I did watch the video. Admittedly, some of the "big man" stuff does sound a bit like a power trip by the big.... but it still doesn't see too extreme. I mean, once this goes on for a while and the guy is refusing to identify himself, the cop is just getting more suspicious -- right or wrong -- that's obviously what's happening. As the majority opinion stated, the amount an individual gives up by identifying him or herself is miniscule compared to what an investigator learns by identifying that individual. It's similar to the amount of "free speech" I give up by not being able to shout "fire" in a crowded place if there isn't really a fire.
Now, my general concern is that the police take it as a license to start identifying people on their way out of opposition political meetings and the like, but I think that the majority opinion is worded quite clearly such that the verdict is only on identification during the course of an existing criminal investigation....
.... no, the ruling upheld a state law that required individuals to identify themselves to police when requested during the course of a police investigation
No "papers please" ---- no "national ID card" ---- just the fact that a specific state law requiring individuals to identify themselves when requested to during a normal police investigation isn't unconstitutional. I mean, the man bringing the appeal was appealing a $250 fine... not a jail term. Granted, he brought the case on general principle... but let's not go too crazy over the ruling.
As a card carrying Libertarian, I think the movement has more to bring when we have well reasoned arguments based on the facts of cases than we we get all reactionary from an incendiary headline.
first, let me say that I disagree with the court's ruling on this one (though I do find it somewhat heartening that it was only a 5-4 majority.)
... but, I feel compelled to clarify a few things. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a state law that required people to identify themselves when questioned by police in a criminal investigation. Twenty-some states have similar laws, but this is far from a federal mandate. The man bringing the case was fighting a $250 fine -- not a jail sentence for his refusal to identify himself to a police officer investigating a crime. The man was admittedly innocent of the crime being investigated, but he was standing outside of his truck on the side of the road (reasonable reason for a police officer to stop by and see what's up?) and according to the office appeared intoxicated -- granted this is quite subjective, but I think I can suspend disbelief. After 11 requests for identification (as per police camera video) and 11 refusals, the officer cited the man under state law. This doesn't seem too draconian to me. The majority opinion even makes it clear that this level of questioning only includes the superficial detail of one's name -- and the 5-4 ruling probably makes it tenuous at that.
Again, as I stated, I think disagree with the ruling on general principle, but I think we need to read the facts of the case and the language of the ruling, before being too reactionary on this particular one.
interesting point, but actually, I think the same theory holds true for interpreted languages. It's just that the level of abstraction moves up a layer.
Knowing the specific machine op codes for your java statements might not be as valuable, but having some sense on how that bytecode is going to be generated and interpreted by the VM will improve your design choices. Similarly, you can write some really horribly inefficient Perl algorithms if you don't understand how the underlying code is going to get executed at runtime (think regexs for example.)
I think the message is less "learn assembly language," than "learn the underlying execution environment."
There are at least two on Smithfield St. in downtown Pittsburgh. I just stopped to check them out on my lunch break. One is at Smithfield and Oliver Ave. with the text "Toynbee Ideas in Movie 2001 / Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter." Half a block down at Smithfield and Sixth, there's a very similar one with "Toynbee Ideas in Kubrick's 2001 / Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter." There's also some smaller text at the bottom, but the pavement is pretty cracked and hard to read.
I know they've been here for a while, but I've always thought of them as "that weird stuff on Smithfield Street" -- I never thought this was part of a larger bit if lunacy.
It sounds like no one clued them in on the cluetrain
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter--and getting smarter faster than most companies
So they are saying that communication is the reason for movie's failure? They should get rid of free speech
I don't think that's what the article said. The slashdot headline is a little misleading. I think the point of the article is that people find out movies are bad faster. From the article:
Five years ago, when summer movies were arguably just as bad as they are now, the average audience drop-off between a film's opening weekend and its second weekend was 40 per cent. This summer, it has been 51 per cent. In some cases, the drop-off has started between the film's opening on a Friday night and the main screenings on Saturday.
It sounds like there's acknowledgement that "blockbusters" can be really bad movies... their point is that people find out about it sooner now. I'd actually argue that trends such as blogging are more influential than text messaging, but that's a different story. I think the really interesting question is why does it take word of mouth to figure this out? Did you really need one of your friends to text you that the Hulk was gonna suck?
using obscurity as the soles means of security is a bad thing. However, using obscurity as another layer of an already hardended system isn't a bad thing, and would in fact be encouraged.
