the Lunar Materials End User License Agreement that was shrink-wrapped around those rocks...
Actually, there is some disagreement here as well. The EULA was posted on a small brass placard mounted to a boulder in the center of the far side of the moon. It reads, in part, "By landing on this surface, you agree to be bound by the provisions of this license, including any future changes that may be made to it."
The U.S. considers all lunar material brought back to Earth (so far) to be the property of the U.S., and I agree with them. They (we) are the ones who spent billions of dollars to get there and fetch it.
One point on which I don't agree is the idea that we own it forever. Apparently there was some recent disagreement (perhaps discussed here on the dot?) that involved a moon rock that had changed hands a few times. The first change of hands (from the U.S. to a foreign dignitary) was legit, but one or more of the later transfers were not legit. I don't agree that the U.S. has a legitimate claim to it.
By the way, and I think this came out in the earlier discussion, I think you misunderstand the concept of "ownership" of the moon. While it's true that we have agreed that the moon will not be the sovereign territory of any nation, that does not mean that materials and resources obtained on the moon cannot be owned. The point is that anyone has access to it. If anyone brings stuff back, it's theirs.
One thing that really pisses me off is the total misunderstanding of the thermostat. How often have you seen someone on a hot day throw the thermostat down to 65? Obviously, most people think the number on the thermostat is the temperature of the air that comes out of the vent.
I once went into a grocery store in the middle of summer, and it was COLD in the store. I asked the cashier: "Aren't you cold?" She replied: "Yeah, but we don't mind, since it's so hot outside." ??
I think a series of public service ads featuring a brief explanation of the thermostat, plus a recommended temperature, would go a long way toward reducing abuse.
Example 1: You throw a rock off an overpass with the intention of cracking someone's windshield as a prank. The rock causes a fatal accident. Even though you didn't intend to kill anybody, you will probably be at least ELIGIBLE for life in prison, depending on the laws of your state.
Example 2: You set a soda can on the railing of an overpass. You accidently knock the soda can off, and it causes a fatal accident. If the circumstances can be proven, it's unlikely that you will face life in prison.
The judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense lawyer all play into the conviction/acquital and length of sentence, based on the circumstances.
I was once on a jury that convicted a rapist. We could have given him any prison term from zero to life. We deliberated and selected a term that was appropriate for the circumstances.
None required. My response was to a comment that a law doesn't have to specifically mention every method of committing a crime. The Mossaui case was, and is, a perfect example of a law that was found to be lacking because it didn't mention a specific method of committing a crime. The fact that he has also been charged with other crimes is irrelevant.
Please read the legislation. It simply allows sentences UP TO life in prison for causing or attempting to cause death. These exagerations are getting silly.
Just because the "weapon" is different shouldn't change anything.
Recall that recently, certain charges were dropped against Massoui because a commercial airliner was not specifically mentioned as a 'means of transportation' in the applicable federal law. It's not a waste of ink to spell out the new versions of old crimes that can be committed with new technology.
`(B) if the offender knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death from conduct in violation of subsection (a)(5)(A)(i), a fine under this title or imprisonment for any term of years or for life, or both.'. (my bold)
You may think of 'hacking' as an act in and of itself. This bill deals with various crimes that a 'hacker' might perform, using hacking as a tool or a means.
For additional perspective, refer to these acts mentioned in the bill:
(F) whether the offense involved a computer used by the government in furtherance of national defense, national security, or the administration of justice; (G) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of significantly interfering with or disrupting a critical infrastructure; and (H) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of creating a threat to public health or safety, or injury to any person;...
Examples of acts that are contemplated here: disabling a national defense warning system; flooding a city by opening the spillways on a dam; disabling the air traffic control system in a busy metropolitan area.
And for those who will quickly argue that these systems should not be connected to the Internet, note that the bill does not limit these acts of 'hacking' to access from the Internet. Hacking can also include access from inside a company or facility, dialup access to a piece of critical equipment, or even some acts of 'social engineering.'
These are not new criminalizations of innocent acts. They are simply expansions of existing principles to include new technology and means of hurting people and property.
you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a computer.
