To me, personally, tabbed browsing by default is a reason not to use a browser. I find little else in a browser quite as annoying as decreasing my viewing area to do nothing more than recreate the Taskbar using Tabs instead. And a poor recreation at that.
Pop-up blocking built in is nice, but the Google toolbar takes care of that for me.
Newsflash: The proper words made up by 1337 h4x0rs addressed a need for a word in computer jargon. There's been a plural form of the word "virus" for a very long time now. Why do we need a butchered one that just applies to computers? Because the 1337s want to sound cool?
I was speaking more of those 1337 h4x0rs back in the 16th and 17th centuries, but okay, let's go with your definition then.
"addressed a need for a word" is the key phrase here. Very rarely does a need for a word cause someone to conciously create a word to address that need. Words are created, usually, by accident. They are created by usage, in that someone uses a word to describe a thing, it catches on, and suddenly the word describes that thing in many people's heads.
As to why we need a word that applies specifically to computers, I have no idea. I don't claim to know everything here, and I don't claim to be rebuilding the English language. I simply claim that when there is a need for a word, a word fills that gap automatically, whether somebody decides to create a word to fill it or not. I'm suggesting that, possibly, the need for the word exists since there is indeed a word to fill that particular hole. Why the need is there I make no claims to know.
But an easy way to refer to all computer malware as a group does seem to be something that exists, what with the amount of malware increasing recently. Virii is as good a word as any other to fit that hole.
The original post was a rant against the use of the word "virii."
Umm... No. You're confused. The original post was "First IA64 Windows Virus Released".
No wonder you think nobody has a problem understanding you; your own language-comprehension kills are sub-par.
Nobody does have a problem understanding me. And I have no problems understanding anybody else.
Um. No. That's called "baby talk."
Umm, no, that's called "language". We use it to "communicate". Are you not paying attention?
And finally, just to put the icing on the cake, he resorts to threats of violence.
I don't believe I threatened you in any way, shape, or form. I suggested that perhaps you had some kind of problem because you're the one claiming to fall into fits of hysterical laughter at the way other people talk, and made the observation that where I live that sort of thing does not occur. The real world is a violent place sometimes, and activities such as you are claiming to do would encourage violence in others. It was my way of casting doubt on your claims of openly laughing out loud at other people on a near continous basis.
You're a real ass, you know that? An utter twit, and an ass.
I don't know about a twit, but yes, I can be a total ass when I choose to do so. And it was pretty obvious that you are a fucking moron from your first post, but I think it unwise to point that out to people in the first reply to them. Let them dig their own hole, I say.
"They can figure it out from context" is not the same as "nobody has a problem understanding what I mean."
I'm aware of that, but the original post and the original posters later retraction of his use of the word virii proves your argument wrong.
He was writing the post, and suddenly needed a word to describe "plural of virus". He wrote "virii". The fact that he didn't notice it proves my point. It was in his mind as the plural of virus. Whether or not he knew the word was technically incorrect or not is beside the point. When you think of a meaning and get a word for that meaning, then that is a meaningful, real, word.
Now, you may not have the same associations, and might be confused by it. Again, beside the point. Enough people do have the association to instantly associate virii as the plural form of virus to make it a meaningful and useful word. The fact that it ain't in a dictionary means nothing in this respect.
It's even worse when spoken aloud. It's been known to produce fits of helpless laughter.
You must be tons of fun to talk to, laughing openly at other peoples word choices like that. Around here, that sort of thing would earn you a punch in the throat. But maybe things are different where you are.
That is consistency with others, not self-consistency. 'Virii' has nowhere near enough support to be considered a meaningful word.
I think the fact that we're having this argument, which is one that I have seen for at least the last five years, sort of argues against your point here. If there wasn't any support for use of the word "virii", then the original poster wouldn't have used it in the first place.. Okay, he later said he was wrong, but the fact of the matter is that the word was the first that came to his mind when he thought of the concept of "multiple + computer virus". Like it or not, it is a real word in the sense that it's used as a word with actual meaning inside many people's heads.
Using a word to annoy people is not a pleasant behaviour whether or not you agree with them on this one issue.
I never said I was pleasant. But I do find that use of the word separates the wheat from the chaff here. Anybody who objects to my use of the word virii is probably not somebody I'd be interested in knowing much better. They tend to be elitist pricks, in other words. No offense intended, as you may have been drawn into the argument for other reasons....follows standard English rules of pluralisation...
Every rule in English has exceptions, and pluralization has thousands of them. In point of fact, "rules" of a language is a stupid concept to being with. Language has no rules. Not really. People try to find rules and order in it to make it easier to understand, and these rules tend to self-propagate because people tend to follow them when creating new words unconciously(new words are rarely created delibrately, and when they are they rarely take hold). However, they are guidelines, not rules. "Conventions" is a good term, however the fact of the matter is that language evolves despite attempts to keep it "pure" by well-meaning but unfortunately deluded individuals to do so.