For a quick example, I'm sure the NSA has all sorts of crazy security measures (both physical and virtual) around some of their sensitive systems. Do they publish the specs to the security methods? No, they hide them as much as the secrets they protect. But if the specs were to be revealed, the security itself probably isn't compromised. The obscurity is just another layer on top of any already tight system.
yeah good point on the IP thing. I'm sort of hoping ZD misquoted him on a few things. The article also said something along the lines of open source stuff is in the "public domain." The GPL is hardly public domain. The restrictions that make it "free" make it clear that the copyright is with the original author. Public domain implies no copyright, and would in fact encourage looting of the code. (think MS and BSD licensed things.)
Most of the posts I've read seem to miss the point. While I'm completely opposed to selective censorship of the web as a whole, this provides a great solution for a "white list" of ok sites. Say a pre school or even grade school wants to provide limited internet access to their students. All they need to do is limit their access to the.kids.us domain. No one is going to pretend that the kids have access to the 'net at large -- that's not what they want. They just want a guaranteed 'safe' way to expose their kids to some educational resources. Limiting the access to a specific domain that you have to qualify to get into is a good thing. Compare that approach to some of the current blacklists and url filters.
Just by the fact that the name is "kids.us" I don't think this is something that is targetting more general audiences such as those accessing the internet in public libraries.
The two "neat" experiments I remember professors doing in a chemistry lecture were:
1. lighting balloons of hydrogen. I think this was most impressive because people are conditioned to think that floating balloons on strings are simply helium. I came a lecture hall on my first day of freshman chemistry there were several balloons on strings... how cute. Then the professor lights a dowel rod about a meter long and pops each of the balloons. The resulting explosion is quite bright and loud. Good attention getter.
2. inhaling argon. I'm not sure how safe this one was, but as most people know you can suck in helium and get the whole Donald Duck voice thing. I also had a professor inhale argon (significantly heavier than air.) The resulting voice is very deep and eerie sounding.
You still have to conceed the point that http evolved to where it is today, and if one had to design something from scratch, it would likely be far different.
I mean, let's take a connection oriented protocol like TCP and add a text based stateless protocol on top of it. Ok, that makes sense so far.... but wait, we want to be able to maintain state, so lets introduce this new concept called "cookies" and we'll use ASCII strings to identify things. And, it would be nice to be able to make multiple requests per TCP session, so let's put together some keep-alive mechanism. Ohh, and I want to be able to talk to multiple servers on a given IP, so let's add a host header field.... But wait, all of this is transmitted in clear text! Let's engineer a set of encyrption protocols to stick between our HTTP layer and our TCP layer. Here we'll solve some of the same engineering problems, like adding an SSL session ID to maintain state. Now, instead of requesting simple documents, how about we design an extensible markup spec to request "web services?" Yeah, that should work.
It is a testament to the design of the protocol that it's still ticking with all these enhancements (aka hacks.) But, all the layers add bits of overhead that could likely be engineered out if one had the luxury of starting from scratch.
Re:News for nerds? Can a STORY be modded Offtopic?
on
Review: Orange County
·
· Score: 3, Offtopic
I guess it may surprise some, but in most cases nerd != 1 dimensional tech person. I sort of like the fact that slashdot runs stories on a range of topics that typically appeal to people that also tend to like "geeky" things.
I still think it's interesting that many types people interested in a given topic, also typically share an interest in another seemingly unrelated topic.
For example, slashdot typically runs significant stories on space exploration / physics topics. What does linux and open source have to do with NASA? Nothing really, but for whatever reason, it seems like the majority of linux enthusiasts are also interested in physics / science stuff.
I guess I'm way, way off topic on the movie review, but I guess my point is something like, "if you don't like a story headline, don't read it." It's most likely posted here because it will appeal to a number of other slashdotters.
It all comes down to the codec / software used, right? I mean, if I have a binary file that's an mpeg2 encoded video, and I ftp it somewhere else, it's the same video. You can't really do anything to the file that makes ftp say "ohhh, I shouldn't copy this."
I think the only way to enforce something like this technically is to build a check into the playing and transfer softwares. And of course, in order to make it work, it would have to be a closed spec, and would probably be licensed.
As long as "normal" software and protocols work, there's probably not going to be a compelling reason to switch to the new protected ones.
Re:Not via email you dont you wascally wabbit
on
Linux Virus Alert
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I think the biological model is accurate.
Virus - small piece of [genetic] code that can't replicate on it's own. Attaches to and infects host, and is transmitted via that host's life process (read execution.)
Worm - independent entity that replicates on it's own
Trojan - sneaky guys that jump out of a horse and surprise you.
The key point about the virus is that, as in this case, it infects binaries. It's a little bit of code that attaches itself on to the end of a binary and doesn't do much other than replicate itself to other binaries when the original infected one is run.
