I have a problem with that license plate system too because it seems to automatically assume that everybody on the road is guilty until proven innocent. What's wrong with making the cops wait until you do something to give them probable cause before they get to start profiling you and looking for wants/warrants/etc? If he catches me speeding then he can run my plate -- but if I'm obeying the law then I don't think he has the right to be looking at me.
Well, following your logic then a cop might never pull over a "known" to NCIC stolen car because the person wasn't speeding or wrecklessly driving so he had no reason to stop and run the car through NCIC. I think that automatic lic. plate is the next best policing invention to fingerprinting and in car video. It would mean that cops could stop only those that "the system" has already taggeed for some offense. That a car even getts flagged going through an auto lic. plate reader would automatically make the vehicle suspects rather than a routine speeding stop.
If you are worried about your cell phone company tracking your movememnts, then you'll just drive up your stress. My wife has the family cell. I call her from my office phone. The phone company and my work know exactly where I was when I made the call. With enhanced 911, the cell phone company can provide the nearests street address of my wife when I call her. Could this be abused? Yeap. I'd personally, rather be able to track my wife's running around town by her cell phone calls that could be a service that many would love to pay for.
Well, I've had this fantasy of Active Census all during college. A census once every ten years was o.k. way back at the beginning of the country, but I think that we've got the tech to track everyone in realtime and collect the long form census information on everyone in realtime. Should we? Maybe not, but tracking DL, fingerprints, and DNA would be a part of my active census plan.
Talk to any police officer. The cops aren't that much smarter then you or I. The criminals tend to be idiots. You have to ask yourself why the Government needs a database of fingerprints and DNA. This is exactly why they have NCIC to track all filed stolen goods, and to send DL information through. Do you have any idea how many BOLOs, Wanted, and missing pictures that your average cop is expected to remember and mentally scan you against while doing their daily rountine? I do. I've seen this nifty little device that scans every license plate in four lanes of traffic and runs them all across NCIC or any other database you have for hits. I think that every cop car in the nation needs one of those. Only problem is that they are currently 25K-35K. If we can do something like that for lic. plates, why can't we do them for facial pictures? It would be much, much more difficult, but it would instantly identify those that are in the system already. Yeah, that tech can be abused, but what 1984 and others didn't think about is what happens when that tech becomes so cheap that I can afford it on my own car/person?
Are common law protections against unreasonable search and innocent until proven guilty going to become obsolete in the face of modern technology?
Sure, sounds great to me. Common law goes back centuries when the police didn't have any tools other than eye witness accounts. Only within maybe the last decade has it been possible to identify everyone if we registered everyone's finger prints, DNA, face, and body build. The only things that are stopping us from doing that are the Christain religious right that see any form of government issued id as "666" sign of the devil, memories of Nazi Germany and USSR Russia, and the publics general view that only criminals need to be registered. Change one of those and it would be less than a decade before we have widespread fingerprinting and DNA tracking.
There is a part of me that wonders why public schools haven't added finger printing to their student ID process. If that single step was taken, within two generations it would become socially acceptable to fingerprint and id everyone. The logic of I had to do it as a kid why shouldn't others have to do it as well can be very strong. In my state, it is currently optional to have a thumb print as part of the DL. All that needs to be changed is requiring a full set of prints for DL renewal or new DLs. We aren't quite there for DNA, but if we setup our system for fingerprints, how difficult would it be to add a string for your DNA? (Shouldn't be that hard.)
As for the Xbox 360, the only console not suffering from shortages (anymore), then good for them. I wonder how many were bought by people wanting a PS3, but then not finding any, so they bought a 360 instead.
Um, not many. I'd bet most that wanted to "pay" for the PS3 bought one. Those that didn't want to "pay through the nose" will wait 6-9 months for the first of several major price drops. Not many make an impluse purchase for things over $250. O.k. Maybe those rich slashdotters that bought all three systems for the living room this Christmas and one for each kid would, but most of us poor folk will be only buying one system. I'll tell you right quicky how many new video game systems showed up in my home 0 unless you cound handheld games. I got the lastest FF, DQ8, Radiata stories, a dragon ball Z game, my kids got some Horse game, a yuhgo game, Katamri dantasy, and pengel the quest for color, and DDR supernova. 9 various games most of them were $15-20 except FF and the DDR game. My girl likes the horse game. My kids like what they call they rolly polly game. The DDR game was more of a stealth fitness for me, but the kids have been having a ball with it. I've not cracked open FF or DQ yet. I've spent the last week going through Radiata stories and my main guy is around level 80 and I'm near the final big quest on the human side. (The game requires atleast 2 full play throughs to unlock everything if you are into that and it is awesome watching all the NPCs going about there days.) I've been drooling for a Wii, but I could not justify it.