I'll continue to use virii, but thanks anyway. It's nice of you to try though.
I actually expected someone to use that very example, in fact. A word means what the people using the word to communicate agree that it means. Any other way of looking at it is totally ridiculous. Words are the medium by which the message is conveyed. They are *not* the message itself.
While you might not personally use "fo shizzle" (neither do I), the people that do use it, and communicate using that phrase, are no more wrong than you when you use some form of technical jargon or any other verbage that is specific to a particular group.
I know it may seem that way in 15 year-old script kiddie land, but professionals communicate with real words.
I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and I've been a "computer professional" for the last 10 years. Not that it makes any freakin' difference, as the concept is the important thing, not who states it.
Yes, but you also look like a fucking fool when you do because you decided to use a word made up by so-called 1337 h4x0rs instead of the proper, plural form that has existed for hundreds of years.
Clue time. A large number of proper English words were made up by some "l33t h4x0rs" back when they were originally used. Language self-evolves. Saying that one word is correct while another is incorrect, unless you're talking about problems with spelling, makes you into the fucking fool here.
The idea is not that they lower the priority on the packets to their competitors, but that the raise the priority on packets to their own services. This has a slight effect by lowering priority to everything not theirs, but the point is that their stuff would work top-notch on their own networks, while competitors wouldn't get such a boost.
If you used encryption and decentralization, it doesn't help you, because they're giving their stuff a boost, not directly giving other stuff a kick in the teeth.
I take this to mean that you don't think you use the word out of ignorance.
I mainly use the word because it pisses off people who are anal about the word "virii". I also like it more than "viruses". Forget Latin and all of that crap.. I don't know Latin and so that has no real bearing on my particular word choice here. I simply like the word better as it's more descriptive, IMO.
As far as pronunciation, I don't think I ever have said the word as I rarely talk about the subject in actual verbal conversation. If I were to pronounce it, "vye-rye" sounds better to me. I don't see how that would be an incorrect pronunciation though.
And again, all this is beside the point. As long as meaning is conveyed between the people doing the communicating, which word you use is irrelevant. The purpose of language is to communicate. Anything that achieves that goal is not only acceptable, but is, in fact, a valid form of language.
The person who uses a word because it sounds cooler and everybody still knows what he means, or the person who judges somebody as a "retard" for use of a single word?
I use virii, because I like that word better. And nobody has a problem understanding what I mean, therefore the point of language, namely communication, is accomplished just as well. Viruses looks and sounds fucking stupid. You retard.
The thing about the movie theater example is that it's not a complex transaction. Virtually all the prices are the same, and the total transaction time at the kiosk is about the same as the one for the human being. My local theater has kiosks scattered about the place, and I'll use them if there's nobody there when I happen to walk past them, but if there is, I keep walking to the cashier.
You say a movie name, hand them 5 bucks (or whatever) and get a ticket within about 15 seconds, maximum. If you're using a credit card, then it's much longer, I grant you, but few people use credit at the movie cashier window around here. I'll use credit at the kiosk, or cash at the window. Same timing delay either way.
But as to you original question, the reason they use that example is that it's an easy example. It's almost the perfect simplistic transaction, if you think about it. One price for one item, in its simplest form. And the general thinking is that if you can speed up a simple transaction by some amount, then a complex transaction can be sped up by some larger amount. Because the computer in the box can do all the work for you. You select what you want, it figures price/tax/whatever, charges you, delivers your product. The product in question (a ticket) is actually a service (the ability to see a movie). It can then take care of other things as well, like telling you when the movies are sold out (simple network transaction to a box doing, essentially, head counting). As simple as it can possibly be, really.
in fact this map looks like it was lifted more from that game than from 'watching episodes'.
Nice theory, but unfortunately this map has very little in common with the game. None of the major sections of town are in the right spacial relationships to each other.
The episode where Homer and Marge end up streaking through town and naked at the football game. During the chase through town, there's a bit on a hot air balloon.
"Now, let us thank the Lord for this magnificent crystal cathedral, which allows us to look out upon His wonderous creation." (Homer's hits the window and his ass starts squealing against the glass) "Now quickly! Gaze down at God's fabulous parquet floor." (still squealing) "Eyes on the floor... still on the floor... always on God's floor."
any law that makes fair use impossible is unconstitutional
That's just the thing though.. plugging the analog hole with consumer level equipment doesn't make fair use impossible, it just makes it prohibitively expensive, as you'll have to buy high end studio type gear to do it. That gear will have to be able to bypass these restrictions, as it's one of the things you need for stuff like video editing and so forth. So if it ever comes around to that stuff, they'll be able to argue that professional grade equipment is fully capable of doing stuff like video editing and such, and the fact that this stuff is overkill and priced way the hell out of the range of the average home viewer who just wants to copy something for use in his car or whatever will never come up.
Fair use will still be technically possible, but priced out of existence and effectively impossible for the average Joe User.
