Of course this filtering software is flawed; all filtering software made to date is flawed. What's the range of the skin tones they're searching for? If it's really a full range of skin tones, it's going to be barely distinguishable from a palate of earth tones. It won't differentiate between portraits and landscapes and kinky sex. Or, for that matter, between "art" and "porn" -- most people have different opinions about where one ends and the other begins. On the other hand, this filtering software takes a shot of the "questionable" page and then has it screened by a human monitor. This is invaluable. Even subject to the whims of a human monitor, this is much better than a purely digital filter. The filtering technology is used to point the human monitor to spots that he should be concerned with, not to make the final decisions. (Which is good, coming back to how flawed the technology can be.) This may not be good, but at least it's a step in a productive direction. I'm not one for censorship, but if people demand a product, it should at least be an effective one. Too many people are gung-ho about filters because filters make them feel better or more in control; they often don't even think about how effective the filter may or may not be.
You might want to check out an excellent article at TopHosts.com. You server needs to be in a secure location, physically, so it's safe from damage (natural, ie earthquakes, as well as man-made, such as theft.) It's also best if you physically own the server, and can remove it entirely if you wish. Redundant connections to the net are also useful so that you can't easily be cut off.
When you're talking about astronomical distances, most signals change after having been sent; they change quite a lot. And the microwave range is the best place to look for these forshortened signals. It's not that this is the best range to send a signal in; it's that this is the best range to receive a signal in, since this is the range most signals will be in after travelling such great distances. And our signals will be in this range, too, by the time they reach the little green men with the headphones on.
To answer a couple of questions
on
Pilot Synthesis
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· Score: 3
for people who didn't read the whole article... They claim "weeks of regular use on one pair of AAA batteries " and as for price: Swivel Systems will release the SG20 in summer of 2000. Final pricing has yet to be determined, but is expected to be around US$200 for a bundle that will include the SG20 itself, the MIDI/Audio expander cable, batteries, and software including all miniMusic titles."
This is yet another demonstration of how drastically the patent system has to change in light of tech. Tech stuff changes, upgrades, and changes so rapidly that what might have seemed innovative 10 years ago (or 5 or 1) is now so common-sensical that to patent it is to stifle innovation.:P
Twisted as it may be, this does pose a good point-- if you can use a photo to do this, then you can skin anyone into your games. Maybe the colombine kids would've targeted more specific real people if they'd been practicing with them as virtual targets. On another hand, will Cindy Crawford try to stop people from skinning her likeness into Panty Raider? Will Heston want his face skinned behind the gun of some new games as a promotional thing? Will the guy who incessantly bombards us with "Whassssuup!" sue to keep his face off of the targets?
If they really didn't care if you'd ever committed any felonies, why would they ask in the first place? It's not like they verify most of the other things on most applications-- just the report as to whether you'd ever committed any felonies, and to make sure you'd held some of the jobs you said you had. The past jobs is obviously important in regards to being experienced enough to hold whatever job you're applying for. The question of having been convicted of a felony is not. That looks an awful lot to me as though they did care specifically that you'd been convicted of a felony. Not that you might have lied on the application.
for not having performed a thorough enough background check if they turned up misinformation. If they had been a bit more thorough (checking birthdate and social security number) they would've have had the delay. She might even be in a position to ask for lost wages, since their foul-up cost her a week of work. If the screwup hadn't been due to a lack of depth in their check (ie, a mistake in data storage-- someone typed something in wrong on her record, on on a credit check someone had assumed her identity and put her in debt) then the company wouldn't be at fault. In this case, however, they obviously didn't perform their check in a responsible manner, so they are responsible for the poor results.
I know what you mean in terms of certian words just "spitting" themselves out; however, different keyboard types make for different patterns. What if you're one of those people who likes to switch between different key layouts? (QWERTY vs more ergonomic layouts) Or someone who has a funky split-vertical keyboard at home and a standard bad-for-your-wrists one at work? Your patterns would be different. Switching keyboards could mean not accessing your accounts.
