Come on everyone, we know that the insurance companies will just pocket any savings. Do you actually think you'll ever see a news article like "Insurance companies have announced a general rate decrease because of savings from exclusion of high-risk people." Not a chance in hell.
British lawmakers swallowed this one just like the U.S. Congress swallowed the RIAA line and produced the DMCA -- it's all about corporate profits.
This may also hurt public health by encouraging people never to get a genetic test for fear of finding something they can be made to pay for later. No tests means people may not find out information they should, such as having a high genetic risk of breast cancer necessitating the need for more thorough and frequent breast exams.
Of course, that will go away in 10 years when the genetic tests are mandatory.
Another one, if a lab at a hospital I was in tests me for this genetic trait without my permission and shows me the bad results, can I sue them later because I was denied health insurance?
If you've ever been on a sensitive military post, you'd know -- the signs all along the fenceline and at the gate telling you that by entering the installation you are consenting to search of your person and bags by the government at any time. These signs are posted on just about every military installation overseas in English and the host nation language.
I went from Windoze 3.1 in 1992 to 3.11, '95, '98, and soon to 2000 on one computer. My initial purchase is on the OEM EULA from the "good ol days" before M$ started writing their EULAs specifically to rip-off consumers (finding a M$ rip-off loophole in the new EULA is like trying to find the demolition notices in HHGTTG).
That computer also underwent gradual changes from 486/66 to 486/100, K6/233, K6-2/400, and soon to K7/1000, HD from 340MB through several steps to 10GB, three different types of RAM, a few video cards, modems, CD-ROMs, etc. Only the original keyboard is now left.
So, when exactly did I stop having the same computer?
And after all that, will I legal when upgrading to 2000? Who knows? To tell the truth, I really don't care.
It is about how the "adults" see those under a certain age as capable of responsibility, and the dual standard. It is prohibitionist puritism creeping back into our lives.
An irresponsible civilian 18-20 can drink and screw things up and hurt some people, so can an irresponsible soldier at that age.
An irresponsible soldier can very easily kill people with the toys alloted him. Don't assume there is a very large amount of supervision and orders at all times. I could have easily f*cked-up that ring main of C4 and shaped charges and killed a few people during training. But I was assumed responsible since I was a soldier. However, I was only 20 years old at that time. In thinking back, I had ample opportunity to do a lot of damage during that 17-20 period in the Army, much more than some kid drinking.
By virtue of not having been born a year earlier, I was not assumed responsible enough (by that same government trusting me with the 5 1/4-lb sticks of C4) to have a drink in the country I was protecting.
BTW, this is not out of any personal bitterness to what I may not have been allowed, just a recognition of idiocy. I spent most of that time stationed in Europe, where we could drink all we wanted according to local laws as long as we were 18.
The basic idea is this simple question: Are you at the age of majority? If yes, then you get all rights of a citizen. My European friends believe it rediculous that we have all these ages for driving, voting and drinking. And now add video games to that list.
They also said the standard joystick didn't do diagonal. I used to program for those joysticks, and it was a 8-way joystick, with the four directions plus the four diagonals.
At the age of 17, the Army had already taught me how to kill with a variety of weapons and explosives, but I couldn't, if that were now, play certain video games with too much violence.
Yep, I really understand this logic.
By the age of 18, they had also taught me how to launch tactical nuclear missiles that go from 0 to mach umpteen even before leaving the launch rail. I even got to launch one as part of a crew at the age of 19 (yes, it was a fake warhead, or you'd have heard about it) and again at 20.
Yet I still couldn't legally drink. Now is that a bone-head idea or what?
Child pornographers aren't usually caught in Internet-tracking stings. They are usually caught because they turn in their computer for repair and someone sees something, or from other tip-offs.
What's really dangerous is your quote:
"If you want a safe society, you have to compromise a bit with your own privacy."
It reminds me of this Benjamin Franklin quote:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
To many, the ability to truly anonymously share information is an essential liberty. Ask any whistleblower, pro-democracy activist in China, or anyone afraid of repercussions should they be caught sharing information.
"But what about illegal uses, such as copyright violation?" you may say. Define illegal. In what country? What about countries where copyright violation isn't illegal? Ever been in a Saudi Arabian music store? A Falun Gong booklet is illegal in China, should we not be able to share one? Many in Kentucky would consider what I see on European billboards to be obscene, a punishable offense to distribute. Should they have the right to say what is legal to distribute?
