We're talking about regulating sales to minors, not banning the games themselves. Nobody is interfering with people's right to buy whatever games they want for their kids. I don't see anything "chilling" about it.
If this were valid, then a newspaper or magazine that ran a Burger King ad on the same page as an article about McDonalds would be infringing on McDonalds, because they are using people's interest in McDonalds to lead them to the Burger King ads, as well as any other ads on that page. All publications that sell ads make money from everything mentioned in their content. That's a fact of life that dates back to before "intellectual property" was invented. I can't believe this ruling will hold up under appeal.
People are starting Weblogs in growing numbers, but the owner of the content isn't always clear
Yes, actually it is always clear. Nobody owns weblog content because nobody owns *any* content. There are copyright "holders," who have specific rights granted by the government for a limited time, but they don't "own" anything.
The distinction between property and rights is not just a nitpick, it's very important. Nobody can "steal" what nobody owns. The concepts of property and theft are familiar and intuitive, much more easily grasped than the more complicated concepts of rights and infringement. Equating copyright with ownership, and infringement with stealing, oversimplifies rights issues to the copyright-holding industry's advantage. It lets entities like the RIAA cast themselves in the role of a little old lady chasing a purse snatcher, and cast their opponents as enemies of private property. It's just not that simple.
Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I will go back and digest the rest of the article.
Back around 1995, when I started learning HTML and was reading that just about anybody with a web page was making a million dollars somehow, one of my first ideas was "PizzaFax" -- a website where you would pay to fax somebody a picture of a pizza with selected toppings. I never implemented this idea for lack of scripting skills, and soon forgot about it. I guess it still wouldn't work because the recipient's fax machine wouldn't have the special flavored inks. Never mind. I just got all excited for nothing. Shoot.
Regardless of the light side/dark side thing, I think it's safe to say that some sort of generator/battery system could be built on the moon to beam microwaves at the sail. No loss from atmospheric absorption. Great idea in my opinion.
But since a microwave generator that massive could probably do a lot of damage if aimed at an Earthly city, putting it on the moon might be a political hot-potato (heh-heh).
As most Slashdot readers probably know, computer security has two distinct and separate functions: Authentication and Authorization. The first establishes that you are who you claim to be, the second establishes what you are and are not allowed to do. Authenticating yourself within a specific context, say a bank account transaction, is necessary within that context.
The danger in any type of universal form of authentiication is that it will be used for universal authorization. Many cities and states now suspend drivers licenses in order to collect fines, often for things completely unrelated to driving, such as failing to make child support payments, even for library fines. In time, any universal identification is sure to be abused on a much larger scale. The list of bureaucratic agencies that can red-flag your ID will grow, and so will the list of offenses that can make you unable to buy an airline ticket, rent a car, etc.
perhaps you should open your country up to weapons inspectors and get out of their way
Huh? They did. The U.N. was in the midst of the weapons inspections when Bush decided to invade before they could finish. Jeez, do you suppose he was afraid they wouldn't find anything?
The guy who was in charge of the inspections saying they were making progress and for everybody to just hold on and let them get their job done. Bush essentially ordered the U.N. to pull out the inspectors or they would get caught in the crossfire. When the U.N. refused to sanction an attack, even after hearing Powell recite phony evidence cribbed from obsolete early 90s intelligence, we attacked anyway as the "coalition of the willing." In the previous Iraq war at least Bush Sr. bothered to establish the pretense of a United Nations effort. Dubya's message to the world is Get the F*ck out of our way.
The parent post is an illustration of the point of the original article, that if you repeat something often enough people will believe it and forget the truth.
I've said it before and I'll say it again here. When Google creates its own Linux distro incorporating Google features into the desktop, that's when Microsoft can put up the sign, "Last one out turn off the lights."
Of course I don't know the poster personally, but I have known a few with the same attitude, who say similar things like, "the manager got himself promoted out because he thought I was going to get him fired..." and every one of them, without exception, been full of shit.
Following the same lines as Intellectual "Property," the government could create more business opportunities for the paper and money shuffling industries by making it illegal to step on a crack. There could be pole-mounted cameras eyeing cracks 24/7, face recognition software to identify violators, fully staffed monitoring centers, court-appointed private agents to issue citations and collect fines. There could be insurance policies for accidental crack stepping. Frequent walkers could set up speed-payment plans that automatically plead guilty and pay fines out of their bank accounts. Providing equipment and services for the crack-stepping enforcement industry would generate thousands of jobs. In fact, the more things we make illegal, the stronger our economy will become.
The MPAA suing itself would be less ironic than it seems, considering that 80% of movie piracy is due to leaks by insiders.