It's possible to make a watermarking technology for audio (several exist, in fact), but you're correct in that you wouldn't be able to prevent existing equipment from working properly.
However, that wasn't my point. Yes, you can't prevent existing equipment from working, but if you gain control over the design process for new consumer level equipment, you can build in your watermark recognition technology and let time and simple attrition take care of the old equipment.
Make no mistake, that's the roadmap they're following for the future. Every time you get legistlation requiring this or that tech to include support for "copy protection technology" or any sort, it's just building up to plugging the analog hole by default. If you can't buy hardware that will record protected content, then where's your fair use rights now? You still have them, but you can't actually exercise them.
And in case you forgot, Reimerdes lost that decision. They said that fair use was fine, but he wasn't engaged in fair use. He was offering DeCSS up for everybody to use in order to facilitate their fair use. So, essentially, Universal v. Reimerdes said that while it's fine for somebody to circumvent protections to enable fair use, it's not fine for somebody to enable others to be able to circumvent protections for fair use purposes. The only thing Universal v. Reimerdes enshrined is the ability to work within the confines that the copyright holders decide to give you.. The freedom to pace back and forth within the space that you have in your cage, essentially. You're free to crack the encryption and exercise your fair use rights, but you're not free to tell others how to crack their encryptions. Not everybody is capable of breaking CSS on their own, without outside assistance.
The analog hole can be plugged, and it would be if they had their way. Just because current hardware can record analog doesn't mean future hardware will. Especially not if they come up with a watermarking technology and then get laws passed requiring hardware to detect and act on said watermarks. The requirement for VCR manufacturers to not bypass Macrovision type protection techniques comes to mind.
they'll put a camera in front of the TV and accept the quality losses.
Until the TV picture is watermarked and the camera detects that watermark and refuses to record.
As long as you have control of the hardware, your scenario fits. But you don't have control of the hardware. The content providers are gaining that control by getting laws passed requiring compliance with their access control systems.
Don't think that just because current hardware can do the job that future hardware will too.
Second, escape velicity is a ballistic value, ie. the speed required to kick your butt off the planet from ground level going straight up.
No, escape velocity is actually misnamed. Velocity implies speed and direction. But escape speed is what it really is, since direction doesn't actually matter. The planet is round. When you go far enough, all directions become "up".
As long as you're pointed above the horizon, and as long as you have enough extra speed to overcome the friction due to the air you happen to be travelling through, then all you have to do to get off the planet is to go at escape speed.
Rockets go straight up to get out of the atmosphere in the fastest possible way, reducing drag and thus requiring less fuel. If fuel wasn't an issue (hah!) it doesn't matter which way you point the thing.
Now, getting into an orbit means going at a certain speed in that orbit, relative to ground. The original post is incorrect about the "what goes up fast, must come down fast" bit because, if you're in orbit, you *have* to be going at some given speed. That speed depends on the height of your orbit. That's kinda what "orbit" means.
It doesn't matter if it takes you 4 minutes or 9 days to get into a given orbit, you are still going at the same speed once you actually get there either way. You have to be. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to get there. Anything that falls to the earth from a non-orbital position hits the earth at 11 km/sec (escape speed), minus the speed that it bleeds off in the atmosphere.
The duplication controls have been adopted to protect broadcast copyrights, an NHK official said, adding, "Easy violation of copyright would make movie and music copyright holders reluctant to provide their works and prompt actors and singers to refuse to appear on TV."
Really? You mean they're not going to act or sing anymore? How are they going to get paid?
You're half right. Tech like water marking can survive a D-A and A-D transitions. And make no mistake, that's the long term goal here. These sorts of "flags" are just the beginning, because they introduce the concept of forcing equipment manufacturers to include enforcement of DRM technologies. It doesn't matter that the current technology is ineffective, what matters is that new hardware *must* support it, by law.
Once that framework is built into place, newer tech that can survive these conversions gets introduced, and it's easier to push it into the marketplace, because the law says that this sort of thing must be included in consumer hardware. Eventually, you don't have any hardware that will actually record that analog source. It'll all detect the watermark, and refuse to record. Oh, there will be workarounds, but this sort of knowledge is already forbidden for you to pass around, by the DMCA. That's right, it's illegal for you to tell somebody how to bypass a protection mechanism, be it by code or by word of mouth or by t-shirt. The DMCA makes no distinction between these methods.
And that's their vision of the future. Total control of all media. It's just that simple, really. You want to make a copy for your car? You can't. You want to watch the program later than they air it? Sorry, the broadcaster of the show has decided that you might skip the ads if you did that, so your recorder won't record it. And if you post anywhere telling other people how to fix these "problems" with the equipment they bought, armed guards show up at your residence and take you away and put you in a padded cell and stare at you thru a small window for the rest of your life, because you're an informational terrorist.
Pretty bleak, but unfortunately I don't think it's all that much of a stretch of the imagination anymore.
