Ideas like these really seem to show how much high DVD prices and high music CD prices are real ripoffs.
It will not be any easier or cheaper for the companies to produce self destruction media, in fact they should be more expensive due to the fact that there are now research costs to recover. Yet, they want to sell these for less than current DVDs. How much is the mark up on DVDs?
This would not be so bad if there was competition but since the recording and movie industries have presented united fronts, there is no free market competition to bring down the prices. Isn't price fixing illegal?
I think there is a huge untapped market for cheap movies. I go to the video store and there are a lot of older movies I can't find. Same with old music. I think that it probably would be profitable to sell to this market in the traditional manner we look at profit and loss. but the limiting factor, the reason they want such a strangle hold on the market, is the eyeball factor. Each person has only so much time to be looking at movies, advertising and the web. I think that companies want us focused on the new stuff with the huge advertising and merchandizing tie-ins.
Maybe I don't want to buy into the hype. Maybe I want to spend my entertainment budget on new movies. Maybe I would rather spend my time and attention on movies of the 1940's. Yes, there is expense involved in producing a larger variety of offerings, but I think it should be possible and profitable,but they want to steer comsumers toward new stuff as much as possible. They don't want to lose eyeballs. Companies won't pay as much for product placement if there are fewer comsumers watching. DVD's that last forever are bad to this industry, because they let consumers view movies even after the hype has subsided.
Broadcast networks faced this situation. Once they had the monopoly. I have heard that streets were emptied when Milton Berle's show came on. No time shifting, if you wanted to see it, you had to see it then. Very sweet for networks and sponsors alike. Then came cable. Then came VCRs, etc. The recording industry and hollywood don't want the same thing to happen to them. They certainly don't want to provide their own conpetiton bu making it easy to consumers to timeshift viewing and keep old media forever.
The competition for eyeballs is fierce. Companies will do their best to focus as many eyeballs on what is the most profitable for them. Competiton should mean cheaper prices, but it has not fr the recording industry, and for the movie industry. Something is very wrong. This product is a symptom of a sick culture.
I seriously doubt that this will be that dangerous, no more so than drinking a glass of brandy at least or using a butane lighter. I imagine it will be much safer than driving a car.
I just talked to an @home rep, Josh, about this UDP. I tried to explain. He said "If this usenet corportation has a problem with @home users, then it is there problem." He also said, "You can't expect us to be responsible for spam just because it comes from our network.
I do. I had to rely on my local library's internet access for years before I could afford my own. Library's are for providing information, not babysitting purposes.
In my experience, these filters block out may sites that I want to see, and I do mean porn. They block many medical sites, many political sites and many miscellaneous sites such as geocities. I learned how much this could hinder reseach when the company I used to work for began using CyberPatrol. It seemed everytime I searched for info on a problem we experienced or information on new software the top 5 returned sites were blocked by CyberPatrol. I will do what I can to keep theses filters out of libraries.
Why would they not just clean them off and let them go? It would kill them. Why clean the birds and then let them die?????
According to the story they are cleaned with solvents and then kept in a penguin hospital in the little sweaters until they test waterproof and then they are released. The cleaning strips away their natural oils and they would freeze if they were released quickly. The sweaters prevent the penguin from trying to clean themselves and thus getting poisoned. From the sounds of it, they also keep them warm.
I have a couple of servers that must be backed up manually. One of them I backup only when some thing changes, which is less than once a month. I had backed it up less than a month ago.
I was sick and could not come in today for the last paranoid little backup before Y2K. My boss somehow hosed this server by backing it up and i spent a few hours reconstructing that server from scratch. Not easy with fever making me a bit out of it. But i had to get it up quickly lest the rest of the company think we had Y2K issues.
If he had done nothing, i am sure the system would be fine. *sigh*
The proper use of this would be to simply use it as a replacement for strip searches. If it were, this would seemingly be less invasive. It would be good if they gave you a choice between this a a strip search, some would wonder if this is perhaps a carcinogen.
But because it could easily be used on everyone, then It probably will be used far more extensively than strip searches. I really don't think this will make us any safer. What i personally dread are the snide remarks made by the guards viewing the images.