It's an office application. I don't need a redesign, I don't care if it's "fresher" - people just need to be able to sit down and type a letter, or put together a spreadsheet.
There shouldn't be a learning curve involved with what amounts to commodity software.
Well, most of the "steep learning curve" is really an "unlearning" curve from most of what I've read. You can just start typing without any problems. You can't start looking and using "advanced" features from the older version and expect them to be in the same place. Folks that rarely use those features may now have easy access to the effects of those advanced features, but the expert way of doing things has changed. If you know everything under the hood on using Office XP or Office 2003; then you are better of just sticking with what you know. If you don't have any attachment or are just upgrading, you users will find tons of "features" that were in Office 2000, but know the average person can find and use them instead of the expert slashdotter. I'd expect slashdot to hate this version of Office with a passion.
So, basically, it's one regexp and a database lookup. Which is fine (how else would you do it?) but all this requires is one afternoon of PhD time followed by a lot of computer crunching. Even if you buy a very shiny very fast dedicated computer for this, where do the remaining 990 000 dollars go?
Grad students, and Phd's budget for the next 5-10 years if he budgets right.;)
I can't believe this is on the Beeb and Slashdot's front pages.
Give 'em a break it is the Friday before Christams. Are you doing any real work today? Next week they'll mostly be off for the holidays. I'd expect much less "news" than this to surface next week.
One difference is that the stuff that residents are interested in is not current programs. It's the back catalogue. I wouldn't mind if they distribute some kind of customised BitTorrent that is locked to uk ip addresses, and has a proxy blacklist. Putting DRM on the media would be kindof pointless, and it directly contridicts their stated aims. The back-catalogue of BBC media belongs to the British people, not the coroporation.
Um, I don't see how you can restrict non-DRM content without some type of DRM control on the client to prevent "one" British guy from sharing non-DRM content worldwide. It's been years since I've seen anything current from the BBC. I'd simply be happy to see the entire collected Dr. Who, maybe Are you being served, I thinks its call Yes Minister, and the Black Adder. I can see why the BBC would want to lock that content down.
But this is not what they promised to do. As a British Licensefee payer I expect them to open up their content on UK filesharing networks, as they promised. Offering DRM'd content to overseas markets is not part of their charter. Making money should be a secondary concern to their primary purpose - delivering good tv to a British audience.
Um, before you Brits start complaining about your beloved BBC; think alittle. You had to pay a license fee. Those in the US, the EU, and the rest of the world didn't pay the UK BBC lic. fee. If the BBC put non-DRM content into most P2P networks, it would also be downloadable to those outside of the UK. Heck, if the BBC offerred non-DRM content to those within the UK on its on special UK only P2P the content would stay within the UK for only as long it your average Britain would keep the content out of their shared folders for their other P2P programs. I live in the US and would love to see current BBC content for free. I don't blame the BBC for trying to get some money out of the US, EU and other rest of the world. I'd think that the BBC would release DRM content that would play only if you've payed your BBC lic. fee. An idea would be to offer foreigners such as myself to pay this lic. fee and be able to download BBC content.
If you're worried about near computer-illiterates fubaring their machines, why not simply have a "one strike and you're out" sort of policy? Everyone gets a liberal security policy to start with - maybe even full local admin access. The first time you screw your machine up, it gets reimaged and locked down on the grounds that you can't be trusted not to screw it up again.
That lets those of us who know what we're doing and have never needed to call the support desk for anything other than hardware failure get on with our jobs with the minimum of inconvenience, while protecting those that clearly need to be hand-held.
Um, you just locked up your computer. A restart doesn't fix it. You have no option other than calling tech support. They re-image your drive and lock you down and say have a nice day. Now you can't install things like GoogleEarth or FireFox, but its o.k. because you have a one-strike and your out policy.
.... as there is a ton of money to be made in after market accessories (see the iPod for a great example). It would take a lot of balls for cell phone companies (for example) not to do this in places where these mandates don't exist and cut off the income stream of their accessory companies. So consumers in places where these mandates don't exist still have to "vote with their dollars" as it were to encourage manufacturers to make it happen.
I've very mixed feelings on the iPod after market crap out there, but if this sort of thing actually goes through well, then instead of just iPod getting all these 3rd party items sold for it, then all cell phones that follow the standard will be able to use the 3rd party items. Those 3rd party folks should be happy that they now don't have to worry about one maker of an item, as long as the entire industry follows the spec they now have many more possible customers. Now, those over priced 1st party items sold by manufacturers won't last unless they were cheap, popular, or very useful.
This change will be trival for the cell phone companies to make for new phones as they are constantly changing connectors anyway. I've read lots of notes that data cable generally cost $50-60 and it would be much better to use a $5 "standard" cable. Another thing is that the price would be even less than $5 per cable. Not many can justify a $50 cable that they won't use often. A $5 dollar cable is an easy additional purchase that people wouldn't mind spending the money for the product. Many more will be made and the price should drop due to quantities of scale and different makers of the cables.
