But this probably will close the door on the 99 cases out of 100 where an IP actually does equal a bad person who needs to be caught.
I'm not sure about the 99/100 figure. However, even if that's true, I'd argue that just because something is a 99% accurate indicator of crime, it doesn't justify a forfeiture of rights for the other 1%. Is having an IP address linked to an illegal activity justification to open an investigation? Sure. Enough to break in and confiscate property of an individual who has an open WAP living in a populated area? Probably not. Keep in mind people committing internet crimes are "crafty" and know that its important to hide their own identities (often, masking them as the identities of others)
Normally, I'd dog on the editors for this too, but I just noticed the, the "OMG wyte ifone" submission has almost twice the comments as this announcment...it'll be interesting to check back on the comment count in a few hours to see what/.'ers really care about these days!
Symmetric, (Strictly) diagonally dominant matrices are great: Non-singular, real spectrum, diagonalizable...In fact, purely from the fact that the eigenvalues can be bounded away from 0, many iterative methods will have provably fast O(n^2) convergence...beating the classic O(n^3) by an order of magnitude.
I'm not up to speed in the particular tricks used for the Symmetric, DD regime, but certainly one would only "naively" try solving this using Gaussian elimination, due to the special structure. One thing I thought was interesting was that the authors mention that the "previous" fast algorithm solves in:
O(n*log(n)^25).
Well, for n 10^52 (HUUUUUUUUUUUGE!!!) n^2 is less than nlog(n)^25, so there complexity constant becomes really important!!! I can't imagine that the "previous" algorithm was useful (practically speaking!)
First, thank you for given me motivation enough to post my first reply to slashdot in years!
The Past:
I could have written this very "ask slashdot" 2 years ago. I was around 30yrs old, weighed over 230 pounds. I have always thought my health to be "good", but I'm in a high-risk category for heart disease, and had been gaining weight steadily since late college. When my wife told me we were implementing family+=1, I became (for the first time) aware that my health was very important to the health of my family, and decided I should try to do something about it.
The Present:
I weigh about 180lbs. I'm in the best shape of my life (in the cardiovascular sense) though I probably wouldn't break my personal bench press records I had in high school. But then again, I can do 50 push-ups, which I guarantee I was never able to do in high school!
With similar thinking to the user who wrote this ask/., the breakthrough (for me) was to be able to exercise in my home. Career and personal obligations as well as, sure...personal insecurity, made me very unlikely to succeed in a fitness center environment. So, I bit the bullet and bought a midrange ($1500) elliptical trainer. I found this ideal for me because:
1. High calorie burning aerobic workout. 2. Fairly natural motion, very little fatigue (but I should mention it is crucial to try many different models from various manufacturers...I tested about a dozen and found all but a few to be awkward). 3. Privacy. Less important for me now. 4. Convienience (somedays, 5am is the only time, others, 8pm). I don't want to go to make a long drive to a gym (for me) on icy roads just to workout. 5. zone-out-ability. I listen to the radio, watch TV, or sometimes, just think about my life. Try doing that in a gym with activity all over the place. I literally "lose myself" during my 50 minute workout, and making the time go by quickly and painlessly is probably the most important reason it has worked for me.
At first, I started with 3-4 30 minute workouts a week (okay, at "very first" they were 20 minutes). At my peak, I was doing 5 50-60 minute workouts a week (that was insane!). Now, I do 3-4 50 minute workouts a week. My machine tells me, based on my weight, that I burn about 900 calories. I started this when I got to around 175 pounds (which I thought was as small as I needed to be) and have bounced back ever so slightly (but generally maintain 180) at this current level.
I have also been incorporating crunches/push ups/ and 5 or 6 sets of free weights a few times a week, just to get a little balance. The pushups and crunches definately have toned my chest and abs, and the increased muscle there makes me look a lot better without a shirt than I did even 5 pounds less ago. Speaking of that, the most positive unanticipated side effect was becoming more attractive to the opposite sex...I might be in a monogamous relationship, but getting a flirtatious look from an attractive, young woman stranger can turn a bad day into a great day!
The Future:
I've been starting to try to incorporate other things. On days where its nice, I might trade an elliptical session with a 40 minute, 5 mile jog. Bad knees run in my family, so I'll probably never try to run a marathon. Might try biking. I have also begun to try some yoga to help with flexibility and back pain issues I've had for many years...just started that a few days ago, as a matter of fact.
