Mr. Xxxx, the famous martian, tells me to relay this bit of information:
We are inspired by this human clock thing, and will implement a clone ourselves.
Look for martianclock.com, featuring pictures for all 24 hours and 37 minutes using photographs of live martians.
Unlike humanclock.com, and due to the long distances involved, we'll be using a cluster of Commodore 64 and Atari 800XL machines to handle the web server(s).
I have somewhat less sympathy for Pinochet, not so much because what he did was evil, as because the Spanish were trying him for crimes against Spanish Citizens. Although they happened in Chile, Chile was not prosecuting the case, so Spain wanted to get justice for its citizens. Heads of state are a bit different matter.
Independently of wether we like Pinochet or not, we must acknowledge one fact:
There WAS at the time a trial in process against Pinochet (the Communist Party presented the first suit against Pinochet in march 1999, and many others followed; currently the judge that oversees the process has to handle more than 240!), and the judge hadn't finished doing the preliminary work he needed to do.
Now, let's not go off-topic discussing chilean politics, and let's stick to what we already agree on: extraterritorial application of law, at least in the way the Californian court is doing it, is not acceptable.
The Spanish judge did not accuse Pinochet of violations of Spanish law, but of violations of international law. Big difference.
Actually, that's not true. Judge Garzon came up with that excuse after the english courts threw away most of the accusations against Pinochet (which were 1800+, ranging from "genocide" to "A cop hit me." [I'm not kidding]). For further illustration, take a look at his process against Argentinian dictators - same thing.
And even if it were international law, you must remember that it wasn't law at the time of the alleged crimes, and law cannot be applied retroactively.
The real issue here, other than the technology/law problems (DMCA, blah blah) is that this statement by the Court simply throws away any limits to its jurisdiction by territoriality.
I live in a small unimportant country: Chile. As you may remember, we had a BIG political problem following Pinochet's arrest in the UK two years ago. One important part of the problem was that Judge Baltasar Garzón wanted to put Pinochet in trial for alleged crimes commited in Chile (not in Spain), using spanish law (not chilean law) in a spanish court (not a chilean one). This implied that anyone could be subject to trial, regardless of the country, and regardless of wether the alleged crime was legal in the country it was commited in. For example: prostitution is legal here (burdels aren't though). Can a local prostitute be subject to trial in the USA (in any of the states where it's illegal) because he/she went on his/her "business" in a street in Santiago last night?
The legal position my country took in that matter (Pinochet must be subject to trial in Chile and only in Chile) was, obviously, completely ignored because it's a weak small country with no power whatsoever. What's interesting to see is this: the judge that carries the process against Pinochet sent last week a... er... subpoena to Henry Kissinger, for his alleged responsibility in events that occurred here in 1973 that are part of the trial. USA's response? A formal letter saying, roughly, "Fsck you".
And now, we see a Californian court doing pretty much the same. How much time will pass before indonesian courts begin targetting US citizens in USA for violating their strict decency laws? Or how much time will pass before a Bahamas court offers quick trials for any crime, for a price (you commit a crime, go there, purchase a trial process where you are declared innocent: when they arrest you later in your country, you'll simply walk away because you've been already tried and declared innocent)?
_True Names... And Other Dangers_ and the Analog magazine _True Names_ was published in (I can't remember the issue now) are regularly sold at e-bay (at final auction prices ranging from 20 to 30 bucks in most cases), so I suggest you set up a "saved search" at the site and let it warn you about auctions related to Vernor Vinge.
By The way: To clear up some confusion:
_True Names_ is a novella. It was published in that Analog magazine I mentioned, and it was published along with four short stories in the book _True Names... And Other Dangers_. (two of those stories, _Bookworm, Run!_ and _Long Shot_ are pretty interesting).
Also, a new book is going to be published, called _True Names and the opening of the Cyberspace Frontier_, which reportedly will contain the novella (but not the short stories!). Now... the "is going to be published soon" status hasn't changed from at least february/2000 (yes, more than year and a half), and I have no idea why-s the delay.