It is conceivable that you will be able to limit government use of this sort of technology. But will you be able to stop private users from using this sort of technology? If you envision a future revolution of some sort, do you believe that the revolutionaries would not use this technology themselves? To track the motion of police vehicles, and individual policemen, and the people who work for and against you?
This could be very, very neat if you control info or ads. Say you own a taxi cab company, with this tech you could retroactively find out who you've been carrying around where and when with GPS and a time stamp. A tax cab company owner may not have use for the info himself, but he could sell the data either per person or wholesale to others that would like it. The tech exists for police to scan 2 lanes of traffic and run all license plates through NCIC or a local database. It costs 20K-30K a piece depending on model and features though. Wait until the price drops to 200-300K and your car could record every car around you "just in case" some has an accident with you and drives away, you'll have their license plate and the plates of all the witnesses at the time of the event. You could collect/sell information about whom you see going to work or driving around daily. NCIC is a police database. How long will it be until some one creates license plate tracker.org where you could put into a license plate info and buy/sell information about where that license plate has been at any given time? It's only a matter of time.
Hell Nintendo is replacing the straps for free, not even calling for a mandatory recall, but the court case doesn't even meantion the tvs that are damaged. Personally that's what I'd care about, not the remote that probably still works, but the 3 inch hole in the wall from the impact of the remote.
Why is it when ever there's some news story about a defect (or retards in this case). There's always a second group of retards (normally called lawyers) who tries to get "rich" off of it? Simple solution. Stop supporting frivilious lawsuits. It'd be one thing if Nintendo told you to release the controller, or Nintendo did something neglegent, but there's no sign of that.
The Wii stuff generally still works from the horror stories that I've read. I think that they need to sue the makers of the TVs, entertainment centers, and ceiling fans for not being durable enough to handle a remote thrown at it. If those TVs were actually durable or rubbermade those remotes would have just bounced right off those TVs without harm to the TVs. Obviously it's the fault of the TV makers for not making their stuff strong and durable enough to handle normal remote usage. Obviously all the other TVs handle remotes being thrown at them on a daily basis so these TVs should be able to handle any type of remote being thrown at them.;)
And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.
It's that attitude that will win in the US consumer market as well. When you have one company that will bend over backwards from CEO down to make it right, consumers remember. I hope this attitude spreads to US companies and CEOs.
Yeah but once a Christian takes up arms to defend his faith he's not actually a Christian anymore is he?
Last I checked, yeap and Jews that take up arms are still Jewish although its their big ten laws. What non-followers generally "miss" is that it's not strictly just kill as in your not allowed to kill anyone. You aren't allowed to Murder. You are allowed to be a solider and kill whomever your government tells you to. You are also allowed to stone to death those that didn't make it through the community laws. You are also allowed to be employed by your government and kill said criminals. Murder is Joe Average Citizen/Follower killing another John Average Citizen/Follower. You aren't allowed to do that in any religion that I'm aware of. Heck, most atheists that I know follow that one.
I know of lots of games where "Arabian" countries are the bad guys. You can kill them then and its OK? Most RTS games use obvious characteristics of that easily assignable to regions of the world, either race based or religious but why no offense there?
Well, before this nameless Arabian enemy we always had "the Soviets" or "the Nazis" to put as our enemies. I kinda find it funny that we never did the same for those of Itlay or Japan. Japan got put as the enemy in some air plane side scrollers. Civ may have them all in there, but picks such varied historical figures that each region seems to recall postively. They are also balanced so all races have a shot to win. Games are about having a good time, but each side needs to have a decent chance of winning.
I actually find this entire thread funny. I'd have never heard of the game if it wasn't posted to slashdot. I'd say give it 2-3 months and see if you still hear anything about it. This reminds me of the whole GTA thing. I'd never heard of that game until the big debate over it had taken place. When will people learn that game companies are around to make money and most games die in development. Most of these games folks complain about would have had a quick death except for how often some of these titles keep popping up in the news. Here is a hint instead of protesting something just tell your friends that you had rented it and didn't like the game and buy some thing that you do like. That's all that's really required to change things.
Jail only prevent them from accessing adequate cure for their condition. The social pressure for a trial is in fact at the root of their early release (because neither a judge nor a jury is a qualified MD). This is medieval justice at its near best, if you don't count capital punishment.
I'm very "mixed" on my response to this. Part of me doesn't care if the person is "mentally ill" that they need to "serve jail time" for breaking a crimes against person's offense. Another part of me thinks that they need to "serve jail time" as punishment and then spend another time in a mental clinic until the clinic or a mental review board says that they are sane and safe to release back into society. I don't think that the public would want some one "cured" first with time in a hospital and then serve jail time. If a judge/jury could sentence some one to "atleast" X numbers of years into mental clinic that would be the same as the jail time without any possibity of being released into the public until afterward, then maybe we'd try that awhile.
