Not quite true. They get the hostname - as an HTTPS server may potentially serve multiple websites, it needs the hostname first in clear-text so it knows which certificate to use. But the rest of the URL comes later, and is encrypted.
The vote was close to a perfect party split. That means it actually is a red vs blue debate. Politicians know they need to show loyalty to their party: Unless they have made an issue part of their campaign or have very strong personal feelings, they just default to voting according to the party position. And no senator is building their campaign around internet privacy regulations.
Perhaps they just honestly believe their own rhetoric - that all regulations are a sign of an oppressive, overgrown government infringing upon the economic freedom of the people and crippling wealth-generating activity that would otherwise make the country more prosperous?
They see a regulation, they want it gone. It doesn't matter if the regulation is justified or not. Ideology says all regulations are bad and must be abolished to free the power of the market and of American enterprise.
This applies the extremes. The left-wing parties in Europe would be decried as communists in the US - that sort of politics does not go down very well there. Government-run healthcare? Not a chance. Conversely, the American right is regarded in Europe as outright insane - a bunch of religion-crazed, paranoid, redneck homophobes only good for comedy value. What sort of party of nutcases continues to deny climate change, and frequently runs candidates who insist the world is six thousand years old and Noah rode his ark with dinosaurs?
The American agricultural industry has been consolidating for years - small family farms are in a slow but inevitably decline. Those big corporate farms have a great advantage in simple economy of scale.
I'd want a bit more regulation than that. At least a minimum period between STI checks, and a mandate on the use of condoms for all penetrative acts, and female prostitutes (I expect these to make up the vast majority, but there will be a few men too) should be required to show they are using additional means of contraception. You'd need an agency - either government- or industry-run - to manage this and issue the licenses. But done properly, it seems like a good idea.
Prostitution is called the 'oldest profession' for good reason. It's always been around, in every society, no matter how hard authorities have tried to stamp it out as immoral. You simply cannot get rid of it, and really, why would you need to regulate what is really just a private entertainment service? So legalise, regulate, and you put the criminal gangs out of business.
It might affect the Republicans more because they are more focused on condemning things as immoral, but it's really just a human thing - self-loathing. People hate something about themselves, and the only way they can feel any better about it is to very loudly and publicly condemn it - and pledge to themselves that last night was the last time they'll do that, really.
This is easily worked out. There is only one unit that would make any sense: The planck length. The smallest unit of length there can be in the universe. 1.6E-35 meters.
Now you need the size of the universe. Unknown. But the observable universe is 8.8E26 meters across - and yes, due to expansion of space, that is a lot wider than the age expressed as light years.
A little division puts this at... a crashed calculator. But a better calculator says that makes the universe 5.5E61 planck-lengths across. While an unsigned 64-bit number gets you up to only 1.8E19. Not even close. A 128-bit unsigned gets you 3.4E38, still not enough. A 256-bit unsigned is 1.2E77, too much.
Unless our simulators have a strange liking for 205-bit integers, this does not work.
No, you can't. The balloon gas you buy in stores is often helium diluted with air to reduce cost, and even if you breathed helium from balloons you'd just pass out - once you are unconscious you can't hold any more balloons. You'd need a mask.
If you want a painless suicide, there's an easier way. Welding stores sell tanks of pure nitrogen - it's used in some forms of arc welding to prevent the very hot metal from reacting with atmospheric oxygen. Just take a tank of that, improvise a way to hook up an oxygen mask - you can use a diving mask, but you might need to use some tape and sealant to make the incompatible fittings hold together - and you have yourself a comfortable way to resign from life.
I think it's more promotion. They have a new protocol - I don't know if it's any good or not, but that's not important. They believe in it, and that means they want to raise awareness before the grand opening next month. This is essentially a publicity stunt - a demonstration to show the world what this 'LBRY' protocol is capable of.
I expect someone will download it all and then quickly re-share it on bittorrent though.