Anyway, this is what worked for me. I hope whatever you do, you stick to it. Once you see some results, you won't find that very difficult to do.
...but maybe some people like to get coffee at a place where they're not treated like they're interupting the employees by wanting to order. Or, they can get service even though they happen to be in a good mood and aren't wearing a completely black outfit to show that they're deep, dark people. IT'S FUCKING COFFEE PEOPLE! COFFEE! THEY SELL COFFEE!!
This is exactly why I don't cry anyone a river when "trendy coffee shop X" gets stomped out of business with a place that provides a better overall experience (no smoking, a generally clean appearance, friendly staff, drive through service,...etc).
Show me a locally run coffee shop that runs an operation which pleases a large group of customers, and I'll show you a coffee shop which isn't at risk of being "muscled" out of business by Starbucks.
Once you get labeled "descendant" of any powerful ruler, I doubt you'll have to wait long until someone shows up at your front door demanding restitution.
It's sickening. If you want one of those plain jane phones it will cost you more than a phone with all the features I just mentioned above.
...and this makes perfect sense.
How are cell phone companies fucking you extra hard these days? They are offering pay-per-use services. Pay to send a photo. Pay to download a game/ringtone. If you get the plain-jane phone, what the hell are they going to charge you for?
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House"
on
Geeks and Poker?
·
· Score: 1
Andy Bellin's book Poker Nation is indeed an excellent read.
IIRC, he dropped out from a graduate program in Astronomy to play poker professionally, so he definately has slashdot appeal. IMO, his book is an excellent mixture of fact and folklore about playing poker for profit.
An FBI employee recieves a detailed tip about some immenent terrorist threat. Instead of researching first, he makes a calculated judgement that since a specific threat was mentioned, he *might* just go ahead and send the info up and down the pipeline so people can be alert...after all, wouldn't it have been better to have a national bulletin that said "Immeninent attack!" at about 6:00am EST on 9/11/01 than to have a detailed summary four hours later!?
I just don't see how we should be upset about the handling of this event. Yes, its kind of funny. The linked article seems to indicate that everything happened in the timeframe of one day. I mean, don't tell me you expected this guy to recognize some character from a video game?
They'll shuffle up the cards, and then drop one into each specially marked 12-pack and keep a pile aside for the mail-in entries.
Any idea of how they know how many to keep aside for mail-ins? What if you keep too large of a stack...unclaimed prizes. To small, and some mail-in entries won't recieve a chance.
But I think the problem is that CD media doesn't have what most people consider "acceptable redundancy"
When a CD ages, and the surface scratches, and the ink degrades, the data doesn't fade to yellow and get wrinkled like a newspaper, or it doesn't sound like its being pumped over a telephone like a record would, it is just gone. At least with analog data (especially newspaper) there isn't this working/not working parity...we can see the degradation and recopy the data before its too late.
Of course we try to get around this by adding error detection/correction schemes, but I think the original post is about how (apparently) these aren't adequate.
Analog quality loss is acceptable, because it results in static. Digital loss isn't acceptable, because (at least practically) it is a binary property...the CD works or it doesn't. Scratch the hell out of a record, and at least you still have something.
We could build acceptable redundancy into digital backups, its just that most people think of it as wasteful. You know what though?... I have everything worthy of backup "backed up" in at least 3 places, one of which is always CD stored somewhere out of reach. Digital is better. Once you convert to digital, you can have zero quality loss with near 100% efficiency, you just have to want it that bad.
1. CEO's tend to make the argument that they need to outsource in order to compete with their competitors who are outsourcing. (sounds an awful lot like an argument between kids on the playground - "he's doing it too!" - where nobody wants to take responsibility). Given that CEO salaries run into the $millions (typically 20 to 40X the pay of their average employees) why don't CEOs consider cutting their own salaries in an effort to remain competitive?
Well, 90% of the time, I think we can cite the law of supply and demand, coupled with the theory of comissioned sales. Remember that CEO's salaries are typically the result of a bidding war to get them to work for your company (all CEO's are constantly (implicitly or explicitly) being bid for on the auction block). If I hire a CEO at worker salary times 2, someone else could hire him/her for worker salary times 3, because in the end, its worth the extra buckage for someone who will be that much better with the bottom line.