Just wait until a few generations of ipods away that anyone can easily record and upload video. Blogs and youtube are the big thing currently. Wait until some one combines the two with a wiki and maybe GPS. If it really catches on, it would bring an entirely new concept to eye-witness if most people have these things going all the time. There was early an article about VR and "false memory". As soon as everyone can easily record and review most of their life, we'd quickly see how much of our human memory is "fals memory" that didn't actually happen according to what we ourselves record. How would society change as everyone could replay accurate recordings? Would life get better or will people stop caring about the recorded past. The concept reminds me of this dead comic: http://cdc.comicgen.com/ In it, there is a species that records everything and trys to act good and behave better because they know that their species in the future will be looking back on them and they want to make a good impression.
My younger brother was in a "gifted and talented" class for all of 6 months (the entire length of the program) before somebody decided that he should be hobbled by other people's stupidity as well.
Are you kidding? I viewed G&T as the place the school district puts those disruptive kids with annoying parents. I got out of GT ASAP after just looking at the students that were there. I had lots of friends that where there that would wonder why I didn't want to be in GT and get out of class with them. I just didn't want to let them know that all the most annoying kids where in GT and real learning took place on those GT days. The secret of school is to shut up and listen to the teacher and not to ask questions until the Q&A time. You'd be amazed at how much that you can get out of "normal" education by removing those annoying students in a manner that their parents would think of as a reward.
Just wait, one of these days they'll figure out how to make road surfaces into solar collectors or some one will start mounting them over the interstates. I wouldn't mind solar collectors mounted a ways above the interstate while we travel under them. Why does every time I read about solar power plans that they want to pave over an entire state with these things? I'm not an environmentally minded, but even I can see that'd be a stupid long term idea. You put "alt" energy sources as close as possible to where they will be used. We have interstates all over the US and that land is already governmentally owned. Why not just put another use ontop of it? (Sure it'd be expensive, but so was building the interstates in the first place. Long term it'd be worth it.
It makes you wonder whether or not people will take offense to their tools being used by such agencies and whether or not they'll develop licenses to ban them from using them. If they do, would they be enforceable (assuming the person somehow found out). And if it was enforceable, is there absolutely any way to find out legally? Whistle blower? If the government breaks license agreements and classifies that information, shouldn't that be illegal?
Trying to go against the government is a lossing battle unless you are have good lawyers or happen to be a pretty big business or organization like a religion. Do you want a tax or license fee on both open source software and open source developers? That's the "nice" response that I could see a government doing. How about a software licensing board, examine and fees similiar to doctors or lawyers in order to legally write software in that government's realm? Trust me going against a government is a bad idea unless you have your own source of lobbists and lawyers and then you might get something out of them. What's the new Open Source License going to say, you can't use this software to do anything that I don't like?
Paying taxes on virtual goods where you don't exchange for real money is stupid.
What, are they going to start looking through my character's inventory, evaluating how much my +10 Sword of Uberness is worth?
Well, actually alot of state taxes you should be paying for just own crap around the house like couches, beds, entertainment centers. I could see "them" wanting you to list every little virtual good that you obtained and what you sold it for. Will any one do it or get called on it? Not likely until it becomes very easy for the government to actually track all that from every different online game, or you just really, really feel the urge to list all of it on your taxable assests. I'm really curious to see some one that will list all their virtual goods just so that they can be taxed.
The website admin needs to locate one or more problems (== however many the cracker planted), and Google knows the exact location of at least one. "one or more" >= "at least one". If google tells people where their problems are, google will be playing whack a mole for eternity. There are contractors/services that should be able to help them/anyone, google is not one of them.
Why doesn't Google just put out a Google site validator tool that lists everything that might cause Google's automated stuff to delist a site? Every response I've read so far has blasted the site or guy for not magically pleasing Google. I'm kinda mixed. I don't think that its Google's or any other search engine's task to monitor the internet in this manner. The only reason this has currently popped up was that Google is currently the main search engine that everyone trys to suck up to and increase their page rank on. If any other search because as popular as Google currently is, everyone will want to know why their site was kicked from that site as well. Everyone here seems to think that a Google response needs a human response. I don't see why it does. If they automatically visit and index millions of sites, why can't they spit out an error report to the site's admin that your site flagged xx google errors and will be delisted for more information follow this link.
How are we supposed to believe that an advanced alien race would still be using something so mundane as concrete?
I can think of two reasons. Number one, they need a trade tech that they could give to other cultures that the culture could see was useful and make use with their tech level. Number two, their advanced nano machines could build it faster out of something simple like concrete.;)
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I have a problem with that license plate system too because it seems to automatically assume that everybody on the road is guilty until proven innocent. What's wrong with making the cops wait until you do something to give them probable cause before they get to start profiling you and looking for wants/warrants/etc? If he catches me speeding then he can run my plate -- but if I'm obeying the law then I don't think he has the right to be looking at me.
