would the prime directive overrule this? "No matter what, don't let your society interfere with the evolution of another society unless the two can possibly be federated as members of a larger society."
Hmm, I thought the prime directives were:
1. Serve The Public Trust 2. Protect The Innocent 3. Uphold The Law
... and this was also discussed in an earlier Slashdot post: Sweden to outlaw peer-to-peer file swapping (however, it seems like there are still confusion about what the law exactly means, since this article seem to be in conflict with the first)
No it isn't! I do sincerely doubt it. If I had stated it as a fact, you would be right, but I'm not an idiot, so I didn't. Please read and understand my point before replying!
OK, sorry if I misread it as a statement and had yourself get worked up about it. However, my point still remains -- that I think it's hard to see the effects before we've been there.
Anyway, my doubt is based on the 'compulsive' element that appears in these cases. Alcoholics consume more if it's available. So do hard drug users. I think that's a reasonable model for the mental process involved.
Thanks for putting it into words like I tried to, but failed to in other posts.:-)
I think laws against possession has too high of a chance to backfire and is not worth the extremely small chance it may somehow improve the life of a sexually abused child. I can't even see a chain of events on how that could happen. I think it was always the revenues that spawned this sick business.
I sincerely doubt that free access to pornography depicting children reduces sexual offences against children (quote the opposite),
Don't be so sure about that. It's very hard to predict before it has never been tried. And we are for several (good) reasons afraid of checking if the crimes will increase if legalizing child pornography. But if we haven't got anything to compare with, that is a bold statement. We're not having more homicides in Sweden even if we haven't adopted death penalties. The consumption of alcohol didn't increase noticeably after we had allowed it to be purchased in stores. I wouldn't be surprised if legalizing weed in our country wouldn't make a noticeable difference in the amount of junkies. Why? Well, I suppose because we're usually not child porn collectors, junkies and murderers by default. We of course still need laws for the cases of the scum of our community, but we need to watch out if the law is unenforcable and hurt as many innocent* people as guilty.
* I consider users who have got child porn installed on his/her computer by a trojan innocent, and the person who installed the child porn guilty.
There are now a great number of sites hosted and created in russia that make and sell child porn to western customers (since they are the ones who got the money). Childeren are being molested raped and killed to generate these images. This is being done because people are willing to pay for them. Wipe out the customers and the suppliers will go away.
I'm not sure, but by "downloading" the parent poster might have meant getting the porn from IRC, FTP, newsgroups, or P2P networks. These are all known to be major sources for child porn, perhaps even larger than the pay sites. Search for "child porn" on Kazaa and you'll probably get half a ton of sources. However, the producers of it get no revenue from this to continue with the "business".
I can see where the parent is getting at -- that the current laws WILL get problems with prosecuting people that was never tracked as having PAID for the porn. Especially since the possiblities of trojan infections cannot be ignored and it is a well-known fact today that hackers can use users' hard drives for storage of all sorts of things via trojans. It would even be LOGICAL for them to store exactly child porn on others hard drives to get away. And sometimes when a law can't be enforced, we're better without the law. One can't deny that these accusions hurt a lot for the victim and will most likely destroy large parts of his life even if he is never considered guilty. That's unfortunately human psychology...
Personally I think a few years in jail for a child porn collector causes a bit less grieve then a child being raped and killed. Apperantly you don't.
A guy who get child porn uploaded via a trojan shouldn't be punished for a raped child in Russia. This is what the law might allow in its current state. But perhaps we'll have to live with that.
I also know these D&D manuals; there are insane amounts of RPG books available on IRC, and the most common ones use to appear on Kazaa. As far as I know they're not directly from the source, but either simply scanned in (the most common) or scanned in with the text transformed to actual text with an OCR program, then using the proper D&D manual fonts to create a very high quality digital copy of a book. If done by a skilled person with a decent scanner, the copy should be almost indistinguishable from the original. The fonts that are used by Wizards of the Coast are well-known. So it's basically a matter of someone scanning the art at high quality, removing the text and applying the OCR'ed text using proper fonts.
Exactly -- I think this is why EU is acting at this moment, when online music might be just about to boom. It could be devastating for many parties if Microsoft started a music service based on WMA + DRM.
The theories suggest that dark energy is a force that is thought to accelerate the universe's expansion rate, working much like a gravity force, only that it pulls the universe to the void surrounding it, instead of collapsing it. The superstring theory is supposed to contain the physics of the quantum behavior of gravity. Do you think these two theories could be connected, and could discovering how superstrings work explain what creates the dark energy? Is progress currently being in the research in these areas, or are we still at very early stages of speculation?
If the rate was slowing, yes. As it appears the rate is accelerating, we need something else.
Yes, we need dark energy. The question is what dark energy is, if it's somehow connected to "dark matter", the superstring theory or whatever, or if it even exist.
Anyway, some scientists consider dark energy to be generating the force that acts as an inverse gravity, pulling the universe into void (as we know it now).