I think I disagree. First, the article states that this court will only handle civil cases of 25k plus, so this won't be your typical criminal jury case. And second, I think this is one of the best ways to get an impartial judge. There is little room for racial, ethinic, sexual, age (etc.) discrimination, when all the court sees are briefs delivered via email.
We may all hope that judges don't exhibit the same discrimination as the rest of us, but it's almost part of human nature. De-humanizing the process slightly can help eliminate that.
I have a physics and chemistry degree and work in systems / network engineering so, I'm probably completely unqualified to answer.
That being said, my understanding is that [CM]IS is sort of like the practical / engineering side of things and is more business oriented, CS is hardware / logic gade based, and CS is completely academic.
Practical experience beats any of the three hand down, but they can all be leveraged by the right person, depending on what you want to do. MIS makes a nice lead-in to an MBA degree. CS makes a nice background for graudate study in logic, math, or cryptography. Computer science seems the most well suited for embedded work. They tend to be anal about the "best solution to reverse sort a double linked list" and similar question.
Of course, as I staed, I have no qualifications, so ignore me please.
Doesn't your post contradict itself? "I suppose it can be expected ten or however many sequels later." -- Then you go on to talk about Sega NFL 2k2 which really doesn't qualify as a sequel -- it's the same game updated with graphics and players each year.
Personally, I think one of the best things about the final fantasy series is that they keep the same basic playing feel and keep adding interesting twists. The materia system in FF7 was great and added a whole new dimension of strategy. I'm just started on FF10, but I already think the sphere grid level system is a great enhancement. Far from being sequels (the plots are unrelated) I think the final fantasy series takes a good game engine and keeps updating it with new concepts and new options. I'm already looking forward to a multiplayer version.
A cold electron gun has some other benefits as well. Historically, the biggest problem with making monitor screens truly flat (no warping at the corners) was that the front material needs to be incredibly strong. Screens were rounded slightly to keep them from breaking due to the forces of the vacuum behind them. As screens grew larger and the depth of the monitor increased (in order to let the electron gun get the necessary width) screens had to be stronger. The premium for flat screens is still a couple hundred dollars more than their conventional counterparts.
By having a cold electron gun that allows wider dispersion angles, you can reduce the depth of the monitor, and thereby reduce the strength required from the front screen material.
Re:Not via email you dont you wascally wabbit
on
Linux Virus Alert
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Russell makes an excellent point there. All you have to do is distribute a file that "lets you own M$ boxen!" and there will still be a large number of script kiddies that will download the file and run it as root. Sure, it's not going to be able to be auto-executed, but it's just like virii back in the DOS days.
Beyond the obvious irony that a Microsoft-ite is blasting the security community over flaws exploited in its own operating environments, I think the most interesting part of the article is Culp's statement "And it's high time... the security community live up to its obligation to protect [software users]."
What obligation is he talking about? For a company that epitomizes a big-money capitalist position, that's the most blatant socialist comment I can imagine. Users collectively pay billions of dollars to software manufacturers each year for endless upgrades, yet he thinks a reasonably loosely knit group of professionals working on their free time somehow owes that same user base the right to be protected???? That's bizarre.
Further, the "Information Anarchy" thing sounds way too much like the "intellectual property virus" tagline they keep using for the GPL. It's a catchy management-speak phrase that sounds nasty and has little real meaning. It's easy to see how they can set the stage to condemn the whole open source community with all it's open and anarchic ways that don't protect innocent users.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, my general concern is that the police take it as a license to start identifying people on their way out of opposition political meetings and the like, but I think that the majority opinion is worded quite clearly such that the verdict is only on identification during the course of an existing criminal investigation....
No "papers please" ---- no "national ID card" ---- just the fact that a specific state law requiring individuals to identify themselves when requested to during a normal police investigation isn't unconstitutional. I mean, the man bringing the appeal was appealing a $250 fine... not a jail term. Granted, he brought the case on general principle... but let's not go too crazy over the ruling.
As a card carrying Libertarian, I think the movement has more to bring when we have well reasoned arguments based on the facts of cases than we we get all reactionary from an incendiary headline.
Again, as I stated, I think disagree with the ruling on general principle, but I think we need to read the facts of the case and the language of the ruling, before being too reactionary on this particular one.
interesting point, but actually, I think the same theory holds true for interpreted languages. It's just that the level of abstraction moves up a layer.
Knowing the specific machine op codes for your java statements might not be as valuable, but having some sense on how that bytecode is going to be generated and interpreted by the VM will improve your design choices. Similarly, you can write some really horribly inefficient Perl algorithms if you don't understand how the underlying code is going to get executed at runtime (think regexs for example.)