Well, following your logic then a cop might never pull over a "known" to NCIC stolen car because the person wasn't speeding or wrecklessly driving so he had no reason to stop and run the car through NCIC. I think that automatic lic. plate is the next best policing invention to fingerprinting and in car video. It would mean that cops could stop only those that "the system" has already taggeed for some offense. That a car even getts flagged going through an auto lic. plate reader would automatically make the vehicle suspects rather than a routine speeding stop.
If you are worried about your cell phone company tracking your movememnts, then you'll just drive up your stress. My wife has the family cell. I call her from my office phone. The phone company and my work know exactly where I was when I made the call. With enhanced 911, the cell phone company can provide the nearests street address of my wife when I call her. Could this be abused? Yeap. I'd personally, rather be able to track my wife's running around town by her cell phone calls that could be a service that many would love to pay for.
And again, why should we do this exactly?
Well, I've had this fantasy of Active Census all during college. A census once every ten years was o.k. way back at the beginning of the country, but I think that we've got the tech to track everyone in realtime and collect the long form census information on everyone in realtime. Should we? Maybe not, but tracking DL, fingerprints, and DNA would be a part of my active census plan.
Talk to any police officer. The cops aren't that much smarter then you or I. The criminals tend to be idiots. You have to ask yourself why the Government needs a database of fingerprints and DNA.
This is exactly why they have NCIC to track all filed stolen goods, and to send DL information through. Do you have any idea how many BOLOs, Wanted, and missing pictures that your average cop is expected to remember and mentally scan you against while doing their daily rountine? I do. I've seen this nifty little device that scans every license plate in four lanes of traffic and runs them all across NCIC or any other database you have for hits. I think that every cop car in the nation needs one of those. Only problem is that they are currently 25K-35K. If we can do something like that for lic. plates, why can't we do them for facial pictures? It would be much, much more difficult, but it would instantly identify those that are in the system already. Yeah, that tech can be abused, but what 1984 and others didn't think about is what happens when that tech becomes so cheap that I can afford it on my own car/person?
Are common law protections against unreasonable search and innocent until proven guilty going to become obsolete in the face of modern technology?
Sure, sounds great to me. Common law goes back centuries when the police didn't have any tools other than eye witness accounts. Only within maybe the last decade has it been possible to identify everyone if we registered everyone's finger prints, DNA, face, and body build. The only things that are stopping us from doing that are the Christain religious right that see any form of government issued id as "666" sign of the devil, memories of Nazi Germany and USSR Russia, and the publics general view that only criminals need to be registered. Change one of those and it would be less than a decade before we have widespread fingerprinting and DNA tracking.
There is a part of me that wonders why public schools haven't added finger printing to their student ID process. If that single step was taken, within two generations it would become socially acceptable to fingerprint and id everyone. The logic of I had to do it as a kid why shouldn't others have to do it as well can be very strong. In my state, it is currently optional to have a thumb print as part of the DL. All that needs to be changed is requiring a full set of prints for DL renewal or new DLs. We aren't quite there for DNA, but if we setup our system for fingerprints, how difficult would it be to add a string for your DNA? (Shouldn't be that hard.)
As for the Xbox 360, the only console not suffering from shortages (anymore), then good for them. I wonder how many were bought by people wanting a PS3, but then not finding any, so they bought a 360 instead.
Um, not many. I'd bet most that wanted to "pay" for the PS3 bought one. Those that didn't want to "pay through the nose" will wait 6-9 months for the first of several major price drops. Not many make an impluse purchase for things over $250. O.k. Maybe those rich slashdotters that bought all three systems for the living room this Christmas and one for each kid would, but most of us poor folk will be only buying one system. I'll tell you right quicky how many new video game systems showed up in my home 0 unless you cound handheld games. I got the lastest FF, DQ8, Radiata stories, a dragon ball Z game, my kids got some Horse game, a yuhgo game, Katamri dantasy, and pengel the quest for color, and DDR supernova. 9 various games most of them were $15-20 except FF and the DDR game. My girl likes the horse game. My kids like what they call they rolly polly game. The DDR game was more of a stealth fitness for me, but the kids have been having a ball with it. I've not cracked open FF or DQ yet. I've spent the last week going through Radiata stories and my main guy is around level 80 and I'm near the final big quest on the human side. (The game requires atleast 2 full play throughs to unlock everything if you are into that and it is awesome watching all the NPCs going about there days.) I've been drooling for a Wii, but I could not justify it.
It's an office application. I don't need a redesign, I don't care if it's "fresher" - people just need to be able to sit down and type a letter, or put together a spreadsheet.
