickable locks, un breakable glass, would not damage you or itself when you hit a wall, etc. Then if it was discovered that, for example, a certian acid could melt your locks and let someone in, they'd send you new locks that were impervious to that...It is only when you connect to the internet and every asshat is free to try and do all sorts of things they shouldn't are you in any danger.
No, its more like somebody figures out a way to disable your car's engine, but then that disabling process jumps from car to car on the highway so that soon major traffic jams and accidents are happening all over the world causing interruptions in the goods and services that we depend on.
Just wait untill there are deaths or serious monetary loss from one of these viruses (like a train collision or something), and then heads will begin to roll. So far not enough damage has been done, but that doesn't mean it won't eventually happen.
When I search [google.com] for "Apple", the first hit I get is:
... Visit the Apple Store
Apple
But why should Apple Computer come up first. Why shouldn't a site on apple trees come up first. By what method does Google promote some sites and not others. Is there a certain randomness in Google searches? No, it produces the same result every time. Is it the number of times the word "apple" is mentioned on the site? I would be less suspicious if the result was different everytime and commercial sites came up first, because that would just reflect the current status of the web. Perhaps some single words would not promote businesses first.
Hmmm, a search for "cars" produces "cars.com" as the first entry but "car talk" as the second. And there are some clubs and such. Not too commercial. "volkswagon" produces all kinds of commerical volkswagon sites. "University" produces actual university sites (stanford is first), not pages simply containing the word "university". Perhaps Google gives preference to the page title over and above the words in the page. Perhaps its the keywords, but the word university appears in the keywords once in the documents I looked at. So why does Stanford get prominance? Luck?
Well, than it's back to what I've been saying for ages. Quit buying RIAA music, tell your friends, and ask they tell their friends. When RIAA members see their sales go down by even 30%, I suspect that they would start putting pressure on RIAA to tone it down.
Nah, they'll just blame the 30% decrease on P2P file sharing and legislate a tax on computer equipment to make up the difference.
The first time I saw this concept was in a short story by Aurthur C. Clarke called Dial F for Frankenstein (for Playboy in 1965- and no I did not read it in Playboy :-), in which the wordwide network of telphones and integrated systems becomes self aware and calls everyone on earth with a garbled message in the middle of the night. Somebody has it online if you want to read it.
I agree that the reliance on CGI is unfortunate, but only in the sense that it has become gratuitous- i.e. substituting effects for plot, acting, and rationality. But I don't think we should have a problem with 'dated' effects. Some of the old Harryhausen (sp?) flicks like Jason and the Argonauts look a little silly effects-wize now, but they are still really cool. If you have a good story (like Toy Story 2) it doesn't matter if the FX appear dated in the future to me. Last Starfighter's problem was that it was an effect in search of a plot, and not the other way around.
Um, am I to take it the "stomp Linux" in quotes implies that Ballmer said this?
No, that was an interpretation. What actually happened is he took off his shoe, banged it on the desk repeatedly and shouted "Linux, we will bury you!"
So this time traveler is about to step in his time travel machine for the first time, when suddenly another time travel machine appears beside him. The occupant get out, shoots the time traveler, destroys the original machine, and leaves. All fixed up.
HAIKU - (high-coo)
uhhh, huh huh, we're gonna learn about getting high? Cool. huh huh huh.
I believe that elongated ads were first dreamed up by Ray Bradbury in Farenheit 451. You were only able to see them for what they were while traveling on the extremely fast mass transit. At least it sticks out in my mind that way- its been a long time since I read it.
In Lookers, actors and actresses are being replaced with computer-generated equivalents, to optimize their impact in advertisements. A techno-thriller "ahead of its time."
While we're at it, could someone invent the "Looker" guns that put people in stasis so you can rob them, run away from them, etc. The movie had some cool ideas. Bad acting though.
Uh, oh yeah "cough", CGI rules...
How user friendly is your girlfriend?
Not very. Could somebody please give me a URL to the manual?
