well, it'd be an interesting thing to see happen (and exposed), but this would only tell if the AI was informative, not nessesarily indistinguishable from intelligence.
and it goes w/out saying that modded up != a sign of intelligence...
if you're an atheist and you're killing theists, it doesn't fall in line that you're nessesarily killing them because they're theists. you're going to need to provide something with a bit more teeth, ctembreull, if you expect to convince any but the most noncritical.
"...but the general public really doesn't give a hoot about space. Space used to be a nationalistic thing. The moon landing (which did occur) is probably the one thing that really brought together the US as one nation. Since then, there's been interest in space, but it has been dwindling."
i think you have it backwards. the public isn't interested because we haven't done anything worth being interested in.
"Napster hurt record sales," said RIAA president Hilary Rosen. In particular, Rosen pointed to the drop in the sales of singles, once the format that fueled the music industry, as evidence of Napster's affect.
and...
Singles, a mainstay of the industry in the 1950s and 60s, have fallen out of favor as a tool to inflate sales figures and influence radio programming, said Roy Lott, president of EMI Group's Capitol label. Even so, Napster is the "prime culprit" for the drop in sales, he said. Industry analysts said the drop in sales can be attributed to a number of factors, including economic factors and a weak year for music releases. "Napster alone doesn't seem like a fair alibi," said Michael Nathanson, a Wall Street analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. "It's a combination of things. Softness in consumer spending. The hit titles were for such a narrow (audience) that it was a very thin year, and lastly, the Napster factor. You can't put your finger on it."
It's only a few paragraphs long, check it out. They really could have been a lot clearer about what a small percentage of revenue singles are, though. I stopped buying singles (and all retail items, really) because (a) Napster offered an escape from the RIAA-band-du-month and (b) what is charged for music is absurd given the costs. $3.99 for a single? I don't think so.
i think you might have a damned good point. i'd like to mention that the official mpaa.org website has a FAQ that states:
"Q. What is the DVD Content Scramble System (CSS) and how does it work?
CSS is the copy protection system adopted by the motion picture industry and consumer electronics manufacturers to provide security to copyrighted content of DVDs and to prevent unauthorized copying of that content. CSS is akin to the lock on your house."
honestly, i wish little faux pas had a legal recourse. do we have anyone in the house who is a lawyer...?
i've recently begun a strip of my own (sorry, nothing to post and i wouldn't presume to utter the title in the same sentence as bloom county) and this sent me on a quest for bloom books. off to the harvard bookstore i trod.
"what do you *mean*, 'out of print' you sniveling twinkee-eating cockroach?", i queried the weird-harold lookalike.
i thought i was going to be sick. not for my lack of reading material but for some of the finest toon material ever to grace pulp, for a lost generation thinking that calvin had no peer. around the corner to the used bookstore. SEVEN OF NINE tomes for the obscenely low price of $35. i'm not sure what the cashier made of my wide-eyed dollar-waiving self.
this has brought me to one, inescapable conclusion. we must find berke, strap him to a suitable table and make him bring back the crew.
look, i'm completely cool with civility, but there comes a time when asking nice just isn't going to cut it. it's also clear that mr. breathed isn't exactly beyond using this tactic himself (see "toons for our times", pg. 59). no, i'm serious. i'm starting a website and an email campaign to petition the man to return to his sanity. he can ignore us at his own peril.
that having been said, some of his original strips are for sale - he has apparently given two years worth of strips to his stepmom and his full blessing to sell them. they can be found at:
you need to have the original books to determine which are which, but...who is going to buy one of these who doesn't have the books?! it isn't very clear, but the cheapo ones are $250 (they're in red), the regular ones are $400 and the color sunday strips are $900. the page also isn't clear on who you need to contact - carolynbreathed@hotmail.com. she seems like a very nice woman, but she does reply in ALL CAPS. be nice to her.
if any of you came through halfway and don't really know the whole gang, an exhaustive rundown can be found at http://www.droops.cybermail.net/bchistory/bchist19 81.html, covering the first appearance of limekiller to the ultimate, last toon.
