OK, Gore Vidal is an idiot, and I'd pay no more attention to him than I would a Frenchman trying to "educate" me about how the U.S. ought to work.
But despite my Republican affiliation and support for Bush, I agree that current electronic voting systems are shamefully flawed. The lack of a paper, human-readable ballot receipt prevents any sort of independent audit of the results to confirm their accuracy. And the various statements attributed to Diebold's C.E.O. about "delivering" the electoral vote to Bush is just ludicrious and rightfully cast serious doubts on his company's credibility in this arena.
Electronic voting can be done right. But currently it is not...
So you're now suggesting that the Oracle was a shyster?:) Seriously, it's kind of deflating to think that she just said what she did to cover her virtual ass. Oh well.
Since the bleak world outside the Matrix is supposed to be our reality only in the future
Who says? I mean, my gosh, there is plenty about the "real world" in the first Matrix that requires a suspension of disbelief. Or do you actually believe that the scenario as explained by Morpheus and the Animatrix is actually plausible?
As long as the prophecy would come true in (or based on actions in) the matrix, and the Oracle has a lot of power in the matrix, it wouldn't be hard to make those prophecies come true.
But that's my point. The prophecies depended on actions both inside and outside of the matrix. For example, one of Neo's most important decisions as it related to the fulfillment of his prophecy was to go back in after Morpheus was captured. Another was for Morpheus to hold off on the EMP until Neo had a chance to revive and defeat Smith.
All of the mystic elements in the first movie could have been explained in the context of the matrix. Neo's "One-ness" was only in the matrix, and the prophecy was that a "One" would be found, not that Neo was the one.
The Oracle also gave Morpheus and Trinity prophecy, too. And more importantly, all of these prophecies were given to people who had broken out of the matrix and who were entering and leaving under their own volition. So the prophecies had to account for human free will, not just the evolution of a computer program.
Perhaps the conversation in the train station is to be tied into the final fight with Smith. Remember when Smith rants on and on about "why are you doing this? for love? love is a human construct"... (OK I don't know the exact words but you get my drift, right?)
Perhaps the conversation in the train station was there to help Neo realize that his purpose was not necessarily to free the humans at the expense of the Matrix. Because the Matrix was a habitat for sentient programs, he couldn't destroy it without committing "murder". Hence a truce was indeed the best solution, not the elimination of the Matrix. Truce allowed those humans who wish to be free to go free, while allowing the rest to coexist peacefully in the Matrix alongside sentient programs.
How did Neo become able to stop the Sentinels *outside* of the Matrix? I don't want fucking "It's very Eastern". I want a real, or Western, answer.
Tough. You don't get a Western answer.
Basically it sounds like you wanted all the apparent mysticism to be completely explained by naturalistic means. I don't think the creators ever intended for there to be an entirely naturalistic explanation for it.
Nor do I believe that all the mysticism was introduced in the second movie. What about the prophecy of The One? The prophecy became true, completely. And frankly, didn't we believe that it would by the end of the first movie? Well, prophecy a load of crap in an athestic, naturalistic, Western worldview, right? Like your basic 1-900 psychic hotline?
Bottom line, the "real world" in the Matrix movies is more supernatural than we know our world to be.
Why, for example, didn't Zion prepare better defenses, knowing that the machines were capable of digging down and releasing sentinels into the Dock?
I got the impression that they hadn't encountered the drills before. The Dock was clearly well-protected from Sentinels. It seemed to me that the drill was a new weapon constructed to infiltrate it.
Besides, even if they did learn about them in advance, maybe they didn't have the time or the ability to build a new defense.
I would say "Look. When you paid for 512MB of memory, you actually got 536,870,912 bytes. So I tell you what, compensate your manufacturer for the extra memory they gave you, and we'll have them compensate you for the disk space you think you should have had. Kapeesh?"
