Really hope they don't get too screwed by PayPal and Google Checkout.. Got this last week (some story about a game, SpaceChem, being like programming here on slashdot brought me to their page and I was hooked).
Funny, I thought I was being cheap for offering $10 -- and still do, actually. Not sure about the rest, haven't tried them yet, but Trine, SpaceChem and Shadowgrounds alone would be worth more than that.
Still, it's great to see developers doing stuff like this: it's a great way to advertise their products and a fine way of getting people to pay something for the games.
I see your point, was just curious. According to some other posters, it seems most of On2's business model revolved around innovating *around* other people's patents, akin to what Xiph did/is trying to do with Theora, so it may be they didn't possess any relevant patent portfolio that Google could use.
It would seem, from what I've been reading, that VP8 stands a decent chance of avoiding most of the "big" patents in MPEG-LA's pool, with only submarine patents or the latest in their pool posing as a possible hazard. It also seems codec patents tend to be very specific to make it easier to pass examination but also to ensure implementation results in an uniform application of the codec's design, so on the face of it, it seems it's not that hard (and certainly not impossible) to design around existing patents.
If a court would see it that way and declare a codec like VP8 or Theora as non-infringing is another matter, of course. It is a shame the way things are going regarding software patents. Even if you forget about patent trolls (which is hard to do), there's so many of them and many more being filed every day "just in case" by all the big players that it's gotten to the point where only the "big boys" get to innovate with some peace of mind. At the very least if they infringe they can always counter-sue with whatever portfolio they have or license it.
Sorry for my ignorance here. Wouldn't Google's acquisition of On2 Technologies mean they acquired some relevant patents too? I mean, did they do it for the finished products only and all the time On2 were developing codecs they never came up with anything new, and therefor patenteable?
Since software patents are only "enforceable" for 20 years (unsure of when the period actually starts though, date of filing, date or approval, etc) and On2, formerly The Duck Corporation, has been "at it" since the 90s, and especially since they were apparently regarded as a top-notch video-codec-producing company, it would seem odd if they hadn't amassed some Imaginary Property (sorry for the bias, hate the concept) of their own as a natural byproduct of their work.
I'm just saying.. You seem very convinced Google has no patents they can use to countersue should the need arise, but Google (like Microsoft and Apple before whenever expanding into another field) has acquired quite a few companies and products. It would seem, like Apple and Microsoft before, that a big company like Google would do stuff like that far more for the potential value of the IP that would come with the deal than for any actual product, even though the product may be useful to them too (as is the case of VP8 or YouTube or a bunch of other techs/products they bought and integrated).
The point was a dramatic increase in temperature of a material like crude oil, caused by a big deposit suddenly being exposed to magma, will increase the pressure -- pressure that is already causing the thing to spill out (it's more complicated than that, but in the absence of anything "sucking" it out of the well, what do you think is causing it to escape in such high volume per minute) -- and I seriously doubt anything good will come of it.
Though I wasn't necessarily referring to a combustion reaction, there *is* oxygen in the ocean.. How else do you think most sea creatures would obtain it? Gills simply allow them to extract the dissolved oxygen in the water, it most definitely does not break down water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen (too bad, though, if a simple organic/physical process could do this with very minimal energy input, pretty much all our energy needs would've been solved a LONG time ago -- and we wouldn't be here talking about oil spills either). And it's actually one other problem this spill is causing -- it's severely decreasing oxygen supplies in the places where the oil plumes are, increasing the risk of anoxia.
For things to go BOOM you don't necessarily need oxygen, my friend, or any other comburent (don't see it used in english as much as it should, it defines the concept a whole lot better). There are many chemical reactions that result in "boom" whose working principles have nothing to do with the fire triangle.
To the GP: holy crap! Thanks for the link, mate, had no idea such a thing existed -- I would've probably sided with the idiotic geologists who thought the whole thing would extinguish in a few days. Since 1971 and counting? Talk about the mother of all fires!
To the Parent: What I believe the GP was trying to imply is that should they somehow manage to ignite the crude in the well, either directly should the energy from, say, a nuclear explosion go off its projected dispersion path and make the entire well's mass critical, or by collapsing the well entirely (no ignition here, necessarily, but the sheer fact all of the well's contents would be released instantly would probably prove a sufficiently catastrophic event for all parties concerned and the world at large), or some other cave structure in its vicinity (or underneath it) or, probably even worse, cracking the crust's bed beneath it, which might result in the whole thing going BOOM (a steady stream of lava acting as an inexaustible supply of ignition energy to a really big deposit of flammable/high-energy-density material...), well, to say that such a thing shouldn't be taken lightly would be such an understatement it pretty much goes without saying.
What I'd really like to know, and everybody who could supply that answer isn't interested in giving it, is the likelyhood of these events (stuff like the BP's well crude spill, that is). I've read so many conflicting things that I'm left wondering if this was a one-off all-things-that-could-go-wrong-went-wrong or a relatively high recurring risk that these companies willingly take because they stand to gain too much from it for as long as things go according to plan.
As for the gas crater -- pretty sure if the thing was easy to fix and/or commercially exploit (you're probably thinking along the lines of geothermal plants or something to that effect), it would've been done by now, the bleeding thing has been burning for 39 years straight and counting.
Requiring a plugin to browse what would otherwise be "normal" content on the web seems a bit counter-productive to say the least. That said, I've worked with web designers whose attitude towards flash was much like Heston's towards gun ownership: "from my cold dead hands". But working with them, especially the better breed, I can't say I don't understand the appeal. The productivity suite, for starters, is very good and comes from the same company on whose products most of them trained on for years, so there's continuity too.
That some uses of flash will inevitably die can only be considered a Good Thing(TM). And this will happen with or without the iPad (or any other iProduct) -- most likely *in spite* of them, because the shift right now, as some posters have correctly pointed out in the myriad of similar threads we've been having on the matter as of late, is that the iEcoSystem is simply being sent to a special iSubSet of the web where things "Just Work" so iCustomers aren't left out -- or worse, having to download and use a plugin for certain content (and I'd imagine this is one plugin *per* site that employs such strategy). And while Apple certainly has a lot of pull, especially in some circles, I can't help but think of how well that worked out for the WAP protocol -- having separate "webs" or requiring installation of plugins just so you can browse certain content on sites is bad for everyone (and the latter, plugins, is a really boneheaded solution to a problem that stems from not wanting plugins for content in the first place).
In an ideal world, one where the W3C and other authoritative bodies were impervious to commercial interests, we'd have web standards that every browser interpreted and used correctly (such that navigating the same page with any one of them would produce the exact same result), that included all the constructs necessary for creators to freely express themselves without feeling the need to resort to closed-source/proprietary plugins/technology, and nobody would even *think* of proposing any technological solution that was encumbered by patents or royalty schemes. Sadly, this is not the world we live in and I fully expect these issues to increase as the web and the internet at large expands further.
One thing, though: "ARM's marketing VP is blaming a delay in ARM smartbooks on the continuing unsuitability of Flash for the subnotebook market".. The article mentions "flash optimization" as being the issue, which gets me wondering: isn't Adobe on board with this? I mean, it would seem in their best-interest, especially with this latest spat with Apple, that they work with ARM to create super sleek plugins.. ARM is by far the world's leader in the cellphone market, which is arguably where a lot of the web is "moving" towards. If they cooperate with ARM to optimize plugin code (and even flash code itself) for their processors, wouldn't that help make flash's future a whole lot brighter?
The other thing where that statement bothers me is that I've been browsing the web on my N900 for 5 months now -- no "special mobile" sites either, the "full" web, flash content and all (I merely use a flashblock plugin that when enabled makes me click on a flash block to "play" it -- coupled with ABP, it really cuts down on bandwidth usage when I'm surfing through a cellular connection) and I haven't had any issues yet. I highly doubt Nokia devoted that many resources to this, or that Adobe or ARM bent over backwards to enable such a smooth browsing experience, so if my 600MHz A7 Cortex-powered N900 can do this, what's holding back the rest of ARM-powered devices? (especially since the snapdragon came out)
GP was talking about his experience with Fennec (Mozilla Firefox for mobile platforms) running on an N900 (Maemo) handset. I tried Chrome on my N900 and found it nearly unusable. It was sluggish, felt underpowered and didn't present me with any immediate advantage over both the standard built-in browser or Fennec.
Fennec, even on Maemo (I'm assuming/hoping development and refinement hasn't stopped for that platform), still has some ways to go. I'll often use the built-in browser, which seems to share *some* codebase with Fennec, though I may be entirely wrong here, over Fennec. It has a smaller memory footprint, doesn't seem to bog down the system as easily as Fennec when you have a couple of "heavy" content pages loaded and packs all the features I need for my usual browsing habits -- especially after you download and install an ABP-like plugin/hack for it (the one that actually worked for me also has the side-benefit of blocking automatic playback of flash -- I have to click flash-based content for it to "play", which is a *huge* boon when you're on the go and don't have an unlimited data plan with your mobile provider [there's no such thing around here, not as such], even more if you're roaming).
Though both Fennec and Firefox *should* be lighter than they are, and you won't find many around here that'll dispute that, they still offer a Good Enough(TM) browsing experience that keeps them ahead of their competition in terms of many people's mindshare. Couple that with the complete customization you can achieve through the better breed of add-ons and you have a powerful combination that can't be had with any other browser. To each his own, I guess.
Hey, why don't we just ground all commercial planes indefinitely? That is guaranteed to stop all attacks on commercial aviation.
No, really.. I'm not joking (not entirely, at least). That's the only way to solve the problem for good. Of course, terrorists would just move on to other targets (like they did in London and Madrid), but that's besides the point. Actually, come to think of it, how much did they beef up security in London and Madrid after the attacks? I don't doubt they did, but to the point of insanity as we're seeing in the aviation industry?