Whenever there is the slightest doubt, always err on the side of freedom.
Simple. AMD's yields on the processor were TOO GOOD. So they got way too many chips capable of running higher speeds and not too many that only rated at the lower speeds, but their marketing needs chips of low through high speeds.
Solution: Mark chips that passed higher speed tests with the lower rating.
So you can (could) reliably overclock many lower-end Durons without needing special cooling since you are within the actual, rather than labeled, operating range. Free speed.
You can let your friends come over to listen to your CDs. You could even call them and put the telephone up to the speaker. Why can't you let your friends on the net listen to your CDs through streaming?
If you argue uncontrollable access (not just your friends hearing it), what about clubs? Thousands of people per night listening to a CD/record.
So if a DJ had a server at home where he kept his gigs of MP3s (ripped from CDs he owns) and streamed them to the club where he is?
The RIAA wants to turn music buying into the same thing as a software license. Then they can control how you listen. Then they will want it to be under UCITA so if their playback scheme dies and you can't hear anything, you're out of luck (they could also pull the plug on your CD when your "license to listen" expires).
Zoning was a good idea in theory, because a movie release more or less could go like this:
Movie released in U.S.
Movie released abroad
Often before the end run of the release abroad, the DVD is available in the U.S. (maybe even before the foreign release)
People buy the U.S. DVD and don't bother going to the movies.
=Broke theaters
Of course they were stupid enough not to envision zoneless or multiple-zone players. Johansen in the 2600 trial even said it is common practice to buy zoneless DVD players where he lives. And most European DVD players can play NTSC DVDs, but you have to have a TV capable of displaying the signal. Computer DVD players are often zoneless and play either PAL or NTSC.
And this was also designed before the popular WWW to make it easy to get DVDs interationally, so maybe the MPAA has an excuse for their stupidity
BTW, did you notice there's a zone just for China? All the Chinese government has to do is tell a studio not to produce an objectionable movie like Red Corner or Kundun in zone 6 or forget selling anything in China anymore. Then shoot anyone in China who sells zoneless DVD players.
Someone else wrote here about how if a link is illegal, then is a link once-removed illegeal? Three removed? ad infinitum
Obviously not even the most idiotic judge would think you could outaw links thus removed from the target since everything on the WWW is only several clicks away -- you'd be making every hyperlink within the judge's jurisdiction illegal.
So, everyone please do this: put up a redirect page, manual or automatic, maybe even link that page to redirect. After one or two levels, link that to *another site you know of* hosting DeCSS (according to the ruling, it has to be on another site instead of yours, since 2600 is enjoined from linking to sites that have DeCSS, not just to copies themselves).
Submit the first URL to 2600 (okay, maybe don't do that since they'd probably be pissed at the deluge of mail).
BTW, have you tried a 20 minute short movie piece on a system with 17+30GB HD? Things get squeezed really fast. We're getting a 120GB RAID 0 array, and I'm already wondering when that won't be enough.
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So, to promote the "Progress of Science" in the encryption field and computer science, shouldn't Congress grant the author of DeCSS exclusive right to his writing/discovery?
Sounds the provision of DMCA applying to DeCSS is, practically word for word, unconstitutional. In fact, they're doing the exact opposite of what the Constitution created them to do.
I don't think FUD is at all part of it -- just protecting what differentiates Adobe's products with others.
Funny, though, how one of the biggest complaints against Adobe products (even from loyal Adobe users) was when they introduced this kind of paletting -- too many palettes people constantly screamed Now competitors are copying them.
Adobe was very late to the Web game, and they paid with Dreamweaver getting huge market share over that pathetic excuse for a program, PageMill. Instead of copying Macromedia, however, they did the right thing when you're in a hurry and behind -- buy a kick-ass program and put it into your lineup.
With Flash graphics, Adobe was also late to the de facto standard that Macromedia created, but I guess they thought they had enough time. So they created LiveMotion. They didn't decide to copy Flash, but built their own product with Adobe looks and way of doing things, and lots of Flash users like it better (hence, Flash 5's surprisingly similar UI).
Macromedia came up with some great innovations and cutting-edge products with a UI that many liked. But many Macromedia users I know are there because they don't like the Adobe UI, and now they really have no more choice in UI.