It doesn't matter if the EULA is legally binding or not. It is copyright law, not the EULA, that prohibits you from downloading and/or distributing copyrighted material. So in this case the EULA is basically informing you of what KaZaA is not providing---exemption or protection from copyright law. It doesn't need to be legally binding at all to do that.
So, if you do have the right of first sale, and you yourself come up with a 'hack' to the DRM to allow you to transfer ownership... Would you then be in violation of the DMCA? Or since you were reverse engineering the process in order to do something you are legally entitled to would you be safe?
Unfortunately, I believe you will indeed be in violation of the DMCA. That's one of the problems with it: it's illegal to crack a protection scheme even if you do so for legal purposes. I think there are a couple of specific exceptions in the DMCA, like academic research. But transfer of ownership is not one of those "protected" behaviors.
Since you asked more nicely, I'll respond more nicely:)
Of course I can just choose not to click on the link. In fact, I didn't even scroll through the responses to this topic when I first posted my reply. In fact I have yet to do so---thanks to Slashdot's notification system I can read only the replies to my own posts.
But Slashdot has a system already in place that allows you to customize the http://www.slashdot.com page, so that you can exclude topics that do not interest you, and include certain sidebars that do. Sure, perhaps very few people use these features. But some do! And wow, there are a ton of topics on that exclude list, but I didn't see SCO.
So I'm not asking them to write any new code, or implement a new feature; I'm asking them to support a feature that they apparently already felt was useful enough to provide.
Fortunately, as someone else has kindly posted out, all SCO postings include the "Caldera" topic. So I can indeed choose to exclude all SCO postings from my Slashdot homepage without the need for the Slashdot site maintainers to add another topic. That's good news for me, and for anyone else who uses this particular feature of the Slash system.
think you could do a pretty good case when you show that Apple is refusing to acknowledge a change of ownership in their DRM
If they did this, yes. But where is the evidence that this is actually happening, or would happen? I'm not sure I see it yet.
Right now, the primary obstacle to transferring individual songs or groups of songs from one person to another is a technical one: Apple has not implemented the means to do this. Developing, testing, and deploying the code to do so would cost money. And I'm not convinced there is any legal basis for compelling Apple to spend those resources, particularly if they cannot expect to recoup the costs (say, through the charging of nominal "transfer fees".)
Now if someone went so far as to sell an entire account to another person, that could probably be done right now with little or no effort on Apple's part. The article seems to suggest that Apple would not object to such a transaction.
Certainly, one could blame the use of DRM for making ownership transfer impractical or impossible. But even then, I don't think that is sufficient legal basis to compel them not to use DRM. After all, if you buy a song from iTunes music store, you know what you're getting.
Take a look at your preferences some time. You'll see that Slashdot has this nice feature where you can exclude a variety of topics from your home page. All I'm suggesting is that they extend that already long list by a single item.
If it stands up in court, it just measn that a) Apple has to facilitate a free transfer function Wrong. They will by no means be required to facilitate a free transfer function. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean that they have to help you do it---and certainly not for free. That would be like saying that a record company should pay your postage if you sell your CD over eBay.
Having said that, I think it would be great if Apple would provide this facility.
It's not enough for Airgo to just double the data rate. Other companies are doing that.
Fortunately, that's not all they're doing! As the article states, they're also greatly increasing the range and reliability as well... and they're not going to stop at just double the data rate, either:)
I have had the honor of working with these folks, both briefly as a consultant for Airgo and with their previous work at Clarity Wireless/Cisco. They know what they are doing, and if anyone can innovate in an otherwise full and competitive market, they can!
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Thank you for stating the obvious so that I didn't have to. And I never mind taking compliments, even if they are backhanded.
No wonder more and more Americans go live there...
I will gladly help them pack!
OK, Gore Vidal is an idiot, and I'd pay no more attention to him than I would a Frenchman trying to "educate" me about how the U.S. ought to work.