I imagine if ppl can write DVD drivers they will add options that the company doesn't want them to have. Oh well. They are buying acess to the info on the disk. As long as they do not copy and redistribute the copy, or brodcast it, or pirate it, i see no harm. Since DVDs do hold such massive amounts of data and there are other ways to pirate movies already, I assume this lawsuit is not about fear of a DVD piracy movement. I think it must be about being able to use DVD's in some manner that the ppl making the DVD players and DVD's don't like. What way is that?
Hmm, I have noticed a striking resemblance of this fight to the fight against MP3's. Here is a thought. One reason I like MP3's is that I can hear my music in a new way from a form that I chose without repurchasing the same music over and over again. It was tiring buying the CD of the tape of my favorite LP. I legitmately own at least 3 copies of some songs. I had a few cassette tapes break and had to buy second copies. I hated that.
But, if i duplicate my CD's, I have a backup in case one is scratched. I can also use my computer to transform the music into the format du jour. I don't pirate. I do have MP3's of songs on CD's that I own. I make certain those CD's and those MP3's are not playing at the same time. Nothing illegal about what i do, but it does keep some of my money in my pockets and out of the makers of CD's and tapes, etc.
As it stands now, If companies quit producing players and drivers for Windows, DVD's could become as useless as an 8 track tape without a player. I am sure at one point Windows will change enough that the current players/drivers won't work. They can then sell us our old favorites again if they choose. They can also choose to not sell us those favorites so that we are prompted to look into the new offerings.
If however, we know the algorithm, we can make new players and we can change the format to suit the current formats, whatever they may be. We don't have to repurchase what we already have bought rights to. There is a strong motivation to have DVDs instead of VHS tapes. DVDs have more info and less degradation over time, like CDs. But how much better can the next format really be? I doubt it will be good enough to make me shell out another $10-$30. Not if i can still play what i have.
No, I drive a Saturn. That was one reason I chose it. I try to look at how self servicible anything I buy is. Even non-open source software. I have had to reccommend a database program for a Windows environment. One of the products that I reviewed had no way to rebuild or run maintenance on the database. The only way to do so was buy a service agreement and let them have direct access to your data and then they would run maintenance programs. I reccommendedd against that one out immediately, even MS Access is better than that! Yet others had bought that stupid product. My company bought that stupid program. A year later they were out of business. They saw a way to make a quick buck by forcing the user to turn to them for service. Any users that had trusted them to be around were screwed.
Way back before 8088's were the standard one company made a personal computer and had no way to format disks. You had to buy their disks preformatted. They did not last either.
Some ppl like not having any control, and therefore no responsibility over the things they use. The idiot who bought the pos database at my company liked that they would never have to tinker with it themselves. When it came time to have the company fix things they were SOL.
Well, i don't want to buy a DVD player at home now, but my work will soon provide a laptop with a DVD player in it. I will watch DVD's on it.
It seems all the new laptops and most of the Desktops are coming with DVD. I would not want to pay for that and not be able to use the DVD in my operation system of choice. This is also another snag for Linux acceptance. Jane user goes and buys a new computer and it has DVD. She is tired ofwindows crashing and has other uses for Linux, but doesn't want to make the move because DVD is then deadweight. She either goes dual boot, or doesn't switch.
The first thought that entered my head after the intial 'Gee Whiz' was "I wonder if there is another specieces close enough to humans to try this with, or one that could be genetically engineered to use for that purpose. Since ppl seem to be going to great lengths to overcome infertility, they may be able to get past the initial "ewww, a monkey" feelings to try this.
I think it is wonderful that technology can overcome some infertility, but the cross species troubles with viruses in recent decades makes this a particularly fightening path. Maybe such hosts would merely be used during research and never brought to term, but ethics aside, the bridge this gives micro-organisms from other primates to humans is something i don't think we want to provide. I really wonder how this will be used.
Assuming that God does exist and made us in his image, then why wouldn't we want to try to create life? Seems to me that the desire to do so may be designed in--assuming that we were designed.
