I would much rather have Google in charge of what is available on the internet than Hollywood and the MPAA. If the content mafia had their way, I'm sure the entire internet would be shut down by now. These are the same people who wanted to make VCRs illegal after all. The claim that Google is "anti-copyright" is ridiculous. Remember, Google owns YouTube, the site that gave all these content companies a back door to delete content at will. And what did the content companies do with this power? They blatantly abused it and deleted anything related to their copyrights regardless of whether it was fair use or not (even NASA videos). Now the content companies want that same power over the entire internet. No thanks.
"Development of ethical robotic systems seems like it would take some of the fun out of things"
What kind of twisted fantasy world are you guys living in? War means killing people. It isn't fun. It isn't a video game. And in response to Kell's comment above, we aren't the "Forces of Good" battling the "Forces of Evil". We are a nation state with imperfect leaders and selfish short-sighted goals just like every other nation state on the planet. The difference between having real armies and having robot armies is that robots don't suffer any decline in morale from massacring large numbers of civilians. Think about the implications of that for a minute.
Apparently the talk also included discussion of the use of date rape drugs. That seems like another relevant fact that was not mentioned. I understand that the summary writer may not have agreed with the removal of the talk, but they at least explain why the hell the talk was actually objected to.
How much you want to bet it's yet another imperial vs. metric error? This has been a recurring problem with NASA due to the fact that many of it's suppliers are based in the US, and the US, inexplicably, insists on being the only country on the planet stuck in the pre-metric dark ages. An ounce of prevention is worth 1.7086 kg of cure.
Sadly, this type of behavior is often considered "normal" in geek communities. Other than just talking about the problem, what can people do about it? For starters, make sure that your event has an anti-harassment policy (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy) and make sure you actually enforce it. I've seen several female friends and colleagues harassed at conferences and events only to be told, "Oh that's normal, just ignore him" or otherwise dismissed. And then we wonder why there are few women attending these events!
Re:The government does this all the time
on
Insects As Weapons
·
· Score: 3, Informative
It looks like at least one of the people they interviewed is more sensible:
Ted Center, an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Invasive Plant Research Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale, Florida agrees. Globalization has ratcheted up the chances of importing pests and diseases from everywhere. Furthermore, he says, there are now more direct flights between Los Angeles and Australia than ever before, and pests entering the cargo holds of passenger planes need only survive fourteen or fifteen hours in order to reach California. Other destinations where eucalyptus occurs receive fewer flights or are less directly accessible, requiring connections. “In my opinion, the [Journal of Economic Entomology] paper is far too speculative,” he says.
The government does this all the time
on
Insects As Weapons
·
· Score: 2
So when the U.S. government introduces an invasive species to control another invasive species, it's called progress, but if it happens accidentally, it's called bioterrorism?? Invasive insects are introduced to the U.S. through shipping on a daily basis, thanks to NAFTA and other free-trade treaties gutting the import inspection requirements. But no one complains about that for some reason. Probably because too many people are making obscene amounts of money thanks to the relaxed regulations, and conveniently you can blame 'ecoterrorists' for the introduced bugs, so why worry?
Thanks for providing a great example of why a lot of women probably don't want to go into IT: The inability of male geeks to consider women as humans rather than things they've seen in porn videos.
The FBI believes in the First Amendment about as much as Wilt Chamberlain believed in safe sex.
This is the same FBI that: * Claimed Wikipedia couldn't host a copy of the FBI seal * Once took a dozen news websites off the internet because one of them published a photograph of an undercover police office, in Italy! * Tried to smear Martin Luther King as a Communist because he opposed the Vietnam War * Tried to smear Judi Bari as a terrorist because she opposed clear-cutting California's redwood forests
A major protest is planned for Wednesday, March 5th in downtown Nashville. 8AM, corner of 6th Ave. and Union (near the capital building). Come and show your opposition to this ridiculous legislation.
Most of the issues brought up in this article are discussed in the Climate change Wikipedia article. There's at least as much climate change psuedoscience as there is actual science. Listen to what the actual scientists have to say, not the journalists and pundits.
I work for an ISP that has had the same problem with Comcast. They blocked all of our email and it took over a month of calling them every day, gradually working our way up the chain of command, and finally talking to one of the big wigs before we were finally put in touch with an actual person who worked in the abuse department (this is apparently more difficult than getting an appearance with the pope). After talking with him we finally found out the reason we were blocked - are you ready for it? Someone (not related to us whatsoever) sent out a spam that included an image (a bank logo) that was part of a site we host. So the spam email had nothing to do with our mail servers whatsoever. It was just that the HTML in the spam included an image that resided on one of our web hosting servers. For this, they blocked thousands of legitimate emails to Comcast subscribers from our customers. This was half a year ago, and it sounds like things haven't improved one bit. I would strongly recommend not using Comcast for any services whatsoever if you can help it. They are completely incompetent when it comes to email, tech support, and internet services in general.