I seem to recall, around the 9/11 attacks, several agencies being scolded for having more than enough intel that an attack was being planned using commercial planes on US soil and that there was ample time to foil it, but that a) not enough information was shared between agencies and b) no action was taken to aprehend the suspects.
Now we have this latest (and dare I say, stupid or at least half-assed?) attempt.. And yet again, leading figures (starting with the US President himself) coming forward and admiting that all the means currently at the disposal of security agencies were more than enough to have this person flagged and questioned before even boarding the plane -- or put in that infamous no-fly list. And yet, again nothing was done.
Heck, a TV network around here even took the pains to comb through all the reports that came out regarding the incident, and plotting just how many "hits" that man had generated with the international inteligence community. Seriously, from the information made public alone, there were so many hits on the guy that it's just insane he was even allowed on that plane to begin with.
Again, the crux of the matter was that apparently, there's too much beaurocracy, inter-agency squabbling and downright negligence to make the ample and obviously efficient information-gathering networks produce tangible results.
Now, this isn't a conspiracy theory, but I sometimes wonder if the big players in the US inteligence community are really interested in making the stuff that they already have work, as opposed to letting just enough of these situations slip through and then have an excellent opportunity to lobby the Congress and Senate for more funding and extended powers.
Regardless, at every step, it seems to me that what we really need is a serious cutdown on the number of inteligence agencies (they simply don't play nice together so it's pointless carrying on with so many players -- maintain the means, even the funding, but consolidate the players into just one or two and then FORCE them to cooperate) and a restructuring of the way this thing works.. As opposed to the future we all seem headed to where it will not only be common practise, but widely accepted, to have people (not just luggage) X-ray'd, strip searched and subject to prior approval before even stepping foot on an airport.
As a side-note: all these new fangled scanners for people I've been hearing about: milimeter band, etc. Do we have safety studies on these to conclude they pose no health hazard to people? Or are we saying "it's just a little bit of radiation, could be worse"? How regularly will they be serviced and how much can they miscalibrate to overshoot the dosage (I mean, if it's anything like the carry-on luggage x-ray machines or the always-beeps/never-beeps of metal detectors we're in trouble).
'Cause some people fly a lot and every little bit adds up to that "magical number" of maximum radiation our bodies can stand.. And this is a "let's play it safe and scan everyone" scenario. In healthcare, where the question usually pops up for a high likelyhood of a serious condition, doctors are supposed to weigh the benefit of any radiation-based diagnosis technique with the harm the exposure might cause, despite the fact that modern scanners (x-ray, cat, mri) work with a fraction of the "dosage" they required not 10 years ago.
I'm kinda torn on this one, actually. I get your point and I do agree with it, to some extent. This is clearly another "Think of the children" moment, but I can't say I don't see where this is coming from, nor that I disagree with the professed intention.
It's the whole herd mentality/behaviour thing, far more than it is about peer pressure. This isn't about some kids pressuring another to be more like them. This is mainly about a stupid top-down mentality that has pervaded our society for quite some time (hundreds, thousands of years?), and reached critical mass when the fashion industry assumed the prominent role it has had for the past decades.
The fashion industry is, just like any other industry/business, about making money. A good way to achieve this is by adapting other industries "planned obsolescence" model, which they've refined to an art form (literally) -- every single year there is a Spring/Summer collection and a Autumn/Winter collection, and every single year the "tendencies" shift. From colors, to materials, to styles (cuff/sleeve length, etc, etc), to accessories..
Forget about the sheer wastefulness of the process (both in terms of money spent -- or thrown away -- as well as resources consumed.. the creed is: this year's stuff is "in", last year's stuff is "out"), this is nothing short of crowd control. And it's not just for the upper-class either, there's stratification in all levels of society. You're either "in fashion" or you're "so last Tuesday", and nobody likes being the latter.
For some reason, women seem to be more prone to this than men. Heck, men's fashion even seems to shift less season to season than women's, but it still happens.
Now add to this all the artificial layers put on by TV shows (even those conceived specifically for kids -- in some cases, these are actually the worse [it may be old-fashioned of me, but there's nothing I find more disgusting than shows that broadcast the notion that a 9/10/12 year old girl needs/*should* wear blush and eyeliner and mascara and lip gloss and all that crap, that she should basically be a little *woman*, as opposed to just enjoy her child/teenagehood]), movies, music (heck, even modern "fuck the system" genres are populated by make-up-laden metrossexual posers) -- there's just no letting up.
And while adults are free to do whatever they choose, it's getting tougher for kids -- to the point where many don't even "grow up" until much later in their lives, despite *looking* like adults and claiming the perks that go with it -- which in turn either leads to a tendency to take bone-headed risks (12 year olds having sex?! 13 year olds becoming parents themselves?!), a tendency to crack under that pressure (the only ones gaining here are shrinks/therapists), or to be shunned as anti-social.
Hell, High School has always been hard on kids. I'm guessing most people here can relate to the stigmas associated with that period. But it's really getting insane.
It's probably too late to put the geenie back in the bottle, and this initiative won't amount to much (if anything at all), but it *is* sad that we, as a species, are indeed so sheep-like that, for the sole benefit of a few prima donnas and their bankers, we've let it come to this, where the proclaimed ideal for a beautiful/desirable women is just short of a terminal coke/heroin addict, covered in animal fat, artificial pigments and glittery stuff, wearing fake eyelashes, hair extensions and standing in the oh-so-healthy, oh-so-natural, 6" stiletto heels.
I believe you're making the same mistake people made regarding plasma TVs earlier in the year. When the EU passed those Community Directives (or whatever it is they're called) it was mostly about efficiency, ie not wasting (too much) energy. IIRC, they didn't actually forbid any product per se.
Of course, the practical effect was that older plasmas (which were huge power-hogs) and "standard" incandescent lightbulbs became effectively verboten. But just like with newer plasma techologies (which now place them, in terms of average consumption, pretty close to same-year/same-generation LCDs and even lower when compared to earlier models [even LED LCDs can't lower backlight that much, so the rated maximum consumption is very close to the average, whereas maximum consumption on plasmas is the power used with an all-white screen when the brightness is set to max, which is far from the typical setting]), there are newer types of incandescent lightbulbs being produced (or at least they were announced) that would be a lot more efficient, still be "genuinely" incandescent, and priced competitively with both older incandescent and CFLs (something to do with a double-enclosure or something). These would be OK under the new european guidelines.
Now, about these EverLed: they seem to be offering two versions for each model. Original link FTA, or (if you're like me and can't read japanese), the Babelfish translation. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
It seems they have the typical cold/blue/super-white version as well as a warm/yellowish one.
Around my house, we mostly use the "cold"/bland-whiteish CFL variety. Only in my "studio" (which is really just the glorified inverse of a basement -- ie, it used to be the attic before we did the renovations) do I use efficient, read low-powered, "warm" CFLs.
Though they don't bother me like they seem to do with some people (something about the frequency?!), the light is always a bit dim (with both types) and figuring out the difference between dark shades (of say gray or brown) and black is a real pain -- the spectrum reflected back at you just seems off, if you know what I mean.
Still, they do the job for the most part, end up lasting long enough to be worth the investment and give me that stupid warm fuzzy feeling inside of not being an energy hog.
Interestingly, the translated version of Panasonic's product page does have this to say:
The LED illumination which works the light of 16,700,000 color, the magnificent é¾ milk cave, is easy, the light/write raises fantastically.
Next to a picture of a man using one of these EverLed to light up a cave.. I wonder what they mean by 16,7M colors? The cave does look very "natural" in that light but I hesitate to trust any promotional photo.
Regardless of comparative levels of restraint -- I mean, that's a bit like saying one lunatic's genocidal campaign was a little less bloody than another's, but I did get your meaning -- there have been a couple of reports recently that seem to indicate that the Chinese government intends to tighten up (read, make a tad more fair) the criminal court system and severely reduce the number of crimes that could earn you a bullet in the head.
Here's a 2006 USA Today article reported that the Supreme People's Court would have something like final say and/or oversight on capital sentences. FTA:
Chinese legal scholars and lawyers welcomed this week's announcement by the government that the country's Supreme People's Court will review all capital punishment cases.
The change is "an important procedural step to prevent wrongful convictions," said China's top judge, Xiao Yang, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.
China was responsible for 81% of the world's known executions â" 1,770 out of 2,184 â" last year, according to Amnesty International. Amnesty said the actual number of executions in China could be several times higher. In the USA, 60 people were executed in 2005.
A month ago, it was widely reported that they would also limit the crimes incurring death to "a small number of serious crimes, particularly those that threaten social stability", which would be a huge improvement since, FTA:
More than 60 crimes can draw the death penalty in China, including tax evasion, embezzlement and drug trafficking
Now, I'm against capital punishment on principle, but if a country is going to have it, then big time drug trafficking should probably be on that list. But tax evasion or small-time embezzlement? Geez!
On the upside, they do take that tough stance towards corruption in politicians (even if only of those who've made their actions *too* public) that we in the west so often deam of..;)
So, what he's basically saying is that there should be no expectation on the consumer's part that the product he's paying for should work at all (regardless of whether we're talking about "owning" said product, or acquiring a "license" to enjoy said product).
Um, maybe I'm being naive here, but isn't that, you know, against the law? They *could* have said, "we're selling you the _right_ to play this for X years, or until date Y", and that'd be fair if they just say this up front, I suppose, but this sounds like they want a free pass to sell you the illusion that you're buying the "right" to access certain content, when in reality they're just selling you a rental license -- one that expires at the sole discretion of the seller.
In essence, because a license is supposed to be a sort of contract, it's like saying they want to be able to not only dictate all the terms in said contract/license scheme (as they already do, one way or another), but they also want a couple of "open clauses" that they can fill in later on, essentially nullifying the other part's contractual rights, if, when and where they see fit.