I don't see why we should use this argument at all. First the Bible and your God don't even address it properly as sin. Seems to me that if you believe in God and the Bible you have enough rules to follow without making up more. This is in no way the same level of creation as the Creation of the Universe. It is building with blocks, while the universe was brought into being from a whole lot of nothing. Don't be so arrogant as to think this is tresspassing on God's territory.
OTOH, we should ask ourselves some questions. Is this wise. What damage could we do with this? Can we do this safely? One thing about life is that it is persistant. I can see us easily making something we cannot deal well with or get rid of easily. We can't even handle existing species.
I am salaried. I have a 35 hour work week, but I do need to do a weekly task after hours. Rather than schedule going home early, I just asked that when I take long lunches, I not be hassled about it. To be able to take time for a doctor's appointment and not be bothered about it. It is nice to be able to have some flexibility. There are always nosy busy bodies that seem to keep track how much every one else works. When the say something about my hours, my boss poinst to my sacrificing by staying late one a week and tell them to mind their own business.
Of course there are times I need to stay late for emergencies and there are times that I travel, and even stay over a weekend. There are also times when installations need to take place during off hours. When that happens, I get that same amount of time off. No hassels, no forms. I just let my boss know when.
I like working for a company that respects the time of salaried employees and have worked in those that don't. I have also worked in an hourly invironment so hectic that i worked a years worth of time in 8 months. I far prefer this environment.
I have a new co-worker that is having a bit of culture shock about it. He can't seem to get used to the fact that going home right on time doesn't get you in trouble (unless a critical system is down.) My boss finally had a meeting to let everyone in the department what he expects. I hope that helps; I like my new co-worker, but I don't want him changing our week to a +40 week.
This is from quite a while ago and from memory. A company was forced because of some legislation to change some jobs to accommadate women. The job of telephone lineman was one of the jobs. Reseaerch was done to make the job less upper body strength intensive, IIRC changing some of the wrenches to ones with fiberglass shaft, and changes like that. The net result was that the changes improve the job considerably for the men that held the job and ended up costing the company less in the long run because of a decrease in injury/turnover. Moral of the story was that government meddling actually made for betters business practices for once.
I love closed captions that are now built into my TV. I use them quite often. So do plenty of my friends. They would not be there without government interference.
I remember when lynx was my main browser. Worked fine. Most sites can be made at least somewhat accessible. http://www.cast.org/bobby/ gives good guidelines to do so. Windows can actually be used by people with various disabilities. Check out the control panel accessibilities sometimes. It could be better, but then it _is_ windows so what do you expect?
If Bill can try, so can AOL. For all I know they did try. I have never tried to use AOL with a text reader. They should make it handicap accessible, within reason. I got my company to add alt tabs to graphics on its page. Not an expensive thing, but it makes a big difference.
Remember, we may well join the visually impaired as we grow older.
It sounds like the people who designed this test looked at several incidences and then asked questions to see if the test takers show any of the same trends noted in the previous violent incidents. In other words they are looking to see if the answers kids give are what they would expect a violent persons to be given what they know of violent people. This is not a reliable way to design a test. It relies far too much on the designer's opinion and accurate self-reporting.
The most accurate psychological tests, the best predictors, are tests that are given to several groups and then the answers that each give are correlated to their behavior-even if the answers have nothing to do with the behavior. If a large percentage of the target group answers in a certain way, then a person who answers in a similar way will be pegged as part of the group. One example is the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Index. (By the way if someone wants you to take that test, don't take it and get a lawyer, fast.)
So let say the question "Do you like pink flowers?" is on the test and 90% of the violent people answer yes, and fewer of the non-violent people answer no, then people who answer yes get a point towards being in the violent group. This kind of scoring makes for far more accurate tests and helps eliminate bias in testing. Because the results can be repeatedly be re-interpreted as you learn more about your test subjects actual tendencies.
One downfall is that if it is really accurate, then you want to test those that are not now violent, but later get violent. A person's answers may well change after such an incident happens in their life. You want to base your answer profile on kids about to commit acts of violence. So you have to find a significant population like the one that you are looking for to hone the test scoring on. Properly done this means giving the tests to thousands and then waiting to see how their behavior actually is.
I don't see how this test could have been done this way. It looks more like a sham, an excuse to isolate a group based stereotypes. As bogus and dangerous as racial profiling. It may well become something of a self fulfilling prophesy if applied improperly.
