No, actually, democracy is fairly effective in preventing torture.
But the parent I replied to tried to state that it's effective in stopping spam, and it isn't. There are MANY good reasons to get China to become an open, democratic society with a strong tradition of free speech, but fighting spam is not one of them.
You really ought to read what people say, instead of just getting touchy about it, especially when you're getting touchy at someone who's proudly American.
When people hear "It can't play MP3s" it won't sell. It really is that simple. Anyone connected enough to use the internet to buy songs from MS is probably already using it for free MP3s.
The HDD only spins when its queueing up new songs, and is rated for a certain amount of impact while spinning (3Gs, IIRC). I don't think that the g-force during a jog on something sitting on your upper arm is more than that.
XBox games can only be played on the Xbox. Every Xbox game sold, MS makes some money via licensing fees.
Music, not so much on either of these. Music can be bought in ways that MS makes no money on, even if you want to use it on your MS player (if MS says only MS-bought files can be used on the player, I guarantee it'll be a failure), and a loss-leader MP3 player (read: very small hard drive with embedded computing board) would probably wind up being hacked more often than the XBox.
Actually, I was taking a picture of the Baha'i Temple in Wilmette once, at night (they light it up very nicely, beautiful building) and had building security come out to ask what I was doing. Explained, showed him my camera, he said "That's cool. If I give you my email address, will you send me copies?"
Best treatment I've had from a security guard, ever.
I'm not certain, to tell the truth; I think that it is possible, but has to do with phase cancellations. However, it only makes sense with a coherent light source; if you have an incoherent light source (like a light bulb) you have basically the same problem as broadband noise suppression, which is very, very hard.
The problem I'd see there is that it relies on the radiation pattern of the source being exactly cancellable; I would think that if you have something that radiates in a typical lobed pattern, you'd need a cancelling source that could radiate in an inverse lobe, which is (AFAIK) nonexistent.
Point sources radiate differently than spherical membrane surfaces, which is what a hypothetical sphere of radiators would approximate. Fans aren't even point sources, so your radiation pattern is even more different, plus there's the whole impracticality angle in terms of - it's a fan, if you surround it with a sphere of speakers, the air is no longer doing something useful.
But the approximation for a sphere of cone radiators (speakers) isn't the same as the approximation for a single point source.
Acoustics is confusing as hell, even if you've studied it, and it's been a couple years for me, so I might be off.
The glyphs they use for recognition are orientated; by processing the image of the glyph, the phone can determine a relative motion and rotation and suchlike, which allows it to work as a mouse, sort of.
Is there a claim that it could act as a keyboard? I didn't see it...
Anyway. Imagine a glyph which represents the volume control for your computer. Aim the phone at the glyph, then hold down the 'activate' button, and twist. The phone measures how much rotation you apply, and changes the volume accordingly.
Your analogy is flawed. Suppressing a light bulb is passive noise cancellation. This is equivalent to draping the fan in a sound-deadening material.
Active noise cancellation is different, and your statement is not usually true for active cancellation; ANC usually works better when you get the cancellation radiator closer to the receiver, as opposed to the noise.
Noise-cancellation as implemented by these systems relies on matching an equal in amplitude, but opposite in polarity, waveform, to the incoming acoustic wave. By combining a compression wherever there's a rarefaction and a rarefaction wherever there's a compression, you wind up with blissful silence. However, the nature of these systems dictates that the interference only happens at specific places; where the waveforms match exactly. If you could place your cancelling radiator at the same location in space as the unwanted radiator, with the exact same radiation characteristics, it would be great, but you can't. Instead, you get cancellations at certain locations and intensification of the noise at other locations.
Basically, due to acoustics, getting closer to the noise won't do you as much good as getting closer to the receiver of the noise. This is why NR headphones work great, and aren't hard to do, but NR for open environments is hard to do and doesn't work very well. No matter what you do, unless you can colocate the cancelling radiator, you will always make some parts of the freespace environment worse.
But most of us recognize that freedom comes with the inherent risk of abuse, and many believe that the possibility abuse is far better than the certainty of the lack of freedom.
In other words, I'd rather see 10% of the population infringe copyright than 0% of the population be able to transmit data over the net.
It's already public information, is the point. Anything else is a matter of degree; what exactly are you worried that they are going to do with your photo amongst one hundred thousand, obtained via database, that they wouldn't be able to do with just your photo, obtained by driving by?
I do the same thing, except the first time a cop rolls by I try to flag him down and explain what I'm doing. Most of them are fairly understanding; I've even had one get out and wave off (minimal) traffic so I could get a good angle on a photo. You'd be surprised how well talking to cops works, especially bored night beat cops. And if you've got one cop car hanging out, other cops will generally leave you alone, presuming brother cop knows what's going on.
I see no concern with the databasing; so anyone can cross-index a house adress with its frontal appearance - nothing they couldn't do by driving up in front of it.
Possibly design patents. Wouldn't restrict photographs, but you couldn't copy the design for your own building without permission from the builder, at least not within the patents period of protection.
Not my problem. People in my office like me because I do good work. They don't mind that I sometimes choose to do it in more pleasant circumstances than our office offers.
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No, actually, democracy is fairly effective in preventing torture.
But the parent I replied to tried to state that it's effective in stopping spam, and it isn't. There are MANY good reasons to get China to become an open, democratic society with a strong tradition of free speech, but fighting spam is not one of them.
You really ought to read what people say, instead of just getting touchy about it, especially when you're getting touchy at someone who's proudly American.
I think he has that great unknown to most slashdotters, a girlfriend.
A dinner out for two can hit 50 bucks, easy, especially if you have something to drink.
Yeah, because there certainly isn't any spam sent from the US.