The line between something like Napster (or gnutella or what have you) and independant sites with a similar function (think the ftp sites for trading software that were all the rage -- and still are, some places -- in the days of the BBS) is very fine. If they rule against Napster, they'll be ruling against those less organized, smaller sites, too. If they rule against those lesser sites, which would be a ruling that free trade of MP3s is illegal, they'd be ruling that peer-peer file sharing is illegal. If they rule that peer-peer file sharing (of MP3s) is illegal, they may as well say that copying songs or albums to cassette tape from your friends is illegal-- it amounts to the same thing. We all know how much of a copyright violation the RIAA thinks making mixes is.:P The difference is so small as to be inconsequential. If Napster is ruled against, the reverbrations echo down to such a level that it would be impossible to enforce. Hopefully it won't come to that, and the courts will recognize the principle behind all of the issues. Of course, if the injunction goes through and Napster has to shut itself down while it goes through the legal proceedings, it's history anyhow, most likely. It'd suck for Napster to have to sacrifice itself in the name of the cause.
1. Not all submarine vehicles are for military use
This means that they don't necessarily need to avoid detection... salvagers can now email to the surface. Imagine-- taking a photo of a wreck and sending it to the surface as you're doing the dive.
This means that they won't necessarily be manned by contact-starved sailors. Email can be for other uses besides "hi, mom!" and porn....and "hi, mom" and porn won't necessarily even be the first uses that come to mind.
2. Even military submarines aren't always in combat situations
This means they don't always have to worry about avoiding detection.
This might not have implications for Joe Schmoe, but there are a lot of commercial and research-related uses for this technology.
No. Tv is free because some of it is broadcast-- from old TVs or spare parts in a junkyard you can make a Tv and watch abc or nbc or whatever channels are broadcast. You pay for cable. The internet needs a conduit (phone line, fiber, cable modems, what have you.) Since you need a conduit, and the conduits are owned, you have to pay to use them. There's a BIG difference. The same difference between cable and broadcast tv, really, is the difference between the web and free television.
...think of web services as trains, bandwidth as rail; everyone wants to start a new train company-- great discounts, beautiful dining cars... all the perks. No one wants to lay new rail, and they all complain about having to pay to run on the extant rail. Yeah, it takes capital, but it's the price of freedom.
The Economist is absolutely a premier news source. I'm a subscriber, too... but the vast majority of people in the US who bother at all with the news do so via the tv. Many people whose primary sources of news are tv broadcasts are turning to the web instead, and many people who read the papers are turning the the web to augment their daily intake, or to get more depth. Newspapers were probably the least well-thought-out example in my post... but I do still hold the opinion that the proliferation of news sources makes for a market where writing quality is held in high regard (the Economist, the Sunday New York Times and Wired should continue to do well, but watch out USA Today!) and so is instant gratification-- immediate and accurate reporting (Reuters, CNN, and BBC online should do very well, especially since they add more depth than your average radio or television news flash.) It's changing the nature of the market, not replacing it. I never claimed that music, newspapers et al would be wiped out-- just that it would be in a different sort of competitive demand.
Unless the game is interactive (a MUD or what have you) there's no need to dial/charge anyhow. The simplest text adventures, which are presumably the ones that the phone companies are talking about, are like Adventure or Zork, like the Hitchiker's Guide and suchlike. They involve you and the script, no other live players. Worm, memory, tetris, &c. are currently available on phones. You don't need to dial into anything. You're not charged per play or per minute. They come included, and you can play them if you're bored. These are the games that are primed for further free distribution. And phones enabled for text adventures would then be enabled to dial-up or what have you to pay-per-play games or muds or whatever you'd like them to be enabled for. That could be a possible profit issue for the companies involved... but that's not the issue here. This idea doesn't necessarily have to cost the user more money. It could simply add more appeal to the phone. I'd rather play Zork on my phone than Worm, personally.