I run a program, Proxomitron, that allows me to kill nosy scripts, kill geocities popups etc. At first it was divine, most banner ads were killed and a lot of annoyances were gone. Suddenly, i could not log into excite's free web mail unless i turned the Proxomitron off. It falsely tells me there is a communication error. This is not true. What is more, at one point I could log in fine with the proxomitron, this just started after a recent "upgrade". I have stopped using that account, but this is really annoying.
In a lot of the sci-fi books I read, all space travel vehicles have some sort of automatic identification transmitter. (You learn of this when the ship is stolen and the transmitter is disabled.) This new allocation of frequencies sets the stage for this possibility becoming a reality far before space travel becomes common.
How long can it be before all cars will have transmitters built-in that can be set with the VIN and other data like license plate number? This data could be used instead of video or photo evidence now used to automatically identify cars violating laws such as not paying tolls etc. I imagine the data would be much easier to store and search through--and gather. This could definitely be a big privacy issue.
Unlike computers, you already need to have cars registered. It would be easy to alter the laws to require a transmitter as well as a license plate. I also think it could be quite easy to gather this data by deploying sensors at various places like intersections. Many intersections already have sensors to activate the light. Surely it would not be that costly to build a box to gather transmitted data.
Of course this could have benefits, hit and runs may be easier to trace, but imagine the government being able to have that information, and possible even sell that information. They can sell your information that they gather at the DMV why not this?
The biggest barrier is not cost of all the transmitters and receivers. That could be funded by selling data or by other automotive related fees. The biggest barrier will be standardization. It is unlikely that all 50 states will work together on such a system; they can't even work together on automated toll systems. But if some clever company made the product, it may well be able to market it to eager communities and states.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I am saving them up. I will cut them in pieces with my scroll saw to form a mosaic.
Ideas like these really seem to show how much high DVD prices and high music CD prices are real ripoffs.
It will not be any easier or cheaper for the companies to produce self destruction media, in fact they should be more expensive due to the fact that there are now research costs to recover. Yet, they want to sell these for less than current DVDs. How much is the mark up on DVDs?
This would not be so bad if there was competition but since the recording and movie industries have presented united fronts, there is no free market competition to bring down the prices. Isn't price fixing illegal?
I think there is a huge untapped market for cheap movies. I go to the video store and there are a lot of older movies I can't find. Same with old music. I think that it probably would be profitable to sell to this market in the traditional manner we look at profit and loss. but the limiting factor, the reason they want such a strangle hold on the market, is the eyeball factor. Each person has only so much time to be looking at movies, advertising and the web. I think that companies want us focused on the new stuff with the huge advertising and merchandizing tie-ins.
Maybe I don't want to buy into the hype. Maybe I want to spend my entertainment budget on new movies. Maybe I would rather spend my time and attention on movies of the 1940's. Yes, there is expense involved in producing a larger variety of offerings, but I think it should be possible and profitable,but they want to steer comsumers toward new stuff as much as possible. They don't want to lose eyeballs. Companies won't pay as much for product placement if there are fewer comsumers watching. DVD's that last forever are bad to this industry, because they let consumers view movies even after the hype has subsided.
Broadcast networks faced this situation. Once they had the monopoly. I have heard that streets were emptied when Milton Berle's show came on. No time shifting, if you wanted to see it, you had to see it then. Very sweet for networks and sponsors alike. Then came cable. Then came VCRs, etc. The recording industry and hollywood don't want the same thing to happen to them. They certainly don't want to provide their own conpetiton bu making it easy to consumers to timeshift viewing and keep old media forever.
The competition for eyeballs is fierce. Companies will do their best to focus as many eyeballs on what is the most profitable for them. Competiton should mean cheaper prices, but it has not fr the recording industry, and for the movie industry. Something is very wrong. This product is a symptom of a sick culture.
I seriously doubt that this will be that dangerous, no more so than drinking a glass of brandy at least or using a butane lighter. I imagine it will be much safer than driving a car.