I guess I'm going to post a question regarding this.
Yes, that's true. The martian year is much longer than Earth's. If you were to convert Mars' year, the global dust storms would start sometime around the "August" of Mars and end around "September". But that's local to Mars, and not synchronized to Earth-years in any way as far as I can see.
Users of Celestia (the stunning open-source galaxy simulator) can verify this and a whole lot of other space events as Mars is, at August 27, 0.373 AU from Earth. When I'm typing this, Mars seems to be 0.410 AU from Earth.
1 AU = 149,597,870.691 km
0.373 AU = 55800005 km 0.410 AU = 61335126 km
The values seem to be slightly off (by around 1%) when compared to the article's shortest distance, from the approximated planetary orbits.
Obviously you care about those games enough to want them re-released.
Yes, re-released for free, I'd like to add. I couldn't care less about them if they sold them. They aren't really worth much to me except for a nostalgy trip. That's what I meant in my comment; I don't think many would care about purchasing their games if they sold them since they're of inferior quality and barely even work on today's hardware, probably even less on tomorrow's. They often require third party software like ScummVM and/or fiddling with DOS emulation options to work, and then you'll perhaps still be without the sound. So in the form of the currently protected intellectual property, I don't think many (including me) are interested in a release of these games unless it's a release as public domain.
That's my problem with it -- that many companies still protect these rotting games until the point they're barely playable without support tools, for which reason? Just out of greed? Or because there exist a very small chance that they will indeed release a "special edition" where they've fixed the incompatibilities with, say, Windows XP and perhaps even using a higher resolution and full speech? Not that I understand why a game company would like to go back and rework an ancient game instead of just making a new game.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the slashdotification. I knew I should have thought twice before posting a numbered list here.
From a Google Search, it seems like it's a Slash'em variation of Falcon's Eye.
Or the one about not arresting senior members of OCP or whatever...
:-) I knew I had forgot something!
Haha, yeah, the secret 4th directive.
would the prime directive overrule this? "No matter what, don't let your society interfere with the evolution of another society unless the two can possibly be federated as members of a larger society."
Hmm, I thought the prime directives were:
1. Serve The Public Trust
2. Protect The Innocent
3. Uphold The Law
European Commission: downloading pirated material should be legal
However, the law is still seen as overly restrictive by many:
The Draft IP Enforcement Directive - A Threat To Competition And Liberty
Group warns of Europe's 'DMCA on steroids'
Sweden to outlaw peer-to-peer file swapping
(however, it seems like there are still confusion about what the law exactly means, since this article seem to be in conflict with the first)
No it isn't! I do sincerely doubt it. If I had stated it as a fact, you would be right, but I'm not an idiot, so I didn't. Please read and understand my point before replying!
r ds/MulfordInterview.html
OK, sorry if I misread it as a statement and had yourself get worked up about it. However, my point still remains -- that I think it's hard to see the effects before we've been there.
Anyway, my doubt is based on the 'compulsive' element that appears in these cases. Alcoholics consume more if it's available. So do hard drug users. I think that's a reasonable model for the mental process involved.
Yes, you have a point, however, this site supports what I'm trying to tell:
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol-info/InTheirOwnWo
Thanks for putting it into words like I tried to, but failed to in other posts. :-)
I think laws against possession has too high of a chance to backfire and is not worth the extremely small chance it may somehow improve the life of a sexually abused child. I can't even see a chain of events on how that could happen. I think it was always the revenues that spawned this sick business.
I sincerely doubt that free access to pornography depicting children reduces sexual offences against children (quote the opposite),
Don't be so sure about that. It's very hard to predict before it has never been tried. And we are for several (good) reasons afraid of checking if the crimes will increase if legalizing child pornography. But if we haven't got anything to compare with, that is a bold statement. We're not having more homicides in Sweden even if we haven't adopted death penalties. The consumption of alcohol didn't increase noticeably after we had allowed it to be purchased in stores. I wouldn't be surprised if legalizing weed in our country wouldn't make a noticeable difference in the amount of junkies. Why? Well, I suppose because we're usually not child porn collectors, junkies and murderers by default. We of course still need laws for the cases of the scum of our community, but we need to watch out if the law is unenforcable and hurt as many innocent* people as guilty.
* I consider users who have got child porn installed on his/her computer by a trojan innocent, and the person who installed the child porn guilty.
Hrm... I think we all agree about that child abusers should be punished, but I can't see that was what he was getting at?
There are now a great number of sites hosted and created in russia that make and sell child porn to western customers (since they are the ones who got the money). Childeren are being molested raped and killed to generate these images. This is being done because people are willing to pay for them. Wipe out the customers and the suppliers will go away.
I'm not sure, but by "downloading" the parent poster might have meant getting the porn from IRC, FTP, newsgroups, or P2P networks. These are all known to be major sources for child porn, perhaps even larger than the pay sites. Search for "child porn" on Kazaa and you'll probably get half a ton of sources. However, the producers of it get no revenue from this to continue with the "business".