If the cell phone distributers are planning on including the games as part of the package (and my cell phone currently has several complimentary games that were included sans extra charge) then they will still be freely distributed, just through more media. (Unless, of course, the phones et al are costing a lot more simply because they have these games on them, which would be awfully silly.) If the games are simply being included (as they often are now) then I say take the royalties and run, grinning and laughing maniacally that someone has offered to pay you to further freely distribute your already freely-distributed game. Else, I'd think twice.
Ah, Adventure on my cell phone... or I could connect to my favorite mud on the train to work... I might never have to look a human being in the face again.:)
"While frightening to some, this new reality will not destroy all creation of wealth through inventiveness or artistry. People, including this techno-pirate who downloaded the film, will still go out to the theatre. People will still buy newspapers. They will still listen to commercial radio and television and still pay for CDs." People will not necessarily pay for CDs. People will go to the theatre for film, but for concerts-- some concerts are truly performances, whereas some concerts are impossible (industrial music is often better listened to studio-mixed than with some guy on a stage trying to do it in front of a crowd). Fewer and fewer people are buying newspapers, as news reported online is more up-to-the-minute and often more complex in its detail. These things will remain, of course but the difference is this: they will no longer be the source of major profits. Newspapers will have a harder time making the big buck. Artists and musicians will not be able to make their money in the same ways and the same quantities as they do now.
it was a decent example of the classic Hero's Quest....poor little man-animal rises up above his lot to kill his foes, save his people, and get the girl. Too bad there was a whole movie wrapped around it.
How easy is it to forge a signature? Sign a credit card receipt, endorse a check, fax a copy of a signed document... matching handwriting is only for proving that it wasn't really you signing the document these days; it's for long after the fact. E-signatures are probably just as easy to forge (maybe they would be harder, as a matter of fact, because an encrypted code is verified at both ends, and not easily made up by Joe Microsoft whereas a name... well, you just check the spelling and assume that the handwriting is right.)
The difference is that it's harder to prove that you didn't electronically sign a document than it is to prove that you didn't physically sign a document.
There's a very big and very significant difference here-- radio stations play one song at a time. Many people can do many things simultaneiously on MP3.com, and a pay-per-play type fee would be a TREMENDOUS cost. It would add up much faster to much more than a radio station's fees. It would be ridiculous... a flat fee (even a huge one) for rights to use whatever songs fall under that label, however, will be cheaper in the long run and make much more sense for a "radio station" that responds to simultaneous demands... and as much demand as they can handle. And it'll pacify the copyright issues, and it'll compensate the artists (if the labels do the right thing with the cash.)
...can be found here, at the yahoo! news site. It looks as though MP3.com is going to pay a fee to the labels "for the right to use their songs" and other than that, not much has changed.
See my post (#35) and also: this article from yahoo news. Microsoft already filed a request to have to court order stayed, and once that goes through they go to appeals court. It sounds as though all parties are willing and eager to send the case directly to the Supreme court without passing Go or collecting $200,000,000.
According to a recent article: "After the issue of a stay is decided, the Justice Department then likely would ask Jackson to fast-track Microsoft's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, bypassing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said Joel Klein, who heads Justice's antitrust division."...which means that the appeals process might not be as long and drawn out as it could be. There isn't a lot of evidence that Microsoft has a monopoly (except for an operating system on a single type of 486 chip, to my knowledge)...but they've violated the Sherman Anti-Trust laws in a number of other ways (they're bullies, I tell you!)...that should be enough for the supreme court to rule against them, but maybe not enough for them to be broken up. Jackson's ruling was heavily influenced by Microsoft's practices on the stand: they basically lied in court, and the judge didn't look on them too favorably after that. I wonder if they'll be up to the same tricks in the supreme court?
In the open source community possibly the most important thing is the interconnectedness of the users; open source ventures only work when they have a user base that feels informed and is willing and able to help out if necessary. The best facilitator of this is a public forum. It doesn't have to be slashdot-like (although this is pretty ideal) as long as it is easily accessible and it's easy to browse through past communications to make sure that you don't have to keep facing the same problems over and over again.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course this filtering software is flawed; all filtering software made to date is flawed. What's the range of the skin tones they're searching for? If it's really a full range of skin tones, it's going to be barely distinguishable from a palate of earth tones. It won't differentiate between portraits and landscapes and kinky sex. Or, for that matter, between "art" and "porn" -- most people have different opinions about where one ends and the other begins.