While JMS guarantees quality writing in the next B5 series, FOX doesn't for Galactica. I HOPE they have the good sense of writing decent script-writers, or it will suck so badly it'll hurt.
I can't help but wonder how many other cities are known through history that could be found with today's technology. And I don't mean Atlantis (that's a cliché by now), but rather cities like Tartessos.
I don't know about USA, but in my country everyone is supposed to know the law. That's why every new law is published in the "Diario Oficial" (the "official newspaper" - its explicit purpose is exactly that one).
If we accept that a private entity can "own" a law, does this imply that the Diario Oficial must pay a royalty to said entity? If someone violates that law, does the prosecution have to pay such royalty in order to accuse the criminal? And the judge must pay in order to write his finding-of-facts? Does the defense must pay in order to deny the crime being committed? Do the newspapers must pay to reference it in their news report about this?
I think that the judges that upheld this position need to be reminded what the word "law" means.
This has really destroyed my mood for today (and the worst part of it is: tonight I have to attend a birthday party of a friend that's as big of a DNA fan as I am).
What the public doesn't know is the REAL reason that the Mars probes haven't had any success: they were shot down by the Mars Space Army!
Our probes were spy satellites, sent to peep on the MSA forces and were shot down for that reason. The Pathfinder was spared because it landed on an unpopulated area (the desert of Gniiiijks's's-daaasd) and because that way it wouldn't stir up public suspicion.
Our government's double agents at the NASA (horribly infiltrated by Marzies) have managed to provide the UN and key human governments with vital information as to the Mars Federation purposes: they intend to
sabotage all our satellites, so we'll be left blind (already destroyed the Iridium project, remember that one?)
invade EARTH within the next five years, USA in particular
claim Earth as part of the Mars Federation
once that is done, SUE the makers of Mars bars, for copyright infringement!
It's our duty to come up with an open source candy bar that doesn't violate the Mars patents ASAP, or switch to Snickers or Three Musketeers (we can't use Milky Way, that one's taken, too).
This kind of diving is the precursor to what Heinlein described at the beginning of _Starship Troopers_: throw the infantry off to a planet from orbit, where they do a hit&run operation, and are picked up a while later by landing ships.
Military implications of this are very very interesting.
I say 2001-03-15 23:47:02.
However... the burning down MIR will crack into several smaller chunks, that will fall down in no less than THREE different time zones within the Pacific Ocean, leading to endless arguments of which local hour is the correct one, and wether the first piece of debris should count or the biggest chunk, or the remains of the CCC, etcetera.
Let's say that I send a message to my colleagues at the TWA (Total World Anhilation - a hideously evil terrorist organization) using this method.
Let's say that Echelon is modified to treat all spam that meets certain criteria (sent to just one person, etcetera) as possible coded messages.
If so... how good is the encryption algorithm? I tested a few phrases and a very quick analysis suggests to me that it works by turning certain letter groups into predetermined paragraphs. I am NO criptography expert, and I already see certain patterns that could be used for breaking the algorithm. And how well it behaves the algorithm against a brute force approach?
This chair sucks. How am I supposed to play Freeciv for 18 hours straight if every three hours I gotta go to the restroom?
I can pass 18 hours without eating (although a small fridge would be a nice addition, it isn't necessary), but without peeing is too much. I'm still not a Borg, mind you.
In the past, a no-purchasing campaign was launched against Amazon for the 1-click patent.
Now, the Author's guild is doing something three orders of magnitude MORE imbecile. So, should we start a campaign refusing to buy books by authors in the guild?
This may sound dumb to many people, but it annoys the hell out of me: all the calendar software I've seen has the week starting on Sunday. It may be so in the USA, but it is NOT in many other countries - I'd rather have my calendar setting monday as the startinng day. Even better if it's user configurable to any week day.