I just talked to an @home rep, Josh, about this UDP. I tried to explain. He said "If this usenet corportation has a problem with @home users, then it is there problem." He also said, "You can't expect us to be responsible for spam just because it comes from our network.
I have @home. I say the UDP is well deserved.
I do. I had to rely on my local library's internet access for years before I could afford my own. Library's are for providing information, not babysitting purposes.
In my experience, these filters block out may sites that I want to see, and I do mean porn. They block many medical sites, many political sites and many miscellaneous sites such as geocities. I learned how much this could hinder reseach when the company I used to work for began using CyberPatrol. It seemed everytime I searched for info on a problem we experienced or information on new software the top 5 returned sites were blocked by CyberPatrol. I will do what I can to keep theses filters out of libraries.
Why would they not just clean them off and let them go? It would kill them. Why clean the birds and then let them die?????
According to the story they are cleaned with solvents and then kept in a penguin hospital in the little sweaters until they test waterproof and then they are released. The cleaning strips away their natural oils and they would freeze if they were released quickly. The sweaters prevent the penguin from trying to clean themselves and thus getting poisoned. From the sounds of it, they also keep them warm.
I have a couple of servers that must be backed up manually. One of them I backup only when some thing changes, which is less than once a month. I had backed it up less than a month ago.
I was sick and could not come in today for the last paranoid little backup before Y2K. My boss somehow hosed this server by backing it up and i spent a few hours reconstructing that server from scratch. Not easy with fever making me a bit out of it. But i had to get it up quickly lest the rest of the company think we had Y2K issues.
If he had done nothing, i am sure the system would be fine. *sigh*
The proper use of this would be to simply use it as a replacement for strip searches. If it were, this would seemingly be less invasive. It would be good if they gave you a choice between this a a strip search, some would wonder if this is perhaps a carcinogen.
But because it could easily be used on everyone, then It probably will be used far more extensively than strip searches. I really don't think this will make us any safer. What i personally dread are the snide remarks made by the guards viewing the images.
I imagine if ppl can write DVD drivers they will add options that the company doesn't want them to have. Oh well. They are buying acess to the info on the disk. As long as they do not copy and redistribute the copy, or brodcast it, or pirate it, i see no harm. Since DVDs do hold such massive amounts of data and there are other ways to pirate movies already, I assume this lawsuit is not about fear of a DVD piracy movement. I think it must be about being able to use DVD's in some manner that the ppl making the DVD players and DVD's don't like. What way is that?
Hmm, I have noticed a striking resemblance of this fight to the fight against MP3's. Here is a thought. One reason I like MP3's is that I can hear my music in a new way from a form that I chose without repurchasing the same music over and over again. It was tiring buying the CD of the tape of my favorite LP. I legitmately own at least 3 copies of some songs. I had a few cassette tapes break and had to buy second copies. I hated that.
But, if i duplicate my CD's, I have a backup in case one is scratched. I can also use my computer to transform the music into the format du jour. I don't pirate. I do have MP3's of songs on CD's that I own. I make certain those CD's and those MP3's are not playing at the same time. Nothing illegal about what i do, but it does keep some of my money in my pockets and out of the makers of CD's and tapes, etc.
As it stands now, If companies quit producing players and drivers for Windows, DVD's could become as useless as an 8 track tape without a player. I am sure at one point Windows will change enough that the current players/drivers won't work. They can then sell us our old favorites again if they choose. They can also choose to not sell us those favorites so that we are prompted to look into the new offerings.
If however, we know the algorithm, we can make new players and we can change the format to suit the current formats, whatever they may be. We don't have to repurchase what we already have bought rights to. There is a strong motivation to have DVDs instead of VHS tapes. DVDs have more info and less degradation over time, like CDs. But how much better can the next format really be? I doubt it will be good enough to make me shell out another $10-$30. Not if i can still play what i have.
No, I drive a Saturn. That was one reason I chose it. I try to look at how self servicible anything I buy is. Even non-open source software. I have had to reccommend a database program for a Windows environment. One of the products that I reviewed had no way to rebuild or run maintenance on the database. The only way to do so was buy a service agreement and let them have direct access to your data and then they would run maintenance programs. I reccommendedd against that one out immediately, even MS Access is better than that! Yet others had bought that stupid product. My company bought that stupid program. A year later they were out of business. They saw a way to make a quick buck by forcing the user to turn to them for service. Any users that had trusted them to be around were screwed.