I think the message is less "learn assembly language," than "learn the underlying execution environment."
Thankfully slashdot wasn't spawned from the VAX world.
Think of colonbracketsemicolondotcom.com
I know they've been here for a while, but I've always thought of them as "that weird stuff on Smithfield Street" -- I never thought this was part of a larger bit if lunacy.
I don't think that's what the article said. The slashdot headline is a little misleading. I think the point of the article is that people find out movies are bad faster. From the article:
It sounds like there's acknowledgement that "blockbusters" can be really bad movies... their point is that people find out about it sooner now. I'd actually argue that trends such as blogging are more influential than text messaging, but that's a different story. I think the really interesting question is why does it take word of mouth to figure this out? Did you really need one of your friends to text you that the Hulk was gonna suck?
using obscurity as the soles means of security is a bad thing. However, using obscurity as another layer of an already hardended system isn't a bad thing, and would in fact be encouraged.
For a quick example, I'm sure the NSA has all sorts of crazy security measures (both physical and virtual) around some of their sensitive systems. Do they publish the specs to the security methods? No, they hide them as much as the secrets they protect. But if the specs were to be revealed, the security itself probably isn't compromised. The obscurity is just another layer on top of any already tight system.
yeah good point on the IP thing. I'm sort of hoping ZD misquoted him on a few things. The article also said something along the lines of open source stuff is in the "public domain." The GPL is hardly public domain. The restrictions that make it "free" make it clear that the copyright is with the original author. Public domain implies no copyright, and would in fact encourage looting of the code. (think MS and BSD licensed things.)
jumping the gun on April Fools Day a bit, aren't we?
Most of the posts I've read seem to miss the point. While I'm completely opposed to selective censorship of the web as a whole, this provides a great solution for a "white list" of ok sites. Say a pre school or even grade school wants to provide limited internet access to their students. All they need to do is limit their access to the .kids.us domain. No one is going to pretend that the kids have access to the 'net at large -- that's not what they want. They just want a guaranteed 'safe' way to expose their kids to some educational resources. Limiting the access to a specific domain that you have to qualify to get into is a good thing. Compare that approach to some of the current blacklists and url filters.
Just by the fact that the name is "kids.us" I don't think this is something that is targetting more general audiences such as those accessing the internet in public libraries.
The two "neat" experiments I remember professors doing in a chemistry lecture were:
1. lighting balloons of hydrogen. I think this was most impressive because people are conditioned to think that floating balloons on strings are simply helium. I came a lecture hall on my first day of freshman chemistry there were several balloons on strings... how cute. Then the professor lights a dowel rod about a meter long and pops each of the balloons. The resulting explosion is quite bright and loud. Good attention getter.
2. inhaling argon. I'm not sure how safe this one was, but as most people know you can suck in helium and get the whole Donald Duck voice thing. I also had a professor inhale argon (significantly heavier than air.) The resulting voice is very deep and eerie sounding.
You still have to conceed the point that http evolved to where it is today, and if one had to design something from scratch, it would likely be far different.
I mean, let's take a connection oriented protocol like TCP and add a text based stateless protocol on top of it. Ok, that makes sense so far.... but wait, we want to be able to maintain state, so lets introduce this new concept called "cookies" and we'll use ASCII strings to identify things. And, it would be nice to be able to make multiple requests per TCP session, so let's put together some keep-alive mechanism. Ohh, and I want to be able to talk to multiple servers on a given IP, so let's add a host header field.... But wait, all of this is transmitted in clear text! Let's engineer a set of encyrption protocols to stick between our HTTP layer and our TCP layer. Here we'll solve some of the same engineering problems, like adding an SSL session ID to maintain state. Now, instead of requesting simple documents, how about we design an extensible markup spec to request "web services?" Yeah, that should work.
It is a testament to the design of the protocol that it's still ticking with all these enhancements (aka hacks.) But, all the layers add bits of overhead that could likely be engineered out if one had the luxury of starting from scratch.
I guess it may surprise some, but in most cases nerd != 1 dimensional tech person. I sort of like the fact that slashdot runs stories on a range of topics that typically appeal to people that also tend to like "geeky" things.
I still think it's interesting that many types people interested in a given topic, also typically share an interest in another seemingly unrelated topic.
For example, slashdot typically runs significant stories on space exploration / physics topics. What does linux and open source have to do with NASA? Nothing really, but for whatever reason, it seems like the majority of linux enthusiasts are also interested in physics / science stuff.