Wait. Yes there is.
When people hear "It can't play MP3s" it won't sell. It really is that simple. Anyone connected enough to use the internet to buy songs from MS is probably already using it for free MP3s.
The HDD only spins when its queueing up new songs, and is rated for a certain amount of impact while spinning (3Gs, IIRC). I don't think that the g-force during a jog on something sitting on your upper arm is more than that.
I'm assuming that if they do all that, NO ONE will buy it.
An MP3 player that doesn't play MP3s? You must be fucking kidding.
You mean ns, right, not ms?
XBox games can only be played on the Xbox. Every Xbox game sold, MS makes some money via licensing fees.
Music, not so much on either of these. Music can be bought in ways that MS makes no money on, even if you want to use it on your MS player (if MS says only MS-bought files can be used on the player, I guarantee it'll be a failure), and a loss-leader MP3 player (read: very small hard drive with embedded computing board) would probably wind up being hacked more often than the XBox.
Not to take issue or anything, but... iPod mini is joggable. I'd even argue the iPod is, if you take the time to build an armband for it.
Actually, I was taking a picture of the Baha'i Temple in Wilmette once, at night (they light it up very nicely, beautiful building) and had building security come out to ask what I was doing. Explained, showed him my camera, he said "That's cool. If I give you my email address, will you send me copies?"
Best treatment I've had from a security guard, ever.
I'm not certain, to tell the truth; I think that it is possible, but has to do with phase cancellations. However, it only makes sense with a coherent light source; if you have an incoherent light source (like a light bulb) you have basically the same problem as broadband noise suppression, which is very, very hard.
The problem I'd see there is that it relies on the radiation pattern of the source being exactly cancellable; I would think that if you have something that radiates in a typical lobed pattern, you'd need a cancelling source that could radiate in an inverse lobe, which is (AFAIK) nonexistent.
Mmm... yes, and no.
Point sources radiate differently than spherical membrane surfaces, which is what a hypothetical sphere of radiators would approximate. Fans aren't even point sources, so your radiation pattern is even more different, plus there's the whole impracticality angle in terms of - it's a fan, if you surround it with a sphere of speakers, the air is no longer doing something useful.
But the approximation for a sphere of cone radiators (speakers) isn't the same as the approximation for a single point source.
Acoustics is confusing as hell, even if you've studied it, and it's been a couple years for me, so I might be off.
The glyphs they use for recognition are orientated; by processing the image of the glyph, the phone can determine a relative motion and rotation and suchlike, which allows it to work as a mouse, sort of.
Is there a claim that it could act as a keyboard? I didn't see it...
Anyway. Imagine a glyph which represents the volume control for your computer. Aim the phone at the glyph, then hold down the 'activate' button, and twist. The phone measures how much rotation you apply, and changes the volume accordingly.
Neat in concept; not sure how useful in reality.
Your analogy is flawed. Suppressing a light bulb is passive noise cancellation. This is equivalent to draping the fan in a sound-deadening material.
Active noise cancellation is different, and your statement is not usually true for active cancellation; ANC usually works better when you get the cancellation radiator closer to the receiver, as opposed to the noise.
Obviously you never studied acoustics.
Noise-cancellation as implemented by these systems relies on matching an equal in amplitude, but opposite in polarity, waveform, to the incoming acoustic wave. By combining a compression wherever there's a rarefaction and a rarefaction wherever there's a compression, you wind up with blissful silence. However, the nature of these systems dictates that the interference only happens at specific places; where the waveforms match exactly. If you could place your cancelling radiator at the same location in space as the unwanted radiator, with the exact same radiation characteristics, it would be great, but you can't. Instead, you get cancellations at certain locations and intensification of the noise at other locations.
Basically, due to acoustics, getting closer to the noise won't do you as much good as getting closer to the receiver of the noise. This is why NR headphones work great, and aren't hard to do, but NR for open environments is hard to do and doesn't work very well. No matter what you do, unless you can colocate the cancelling radiator, you will always make some parts of the freespace environment worse.
No, that's abuse of freedom.
But most of us recognize that freedom comes with the inherent risk of abuse, and many believe that the possibility abuse is far better than the certainty of the lack of freedom.
In other words, I'd rather see 10% of the population infringe copyright than 0% of the population be able to transmit data over the net.
No, it really isn't.
/.ers.
You know why? Because no one was going to buy it anyway except
It's already public information, is the point. Anything else is a matter of degree; what exactly are you worried that they are going to do with your photo amongst one hundred thousand, obtained via database, that they wouldn't be able to do with just your photo, obtained by driving by?
Not as much fun as trolling the ACs on slashdot, though.
But yes, I have tried k5.
Nah, I don't like the word sheeple. I usually just go straight to "idiots".
Look at my comment history re: the Agrowaste story, and you will understand where I was coming from.
I do the same thing, except the first time a cop rolls by I try to flag him down and explain what I'm doing. Most of them are fairly understanding; I've even had one get out and wave off (minimal) traffic so I could get a good angle on a photo. You'd be surprised how well talking to cops works, especially bored night beat cops. And if you've got one cop car hanging out, other cops will generally leave you alone, presuming brother cop knows what's going on.
I see no concern with the databasing; so anyone can cross-index a house adress with its frontal appearance - nothing they couldn't do by driving up in front of it.
Possibly design patents. Wouldn't restrict photographs, but you couldn't copy the design for your own building without permission from the builder, at least not within the patents period of protection.
Not my problem. People in my office like me because I do good work. They don't mind that I sometimes choose to do it in more pleasant circumstances than our office offers.
You wouldn't happen to drive an SUV, would you?
No, it's copyright.
Copy editors for newspapers copywrite; everyone else copyrights. Actually, news editors do both.