This is exactly the kind of "fine print" bullshit that corps have been getting away with for far too long. Yeah, I know you're supposed to read every contract you sign, but when even a simple song purchase entails a multiple-page "Terms of Use" or whatever, which usually includes something along the lines of "this text is subject to change, new clauses can be added, rights terminated, changes are applied retroactively and there's no obligation to notify the user of any change, it's the user's obligation to consult the updated terms at link" -- it's time to tell these assholes to go fuck themselves, for crying out loud!
I only own one of the two, and it isn't the 360. However, from my limited experience with the system, it would seem you're wrong about piracy on the 360. There are quite a few chips for it, but for the most part, and this is mostly where my "experience" with the system comes from, it's mostly a firmware hack.
A mate of mine makes a nice profit off of buying new 360's, using some well-documented hole (like the Zelda hack for the Wii) loading some special firmware onto it then selling it at a higher price with the knowledge that the end costumer will be able to play, errr, backups.. *cough* *cough* Yeah, let's go with "backups".
He doesn't do any actual development, got all the training he needed from material on the web and trying it out on some 360s (which he later sold at a profit, so no loss whatsoever), and the special code is obtained on the web, if you know where to look. He doesn't actually mod anything physical, the warranty is left intact (though he does need to open the system for it to work -- but as long as the seal isn't broken, subsequent inspections wouldn't find anything) and he is yet to have people complaining about it.
Seriously, from what I understood, it's so easy anyone could do it. Microsoft tend to put a wrinkle on things whenever they release a new mandatory firmware update (which is few and far between) or when the newer models get upgraded parts (the disc drive is the crucial component here), but that only lasts a few days, couple of weeks at the most, then it's back to business as usual.
Oh, and there's no problem with XBL too, since there are no actual physical changes, and whatever "magic" is worked on the firmware serves only to allow non-original disks to play. Yeah, that thing with the hard drive is still locked, as far as I know, but pretty much the only thing that you can't do with this method is download a yet-to-be-released title and then try to go online with it. You _can_ play it before release date (he bragged about finishing a couple of major titles before they were even officially released -- Halo 3 comes to mind), but you must be careful to stay offline the whole time, else the XBL system will "see" what you're doing and you risk a ban.
As a PS3 owner, it _is_ a bit irritating that the competition is open to such exploitation -- you get to shell out your hard-earned cash for every single title worth its salt while your mate gets to play any title he likes for free.. But that usually means he's got so much (crap?) to choose from, he can't stick with any title long enough to finish them (bar a few notable exceptions).
I don't see the EFF or other like organizations falling over themselves to come to her aid, do you?;) I think pretty much everyone realized early on that this one was a losing battle. That she should probably have settled, shouldn't have lied/contradicted herself or otherwise engage in very suspicious behavior (the missing/swapped hard drive comes to mind). Even NYCL's coverage of the thing seemed far more distant than his take on other cases.
But everyone is entitled to put up a defense, and there were several things that could have gone in her favor (namely, the fact that MediaSentry should have been considered an unreliable source for evidence, which would probably have resulted in a default judgement for her) so I can't really blame her for trying.
Then there's this latest legal team, doing it pro bono. I suspect they were mostly trying to slay a giant, and the specifics of who it was they were doing it for take second fiddle to the chance at being renowned as the guys who whooped mighty RIAA's legal team's ass.
But don't fret. I mean, it took some doing but eventually the RIAA would find someone like Jammie and, given the scope of things, I think we're still pretty lucky that they haven't dug up a few more like her. She's one bad apple for this particular issue, but I doubt it'll spoil things.
If it turns out we can't change the way things are, then it'll be because the legislators simply don't care, have their pockets full or are incapable of grasping how serious this matter is for our collective future, especially in the cultural sense.
DRM, due to the constant breakdowns, is starting to get a beating even amongst people who don't have a clue, and eventually people will refuse to be treated has perpetual cash-cows.. From there to getting our fair use rights back and sane copyright limits is just a few steps.
I couldn't agree more, and many have said as much before, that Jammie is the worst kind of poster-face for the fight against the RIAA, the DMCA, current copyright laws and the insanity of the business practices of an industry who constantly shows no respect whatsoever to the artists they're supposed to foster and protect and the consumers who still make it possible for them to be a multi-billion dollar player.
But the fact is, however guilty Jammie may be, that judgement was nothing short of a legal railroading of her financial future (even if she eventually files for bankrupcy, it's not a pretty sight), and a completely disproportionate response/penalty to the offenses commited. I mean, I can certainly see the case for high damages when we're talking about people who not only wilfully infringe (the only way for her to get slapped with more than $30k per song), but more importantly profit from it. When profit is the motivation, then heck, by all means, go for the throat.
But a civil suit for copyright infringement that stems from a simple "I'm not paying for this", with no other financial motivations behind it, should never be able to reach such high figures. I always hate it whenever a judicial system takes someone and tries to "make an example" out of them, to discourage others from following. It's just too arbitrary, has led to many unsavoury situations in the past and is the opposite of how any judicial system should work -- all equal before the law.
You both have good points, but on the subject of Hitler's "demonic bad-ass bad-guy'ery".. Look at the world around you. Hitler was no more of a psycopath or sociopath than many, _many_ other relatively harmless people.
I mean, it's been over 50 years since the whole thing, it's been replayed extensively on TV and cinema, both in the documentary, factual sense, as well as fictional sense, and the slaughtering of Jews and all the other minorities perceived as "misfits" or "undesireables" by the 3rd Reich has been hammered home countless times. And yet, there are still many people today who seem to agree with Hitler's basic ideology -- just look at how the extreme right wing is doing in so many countries (some of which, the very same who suffered under the Nazis).
No, Hitler wasn't demonic, not by a long shot. I honestly feel that is the biggest insult and disservice we could do to all those who died as a result of his regime, his policies and the fight to get him and his cronies removed (including the many germans who were basically pressed into service to "defend" their country and payed the Nazis' folly with their lives) -- that we neglect the fact that he was no more of a homicidal maniac than countless others who preceded and succeeded him. That we wrap him up in a "out-of-this-earth-EVIL" shroud and fail to realize that while he was very definetely a _bad_ man, he wasn't much more so than many others who are alive right now (for quick, extreme examples of this, look up the number of times the world has basically ignored ongoing genocidal campaigns in Africa).
What puts Hitler in a different level is the scope of things, the reach and impact his sociopathic tendencies had. The cleverness with which he prayed on post-WWI resentment and grief and slowly carved an authoritarian regime for himself, allowing him to enact all of his mindless rage. That is the only true distinction between him and many others today: that he got to a place where he could wield enough power to enforce his twisted ideology.
I'd venture that many of the extreme right-wing supporters out there would probably stop short of actually ordering the mass slaughter of countless inocent individuals.. But those aren't the ones I'm referring to. I mean the ones at the higher echelons who pray on that "immigrants get out" sentiment to further their agendas, to claw a little bit more power for themselves. I'm talking about the CEOs and higher execs and shareholders of huge multinational corps who think nothing of the misery that they help spread or pray upon in that most holy quest to buy their umpteenth mansion, private jet, ferrari, etc. That level of carelessness, lack of empathy is right up there with Hitler's.
Pretending the man was a one-off fluke (because he was evil incarnate) is to delude yourself into thinking it could never happen again. And that's the first step in insuring that it will.
Hey there! Sorry to break up your post, but it makes it easier to reply. Disclaimer: I was born and raised Catholic, but am utterly agnostic.
"even the Pope objected"
Is it surprising that the Pope objected?
You're quite right, it's not the least bit surprising.
He's very conservative, and doesn't even approve of contraception for people with HIV.
Even considering that "conservative" is a staple of (nearly) all religions, I don't think that's the real problem here. The Catholic Church is officially against any form of birth control beyond the exercise of abstinence and the use of a few "natural" means for determining when said abstinence is to be exercised (that is, in the context of marriage, otherwise it's abstinence all the way) -- and they're hardly alone there.
In practise, many of the lower hierarchies turn a blind eye to this, and not all agree with the official stance on the use of prophylactics particularly with regards to the "fight" against HIV. But the Pope stands at the top of this structure and is heavily encumbered by the dictates of canon law and his predecessors. If you think it's tough getting a Congress/Parliament to back-pedal on a major long-standing issue, you'd be amazed at just how limited the margin is for real change in the Vatican.
This isn't, of course, an excuse, but you can't really expect that someone who has moved up in that kind of environment, who was elected by his peers -- mostly comprised of old men who are, on the whole, very out of touch with the cruel realities of this world -- to bring about a revolution. And when canon law specifically states that sperm is sacred, and that sex should only occur in the context of an attempt at procreation, well.. guess where that leads.
But if I caught your reference correctly, you meant the Pope's much maligned quote when he visited Africa a couple of months ago. And on that point, I think it bears explaining the following: beyond the fact that the Catholic Church is officially against the distribution of condoms in any way, shape or form, those particular comments were made in a slightly different perspective.
The gist of it was that just going ahead and distributing condoms for free, like many aid organizations want to do, can actually be detrimental to the issue of HIV in Africa. The Pope's point was that the condom itself isn't a silver bullet when it comes to stopping transmission. In most developed countries, these policies are usually undertaken side-by-side with information campaigns -- there's much more to "safe sex" than just using a condom. Avoiding risk behaviours, being criterious when choosing sex partners, understanding that all forms of sex (not just intercourse) can, and often do, result in transmission of STDs.
The problem is we're talking about Africa -- a continent with huge areas that have been sistematically devastated by war, with very few functioning democracies, very low standarts when it comes to human rights, despicable literacy levels, and a place where even Presidents of major countries hold and broadcast completely distorted, or downright wrong, ideas about STDs, specifically HIV.