Besides, many CEO's have reasonable salaries that are tied to super-mega bonuses. But these bonuses are their motivation for doing so damn well! If I take a company from 5 years of consecutive losses to 50% growth per year, for 3 years...show me the money!!!
2. Many unemployed and about-to-be-unemployed US engineers would be happy to work for less money (within reason)in order to keep their jobs, however when this is suggested to companies the companies usually choose to go with outsourcing. If an engineer is willing to take a 30 - 40% pay cut to save his/her job, why isn't this offer taken seriously by most companies?
I recently discussed this with a friend who just got a PhD and cant find the university teaching job he wanted. "Why can't they pay half as much for twice as many of us?!" I think there are a variety of small reasons why this doesn't get done, not the least of which is that most workers don't want it (and are in fact better off drawing unemployment) and that its only a matter of time before those that would accept it say, "Hey, 100% pay, 100% work; 50% pay,..."
Commentary: The outsourcing advocates take a very narrow view of economics. To them cost-cutting is the primary motivation for doing anything - "if it'll save a buck, then do it" is their motto. However, it isn't clear that the money savings from outsourcing white collar jobs are actually going to be able to counter-ballance the economic devestation brought on by widespread offshoring. So what if US corporations suddenly become wildly profitable (for a quarter or two) while millions of workers are put out of work. Eventually those millions of unemployed workers won't have the money to buy the products of the wildly profitable corporations and profits will go down. I'd rather see corporations break even while providing good jobs to millions, than see them be wildly profitable but providing no jobs to US workers. Oh, and if millions are unemployed, who is going to pay the taxes to support the schools that we supposedly need to train workers for the 'jobs of the future'?
This is exactly why we have environmental laws! Because companies don't always have the best interests of society at large on their minds. I think 100 years from now, people might be comparing this to other big long-term oversights which damaged our country before tougher restrictions on corporate behaviour were implemented.
On the issue of the "hidden" free player, they've agreed to provide a direct link from Car Talk to a clear, uncluttered, free player download page. On the issue of pop ups, they tell us they're gone.
So now I have to remember to go to the cartalk site when I want to download Real! Its a sad day when you can't even use a companies own site to download there own product!
I hope this also means that we won't have to go to some cookie-needin', popup-infested, unnavigable website to get the those streams that Real has so "generously" decided to host for free.
I would like to add that "assault rifles" with these primarily cosmetic features are unlikely to be used in crimes. Basic hand guns are primarily used in crimes with older criminals prefering revolvers and juveniles prefering semi-automatic pistols. Most guns recovered at a crime scene were not obtained through legitimate purchase.
A department of justice study (or perhaps it was the one that the CDC did...need checking) stated something like "The maximum measurable effect of the Assault Weapons Ban would be too small to detect statistically". You see, even before the AWB was passed in 1994, only 2% of crimes were committed with them.
Most guns recovered at a crime scene were not obtained through legitimate purchase.
Hmmm...so laws only affect "law abiding" citizens....interesting:)
Seriously though, it always amazes me that more people don't see it this way. Something like 80% of guns used in crime are either taken from a family member or otherwise obtained illegally. I think we can go out on a limb and say that those remaining 20% of criminals could get a gun this way if it was the easiest option. Right there is a good starting point for the argument of why gun control doesn't work.
As an avid gun rights supporter, the absolutely last thing that I would wish to do is to offend you.
:)
The way in which I glossed over any distinctions between an assault rifle and a submachine gun was done simply to ease the reading of my comment, and had no basis in fact.
I can appreciate that. But if you want to appreciate why I felt the duty to be nitpicky about it, you need only understand few things:
1. Most people don't know the difference. 2. Most people believe that fully automatic weapons should be banned (or at least regulated). 3. Combining (1) and (2) implies that many people will support banning assault weapons under a false pretense.
CNN did a piece about the *assault weapons* ban last summer where they showed someone firing *fully-automatic machine guns*. I read an article a few weeks ago where a journalist for the NY Post explicitly said that the AWB addressed machine guns. Take a look:
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/19640.ht m
Anyway, my point wasn't to address your line of reasoning comparing P2P filesharing to other issues which seem to be treated differently...I agree with you there. I just wanted to nitpick a detail, because this subject is important to me.