I guess I'm way, way off topic on the movie review, but I guess my point is something like, "if you don't like a story headline, don't read it." It's most likely posted here because it will appeal to a number of other slashdotters.
It all comes down to the codec / software used, right? I mean, if I have a binary file that's an mpeg2 encoded video, and I ftp it somewhere else, it's the same video. You can't really do anything to the file that makes ftp say "ohhh, I shouldn't copy this."
I think the only way to enforce something like this technically is to build a check into the playing and transfer softwares. And of course, in order to make it work, it would have to be a closed spec, and would probably be licensed.
As long as "normal" software and protocols work, there's probably not going to be a compelling reason to switch to the new protected ones.
Actually, I think the biological model is accurate.
Virus - small piece of [genetic] code that can't replicate on it's own. Attaches to and infects host, and is transmitted via that host's life process (read execution.)
Worm - independent entity that replicates on it's own
Trojan - sneaky guys that jump out of a horse and surprise you.
The key point about the virus is that, as in this case, it infects binaries. It's a little bit of code that attaches itself on to the end of a binary and doesn't do much other than replicate itself to other binaries when the original infected one is run.
Does reading emails qualify as having an understanding of technology? Or better yet, does reading an email that your law school intern printed out?
I think I disagree. First, the article states that this court will only handle civil cases of 25k plus, so this won't be your typical criminal jury case. And second, I think this is one of the best ways to get an impartial judge. There is little room for racial, ethinic, sexual, age (etc.) discrimination, when all the court sees are briefs delivered via email.
We may all hope that judges don't exhibit the same discrimination as the rest of us, but it's almost part of human nature. De-humanizing the process slightly can help eliminate that.
I have a physics and chemistry degree and work in systems / network engineering so, I'm probably completely unqualified to answer.
That being said, my understanding is that [CM]IS is sort of like the practical / engineering side of things and is more business oriented, CS is hardware / logic gade based, and CS is completely academic.
Practical experience beats any of the three hand down, but they can all be leveraged by the right person, depending on what you want to do. MIS makes a nice lead-in to an MBA degree. CS makes a nice background for graudate study in logic, math, or cryptography. Computer science seems the most well suited for embedded work. They tend to be anal about the "best solution to reverse sort a double linked list" and similar question.
Of course, as I staed, I have no qualifications, so ignore me please.
yes. They are all "sequels" of wolfenstein 3d --- the non-shareware versions of course.
Doesn't your post contradict itself? "I suppose it can be expected ten or however many sequels later." -- Then you go on to talk about Sega NFL 2k2 which really doesn't qualify as a sequel -- it's the same game updated with graphics and players each year.
Personally, I think one of the best things about the final fantasy series is that they keep the same basic playing feel and keep adding interesting twists. The materia system in FF7 was great and added a whole new dimension of strategy. I'm just started on FF10, but I already think the sphere grid level system is a great enhancement. Far from being sequels (the plots are unrelated) I think the final fantasy series takes a good game engine and keeps updating it with new concepts and new options. I'm already looking forward to a multiplayer version.
A cold electron gun has some other benefits as well. Historically, the biggest problem with making monitor screens truly flat (no warping at the corners) was that the front material needs to be incredibly strong. Screens were rounded slightly to keep them from breaking due to the forces of the vacuum behind them. As screens grew larger and the depth of the monitor increased (in order to let the electron gun get the necessary width) screens had to be stronger. The premium for flat screens is still a couple hundred dollars more than their conventional counterparts.
By having a cold electron gun that allows wider dispersion angles, you can reduce the depth of the monitor, and thereby reduce the strength required from the front screen material.
Russell makes an excellent point there. All you have to do is distribute a file that "lets you own M$ boxen!" and there will still be a large number of script kiddies that will download the file and run it as root. Sure, it's not going to be able to be auto-executed, but it's just like virii back in the DOS days.
Beyond the obvious irony that a Microsoft-ite is blasting the security community over flaws exploited in its own operating environments, I think the most interesting part of the article is Culp's statement "And it's high time ... the security community live up to its obligation to protect [software users]."
What obligation is he talking about? For a company that epitomizes a big-money capitalist position, that's the most blatant socialist comment I can imagine. Users collectively pay billions of dollars to software manufacturers each year for endless upgrades, yet he thinks a reasonably loosely knit group of professionals working on their free time somehow owes that same user base the right to be protected???? That's bizarre.
Further, the "Information Anarchy" thing sounds way too much like the "intellectual property virus" tagline they keep using for the GPL. It's a catchy management-speak phrase that sounds nasty and has little real meaning. It's easy to see how they can set the stage to condemn the whole open source community with all it's open and anarchic ways that don't protect innocent users.