I can agree that the internet really needs a good decentralised hosting protocol, but I do not think LBRY will be that protocol. I have more hope for IPFS, but I wouldn't put money on that either.
The software isn't fully public yet - it's barely even alpha-worthy. These lectures are their bid to attract interest, and with interest comes donation and volunteer developers, and more content.
I've no idea if it's actually a good protocol or not - I barely understand it, but I feel it might be a bit over-complicated, having to mess around with cryptocurrency accounting, blockchain and namespace bidding mechanisms just for content distribution. I'll check it out, but I think I'll stick with supporting IPFS. The internet does need a new distribution protocol, but I don't think LBRY is the one.
I have no idea if it's a good technology or not - I'm still trying to get my head around the tech. My feeling so far is that it might be rather over-complicated, and I have a strong preference for the more elegant design of IPFS. If you like the idea of LBRY, you might want to check that one out too.
Tech aside though, as a new distribution protocol, one of their most important tasks is to get hold of some good content to attract users. Good, legal content, before the users start filling it with copyright infringement and porn. Which they inevitably will.
Trump won because of an artefact in the US electoral system which was deliberately designed to give some states a level of influence on the presidential election that is larger than their proportion of the population, because at the time they would have refused to join the union on equal terms. Yes, he did win according to the rules of the electoral collage - but those rules were skewed in his favor. Had it been a simple popular vote, in which all people were counted as equals, he would not have won.
If I were in Trump's place and looking for a good war, I'd consider two obvious possibilities: 1. NK. It's been a thorn in the world's side long enough, and a military pushover. But China would almost certainly intervene, and the cost in civilian lives would be very high. Fortunately they would all be Korean civilians, so they don't count. You'd also end up burdened with an unstable, impoverished country that needs constant peacekeeping expenses, as happened with Iraq. 2. Wait for another Russian proxy war. Can't fight Russia directly, but next time some suspiciously well-funded rebels start agitating, offer some military aid against them.
I saw it in the news today too. Articles about the Trump executive order ruling, an update regarding the most significant change in the relationship of the UK to the rest of the world in generation... and both of them got fewer readers than the article about the fire service assisting a man who got his penis stuck in a ring.
I remain unconvinced that there is intelligent life on this planet.
Ideas are plentiful. I can come up with ideas. Some might even be decent movies.
But ideas are risky. Making a movie is expensive, especially a big-title blockbuster. Tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars for the very biggest. $63,000,000 for the Matrix. Of course studios aren't going to gamble that kind of money on new, unproven ideas. They will spend it on things that they know have a proven history of financial success. Franchises, sequals, spin-offs. Things the market has assessed, and judged worthy. Stars with a track record of drawing in the crowds. Stories that are packed with cliches, but cliches that audiences have always responded positively to.
This assures hollywood of profits, but it also means all movies start to look the same after a while. If you want new material you will have to look to independent productions, where they can take risks - but be warned, Sturgeon's law holds, and you will have to wade through a lot of horrible B-movies and obscure review websites to find the hidden gems.
Zero tolerance laws seem to exist mostly to protect officials from accountability, so they can overreact in safety.
"Yes, I know it seems unreasonable to expel your child for pretending to shoot at a friend with a drinking straw, but my hands are tied. I'm sorry, but I have no choice in the matter. It's the law."
Eventually, yes. There's a very consistent pattern. When countries industrialise and get all the good stuff like healthcare, dependable food and sanitation the population does rise very rapidly - every time. It takes a full generation for the culture to change to reflect the new conditions. Once cultural change does catch up, then growth levels off and sometimes even goes negative.
Slashdot Mirror
Not quite true. They get the hostname - as an HTTPS server may potentially serve multiple websites, it needs the hostname first in clear-text so it knows which certificate to use. But the rest of the URL comes later, and is encrypted.
The vote was close to a perfect party split. That means it actually is a red vs blue debate. Politicians know they need to show loyalty to their party: Unless they have made an issue part of their campaign or have very strong personal feelings, they just default to voting according to the party position. And no senator is building their campaign around internet privacy regulations.