Come to think of it, I think I've seen or read studies conducted in so called "first world" countries where a sizeable chunk of young people had serious misconceptions on these topics. The Pope's point was that Africa's situation is so bad that if we just carpet bomb them with condoms we may be helping to spread yet another myth -- that the condom solves it all. Because the reality of it is most agencies don't have the manpower nor the budget to do information campaigns, which are slow by nature, but can manage the delivery of huge quantities of the rubbery lil' devils.
Now, I totally agree that something is better than nothing, and strongly disagree with the deeper issue that the Catholic Church has with condoms, but I can't help but think that the Pope wasn't that
Well, the piece I saw on Euronews yesterday (I think) had the journalist saying that the move was a consequence of recent school shootings and, basically, just a way to uppease certain lobby groups that were demanding stricter gun control rules.
Now, I don't know if it's true, but it does seem like nothing more than a smokescreen manouver on the part of the German government.
It's actually funny, in a way.. I remember the first time I played paintball. Besides being tons of fun, I specifically remember how it struck me, for real, for the first time, just how easy it is to get killed in a combat scenario. One slip up, one moment's distraction, one false move, and you could end up with 4 members of the opposite team lined up in front of you like a firing squad (got blasted with something like 5 shots a piece that time, had to scream at them that I was dead -- corridor negotiation on an abandoned Asylum... man, what a perfect scenario for a match).
That and all the nooks and crannys where a shooter can hide and pick you off without you ever figuring out where he/she was.
Of all the people I know that play (or used to play) paintball, not one of them even owned guns. Yeah, they do have a certain charm, but.. *sigh* Correlation is not causation, anyone? (that is, assuming those recent school shootings even had any connection whatsoever to paintball).
Apparently the mods had a good night out.. Every single comment so far has been moded "Funny". And I'm pretty sure most of them weren't. A poster further down suggests that we may be dealing with shills.. But I shudder to think that slashdot is such a high-profile news site for drug companies, that they'd bother. So I'm going with drunk/stoned or otherwise giddy mods getting their rocks off.
Hmm.. "2009 A H1N1 flu" (or whatever it is that they've decided to call it) doesn't mess with your brain like that, right? Heh, not to worry -- if they are infected, I'm sure it won't spread.. Who're they gonna infect from their Mom's basement anyway? (bad taste? too soon? ok, I apologize.. carry on)
*raises hand* Sorry, Taiwan is an island _in_ China? Umm, so Hawaii is an island _in_ the USA?
The ambiguous way to go, without actually offending anyone, is to say that Taiwan is a chinese island (which China is another matter), or an island in the Sea of China, or even that it is an island off the south-eastern coast of China.
The xkcd comic the OP's referring to, or a similar reference, in six parts, no less, on Penny Arcade.
Now, obviously if falls under the category of "pulling numbers out of one's ass", but it does seem to make sense that whenever an author feels the need to make up too many words for his/her fantasy/sci-fi universe, it's probably because they lack a good plot to begin with..
I think the point of this story, though, is less about the coining of words or terms, but the fact that some concepts were actually envisioned (sometimes, pretty damn thoroughly) first in the realm of fiction and only later translated into science or actual technologies. I find it far more interesting that someone envisioned the role of a genetic engineer all those years before genetics really took off, than the fact that they managed to coin the term for it. I'm less impressed by the coining of "meme" or "memetics", than I am about the implications that the study of human-propagated "stories" have on anthropology.
Same here.. In regards to the iPhone itself, I seem to recall Spain's Telefonica offering (through Movistar) several options for contract (usually the same duration, but different SMS/data/voice minutes package -- and obviously different minimum monthly payments) as well as different options for pay-as-you-go cards (operators usually have more than one type of PAYG cards that try to tailor different usage habits). Check it out here (flash page).
Now, when I did look into it (before deciding it wasn't really worth it -- not saying the iPhone isn't a decent piece of hardware, but it's not THAT great either) most iPhone-specific fees (like the ones Movistar applies) relate to the heavy use of mobile internet.. And to cash in on the thing, but at the same time making the actual mobile bandwith costs reasonable, that fee was applied on top of existing ones.
You can get pretty much the same deals on any other smartphone on the market, it's just that the hype the iPhone generated prompted some operators to really look at the whole thing in a more sane way -- which is a Good Thing(TM). Now, most plans come with a reasonable ammount of web traffic included and you can pay separately to up the montly cap (a-la iPhone fee) if you typically need it, or just pay the excess at the penalty rates.
As for the rest: here in Portugal, it's very rare for people to actually buy the hardware itself. The subsidized phone is far cheaper, you ARE going to spend money on usage anyway, so why not have the operator partially subsidize the cost of the equipment required to use their services? Now, that means that technically the phone isn't really yours until the 2-year period expires, but that's ok. It also means that the phone is usally sim-locked to only allow usage of that particular operator's SIM cards, which isn't so great, but you CAN pay for a legal unlock (it usually runs about €100 over here).
As it stands right now, we have a 16+ year running multiple phone contract (actually, more like 3 different package deals) going with our operator, which we routinely negotiate and keep getting the best deals in town.. Sometimes the competition offers better terms, but that's usually fixed by getting our operator to at least match their offer. Oh, and we can buy any phone we like (not just limited to whatever the operator is offering at the moment), locked or otherwise, and get fully credited on our account -- not just for minutes that we have to use, but on the actual balance (ie, there was a point late last year where we went two months without paying because we had too much accumulated credit -- we could either use it to order products from them, like phones, or get a full rebate.. guess what we chose?).
You're not getting it.. We're talking PRESCRIPTION-strength Ibuprofen (but still, as pain relievers go, even "prescription-strength" Ibuprofen can't possibily be _that_ strong). Ibuprofen that she was SUSPECTED of possessing.
The strip-search found no drugs (over-the-counter legal, prescription legal [who's to say that if she HAD that Ibuprofen, it hadn't been given to her by her parents?] or illegal -- NO DRUGS WERE FOUND).
So this is a strip-search on school grounds, for SUSPICION of violation of school policies (note, not necessarilly un unlawful act) done on an UNDERAGE kid.. And at 13, even if she had done something illegal, many prosecutors would hesitate to try her as an adult.
I mean, FFS.. How much more are you guys going to take? I mean, next you'll be having the principal making the decision on whether one of his students should or should not talk to the cops, if they're on school grounds. Where the hell did parental consent go? And I don't care whatever forms the parents were forced to sign (can you even refuse to adhere to the schools policy? -- I mean, probably you can, but not without being force to homeschool them), some rights cannot be forfeit. A parent's right to protect and make decisions for their children is one of them.. One that only a judge can overturn (compare this to parents refusing possibly life-saving medical intervention on religious grounds -- the doctors can get in real trouble if they don't clear it with their legal department, sometimes a judge, before they proceed -- so much power is given to the parents in this life-or-death case, and yet when it comes to the privacy of your kids they don't get a say?)
I guess if this isn't slapped down soon, you'll soon have discretionary cavity searches done on MINORS for mere SUSPICION of a POLICY VIOLATION!! Ok, maybe a bit much, but still FOR FUCK'S SAKE! Honestly, this is really one of those cases where you do need to "Think of the Children"(TM).
Actually, j (or i as is more commonly used) is the number whose square is -1.. There's a difference here, in that j (or i) is both "- sqrt(-1)" AND "+ sqrt(-1)".
With regards to celebrities' medical info being released, doesn't that happen already? Either voluntarily, or because someone got paid to out it, there are very few "stars" out there that don't get their private info displayed on national media on a regular basis. In any case, as you just said, they at least have the resources to pursue any offenders, so personally I couldn't care less..
As for "everyday" citizens' medical records being vulnerable.. Well, as more and more info is added onto everyone's files, your records will be able to "paint" a pretty decent picture of how you are (physically and mentally) and what you've been up to, since you were born. All the procedures you had (no matter how small), all prescriptions and every single test result you've ever gotten.. Better hope you never have to do an STD test (wait -- aren't we all supposed to check that on a fairly regular basis?), and more importantly, better hope you never get a false-positive on a test for a particularly nasty disease.. Because if someone gets their hand on that information, they can seriously screw with your life.
And since all that info will now be located (or can be accessed) in/through a single site (pun intended), that basically becomes a single point of failure.. Think of the people who hack into CC companies' DBs to blackmail them.. Now think of the whole Jobs/Apple situation, especially with regards to his health status and its direct effect on the company's stock quote. Need I connect the dots?
Now, the breadth of information that EHRs will bring, and the centralization of all that info, can prove crucial to many scientific/medical breakthroughs, and if care is taken, I believe the gains outweigh the risks.. But care MUST be taken, and generally, governments aren't particularly good at keeping sensitive information secure (just look at all the slashdot entries for governmental screw-ups when it comes to security).
The thing that tickled me the most, however, was this: FTFS:
[...] The electronic exchange runs on a database operated by a non-profit organization in Virginia and open-source software deployed at the Social Security Administration. [...]
Now, TFA states that this NPO is MedVirginia and their webpage has this to say:
Organizational Structure
MedVirginia, established in 2000, is a Virginia Limited Liability Company. Initial investors in MedVirginia are CenVaNet, a leading hospital and physician owned network based in Richmond, VA, and MedAtlantic, an affiliate of the Virginia Urology Center.
MedVirginia is governed by a 5-member Board of Managers. Officers of the company are: James Ratliff, MD, Chair; John Bowman, MD, Vice Chair; Jeff Burke, Secretary/Treasurer.
Michael Matthews serves as CEO. Other key management are: Jean McGraw, Chief Operating Officer. Jeff Odell, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, and Joelle Buckner, Director of Information Technology.
[emphasis mine]
Now, IANAL and don't really know how LLCs work, but doesn't this sound eerily close to having a private entity "own" sensitive information pertaining to hundreds of thousands of citizens? Do they even have a choice on who gets to collate their info?
Slashdot Mirror
Credit Card Transaction Fees: $999,999.99
Really hope they don't get too screwed by PayPal and Google Checkout.. Got this last week (some story about a game, SpaceChem, being like programming here on slashdot brought me to their page and I was hooked).