On the other hand, this filtering software takes a shot of the "questionable" page and then has it screened by a human monitor . This is invaluable. Even subject to the whims of a human monitor, this is much better than a purely digital filter. The filtering technology is used to point the human monitor to spots that he should be concerned with, not to make the final decisions. (Which is good, coming back to how flawed the technology can be.)
This may not be good, but at least it's a step in a productive direction. I'm not one for censorship, but if people demand a product, it should at least be an effective one. Too many people are gung-ho about filters because filters make them feel better or more in control; they often don't even think about how effective the filter may or may not be.
You might want to check out an excellent article at TopHosts.com. You server needs to be in a secure location, physically, so it's safe from damage (natural, ie earthquakes, as well as man-made, such as theft.) It's also best if you physically own the server, and can remove it entirely if you wish. Redundant connections to the net are also useful so that you can't easily be cut off.
When you're talking about astronomical distances, most signals change after having been sent; they change quite a lot. And the microwave range is the best place to look for these forshortened signals. It's not that this is the best range to send a signal in; it's that this is the best range to receive a signal in, since this is the range most signals will be in after travelling such great distances. And our signals will be in this range, too, by the time they reach the little green men with the headphones on.
for people who didn't read the whole article... They claim "weeks of regular use on one pair of AAA batteries " and as for price: Swivel Systems will release the SG20 in summer of 2000. Final pricing has yet to be determined, but is expected to be around US$200 for a bundle that will include the SG20 itself, the MIDI/Audio expander cable, batteries, and software including all miniMusic titles."
This has been duscussed before in a number of forums: here on CNN with Linuxworld, here in an article on patent squatting and in the past on Slashdot.
This is yet another demonstration of how drastically the patent system has to change in light of tech. Tech stuff changes, upgrades, and changes so rapidly that what might have seemed innovative 10 years ago (or 5 or 1) is now so common-sensical that to patent it is to stifle innovation. :P
Twisted as it may be, this does pose a good point-- if you can use a photo to do this, then you can skin anyone into your games. Maybe the colombine kids would've targeted more specific real people if they'd been practicing with them as virtual targets. On another hand, will Cindy Crawford try to stop people from skinning her likeness into Panty Raider? Will Heston want his face skinned behind the gun of some new games as a promotional thing? Will the guy who incessantly bombards us with "Whassssuup!" sue to keep his face off of the targets?
If they really didn't care if you'd ever committed any felonies, why would they ask in the first place? It's not like they verify most of the other things on most applications-- just the report as to whether you'd ever committed any felonies, and to make sure you'd held some of the jobs you said you had. The past jobs is obviously important in regards to being experienced enough to hold whatever job you're applying for. The question of having been convicted of a felony is not. That looks an awful lot to me as though they did care specifically that you'd been convicted of a felony. Not that you might have lied on the application.
for not having performed a thorough enough background check if they turned up misinformation. If they had been a bit more thorough (checking birthdate and social security number) they would've have had the delay. She might even be in a position to ask for lost wages, since their foul-up cost her a week of work. If the screwup hadn't been due to a lack of depth in their check (ie, a mistake in data storage-- someone typed something in wrong on her record, on on a credit check someone had assumed her identity and put her in debt) then the company wouldn't be at fault. In this case, however, they obviously didn't perform their check in a responsible manner, so they are responsible for the poor results.
I know what you mean in terms of certian words just "spitting" themselves out; however, different keyboard types make for different patterns. What if you're one of those people who likes to switch between different key layouts? (QWERTY vs more ergonomic layouts) Or someone who has a funky split-vertical keyboard at home and a standard bad-for-your-wrists one at work? Your patterns would be different. Switching keyboards could mean not accessing your accounts.