As I mentioned above, are your fair use rights being infringed if you don't have access to a 100% digital source?
If bypassing that protection on the digital source is made illegal by another law (say, the DMCA or something similar to it), then it's no longer quite as clear.
Essentially, you're saying that you can have all the fair use rights in the world, but they don't have to help you out. And I'm with you there, except when they're intentionally trying to block you out.
The future is digital, not analog. A lot of broadcast mediums nowadays are pure digital. XM Radio, HDTV, etc, etc. There's no analog signal to tap into.
If you are *unable* to exercise those rights, then you don't have those rights. And I'm not talking unable because of being poor or because of not having the proper equipment. I'm talking about being unable to exercise your fair use rights because the equipment and technology that would allow you to do so has been made illegal to sell, own, create, think of. That just ain't right.
4) Profit! Sony profits selling untold computing power to the highest bidder whilst making millions of gamers happy that they have no subscription fees to pay.
This assumes that you can actually make a profit selling massively parallel computing horsepower, something which has yet to be demonstrated.
There's a lot of applications for computing power along these lines, I grant you. However, I'm not sure that there's enough market (aka people willing to pay for this power) to reach or exceed a break even point on what the costs of that "free" gaming network will be.
Okay.. You only have 9 possible moves. So on each turn, you run through all your possible moves, one at a time. After each move you can make, you calculate what the robots will do (since this is known), and then make a choice. -If a move will get you killed, you eliminate it as a possibility. -If all moves will get you killed, you teleport and hope for the best.
The only real choice is when you have more than one move that will keep you alive, and just a few rules can make this fairly obvious on what to do.
-If all the robots are in line with you and there's a scrap pile between them and you, stand your ground. They'll eventually run into the scrap. -If a move will make robots collide, bump it up in priority a bit. Bump collisions that eliminate robots that are closer to you higher than collisions happening far away. -If a move will bring robots closer to each other on the same line, bump it up in priority a bit, because this sort of thing will eventually cause them to collide. Give extra priority to bringing together robots that are closer to you, because scrapheaps closer to you protect you from robots further away from you. -If a move will get you closer to any robots, lower it in priority a bit, because you want to keep your distance when possible. This should be less than the above priority adjustment because to bring robots together you need to have them on opposite sides of you, either vertically or horizontally.
Once you've done that, you pick the move with the highest priority. Then it's just a matter of tweaking these priority adjustments by hand until you find one that works good.
Apples are a null factor. The only way it states to end the game is to kill all the robots, and it says you get all the remaining apples after that anyway. So going after them is pointless with the rules as written. If getting all the apples also ends the game, then that's something else to consider as a factor, and makes it a bit more complicated.
Basically I'm saying.. move to a better place, heck you might even make some money in real estate in the process:) Hmm, not likely, considering two factors: 1) I don't own a house. 2) I'm only paying $250 a month for the two-bedroom I'm at now. Again, given that I'm living in the greater Seattle area, moving would be an incredibly foolish financial decision.
I hear you, but to truly be car free, a lifestyle change is kinda required.
I still own a car now, but I no longer use it much. I recently moved to a new town and am living downtown, right where the action is. My workplace is across the street. Bars/Movies/Entertainment is between 0-4 blocks away depending on the entertainment involved. Groceries are downstairs at a mini-market (slightly more expensive, but not too bad, really).
Essentially, think of all the stuff you need, and pick an area where all that stuff is. A lot of downtown districts are trying to pick up their economy by moving in business and residental and such like this.
It works like this.. way back before good transportation, people lived in small groups, in small areas. Nearly everything you needed was in that area. As transportation became cheaper and faster, the trend became to live in one area and work in another. This leads to the need for more transportation to move goods around and such.
Public transportation slightly ameliorates this need, but the state of public transportation in most places is just short of non-existent. If you were lucky enough to have good public transportation, you wouldn't be asking this question.;)
Anyway, the only alternative is to move to a location that's going back to the older, smaller community, sort of ways. Obviously this is dictated by the location of your workplace, since people don't often have a lot of choice in where they work these days. Look around that area. If there's nothing there, then my advice is to either find a new job or stop complaining about having to have a vehicle.;)
Electric cars are not an answer to the problem, BTW. Think about it.. Are you really complaining about cost factors involved (electrics won't be competitive in that arena anytime soon), or are you complaining about the need for the transportation in the first place? Do you really like having to drive to get to anywhere? I didn't. That's why when I found a job that offered a possibility of a location where I could walk to get *everything* I need to live (and no more than 4 blocks for any of it), I jumped on the chance. Been living here about 2 months now, and probably will be here a long, long time. I simply love living close to everything.
Okay, the nearest good electronics store is 20 miles away, but I can make a pilgrimage every few weeks.:)
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Tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking?
To me, personally, tabbed browsing by default is a reason not to use a browser. I find little else in a browser quite as annoying as decreasing my viewing area to do nothing more than recreate the Taskbar using Tabs instead. And a poor recreation at that.