It's the other way around: The new Macromedia products look a lot like Adobe's. I used Fireworks 1 and 2, and they look nothing like Fireworks 3.
I hope for Adobe's own sake that they didn't doctor the screens (illegal as hell in a lawsuit), but it looks like they didn't. Maybe just moved the palettes into the same position.
It seems that Macromedia's new user interface strategy is to simply copy Adobe.
Flash 5? I guess they didn't like Adobe's easier-to-use LiveMotion, so they had to copy the interface, didn't they? That was one of the reasons LiveMotion is better than Flash 4.
You can find examples of the extremely blatant ripoff here.
From first glance you can now not tell the difference between Fireworks 3 and ImageReady 2 (where Fireworks 2 looked nothing like that). I have noticed the progression of Macromedia products looking a lot more like Adobe products, and I have both.
It's good that Adobe was smart enough to get a patent to defend themselves with. Why aren't they going after anyone else who's doing this (I need examples though)? Probably because none of them are so blatant.
Ask these guys if their VideoRaid will hook up directly to a camera. It's currently set so that you can plug a RAID box straight into SCSI port and have the system see it as one hard drive.
It's possible your camera will too. Then all you have to do is get a transformer from the chopper's power supply to 120VAC and maybe add a UPS.
The one I've seen is RAID 0 (striping), but they may have RAID 1 (redundancy), 5 (parity) or 10 (redundancy + striping) if you ask.
Does anyone with more hands-on experience than I (read "more than none") with Cocoa and Objective-C have an idea of how it fits in with all the others here?
It sounds like an awesome development platform to move to, but is it "the future"?
ASCI White with its 8192 (16 * 512 nodes/systems) Power3-III processors uses 1.2 megawatts.
And Alphas are pretty power-hungry chips, so compare from there.
Try having a last name of "Fisher" in Germany, where it's always spelled "Fischer." I'll correct it, but some well-meaning clerk always changes the "typo" back to Fischer.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on everyone, we know that the insurance companies will just pocket any savings. Do you actually think you'll ever see a news article like "Insurance companies have announced a general rate decrease because of savings from exclusion of high-risk people." Not a chance in hell.
British lawmakers swallowed this one just like the U.S. Congress swallowed the RIAA line and produced the DMCA -- it's all about corporate profits.
This may also hurt public health by encouraging people never to get a genetic test for fear of finding something they can be made to pay for later. No tests means people may not find out information they should, such as having a high genetic risk of breast cancer necessitating the need for more thorough and frequent breast exams.
Of course, that will go away in 10 years when the genetic tests are mandatory.
Another one, if a lab at a hospital I was in tests me for this genetic trait without my permission and shows me the bad results, can I sue them later because I was denied health insurance?
If you've ever been on a sensitive military post, you'd know -- the signs all along the fenceline and at the gate telling you that by entering the installation you are consenting to search of your person and bags by the government at any time. These signs are posted on just about every military installation overseas in English and the host nation language.
K7s are essentially RISC, and have more in common with a G4 than with a PIII.
Check out the comparison at Ars Technica.
I went from Windoze 3.1 in 1992 to 3.11, '95, '98, and soon to 2000 on one computer. My initial purchase is on the OEM EULA from the "good ol days" before M$ started writing their EULAs specifically to rip-off consumers (finding a M$ rip-off loophole in the new EULA is like trying to find the demolition notices in HHGTTG).
That computer also underwent gradual changes from 486/66 to 486/100, K6/233, K6-2/400, and soon to K7/1000, HD from 340MB through several steps to 10GB, three different types of RAM, a few video cards, modems, CD-ROMs, etc. Only the original keyboard is now left.
So, when exactly did I stop having the same computer?
And after all that, will I legal when upgrading to 2000? Who knows? To tell the truth, I really don't care.
It is about how the "adults" see those under a certain age as capable of responsibility, and the dual standard. It is prohibitionist puritism creeping back into our lives.
An irresponsible civilian 18-20 can drink and screw things up and hurt some people, so can an irresponsible soldier at that age.
An irresponsible soldier can very easily kill people with the toys alloted him. Don't assume there is a very large amount of supervision and orders at all times. I could have easily f*cked-up that ring main of C4 and shaped charges and killed a few people during training. But I was assumed responsible since I was a soldier. However, I was only 20 years old at that time. In thinking back, I had ample opportunity to do a lot of damage during that 17-20 period in the Army, much more than some kid drinking.