The line between something like Napster (or gnutella or what have you) and independant sites with a similar function (think the ftp sites for trading software that were all the rage -- and still are, some places -- in the days of the BBS) is very fine. If they rule against Napster, they'll be ruling against those less organized, smaller sites, too. If they rule against those lesser sites, which would be a ruling that free trade of MP3s is illegal, they'd be ruling that peer-peer file sharing is illegal. If they rule that peer-peer file sharing (of MP3s) is illegal, they may as well say that copying songs or albums to cassette tape from your friends is illegal-- it amounts to the same thing. We all know how much of a copyright violation the RIAA thinks making mixes is. :P The difference is so small as to be inconsequential.
If Napster is ruled against, the reverbrations echo down to such a level that it would be impossible to enforce. Hopefully it won't come to that, and the courts will recognize the principle behind all of the issues.
Of course, if the injunction goes through and Napster has to shut itself down while it goes through the legal proceedings, it's history anyhow, most likely. It'd suck for Napster to have to sacrifice itself in the name of the cause.
- This means that they don't necessarily need to avoid detection... salvagers can now email to the surface. Imagine-- taking a photo of a wreck and sending it to the surface as you're doing the dive.
- This means that they won't necessarily be manned by contact-starved sailors. Email can be for other uses besides "hi, mom!" and porn.
...and "hi, mom" and porn won't necessarily even be the first uses that come to mind.
2. Even military submarines aren't always in combat situationsThis might not have implications for Joe Schmoe, but there are a lot of commercial and research-related uses for this technology.
No. Tv is free because some of it is broadcast-- from old TVs or spare parts in a junkyard you can make a Tv and watch abc or nbc or whatever channels are broadcast. You pay for cable.
The internet needs a conduit (phone line, fiber, cable modems, what have you.) Since you need a conduit, and the conduits are owned, you have to pay to use them. There's a BIG difference. The same difference between cable and broadcast tv, really, is the difference between the web and free television.
...think of web services as trains, bandwidth as rail; everyone wants to start a new train company-- great discounts, beautiful dining cars... all the perks. No one wants to lay new rail, and they all complain about having to pay to run on the extant rail. Yeah, it takes capital, but it's the price of freedom.
The Economist is absolutely a premier news source. I'm a subscriber, too... but the vast majority of people in the US who bother at all with the news do so via the tv. Many people whose primary sources of news are tv broadcasts are turning to the web instead, and many people who read the papers are turning the the web to augment their daily intake, or to get more depth.
Newspapers were probably the least well-thought-out example in my post... but I do still hold the opinion that the proliferation of news sources makes for a market where writing quality is held in high regard (the Economist, the Sunday New York Times and Wired should continue to do well, but watch out USA Today!) and so is instant gratification-- immediate and accurate reporting (Reuters, CNN, and BBC online should do very well, especially since they add more depth than your average radio or television news flash.) It's changing the nature of the market, not replacing it. I never claimed that music, newspapers et al would be wiped out-- just that it would be in a different sort of competitive demand.
Unless the game is interactive (a MUD or what have you) there's no need to dial/charge anyhow. The simplest text adventures, which are presumably the ones that the phone companies are talking about, are like Adventure or Zork, like the Hitchiker's Guide and suchlike. They involve you and the script, no other live players. Worm, memory, tetris, &c. are currently available on phones. You don't need to dial into anything. You're not charged per play or per minute. They come included, and you can play them if you're bored. These are the games that are primed for further free distribution. And phones enabled for text adventures would then be enabled to dial-up or what have you to pay-per-play games or muds or whatever you'd like them to be enabled for. That could be a possible profit issue for the companies involved... but that's not the issue here. This idea doesn't necessarily have to cost the user more money. It could simply add more appeal to the phone. I'd rather play Zork on my phone than Worm, personally.