ALSO: a cousin of mine works in a company that has many deals with a japanese company, and she has to take into account both local holidays and japanese holidays. I've seen software that either
has the holidays fixed (no config possible)
has the holidays of one country and you can input more (but no way of distinguishing between both categories)
has the "generic" holidays for many countries and displays them all, without any filtering chance.
I'd rather have a calendar that lets me mark holidays for several different countries (user configurable, of course) and marks them differently (green for my country, blue for japanese, for example).
I'm surprised that a whopping 15% of the slashdotters intend to vote for Nader. I decided I'd never vote for him, because he (ok, someone in his campaign staff) actually spammed Usenet some weeks ago with their propaganda.
Or did Nader submit a formal "I'm sorry, the responsible has been sacked" announcement?
A method of using Post-It (TM) note pads, stuck on the side of a user's
monitor, causing him/her/it to being reminded of the vital information
previously written on said note pad.
I saw some of those games, and in the ones I didn't, the title alone made it obvious that they were direct ripoffs. I have to side with Hasbro on this one.
However... ATARI *DID* declare their 8-bit line obsolete in 1993, so I'm not entirely sure Hasbro (as the current owner) could express interest in the *8-bit versions* of the games.
I wonder where emulators like MAME stand now in Hasbro's view.
Slashdot Mirror
We are inspired by this human clock thing, and will implement a clone ourselves.
Look for martianclock.com, featuring pictures for all 24 hours and 37 minutes using photographs of live martians.
Unlike humanclock.com, and due to the long distances involved, we'll be using a cluster of Commodore 64 and Atari 800XL machines to handle the web server(s).
There WAS at the time a trial in process against Pinochet (the Communist Party presented the first suit against Pinochet in march 1999, and many others followed; currently the judge that oversees the process has to handle more than 240!), and the judge hadn't finished doing the preliminary work he needed to do.
Now, let's not go off-topic discussing chilean politics, and let's stick to what we already agree on: extraterritorial application of law, at least in the way the Californian court is doing it, is not acceptable.
Actually, that's not true. Judge Garzon came up with that excuse after the english courts threw away most of the accusations against Pinochet (which were 1800+, ranging from "genocide" to "A cop hit me." [I'm not kidding]). For further illustration, take a look at his process against Argentinian dictators - same thing.
And even if it were international law, you must remember that it wasn't law at the time of the alleged crimes, and law cannot be applied retroactively.
I live in a small unimportant country: Chile. As you may remember, we had a BIG political problem following Pinochet's arrest in the UK two years ago. One important part of the problem was that Judge Baltasar Garzón wanted to put Pinochet in trial for alleged crimes commited in Chile (not in Spain), using spanish law (not chilean law) in a spanish court (not a chilean one). This implied that anyone could be subject to trial, regardless of the country, and regardless of wether the alleged crime was legal in the country it was commited in. For example: prostitution is legal here (burdels aren't though). Can a local prostitute be subject to trial in the USA (in any of the states where it's illegal) because he/she went on his/her "business" in a street in Santiago last night?
The legal position my country took in that matter (Pinochet must be subject to trial in Chile and only in Chile) was, obviously, completely ignored because it's a weak small country with no power whatsoever. What's interesting to see is this: the judge that carries the process against Pinochet sent last week a... er... subpoena to Henry Kissinger, for his alleged responsibility in events that occurred here in 1973 that are part of the trial. USA's response? A formal letter saying, roughly, "Fsck you".
And now, we see a Californian court doing pretty much the same. How much time will pass before indonesian courts begin targetting US citizens in USA for violating their strict decency laws? Or how much time will pass before a Bahamas court offers quick trials for any crime, for a price (you commit a crime, go there, purchase a trial process where you are declared innocent: when they arrest you later in your country, you'll simply walk away because you've been already tried and declared innocent)?
IANAL.
By The way: To clear up some confusion: _True Names_ is a novella. It was published in that Analog magazine I mentioned, and it was published along with four short stories in the book _True Names... And Other Dangers_. (two of those stories, _Bookworm, Run!_ and _Long Shot_ are pretty interesting).
