Well, first of all: Terrorism is when people bleed and die.
No, actually, terrorism is when you traumatize people who would have otherwise remained uninvolved in order to create pressure for change. So, literally, SPEWS and it's ilk are terrorism of the highest form.
Secondly: Nobody is forced to use SPEWS; every piece of your mail was rejected by servers whose admins chose to use SPEWS.
Actully, I could be forced to use SPEWS, and I wouldn't necessairly even know it. You see, I don't have a choice of ISPs where I live. I either go with the one choice or I don't use the internet. So if my ISP begins to use SPEWS, I'm screwed.
On to the false analogies: Or refusing to go to a bad neighborhood. Or voting against a candidate just because you don't like the last president from that party. Or supporting trade sanctions against a country that engages in terrorism or human rights abuses.
What about people who can't afford to live in a better neighborhood (equivalent to only one ISP available)? Also, it isn't like not voiting for the canidate, it's like imprisoning everone who happens to live in the same city as the canidate. Trade sanctions don't hurt the regime, they hurt the people, much like blacklists.
You're right, it does suck for a worker to get fired because his employer is disliked. However, causing his children to starve is can only even masquerade as a good thing if he can scream at someone who will listen. With ISPs, all to often the managment doesn't care and the users don't have a choice.
Actually, no, this isn't something the recipients of my email agreed to. This is something the sysadmins for their ISP subjected them, and me, to. What if, as is the case where I live, there is only one ISP. Use it or loose it, baby. Oh, and by "Just contact the person you're trying to mail by phone." I assume you actually mean "Spend 45 minuted having the call routed across two countries to a radio relay durning the hour a day it's active"? See that's the problem with blacklisting, you catch people who can't do anything about the problem either because they are disenfranchised or because they are unaware there's any mail being blocked. Blacklisting on a large scale is just not an acceptable response.
A major flaw with your stance, and the stance of many people responding to this article, is that you assume end users have free will when it comes to ISPs. Due to regulatory bullshit, there is exactly one ISP available from my apartment. One. I have a choice to either accept their policies, or not use the internet. My father, due to his remote location, has exactly one ISP available at his house. One. Neither of us had the choice to approve of the ISPs' methods of doing buisness. We either accepted it or didn't use the internet. If either of our ISPs gets blacklisted, we no longer communicate. Neither of us have any appeal, neither of us have any choice. The ISPs don't have to care (though, thankfully, they are small enough that they do) a bit about our complaints. They know we have no where to go to. So how does preventing me from emailing my father help other people not recieve spam? I'm sure some of you think that it's still the ISP's fault, that I can always choose not to use their service, but if my ISP is blacklisted I cannot communicate, and if I refuse to use the ISP then I cannot communicate. Tell my how blacklisting with "collateral damage" helps a god damn thing. Hey, explain biological warfare is a good way of making nations behave while you're at it.
Here in Columbus, OH, the BMV is down, along with the patient tracking/data services at several major hospitals. Apparrently St. Ann's has closed to incoming traffic because they don't have a paper fallback system. Oops.
Plus or minus 3dB represents a doubling or halving of the power, respectively. However, quietness or loudness is a subjective quality. Most statistically normal humans seem to agree that plus or minus 10dB doubles or halves the apparrent loudness. Psychoaccoustics bears no relation to math or physics.
There is a strong and thriving community of DIY audio enthusiasts. I myself built my own tube preamp, interconnects, and power amp. Try http://www.speakerbuilding.com/ for information about building speakers. For broader information, go to http://www.stereophile.com and click on "Links 2 Die 4" (the l337-ness is theirs, not mine) and then on the DIY link.
I'm glad that the DVD will contain some extra footage, especially the evoloution of Gimli's character in Lothlorien. When that entire theme was left out of the movie, I was concerned. The friendship of Gimli and Legolas becomes important in later books, and without showing it's beginning, it would have been rather unexplained later. Truthfully, there was a lot that was left out of the movie that I'm afraid will make the later films a little rough. Hopefully the extra footage will eliminate future wrinkles.
The deficency in the US Patent system isn't one of "common ideas". As has been mentioned, tires, computers, and many other things are all "common ideas". The problem is patenting *general* ideas. It's reasonable to patent a specific solution to the problem of getting to work (say, each of the parts in a Ford Explorer). It is *unreasonable* to allow a patent on the idea of using internal combustion to move people around. It is also reasonable to patent processes like a specific method of refining crude oil into gasoline. However, the Patent Office would never patent the *idea* of turing crude oil into gasoline. The breakdown of the US patent system came when it was extended into intellectual property and CS concepts. The Office has not drawn a distinction between a specific algorhythm and an idea that encompasses an entire range of solutions.
There is another small error here. Early photographic emulsions were orthochromatic, meaning that they were only sensitive to colors having a higher energy that red. Blue was one of the first colors easily recorded. The history of photographic spectral sensitivity has been a slow progression from the high-energy colors (blue, green) to the low (red, infrared).
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Well, first of all:
Terrorism is when people bleed and die.
