When the FBI listened in on people's car conversations using the OnStar system, they got in trouble. Because they were blocking emergency service, NOT because they were violating any privacy or law. But I'm sure you would be saying, "If you don't want OnStar, don't use it. It only lets you talk to an operator IF YOU CHOOSE."
The point is, what you choose isn't always what you get. In U.K. there are reports of the authorities turning on the microphone of a "person of interests" cell phone -- even when that person is not making a call -- and listening in.
Make whatever tinfoil hat claims you need to to make yourself feel good, but know that THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN PROVE that what you ask for is what you get. Remember all the geeks who say, "The only software you can trust is that which you can view the source of?" That applies here too.
You need to be more imginative about the types of situations evil people use to leverage a tactical advantage.
well.. basically... take some porn movie sample that's put on the web as 10 separate mpgs. Use copy/b to binary copy the files together to a single file. VLC quits after part 1, despite the fact that the other 9 parts are there. WMP plays fine.
(Don't tell me that's not the proper way to append files and VLC is just obeying the standards. Sometimes strictly obeying standards is bad. For example, I wrote a script that generates an HTML page containing every image in the folder -- for local viewing, no webserver. I do img href=c:\whatever.jpg. Worked for FIVE YERAS. Along comes firefox, and its strict standards interpretation gives me a page of "X"s -- it wants file://c|/whatever.jpg. Ugh. I'm not touching my script and writing in urlencode stuff. If href is a valid filename, just show it to me! I'm sticking with IE for those situations.) But I digress.
I've also found certain WMVs play in VLC, but the keyframes only register in WMP. Which makes more sense because it is *windows* media video (shudder).
Also, pretty often VLC wont show it in the right aspect ratio, but WMP will. I'm aware that VLC has it's own aspect ratio controls, but sometimes it just isn't right unless you play it in WMP...
I've probably tested more files of different formats on more players than 99% of people on slashdot, so I've run into a lot of uncommon thigns. Like FLVs that play with green verticle lines in VLC, but play fine with FLVPlayer (which I hate because it wont do fullscreen).
I can't believe no one's mentioned VLC Player aka VideoLan ( http://www.videolan.org/ ). It has codecs for hundreds of video types (even including flash video, older quicktime, and older realmedia) BUILT IN AT THE DLL LEVEL. No need to install ANYTHING. It's open source.
FFDShow is nice, but a pain in the ass to continue dealing with WMP. Kiss WMP goodbye for 90% of your videos. Use RealAlternative and QuicktimeAlternative for the other 9%. (1% still tend to need WMP... especially malformed MPGs.)
The police do what they did 100 years ago. Stop violent crime. (What they are failing to do today. I know of no one beaten up or robbed who ever got any justice.)
Personally, I liked moving up to Gmail in 2004, after using Pine and Elm since 1992. Thank Ajax for finally bringing me an email experience that is greater in both functionality AND accessibility than pine. It's nice to finally see these "attachment" things people are always talking about.
The police are right to ignore you. There are violent crimes to worry about. I don't think I'll go as far as calling you an asshole, however, as I am sure living next to a crack house is far less pleasant than living next to some stoners.
See, I don't actually believe that. I kind of think local politics is a convenient red herring to dangle in front of those few people with political energy, in order to distract them from the larger picture. Who is president DOES affect me more than who the dogcatcher is (not that the analogy really matters). The dog-catcher can't take $2,000 of my tax money and put it to killing people, for example. I don't have a dog. My only solace is that I come from the 1 blue county in a red state. Which in practice makes absolutely no difference at all, but it's nice that people are slightly less insane than everyone else here. Slightly.
I like the "extended remix version" of your rant, and I did indeed repost the original rant to my blog, but fortunately the rant itself it doesn't apply to me.
I've been with my high school sweetheart Carolyn for almost 15 yrs now. We lived together 3 yrs in college, and bought a house, and did not get married until after that, on our 8-year anniversary. So we didn't jump into things. And she is a geek too (but a hot one). So, I would say better advice is to wait and make sure you are both sure of things before jumping into it. 100% of all other couples jumped into it, in comparison to us.
Hate to break the news to you, but being private does not turn it into something other than censorship. Censorship by a private organization is STILL censorship.
Now, considering that 1% of people own 99% of the world -- and there is not really a such thing as "private property" anymore (unless you're a homeowner), I daresay that government censorship is a very small threat to free speech, when compared to private censorship.
The true threat that may quell the voice of the people are apologists like you who seem to think that censorship is a-okay, as long as the one doing the censoring is not the government, and has enough money^H^H^H^H^Hownership to set his or her own rules.
I'm here to warn you that, for the sake of humanity, your position is a dangerous one to take.
Possibly because they are dumb. But the same can be said for the majority of white-collar workers as well. Oh, and throw the majority of americans in general in there too.:)
Only 3 out of every 100 American workers currently belongs to a union- and companies like Wal*Mart work VERY hard to close any retail store that tries to form one, firing anyone who even attempts to form one (and yes, this is illegal). So that is not an adequate answer.