Nice to see they are putting so much effort into that other 20% and pretending it's the whole problem.
Personally, I stopped going to movies in theaters about a year ago. Now I wait for them to show up on cable. I know I'm probably still paying the studios indirectly that way, but not as much as by buying a ticket. My reasoning is that in a few years the technology to make all-CGI movies that are as visually good as the real thing will be in the hands of amateurs. The movie business will become a cottage industry, and the eyeball market will be so flooded with innovative indie art that the big studios will die a natural death. Some other business model will emerge, and we'll be through with all this night-vision goggles and ISP search warrant crap.
Okay, I'll go out on a limb here and post a link to Abbie Hoffman's classic anarchist work, Steal This Book, which openly advocates committing various forms of theft and other illegal acts. I'm not advocating doing any of those things, just pointing out some content that does. But maybe here in the New America that's a crime now! Any restaurant owners want to try to blame me for "dine and dash" losses?
In the 80s tv series "Dallas" one of the main characters was killed off because the actor wanted out of the show. After two years of fan protest, the producers decided to bring the dead character back, and the only way they could think of was for his wife to wake up one morning and say she had just had this terrible dream that he was dead. So suddenly 2 whole years of the show became a dream of hers, and the guy was back alive. Ridiculous, but they did it.
At that same time there was a sitcom starring comedian Bob Newhart, about a small town New England hotel. At the end of the final episode, Bob woke up in bed and told his wife that he just had this weird dream about running a hotel. When the wife rolled over and told him to go back to sleep, it was the wife from an entirely different sitcom that he had been in several years earlier.
I actually saw that episode, and because of the Dallas thing it was pretty hysterically funny at the time.
I understand the reasons why everybody wants their computers secure, and that there's a lot at stake. But consider the security standards we accept in other aspects of our lives. If you have a 2-foot strip of metal with a notch in it you can open just about any car lock out there, and a crowbar can physically rip the lockset assembly right out of most people's front doors. Anybody who really wants to can get inside your house in seconds without undue commotion. All it really takes is brazenness, and maybe a hedge screening your front porch from view.
If we held car makers and home builders accountable for security flaws, our houses and cars would look a lot different, and they would STILL get broken into. I wouldn't want armed guards patrolling my neighborhood, or to go through an airport-like screening at the corner, any more than I would want to live the RIAA's wet dream of requesting authorization to display any video, sound or image with my own computer.
I wonder if the pursuit of total data security is a phantom, and we just have to accept a certain amount of risk and deal with it the best we can, possibly by not putting as much trust in our machines and networks as we would like to.
I'll believe wireless carriers lose $12 billion when I see their gross revenue actually drop by $12 billion. As our massive experience with file downloads and other things has shown, many if not most of the people who use a free service either wouldn't use it if it weren't free, or are already paying for the same service from someone else anyway.
I wish wireless carriers and others would grow up and quit whining when people figure out that their products and services can be had for free.
Is face-blurring any more troubling than other image manipulation tools? I know there's a difference between changing an image and suppressing the acquisition of one, but how important is that difference? As image editing technology improves to the point where it becomes impossible to tell a faked image from a real one, the very idea of using an image to prove that someone was in a certain place at a certain time becomes obsolete. So the ability to blur your face out of legitimate images becomes moot.
If you're looking for space aliens and shoot-em-ups and jargon and gadgets, "Galactica" probably isn't the show for you.
Likewise, it's probably not the show for you if you're looking for "Battlestar Galactica." Because among other reasons, Cylons are ROBOTS, and Starbuck and Boomer are MEN.
Excuse me? Handheld cameras (Firefly), big-titted females (7 of 9, others too numerous to mention) evil clones (again, take your pick)... wow, lots of innovation here! Not to mention converting a whole race of existing characters from robots to clones because they're cheaper to film, and oh yeah, let's have some of the clones specialize in sex, and change some of the male characters to females so we can throw in more soap-opera relationship dialog.
Get serious. The new BSG is a bag of cliches thrown together to placate starving sci-fi fans while attracting the largest possible general audience.
Slashdot Mirror
We're talking about regulating sales to minors, not banning the games themselves. Nobody is interfering with people's right to buy whatever games they want for their kids. I don't see anything "chilling" about it.
If this were valid, then a newspaper or magazine that ran a Burger King ad on the same page as an article about McDonalds would be infringing on McDonalds, because they are using people's interest in McDonalds to lead them to the Burger King ads, as well as any other ads on that page. All publications that sell ads make money from everything mentioned in their content. That's a fact of life that dates back to before "intellectual property" was invented. I can't believe this ruling will hold up under appeal.
Better to ask why does Anything suck?
