I'd encourage you to look over the ACLU's (admitedly biased, but generally accurate) page on the expanded surviellance powers available to law enforcement under the PATRIOT act.
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm? ID =12263&c=206
The problem with the Patriot Act is that many things expressly permitted by the act would be considered abuses under more traditional views of American liberty and privilage.
Most of the government's powers are held in check to some extent via its various agencies. The FBI could get a wiretap on me, but it needed to clear it with a judge (who presumably has some respect for personal liberty, and a concern that the agency meet certain burdens before it goes spying on people). Removing those checks makes what had always been seen abuse not only easier to accomplish, but frighteningly legitimate in the law's eyes.
A government that can abuse its power, will. The harder we make it for the government to do so, the better shape we're all in.
That is SUCH a remarkably bad idea. It puts the government in a position to decide what is or isn't worthwhile or legitimate news, and to fund it with the taxes appropriately.
In addition: Maybe I, as a taxpayer, don't want my nickel going to the liberal/conservative/communist/libertarian rag on the corner, and I only want to financially support the local whack-job-environmentalist newsletter. Why should I be forced to subsidize the others?
They can't block every port, but they CAN terminate your service for violating the TOS. Most small web/mail/etc servers are under the radar, but if you start generating a lot of traffic, I wouldn't be surprised to see them shut down the connection.
Concidering the potential ill effects, half of the studies is enough to cause concern. It's not enough to warrant a ban or mass hysteria, but it's enough to raise an eyebrow.
IF someone told me that 50 percent of traffic experts think I'll be hit by a bus if I try to cross the street, I'm going to think twice about crossing the street.
I might buy that phone. But then, i probably wouldn't think of it as a phone. I'd think of it as a portable entertainment center with phone capabilities.
I do. Nearly doubling the detail/complexity is a big deal.
Now, it's really not that simple, but there are some definate plausible improvements. If the machine could handle simulating twice as many fighters in a space sim, that would be something. If it could use a much more realistic physics engine because of the increased processing power, that would be something.
It's modded as funny, but this is a valid point when it comes to collaboration. If we can't all use the same resources - media files being one example - we can't effectively collaborate.
MP3 is the defacto standard for compressed audio and WMA has major support, so virtually no one uses Vorbis. After all - most windows and mac users wouldn't know what to do with an ogg file. But mp3 is patent-constricted, so fedora users can't listen to an mp3 without going outside the distribution for semi-legal support.
If this really works, the cost to our bodies from letting the cancer go unchecked would be FAR worse? Have you ever seen what cancer does to a person? Particularly multiple cancers?
How aobut endure a sickness and live a full lifespan? Or run a VERY slight risk of ill-effects and live the full lifespan? How do those options sound?
Aside from the philosophical discussion on whether this SHOULD be done, I see two implimentation problems:
1) This is going to cause major interference with pre-existing wi-fi networks. I don't use of want my private network degraded by the ever-present WIFI service set up with repeaters throughout the city.
2) It's going to be VERY difficult to get people to be smart about use, and avoid giving out key personal information over the airwaves. Identity theieves already collects lots of information in Starbucks and ball fields. Can you imagine how bad the problem would be with access city-wide?
Using copyright law is NOT an acceptable angle of attack on the cracks, as copyright shouldn't govern what the recipient of IP can do with it once it's received (beyond preventing redistribution).*
THEre's nothing to stop the server operators from using any of the many anti-cheat tools to detect modified copies, and prevent them from taking part in network play. Use a technical solution, not a legal one.
*I'm an anti-IP nut and don't believe ideas can be owned, so I don't believe in the concept of copyright anyway. But at least keep it consistent with its intended purpose.
Re:computers for the Masses not the classes
on
The Sub-$100 Laptop?
·
· Score: 1
Something tells me if you have an HDTV, you can not only afford but also would much prefer a much more capable and expensive computer.
What happens if a piece of malware installed via unrelated means (or even the occasional outright mozilla/firefox exploit) changes your hosts file so the "official" mozilla site is actually the malware author's similar-looking site?
It's an interesting theory, but there are a few kinks.
What's good is that these advertising statistics would represent EXACT figures for the amount of people watching -- which is better than the guestimates that draw on ratings used now. That would probably be attractive to advertisers. And if people knew they could get their show for free from a reliable source, most would be more likely to go to the official site than elsewhere (even if that elsewhere can provide it stripped of commercials).
HOWEVER, doing this as a straight download kills off the prospect of profiting from reruns. Commercials get old and outdated. The commercial on the version you d/l today won't mean anything when you want to watch it again in a year.
It might be better to do it as a streaming service, with commercials that can be dynamically stripped in. So even if you're watching last week's episodes, you're seeing today's ADs.
Or, as much as we all hate DRM, if the download was copy-protected it could expire within a few weeks, requiring you to download another (free) copy with updated commercials.
BTW, the copies usually avaiable on p2p/newsgroups/etc aren't actually HDTV - they're taken from HDTV sources, but usually scaled down. They still look fantastic (usually way better than DVD-rips), but not as good as true HDTV.
There is still the problem of getting people to give up the couch and TV for the computer screen - or teaching people how to pipe the video out to the TV (which is more of a hassle if it and the 'puter aren't in the same room)/
Slashdot Mirror
I'd encourage you to look over the ACLU's (admitedly biased, but generally accurate) page on the expanded surviellance powers available to law enforcement under the PATRIOT act.
? ID =12263&c=206
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm
The problem with the Patriot Act is that many things expressly permitted by the act would be considered abuses under more traditional views of American liberty and privilage.
