Matter of fact, I also be textin' my weed man, too, cause, you know, he don't like to be on the phone, so I text 'im!
I think this is a very insightful post. When dealing with illicit drug dealers (friendly or otherwise) it is important not to say anything incriminating over the phone where the Feds might hear, but if you send a text message in the style of teenage texters, that is practically encrypted!
Why not test electronic voting in parallel with paper voting? Check the counts afterwards, and see how correct the eVoting was. In fact, why not keep the paper trail too? Is this really so hard or expensive for a country (yes, my country) that spends hundreds of billions of dollars blowing up my schoolhood friends in Iraq?
Or maybe the current system (notice I say system, not just the current administration) doesn't like the idea of doing things scientifically?
I consult with VPS VOIP solutions for LyliX.net, and let me tell you, if one of our customers wanted to set up something like this, I think we'd refer them to someone else:)
This idea is bad on so many levels - not only are you introducing a third party unnecessarily, but it's just a rehash of collect calling, but even more annoying! If you want your friends to call you, how about texting them? A lot less akward and more convenient.
I can just skim read the intro to the relevant Wikipedia entry, which I can easily go straight to. If it is actually something really interesting and I want detail then there are usually references and external links I can use to track down the details properly.
This is one of the reasons that on Wikipedia, I follow the
Wikipedia policy on citing sources. Mostly I mark articles that I see that aren't well cited. This helps a lot with clearing up POV issues, but most importantly helps people find real info on the subject. I encourage others to check out the guidelines and mark pages that lack citations with the {{Unreferenced}} tag. Hopefully someone watching that article that knows where the sources are will then step in and do the deed. Of course you could too, but hey that's a lot of work!
Wikipedia is a termendously useful resource - an excellent source of information, and at least a good place to start research into almost any topic. Will it ever replace brittanica? I don't know. But does it need to? Certainly not.
Wikipedia is already performing a vital function in aggregating information and external links on important (and sometimes not-so-important) stuff. It's also a great social experiment.
That being said, I'm still looking forward to Citizendium, which, IMHO, will be more like a real encyclopaedia.
An open-source program... It can scan the drive and output and matches to music files. Those are the only files they get access to at all.
Well, I take it by "music files" you mean "sound files", which could conceivably be anything. I'm sure everyone's seen "interesting" sound files online... and what about audio journals and/or voice notes? I think assuming a sound file is music is pretty ridiculous.
Better, I think, would be a program that meaningfully hashes sound files to compare with a hash database (yes, this is possible if you do proper frequency analysis etc) of copyrighted songs, and *that* is what they get.
Bonus points if this program is open source and you can use it to rat on all the piracy at a company you've been asked to leave.
It'd be nice if there was a system that was resistant to special interest groups and corporations that would allow qualified individuals to elect experts to a national body that would give advice on technological issues, and would be taken seriously by our leaders.
Then again most congressmen aren't doctors but they make decisions on healthcare, so maybe this is nothing new...
I'm sure I'm in the minority here on slashdot, but I'd rather have the engineers/coders developing the software that I use to spend their time making the software correct (solving the correct problem, getting the correct answer, reliably handling failure cases, good error messages, solid documentation) than "efficient" (i.e. 5-10% speed gain for gentoo ricers or whatever). Sure software's no good if it won't run on your machine, but it's also no good if it gives you the wrong answers or breaks at a critical time for one of your clients.
That being said, OLPC will probably give a lot of geeks the excuse to spend their time optimizing (which is fun) vs all those other things (which are not).
Ok, explain me: How does DRM allow the user more freedom?
It allows the user more "freedom" in the same way that, in practical terms, living as part of a civilized society gives you more "freedom" than living out somewhere as a hermit. By agreeing to certain concessions and joining a society, you're entitled to certain uses of public resources, technology, services, and to engage in trade with that society (and others).
DRM (yes, I hate it too) and "Trusted Computing" are a similar concession - you trade your freedom to do arbitrary things with digital content (indeed, legally speaking most things prevented by DRM are already illegal, other than some fair use activity), and in response you get the privilege of buying "overpriced" CDs, etc. I put overpriced in quotation marks because the market supports those prices, people are still willing to pay them so it's hard to call them "overpriced." (Yes i'm aware of price fixing etc, but they are necessary supplies, etc, it's a luxury item as far as I'm concerned and many people pay enormous amounts of money per year for them).
Trusted computing takes this one step further - it gives servers the ability to "trust" information coming from clients, as the hardware (presumedly) makes it impossible for the running code to be modified. For some users (such as myself) this is utterly unacceptable, however for most users, their computer is simply a tool, and once there is more to gain than to lose by moving to this type of platform (and for many, there will be), we will see mass adoption.
Apple's FairPlay proves that most people don't get whipped up in the DRM frenzy in the same way they do about abortion or Iraq or gun control/gay marriage/whatever. People just want to use their technology and don't care about the right to tinker, because they don't. Ever. This is what people want, and people will get it.
On the bright side, it should make distributed computation projects much more reliable, vastly reduce the amount of cheating in online games, and help stop viruses/spyware (probably the killer app, for windows at least). The market will decide if the price for these advancements is too high.
Sensor grid predicts flooding? HEAD TO THE HILLS EVERYONE!!!