No, actually, terrorism is when you traumatize people who would have otherwise remained uninvolved in order to create pressure for change. So, literally, SPEWS and it's ilk are terrorism of the highest form.
Secondly:
Nobody is forced to use SPEWS; every piece of your mail was rejected by servers whose admins chose to use SPEWS.
Actully, I could be forced to use SPEWS, and I wouldn't necessairly even know it. You see, I don't have a choice of ISPs where I live. I either go with the one choice or I don't use the internet. So if my ISP begins to use SPEWS, I'm screwed.
On to the false analogies:
Or refusing to go to a bad neighborhood. Or voting against a candidate just because you don't like the last president from that party. Or supporting trade sanctions against a country that engages in terrorism or human rights abuses.
What about people who can't afford to live in a better neighborhood (equivalent to only one ISP available)? Also, it isn't like not voiting for the canidate, it's like imprisoning everone who happens to live in the same city as the canidate. Trade sanctions don't hurt the regime, they hurt the people, much like blacklists.
You're right, it does suck for a worker to get fired because his employer is disliked. However, causing his children to starve is can only even masquerade as a good thing if he can scream at someone who will listen. With ISPs, all to often the managment doesn't care and the users don't have a choice.
Actually, no, this isn't something the recipients of my email agreed to. This is something the sysadmins for their ISP subjected them, and me, to. What if, as is the case where I live, there is only one ISP. Use it or loose it, baby. Oh, and by "Just contact the person you're trying to mail by phone." I assume you actually mean "Spend 45 minuted having the call routed across two countries to a radio relay durning the hour a day it's active"? See that's the problem with blacklisting, you catch people who can't do anything about the problem either because they are disenfranchised or because they are unaware there's any mail being blocked. Blacklisting on a large scale is just not an acceptable response.
A major flaw with your stance, and the stance of many people responding to this article, is that you assume end users have free will when it comes to ISPs. Due to regulatory bullshit, there is exactly one ISP available from my apartment. One. I have a choice to either accept their policies, or not use the internet. My father, due to his remote location, has exactly one ISP available at his house. One. Neither of us had the choice to approve of the ISPs' methods of doing buisness. We either accepted it or didn't use the internet. If either of our ISPs gets blacklisted, we no longer communicate. Neither of us have any appeal, neither of us have any choice. The ISPs don't have to care (though, thankfully, they are small enough that they do) a bit about our complaints. They know we have no where to go to. So how does preventing me from emailing my father help other people not recieve spam? I'm sure some of you think that it's still the ISP's fault, that I can always choose not to use their service, but if my ISP is blacklisted I cannot communicate, and if I refuse to use the ISP then I cannot communicate. Tell my how blacklisting with "collateral damage" helps a god damn thing. Hey, explain biological warfare is a good way of making nations behave while you're at it.
Here in Columbus, OH, the BMV is down, along with the patient tracking/data services at several major hospitals. Apparrently St. Ann's has closed to incoming traffic because they don't have a paper fallback system. Oops.
3dB is only a factor of 2 for power. It takes 10dB to get a factor of 2 on loudness/quietness.
Plus or minus 3dB represents a doubling or halving of the power, respectively. However, quietness or loudness is a subjective quality. Most statistically normal humans seem to agree that plus or minus 10dB doubles or halves the apparrent loudness. Psychoaccoustics bears no relation to math or physics.
There is a strong and thriving community of DIY audio enthusiasts. I myself built my own tube preamp, interconnects, and power amp. Try http://www.speakerbuilding.com/ for information about building speakers. For broader information, go to http://www.stereophile.com and click on "Links 2 Die 4" (the l337-ness is theirs, not mine) and then on the DIY link.
I'm glad that the DVD will contain some extra footage, especially the evoloution of Gimli's character in Lothlorien. When that entire theme was left out of the movie, I was concerned. The friendship of Gimli and Legolas becomes important in later books, and without showing it's beginning, it would have been rather unexplained later. Truthfully, there was a lot that was left out of the movie that I'm afraid will make the later films a little rough. Hopefully the extra footage will eliminate future wrinkles.
The deficency in the US Patent system isn't one of "common ideas". As has been mentioned, tires, computers, and many other things are all "common ideas". The problem is patenting *general* ideas. It's reasonable to patent a specific solution to the problem of getting to work (say, each of the parts in a Ford Explorer). It is *unreasonable* to allow a patent on the idea of using internal combustion to move people around. It is also reasonable to patent processes like a specific method of refining crude oil into gasoline. However, the Patent Office would never patent the *idea* of turing crude oil into gasoline. The breakdown of the US patent system came when it was extended into intellectual property and CS concepts. The Office has not drawn a distinction between a specific algorhythm and an idea that encompasses an entire range of solutions.
There is another small error here. Early photographic emulsions were orthochromatic, meaning that they were only sensitive to colors having a higher energy that red. Blue was one of the first colors easily recorded. The history of photographic spectral sensitivity has been a slow progression from the high-energy colors (blue, green) to the low (red, infrared).