Also, a new book is going to be published, called _True Names and the opening of the Cyberspace Frontier_, which reportedly will contain the novella (but not the short stories!). Now... the "is going to be published soon" status hasn't changed from at least february/2000 (yes, more than year and a half), and I have no idea why-s the delay.
--
Death to Vermin.
--
Death to Vermin.
--
Death to Vermin.
If we accept that a private entity can "own" a law, does this imply that the Diario Oficial must pay a royalty to said entity? If someone violates that law, does the prosecution have to pay such royalty in order to accuse the criminal? And the judge must pay in order to write his finding-of-facts? Does the defense must pay in order to deny the crime being committed? Do the newspapers must pay to reference it in their news report about this?
I think that the judges that upheld this position need to be reminded what the word "law" means.
--
Death to Vermin.
He was married with a daughter.
As far as my english parser tells me, this implies that he was married to his daughter!
IIUC, that should read "He was married and had a daughter.", or even "He was married, with a daughter.".
--
Death to Vermin.
This has really destroyed my mood for today (and the worst part of it is: tonight I have to attend a birthday party of a friend that's as big of a DNA fan as I am).
--
Death to Vermin.
Our probes were spy satellites, sent to peep on the MSA forces and were shot down for that reason. The Pathfinder was spared because it landed on an unpopulated area (the desert of Gniiiijks's's-daaasd) and because that way it wouldn't stir up public suspicion.
Our government's double agents at the NASA (horribly infiltrated by Marzies) have managed to provide the UN and key human governments with vital information as to the Mars Federation purposes: they intend to
It's our duty to come up with an open source candy bar that doesn't violate the Mars patents ASAP, or switch to Snickers or Three Musketeers (we can't use Milky Way, that one's taken, too).
--
Death to Vermin.
--
Death to Vermin.
--
Death to Vermin.
Let's say that Echelon is modified to treat all spam that meets certain criteria (sent to just one person, etcetera) as possible coded messages.
If so... how good is the encryption algorithm? I tested a few phrases and a very quick analysis suggests to me that it works by turning certain letter groups into predetermined paragraphs. I am NO criptography expert, and I already see certain patterns that could be used for breaking the algorithm. And how well it behaves the algorithm against a brute force approach?
--
Death to Vermin.
--
Death to Vermin.
I can pass 18 hours without eating (although a small fridge would be a nice addition, it isn't necessary), but without peeing is too much. I'm still not a Borg, mind you.
--
Death to Vermin.
Now, the Author's guild is doing something three orders of magnitude MORE imbecile. So, should we start a campaign refusing to buy books by authors in the guild?
--
Death to Vermin.
ALSO: a cousin of mine works in a company that has many deals with a japanese company, and she has to take into account both local holidays and japanese holidays. I've seen software that either
- has the holidays fixed (no config possible)
- has the holidays of one country and you can input more (but no way of distinguishing between both categories)
- has the "generic" holidays for many countries and displays them all, without any filtering chance.
I'd rather have a calendar that lets me mark holidays for several different countries (user configurable, of course) and marks them differently (green for my country, blue for japanese, for example).So Yahoo is charging now. Next thing, their stocks will go down and it'll end up disappearing.
I'm surprised that a whopping 15% of the slashdotters intend to vote for Nader. I decided I'd never vote for him, because he (ok, someone in his campaign staff) actually spammed Usenet some weeks ago with their propaganda. Or did Nader submit a formal "I'm sorry, the responsible has been sacked" announcement?
So, is that SPAM or S-PAM?
A method of using Post-It (TM) note pads, stuck on the side of a user's monitor, causing him/her/it to being reminded of the vital information previously written on said note pad.
I saw some of those games, and in the ones I didn't, the title alone made it obvious that they were direct ripoffs. I have to side with Hasbro on this one.
However... ATARI *DID* declare their 8-bit line obsolete in 1993, so I'm not entirely sure Hasbro (as the current owner) could express interest in the *8-bit versions* of the games.
I wonder where emulators like MAME stand now in Hasbro's view.