Slashdot Mirror
Give me a link to your fabulous screen. I want.
http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2006/04/14/294/
d =16420251
Also:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=200459&ci
State Phone laws regarding taping a conversation:
http://del.icio.us/ClintJCL/phones%2Btaping
When the FBI listened in on people's car conversations using the OnStar system, they got in trouble. Because they were blocking emergency service, NOT because they were violating any privacy or law. But I'm sure you would be saying, "If you don't want OnStar, don't use it. It only lets you talk to an operator IF YOU CHOOSE."
The point is, what you choose isn't always what you get. In U.K. there are reports of the authorities turning on the microphone of a "person of interests" cell phone -- even when that person is not making a call -- and listening in.
Make whatever tinfoil hat claims you need to to make yourself feel good, but know that THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN PROVE that what you ask for is what you get. Remember all the geeks who say, "The only software you can trust is that which you can view the source of?" That applies here too.
You need to be more imginative about the types of situations evil people use to leverage a tactical advantage.
(Don't tell me that's not the proper way to append files and VLC is just obeying the standards. Sometimes strictly obeying standards is bad. For example, I wrote a script that generates an HTML page containing every image in the folder -- for local viewing, no webserver. I do img href=c:\whatever.jpg. Worked for FIVE YERAS. Along comes firefox, and its strict standards interpretation gives me a page of "X"s -- it wants file://c|/whatever.jpg. Ugh. I'm not touching my script and writing in urlencode stuff. If href is a valid filename, just show it to me! I'm sticking with IE for those situations.) But I digress.
I've also found certain WMVs play in VLC, but the keyframes only register in WMP. Which makes more sense because it is *windows* media video (shudder).
Also, pretty often VLC wont show it in the right aspect ratio, but WMP will. I'm aware that VLC has it's own aspect ratio controls, but sometimes it just isn't right unless you play it in WMP...
I've probably tested more files of different formats on more players than 99% of people on slashdot, so I've run into a lot of uncommon thigns. Like FLVs that play with green verticle lines in VLC, but play fine with FLVPlayer (which I hate because it wont do fullscreen).
FFDShow is nice, but a pain in the ass to continue dealing with WMP. Kiss WMP goodbye for 90% of your videos. Use RealAlternative and QuicktimeAlternative for the other 9%. (1% still tend to need WMP... especially malformed MPGs.)
Don't just talk about it here. Join the organization and write your congressman when they ask you to. Participate. It has a higher ROI than bitching.
Typical.
Yes.. if I go to a DMV or supermarket then yes -- I consider pretty much everyone in there to be an idiot. 99%.
Wah wah, I fell down the pit again. Pussies.
I learned it from YOU, dad!
The police do what they did 100 years ago. Stop violent crime. (What they are failing to do today. I know of no one beaten up or robbed who ever got any justice.)
I guess -- speeding tickets are easy money. That definitely plays into laziness! :)
Personally, I liked moving up to Gmail in 2004, after using Pine and Elm since 1992. Thank Ajax for finally bringing me an email experience that is greater in both functionality AND accessibility than pine. It's nice to finally see these "attachment" things people are always talking about.
The police are right to ignore you. There are violent crimes to worry about. I don't think I'll go as far as calling you an asshole, however, as I am sure living next to a crack house is far less pleasant than living next to some stoners.
See, I don't actually believe that. I kind of think local politics is a convenient red herring to dangle in front of those few people with political energy, in order to distract them from the larger picture. Who is president DOES affect me more than who the dogcatcher is (not that the analogy really matters). The dog-catcher can't take $2,000 of my tax money and put it to killing people, for example. I don't have a dog. My only solace is that I come from the 1 blue county in a red state. Which in practice makes absolutely no difference at all, but it's nice that people are slightly less insane than everyone else here. Slightly.
I think I only participate in state and federal elections... Sorry :)
My non-adjustible 5.75% mortage has gone up about that much ($1100->$1300+) in 5 years -- due to fairfax county, VA, property taxes! :)
How is this different from Culdcept, the PS2/Saturn game?
I've been with my high school sweetheart Carolyn for almost 15 yrs now. We lived together 3 yrs in college, and bought a house, and did not get married until after that, on our 8-year anniversary. So we didn't jump into things. And she is a geek too (but a hot one). So, I would say better advice is to wait and make sure you are both sure of things before jumping into it. 100% of all other couples jumped into it, in comparison to us.
I hope you don't mind me posting it to my blog. :)
Now, considering that 1% of people own 99% of the world -- and there is not really a such thing as "private property" anymore (unless you're a homeowner), I daresay that government censorship is a very small threat to free speech, when compared to private censorship.
The true threat that may quell the voice of the people are apologists like you who seem to think that censorship is a-okay, as long as the one doing the censoring is not the government, and has enough money^H^H^H^H^Hownership to set his or her own rules.
I'm here to warn you that, for the sake of humanity, your position is a dangerous one to take.
Possibly because they are dumb. But the same can be said for the majority of white-collar workers as well. Oh, and throw the majority of americans in general in there too. :)
I am incorporating your comments as a comment to my posting at http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2006/04/14/294/ It is my post where I talked about the same thing you did!
Only 3 out of every 100 American workers currently belongs to a union- and companies like Wal*Mart work VERY hard to close any retail store that tries to form one, firing anyone who even attempts to form one (and yes, this is illegal). So that is not an adequate answer.