I can see where the parent is getting at -- that the current laws WILL get problems with prosecuting people that was never tracked as having PAID for the porn. Especially since the possiblities of trojan infections cannot be ignored and it is a well-known fact today that hackers can use users' hard drives for storage of all sorts of things via trojans. It would even be LOGICAL for them to store exactly child porn on others hard drives to get away. And sometimes when a law can't be enforced, we're better without the law. One can't deny that these accusions hurt a lot for the victim and will most likely destroy large parts of his life even if he is never considered guilty. That's unfortunately human psychology...
Personally I think a few years in jail for a child porn collector causes a bit less grieve then a child being raped and killed. Apperantly you don't.
A guy who get child porn uploaded via a trojan shouldn't be punished for a raped child in Russia. This is what the law might allow in its current state. But perhaps we'll have to live with that.
I also know these D&D manuals; there are insane amounts of RPG books available on IRC, and the most common ones use to appear on Kazaa. As far as I know they're not directly from the source, but either simply scanned in (the most common) or scanned in with the text transformed to actual text with an OCR program, then using the proper D&D manual fonts to create a very high quality digital copy of a book. If done by a skilled person with a decent scanner, the copy should be almost indistinguishable from the original. The fonts that are used by Wizards of the Coast are well-known. So it's basically a matter of someone scanning the art at high quality, removing the text and applying the OCR'ed text using proper fonts.
I want images implanted into my brain before my lifetime is over.
That's easily solved: www.goatse.cx
Watch that picture for a few hours straight, and I'm sure that image will be implanted into your brain until your lifetime is over.
Yeah, geeks can now have sex with fog! Getting to hologram sex, slowly but surely. :-)
ya.. supply and demand is cool, too bad Sony's soo against it..
It's because allowing it encourages hacks, to either create or duplicate powerful items.
Gotta love Red Hat's timing.
;-)
Hehe, and IBM's... I wonder if the timing was on purpose and part of their evil plan.
Yeah, I heard the Linux chicks are going to be there!
If you don't get that joke when first reading it, you've been programming too much lately. Apparently I had. :-)
Exactly -- I think this is why EU is acting at this moment, when online music might be just about to boom. It could be devastating for many parties if Microsoft started a music service based on WMA + DRM.
It does look rather evil that way, doesn't it?
H4H4 Y0U D0N7 UND3R574ND H0W 70 7YP3 1N 7RU3 L337! 3V1L MY 455!
The theories suggest that dark energy is a force that is thought to accelerate the universe's expansion rate, working much like a gravity force, only that it pulls the universe to the void surrounding it, instead of collapsing it. The superstring theory is supposed to contain the physics of the quantum behavior of gravity. Do you think these two theories could be connected, and could discovering how superstrings work explain what creates the dark energy? Is progress currently being in the research in these areas, or are we still at very early stages of speculation?
If the rate was slowing, yes. As it appears the rate is accelerating, we need something else.
Yes, we need dark energy. The question is what dark energy is, if it's somehow connected to "dark matter", the superstring theory or whatever, or if it even exist.
Anyway, some scientists consider dark energy to be generating the force that acts as an inverse gravity, pulling the universe into void (as we know it now).
I guess I'm going to post a question regarding this.
Yes, that's true. The martian year is much longer than Earth's. If you were to convert Mars' year, the global dust storms would start sometime around the "August" of Mars and end around "September". But that's local to Mars, and not synchronized to Earth-years in any way as far as I can see.
Here's a martian calendar.
Just a small URL correction. :-)
Users of Celestia (the stunning open-source galaxy simulator) can verify this and a whole lot of other space events as Mars is, at August 27, 0.373 AU from Earth. When I'm typing this, Mars seems to be 0.410 AU from Earth.
1 AU = 149,597,870.691 km
0.373 AU = 55800005 km
0.410 AU = 61335126 km
The values seem to be slightly off (by around 1%) when compared to the article's shortest distance, from the approximated planetary orbits.
Obviously you care about those games enough to want them re-released.
Yes, re-released for free, I'd like to add. I couldn't care less about them if they sold them. They aren't really worth much to me except for a nostalgy trip. That's what I meant in my comment; I don't think many would care about purchasing their games if they sold them since they're of inferior quality and barely even work on today's hardware, probably even less on tomorrow's. They often require third party software like ScummVM and/or fiddling with DOS emulation options to work, and then you'll perhaps still be without the sound. So in the form of the currently protected intellectual property, I don't think many (including me) are interested in a release of these games unless it's a release as public domain.
That's my problem with it -- that many companies still protect these rotting games until the point they're barely playable without support tools, for which reason? Just out of greed? Or because there exist a very small chance that they will indeed release a "special edition" where they've fixed the incompatibilities with, say, Windows XP and perhaps even using a higher resolution and full speech? Not that I understand why a game company would like to go back and rework an ancient game instead of just making a new game.