If the cell phone distributers are planning on including the games as part of the package (and my cell phone currently has several complimentary games that were included sans extra charge) then they will still be freely distributed, just through more media. (Unless, of course, the phones et al are costing a lot more simply because they have these games on them, which would be awfully silly.) If the games are simply being included (as they often are now) then I say take the royalties and run, grinning and laughing maniacally that someone has offered to pay you to further freely distribute your already freely-distributed game. Else, I'd think twice.
:)
Ah, Adventure on my cell phone... or I could connect to my favorite mud on the train to work...
I might never have to look a human being in the face again.
"While frightening to some, this new reality will not destroy all creation of wealth through inventiveness or artistry. People, including this techno-pirate who downloaded the film, will still go out to the theatre. People will still buy newspapers. They will still listen to commercial radio and television and still pay for CDs." People will not necessarily pay for CDs. People will go to the theatre for film, but for concerts-- some concerts are truly performances, whereas some concerts are impossible (industrial music is often better listened to studio-mixed than with some guy on a stage trying to do it in front of a crowd). Fewer and fewer people are buying newspapers, as news reported online is more up-to-the-minute and often more complex in its detail. These things will remain, of course but the difference is this: they will no longer be the source of major profits. Newspapers will have a harder time making the big buck. Artists and musicians will not be able to make their money in the same ways and the same quantities as they do now.
it was a decent example of the classic Hero's Quest. ...poor little man-animal rises up above his lot to kill his foes, save his people, and get the girl. Too bad there was a whole movie wrapped around it.
How easy is it to forge a signature? Sign a credit card receipt, endorse a check, fax a copy of a signed document... matching handwriting is only for proving that it wasn't really you signing the document these days; it's for long after the fact. E-signatures are probably just as easy to forge (maybe they would be harder, as a matter of fact, because an encrypted code is verified at both ends, and not easily made up by Joe Microsoft whereas a name... well, you just check the spelling and assume that the handwriting is right.)
The difference is that it's harder to prove that you didn't electronically sign a document than it is to prove that you didn't physically sign a document.
There's a very big and very significant difference here-- radio stations play one song at a time. Many people can do many things simultaneiously on MP3.com, and a pay-per-play type fee would be a TREMENDOUS cost. It would add up much faster to much more than a radio station's fees. It would be ridiculous... a flat fee (even a huge one) for rights to use whatever songs fall under that label, however, will be cheaper in the long run and make much more sense for a "radio station" that responds to simultaneous demands... and as much demand as they can handle. And it'll pacify the copyright issues, and it'll compensate the artists (if the labels do the right thing with the cash.)
...can be found here, at the yahoo! news site. It looks as though MP3.com is going to pay a fee to the labels "for the right to use their songs" and other than that, not much has changed.
See my post (#35) and also: this article from yahoo news. Microsoft already filed a request to have to court order stayed, and once that goes through they go to appeals court. It sounds as though all parties are willing and eager to send the case directly to the Supreme court without passing Go or collecting $200,000,000.
According to a recent article: "After the issue of a stay is decided, the Justice Department then likely would ask Jackson to fast-track Microsoft's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, bypassing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said Joel Klein, who heads Justice's antitrust division." ...which means that the appeals process might not be as long and drawn out as it could be. There isn't a lot of evidence that Microsoft has a monopoly (except for an operating system on a single type of 486 chip, to my knowledge) ...but they've violated the Sherman Anti-Trust laws in a number of other ways (they're bullies, I tell you!) ...that should be enough for the supreme court to rule against them, but maybe not enough for them to be broken up. Jackson's ruling was heavily influenced by Microsoft's practices on the stand: they basically lied in court, and the judge didn't look on them too favorably after that. I wonder if they'll be up to the same tricks in the supreme court?
In the open source community possibly the most important thing is the interconnectedness of the users; open source ventures only work when they have a user base that feels informed and is willing and able to help out if necessary. The best facilitator of this is a public forum. It doesn't have to be slashdot-like (although this is pretty ideal) as long as it is easily accessible and it's easy to browse through past communications to make sure that you don't have to keep facing the same problems over and over again.