Let's take a look at guns, for example. REPLACE([Wired Article],'P2P software','assault rifles') and suddenly you've got the arguments for every single pro-gun-control group in the USA. Personally, I'm much more worried about the imminent public danger of a submachine gun than I am worried about the threat to public safety presented by Kazaa. Yet why is the state AG not addressing gun control instead of P2P?!
As an avid gun rights supporter, I feel obligated to point out that the term "assault rifle" can not be interchanged with the term "submachine gun". As the US's 1994 Assault weapons ban is set to expire this September, I feel it is important to thwart any possible misinformation on this subject when I see it (especially if its in a highly moderated comment).
A "submachine gun" is a fully automatic machine gun, usually characterized by its design to accept a smaller caliber pistol cartridge, such as the 9mm Parabellum. Submachine guns, like all machine guns, have been highly regulated in the US since the National Firearms Act of 1934, and production of machine guns for the civilian market has been halted since 1986.
An "assault rifle" is a semiautomatic military style weapon. Functionally speaking, an "assault rifle" is equivalent to any other semiautomatic firearm. Even the term itself is often rejected, as no one can really say what makes a firearm "military style". In terms of the definition of "Assault rifles" in the current ban, they posses 2 or more particular cosmetic features,...ie, have pistol grips, collabsible stocks, etc.
Whole entire industries can't go obsolete! It must be because people are copying each others encyclopedias and trading them over the internet! There needs to be a watchdog lobby group, perhaps called the EIAA (Encyclopedia Industry Assoc. of America) which can address such concerns, so the owners of the intellectual property contained within encyclopedias see there cut.
Not very many. There is one very big (U.S.) law that does, however. The so-called "Clinton Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994 is set to expire in September of this year. Popular belief is that it will indeed expire without extension or renewal. See:
Slashdot Mirror
... Duke Nukem Forever will ship in June ...
chickens = eggs.
But this probably will close the door on the 99 cases out of 100 where an IP actually does equal a bad person who needs to be caught.
I'm not sure about the 99/100 figure. However, even if that's true, I'd argue that just because something is a 99% accurate indicator of crime, it doesn't justify a forfeiture of rights for the other 1%. Is having an IP address linked to an illegal activity justification to open an investigation? Sure. Enough to break in and confiscate property of an individual who has an open WAP living in a populated area? Probably not. Keep in mind people committing internet crimes are "crafty" and know that its important to hide their own identities (often, masking them as the identities of others)
Normally, I'd dog on the editors for this too, but I just noticed the, the "OMG wyte ifone" submission has almost twice the comments as this announcment...it'll be interesting to check back on the comment count in a few hours to see what /.'ers really care about these days!
My thoughts exactly...
Symmetric, (Strictly) diagonally dominant matrices are great: Non-singular, real spectrum, diagonalizable...In fact, purely from the fact that the eigenvalues can be bounded away from 0, many iterative methods will have provably fast O(n^2) convergence...beating the classic O(n^3) by an order of magnitude.
I'm not up to speed in the particular tricks used for the Symmetric, DD regime, but certainly one would only "naively" try solving this using Gaussian elimination, due to the special structure. One thing I thought was interesting was that the authors mention that the "previous" fast algorithm solves in:
O(n*log(n)^25).
Well, for n 10^52 (HUUUUUUUUUUUGE!!!) n^2 is less than nlog(n)^25, so there complexity constant becomes really important!!! I can't imagine that the "previous" algorithm was useful (practically speaking!)
-unperson
First, thank you for given me motivation enough to post my first reply to slashdot in years!
The Past:
I could have written this very "ask slashdot" 2 years ago. I was around 30yrs old, weighed over 230 pounds. I have always thought my health to be "good", but I'm in a high-risk category for heart disease, and had been gaining weight steadily since late college. When my wife told me we were implementing family+=1, I became (for the first time) aware that my health was very important to the health of my family, and decided I should try to do something about it.
The Present:
I weigh about 180lbs. I'm in the best shape of my life (in the cardiovascular sense) though I probably wouldn't break my personal bench press records I had in high school. But then again, I can do 50 push-ups, which I guarantee I was never able to do in high school!
With similar thinking to the user who wrote this ask /., the breakthrough (for me) was to be able to exercise in my home. Career and personal obligations as well as, sure...personal insecurity, made me very unlikely to succeed in a fitness center environment. So, I bit the bullet and bought a midrange ($1500) elliptical trainer. I found this ideal for me because:
1. High calorie burning aerobic workout.
2. Fairly natural motion, very little fatigue (but I should mention it is crucial to try many different models from various manufacturers...I tested about a dozen and found all but a few to be awkward).