Why do American cars suck?
Why do most TV shows suck?
Why does Congress get away with writing laws for the highest bidder?
Answer to all: Because everybody lets them.
People are starting Weblogs in growing numbers, but the owner of the content isn't always clear
Yes, actually it is always clear. Nobody owns weblog content because nobody owns *any* content. There are copyright "holders," who have specific rights granted by the government for a limited time, but they don't "own" anything.
The distinction between property and rights is not just a nitpick, it's very important. Nobody can "steal" what nobody owns. The concepts of property and theft are familiar and intuitive, much more easily grasped than the more complicated concepts of rights and infringement. Equating copyright with ownership, and infringement with stealing, oversimplifies rights issues to the copyright-holding industry's advantage. It lets entities like the RIAA cast themselves in the role of a little old lady chasing a purse snatcher, and cast their opponents as enemies of private property. It's just not that simple.
Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I will go back and digest the rest of the article.
Back around 1995, when I started learning HTML and was reading that just about anybody with a web page was making a million dollars somehow, one of my first ideas was "PizzaFax" -- a website where you would pay to fax somebody a picture of a pizza with selected toppings. I never implemented this idea for lack of scripting skills, and soon forgot about it. I guess it still wouldn't work because the recipient's fax machine wouldn't have the special flavored inks. Never mind. I just got all excited for nothing. Shoot.
Regardless of the light side/dark side thing, I think it's safe to say that some sort of generator/battery system could be built on the moon to beam microwaves at the sail. No loss from atmospheric absorption. Great idea in my opinion.
But since a microwave generator that massive could probably do a lot of damage if aimed at an Earthly city, putting it on the moon might be a political hot-potato (heh-heh).
As most Slashdot readers probably know, computer security has two distinct and separate functions: Authentication and Authorization. The first establishes that you are who you claim to be, the second establishes what you are and are not allowed to do. Authenticating yourself within a specific context, say a bank account transaction, is necessary within that context.
The danger in any type of universal form of authentiication is that it will be used for universal authorization. Many cities and states now suspend drivers licenses in order to collect fines, often for things completely unrelated to driving, such as failing to make child support payments, even for library fines. In time, any universal identification is sure to be abused on a much larger scale. The list of bureaucratic agencies that can red-flag your ID will grow, and so will the list of offenses that can make you unable to buy an airline ticket, rent a car, etc.
perhaps you should open your country up to weapons inspectors and get out of their way
Huh? They did. The U.N. was in the midst of the weapons inspections when Bush decided to invade before they could finish. Jeez, do you suppose he was afraid they wouldn't find anything?
The guy who was in charge of the inspections saying they were making progress and for everybody to just hold on and let them get their job done. Bush essentially ordered the U.N. to pull out the inspectors or they would get caught in the crossfire. When the U.N. refused to sanction an attack, even after hearing Powell recite phony evidence cribbed from obsolete early 90s intelligence, we attacked anyway as the "coalition of the willing." In the previous Iraq war at least Bush Sr. bothered to establish the pretense of a United Nations effort. Dubya's message to the world is Get the F*ck out of our way.
The parent post is an illustration of the point of the original article, that if you repeat something often enough people will believe it and forget the truth.
I've said it before and I'll say it again here. When Google creates its own Linux distro incorporating Google features into the desktop, that's when Microsoft can put up the sign, "Last one out turn off the lights."
Of course I don't know the poster personally, but I have known a few with the same attitude, who say similar things like, "the manager got himself promoted out because he thought I was going to get him fired..." and every one of them, without exception, been full of shit.
Following the same lines as Intellectual "Property," the government could create more business opportunities for the paper and money shuffling industries by making it illegal to step on a crack. There could be pole-mounted cameras eyeing cracks 24/7, face recognition software to identify violators, fully staffed monitoring centers, court-appointed private agents to issue citations and collect fines. There could be insurance policies for accidental crack stepping. Frequent walkers could set up speed-payment plans that automatically plead guilty and pay fines out of their bank accounts. Providing equipment and services for the crack-stepping enforcement industry would generate thousands of jobs. In fact, the more things we make illegal, the stronger our economy will become.
Personally I think IPod is the stubble.
The MPAA suing itself would be less ironic than it seems, considering that 80% of movie piracy is due to leaks by insiders.
Nice to see they are putting so much effort into that other 20% and pretending it's the whole problem.
Personally, I stopped going to movies in theaters about a year ago. Now I wait for them to show up on cable. I know I'm probably still paying the studios indirectly that way, but not as much as by buying a ticket. My reasoning is that in a few years the technology to make all-CGI movies that are as visually good as the real thing will be in the hands of amateurs. The movie business will become a cottage industry, and the eyeball market will be so flooded with innovative indie art that the big studios will die a natural death. Some other business model will emerge, and we'll be through with all this night-vision goggles and ISP search warrant crap.