finally, for anyone who doubts that illiad (respects || rips off) bloom county, please see this userfriendly.org toon..
not for my sake, but please mod the everyloving hell out of this post. i'd really like to see some of his toons get into the hands of fans.
much apologies. in my furious attempt to prove you wrong, i found out that it was i, instead, who was wrong. and badly so.
turns out that my misconception stems from the case of an MIT student who was running a server that served up copywritten material. from http://www.silverglategood.com/cases/lamacchia:
"LaMacchia was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was not charged with criminal copyright infringement because, as of that time, the latter
offense required proof that the infringer acted for financial gain. To do what LaMacchia did without financial gain was not, in fact, a criminal violation of
federal copyright laws as they then existed. There was no evidence that LaMacchia had sought or obtained any financial gain from his actions."
i'm told this event - and congress' ultimate reaction to it (DMCA) - are what is currently causing napster fits. much apologies, i am a bonehead. =)
god damnit. would people get it through their thick skulls that owning a copy of a song that you, yourself, did not buy is 100% legal in the united states. the only reason why napster is coming under fire is because they're a profit organization. it is completely legal for me to make copies of my entire backstreet boys collection (this is the humor portion of our show) and hand them out at the park street subway stop here in boston...as long as i don't charge for them.
this is a big heads-up for the whole "they got what they deserve" crowd. [/grumble]
is anyone else finding it humorous that a website that reports the same stuff over and over again (hey, i'm not complaining!) is posting a story about a company whose name means "eternity" purchasing a company that means "again"?
i'm just sayin'...
as a frequent user of google, a search engine that is not only fast, accurate and ad-free but had the undying affection of geeks around the world for it's caching feature, i have only one thing to say about this:
the article talks about using the oft-mentioned slinghost effect to increase our orbiting radius before the sun increases in luminosity by 10% in 1 billion years and 40% in 4 billion years.
i'm thinking that this might be slightly (in a relative sense) more urgent due to an asteroid doing precisely the oppposite of what they have in mind - pulling us closer. i can't help but think this sort of foresight is a good thing but maybe we've got other, more statistically probably life-ending scenarios we should be paying attention to.
"Once people see SDMI operating in practice, do you think they're going to stand for it?"
i think by then it'll be too late. people will vote with their dollars. much like the slashdot crowd, the choice will be either (a) legislate, (b) play along or (c) boycott. and i'm sorry, if this election didn't prove that a full half of the country righteously pissed off couldn't do anything, i don't know what would.
but that's just my opinion, i could be wrong. time will prove it long after we've both forgotten this particular thread. =)
"Once the industry starts trying to push it down people's collective throats, people will care. Remember DivX?"
good lawd! divx was rejected because it was the worst of both worlds - all the annoyance of having to travel to the video store with none of the benefits of owning! why would i go to a store to "buy" a disc that i can watch for 48 hours and pay for again if i want to watch? it was (thankfully i can use it in the past tense) a marketing initiative.
sdmi, on the other hand, creates no obvious limitations to the end user. the vast majority of people don't care to manipulate music the way we do and even less realize what's truly at stake. the industry also have a twofold advantage - they have managed to put "fair use" in a noxious light and they're backing this up with the law.
the two cannot in any way be compared. the former was doa because they knew nobody would buy it. the latter isn't even on your dad's radar.
okay, ya got me there. i'm a big believer in not bitching unless you have a better idea and...well, not sure i have one. i will suggest that our *only* chance of attacking this in any meaningful way is to (a) get the word out (knowledge) and more importantly, (b) argue convincingly why people should care (impetus).
i'm working on such a plan (sorry i can't be more specific but i think it's likely you'll see it here when it's launched) but even i'm pretty skeptical that this approach will work. a person who is an advisor to the project tends to think that people are brazenly apathetic. i really hope he's wrong.
this suggestion is so polyanna, i'm willing to use my real name and take the karma hit and say so. are you aware that we comprise about.03% of the electronics buying populace and the other 99.73% don't even *know* about sdmi let alone care?
don't get me wrong, it's great to be an idealist. sometimes it pays off (thanks, rms). but a dash of reality comes in handy sometimes too. notice what works and do more of it. notice what doesn't and stop. this is tilting at windmills.