3. Privacy. Less important for me now.
4. Convienience (somedays, 5am is the only time, others, 8pm). I don't want to go to make a long drive to a gym (for me) on icy roads just to workout.
5. zone-out-ability. I listen to the radio, watch TV, or sometimes, just think about my life. Try doing that in a gym with activity all over the place. I literally "lose myself" during my 50 minute workout, and making the time go by quickly and painlessly is probably the most important reason it has worked for me.
At first, I started with 3-4 30 minute workouts a week (okay, at "very first" they were 20 minutes). At my peak, I was doing 5 50-60 minute workouts a week (that was insane!). Now, I do 3-4 50 minute workouts a week. My machine tells me, based on my weight, that I burn about 900 calories. I started this when I got to around 175 pounds (which I thought was as small as I needed to be) and have bounced back ever so slightly (but generally maintain 180) at this current level.
I have also been incorporating crunches/push ups/ and 5 or 6 sets of free weights a few times a week, just to get a little balance. The pushups and crunches definately have toned my chest and abs, and the increased muscle there makes me look a lot better without a shirt than I did even 5 pounds less ago. Speaking of that, the most positive unanticipated side effect was becoming more attractive to the opposite sex...I might be in a monogamous relationship, but getting a flirtatious look from an attractive, young woman stranger can turn a bad day into a great day!
The Future:
I've been starting to try to incorporate other things. On days where its nice, I might trade an elliptical session with a 40 minute, 5 mile jog. Bad knees run in my family, so I'll probably never try to run a marathon. Might try biking. I have also begun to try some yoga to help with flexibility and back pain issues I've had for many years...just started that a few days ago, as a matter of fact.
Anyway, this is what worked for me. I hope whatever you do, you stick to it. Once you see some results, you won't find that very difficult to do.
I'll give a second for Samsung! I bought this lil' gem for around $120 at Circuit City a few weeks ago:
2 c_product_detail.jsp?prod_id=YP-MT6X%252fXAA
http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/product/b
512M flash (1G available), cd -> mp3 encoding through (included) line-in jack, FM radio -> mp3, voice -> mp3, and best of all, excellent OGG support!
I encode everything using oggenc in '-b 192' and everything has played fine.
Parent, you nailed it!
...but maybe some people like to get coffee at a place where they're not treated like they're interupting the employees by wanting to order. Or, they can get service even though they happen to be in a good mood and aren't wearing a completely black outfit to show that they're deep, dark people. IT'S FUCKING COFFEE PEOPLE! COFFEE! THEY SELL COFFEE!!
This is exactly why I don't cry anyone a river when "trendy coffee shop X" gets stomped out of business with a place that provides a better overall experience (no smoking, a generally clean appearance, friendly staff, drive through service,...etc).
Show me a locally run coffee shop that runs an operation which pleases a large group of customers, and I'll show you a coffee shop which isn't at risk of being "muscled" out of business by Starbucks.
Once you get labeled "descendant" of any powerful ruler, I doubt you'll have to wait long until someone shows up at your front door demanding restitution.
I could go, if only well paid scientists like myself were able get time off work...I feel like I'm tied to a rack!
It's sickening. If you want one of those plain jane phones it will cost you more than a phone with all the features I just mentioned above.
How are cell phone companies fucking you extra hard these days? They are offering pay-per-use services. Pay to send a photo. Pay to download a game/ringtone. If you get the plain-jane phone, what the hell are they going to charge you for?
Andy Bellin's book Poker Nation is indeed an excellent read.
IIRC, he dropped out from a graduate program in Astronomy to play poker professionally, so he definately has slashdot appeal. IMO, his book is an excellent mixture of fact and folklore about playing poker for profit.
An FBI employee recieves a detailed tip about some immenent terrorist threat. Instead of researching first, he makes a calculated judgement that since a specific threat was mentioned, he *might* just go ahead and send the info up and down the pipeline so people can be alert...after all, wouldn't it have been better to have a national bulletin that said "Immeninent attack!" at about 6:00am EST on 9/11/01 than to have a detailed summary four hours later!?