Well, actually I'm just building a large boat for me and all my animals, but I'm already in a rather high area so should be ready by the time it gets to me:)
Slashdot Mirror
Alas... girls I give my number to never call me. At least now I just what to do! Ladies - watch out, Jajah's got my back, hear?
If you're too busy living your First Life to check out the weather in Second Life, you can always visit the Great Blue Room...
Why not test electronic voting in parallel with paper voting? Check the counts afterwards, and see how correct the eVoting was. In fact, why not keep the paper trail too? Is this really so hard or expensive for a country (yes, my country) that spends hundreds of billions of dollars blowing up my schoolhood friends in Iraq?
Or maybe the current system (notice I say system, not just the current administration) doesn't like the idea of doing things scientifically?
I consult with VPS VOIP solutions for LyliX.net, and let me tell you, if one of our customers wanted to set up something like this, I think we'd refer them to someone else :)
This idea is bad on so many levels - not only are you introducing a third party unnecessarily, but it's just a rehash of collect calling, but even more annoying! If you want your friends to call you, how about texting them? A lot less akward and more convenient.
I understand this is pretty cool, but what could all the buzz bee about?
Wikipedia is a termendously useful resource - an excellent source of information, and at least a good place to start research into almost any topic. Will it ever replace brittanica? I don't know. But does it need to? Certainly not.
Wikipedia is already performing a vital function in aggregating information and external links on important (and sometimes not-so-important) stuff. It's also a great social experiment.
That being said, I'm still looking forward to Citizendium, which, IMHO, will be more like a real encyclopaedia.
Well, I take it by "music files" you mean "sound files", which could conceivably be anything. I'm sure everyone's seen "interesting" sound files online... and what about audio journals and/or voice notes? I think assuming a sound file is music is pretty ridiculous.
Better, I think, would be a program that meaningfully hashes sound files to compare with a hash database (yes, this is possible if you do proper frequency analysis etc) of copyrighted songs, and *that* is what they get.
Bonus points if this program is open source and you can use it to rat on all the piracy at a company you've been asked to leave.
about time RIAA is held to the law.
When you represent enough wealth/power, the you hold the law, not the other way around.
It'd be nice if there was a system that was resistant to special interest groups and corporations that would allow qualified individuals to elect experts to a national body that would give advice on technological issues, and would be taken seriously by our leaders.
Then again most congressmen aren't doctors but they make decisions on healthcare, so maybe this is nothing new...
I really wanted to buy the domain, but didn't know how the hell I'd afford it :(
The dirtiest jobs have got to be the politicians that fund (or don't fund) it.
I'm sure I'm in the minority here on slashdot, but I'd rather have the engineers/coders developing the software that I use to spend their time making the software correct (solving the correct problem, getting the correct answer, reliably handling failure cases, good error messages, solid documentation) than "efficient" (i.e. 5-10% speed gain for gentoo ricers or whatever). Sure software's no good if it won't run on your machine, but it's also no good if it gives you the wrong answers or breaks at a critical time for one of your clients.
That being said, OLPC will probably give a lot of geeks the excuse to spend their time optimizing (which is fun) vs all those other things (which are not).
Well, sort of...
This is like dumping, but cheaper because the DVDs cost very little to produce, and no one's going to buy them unless they have the player anyways...
Ok, explain me: How does DRM allow the user more freedom?
It allows the user more "freedom" in the same way that, in practical terms, living as part of a civilized society gives you more "freedom" than living out somewhere as a hermit. By agreeing to certain concessions and joining a society, you're entitled to certain uses of public resources, technology, services, and to engage in trade with that society (and others).
DRM (yes, I hate it too) and "Trusted Computing" are a similar concession - you trade your freedom to do arbitrary things with digital content (indeed, legally speaking most things prevented by DRM are already illegal, other than some fair use activity), and in response you get the privilege of buying "overpriced" CDs, etc. I put overpriced in quotation marks because the market supports those prices, people are still willing to pay them so it's hard to call them "overpriced." (Yes i'm aware of price fixing etc, but they are necessary supplies, etc, it's a luxury item as far as I'm concerned and many people pay enormous amounts of money per year for them).
Trusted computing takes this one step further - it gives servers the ability to "trust" information coming from clients, as the hardware (presumedly) makes it impossible for the running code to be modified. For some users (such as myself) this is utterly unacceptable, however for most users, their computer is simply a tool, and once there is more to gain than to lose by moving to this type of platform (and for many, there will be), we will see mass adoption.
Apple's FairPlay proves that most people don't get whipped up in the DRM frenzy in the same way they do about abortion or Iraq or gun control/gay marriage/whatever. People just want to use their technology and don't care about the right to tinker, because they don't. Ever. This is what people want, and people will get it.
On the bright side, it should make distributed computation projects much more reliable, vastly reduce the amount of cheating in online games, and help stop viruses/spyware (probably the killer app, for windows at least). The market will decide if the price for these advancements is too high.
Too much.
This story is false. No, really.
Proof we're not causing global warming! It's all plates! Oil guys - keep on pumpin! Me, I'll be out in my SUV crusin' for ladies.
Sensor grid predicts flooding? HEAD TO THE HILLS EVERYONE!!!
:)
Well, actually I'm just building a large boat for me and all my animals, but I'm already in a rather high area so should be ready by the time it gets to me
What I really want to see is a map of where campaign money comes from overlayed on a map of where taxdollars go...