"I think it would be appropriate to also link to the responses already generated on Risks:"
i have to admit, i was thinking "what on earth could possibly go wrong with a system like this" (technologically). that's a great read. i'm wondering if it might not be more more effective to leave the capability to speed yet auto-ticket for sustained limit-breaking. i don't imagine it would be very hard to create a ruleset that says "you can speed but if you exceed this limit for more than 60 seconds in a given 24-hour period, then we ticket you".
[shrug] just a thought. i, personally, think this is a pretty good idea, if i didn't cringe at the idea of my whereabouts being known 24x7.
"Me and a friend were talking about portable pc's and I said it's was too bad that Apple dropped Newton because they really had something there.
They had most of what the pocket pc's have today, but about 5 years ago."
8 years ago (1993). not trying to correct you so much as point out how correct you are. =)
"Just because the Newton is obsolete means anyone who hacks it is stupid or wasting time? I am sorry to see the definition of hacking now only
includes stealing DSS and DoS attacks."
wow. hold up there killer! just in case you ran right to the reply button - and judging by the # of your post, you did - let me quote (in it's entirety), hemos' post:
"Dorian Gray writes "For a long time everyone, including Apple, said it couldn't be done...mainly because NOS linear soup
storage is so completely unlike conventional filesystems. But Newton users have refused to let the platform die, no matter
how the manufacturer mis-managed (or ultimately killed) it.""
i'm looking at the video - the second in particular - and...this doesn't look interesting, let alone revolutionary.
what you have is a top plate interacting with a bottom plate with exponential surface area! first the top plate touches 1, then 2, then 4. yay! dear sweet god, please, someone enlighten me!
i'm sorry to say, but no teacher has ever gotten me excited about a subject. i've never felt that they considered the subject truly important, past the test that friday, of course. i realize this is the inverse of what is being asked, but the ones that truly earned my ire were the ones who counted notes as grades. nothing like someone trying to stuff you into a mold. "no, think like this."
and lest anyone flame me, it wasn't for lack of imagination. to this day i'm still a sucker for just about any scientific announcment, finding, whitepaper or article. it's actually a foobin' wonder that i was bored silly in physics.
sincere apologies for the rant. i realize there are a rare few wonderful teachers out there. big ups to them. i just wish i knew one or two of them when it mattered.
motomannequin wrote:
"I cannot morph, yet I am suitable to many varied tasks." and "They will not be able to make a robust system by trying to control these "building blocks" from the top down. The cells in our body are not being told by a controller that they are an arm, or a kidney, the information is stored in the DNA. Yet our bodies do have arms and kidneys."
we weren't able to make airplanes until we realized that trying to mimic a bird wasn't the best way to go. while i do agree that centralized, dna-ish control is the way to go, i'm not willing to rule out a top-down (or heretofore unthought-of) method of working this. where would we be if we were still trying to make 747's flap?
this is not intended as a rant, but more a request for an explanation; what is so hard about building this thing? it just sounds like a magnetically controlled, no-boundary positioning device (for lack of a more engineer-correct name). i don't see where it would be particularly hard to build one - physically - in your bedroom. i realize the control software is a bit more difficult, but the precision they talk about for a simple prototype...?
Slashdot Mirror
and it goes w/out saying that modded up != a sign of intelligence...
My .02,
My .02,
i think you have it backwards. the public isn't interested because we haven't done anything worth being interested in.
My .02,
"Napster hurt record sales," said RIAA president Hilary Rosen. In particular, Rosen pointed to the drop in the sales of singles, once the format that fueled the music industry, as evidence of Napster's affect.
and...