I just don't see how we should be upset about the handling of this event. Yes, its kind of funny. The linked article seems to indicate that everything happened in the timeframe of one day. I mean, don't tell me you expected this guy to recognize some character from a video game?
They'll shuffle up the cards, and then drop one into each specially marked 12-pack and keep a pile aside for the mail-in entries.
Any idea of how they know how many to keep aside for mail-ins? What if you keep too large of a stack...unclaimed prizes. To small, and some mail-in entries won't recieve a chance.
But I think the problem is that CD media doesn't have what most people consider "acceptable redundancy"
When a CD ages, and the surface scratches, and the ink degrades, the data doesn't fade to yellow and get wrinkled like a newspaper, or it doesn't sound like its being pumped over a telephone like a record would, it is just gone. At least with analog data (especially newspaper) there isn't this working/not working parity...we can see the degradation and recopy the data before its too late.
Of course we try to get around this by adding error detection/correction schemes, but I think the original post is about how (apparently) these aren't adequate.
How do you know there is no loss with analog?
Analog quality loss is acceptable, because it results in static. Digital loss isn't acceptable, because (at least practically) it is a binary property...the CD works or it doesn't. Scratch the hell out of a record, and at least you still have something.
We could build acceptable redundancy into digital backups, its just that most people think of it as wasteful. You know what though?... I have everything worthy of backup "backed up" in at least 3 places, one of which is always CD stored somewhere out of reach. Digital is better. Once you convert to digital, you can have zero quality loss with near 100% efficiency, you just have to want it that bad.
1. CEO's tend to make the argument that they need to outsource in order to compete with their competitors who are outsourcing. (sounds an awful lot like an argument between kids on the playground - "he's doing it too!" - where nobody wants to take responsibility). Given that CEO salaries run into the $millions (typically 20 to 40X the pay of their average employees) why don't CEOs consider cutting their own salaries in an effort to remain competitive?
Well, 90% of the time, I think we can cite the law of supply and demand, coupled with the theory of comissioned sales. Remember that CEO's salaries are typically the result of a bidding war to get them to work for your company (all CEO's are constantly (implicitly or explicitly) being bid for on the auction block). If I hire a CEO at worker salary times 2, someone else could hire him/her for worker salary times 3, because in the end, its worth the extra buckage for someone who will be that much better with the bottom line.
Besides, many CEO's have reasonable salaries that are tied to super-mega bonuses. But these bonuses are their motivation for doing so damn well! If I take a company from 5 years of consecutive losses to 50% growth per year, for 3 years...show me the money!!!
2. Many unemployed and about-to-be-unemployed US engineers would be happy to work for less money (within reason)in order to keep their jobs, however when this is suggested to companies the companies usually choose to go with outsourcing. If an engineer is willing to take a 30 - 40% pay cut to save his/her job, why isn't this offer taken seriously by most companies?
I recently discussed this with a friend who just got a PhD and cant find the university teaching job he wanted. "Why can't they pay half as much for twice as many of us?!" I think there are a variety of small reasons why this doesn't get done, not the least of which is that most workers don't want it (and are in fact better off drawing unemployment) and that its only a matter of time before those that would accept it say, "Hey, 100% pay, 100% work; 50% pay,..."
Commentary: The outsourcing advocates take a very narrow view of economics. To them cost-cutting is the primary motivation for doing anything - "if it'll save a buck, then do it" is their motto. However, it isn't clear that the money savings from outsourcing white collar jobs are actually going to be able to counter-ballance the economic devestation brought on by widespread offshoring. So what if US corporations suddenly become wildly profitable (for a quarter or two) while millions of workers are put out of work. Eventually those millions of unemployed workers won't have the money to buy the products of the wildly profitable corporations and profits will go down. I'd rather see corporations break even while providing good jobs to millions, than see them be wildly profitable but providing no jobs to US workers. Oh, and if millions are unemployed, who is going to pay the taxes to support the schools that we supposedly need to train workers for the 'jobs of the future'?
This is exactly why we have environmental laws! Because companies don't always have the best interests of society at large on their minds. I think 100 years from now, people might be comparing this to other big long-term oversights which damaged our country before tougher restrictions on corporate behaviour were implemented.
On the issue of the "hidden" free player, they've agreed to provide a direct link from Car Talk to a clear, uncluttered, free player download page. On the issue of pop ups, they tell us they're gone.