Most of the government's powers are held in check to some extent via its various agencies. The FBI could get a wiretap on me, but it needed to clear it with a judge (who presumably has some respect for personal liberty, and a concern that the agency meet certain burdens before it goes spying on people). Removing those checks makes what had always been seen abuse not only easier to accomplish, but frighteningly legitimate in the law's eyes.
A government that can abuse its power, will. The harder we make it for the government to do so, the better shape we're all in.
That is SUCH a remarkably bad idea. It puts the government in a position to decide what is or isn't worthwhile or legitimate news, and to fund it with the taxes appropriately.
In addition: Maybe I, as a taxpayer, don't want my nickel going to the liberal/conservative/communist/libertarian rag on the corner, and I only want to financially support the local whack-job-environmentalist newsletter. Why should I be forced to subsidize the others?
They can't block every port, but they CAN terminate your service for violating the TOS. Most small web/mail/etc servers are under the radar, but if you start generating a lot of traffic, I wouldn't be surprised to see them shut down the connection.
Too bad we don't have a user-review process to correct that sort of thing. I wonder where we could find a model for one?
Actually he's using a Dell, but it runs CherryOs.
Just imagine the size of the keyboard on that laptop. You could play hop scotch on the numeric keypad.
Concidering the potential ill effects, half of the studies is enough to cause concern. It's not enough to warrant a ban or mass hysteria, but it's enough to raise an eyebrow.
IF someone told me that 50 percent of traffic experts think I'll be hit by a bus if I try to cross the street, I'm going to think twice about crossing the street.
I might buy that phone. But then, i probably wouldn't think of it as a phone. I'd think of it as a portable entertainment center with phone capabilities.
I do. Nearly doubling the detail/complexity is a big deal.
Now, it's really not that simple, but there are some definate plausible improvements. If the machine could handle simulating twice as many fighters in a space sim, that would be something. If it could use a much more realistic physics engine because of the increased processing power, that would be something.
I heard that song of yours is going to get more expensive to download. As a matter of fact, I heard it twice.
It's modded as funny, but this is a valid point when it comes to collaboration. If we can't all use the same resources - media files being one example - we can't effectively collaborate.
MP3 is the defacto standard for compressed audio and WMA has major support, so virtually no one uses Vorbis. After all - most windows and mac users wouldn't know what to do with an ogg file. But mp3 is patent-constricted, so fedora users can't listen to an mp3 without going outside the distribution for semi-legal support.
There's a collaboration problem.
It's not even a dupe. It's a troupe.
Now my laptop running CherryOS will never run out of power!
That does not make sense.
Actually, Rot-13 jokes are still +14 funny.
What's scary is I can't tell if this is technobabble, or technospeak.
I'm pretty sure "off with his head" would prevent further burglaries. It just might also prevent other things while you're at it.
If this really works, the cost to our bodies from letting the cancer go unchecked would be FAR worse? Have you ever seen what cancer does to a person? Particularly multiple cancers?
How aobut endure a sickness and live a full lifespan? Or run a VERY slight risk of ill-effects and live the full lifespan? How do those options sound?
Actually, the first mistake was using a screenshot of windows for a Linspire review.
Aside from the philosophical discussion on whether this SHOULD be done, I see two implimentation problems:
1) This is going to cause major interference with pre-existing wi-fi networks. I don't use of want my private network degraded by the ever-present WIFI service set up with repeaters throughout the city.
2) It's going to be VERY difficult to get people to be smart about use, and avoid giving out key personal information over the airwaves. Identity theieves already collects lots of information in Starbucks and ball fields. Can you imagine how bad the problem would be with access city-wide?
Using copyright law is NOT an acceptable angle of attack on the cracks, as copyright shouldn't govern what the recipient of IP can do with it once it's received (beyond preventing redistribution).*
THEre's nothing to stop the server operators from using any of the many anti-cheat tools to detect modified copies, and prevent them from taking part in network play. Use a technical solution, not a legal one.
*I'm an anti-IP nut and don't believe ideas can be owned, so I don't believe in the concept of copyright anyway. But at least keep it consistent with its intended purpose.
Something tells me if you have an HDTV, you can not only afford but also would much prefer a much more capable and expensive computer.
What happens if a piece of malware installed via unrelated means (or even the occasional outright mozilla/firefox exploit) changes your hosts file so the "official" mozilla site is actually the malware author's similar-looking site?
It's an interesting theory, but there are a few kinks.
What's good is that these advertising statistics would represent EXACT figures for the amount of people watching -- which is better than the guestimates that draw on ratings used now. That would probably be attractive to advertisers. And if people knew they could get their show for free from a reliable source, most would be more likely to go to the official site than elsewhere (even if that elsewhere can provide it stripped of commercials).
HOWEVER, doing this as a straight download kills off the prospect of profiting from reruns. Commercials get old and outdated. The commercial on the version you d/l today won't mean anything when you want to watch it again in a year.
It might be better to do it as a streaming service, with commercials that can be dynamically stripped in. So even if you're watching last week's episodes, you're seeing today's ADs.
Or, as much as we all hate DRM, if the download was copy-protected it could expire within a few weeks, requiring you to download another (free) copy with updated commercials.
BTW, the copies usually avaiable on p2p/newsgroups/etc aren't actually HDTV - they're taken from HDTV sources, but usually scaled down. They still look fantastic (usually way better than DVD-rips), but not as good as true HDTV.
There is still the problem of getting people to give up the couch and TV for the computer screen - or teaching people how to pipe the video out to the TV (which is more of a hassle if it and the 'puter aren't in the same room)/