Pop-up blocking built in is nice, but the Google toolbar takes care of that for me.
Newsflash: The proper words made up by 1337 h4x0rs addressed a need for a word in computer jargon. There's been a plural form of the word "virus" for a very long time now. Why do we need a butchered one that just applies to computers? Because the 1337s want to sound cool?
I was speaking more of those 1337 h4x0rs back in the 16th and 17th centuries, but okay, let's go with your definition then.
"addressed a need for a word" is the key phrase here. Very rarely does a need for a word cause someone to conciously create a word to address that need. Words are created, usually, by accident. They are created by usage, in that someone uses a word to describe a thing, it catches on, and suddenly the word describes that thing in many people's heads.
As to why we need a word that applies specifically to computers, I have no idea. I don't claim to know everything here, and I don't claim to be rebuilding the English language. I simply claim that when there is a need for a word, a word fills that gap automatically, whether somebody decides to create a word to fill it or not. I'm suggesting that, possibly, the need for the word exists since there is indeed a word to fill that particular hole. Why the need is there I make no claims to know.
But an easy way to refer to all computer malware as a group does seem to be something that exists, what with the amount of malware increasing recently. Virii is as good a word as any other to fit that hole.
The original post was a rant against the use of the word "virii."
Umm... No. You're confused. The original post was "First IA64 Windows Virus Released".
No wonder you think nobody has a problem understanding you; your own language-comprehension kills are sub-par.
Nobody does have a problem understanding me. And I have no problems understanding anybody else.
Um. No. That's called "baby talk."
Umm, no, that's called "language". We use it to "communicate". Are you not paying attention?
And finally, just to put the icing on the cake, he resorts to threats of violence.
I don't believe I threatened you in any way, shape, or form. I suggested that perhaps you had some kind of problem because you're the one claiming to fall into fits of hysterical laughter at the way other people talk, and made the observation that where I live that sort of thing does not occur. The real world is a violent place sometimes, and activities such as you are claiming to do would encourage violence in others. It was my way of casting doubt on your claims of openly laughing out loud at other people on a near continous basis.
You're a real ass, you know that? An utter twit, and an ass.
I don't know about a twit, but yes, I can be a total ass when I choose to do so. And it was pretty obvious that you are a fucking moron from your first post, but I think it unwise to point that out to people in the first reply to them. Let them dig their own hole, I say.
"They can figure it out from context" is not the same as "nobody has a problem understanding what I mean."
I'm aware of that, but the original post and the original posters later retraction of his use of the word virii proves your argument wrong.
He was writing the post, and suddenly needed a word to describe "plural of virus". He wrote "virii". The fact that he didn't notice it proves my point. It was in his mind as the plural of virus. Whether or not he knew the word was technically incorrect or not is beside the point. When you think of a meaning and get a word for that meaning, then that is a meaningful, real, word.
Now, you may not have the same associations, and might be confused by it. Again, beside the point. Enough people do have the association to instantly associate virii as the plural form of virus to make it a meaningful and useful word. The fact that it ain't in a dictionary means nothing in this respect.
It's even worse when spoken aloud. It's been known to produce fits of helpless laughter.
You must be tons of fun to talk to, laughing openly at other peoples word choices like that. Around here, that sort of thing would earn you a punch in the throat. But maybe things are different where you are.
That is consistency with others, not self-consistency. 'Virii' has nowhere near enough support to be considered a meaningful word.
...follows standard English rules of pluralisation...
I think the fact that we're having this argument, which is one that I have seen for at least the last five years, sort of argues against your point here. If there wasn't any support for use of the word "virii", then the original poster wouldn't have used it in the first place.. Okay, he later said he was wrong, but the fact of the matter is that the word was the first that came to his mind when he thought of the concept of "multiple + computer virus". Like it or not, it is a real word in the sense that it's used as a word with actual meaning inside many people's heads.
Using a word to annoy people is not a pleasant behaviour whether or not you agree with them on this one issue.
I never said I was pleasant. But I do find that use of the word separates the wheat from the chaff here. Anybody who objects to my use of the word virii is probably not somebody I'd be interested in knowing much better. They tend to be elitist pricks, in other words. No offense intended, as you may have been drawn into the argument for other reasons.
Every rule in English has exceptions, and pluralization has thousands of them. In point of fact, "rules" of a language is a stupid concept to being with. Language has no rules. Not really. People try to find rules and order in it to make it easier to understand, and these rules tend to self-propagate because people tend to follow them when creating new words unconciously(new words are rarely created delibrately, and when they are they rarely take hold). However, they are guidelines, not rules. "Conventions" is a good term, however the fact of the matter is that language evolves despite attempts to keep it "pure" by well-meaning but unfortunately deluded individuals to do so.
I'll continue to use virii, but thanks anyway. It's nice of you to try though.