But despite my Republican affiliation and support for Bush, I agree that current electronic voting systems are shamefully flawed. The lack of a paper, human-readable ballot receipt prevents any sort of independent audit of the results to confirm their accuracy. And the various statements attributed to Diebold's C.E.O. about "delivering" the electoral vote to Bush is just ludicrious and rightfully cast serious doubts on his company's credibility in this arena.
Electronic voting can be done right. But currently it is not...
So you're now suggesting that the Oracle was a shyster? :) Seriously, it's kind of deflating to think that she just said what she did to cover her virtual ass. Oh well.
Since the bleak world outside the Matrix is supposed to be our reality only in the future
Who says? I mean, my gosh, there is plenty about the "real world" in the first Matrix that requires a suspension of disbelief. Or do you actually believe that the scenario as explained by Morpheus and the Animatrix is actually plausible?
As long as the prophecy would come true in (or based on actions in) the matrix, and the Oracle has a lot of power in the matrix, it wouldn't be hard to make those prophecies come true.
But that's my point. The prophecies depended on actions both inside and outside of the matrix. For example, one of Neo's most important decisions as it related to the fulfillment of his prophecy was to go back in after Morpheus was captured. Another was for Morpheus to hold off on the EMP until Neo had a chance to revive and defeat Smith.
All of the mystic elements in the first movie could have been explained in the context of the matrix. Neo's "One-ness" was only in the matrix, and the prophecy was that a "One" would be found, not that Neo was the one.
The Oracle also gave Morpheus and Trinity prophecy, too. And more importantly, all of these prophecies were given to people who had broken out of the matrix and who were entering and leaving under their own volition. So the prophecies had to account for human free will, not just the evolution of a computer program.
Perhaps the conversation in the train station is to be tied into the final fight with Smith. Remember when Smith rants on and on about "why are you doing this? for love? love is a human construct"... (OK I don't know the exact words but you get my drift, right?)
Perhaps the conversation in the train station was there to help Neo realize that his purpose was not necessarily to free the humans at the expense of the Matrix. Because the Matrix was a habitat for sentient programs, he couldn't destroy it without committing "murder". Hence a truce was indeed the best solution, not the elimination of the Matrix. Truce allowed those humans who wish to be free to go free, while allowing the rest to coexist peacefully in the Matrix alongside sentient programs.
How did Neo become able to stop the Sentinels *outside* of the Matrix? I don't want fucking "It's very Eastern". I want a real, or Western, answer.
Tough. You don't get a Western answer.
Basically it sounds like you wanted all the apparent mysticism to be completely explained by naturalistic means. I don't think the creators ever intended for there to be an entirely naturalistic explanation for it.
Nor do I believe that all the mysticism was introduced in the second movie. What about the prophecy of The One? The prophecy became true, completely. And frankly, didn't we believe that it would by the end of the first movie? Well, prophecy a load of crap in an athestic, naturalistic, Western worldview, right? Like your basic 1-900 psychic hotline?
Bottom line, the "real world" in the Matrix movies is more supernatural than we know our world to be.
Why, for example, didn't Zion prepare better defenses, knowing that the machines were capable of digging down and releasing sentinels into the Dock?
I got the impression that they hadn't encountered the drills before. The Dock was clearly well-protected from Sentinels. It seemed to me that the drill was a new weapon constructed to infiltrate it.
Besides, even if they did learn about them in advance, maybe they didn't have the time or the ability to build a new defense.
Yes, but the LINPACK benchmark in particular would actually be dominated by fused multiple/adds, so it's not unreasonable to expect higher efficiency.
Stanford University? Public? Umm, no. It's as private as a drawerful of weed.
Actually, this article, to me, seems better related to the SCO/Linux battle than the RIAA/downloader battle.
I would say "Look. When you paid for 512MB of memory, you actually got 536,870,912 bytes. So I tell you what, compensate your manufacturer for the extra memory they gave you, and we'll have them compensate you for the disk space you think you should have had. Kapeesh?"