Perhaps they just honestly believe their own rhetoric - that all regulations are a sign of an oppressive, overgrown government infringing upon the economic freedom of the people and crippling wealth-generating activity that would otherwise make the country more prosperous?
They see a regulation, they want it gone. It doesn't matter if the regulation is justified or not. Ideology says all regulations are bad and must be abolished to free the power of the market and of American enterprise.
This applies the extremes. The left-wing parties in Europe would be decried as communists in the US - that sort of politics does not go down very well there. Government-run healthcare? Not a chance. Conversely, the American right is regarded in Europe as outright insane - a bunch of religion-crazed, paranoid, redneck homophobes only good for comedy value. What sort of party of nutcases continues to deny climate change, and frequently runs candidates who insist the world is six thousand years old and Noah rode his ark with dinosaurs?
The American agricultural industry has been consolidating for years - small family farms are in a slow but inevitably decline. Those big corporate farms have a great advantage in simple economy of scale.
So you go from criminal-gang style exploitation to walmart-style exploitation. I think that still counts as a step up.
I'd want a bit more regulation than that. At least a minimum period between STI checks, and a mandate on the use of condoms for all penetrative acts, and female prostitutes (I expect these to make up the vast majority, but there will be a few men too) should be required to show they are using additional means of contraception. You'd need an agency - either government- or industry-run - to manage this and issue the licenses. But done properly, it seems like a good idea.
Prostitution is called the 'oldest profession' for good reason. It's always been around, in every society, no matter how hard authorities have tried to stamp it out as immoral. You simply cannot get rid of it, and really, why would you need to regulate what is really just a private entertainment service? So legalise, regulate, and you put the criminal gangs out of business.
It might affect the Republicans more because they are more focused on condemning things as immoral, but it's really just a human thing - self-loathing. People hate something about themselves, and the only way they can feel any better about it is to very loudly and publicly condemn it - and pledge to themselves that last night was the last time they'll do that, really.
The universe hand only goes round once.
Almost the whole thing has been archived into IPFS now, as the original site ceased to exist.
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRTVMsmt...
This is easily worked out. There is only one unit that would make any sense: The planck length. The smallest unit of length there can be in the universe. 1.6E-35 meters.
Now you need the size of the universe. Unknown. But the observable universe is 8.8E26 meters across - and yes, due to expansion of space, that is a lot wider than the age expressed as light years.
A little division puts this at... a crashed calculator. But a better calculator says that makes the universe 5.5E61 planck-lengths across. While an unsigned 64-bit number gets you up to only 1.8E19. Not even close. A 128-bit unsigned gets you 3.4E38, still not enough. A 256-bit unsigned is 1.2E77, too much.
Unless our simulators have a strange liking for 205-bit integers, this does not work.
No, you can't. The balloon gas you buy in stores is often helium diluted with air to reduce cost, and even if you breathed helium from balloons you'd just pass out - once you are unconscious you can't hold any more balloons. You'd need a mask.
If you want a painless suicide, there's an easier way. Welding stores sell tanks of pure nitrogen - it's used in some forms of arc welding to prevent the very hot metal from reacting with atmospheric oxygen. Just take a tank of that, improvise a way to hook up an oxygen mask - you can use a diving mask, but you might need to use some tape and sealant to make the incompatible fittings hold together - and you have yourself a comfortable way to resign from life.
A person can take some off the shelf balloons, affix a solid object, and potentially endanger aircraft.
I know what comes next: In the interests of national security, the government shall ban all balloons without a license!
This isn't the US, so they'll at least be polite about it, and not shoot anyone for carrying a balloon of mass destruction.
You can use them to jam radios and cameras in protester crowds too, to make sure those embarrassing videos don't reach the internet.
I think it's more promotion. They have a new protocol - I don't know if it's any good or not, but that's not important. They believe in it, and that means they want to raise awareness before the grand opening next month. This is essentially a publicity stunt - a demonstration to show the world what this 'LBRY' protocol is capable of.