Ah, so "fo shizzle" is valid, just like "virii"?
Yes. Yes, it absolutely is.
I actually expected someone to use that very example, in fact. A word means what the people using the word to communicate agree that it means. Any other way of looking at it is totally ridiculous. Words are the medium by which the message is conveyed. They are *not* the message itself.
While you might not personally use "fo shizzle" (neither do I), the people that do use it, and communicate using that phrase, are no more wrong than you when you use some form of technical jargon or any other verbage that is specific to a particular group.
I know it may seem that way in 15 year-old script kiddie land, but professionals communicate with real words.
I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and I've been a "computer professional" for the last 10 years. Not that it makes any freakin' difference, as the concept is the important thing, not who states it.
Yes, but you also look like a fucking fool when you do because you decided to use a word made up by so-called 1337 h4x0rs instead of the proper, plural form that has existed for hundreds of years.
Clue time. A large number of proper English words were made up by some "l33t h4x0rs" back when they were originally used. Language self-evolves. Saying that one word is correct while another is incorrect, unless you're talking about problems with spelling, makes you into the fucking fool here.
The idea is not that they lower the priority on the packets to their competitors, but that the raise the priority on packets to their own services. This has a slight effect by lowering priority to everything not theirs, but the point is that their stuff would work top-notch on their own networks, while competitors wouldn't get such a boost.
If you used encryption and decentralization, it doesn't help you, because they're giving their stuff a boost, not directly giving other stuff a kick in the teeth.
I mainly use the word because it pisses off people who are anal about the word "virii". I also like it more than "viruses". Forget Latin and all of that crap.. I don't know Latin and so that has no real bearing on my particular word choice here. I simply like the word better as it's more descriptive, IMO.
As far as pronunciation, I don't think I ever have said the word as I rarely talk about the subject in actual verbal conversation. If I were to pronounce it, "vye-rye" sounds better to me. I don't see how that would be an incorrect pronunciation though.
And again, all this is beside the point. As long as meaning is conveyed between the people doing the communicating, which word you use is irrelevant. The purpose of language is to communicate. Anything that achieves that goal is not only acceptable, but is, in fact, a valid form of language.
The person who uses a word because it sounds cooler and everybody still knows what he means, or the person who judges somebody as a "retard" for use of a single word?
I use virii, because I like that word better. And nobody has a problem understanding what I mean, therefore the point of language, namely communication, is accomplished just as well. Viruses looks and sounds fucking stupid. You retard.
The thing about the movie theater example is that it's not a complex transaction. Virtually all the prices are the same, and the total transaction time at the kiosk is about the same as the one for the human being. My local theater has kiosks scattered about the place, and I'll use them if there's nobody there when I happen to walk past them, but if there is, I keep walking to the cashier.
You say a movie name, hand them 5 bucks (or whatever) and get a ticket within about 15 seconds, maximum. If you're using a credit card, then it's much longer, I grant you, but few people use credit at the movie cashier window around here. I'll use credit at the kiosk, or cash at the window. Same timing delay either way.
But as to you original question, the reason they use that example is that it's an easy example. It's almost the perfect simplistic transaction, if you think about it. One price for one item, in its simplest form. And the general thinking is that if you can speed up a simple transaction by some amount, then a complex transaction can be sped up by some larger amount. Because the computer in the box can do all the work for you. You select what you want, it figures price/tax/whatever, charges you, delivers your product. The product in question (a ticket) is actually a service (the ability to see a movie). It can then take care of other things as well, like telling you when the movies are sold out (simple network transaction to a box doing, essentially, head counting). As simple as it can possibly be, really.
in fact this map looks like it was lifted more from that game than from 'watching episodes'.
Nice theory, but unfortunately this map has very little in common with the game. None of the major sections of town are in the right spacial relationships to each other.
The episode where Homer and Marge end up streaking through town and naked at the football game. During the chase through town, there's a bit on a hot air balloon.
"Now, let us thank the Lord for this magnificent crystal cathedral, which allows us to look out upon His wonderous creation."
(Homer's hits the window and his ass starts squealing against the glass)
"Now quickly! Gaze down at God's fabulous parquet floor."
(still squealing)
"Eyes on the floor... still on the floor... always on God's floor."
any law that makes fair use impossible is unconstitutional
That's just the thing though.. plugging the analog hole with consumer level equipment doesn't make fair use impossible, it just makes it prohibitively expensive, as you'll have to buy high end studio type gear to do it. That gear will have to be able to bypass these restrictions, as it's one of the things you need for stuff like video editing and so forth. So if it ever comes around to that stuff, they'll be able to argue that professional grade equipment is fully capable of doing stuff like video editing and such, and the fact that this stuff is overkill and priced way the hell out of the range of the average home viewer who just wants to copy something for use in his car or whatever will never come up.
Fair use will still be technically possible, but priced out of existence and effectively impossible for the average Joe User.