That's like complaining that you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a screw driver. If you use that screw driver to tighten screws, you're fine. If you stick it in someone's eye and wiggle it around, you may be facing LIFE in PRISON for the MURDER that you committed with your SCREW DRIVER.
With a little additional wiring he could have
on
Coffepot Computer
·
· Score: 2
being FORCED to use it. Your argument reminds me of Stalman's contention that all software should be free/open. How can you be an advocate of freedom if you maintain that nobody should release closed-source software (are they not free to do so?) Similarly, while crypto and security are good, the idea that any particular implemenation of same will be hardwired into your hardware, only to work with software that uses the same implentation, is a little distasteful.
Now, of course, you will say that we aren't being FORCED to use palladium. Well, that's the problem with Microsoft. Their crap becomes the defacto standard that everybody else follows, for better or worse. Alternatives tend to shrink or disappear over time. Most people here on the dot probably like PGP/GPG. But if Microsoft incororated those into Office and said you could only share documents with people who also had it installed, and had the proper keys (given to you by Microsoft, after you 'signed' a EULA,) then you'd hear the same complaints. And those complaints would be legitimate.
Several years ago I went to a store in Hong Kong that sold high-end holograms. I'm pretty sure I saw a tube-shaped film that you could walk completely around. These type of holograms can theoretically be made on any shape of film (flat, curved, tubular, etc.) The only problem is exposing the entire surface of the object to the two portions of the split laser beam.
For what it's worth, I messed around with holograms in high school. My physics teacher (Tommy Toor, Lyman High School) let me take home the lab's hologram kit, including the laser! How cool is that! (This was 1984...they didn't have laser pointers back then, at least not cheap ones; this laser was about the size of an extra large box of tin foil.) Anyway, you could make two types of holograms: reflection and transmission.
The reflection holograms were the low-quality types you see on credit cards and cd cases. They were pretty flat, but you could view them in ordinary light.
The transmission holograms were much more dramatic. You had to view them through a piece of transparent film illuminated by laser from behind. The object would appear to be beyond the film, rather than on the surface. These are the types that you see in museums and some high-end stores (don't know if they've come up with a way to view them without the laser?) Most of us have seen how you can move from side to side and get a different view as if the object was really there, even to the extent of "unmasking" hidden contours as you move. But a little known fact is that you can cut up the film and each piece still contains the image. Think of covering up different parts of a window: you can still see an object placed outside, but you have to position yourself in a different place to see it. Same with a transmission hologram. If you cut the film in quarters and give them to your friends, they could each see the object. One would have to look down and to the left, one looks down and to the right, etc. Very cool.
Anyway, the technology described in the article sounds like high-quality, quickly produced transmission holograms. Star Wars-style holograms will require some sort of 3-D medium as discussed above.
Agreed. Your post is an example of relevant discussion. So much more interesting and worthwile than "Uhh, I wouldn't push the button. I think killing is wrong, even for money."
The post is an intro to the article linked. The poster mentioned one of the more shocking statements in the article, a statement which has little bearing on the rest of the article. It is quite obvious that most respondents simply read the intro and skipped the article, and as a result an entire thread has been built out of one tiny detail from a much larger subject. Sometimes this works here on slashdot if the linked article is on a well known subject, but in this case the great majority of posters seem to have missed the point.
The discussion here could have been about spyware, search engine use and abuse, appalling business ethics, and greed in the tech bubble. Instead it's turned into an inane collection of tripe about a hypothetical question asked at an interview for the company in question.
If we want to discuss a one-paragraph intro from a slashdotter, we may as well leave off the links.
Read the friggin article, for god's sake. It's interesting, it's about technology and misuse of technology, and it has little to do with that damn button.
I will neither agree nor disagree with your statement here, but I would like to point out the resolution of a class action lawsuit here in Maryland, against a cell phone company for unfair pricing practices. Since the company "lost," members of the claimant class were entitled to $10 off the purchase of new services from that company. WTF? How does that differ from what we laymen call a "sale?"
One saftey note: never look directly at the sun...