There shouldn't be a learning curve involved with what amounts to commodity software.
Well, most of the "steep learning curve" is really an "unlearning" curve from most of what I've read. You can just start typing without any problems. You can't start looking and using "advanced" features from the older version and expect them to be in the same place. Folks that rarely use those features may now have easy access to the effects of those advanced features, but the expert way of doing things has changed. If you know everything under the hood on using Office XP or Office 2003; then you are better of just sticking with what you know. If you don't have any attachment or are just upgrading, you users will find tons of "features" that were in Office 2000, but know the average person can find and use them instead of the expert slashdotter. I'd expect slashdot to hate this version of Office with a passion.
So, basically, it's one regexp and a database lookup. Which is fine (how else would you do it?) but all this requires is one afternoon of PhD time followed by a lot of computer crunching. Even if you buy a very shiny very fast dedicated computer for this, where do the remaining 990 000 dollars go?
;)
Grad students, and Phd's budget for the next 5-10 years if he budgets right.
I can't believe this is on the Beeb and Slashdot's front pages.
Give 'em a break it is the Friday before Christams. Are you doing any real work today? Next week they'll mostly be off for the holidays. I'd expect much less "news" than this to surface next week.
One difference is that the stuff that residents are interested in is not current programs. It's the back catalogue. I wouldn't mind if they distribute some kind of customised BitTorrent that is locked to uk ip addresses, and has a proxy blacklist. Putting DRM on the media would be kindof pointless, and it directly contridicts their stated aims. The back-catalogue of BBC media belongs to the British people, not the coroporation.
Um, I don't see how you can restrict non-DRM content without some type of DRM control on the client to prevent "one" British guy from sharing non-DRM content worldwide. It's been years since I've seen anything current from the BBC. I'd simply be happy to see the entire collected Dr. Who, maybe Are you being served, I thinks its call Yes Minister, and the Black Adder. I can see why the BBC would want to lock that content down.
But this is not what they promised to do. As a British Licensefee payer I expect them to open up their content on UK filesharing networks, as they promised. Offering DRM'd content to overseas markets is not part of their charter. Making money should be a secondary concern to their primary purpose - delivering good tv to a British audience.
Um, before you Brits start complaining about your beloved BBC; think alittle. You had to pay a license fee. Those in the US, the EU, and the rest of the world didn't pay the UK BBC lic. fee. If the BBC put non-DRM content into most P2P networks, it would also be downloadable to those outside of the UK. Heck, if the BBC offerred non-DRM content to those within the UK on its on special UK only P2P the content would stay within the UK for only as long it your average Britain would keep the content out of their shared folders for their other P2P programs. I live in the US and would love to see current BBC content for free. I don't blame the BBC for trying to get some money out of the US, EU and other rest of the world. I'd think that the BBC would release DRM content that would play only if you've payed your BBC lic. fee. An idea would be to offer foreigners such as myself to pay this lic. fee and be able to download BBC content.
If you're worried about near computer-illiterates fubaring their machines, why not simply have a "one strike and you're out" sort of policy? Everyone gets a liberal security policy to start with - maybe even full local admin access. The first time you screw your machine up, it gets reimaged and locked down on the grounds that you can't be trusted not to screw it up again.
That lets those of us who know what we're doing and have never needed to call the support desk for anything other than hardware failure get on with our jobs with the minimum of inconvenience, while protecting those that clearly need to be hand-held.
Um, you just locked up your computer. A restart doesn't fix it. You have no option other than calling tech support. They re-image your drive and lock you down and say have a nice day. Now you can't install things like GoogleEarth or FireFox, but its o.k. because you have a one-strike and your out policy.
.... as there is a ton of money to be made in after market accessories (see the iPod for a great example). It would take a lot of balls for cell phone companies (for example) not to do this in places where these mandates don't exist and cut off the income stream of their accessory companies. So consumers in places where these mandates don't exist still have to "vote with their dollars" as it were to encourage manufacturers to make it happen.
I've very mixed feelings on the iPod after market crap out there, but if this sort of thing actually goes through well, then instead of just iPod getting all these 3rd party items sold for it, then all cell phones that follow the standard will be able to use the 3rd party items. Those 3rd party folks should be happy that they now don't have to worry about one maker of an item, as long as the entire industry follows the spec they now have many more possible customers. Now, those over priced 1st party items sold by manufacturers won't last unless they were cheap, popular, or very useful.
This change will be trival for the cell phone companies to make for new phones as they are constantly changing connectors anyway. I've read lots of notes that data cable generally cost $50-60 and it would be much better to use a $5 "standard" cable. Another thing is that the price would be even less than $5 per cable. Not many can justify a $50 cable that they won't use often. A $5 dollar cable is an easy additional purchase that people wouldn't mind spending the money for the product. Many more will be made and the price should drop due to quantities of scale and different makers of the cables.