Way back before 8088's were the standard one company made a personal computer and had no way to format disks. You had to buy their disks preformatted. They did not last either.
Some ppl like not having any control, and therefore no responsibility over the things they use. The idiot who bought the pos database at my company liked that they would never have to tinker with it themselves. When it came time to have the company fix things they were SOL.
Well, i don't want to buy a DVD player at home now, but my work will soon provide a laptop with a DVD player in it. I will watch DVD's on it.
It seems all the new laptops and most of the Desktops are coming with DVD. I would not want to pay for that and not be able to use the DVD in my operation system of choice. This is also another snag for Linux acceptance. Jane user goes and buys a new computer and it has DVD. She is tired ofwindows crashing and has other uses for Linux, but doesn't want to make the move because DVD is then deadweight. She either goes dual boot, or doesn't switch.
Could someone please post a translation?
The first thought that entered my head after the intial 'Gee Whiz' was "I wonder if there is another specieces close enough to humans to try this with, or one that could be genetically engineered to use for that purpose. Since ppl seem to be going to great lengths to overcome infertility, they may be able to get past the initial "ewww, a monkey" feelings to try this.
I think it is wonderful that technology can overcome some infertility, but the cross species troubles with viruses in recent decades makes this a particularly fightening path. Maybe such hosts would merely be used during research and never brought to term, but ethics aside, the bridge this gives micro-organisms from other primates to humans is something i don't think we want to provide. I really wonder how this will be used.
Assuming that God does exist and made us in his image, then why wouldn't we want to try to create life? Seems to me that the desire to do so may be designed in--assuming that we were designed.
I don't see why we should use this argument at all. First the Bible and your God don't even address it properly as sin. Seems to me that if you believe in God and the Bible you have enough rules to follow without making up more. This is in no way the same level of creation as the Creation of the Universe. It is building with blocks, while the universe was brought into being from a whole lot of nothing. Don't be so arrogant as to think this is tresspassing on God's territory.
OTOH, we should ask ourselves some questions. Is this wise. What damage could we do with this? Can we do this safely? One thing about life is that it is persistant. I can see us easily making something we cannot deal well with or get rid of easily. We can't even handle existing species.
I am salaried. I have a 35 hour work week, but I do need to do a weekly task after hours. Rather than schedule going home early, I just asked that when I take long lunches, I not be hassled about it. To be able to take time for a doctor's appointment and not be bothered about it. It is nice to be able to have some flexibility. There are always nosy busy bodies that seem to keep track how much every one else works. When the say something about my hours, my boss poinst to my sacrificing by staying late one a week and tell them to mind their own business.
Of course there are times I need to stay late for emergencies and there are times that I travel, and even stay over a weekend. There are also times when installations need to take place during off hours. When that happens, I get that same amount of time off. No hassels, no forms. I just let my boss know when.
I like working for a company that respects the time of salaried employees and have worked in those that don't. I have also worked in an hourly invironment so hectic that i worked a years worth of time in 8 months. I far prefer this environment.
I have a new co-worker that is having a bit of culture shock about it. He can't seem to get used to the fact that going home right on time doesn't get you in trouble (unless a critical system is down.) My boss finally had a meeting to let everyone in the department what he expects. I hope that helps; I like my new co-worker, but I don't want him changing our week to a +40 week.
This is from quite a while ago and from memory. A company was forced because of some legislation to change some jobs to accommadate women. The job of telephone lineman was one of the jobs. Reseaerch was done to make the job less upper body strength intensive, IIRC changing some of the wrenches to ones with fiberglass shaft, and changes like that. The net result was that the changes improve the job considerably for the men that held the job and ended up costing the company less in the long run because of a decrease in injury/turnover. Moral of the story was that government meddling actually made for betters business practices for once.
"Somehow I suspect that making your own modifications to the Bible and redistributing it as a new and improved version would be frowned upon..."
Hmm, some say that Christianity and its denomination do this regularly. New testament and book of Morman and the various Apocrypha come to mind
How likely is a breakup and what form would it take?