Funny, I thought I was being cheap for offering $10 -- and still do, actually. Not sure about the rest, haven't tried them yet, but Trine, SpaceChem and Shadowgrounds alone would be worth more than that.
Still, it's great to see developers doing stuff like this: it's a great way to advertise their products and a fine way of getting people to pay something for the games.
I see your point, was just curious. According to some other posters, it seems most of On2's business model revolved around innovating *around* other people's patents, akin to what Xiph did/is trying to do with Theora, so it may be they didn't possess any relevant patent portfolio that Google could use.
It would seem, from what I've been reading, that VP8 stands a decent chance of avoiding most of the "big" patents in MPEG-LA's pool, with only submarine patents or the latest in their pool posing as a possible hazard. It also seems codec patents tend to be very specific to make it easier to pass examination but also to ensure implementation results in an uniform application of the codec's design, so on the face of it, it seems it's not that hard (and certainly not impossible) to design around existing patents.
If a court would see it that way and declare a codec like VP8 or Theora as non-infringing is another matter, of course. It is a shame the way things are going regarding software patents. Even if you forget about patent trolls (which is hard to do), there's so many of them and many more being filed every day "just in case" by all the big players that it's gotten to the point where only the "big boys" get to innovate with some peace of mind. At the very least if they infringe they can always counter-sue with whatever portfolio they have or license it.
Sorry for my ignorance here. Wouldn't Google's acquisition of On2 Technologies mean they acquired some relevant patents too? I mean, did they do it for the finished products only and all the time On2 were developing codecs they never came up with anything new, and therefor patenteable?
Since software patents are only "enforceable" for 20 years (unsure of when the period actually starts though, date of filing, date or approval, etc) and On2, formerly The Duck Corporation, has been "at it" since the 90s, and especially since they were apparently regarded as a top-notch video-codec-producing company, it would seem odd if they hadn't amassed some Imaginary Property (sorry for the bias, hate the concept) of their own as a natural byproduct of their work.
I'm just saying.. You seem very convinced Google has no patents they can use to countersue should the need arise, but Google (like Microsoft and Apple before whenever expanding into another field) has acquired quite a few companies and products. It would seem, like Apple and Microsoft before, that a big company like Google would do stuff like that far more for the potential value of the IP that would come with the deal than for any actual product, even though the product may be useful to them too (as is the case of VP8 or YouTube or a bunch of other techs/products they bought and integrated).
The point was a dramatic increase in temperature of a material like crude oil, caused by a big deposit suddenly being exposed to magma, will increase the pressure -- pressure that is already causing the thing to spill out (it's more complicated than that, but in the absence of anything "sucking" it out of the well, what do you think is causing it to escape in such high volume per minute) -- and I seriously doubt anything good will come of it.
Though I wasn't necessarily referring to a combustion reaction, there *is* oxygen in the ocean.. How else do you think most sea creatures would obtain it? Gills simply allow them to extract the dissolved oxygen in the water, it most definitely does not break down water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen (too bad, though, if a simple organic/physical process could do this with very minimal energy input, pretty much all our energy needs would've been solved a LONG time ago -- and we wouldn't be here talking about oil spills either). And it's actually one other problem this spill is causing -- it's severely decreasing oxygen supplies in the places where the oil plumes are, increasing the risk of anoxia.
For things to go BOOM you don't necessarily need oxygen, my friend, or any other comburent (don't see it used in english as much as it should, it defines the concept a whole lot better). There are many chemical reactions that result in "boom" whose working principles have nothing to do with the fire triangle.
To the GP: holy crap! Thanks for the link, mate, had no idea such a thing existed -- I would've probably sided with the idiotic geologists who thought the whole thing would extinguish in a few days. Since 1971 and counting? Talk about the mother of all fires!
To the Parent: What I believe the GP was trying to imply is that should they somehow manage to ignite the crude in the well, either directly should the energy from, say, a nuclear explosion go off its projected dispersion path and make the entire well's mass critical, or by collapsing the well entirely (no ignition here, necessarily, but the sheer fact all of the well's contents would be released instantly would probably prove a sufficiently catastrophic event for all parties concerned and the world at large), or some other cave structure in its vicinity (or underneath it) or, probably even worse, cracking the crust's bed beneath it, which might result in the whole thing going BOOM (a steady stream of lava acting as an inexaustible supply of ignition energy to a really big deposit of flammable/high-energy-density material...), well, to say that such a thing shouldn't be taken lightly would be such an understatement it pretty much goes without saying.
What I'd really like to know, and everybody who could supply that answer isn't interested in giving it, is the likelyhood of these events (stuff like the BP's well crude spill, that is). I've read so many conflicting things that I'm left wondering if this was a one-off all-things-that-could-go-wrong-went-wrong or a relatively high recurring risk that these companies willingly take because they stand to gain too much from it for as long as things go according to plan.
As for the gas crater -- pretty sure if the thing was easy to fix and/or commercially exploit (you're probably thinking along the lines of geothermal plants or something to that effect), it would've been done by now, the bleeding thing has been burning for 39 years straight and counting.
Requiring a plugin to browse what would otherwise be "normal" content on the web seems a bit counter-productive to say the least. That said, I've worked with web designers whose attitude towards flash was much like Heston's towards gun ownership: "from my cold dead hands". But working with them, especially the better breed, I can't say I don't understand the appeal. The productivity suite, for starters, is very good and comes from the same company on whose products most of them trained on for years, so there's continuity too.
That some uses of flash will inevitably die can only be considered a Good Thing(TM). And this will happen with or without the iPad (or any other iProduct) -- most likely *in spite* of them, because the shift right now, as some posters have correctly pointed out in the myriad of similar threads we've been having on the matter as of late, is that the iEcoSystem is simply being sent to a special iSubSet of the web where things "Just Work" so iCustomers aren't left out -- or worse, having to download and use a plugin for certain content (and I'd imagine this is one plugin *per* site that employs such strategy). And while Apple certainly has a lot of pull, especially in some circles, I can't help but think of how well that worked out for the WAP protocol -- having separate "webs" or requiring installation of plugins just so you can browse certain content on sites is bad for everyone (and the latter, plugins, is a really boneheaded solution to a problem that stems from not wanting plugins for content in the first place).
In an ideal world, one where the W3C and other authoritative bodies were impervious to commercial interests, we'd have web standards that every browser interpreted and used correctly (such that navigating the same page with any one of them would produce the exact same result), that included all the constructs necessary for creators to freely express themselves without feeling the need to resort to closed-source/proprietary plugins/technology, and nobody would even *think* of proposing any technological solution that was encumbered by patents or royalty schemes. Sadly, this is not the world we live in and I fully expect these issues to increase as the web and the internet at large expands further.
One thing, though: "ARM's marketing VP is blaming a delay in ARM smartbooks on the continuing unsuitability of Flash for the subnotebook market" .. The article mentions "flash optimization" as being the issue, which gets me wondering: isn't Adobe on board with this? I mean, it would seem in their best-interest, especially with this latest spat with Apple, that they work with ARM to create super sleek plugins.. ARM is by far the world's leader in the cellphone market, which is arguably where a lot of the web is "moving" towards. If they cooperate with ARM to optimize plugin code (and even flash code itself) for their processors, wouldn't that help make flash's future a whole lot brighter?
The other thing where that statement bothers me is that I've been browsing the web on my N900 for 5 months now -- no "special mobile" sites either, the "full" web, flash content and all (I merely use a flashblock plugin that when enabled makes me click on a flash block to "play" it -- coupled with ABP, it really cuts down on bandwidth usage when I'm surfing through a cellular connection) and I haven't had any issues yet. I highly doubt Nokia devoted that many resources to this, or that Adobe or ARM bent over backwards to enable such a smooth browsing experience, so if my 600MHz A7 Cortex-powered N900 can do this, what's holding back the rest of ARM-powered devices? (especially since the snapdragon came out)
GP was talking about his experience with Fennec (Mozilla Firefox for mobile platforms) running on an N900 (Maemo) handset. I tried Chrome on my N900 and found it nearly unusable. It was sluggish, felt underpowered and didn't present me with any immediate advantage over both the standard built-in browser or Fennec.
Fennec, even on Maemo (I'm assuming/hoping development and refinement hasn't stopped for that platform), still has some ways to go. I'll often use the built-in browser, which seems to share *some* codebase with Fennec, though I may be entirely wrong here, over Fennec. It has a smaller memory footprint, doesn't seem to bog down the system as easily as Fennec when you have a couple of "heavy" content pages loaded and packs all the features I need for my usual browsing habits -- especially after you download and install an ABP-like plugin/hack for it (the one that actually worked for me also has the side-benefit of blocking automatic playback of flash -- I have to click flash-based content for it to "play", which is a *huge* boon when you're on the go and don't have an unlimited data plan with your mobile provider [there's no such thing around here, not as such], even more if you're roaming).
Though both Fennec and Firefox *should* be lighter than they are, and you won't find many around here that'll dispute that, they still offer a Good Enough(TM) browsing experience that keeps them ahead of their competition in terms of many people's mindshare. Couple that with the complete customization you can achieve through the better breed of add-ons and you have a powerful combination that can't be had with any other browser. To each his own, I guess.
Hey, why don't we just ground all commercial planes indefinitely? That is guaranteed to stop all attacks on commercial aviation.
No, really.. I'm not joking (not entirely, at least). That's the only way to solve the problem for good. Of course, terrorists would just move on to other targets (like they did in London and Madrid), but that's besides the point. Actually, come to think of it, how much did they beef up security in London and Madrid after the attacks? I don't doubt they did, but to the point of insanity as we're seeing in the aviation industry?