A year or so ago we had a partial solar eclipse visible here in Maryland. On a local evening news report they had a story about how the students at one school had all made pinhole viewers so they could safely watch the eclipse.
They showed video of several dozen students, and a few teachers, looking directly at the sun through their pinholes.
I checked the next evening's news for a story about several dozen students with spot-burns on their retinas. Guess they got lucky...
Each track is assigned a "burn" score, a measure of how "burned out" the target audience has become; when the score passes a certain level, the tune disappears.
This is what pisses me off most of all. Obviously, they play the "hits" to death. But what makes the stations so unbearable is that you only hear one song from any given artist in a week or month. As soon as a new single is released, you never hear earlier songs form the album again. More than anything else, this shows me that the stations are just a big marketing tool with no taste in music. Sickening.
Re:This is worse than a software patent...
on
Pop-Under Ads Patented
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
No, I don't think so. Your example was a re-design of an existing product. These folks didn't even do that. The 'focus' method in javascript was designed to put windows in the front or back. They just decided to use that method. It's like saying "HTML will let us put as many options as we want in a pull-down menu. Hmmm...our menu has 27 items. Let's patent the 27-item menu." Or, it's like patenting the "Close This Window" link found at the bottom of many secondary web pages. It's just a common-sense use of some programming commands.
This is worse than a software patent...
on
Pop-Under Ads Patented
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The thing that bothers me about this concept is not that it's a patent for lines of code...what bothers me is that the lines of code do nothing more than specify which of a number of pre-existing options to use. To use your analogy: this is much more mundane and unoriginal than the incandescent bulb, which after all had never been thought of before and was an extremely useful device. No, this patent is more like if Edison had invented and patented the bulb, then invented and patented a variable resistor labeled 1-10, to control the brightness of the bulb. Then some clown comes along and says "During the day, I'll put the dial on 10, and at night I'll put it on 4." Then he patents this particular use of the bulb and dial.
Slashdot Mirror
the Lunar Materials End User License Agreement that was shrink-wrapped around those rocks...
Actually, there is some disagreement here as well. The EULA was posted on a small brass placard mounted to a boulder in the center of the far side of the moon. It reads, in part, "By landing on this surface, you agree to be bound by the provisions of this license, including any future changes that may be made to it."
The U.S. considers all lunar material brought back to Earth (so far) to be the property of the U.S., and I agree with them. They (we) are the ones who spent billions of dollars to get there and fetch it.
One point on which I don't agree is the idea that we own it forever. Apparently there was some recent disagreement (perhaps discussed here on the dot?) that involved a moon rock that had changed hands a few times. The first change of hands (from the U.S. to a foreign dignitary) was legit, but one or more of the later transfers were not legit. I don't agree that the U.S. has a legitimate claim to it.
By the way, and I think this came out in the earlier discussion, I think you misunderstand the concept of "ownership" of the moon. While it's true that we have agreed that the moon will not be the sovereign territory of any nation, that does not mean that materials and resources obtained on the moon cannot be owned. The point is that anyone has access to it. If anyone brings stuff back, it's theirs.
they also want to kill all the old people, and poison the water.
And starve the children.
Damn republicans...I wish they'd leave so the other 50% of the country could grow and prosper.
but I feel that in most places it is abused.
One thing that really pisses me off is the total misunderstanding of the thermostat. How often have you seen someone on a hot day throw the thermostat down to 65? Obviously, most people think the number on the thermostat is the temperature of the air that comes out of the vent.
I once went into a grocery store in the middle of summer, and it was COLD in the store. I asked the cashier: "Aren't you cold?" She replied: "Yeah, but we don't mind, since it's so hot outside." ??
I think a series of public service ads featuring a brief explanation of the thermostat, plus a recommended temperature, would go a long way toward reducing abuse.
Example 1: You throw a rock off an overpass with the intention of cracking someone's windshield as a prank. The rock causes a fatal accident. Even though you didn't intend to kill anybody, you will probably be at least ELIGIBLE for life in prison, depending on the laws of your state.
Example 2: You set a soda can on the railing of an overpass. You accidently knock the soda can off, and it causes a fatal accident. If the circumstances can be proven, it's unlikely that you will face life in prison.
The judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense lawyer all play into the conviction/acquital and length of sentence, based on the circumstances.
I was once on a jury that convicted a rapist. We could have given him any prison term from zero to life. We deliberated and selected a term that was appropriate for the circumstances.
Come up with a better example than that.
None required. My response was to a comment that a law doesn't have to specifically mention every method of committing a crime. The Mossaui case was, and is, a perfect example of a law that was found to be lacking because it didn't mention a specific method of committing a crime. The fact that he has also been charged with other crimes is irrelevant.
All of our laws are written like this. That's why we have juries, defense lawyers, and many layers of appellate courts.
Please read the legislation. It simply allows sentences UP TO life in prison for causing or attempting to cause death. These exagerations are getting silly.
Just because the "weapon" is different shouldn't change anything.
Recall that recently, certain charges were dropped against Massoui because a commercial airliner was not specifically mentioned as a 'means of transportation' in the applicable federal law. It's not a waste of ink to spell out the new versions of old crimes that can be committed with new technology.
here is the focal point of this discussion:
`(B) if the offender knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death from conduct in violation of subsection (a)(5)(A)(i), a fine under this title or imprisonment for any term of years or for life, or both.'. (my bold)
You may think of 'hacking' as an act in and of itself. This bill deals with various crimes that a 'hacker' might perform, using hacking as a tool or a means.
For additional perspective, refer to these acts mentioned in the bill:
(F) whether the offense involved a computer used by the government in furtherance of national defense, national security, or the administration of justice;
(G) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of significantly interfering with or disrupting a critical infrastructure; and
(H) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of creating a threat to public health or safety, or injury to any person;...
Examples of acts that are contemplated here: disabling a national defense warning system; flooding a city by opening the spillways on a dam; disabling the air traffic control system in a busy metropolitan area.
And for those who will quickly argue that these systems should not be connected to the Internet, note that the bill does not limit these acts of 'hacking' to access from the Internet. Hacking can also include access from inside a company or facility, dialup access to a piece of critical equipment, or even some acts of 'social engineering.'
These are not new criminalizations of innocent acts. They are simply expansions of existing principles to include new technology and means of hurting people and property.
you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a computer.
That's like complaining that you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a screw driver. If you use that screw driver to tighten screws, you're fine. If you stick it in someone's eye and wiggle it around, you may be facing LIFE in PRISON for the MURDER that you committed with your SCREW DRIVER.
coffee by cronjob.
being FORCED to use it. Your argument reminds me of Stalman's contention that all software should be free/open. How can you be an advocate of freedom if you maintain that nobody should release closed-source software (are they not free to do so?) Similarly, while crypto and security are good, the idea that any particular implemenation of same will be hardwired into your hardware, only to work with software that uses the same implentation, is a little distasteful.
Now, of course, you will say that we aren't being FORCED to use palladium. Well, that's the problem with Microsoft. Their crap becomes the defacto standard that everybody else follows, for better or worse. Alternatives tend to shrink or disappear over time. Most people here on the dot probably like PGP/GPG. But if Microsoft incororated those into Office and said you could only share documents with people who also had it installed, and had the proper keys (given to you by Microsoft, after you 'signed' a EULA,) then you'd hear the same complaints. And those complaints would be legitimate.
Yup. 1985. You?
Several years ago I went to a store in Hong Kong that sold high-end holograms. I'm pretty sure I saw a tube-shaped film that you could walk completely around. These type of holograms can theoretically be made on any shape of film (flat, curved, tubular, etc.) The only problem is exposing the entire surface of the object to the two portions of the split laser beam.
For what it's worth, I messed around with holograms in high school. My physics teacher (Tommy Toor, Lyman High School) let me take home the lab's hologram kit, including the laser! How cool is that! (This was 1984...they didn't have laser pointers back then, at least not cheap ones; this laser was about the size of an extra large box of tin foil.) Anyway, you could make two types of holograms: reflection and transmission.
The reflection holograms were the low-quality types you see on credit cards and cd cases. They were pretty flat, but you could view them in ordinary light.