I love closed captions that are now built into my TV. I use them quite often. So do plenty of my friends. They would not be there without government interference.
I remember when lynx was my main browser. Worked fine. Most sites can be made at least somewhat accessible. http://www.cast.org/bobby/ gives good guidelines to do so. Windows can actually be used by people with various disabilities. Check out the control panel accessibilities sometimes. It could be better, but then it _is_ windows so what do you expect?
If Bill can try, so can AOL. For all I know they did try. I have never tried to use AOL with a text reader. They should make it handicap accessible, within reason. I got my company to add alt tabs to graphics on its page. Not an expensive thing, but it makes a big difference.
Remember, we may well join the visually impaired as we grow older.
Can't deny the fossils found in coal. So at least there is at least a fossil fuel.
It sounds like the people who designed this test looked at several incidences and then asked questions to see if the test takers show any of the same trends noted in the previous violent incidents. In other words they are looking to see if the answers kids give are what they would expect a violent persons to be given what they know of violent people. This is not a reliable way to design a test. It relies far too much on the designer's opinion and accurate self-reporting.
The most accurate psychological tests, the best predictors, are tests that are given to several groups and then the answers that each give are correlated to their behavior-even if the answers have nothing to do with the behavior. If a large percentage of the target group answers in a certain way, then a person who answers in a similar way will be pegged as part of the group. One example is the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Index. (By the way if someone wants you to take that test, don't take it and get a lawyer, fast.)
So let say the question "Do you like pink flowers?" is on the test and 90% of the violent people answer yes, and fewer of the non-violent people answer no, then people who answer yes get a point towards being in the violent group. This kind of scoring makes for far more accurate tests and helps eliminate bias in testing. Because the results can be repeatedly be re-interpreted as you learn more about your test subjects actual tendencies.
One downfall is that if it is really accurate, then you want to test those that are not now violent, but later get violent. A person's answers may well change after such an incident happens in their life. You want to base your answer profile on kids about to commit acts of violence. So you have to find a significant population like the one that you are looking for to hone the test scoring on. Properly done this means giving the tests to thousands and then waiting to see how their behavior actually is.
I don't see how this test could have been done this way. It looks more like a sham, an excuse to isolate a group based stereotypes. As bogus and dangerous as racial profiling. It may well become something of a self fulfilling prophesy if applied improperly.
I run a program, Proxomitron, that allows me to kill nosy scripts, kill geocities popups etc. At first it was divine, most banner ads were killed and a lot of annoyances were gone. Suddenly, i could not log into excite's free web mail unless i turned the Proxomitron off. It falsely tells me there is a communication error. This is not true. What is more, at one point I could log in fine with the proxomitron, this just started after a recent "upgrade". I have stopped using that account, but this is really annoying.
I really wonder what exactly their page is up to.
If they can make mice glow, can reindeer be far behind?
In a lot of the sci-fi books I read, all space travel vehicles have some sort of automatic identification transmitter. (You learn of this when the ship is stolen and the transmitter is disabled.) This new allocation of frequencies sets the stage for this possibility becoming a reality far before space travel becomes common.
How long can it be before all cars will have transmitters built-in that can be set with the VIN and other data like license plate number? This data could be used instead of video or photo evidence now used to automatically identify cars violating laws such as not paying tolls etc. I imagine the data would be much easier to store and search through--and gather. This could definitely be a big privacy issue.
Unlike computers, you already need to have cars registered. It would be easy to alter the laws to require a transmitter as well as a license plate. I also think it could be quite easy to gather this data by deploying sensors at various places like intersections. Many intersections already have sensors to activate the light. Surely it would not be that costly to build a box to gather transmitted data.
Of course this could have benefits, hit and runs may be easier to trace, but imagine the government being able to have that information, and possible even sell that information. They can sell your information that they gather at the DMV why not this?
The biggest barrier is not cost of all the transmitters and receivers. That could be funded by selling data or by other automotive related fees. The biggest barrier will be standardization. It is unlikely that all 50 states will work together on such a system; they can't even work together on automated toll systems. But if some clever company made the product, it may well be able to market it to eager communities and states.