I seem to recall, around the 9/11 attacks, several agencies being scolded for having more than enough intel that an attack was being planned using commercial planes on US soil and that there was ample time to foil it, but that a) not enough information was shared between agencies and b) no action was taken to aprehend the suspects.
Now we have this latest (and dare I say, stupid or at least half-assed?) attempt.. And yet again, leading figures (starting with the US President himself) coming forward and admiting that all the means currently at the disposal of security agencies were more than enough to have this person flagged and questioned before even boarding the plane -- or put in that infamous no-fly list. And yet, again nothing was done.
Heck, a TV network around here even took the pains to comb through all the reports that came out regarding the incident, and plotting just how many "hits" that man had generated with the international inteligence community. Seriously, from the information made public alone, there were so many hits on the guy that it's just insane he was even allowed on that plane to begin with.
Again, the crux of the matter was that apparently, there's too much beaurocracy, inter-agency squabbling and downright negligence to make the ample and obviously efficient information-gathering networks produce tangible results.
Now, this isn't a conspiracy theory, but I sometimes wonder if the big players in the US inteligence community are really interested in making the stuff that they already have work, as opposed to letting just enough of these situations slip through and then have an excellent opportunity to lobby the Congress and Senate for more funding and extended powers.
Regardless, at every step, it seems to me that what we really need is a serious cutdown on the number of inteligence agencies (they simply don't play nice together so it's pointless carrying on with so many players -- maintain the means, even the funding, but consolidate the players into just one or two and then FORCE them to cooperate) and a restructuring of the way this thing works.. As opposed to the future we all seem headed to where it will not only be common practise, but widely accepted, to have people (not just luggage) X-ray'd, strip searched and subject to prior approval before even stepping foot on an airport.
As a side-note: all these new fangled scanners for people I've been hearing about: milimeter band, etc. Do we have safety studies on these to conclude they pose no health hazard to people? Or are we saying "it's just a little bit of radiation, could be worse"? How regularly will they be serviced and how much can they miscalibrate to overshoot the dosage (I mean, if it's anything like the carry-on luggage x-ray machines or the always-beeps/never-beeps of metal detectors we're in trouble).
'Cause some people fly a lot and every little bit adds up to that "magical number" of maximum radiation our bodies can stand.. And this is a "let's play it safe and scan everyone" scenario. In healthcare, where the question usually pops up for a high likelyhood of a serious condition, doctors are supposed to weigh the benefit of any radiation-based diagnosis technique with the harm the exposure might cause, despite the fact that modern scanners (x-ray, cat, mri) work with a fraction of the "dosage" they required not 10 years ago.
I'm kinda torn on this one, actually. I get your point and I do agree with it, to some extent. This is clearly another "Think of the children" moment, but I can't say I don't see where this is coming from, nor that I disagree with the professed intention.
It's the whole herd mentality/behaviour thing, far more than it is about peer pressure. This isn't about some kids pressuring another to be more like them. This is mainly about a stupid top-down mentality that has pervaded our society for quite some time (hundreds, thousands of years?), and reached critical mass when the fashion industry assumed the prominent role it has had for the past decades.
The fashion industry is, just like any other industry/business, about making money. A good way to achieve this is by adapting other industries "planned obsolescence" model, which they've refined to an art form (literally) -- every single year there is a Spring/Summer collection and a Autumn/Winter collection, and every single year the "tendencies" shift. From colors, to materials, to styles (cuff/sleeve length, etc, etc), to accessories..
Forget about the sheer wastefulness of the process (both in terms of money spent -- or thrown away -- as well as resources consumed .. the creed is: this year's stuff is "in", last year's stuff is "out"), this is nothing short of crowd control. And it's not just for the upper-class either, there's stratification in all levels of society. You're either "in fashion" or you're "so last Tuesday", and nobody likes being the latter.
For some reason, women seem to be more prone to this than men. Heck, men's fashion even seems to shift less season to season than women's, but it still happens.
Now add to this all the artificial layers put on by TV shows (even those conceived specifically for kids -- in some cases, these are actually the worse [it may be old-fashioned of me, but there's nothing I find more disgusting than shows that broadcast the notion that a 9/10/12 year old girl needs/*should* wear blush and eyeliner and mascara and lip gloss and all that crap, that she should basically be a little *woman*, as opposed to just enjoy her child/teenagehood]), movies, music (heck, even modern "fuck the system" genres are populated by make-up-laden metrossexual posers) -- there's just no letting up.
And while adults are free to do whatever they choose, it's getting tougher for kids -- to the point where many don't even "grow up" until much later in their lives, despite *looking* like adults and claiming the perks that go with it -- which in turn either leads to a tendency to take bone-headed risks (12 year olds having sex?! 13 year olds becoming parents themselves?!), a tendency to crack under that pressure (the only ones gaining here are shrinks/therapists), or to be shunned as anti-social.
Hell, High School has always been hard on kids. I'm guessing most people here can relate to the stigmas associated with that period. But it's really getting insane.
It's probably too late to put the geenie back in the bottle, and this initiative won't amount to much (if anything at all), but it *is* sad that we, as a species, are indeed so sheep-like that, for the sole benefit of a few prima donnas and their bankers, we've let it come to this, where the proclaimed ideal for a beautiful/desirable women is just short of a terminal coke/heroin addict, covered in animal fat, artificial pigments and glittery stuff, wearing fake eyelashes, hair extensions and standing in the oh-so-healthy, oh-so-natural, 6" stiletto heels.
I believe you're making the same mistake people made regarding plasma TVs earlier in the year. When the EU passed those Community Directives (or whatever it is they're called) it was mostly about efficiency, ie not wasting (too much) energy. IIRC, they didn't actually forbid any product per se.
Of course, the practical effect was that older plasmas (which were huge power-hogs) and "standard" incandescent lightbulbs became effectively verboten. But just like with newer plasma techologies (which now place them, in terms of average consumption, pretty close to same-year/same-generation LCDs and even lower when compared to earlier models [even LED LCDs can't lower backlight that much, so the rated maximum consumption is very close to the average, whereas maximum consumption on plasmas is the power used with an all-white screen when the brightness is set to max, which is far from the typical setting]), there are newer types of incandescent lightbulbs being produced (or at least they were announced) that would be a lot more efficient, still be "genuinely" incandescent, and priced competitively with both older incandescent and CFLs (something to do with a double-enclosure or something). These would be OK under the new european guidelines.
Now, about these EverLed: they seem to be offering two versions for each model. Original link FTA, or (if you're like me and can't read japanese), the Babelfish translation. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
It seems they have the typical cold/blue/super-white version as well as a warm/yellowish one.
Around my house, we mostly use the "cold"/bland-whiteish CFL variety. Only in my "studio" (which is really just the glorified inverse of a basement -- ie, it used to be the attic before we did the renovations) do I use efficient, read low-powered, "warm" CFLs.
Though they don't bother me like they seem to do with some people (something about the frequency?!), the light is always a bit dim (with both types) and figuring out the difference between dark shades (of say gray or brown) and black is a real pain -- the spectrum reflected back at you just seems off, if you know what I mean.
Still, they do the job for the most part, end up lasting long enough to be worth the investment and give me that stupid warm fuzzy feeling inside of not being an energy hog.
Interestingly, the translated version of Panasonic's product page does have this to say:
The LED illumination which works the light of 16,700,000 color, the magnificent é¾ milk cave, is easy, the light/write raises fantastically.
Next to a picture of a man using one of these EverLed to light up a cave.. I wonder what they mean by 16,7M colors? The cave does look very "natural" in that light but I hesitate to trust any promotional photo.
Regardless of comparative levels of restraint -- I mean, that's a bit like saying one lunatic's genocidal campaign was a little less bloody than another's, but I did get your meaning -- there have been a couple of reports recently that seem to indicate that the Chinese government intends to tighten up (read, make a tad more fair) the criminal court system and severely reduce the number of crimes that could earn you a bullet in the head.
Here's a 2006 USA Today article reported that the Supreme People's Court would have something like final say and/or oversight on capital sentences. FTA:
Chinese legal scholars and lawyers welcomed this week's announcement by the government that the country's Supreme People's Court will review all capital punishment cases.
The change is "an important procedural step to prevent wrongful convictions," said China's top judge, Xiao Yang, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.
China was responsible for 81% of the world's known executions â" 1,770 out of 2,184 â" last year, according to Amnesty International. Amnesty said the actual number of executions in China could be several times higher. In the USA, 60 people were executed in 2005.
A month ago, it was widely reported that they would also limit the crimes incurring death to "a small number of serious crimes, particularly those that threaten social stability", which would be a huge improvement since, FTA:
More than 60 crimes can draw the death penalty in China, including tax evasion, embezzlement and drug trafficking
Now, I'm against capital punishment on principle, but if a country is going to have it, then big time drug trafficking should probably be on that list. But tax evasion or small-time embezzlement? Geez!
On the upside, they do take that tough stance towards corruption in politicians (even if only of those who've made their actions *too* public) that we in the west so often deam of.. ;)
So, what he's basically saying is that there should be no expectation on the consumer's part that the product he's paying for should work at all (regardless of whether we're talking about "owning" said product, or acquiring a "license" to enjoy said product).
Um, maybe I'm being naive here, but isn't that, you know, against the law? They *could* have said, "we're selling you the _right_ to play this for X years, or until date Y", and that'd be fair if they just say this up front, I suppose, but this sounds like they want a free pass to sell you the illusion that you're buying the "right" to access certain content, when in reality they're just selling you a rental license -- one that expires at the sole discretion of the seller.
In essence, because a license is supposed to be a sort of contract, it's like saying they want to be able to not only dictate all the terms in said contract/license scheme (as they already do, one way or another), but they also want a couple of "open clauses" that they can fill in later on, essentially nullifying the other part's contractual rights, if, when and where they see fit.