Apple's response that there's nothing wrong because the Nanos use the same materials as the old iPods is rediculous. The old iPods have the same problem. My first iPod got so scratched up that the screen became unreadable (just from carrying it around in my pocket). My second iPod was significantly scratched up a week after I bought it (again just from being in my pocket), so this time I bought one of those hard plastic shells for it and it's been fine since then. Apple needs to fix the screens on ALL their iPods, not just the nanos.
It seems the mantra these days is "increase productivity", not "increase jobs". What this really translates into is "increase worker exploitation" because these companies don't want to pay the exorbitant health insurance costs for extra employees. This problem has only gotten worse under Bush, who seems more than willing to bend over backwards for insurance and phamaceutical companies at the expense of Joe Worker. It's not like IT workers are going to strike after all. We seem to have a masochistic love for working 80 hour weeks without overtime. I guess it's better than having your job shipped out to India. Welcome to the new economy!
The servers were seized in the UK, although the order was delivered to RackSpace in the US (by the FBI). There was no order to return the servers, as no one even knows who actually was in possession of them. The servers were returned to RackSpace after a week as mysteriously as they were originally seized.
So you're saying that the US government shutting down 20+ online news sites for a week without any explaination ISN"T IMPORTANT? I have to wonder what sort of trampling of our rights you WOULD consider important. Would you care if the FBI seized Slashdot's servers? The New York Times?
>That UoM 512 CPU one is significantly smaller than the top 5 super computers.
Exactly how small is it? Smaller than a breadbox? Are you trying to say that UoM's supercomputer is significantly "less powerful" than the top 5? Actually, w/ 512 XServes I don't imagine it would be that far behind - probably around 30th place if it were on the list. Not bad for under a million.
>My own suspicion is that someone in the EU's equivalent of the >RIAA browsed the song selections and found a couple of file >names that looked suspiciously like a song from a signed >artist, and initiated court actions. However I don't know.
Indymedia isn't a music service, it's a news service. The issue isn't about copyright infringement, it's about the supression of free speech and free press through secret government orders across international borders. Pretty scary if you ask me.
Slashdot Mirror
I would much rather have Google in charge of what is available on the internet than Hollywood and the MPAA. If the content mafia had their way, I'm sure the entire internet would be shut down by now. These are the same people who wanted to make VCRs illegal after all. The claim that Google is "anti-copyright" is ridiculous. Remember, Google owns YouTube, the site that gave all these content companies a back door to delete content at will. And what did the content companies do with this power? They blatantly abused it and deleted anything related to their copyrights regardless of whether it was fair use or not (even NASA videos). Now the content companies want that same power over the entire internet. No thanks.
"Development of ethical robotic systems seems like it would take some of the fun out of things"
What kind of twisted fantasy world are you guys living in? War means killing people. It isn't fun. It isn't a video game. And in response to Kell's comment above, we aren't the "Forces of Good" battling the "Forces of Evil". We are a nation state with imperfect leaders and selfish short-sighted goals just like every other nation state on the planet. The difference between having real armies and having robot armies is that robots don't suffer any decline in morale from massacring large numbers of civilians. Think about the implications of that for a minute.
Apparently the talk also included discussion of the use of date rape drugs. That seems like another relevant fact that was not mentioned. I understand that the summary writer may not have agreed with the removal of the talk, but they at least explain why the hell the talk was actually objected to.
The talk was about sex and drugs. Why is this critcical fact not mentioned in the summary?
Wikipedia's AbuseFilter is prior art.
How much you want to bet it's yet another imperial vs. metric error? This has been a recurring problem with NASA due to the fact that many of it's suppliers are based in the US, and the US, inexplicably, insists on being the only country on the planet stuck in the pre-metric dark ages. An ounce of prevention is worth 1.7086 kg of cure.
As you can see on the following page, this is not an isolated indecent:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
Sadly, this type of behavior is often considered "normal" in geek communities. Other than just talking about the problem, what can people do about it? For starters, make sure that your event has an anti-harassment policy (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy) and make sure you actually enforce it. I've seen several female friends and colleagues harassed at conferences and events only to be told, "Oh that's normal, just ignore him" or otherwise dismissed. And then we wonder why there are few women attending these events!
It looks like at least one of the people they interviewed is more sensible:
Ted Center, an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Invasive Plant Research Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale, Florida agrees. Globalization has ratcheted up the chances of importing pests and diseases from everywhere. Furthermore, he says, there are now more direct flights between Los Angeles and Australia than ever before, and pests entering the cargo holds of passenger planes need only survive fourteen or fifteen hours in order to reach California. Other destinations where eucalyptus occurs receive fewer flights or are less directly accessible, requiring connections. “In my opinion, the [Journal of Economic Entomology] paper is far too speculative,” he says.