It's possible to make a watermarking technology for audio (several exist, in fact), but you're correct in that you wouldn't be able to prevent existing equipment from working properly.
However, that wasn't my point. Yes, you can't prevent existing equipment from working, but if you gain control over the design process for new consumer level equipment, you can build in your watermark recognition technology and let time and simple attrition take care of the old equipment.
Make no mistake, that's the roadmap they're following for the future. Every time you get legistlation requiring this or that tech to include support for "copy protection technology" or any sort, it's just building up to plugging the analog hole by default. If you can't buy hardware that will record protected content, then where's your fair use rights now? You still have them, but you can't actually exercise them.
And in case you forgot, Reimerdes lost that decision. They said that fair use was fine, but he wasn't engaged in fair use. He was offering DeCSS up for everybody to use in order to facilitate their fair use. So, essentially, Universal v. Reimerdes said that while it's fine for somebody to circumvent protections to enable fair use, it's not fine for somebody to enable others to be able to circumvent protections for fair use purposes. The only thing Universal v. Reimerdes enshrined is the ability to work within the confines that the copyright holders decide to give you.. The freedom to pace back and forth within the space that you have in your cage, essentially. You're free to crack the encryption and exercise your fair use rights, but you're not free to tell others how to crack their encryptions. Not everybody is capable of breaking CSS on their own, without outside assistance.
The analog hole can be plugged, and it would be if they had their way. Just because current hardware can record analog doesn't mean future hardware will. Especially not if they come up with a watermarking technology and then get laws passed requiring hardware to detect and act on said watermarks. The requirement for VCR manufacturers to not bypass Macrovision type protection techniques comes to mind.
they'll put a camera in front of the TV and accept the quality losses.
Until the TV picture is watermarked and the camera detects that watermark and refuses to record.
As long as you have control of the hardware, your scenario fits. But you don't have control of the hardware. The content providers are gaining that control by getting laws passed requiring compliance with their access control systems.
Don't think that just because current hardware can do the job that future hardware will too.
Second, escape velicity is a ballistic value, ie. the speed required to kick your butt off the planet from ground level going straight up.
No, escape velocity is actually misnamed. Velocity implies speed and direction. But escape speed is what it really is, since direction doesn't actually matter. The planet is round. When you go far enough, all directions become "up".
As long as you're pointed above the horizon, and as long as you have enough extra speed to overcome the friction due to the air you happen to be travelling through, then all you have to do to get off the planet is to go at escape speed.
Rockets go straight up to get out of the atmosphere in the fastest possible way, reducing drag and thus requiring less fuel. If fuel wasn't an issue (hah!) it doesn't matter which way you point the thing.
Now, getting into an orbit means going at a certain speed in that orbit, relative to ground. The original post is incorrect about the "what goes up fast, must come down fast" bit because, if you're in orbit, you *have* to be going at some given speed. That speed depends on the height of your orbit. That's kinda what "orbit" means.
It doesn't matter if it takes you 4 minutes or 9 days to get into a given orbit, you are still going at the same speed once you actually get there either way. You have to be. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to get there. Anything that falls to the earth from a non-orbital position hits the earth at 11 km/sec (escape speed), minus the speed that it bleeds off in the atmosphere.
(emphasis mine)
The duplication controls have been adopted to protect broadcast copyrights, an NHK official said, adding, "Easy violation of copyright would make movie and music copyright holders reluctant to provide their works and prompt actors and singers to refuse to appear on TV."
Really? You mean they're not going to act or sing anymore? How are they going to get paid?
This guy is a total fuddite.
You're half right. Tech like water marking can survive a D-A and A-D transitions. And make no mistake, that's the long term goal here. These sorts of "flags" are just the beginning, because they introduce the concept of forcing equipment manufacturers to include enforcement of DRM technologies. It doesn't matter that the current technology is ineffective, what matters is that new hardware *must* support it, by law.
Once that framework is built into place, newer tech that can survive these conversions gets introduced, and it's easier to push it into the marketplace, because the law says that this sort of thing must be included in consumer hardware. Eventually, you don't have any hardware that will actually record that analog source. It'll all detect the watermark, and refuse to record. Oh, there will be workarounds, but this sort of knowledge is already forbidden for you to pass around, by the DMCA. That's right, it's illegal for you to tell somebody how to bypass a protection mechanism, be it by code or by word of mouth or by t-shirt. The DMCA makes no distinction between these methods.
And that's their vision of the future. Total control of all media. It's just that simple, really. You want to make a copy for your car? You can't. You want to watch the program later than they air it? Sorry, the broadcaster of the show has decided that you might skip the ads if you did that, so your recorder won't record it. And if you post anywhere telling other people how to fix these "problems" with the equipment they bought, armed guards show up at your residence and take you away and put you in a padded cell and stare at you thru a small window for the rest of your life, because you're an informational terrorist.
Pretty bleak, but unfortunately I don't think it's all that much of a stretch of the imagination anymore.