The transmission holograms were much more dramatic. You had to view them through a piece of transparent film illuminated by laser from behind. The object would appear to be beyond the film, rather than on the surface. These are the types that you see in museums and some high-end stores (don't know if they've come up with a way to view them without the laser?) Most of us have seen how you can move from side to side and get a different view as if the object was really there, even to the extent of "unmasking" hidden contours as you move. But a little known fact is that you can cut up the film and each piece still contains the image. Think of covering up different parts of a window: you can still see an object placed outside, but you have to position yourself in a different place to see it. Same with a transmission hologram. If you cut the film in quarters and give them to your friends, they could each see the object. One would have to look down and to the left, one looks down and to the right, etc. Very cool.
Anyway, the technology described in the article sounds like high-quality, quickly produced transmission holograms. Star Wars-style holograms will require some sort of 3-D medium as discussed above.
Agreed. Your post is an example of relevant discussion. So much more interesting and worthwile than "Uhh, I wouldn't push the button. I think killing is wrong, even for money."
The post is an intro to the article linked. The poster mentioned one of the more shocking statements in the article, a statement which has little bearing on the rest of the article. It is quite obvious that most respondents simply read the intro and skipped the article, and as a result an entire thread has been built out of one tiny detail from a much larger subject. Sometimes this works here on slashdot if the linked article is on a well known subject, but in this case the great majority of posters seem to have missed the point.
The discussion here could have been about spyware, search engine use and abuse, appalling business ethics, and greed in the tech bubble. Instead it's turned into an inane collection of tripe about a hypothetical question asked at an interview for the company in question.
If we want to discuss a one-paragraph intro from a slashdotter, we may as well leave off the links.
Read the friggin article, for god's sake. It's interesting, it's about technology and misuse of technology, and it has little to do with that damn button.
I will neither agree nor disagree with your statement here, but I would like to point out the resolution of a class action lawsuit here in Maryland, against a cell phone company for unfair pricing practices. Since the company "lost," members of the claimant class were entitled to $10 off the purchase of new services from that company. WTF? How does that differ from what we laymen call a "sale?"
think of the legions of rednecks...
Can you get comet cursor for it? If not, I don't want it.
And yahoo messenger.
And some sort of automatic daily wallpaper update.
One saftey note: never look directly at the sun...
A year or so ago we had a partial solar eclipse visible here in Maryland. On a local evening news report they had a story about how the students at one school had all made pinhole viewers so they could safely watch the eclipse.
They showed video of several dozen students, and a few teachers, looking directly at the sun through their pinholes.
I checked the next evening's news for a story about several dozen students with spot-burns on their retinas. Guess they got lucky...
1/1800th of a night vision scope.
how many beads would Mars cost us?
Each track is assigned a "burn" score, a measure of how "burned out" the target audience has become; when the score passes a certain level, the tune disappears.
This is what pisses me off most of all. Obviously, they play the "hits" to death. But what makes the stations so unbearable is that you only hear one song from any given artist in a week or month. As soon as a new single is released, you never hear earlier songs form the album again. More than anything else, this shows me that the stations are just a big marketing tool with no taste in music. Sickening.
No, I don't think so. Your example was a re-design of an existing product. These folks didn't even do that. The 'focus' method in javascript was designed to put windows in the front or back. They just decided to use that method. It's like saying "HTML will let us put as many options as we want in a pull-down menu. Hmmm...our menu has 27 items. Let's patent the 27-item menu." Or, it's like patenting the "Close This Window" link found at the bottom of many secondary web pages. It's just a common-sense use of some programming commands.
The thing that bothers me about this concept is not that it's a patent for lines of code...what bothers me is that the lines of code do nothing more than specify which of a number of pre-existing options to use. To use your analogy: this is much more mundane and unoriginal than the incandescent bulb, which after all had never been thought of before and was an extremely useful device. No, this patent is more like if Edison had invented and patented the bulb, then invented and patented a variable resistor labeled 1-10, to control the brightness of the bulb. Then some clown comes along and says "During the day, I'll put the dial on 10, and at night I'll put it on 4." Then he patents this particular use of the bulb and dial.
Ridiculous. Scary.