Singles, a mainstay of the industry in the 1950s and 60s, have fallen out of favor as a tool to inflate sales figures and influence radio programming, said Roy Lott, president of EMI Group's Capitol label. Even so, Napster is the "prime culprit" for the drop in sales, he said. Industry analysts said the drop in sales can be attributed to a number of factors, including economic factors and a weak year for music releases. "Napster alone doesn't seem like a fair alibi," said Michael Nathanson, a Wall Street analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. "It's a combination of things. Softness in consumer spending. The hit titles were for such a narrow (audience) that it was a very thin year, and lastly, the Napster factor. You can't put your finger on it."
It's only a few paragraphs long, check it out. They really could have been a lot clearer about what a small percentage of revenue singles are, though. I stopped buying singles (and all retail items, really) because (a) Napster offered an escape from the RIAA-band-du-month and (b) what is charged for music is absurd given the costs. $3.99 for a single? I don't think so.
My .02,
"Q. What is the DVD Content Scramble System (CSS) and how does it work?
CSS is the copy protection system adopted by the motion picture industry and consumer electronics manufacturers to provide security to copyrighted content of DVDs and to prevent unauthorized copying of that content. CSS is akin to the lock on your house."
honestly, i wish little faux pas had a legal recourse. do we have anyone in the house who is a lawyer...?
My .02,
"what do you *mean*, 'out of print' you sniveling twinkee-eating cockroach?", i queried the weird-harold lookalike.
i thought i was going to be sick. not for my lack of reading material but for some of the finest toon material ever to grace pulp, for a lost generation thinking that calvin had no peer. around the corner to the used bookstore. SEVEN OF NINE tomes for the obscenely low price of $35. i'm not sure what the cashier made of my wide-eyed dollar-waiving self.
this has brought me to one, inescapable conclusion. we must find berke, strap him to a suitable table and make him bring back the crew.
look, i'm completely cool with civility, but there comes a time when asking nice just isn't going to cut it. it's also clear that mr. breathed isn't exactly beyond using this tactic himself (see "toons for our times", pg. 59). no, i'm serious. i'm starting a website and an email campaign to petition the man to return to his sanity. he can ignore us at his own peril.
that having been said, some of his original strips are for sale - he has apparently given two years worth of strips to his stepmom and his full blessing to sell them. they can be found at:
http://www.neosoft.com/~bloom/avail1.htm
you need to have the original books to determine which are which, but ...who is going to buy one of these who doesn't have the books?! it isn't very clear, but the cheapo ones are $250 (they're in red), the regular ones are $400 and the color sunday strips are $900. the page also isn't clear on who you need to contact - carolynbreathed@hotmail.com. she seems like a very nice woman, but she does reply in ALL CAPS. be nice to her.
if any of you came through halfway and don't really know the whole gang, an exhaustive rundown can be found at http://www.droops.cybermail.net/bchistory/bchist19 81.html, covering the first appearance of limekiller to the ultimate, last toon.
finally, for anyone who doubts that illiad (respects || rips off) bloom county, please see this userfriendly.org toon..
not for my sake, but please mod the everyloving hell out of this post. i'd really like to see some of his toons get into the hands of fans.
My .02,
turns out that my misconception stems from the case of an MIT student who was running a server that served up copywritten material. from http://www.silverglategood.com/cases/lamacchia:
"LaMacchia was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was not charged with criminal copyright infringement because, as of that time, the latter offense required proof that the infringer acted for financial gain. To do what LaMacchia did without financial gain was not, in fact, a criminal violation of federal copyright laws as they then existed. There was no evidence that LaMacchia had sought or obtained any financial gain from his actions."
i'm told this event - and congress' ultimate reaction to it (DMCA) - are what is currently causing napster fits. much apologies, i am a bonehead. =)
My .02,
this is a big heads-up for the whole "they got what they deserve" crowd. [/grumble]
My .02,
My .02,
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
this can't be anything but good news.
My .02,
i'm thinking that this might be slightly (in a relative sense) more urgent due to an asteroid doing precisely the oppposite of what they have in mind - pulling us closer. i can't help but think this sort of foresight is a good thing but maybe we've got other, more statistically probably life-ending scenarios we should be paying attention to.
just food for thought.