That explains a lot. R2 doesn't fly in episodes 4-6 because he forgot he can.
Yah, don't forget Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have their memories erased as well- so they forget R2 and C3PO. Oh wait, Annakin has his memory erased too, so he doesnt think to look for his son on Tatooine. But no- that will interfere with the new Darth Vader clip inserted into Episode IV where he goes down to Tatooine to have a few drinks with his former owner. Etc. Etc. Bleh.
Ironically, if the passport system was in place, they might be more willing to pay attention to that email. Quoth the article:
Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk...
I remember a Star Trek episode where they didn't explode the real bombs but only simulated ones, and people just had to report to the extermination chambers. Maybe we can do that now.
Hey, I just managed to stop light by shining my flashlight at the wall. When I looked on the other side of the wall- NO LIGHT WAS COMING THROUGH!
Yeah, but we are the 1.5% of the population with the highest salaries. I think it will work. Demographically, high end product ads will work better on internet radio than regular radio. My local FM rock station runs ads for manufacturing companies seeking to hire people, condoms, and low-income homes. I guess we don't fit their average listener.
I kinda don't get why anybody likes this game at all. I got it for a Christmas present and I started playing it. My Sim kept leaving trash all around his house- so I had to make him go around and clean up all the time. I said to myself "Shoot, I gotta clean up in the real world all the time, what's so fun about cleaning up in the virtual world?" Honestly, the game is so much like real life that it becomes just as tedious as real life. I play games to get away from reality, not to experience more of it.
Did you ever consider that maybe Sun, Oracle, HP, Apple, etc. don't wish to break the law in order to compete with Microsoft? Microsoft got where they are now by breaking the law. Their insistance that we don't believe we broke the law so it did not happen not withstanding.
You are assuming the students downloaded 6000 different songs. All they really did was download Brittiny Spears' Oops...I did it again 6000 times.
Once again a logical fallacy regarding this law. Just because this law cannot be used to bring action against copyright violations, does not mean that there are no other laws that can bring action against copyright violators.
The so called "fair use" provision is not there. They just wanted to restrain the scope of the law so it would not be abused. It says nothing about existing copyright law. (BTW: I believe in fair use, I just don't see it here).
What the MPAA is saying is that movie piracy is going to hurt them in the future and it's also keeping them from jumping on the digital TV, movie thing (thats why we need the SSSCA!).
I don't think movie piracy will ever really hurt the movie industry even when it does get as easy as ripping off songs. The reason is, you just cannot duplicate the movie going experience on your DVD or home computer. When LOTR comes out, I don't want to see it on my laptop- I want to see it on the big screen with a big crowd.
Sure I might want to watch it on my laptop later- but I will buy or rent the DVD with all the cool extra footage and quality. A friend of mine actually did download a copy of LOTR and he showed some of it to me- but somehow it cheapened the experience. I thought "Gee, I really want to see this in the theatre again before I see it on the small screen.
Downloading songs is completely different. You can duplicate the exact experience of listening to the CD. Or near enough where it threatens the sale of the CD.
Just my .02
Er, what happens to all the files people encrypted with PGP ten years from now when their personal versions no longer run on the new OSs? If PGP Personal Security is rendered obsolete, will there be a way to retrieve those files, or should they be unencrypted now and re-encrypted with something that is going to stick around?
I've got some pretty important .pgp files lying around. Should I switch to something else or am I not understanding something here?
We could pass all the laws in the West we want but they would be completely unenforceable in Asia.
Perhaps an international body of enforcers could be set up similar to the WTO where fines or punishment could be meted out with the full backing of each nation. But that's not likely to happen seeing as there is little money involved- unlike trade.
Agreed. From the article at the New York Times:
Once again we see that money interests in Washinton continue to threaten our culture and freedoms. Lobbyists for publishing industries keep upping the anti on copyright duration for their own greed and pride. Meanwhile the works themselves come under threat of extinction. I hope there can be some kind of rebound effect soon.