By virtue of not having been born a year earlier, I was not assumed responsible enough (by that same government trusting me with the 5 1/4-lb sticks of C4) to have a drink in the country I was protecting.
BTW, this is not out of any personal bitterness to what I may not have been allowed, just a recognition of idiocy. I spent most of that time stationed in Europe, where we could drink all we wanted according to local laws as long as we were 18.
The basic idea is this simple question: Are you at the age of majority? If yes, then you get all rights of a citizen. My European friends believe it rediculous that we have all these ages for driving, voting and drinking. And now add video games to that list.
They also said the standard joystick didn't do diagonal. I used to program for those joysticks, and it was a 8-way joystick, with the four directions plus the four diagonals.
At the age of 17, the Army had already taught me how to kill with a variety of weapons and explosives, but I couldn't, if that were now, play certain video games with too much violence.
Yep, I really understand this logic.
By the age of 18, they had also taught me how to launch tactical nuclear missiles that go from 0 to mach umpteen even before leaving the launch rail. I even got to launch one as part of a crew at the age of 19 (yes, it was a fake warhead, or you'd have heard about it) and again at 20.
Yet I still couldn't legally drink. Now is that a bone-head idea or what?
One here.
Child pornographers aren't usually caught in Internet-tracking stings. They are usually caught because they turn in their computer for repair and someone sees something, or from other tip-offs.
What's really dangerous is your quote:
It reminds me of this Benjamin Franklin quote:
To many, the ability to truly anonymously share information is an essential liberty. Ask any whistleblower, pro-democracy activist in China, or anyone afraid of repercussions should they be caught sharing information.
"But what about illegal uses, such as copyright violation?" you may say. Define illegal. In what country? What about countries where copyright violation isn't illegal? Ever been in a Saudi Arabian music store? A Falun Gong booklet is illegal in China, should we not be able to share one? Many in Kentucky would consider what I see on European billboards to be obscene, a punishable offense to distribute. Should they have the right to say what is legal to distribute?
Whenever there is the slightest doubt, always err on the side of freedom.
Simple. AMD's yields on the processor were TOO GOOD. So they got way too many chips capable of running higher speeds and not too many that only rated at the lower speeds, but their marketing needs chips of low through high speeds.
Solution: Mark chips that passed higher speed tests with the lower rating.
So you can (could) reliably overclock many lower-end Durons without needing special cooling since you are within the actual, rather than labeled, operating range. Free speed.
This got me to thinking...
You can let your friends come over to listen to your CDs. You could even call them and put the telephone up to the speaker. Why can't you let your friends on the net listen to your CDs through streaming?
If you argue uncontrollable access (not just your friends hearing it), what about clubs? Thousands of people per night listening to a CD/record.
So if a DJ had a server at home where he kept his gigs of MP3s (ripped from CDs he owns) and streamed them to the club where he is?
The RIAA wants to turn music buying into the same thing as a software license. Then they can control how you listen. Then they will want it to be under UCITA so if their playback scheme dies and you can't hear anything, you're out of luck (they could also pull the plug on your CD when your "license to listen" expires).
Zoning was a good idea in theory, because a movie release more or less could go like this:
Of course they were stupid enough not to envision zoneless or multiple-zone players. Johansen in the 2600 trial even said it is common practice to buy zoneless DVD players where he lives. And most European DVD players can play NTSC DVDs, but you have to have a TV capable of displaying the signal. Computer DVD players are often zoneless and play either PAL or NTSC.
And this was also designed before the popular WWW to make it easy to get DVDs interationally, so maybe the MPAA has an excuse for their stupidity
BTW, did you notice there's a zone just for China? All the Chinese government has to do is tell a studio not to produce an objectionable movie like Red Corner or Kundun in zone 6 or forget selling anything in China anymore. Then shoot anyone in China who sells zoneless DVD players.
Someone else wrote here about how if a link is illegal, then is a link once-removed illegeal? Three removed? ad infinitum
Obviously not even the most idiotic judge would think you could outaw links thus removed from the target since everything on the WWW is only several clicks away -- you'd be making every hyperlink within the judge's jurisdiction illegal.