I expect someone will download it all and then quickly re-share it on bittorrent though.
I can agree that the internet really needs a good decentralised hosting protocol, but I do not think LBRY will be that protocol. I have more hope for IPFS, but I wouldn't put money on that either.
The software isn't fully public yet - it's barely even alpha-worthy. These lectures are their bid to attract interest, and with interest comes donation and volunteer developers, and more content.
I've no idea if it's actually a good protocol or not - I barely understand it, but I feel it might be a bit over-complicated, having to mess around with cryptocurrency accounting, blockchain and namespace bidding mechanisms just for content distribution. I'll check it out, but I think I'll stick with supporting IPFS. The internet does need a new distribution protocol, but I don't think LBRY is the one.
I have no idea if it's a good technology or not - I'm still trying to get my head around the tech. My feeling so far is that it might be rather over-complicated, and I have a strong preference for the more elegant design of IPFS. If you like the idea of LBRY, you might want to check that one out too.
Tech aside though, as a new distribution protocol, one of their most important tasks is to get hold of some good content to attract users. Good, legal content, before the users start filling it with copyright infringement and porn. Which they inevitably will.
Trump won because of an artefact in the US electoral system which was deliberately designed to give some states a level of influence on the presidential election that is larger than their proportion of the population, because at the time they would have refused to join the union on equal terms. Yes, he did win according to the rules of the electoral collage - but those rules were skewed in his favor. Had it been a simple popular vote, in which all people were counted as equals, he would not have won.
If I were in Trump's place and looking for a good war, I'd consider two obvious possibilities:
1. NK. It's been a thorn in the world's side long enough, and a military pushover. But China would almost certainly intervene, and the cost in civilian lives would be very high. Fortunately they would all be Korean civilians, so they don't count. You'd also end up burdened with an unstable, impoverished country that needs constant peacekeeping expenses, as happened with Iraq.
2. Wait for another Russian proxy war. Can't fight Russia directly, but next time some suspiciously well-funded rebels start agitating, offer some military aid against them.
I saw it in the news today too. Articles about the Trump executive order ruling, an update regarding the most significant change in the relationship of the UK to the rest of the world in generation... and both of them got fewer readers than the article about the fire service assisting a man who got his penis stuck in a ring.
I remain unconvinced that there is intelligent life on this planet.
Ideas are plentiful. I can come up with ideas. Some might even be decent movies.
But ideas are risky. Making a movie is expensive, especially a big-title blockbuster. Tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars for the very biggest. $63,000,000 for the Matrix. Of course studios aren't going to gamble that kind of money on new, unproven ideas. They will spend it on things that they know have a proven history of financial success. Franchises, sequals, spin-offs. Things the market has assessed, and judged worthy. Stars with a track record of drawing in the crowds. Stories that are packed with cliches, but cliches that audiences have always responded positively to.
This assures hollywood of profits, but it also means all movies start to look the same after a while. If you want new material you will have to look to independent productions, where they can take risks - but be warned, Sturgeon's law holds, and you will have to wade through a lot of horrible B-movies and obscure review websites to find the hidden gems.
The pre-envisaged canon looks suspiciously like the original movie, just transposed in time by a few decades.
Zero tolerance laws seem to exist mostly to protect officials from accountability, so they can overreact in safety.
"Yes, I know it seems unreasonable to expel your child for pretending to shoot at a friend with a drinking straw, but my hands are tied. I'm sorry, but I have no choice in the matter. It's the law."
Yes, and the solution would be to withdraw all management from the US and incorporate in Bermuda.
Eventually, yes. There's a very consistent pattern. When countries industrialise and get all the good stuff like healthcare, dependable food and sanitation the population does rise very rapidly - every time. It takes a full generation for the culture to change to reflect the new conditions. Once cultural change does catch up, then growth levels off and sometimes even goes negative.