My .02,
i think by then it'll be too late. people will vote with their dollars. much like the slashdot crowd, the choice will be either (a) legislate, (b) play along or (c) boycott. and i'm sorry, if this election didn't prove that a full half of the country righteously pissed off couldn't do anything, i don't know what would.
but that's just my opinion, i could be wrong. time will prove it long after we've both forgotten this particular thread. =)
My .02,
good lawd! divx was rejected because it was the worst of both worlds - all the annoyance of having to travel to the video store with none of the benefits of owning! why would i go to a store to "buy" a disc that i can watch for 48 hours and pay for again if i want to watch? it was (thankfully i can use it in the past tense) a marketing initiative.
sdmi, on the other hand, creates no obvious limitations to the end user. the vast majority of people don't care to manipulate music the way we do and even less realize what's truly at stake. the industry also have a twofold advantage - they have managed to put "fair use" in a noxious light and they're backing this up with the law.
the two cannot in any way be compared. the former was doa because they knew nobody would buy it. the latter isn't even on your dad's radar.
My .02,
i'm working on such a plan (sorry i can't be more specific but i think it's likely you'll see it here when it's launched) but even i'm pretty skeptical that this approach will work. a person who is an advisor to the project tends to think that people are brazenly apathetic. i really hope he's wrong.
My .02,
this suggestion is so polyanna, i'm willing to use my real name and take the karma hit and say so. are you aware that we comprise about .03% of the electronics buying populace and the other 99.73% don't even *know* about sdmi let alone care?
don't get me wrong, it's great to be an idealist. sometimes it pays off (thanks, rms). but a dash of reality comes in handy sometimes too. notice what works and do more of it. notice what doesn't and stop. this is tilting at windmills.
My .02,
i have to admit, i was thinking "what on earth could possibly go wrong with a system like this" (technologically). that's a great read. i'm wondering if it might not be more more effective to leave the capability to speed yet auto-ticket for sustained limit-breaking. i don't imagine it would be very hard to create a ruleset that says "you can speed but if you exceed this limit for more than 60 seconds in a given 24-hour period, then we ticket you".
[shrug] just a thought. i, personally, think this is a pretty good idea, if i didn't cringe at the idea of my whereabouts being known 24x7.
My .02,
8 years ago (1993). not trying to correct you so much as point out how correct you are. =)
My .02,
wow. hold up there killer! just in case you ran right to the reply button - and judging by the # of your post, you did - let me quote (in it's entirety), hemos' post:
"Dorian Gray writes "For a long time everyone, including Apple, said it couldn't be done...mainly because NOS linear soup storage is so completely unlike conventional filesystems. But Newton users have refused to let the platform die, no matter how the manufacturer mis-managed (or ultimately killed) it.""
god damn. who pissed on your cheerios?
My .02,
what you have is a top plate interacting with a bottom plate with exponential surface area! first the top plate touches 1, then 2, then 4. yay! dear sweet god, please, someone enlighten me!
My .02,
My .02,
and lest anyone flame me, it wasn't for lack of imagination. to this day i'm still a sucker for just about any scientific announcment, finding, whitepaper or article. it's actually a foobin' wonder that i was bored silly in physics.
sincere apologies for the rant. i realize there are a rare few wonderful teachers out there. big ups to them. i just wish i knew one or two of them when it mattered.
My .02,
"I cannot morph, yet I am suitable to many varied tasks." and "They will not be able to make a robust system by trying to control these "building blocks" from the top down. The cells in our body are not being told by a controller that they are an arm, or a kidney, the information is stored in the DNA. Yet our bodies do have arms and kidneys."
we weren't able to make airplanes until we realized that trying to mimic a bird wasn't the best way to go. while i do agree that centralized, dna-ish control is the way to go, i'm not willing to rule out a top-down (or heretofore unthought-of) method of working this. where would we be if we were still trying to make 747's flap?
My .02,
My .02,
thanks in advance to the replies.
My .02,
My .02,