Oh, and Marvin is actually a clone now, not a robot, and Arthur Dent is a woman. But the answer is still 42.
I got that on another story a few minutes ago. Seems to be a glitch.
Strangely, I also felt a slight tingling sensation behind my eyes and had a sudden urge to open a Vonage account and sign up for RackSpace hosting.
Okay, I'll go out on a limb here and post a link to Abbie Hoffman's classic anarchist work, Steal This Book , which openly advocates committing various forms of theft and other illegal acts. I'm not advocating doing any of those things, just pointing out some content that does. But maybe here in the New America that's a crime now! Any restaurant owners want to try to blame me for "dine and dash" losses?
Good to know some studio exec didn't decide that the answer should be 43.
For those interested the BBC radio version is available on various p2p systems. Pretty good I think.
Takes some explaining.
In the 80s tv series "Dallas" one of the main characters was killed off because the actor wanted out of the show. After two years of fan protest, the producers decided to bring the dead character back, and the only way they could think of was for his wife to wake up one morning and say she had just had this terrible dream that he was dead. So suddenly 2 whole years of the show became a dream of hers, and the guy was back alive. Ridiculous, but they did it.
At that same time there was a sitcom starring comedian Bob Newhart, about a small town New England hotel. At the end of the final episode, Bob woke up in bed and told his wife that he just had this weird dream about running a hotel. When the wife rolled over and told him to go back to sleep, it was the wife from an entirely different sitcom that he had been in several years earlier.
I actually saw that episode, and because of the Dallas thing it was pretty hysterically funny at the time.
I understand the reasons why everybody wants their computers secure, and that there's a lot at stake. But consider the security standards we accept in other aspects of our lives. If you have a 2-foot strip of metal with a notch in it you can open just about any car lock out there, and a crowbar can physically rip the lockset assembly right out of most people's front doors. Anybody who really wants to can get inside your house in seconds without undue commotion. All it really takes is brazenness, and maybe a hedge screening your front porch from view.
If we held car makers and home builders accountable for security flaws, our houses and cars would look a lot different, and they would STILL get broken into. I wouldn't want armed guards patrolling my neighborhood, or to go through an airport-like screening at the corner, any more than I would want to live the RIAA's wet dream of requesting authorization to display any video, sound or image with my own computer.
I wonder if the pursuit of total data security is a phantom, and we just have to accept a certain amount of risk and deal with it the best we can, possibly by not putting as much trust in our machines and networks as we would like to.
I'll believe wireless carriers lose $12 billion when I see their gross revenue actually drop by $12 billion. As our massive experience with file downloads and other things has shown, many if not most of the people who use a free service either wouldn't use it if it weren't free, or are already paying for the same service from someone else anyway.
I wish wireless carriers and others would grow up and quit whining when people figure out that their products and services can be had for free.
Is face-blurring any more troubling than other image manipulation tools? I know there's a difference between changing an image and suppressing the acquisition of one, but how important is that difference? As image editing technology improves to the point where it becomes impossible to tell a faked image from a real one, the very idea of using an image to prove that someone was in a certain place at a certain time becomes obsolete. So the ability to blur your face out of legitimate images becomes moot.
If you're looking for space aliens and shoot-em-ups and jargon and gadgets, "Galactica" probably isn't the show for you.
Likewise, it's probably not the show for you if you're looking for "Battlestar Galactica." Because among other reasons, Cylons are ROBOTS, and Starbuck and Boomer are MEN.
[Enterprise 1 set vanishes, replaced by empty holodeck]
Riker: [taps badge] Riker to bridge. Captain, the runaway holodeck virus has been destroyed.
Picard (heard through communicator): Very good Number One. Mr. Crusher, ahead warp 5.
Troi: How are you feeling?
Riker: Hungry. For a hot fudge sundae. In your quarters.
Troi: [knowing smile]
Theme music up, Enterprise D goes into warp. Roll credits.
Excuse me? Handheld cameras (Firefly), big-titted females (7 of 9, others too numerous to mention) evil clones (again, take your pick)... wow, lots of innovation here! Not to mention converting a whole race of existing characters from robots to clones because they're cheaper to film, and oh yeah, let's have some of the clones specialize in sex, and change some of the male characters to females so we can throw in more soap-opera relationship dialog.
Get serious. The new BSG is a bag of cliches thrown together to placate starving sci-fi fans while attracting the largest possible general audience.
Why do you want to know? Who sent you?