As I mentioned above, are your fair use rights being infringed if you don't have access to a 100% digital source?
If bypassing that protection on the digital source is made illegal by another law (say, the DMCA or something similar to it), then it's no longer quite as clear.
Essentially, you're saying that you can have all the fair use rights in the world, but they don't have to help you out. And I'm with you there, except when they're intentionally trying to block you out.
The future is digital, not analog. A lot of broadcast mediums nowadays are pure digital. XM Radio, HDTV, etc, etc. There's no analog signal to tap into.
If you are *unable* to exercise those rights, then you don't have those rights. And I'm not talking unable because of being poor or because of not having the proper equipment. I'm talking about being unable to exercise your fair use rights because the equipment and technology that would allow you to do so has been made illegal to sell, own, create, think of. That just ain't right.
4) Profit! Sony profits selling untold computing power to the highest bidder whilst making millions of gamers happy that they have no subscription fees to pay.
This assumes that you can actually make a profit selling massively parallel computing horsepower, something which has yet to be demonstrated.
There's a lot of applications for computing power along these lines, I grant you. However, I'm not sure that there's enough market (aka people willing to pay for this power) to reach or exceed a break even point on what the costs of that "free" gaming network will be.
Okay.. You only have 9 possible moves. So on each turn, you run through all your possible moves, one at a time. After each move you can make, you calculate what the robots will do (since this is known), and then make a choice.
-If a move will get you killed, you eliminate it as a possibility.
-If all moves will get you killed, you teleport and hope for the best.
The only real choice is when you have more than one move that will keep you alive, and just a few rules can make this fairly obvious on what to do.
-If all the robots are in line with you and there's a scrap pile between them and you, stand your ground. They'll eventually run into the scrap.
-If a move will make robots collide, bump it up in priority a bit. Bump collisions that eliminate robots that are closer to you higher than collisions happening far away.
-If a move will bring robots closer to each other on the same line, bump it up in priority a bit, because this sort of thing will eventually cause them to collide. Give extra priority to bringing together robots that are closer to you, because scrapheaps closer to you protect you from robots further away from you.
-If a move will get you closer to any robots, lower it in priority a bit, because you want to keep your distance when possible. This should be less than the above priority adjustment because to bring robots together you need to have them on opposite sides of you, either vertically or horizontally.
Once you've done that, you pick the move with the highest priority. Then it's just a matter of tweaking these priority adjustments by hand until you find one that works good.
Apples are a null factor. The only way it states to end the game is to kill all the robots, and it says you get all the remaining apples after that anyway. So going after them is pointless with the rules as written. If getting all the apples also ends the game, then that's something else to consider as a factor, and makes it a bit more complicated.
An online version of the game can be found here: http://www.robinjohnson.f9.co.uk/robots2/robots2.h tml
Basically I'm saying.. move to a better place, heck you might even make some money in real estate in the process :)
;)
;)
:)
Hmm, not likely, considering two factors: 1) I don't own a house. 2) I'm only paying $250 a month for the two-bedroom I'm at now. Again, given that I'm living in the greater Seattle area, moving would be an incredibly foolish financial decision.
I hear you, but to truly be car free, a lifestyle change is kinda required.
I still own a car now, but I no longer use it much. I recently moved to a new town and am living downtown, right where the action is. My workplace is across the street. Bars/Movies/Entertainment is between 0-4 blocks away depending on the entertainment involved. Groceries are downstairs at a mini-market (slightly more expensive, but not too bad, really).
Essentially, think of all the stuff you need, and pick an area where all that stuff is. A lot of downtown districts are trying to pick up their economy by moving in business and residental and such like this.
It works like this.. way back before good transportation, people lived in small groups, in small areas. Nearly everything you needed was in that area. As transportation became cheaper and faster, the trend became to live in one area and work in another. This leads to the need for more transportation to move goods around and such.
Public transportation slightly ameliorates this need, but the state of public transportation in most places is just short of non-existent. If you were lucky enough to have good public transportation, you wouldn't be asking this question.
Anyway, the only alternative is to move to a location that's going back to the older, smaller community, sort of ways. Obviously this is dictated by the location of your workplace, since people don't often have a lot of choice in where they work these days. Look around that area. If there's nothing there, then my advice is to either find a new job or stop complaining about having to have a vehicle.
Electric cars are not an answer to the problem, BTW. Think about it.. Are you really complaining about cost factors involved (electrics won't be competitive in that arena anytime soon), or are you complaining about the need for the transportation in the first place? Do you really like having to drive to get to anywhere? I didn't. That's why when I found a job that offered a possibility of a location where I could walk to get *everything* I need to live (and no more than 4 blocks for any of it), I jumped on the chance. Been living here about 2 months now, and probably will be here a long, long time. I simply love living close to everything.
Okay, the nearest good electronics store is 20 miles away, but I can make a pilgrimage every few weeks.