It doesn't matter if the EULA is legally binding or not. It is copyright law, not the EULA, that prohibits you from downloading and/or distributing copyrighted material. So in this case the EULA is basically informing you of what KaZaA is not providing---exemption or protection from copyright law. It doesn't need to be legally binding at all to do that.
So, if you do have the right of first sale, and you yourself come up with a 'hack' to the DRM to allow you to transfer ownership... Would you then be in violation of the DMCA? Or since you were reverse engineering the process in order to do something you are legally entitled to would you be safe?
Unfortunately, I believe you will indeed be in violation of the DMCA. That's one of the problems with it: it's illegal to crack a protection scheme even if you do so for legal purposes. I think there are a couple of specific exceptions in the DMCA, like academic research. But transfer of ownership is not one of those "protected" behaviors.
Smiley,
:)
Since you asked more nicely, I'll respond more nicely
Of course I can just choose not to click on the link. In fact, I didn't even scroll through the responses to this topic when I first posted my reply. In fact I have yet to do so---thanks to Slashdot's notification system I can read only the replies to my own posts.
But Slashdot has a system already in place that allows you to customize the http://www.slashdot.com page, so that you can exclude topics that do not interest you, and include certain sidebars that do. Sure, perhaps very few people use these features. But some do! And wow, there are a ton of topics on that exclude list, but I didn't see SCO.
So I'm not asking them to write any new code, or implement a new feature; I'm asking them to support a feature that they apparently already felt was useful enough to provide.
Fortunately, as someone else has kindly posted out, all SCO postings include the "Caldera" topic. So I can indeed choose to exclude all SCO postings from my Slashdot homepage without the need for the Slashdot site maintainers to add another topic. That's good news for me, and for anyone else who uses this particular feature of the Slash system.
think you could do a pretty good case when you show that Apple is refusing to acknowledge a change of ownership in their DRM
If they did this, yes. But where is the evidence that this is actually happening, or would happen? I'm not sure I see it yet.
Right now, the primary obstacle to transferring individual songs or groups of songs from one person to another is a technical one: Apple has not implemented the means to do this. Developing, testing, and deploying the code to do so would cost money. And I'm not convinced there is any legal basis for compelling Apple to spend those resources, particularly if they cannot expect to recoup the costs (say, through the charging of nominal "transfer fees".)
Now if someone went so far as to sell an entire account to another person, that could probably be done right now with little or no effort on Apple's part. The article seems to suggest that Apple would not object to such a transaction.
Certainly, one could blame the use of DRM for making ownership transfer impractical or impossible. But even then, I don't think that is sufficient legal basis to compel them not to use DRM. After all, if you buy a song from iTunes music store, you know what you're getting.
IANAL.
A very fair criticism, AC. I think I was just being curt, which I've felt a bit more free to do on this forum than others.
Hey, now THAT is the helpful advice I was looking for. Thank you very much.
You see how it works, smillie?
Wow, aren't you intelligent.
Take a look at your preferences some time. You'll see that Slashdot has this nice feature where you can exclude a variety of topics from your home page. All I'm suggesting is that they extend that already long list by a single item.
So screw you, man.
If it stands up in court, it just measn that a) Apple has to facilitate a free transfer function
Wrong. They will by no means be required to facilitate a free transfer function. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean that they have to help you do it---and certainly not for free. That would be like saying that a record company should pay your postage if you sell your CD over eBay.
Having said that, I think it would be great if Apple would provide this facility.
It would allow us, if we choose, to set our preferences to ignore these stories
Couldn't tell you, man. I tended to favor the single-serving tuna-on-crackers, and the carmel apple lollipops.
It's not enough for Airgo to just double the data rate. Other companies are doing that.
:)
Fortunately, that's not all they're doing! As the article states, they're also greatly increasing the range and reliability as well... and they're not going to stop at just double the data rate, either
I have had the honor of working with these folks, both briefly as a consultant for Airgo and with their previous work at Clarity Wireless/Cisco. They know what they are doing, and if anyone can innovate in an otherwise full and competitive market, they can!