It is conceivable that you will be able to limit government use of this sort of technology. But will you be able to stop private users from using this sort of technology? If you envision a future revolution of some sort, do you believe that the revolutionaries would not use this technology themselves? To track the motion of police vehicles, and individual policemen, and the people who work for and against you?
This could be very, very neat if you control info or ads. Say you own a taxi cab company, with this tech you could retroactively find out who you've been carrying around where and when with GPS and a time stamp. A tax cab company owner may not have use for the info himself, but he could sell the data either per person or wholesale to others that would like it. The tech exists for police to scan 2 lanes of traffic and run all license plates through NCIC or a local database. It costs 20K-30K a piece depending on model and features though. Wait until the price drops to 200-300K and your car could record every car around you "just in case" some has an accident with you and drives away, you'll have their license plate and the plates of all the witnesses at the time of the event. You could collect/sell information about whom you see going to work or driving around daily. NCIC is a police database. How long will it be until some one creates license plate tracker.org where you could put into a license plate info and buy/sell information about where that license plate has been at any given time? It's only a matter of time.
Fucking stupid people shouldn't be allow to have fun.
Um, that's even worse, they breed when doing that!
Hell Nintendo is replacing the straps for free, not even calling for a mandatory recall, but the court case doesn't even meantion the tvs that are damaged. Personally that's what I'd care about, not the remote that probably still works, but the 3 inch hole in the wall from the impact of the remote.
;)
Why is it when ever there's some news story about a defect (or retards in this case). There's always a second group of retards (normally called lawyers) who tries to get "rich" off of it? Simple solution. Stop supporting frivilious lawsuits. It'd be one thing if Nintendo told you to release the controller, or Nintendo did something neglegent, but there's no sign of that.
The Wii stuff generally still works from the horror stories that I've read. I think that they need to sue the makers of the TVs, entertainment centers, and ceiling fans for not being durable enough to handle a remote thrown at it. If those TVs were actually durable or rubbermade those remotes would have just bounced right off those TVs without harm to the TVs. Obviously it's the fault of the TV makers for not making their stuff strong and durable enough to handle normal remote usage. Obviously all the other TVs handle remotes being thrown at them on a daily basis so these TVs should be able to handle any type of remote being thrown at them.
And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.
It's that attitude that will win in the US consumer market as well. When you have one company that will bend over backwards from CEO down to make it right, consumers remember. I hope this attitude spreads to US companies and CEOs.
Yeah but once a Christian takes up arms to defend his faith he's not actually a Christian anymore is he?
Last I checked, yeap and Jews that take up arms are still Jewish although its their big ten laws. What non-followers generally "miss" is that it's not strictly just kill as in your not allowed to kill anyone. You aren't allowed to Murder. You are allowed to be a solider and kill whomever your government tells you to. You are also allowed to stone to death those that didn't make it through the community laws. You are also allowed to be employed by your government and kill said criminals. Murder is Joe Average Citizen/Follower killing another John Average Citizen/Follower. You aren't allowed to do that in any religion that I'm aware of. Heck, most atheists that I know follow that one.
I know of lots of games where "Arabian" countries are the bad guys. You can kill them then and its OK? Most RTS games use obvious characteristics of that easily assignable to regions of the world, either race based or religious but why no offense there?
Well, before this nameless Arabian enemy we always had "the Soviets" or "the Nazis" to put as our enemies. I kinda find it funny that we never did the same for those of Itlay or Japan. Japan got put as the enemy in some air plane side scrollers. Civ may have them all in there, but picks such varied historical figures that each region seems to recall postively. They are also balanced so all races have a shot to win. Games are about having a good time, but each side needs to have a decent chance of winning.
I actually find this entire thread funny. I'd have never heard of the game if it wasn't posted to slashdot. I'd say give it 2-3 months and see if you still hear anything about it. This reminds me of the whole GTA thing. I'd never heard of that game until the big debate over it had taken place. When will people learn that game companies are around to make money and most games die in development. Most of these games folks complain about would have had a quick death except for how often some of these titles keep popping up in the news. Here is a hint instead of protesting something just tell your friends that you had rented it and didn't like the game and buy some thing that you do like. That's all that's really required to change things.
Jail only prevent them from accessing adequate cure for their condition. The social pressure for a trial is in fact at the root of their early release (because neither a judge nor a jury is a qualified MD). This is medieval justice at its near best, if you don't count capital punishment.
I'm very "mixed" on my response to this. Part of me doesn't care if the person is "mentally ill" that they need to "serve jail time" for breaking a crimes against person's offense. Another part of me thinks that they need to "serve jail time" as punishment and then spend another time in a mental clinic until the clinic or a mental review board says that they are sane and safe to release back into society. I don't think that the public would want some one "cured" first with time in a hospital and then serve jail time. If a judge/jury could sentence some one to "atleast" X numbers of years into mental clinic that would be the same as the jail time without any possibity of being released into the public until afterward, then maybe we'd try that awhile.