So now I have to remember to go to the cartalk site when I want to download Real! Its a sad day when you can't even use a companies own site to download there own product!
I hope this also means that we won't have to go to some cookie-needin', popup-infested, unnavigable website to get the those streams that Real has so "generously" decided to host for free.
"Wierd Al" Yankovic (SP?) gives possibly the worlds most informative commentary on the DVD of "UHF".
I would like to add that "assault rifles" with these primarily cosmetic features are unlikely to be used in crimes. Basic hand guns are primarily used in crimes with older criminals prefering revolvers and juveniles prefering semi-automatic pistols. Most guns recovered at a crime scene were not obtained through legitimate purchase.
:)
A department of justice study (or perhaps it was the one that the CDC did...need checking) stated something like "The maximum measurable effect of the Assault Weapons Ban would be too small to detect statistically". You see, even before the AWB was passed in 1994, only 2% of crimes were committed with them.
Most guns recovered at a crime scene were not obtained through legitimate purchase.
Hmmm...so laws only affect "law abiding" citizens....interesting
Seriously though, it always amazes me that more people don't see it this way. Something like 80% of guns used in crime are either taken from a family member or otherwise obtained illegally. I think we can go out on a limb and say that those remaining 20% of criminals could get a gun this way if it was the easiest option. Right there is a good starting point for the argument of why gun control doesn't work.
As an avid gun rights supporter, the absolutely last thing that I would wish to do is to offend you.
The way in which I glossed over any distinctions between an assault rifle and a submachine gun was done simply to ease the reading of my comment, and had no basis in fact.
I can appreciate that. But if you want to appreciate why I felt the duty to be nitpicky about it, you need only understand few things:
1. Most people don't know the difference.
2. Most people believe that fully automatic weapons should be banned (or at least regulated).
3. Combining (1) and (2) implies that many people will support banning assault weapons under a false pretense.
CNN did a piece about the *assault weapons* ban last summer where they showed someone firing *fully-automatic machine guns*. I read an article a few weeks ago where a journalist for the NY Post explicitly said that the AWB addressed machine guns. Take a look:
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/19640.h
Anyway, my point wasn't to address your line of reasoning comparing P2P filesharing to other issues which seem to be treated differently...I agree with you there. I just wanted to nitpick a detail, because this subject is important to me.
Let's take a look at guns, for example. REPLACE([Wired Article],'P2P software','assault rifles') and suddenly you've got the arguments for every single pro-gun-control group in the USA. Personally, I'm much more worried about the imminent public danger of a submachine gun than I am worried about the threat to public safety presented by Kazaa. Yet why is the state AG not addressing gun control instead of P2P?!
...ie, have pistol grips, collabsible stocks, etc.
As an avid gun rights supporter, I feel obligated to point out that the term "assault rifle" can not be interchanged with the term "submachine gun". As the US's 1994 Assault weapons ban is set to expire this September, I feel it is important to thwart any possible misinformation on this subject when I see it (especially if its in a highly moderated comment).
A "submachine gun" is a fully automatic machine gun, usually characterized by its design to accept a smaller caliber pistol cartridge, such as the 9mm Parabellum. Submachine guns, like all machine guns, have been highly regulated in the US since the National Firearms Act of 1934, and production of machine guns for the civilian market has been halted since 1986.
An "assault rifle" is a semiautomatic military style weapon. Functionally speaking, an "assault rifle" is equivalent to any other semiautomatic firearm. Even the term itself is often rejected, as no one can really say what makes a firearm "military style". In terms of the definition of "Assault rifles" in the current ban, they posses 2 or more particular cosmetic features,
I think the document you are referring to was written by this guy
Whole entire industries can't go obsolete! It must be because people are copying each others encyclopedias and trading them over the internet! There needs to be a watchdog lobby group, perhaps called the EIAA (Encyclopedia Industry Assoc. of America) which can address such concerns, so the owners of the intellectual property contained within encyclopedias see there cut.
...so astronomers are hedging their bets on how bright they will be. Guesses range from plus infinity to minus infinity
Damn close minded scientists...are they even CONSIDERING a brightness level in the complex plane?
Don't many laws already have sunset provisions?
Not very many. There is one very big (U.S.) law that does, however. The so-called "Clinton Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994 is set to expire in September of this year. Popular belief is that it will indeed expire without extension or renewal. See:
www.awbansunset.com