This is exactly the kind of "fine print" bullshit that corps have been getting away with for far too long. Yeah, I know you're supposed to read every contract you sign, but when even a simple song purchase entails a multiple-page "Terms of Use" or whatever, which usually includes something along the lines of "this text is subject to change, new clauses can be added, rights terminated, changes are applied retroactively and there's no obligation to notify the user of any change, it's the user's obligation to consult the updated terms at link" -- it's time to tell these assholes to go fuck themselves, for crying out loud!
I only own one of the two, and it isn't the 360. However, from my limited experience with the system, it would seem you're wrong about piracy on the 360. There are quite a few chips for it, but for the most part, and this is mostly where my "experience" with the system comes from, it's mostly a firmware hack.
A mate of mine makes a nice profit off of buying new 360's, using some well-documented hole (like the Zelda hack for the Wii) loading some special firmware onto it then selling it at a higher price with the knowledge that the end costumer will be able to play, errr, backups .. *cough* *cough* Yeah, let's go with "backups".
He doesn't do any actual development, got all the training he needed from material on the web and trying it out on some 360s (which he later sold at a profit, so no loss whatsoever), and the special code is obtained on the web, if you know where to look. He doesn't actually mod anything physical, the warranty is left intact (though he does need to open the system for it to work -- but as long as the seal isn't broken, subsequent inspections wouldn't find anything) and he is yet to have people complaining about it.
Seriously, from what I understood, it's so easy anyone could do it. Microsoft tend to put a wrinkle on things whenever they release a new mandatory firmware update (which is few and far between) or when the newer models get upgraded parts (the disc drive is the crucial component here), but that only lasts a few days, couple of weeks at the most, then it's back to business as usual.
Oh, and there's no problem with XBL too, since there are no actual physical changes, and whatever "magic" is worked on the firmware serves only to allow non-original disks to play. Yeah, that thing with the hard drive is still locked, as far as I know, but pretty much the only thing that you can't do with this method is download a yet-to-be-released title and then try to go online with it. You _can_ play it before release date (he bragged about finishing a couple of major titles before they were even officially released -- Halo 3 comes to mind), but you must be careful to stay offline the whole time, else the XBL system will "see" what you're doing and you risk a ban.
As a PS3 owner, it _is_ a bit irritating that the competition is open to such exploitation -- you get to shell out your hard-earned cash for every single title worth its salt while your mate gets to play any title he likes for free.. But that usually means he's got so much (crap?) to choose from, he can't stick with any title long enough to finish them (bar a few notable exceptions).
I hear ya, and, again, I agree.
I don't see the EFF or other like organizations falling over themselves to come to her aid, do you? ;) I think pretty much everyone realized early on that this one was a losing battle. That she should probably have settled, shouldn't have lied/contradicted herself or otherwise engage in very suspicious behavior (the missing/swapped hard drive comes to mind). Even NYCL's coverage of the thing seemed far more distant than his take on other cases.
But everyone is entitled to put up a defense, and there were several things that could have gone in her favor (namely, the fact that MediaSentry should have been considered an unreliable source for evidence, which would probably have resulted in a default judgement for her) so I can't really blame her for trying.
Then there's this latest legal team, doing it pro bono. I suspect they were mostly trying to slay a giant, and the specifics of who it was they were doing it for take second fiddle to the chance at being renowned as the guys who whooped mighty RIAA's legal team's ass.
But don't fret. I mean, it took some doing but eventually the RIAA would find someone like Jammie and, given the scope of things, I think we're still pretty lucky that they haven't dug up a few more like her. She's one bad apple for this particular issue, but I doubt it'll spoil things.
If it turns out we can't change the way things are, then it'll be because the legislators simply don't care, have their pockets full or are incapable of grasping how serious this matter is for our collective future, especially in the cultural sense.
DRM, due to the constant breakdowns, is starting to get a beating even amongst people who don't have a clue, and eventually people will refuse to be treated has perpetual cash-cows.. From there to getting our fair use rights back and sane copyright limits is just a few steps.
I couldn't agree more, and many have said as much before, that Jammie is the worst kind of poster-face for the fight against the RIAA, the DMCA, current copyright laws and the insanity of the business practices of an industry who constantly shows no respect whatsoever to the artists they're supposed to foster and protect and the consumers who still make it possible for them to be a multi-billion dollar player.
But the fact is, however guilty Jammie may be, that judgement was nothing short of a legal railroading of her financial future (even if she eventually files for bankrupcy, it's not a pretty sight), and a completely disproportionate response/penalty to the offenses commited. I mean, I can certainly see the case for high damages when we're talking about people who not only wilfully infringe (the only way for her to get slapped with more than $30k per song), but more importantly profit from it. When profit is the motivation, then heck, by all means, go for the throat.
But a civil suit for copyright infringement that stems from a simple "I'm not paying for this", with no other financial motivations behind it, should never be able to reach such high figures. I always hate it whenever a judicial system takes someone and tries to "make an example" out of them, to discourage others from following. It's just too arbitrary, has led to many unsavoury situations in the past and is the opposite of how any judicial system should work -- all equal before the law.
You both have good points, but on the subject of Hitler's "demonic bad-ass bad-guy'ery".. Look at the world around you. Hitler was no more of a psycopath or sociopath than many, _many_ other relatively harmless people.
I mean, it's been over 50 years since the whole thing, it's been replayed extensively on TV and cinema, both in the documentary, factual sense, as well as fictional sense, and the slaughtering of Jews and all the other minorities perceived as "misfits" or "undesireables" by the 3rd Reich has been hammered home countless times. And yet, there are still many people today who seem to agree with Hitler's basic ideology -- just look at how the extreme right wing is doing in so many countries (some of which, the very same who suffered under the Nazis).
No, Hitler wasn't demonic, not by a long shot. I honestly feel that is the biggest insult and disservice we could do to all those who died as a result of his regime, his policies and the fight to get him and his cronies removed (including the many germans who were basically pressed into service to "defend" their country and payed the Nazis' folly with their lives) -- that we neglect the fact that he was no more of a homicidal maniac than countless others who preceded and succeeded him. That we wrap him up in a "out-of-this-earth-EVIL" shroud and fail to realize that while he was very definetely a _bad_ man, he wasn't much more so than many others who are alive right now (for quick, extreme examples of this, look up the number of times the world has basically ignored ongoing genocidal campaigns in Africa).
What puts Hitler in a different level is the scope of things, the reach and impact his sociopathic tendencies had. The cleverness with which he prayed on post-WWI resentment and grief and slowly carved an authoritarian regime for himself, allowing him to enact all of his mindless rage. That is the only true distinction between him and many others today: that he got to a place where he could wield enough power to enforce his twisted ideology.
I'd venture that many of the extreme right-wing supporters out there would probably stop short of actually ordering the mass slaughter of countless inocent individuals.. But those aren't the ones I'm referring to. I mean the ones at the higher echelons who pray on that "immigrants get out" sentiment to further their agendas, to claw a little bit more power for themselves. I'm talking about the CEOs and higher execs and shareholders of huge multinational corps who think nothing of the misery that they help spread or pray upon in that most holy quest to buy their umpteenth mansion, private jet, ferrari, etc. That level of carelessness, lack of empathy is right up there with Hitler's.
Pretending the man was a one-off fluke (because he was evil incarnate) is to delude yourself into thinking it could never happen again. And that's the first step in insuring that it will.
Hey there! Sorry to break up your post, but it makes it easier to reply. Disclaimer: I was born and raised Catholic, but am utterly agnostic.
"even the Pope objected"
Is it surprising that the Pope objected?
You're quite right, it's not the least bit surprising.
He's very conservative, and doesn't even approve of contraception for people with HIV.
Even considering that "conservative" is a staple of (nearly) all religions, I don't think that's the real problem here. The Catholic Church is officially against any form of birth control beyond the exercise of abstinence and the use of a few "natural" means for determining when said abstinence is to be exercised (that is, in the context of marriage, otherwise it's abstinence all the way) -- and they're hardly alone there.
In practise, many of the lower hierarchies turn a blind eye to this, and not all agree with the official stance on the use of prophylactics particularly with regards to the "fight" against HIV. But the Pope stands at the top of this structure and is heavily encumbered by the dictates of canon law and his predecessors. If you think it's tough getting a Congress/Parliament to back-pedal on a major long-standing issue, you'd be amazed at just how limited the margin is for real change in the Vatican.
This isn't, of course, an excuse, but you can't really expect that someone who has moved up in that kind of environment, who was elected by his peers -- mostly comprised of old men who are, on the whole, very out of touch with the cruel realities of this world -- to bring about a revolution. And when canon law specifically states that sperm is sacred, and that sex should only occur in the context of an attempt at procreation, well.. guess where that leads.
But if I caught your reference correctly, you meant the Pope's much maligned quote when he visited Africa a couple of months ago. And on that point, I think it bears explaining the following: beyond the fact that the Catholic Church is officially against the distribution of condoms in any way, shape or form, those particular comments were made in a slightly different perspective.
The gist of it was that just going ahead and distributing condoms for free, like many aid organizations want to do, can actually be detrimental to the issue of HIV in Africa. The Pope's point was that the condom itself isn't a silver bullet when it comes to stopping transmission. In most developed countries, these policies are usually undertaken side-by-side with information campaigns -- there's much more to "safe sex" than just using a condom. Avoiding risk behaviours, being criterious when choosing sex partners, understanding that all forms of sex (not just intercourse) can, and often do, result in transmission of STDs.
The problem is we're talking about Africa -- a continent with huge areas that have been sistematically devastated by war, with very few functioning democracies, very low standarts when it comes to human rights, despicable literacy levels, and a place where even Presidents of major countries hold and broadcast completely distorted, or downright wrong, ideas about STDs, specifically HIV.