Just wait until a few generations of ipods away that anyone can easily record and upload video. Blogs and youtube are the big thing currently. Wait until some one combines the two with a wiki and maybe GPS. If it really catches on, it would bring an entirely new concept to eye-witness if most people have these things going all the time. There was early an article about VR and "false memory". As soon as everyone can easily record and review most of their life, we'd quickly see how much of our human memory is "fals memory" that didn't actually happen according to what we ourselves record. How would society change as everyone could replay accurate recordings? Would life get better or will people stop caring about the recorded past. The concept reminds me of this dead comic: http://cdc.comicgen.com/ In it, there is a species that records everything and trys to act good and behave better because they know that their species in the future will be looking back on them and they want to make a good impression.
My younger brother was in a "gifted and talented" class for all of 6 months (the entire length of the program) before somebody decided that he should be hobbled by other people's stupidity as well.
Are you kidding? I viewed G&T as the place the school district puts those disruptive kids with annoying parents. I got out of GT ASAP after just looking at the students that were there. I had lots of friends that where there that would wonder why I didn't want to be in GT and get out of class with them. I just didn't want to let them know that all the most annoying kids where in GT and real learning took place on those GT days. The secret of school is to shut up and listen to the teacher and not to ask questions until the Q&A time. You'd be amazed at how much that you can get out of "normal" education by removing those annoying students in a manner that their parents would think of as a reward.
Just wait, one of these days they'll figure out how to make road surfaces into solar collectors or some one will start mounting them over the interstates. I wouldn't mind solar collectors mounted a ways above the interstate while we travel under them. Why does every time I read about solar power plans that they want to pave over an entire state with these things? I'm not an environmentally minded, but even I can see that'd be a stupid long term idea. You put "alt" energy sources as close as possible to where they will be used. We have interstates all over the US and that land is already governmentally owned. Why not just put another use ontop of it? (Sure it'd be expensive, but so was building the interstates in the first place. Long term it'd be worth it.
It makes you wonder whether or not people will take offense to their tools being used by such agencies and whether or not they'll develop licenses to ban them from using them. If they do, would they be enforceable (assuming the person somehow found out). And if it was enforceable, is there absolutely any way to find out legally? Whistle blower? If the government breaks license agreements and classifies that information, shouldn't that be illegal?
Trying to go against the government is a lossing battle unless you are have good lawyers or happen to be a pretty big business or organization like a religion. Do you want a tax or license fee on both open source software and open source developers? That's the "nice" response that I could see a government doing. How about a software licensing board, examine and fees similiar to doctors or lawyers in order to legally write software in that government's realm? Trust me going against a government is a bad idea unless you have your own source of lobbists and lawyers and then you might get something out of them. What's the new Open Source License going to say, you can't use this software to do anything that I don't like?
Paying taxes on virtual goods where you don't exchange for real money is stupid.
What, are they going to start looking through my character's inventory, evaluating how much my +10 Sword of Uberness is worth?
Well, actually alot of state taxes you should be paying for just own crap around the house like couches, beds, entertainment centers. I could see "them" wanting you to list every little virtual good that you obtained and what you sold it for. Will any one do it or get called on it? Not likely until it becomes very easy for the government to actually track all that from every different online game, or you just really, really feel the urge to list all of it on your taxable assests. I'm really curious to see some one that will list all their virtual goods just so that they can be taxed.
The website admin needs to locate one or more problems (== however many the cracker planted), and Google knows the exact location of at least one. "one or more" >= "at least one". If google tells people where their problems are, google will be playing whack a mole for eternity. There are contractors/services that should be able to help them/anyone, google is not one of them.
Why doesn't Google just put out a Google site validator tool that lists everything that might cause Google's automated stuff to delist a site? Every response I've read so far has blasted the site or guy for not magically pleasing Google. I'm kinda mixed. I don't think that its Google's or any other search engine's task to monitor the internet in this manner. The only reason this has currently popped up was that Google is currently the main search engine that everyone trys to suck up to and increase their page rank on. If any other search because as popular as Google currently is, everyone will want to know why their site was kicked from that site as well. Everyone here seems to think that a Google response needs a human response. I don't see why it does. If they automatically visit and index millions of sites, why can't they spit out an error report to the site's admin that your site flagged xx google errors and will be delisted for more information follow this link.
How are we supposed to believe that an advanced alien race would still be using something so mundane as concrete?
;)
I can think of two reasons. Number one, they need a trade tech that they could give to other cultures that the culture could see was useful and make use with their tech level. Number two, their advanced nano machines could build it faster out of something simple like concrete.