So, everyone please do this:
put up a redirect page, manual or automatic, maybe even link that page to redirect. After one or two levels, link that to *another site you know of* hosting DeCSS (according to the ruling, it has to be on another site instead of yours, since 2600 is enjoined from linking to sites that have DeCSS, not just to copies themselves).
Submit the first URL to 2600 (okay, maybe don't do that since they'd probably be pissed at the deluge of mail).
along with "Who needs more than 640K RAM?"
BTW, have you tried a 20 minute short movie piece on a system with 17+30GB HD? Things get squeezed really fast. We're getting a 120GB RAID 0 array, and I'm already wondering when that won't be enough.
Frank.
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So, to promote the "Progress of Science" in the encryption field and computer science, shouldn't Congress grant the author of DeCSS exclusive right to his writing/discovery?
Sounds the provision of DMCA applying to DeCSS is, practically word for word, unconstitutional. In fact, they're doing the exact opposite of what the Constitution created them to do.
At least Paint Shop Pro doesn't try to look exactly like Adobe's products. It still keeps its own identity.
And I don't know, can you drag those tabs out to become their own palettes?
If you can, then that would mean that Adobe is selectively enforcing their patent, which is not a good thing for their case.
I don't think FUD is at all part of it -- just protecting what differentiates Adobe's products with others.
Funny, though, how one of the biggest complaints against Adobe products (even from loyal Adobe users) was when they introduced this kind of paletting -- too many palettes people constantly screamed Now competitors are copying them.
Adobe was very late to the Web game, and they paid with Dreamweaver getting huge market share over that pathetic excuse for a program, PageMill. Instead of copying Macromedia, however, they did the right thing when you're in a hurry and behind -- buy a kick-ass program and put it into your lineup.
With Flash graphics, Adobe was also late to the de facto standard that Macromedia created, but I guess they thought they had enough time. So they created LiveMotion. They didn't decide to copy Flash, but built their own product with Adobe looks and way of doing things, and lots of Flash users like it better (hence, Flash 5's surprisingly similar UI).
Macromedia came up with some great innovations and cutting-edge products with a UI that many liked. But many Macromedia users I know are there because they don't like the Adobe UI, and now they really have no more choice in UI.
It's the other way around: The new Macromedia products look a lot like Adobe's. I used Fireworks 1 and 2, and they look nothing like Fireworks 3.
I hope for Adobe's own sake that they didn't doctor the screens (illegal as hell in a lawsuit), but it looks like they didn't. Maybe just moved the palettes into the same position.
It seems that Macromedia's new user interface strategy is to simply copy Adobe.
Flash 5? I guess they didn't like Adobe's easier-to-use LiveMotion, so they had to copy the interface, didn't they? That was one of the reasons LiveMotion is better than Flash 4.
Frank.
You can find examples of the extremely blatant ripoff here.
From first glance you can now not tell the difference between Fireworks 3 and ImageReady 2 (where Fireworks 2 looked nothing like that). I have noticed the progression of Macromedia products looking a lot more like Adobe products, and I have both.
It's good that Adobe was smart enough to get a patent to defend themselves with. Why aren't they going after anyone else who's doing this (I need examples though)? Probably because none of them are so blatant.
Frank.
Ask these guys if their VideoRaid will hook up directly to a camera. It's currently set so that you can plug a RAID box straight into SCSI port and have the system see it as one hard drive.
It's possible your camera will too. Then all you have to do is get a transformer from the chopper's power supply to 120VAC and maybe add a UPS.
The one I've seen is RAID 0 (striping), but they may have RAID 1 (redundancy), 5 (parity) or 10 (redundancy + striping) if you ask.
Frank.
Does anyone with more hands-on experience than I (read "more than none") with Cocoa and Objective-C have an idea of how it fits in with all the others here?
It sounds like an awesome development platform to move to, but is it "the future"?
ASCI White with its 8192 (16 * 512 nodes/systems) Power3-III processors uses 1.2 megawatts. And Alphas are pretty power-hungry chips, so compare from there.
What humor-impaired person scored this one? Should've rated funny and insightful.
"Why not just shovel a couple billion into a fireplace to keep you warm too?"
Burning that billion in bills would be charity -- giving your money to the government because those $ will never get back to the Fed.
You actually thought those dollar bills were worth something in themselves?
Try having a last name of "Fisher" in Germany, where it's always spelled "Fischer." I'll correct it, but some well-meaning clerk always changes the "typo" back to Fischer.