Come to think of it, I think I've seen or read studies conducted in so called "first world" countries where a sizeable chunk of young people had serious misconceptions on these topics. The Pope's point was that Africa's situation is so bad that if we just carpet bomb them with condoms we may be helping to spread yet another myth -- that the condom solves it all. Because the reality of it is most agencies don't have the manpower nor the budget to do information campaigns, which are slow by nature, but can manage the delivery of huge quantities of the rubbery lil' devils.
Now, I totally agree that something is better than nothing, and strongly disagree with the deeper issue that the Catholic Church has with condoms, but I can't help but think that the Pope wasn't that
Well, the piece I saw on Euronews yesterday (I think) had the journalist saying that the move was a consequence of recent school shootings and, basically, just a way to uppease certain lobby groups that were demanding stricter gun control rules.
Now, I don't know if it's true, but it does seem like nothing more than a smokescreen manouver on the part of the German government.
It's actually funny, in a way.. I remember the first time I played paintball. Besides being tons of fun, I specifically remember how it struck me, for real, for the first time, just how easy it is to get killed in a combat scenario. One slip up, one moment's distraction, one false move, and you could end up with 4 members of the opposite team lined up in front of you like a firing squad (got blasted with something like 5 shots a piece that time, had to scream at them that I was dead -- corridor negotiation on an abandoned Asylum... man, what a perfect scenario for a match).
That and all the nooks and crannys where a shooter can hide and pick you off without you ever figuring out where he/she was.
Of all the people I know that play (or used to play) paintball, not one of them even owned guns. Yeah, they do have a certain charm, but .. *sigh* Correlation is not causation, anyone? (that is, assuming those recent school shootings even had any connection whatsoever to paintball).
Apparently the mods had a good night out.. Every single comment so far has been moded "Funny". And I'm pretty sure most of them weren't. A poster further down suggests that we may be dealing with shills.. But I shudder to think that slashdot is such a high-profile news site for drug companies, that they'd bother. So I'm going with drunk/stoned or otherwise giddy mods getting their rocks off.
Hmm.. "2009 A H1N1 flu" (or whatever it is that they've decided to call it) doesn't mess with your brain like that, right? Heh, not to worry -- if they are infected, I'm sure it won't spread.. Who're they gonna infect from their Mom's basement anyway? (bad taste? too soon? ok, I apologize.. carry on)
*raises hand* Sorry, Taiwan is an island _in_ China? Umm, so Hawaii is an island _in_ the USA?
The ambiguous way to go, without actually offending anyone, is to say that Taiwan is a chinese island (which China is another matter), or an island in the Sea of China, or even that it is an island off the south-eastern coast of China.
The xkcd comic the OP's referring to, or a similar reference, in six parts, no less, on Penny Arcade.
Now, obviously if falls under the category of "pulling numbers out of one's ass", but it does seem to make sense that whenever an author feels the need to make up too many words for his/her fantasy/sci-fi universe, it's probably because they lack a good plot to begin with..
I think the point of this story, though, is less about the coining of words or terms, but the fact that some concepts were actually envisioned (sometimes, pretty damn thoroughly) first in the realm of fiction and only later translated into science or actual technologies. I find it far more interesting that someone envisioned the role of a genetic engineer all those years before genetics really took off, than the fact that they managed to coin the term for it. I'm less impressed by the coining of "meme" or "memetics", than I am about the implications that the study of human-propagated "stories" have on anthropology.
Same here.. In regards to the iPhone itself, I seem to recall Spain's Telefonica offering (through Movistar) several options for contract (usually the same duration, but different SMS/data/voice minutes package -- and obviously different minimum monthly payments) as well as different options for pay-as-you-go cards (operators usually have more than one type of PAYG cards that try to tailor different usage habits). Check it out here (flash page).
Now, when I did look into it (before deciding it wasn't really worth it -- not saying the iPhone isn't a decent piece of hardware, but it's not THAT great either) most iPhone-specific fees (like the ones Movistar applies) relate to the heavy use of mobile internet.. And to cash in on the thing, but at the same time making the actual mobile bandwith costs reasonable, that fee was applied on top of existing ones.
You can get pretty much the same deals on any other smartphone on the market, it's just that the hype the iPhone generated prompted some operators to really look at the whole thing in a more sane way -- which is a Good Thing(TM). Now, most plans come with a reasonable ammount of web traffic included and you can pay separately to up the montly cap (a-la iPhone fee) if you typically need it, or just pay the excess at the penalty rates.
As for the rest: here in Portugal, it's very rare for people to actually buy the hardware itself. The subsidized phone is far cheaper, you ARE going to spend money on usage anyway, so why not have the operator partially subsidize the cost of the equipment required to use their services? Now, that means that technically the phone isn't really yours until the 2-year period expires, but that's ok. It also means that the phone is usally sim-locked to only allow usage of that particular operator's SIM cards, which isn't so great, but you CAN pay for a legal unlock (it usually runs about €100 over here).
As it stands right now, we have a 16+ year running multiple phone contract (actually, more like 3 different package deals) going with our operator, which we routinely negotiate and keep getting the best deals in town.. Sometimes the competition offers better terms, but that's usually fixed by getting our operator to at least match their offer. Oh, and we can buy any phone we like (not just limited to whatever the operator is offering at the moment), locked or otherwise, and get fully credited on our account -- not just for minutes that we have to use, but on the actual balance (ie, there was a point late last year where we went two months without paying because we had too much accumulated credit -- we could either use it to order products from them, like phones, or get a full rebate.. guess what we chose?).
You're not getting it.. We're talking PRESCRIPTION-strength Ibuprofen (but still, as pain relievers go, even "prescription-strength" Ibuprofen can't possibily be _that_ strong). Ibuprofen that she was SUSPECTED of possessing.
The strip-search found no drugs (over-the-counter legal, prescription legal [who's to say that if she HAD that Ibuprofen, it hadn't been given to her by her parents?] or illegal -- NO DRUGS WERE FOUND).
So this is a strip-search on school grounds, for SUSPICION of violation of school policies (note, not necessarilly un unlawful act) done on an UNDERAGE kid.. And at 13, even if she had done something illegal, many prosecutors would hesitate to try her as an adult.
I mean, FFS.. How much more are you guys going to take? I mean, next you'll be having the principal making the decision on whether one of his students should or should not talk to the cops, if they're on school grounds. Where the hell did parental consent go? And I don't care whatever forms the parents were forced to sign (can you even refuse to adhere to the schools policy? -- I mean, probably you can, but not without being force to homeschool them), some rights cannot be forfeit. A parent's right to protect and make decisions for their children is one of them.. One that only a judge can overturn (compare this to parents refusing possibly life-saving medical intervention on religious grounds -- the doctors can get in real trouble if they don't clear it with their legal department, sometimes a judge, before they proceed -- so much power is given to the parents in this life-or-death case, and yet when it comes to the privacy of your kids they don't get a say?)
I guess if this isn't slapped down soon, you'll soon have discretionary cavity searches done on MINORS for mere SUSPICION of a POLICY VIOLATION!! Ok, maybe a bit much, but still FOR FUCK'S SAKE! Honestly, this is really one of those cases where you do need to "Think of the Children"(TM).
Actually, j (or i as is more commonly used) is the number whose square is -1 .. There's a difference here, in that j (or i) is both "- sqrt(-1)" AND "+ sqrt(-1)".
In calculations it's mostly irrelevant, but that is the correct definition for i / j ..
With regards to celebrities' medical info being released, doesn't that happen already? Either voluntarily, or because someone got paid to out it, there are very few "stars" out there that don't get their private info displayed on national media on a regular basis. In any case, as you just said, they at least have the resources to pursue any offenders, so personally I couldn't care less..
As for "everyday" citizens' medical records being vulnerable.. Well, as more and more info is added onto everyone's files, your records will be able to "paint" a pretty decent picture of how you are (physically and mentally) and what you've been up to, since you were born. All the procedures you had (no matter how small), all prescriptions and every single test result you've ever gotten.. Better hope you never have to do an STD test (wait -- aren't we all supposed to check that on a fairly regular basis?), and more importantly, better hope you never get a false-positive on a test for a particularly nasty disease.. Because if someone gets their hand on that information, they can seriously screw with your life.
And since all that info will now be located (or can be accessed) in/through a single site (pun intended), that basically becomes a single point of failure.. Think of the people who hack into CC companies' DBs to blackmail them.. Now think of the whole Jobs/Apple situation, especially with regards to his health status and its direct effect on the company's stock quote. Need I connect the dots?
Now, the breadth of information that EHRs will bring, and the centralization of all that info, can prove crucial to many scientific/medical breakthroughs, and if care is taken, I believe the gains outweigh the risks.. But care MUST be taken, and generally, governments aren't particularly good at keeping sensitive information secure (just look at all the slashdot entries for governmental screw-ups when it comes to security).
The thing that tickled me the most, however, was this:
FTFS:
[...] The electronic exchange runs on a database operated by a non-profit organization in Virginia and open-source software deployed at the Social Security Administration. [...]
Now, TFA states that this NPO is MedVirginia and their webpage has this to say:
Organizational Structure
MedVirginia, established in 2000, is a Virginia Limited Liability Company. Initial investors in MedVirginia are CenVaNet, a leading hospital and physician owned network based in Richmond, VA, and MedAtlantic, an affiliate of the Virginia Urology Center.
MedVirginia is governed by a 5-member Board of Managers. Officers of the company are: James Ratliff, MD, Chair; John Bowman, MD, Vice Chair; Jeff Burke, Secretary/Treasurer.
The remaining Board members are William Moore, MD and Eric Coté, MD.
Michael Matthews serves as CEO. Other key management are: Jean McGraw, Chief Operating Officer. Jeff Odell, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, and Joelle Buckner, Director of Information Technology.
[emphasis mine]
Now, IANAL and don't really know how LLCs work, but doesn't this sound eerily close to having a private entity "own" sensitive information pertaining to hundreds of thousands of citizens? Do they even have a choice on who gets to collate their info?