So when the U.S. government introduces an invasive species to control another invasive species, it's called progress, but if it happens accidentally, it's called bioterrorism?? Invasive insects are introduced to the U.S. through shipping on a daily basis, thanks to NAFTA and other free-trade treaties gutting the import inspection requirements. But no one complains about that for some reason. Probably because too many people are making obscene amounts of money thanks to the relaxed regulations, and conveniently you can blame 'ecoterrorists' for the introduced bugs, so why worry?
Thanks for providing a great example of why a lot of women probably don't want to go into IT: The inability of male geeks to consider women as humans rather than things they've seen in porn videos.
Have you tried Indian Rope Burn? It always works for me.
The FBI believes in the First Amendment about as much as Wilt Chamberlain believed in safe sex.
This is the same FBI that:
* Claimed Wikipedia couldn't host a copy of the FBI seal
* Once took a dozen news websites off the internet because one of them published a photograph of an undercover police office, in Italy!
* Tried to smear Martin Luther King as a Communist because he opposed the Vietnam War
* Tried to smear Judi Bari as a terrorist because she opposed clear-cutting California's redwood forests
Give me a break!
Why does the headline say "men" instead of "people"? I don't think the job is exclusive to one gender.
A little pricey, but you can already buy such a thing: http://wearcam.org/domewear/
A major protest is planned for Wednesday, March 5th in downtown Nashville. 8AM, corner of 6th Ave. and Union (near the capital building). Come and show your opposition to this ridiculous legislation.
It's a "space desert", not a "space hole"! Don't you guys watch Star Trek (that's a rhetorical question).
Most of the issues brought up in this article are discussed in the Climate change Wikipedia article. There's at least as much climate change psuedoscience as there is actual science. Listen to what the actual scientists have to say, not the journalists and pundits.
I work for an ISP that has had the same problem with Comcast. They blocked all of our email and it took over a month of calling them every day, gradually working our way up the chain of command, and finally talking to one of the big wigs before we were finally put in touch with an actual person who worked in the abuse department (this is apparently more difficult than getting an appearance with the pope). After talking with him we finally found out the reason we were blocked - are you ready for it? Someone (not related to us whatsoever) sent out a spam that included an image (a bank logo) that was part of a site we host. So the spam email had nothing to do with our mail servers whatsoever. It was just that the HTML in the spam included an image that resided on one of our web hosting servers. For this, they blocked thousands of legitimate emails to Comcast subscribers from our customers. This was half a year ago, and it sounds like things haven't improved one bit. I would strongly recommend not using Comcast for any services whatsoever if you can help it. They are completely incompetent when it comes to email, tech support, and internet services in general.
Guess he hasn't seen Suicide Girls TV.
Apple's response that there's nothing wrong because the Nanos use the same materials as the old iPods is rediculous. The old iPods have the same problem. My first iPod got so scratched up that the screen became unreadable (just from carrying it around in my pocket). My second iPod was significantly scratched up a week after I bought it (again just from being in my pocket), so this time I bought one of those hard plastic shells for it and it's been fine since then. Apple needs to fix the screens on ALL their iPods, not just the nanos.
It seems the mantra these days is "increase productivity", not "increase jobs". What this really translates into is "increase worker exploitation" because these companies don't want to pay the exorbitant health insurance costs for extra employees. This problem has only gotten worse under Bush, who seems more than willing to bend over backwards for insurance and phamaceutical companies at the expense of Joe Worker. It's not like IT workers are going to strike after all. We seem to have a masochistic love for working 80 hour weeks without overtime. I guess it's better than having your job shipped out to India. Welcome to the new economy!
The servers were seized in the UK, although the order was delivered to RackSpace in the US (by the FBI). There was no order to return the servers, as no one even knows who actually was in possession of them. The servers were returned to RackSpace after a week as mysteriously as they were originally seized.
So you're saying that the US government shutting down 20+ online news sites for a week without any explaination ISN"T IMPORTANT? I have to wonder what sort of trampling of our rights you WOULD consider important. Would you care if the FBI seized Slashdot's servers? The New York Times?
>That UoM 512 CPU one is significantly smaller than the top 5 super computers.
Exactly how small is it? Smaller than a breadbox? Are you trying to say that UoM's supercomputer is significantly "less powerful" than the top 5? Actually, w/ 512 XServes I don't imagine it would be that far behind - probably around 30th place if it were on the list. Not bad for under a million.
>My own suspicion is that someone in the EU's equivalent of the
>RIAA browsed the song selections and found a couple of file
>names that looked suspiciously like a song from a signed
>artist, and initiated court actions. However I don't know.
Indymedia isn't a music service, it's a news service. The issue isn't about copyright infringement, it's about the supression of free speech and free press through secret government orders across international borders. Pretty scary if you ask me.