No. There are strict liability crimes that have no mens rea requirement. Statutory rape is the classic example, along with public welfare violations like parking tickets, etc.
I don't care if they report my clicks anonymously,
Good for you. I do. I also object that they collect and store my clicks non-anonymously.
I've never seen an ad pushed into the UI
Got a series 1, I guess?
I can get 30 second skip by pressing a few buttons - hardly a hack
I'd love to see the page in the manual documenting this. Oh, wait...
It records what I want when I want it, allows me Season Passes that work even when a shows changes time slots, and the UI is simple enough for even strangers to use.
Even my shitty iguide-based cable co dvr meets this bar.
If Tivo really gave customers what they wanted, they wouldn't be collecting and selling clickstreams, they wouldn't be pushing ads into the UI, they'd have a 30-second skip (without a hack) and auto commercial skipping.
They offer only a shinier UI. Functionality and privacy-wise, they're every bit as bad as the cablecos.
If you put $10 into this slot machine and it gave you $1 in credit, you'd be up shit creek. If you put $100 in and it gave you $0 credit, you'd be lucky to get the casino to comp your breakfast because you're sure as hell not getting $100 back.
Having looked into it somewhat more seriously, the skilled migration category is a pipedream unless you want to wait 4 years or more for your visa. That's how long the backlog of applications is.
The only way in in a reasonable timeframe is to have a job offer and go through the provincial nomination process (assumes the job offer's in a PNP-eligible occupation) - this only takes 4-6 months. Good luck finding an employer willing to offer you a job, file the necessary paperwork proving they tried to hire a Canadian first, and then wait that long for you to start. A company like Microsoft (or, more likely, Suncor or Shell Canada) might be willing to do this if you're a true rockstar and they really need your skillset. Otherwise, lots of luck to you.
I believe 'meshing' here is referring to the seamless handoff of calls between GSM and WiFi, not that the phones form or use an adhoc WiFi mesh network. Agreed, not the right choice of words.
The real hotness about these phones: you can use them at any wifi hotspot in the world without roaming charges. That's a killer feature.
The US is in the crappy state it's in because of lawyers.
That seems dubious to me. If this were Somalia or Russia, there'd be no lawyers involved because granny would have been gunned down on the sidewalk.
The legal system might too often be a tool of oppression against the powerless, but it sure beats the other kind of oppression. You know, the kind with bullets.
I believe that we may be approaching critical mass (in decades or centuries, not years) within the imposition of legal absurdity upon humankind. I expect that the populace will ultimately become so oppressed by the duress of corporate greed that uses legal thuggery as it's enforcer, that humanity will just quit accepting it and reject the entire premise of law.
Why not? The current occupants of the executive branch of the US government are way ahead of you there.
The law is merely a bludgeon now, to be wielded against the relatively powerless. Even in this case, notice the plaintiff is a 46-year-old "retired real-estate investor" - that's code for wealthy gadabout. Most people wouldn't even have the time to pursue this case in small-claims court and would just have to take the loss.
Respect for the law is earned by the legal system reflecting a consensus understanding of the social contract. Some say the law doesn't reflect the social contract anymore - others say "fuck you, i didn't sign no social contract." Somehow, they're both right.
-Isaac
Re:DNS DNS DNS DNS
on
DNS Complexity
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
To reply to myself...
It's actually rather depressing insofar as it only confirms what those of us in this position have come to discover: that a system loosely defined has become an ecosystem incapable of complete definition.
"Depressing" is the wrong word here - though it can certainly be frustrating to continually confront problems that wouldn't be problems if DNS weren't such a losely-defined protocol. When the scales truly fall from one's eyes, though, one realizes that it's not coincidental that the widely-adopted protocols of the internet are all simple and, mostly, loosely defined and easy to implement. Natural selection, of a sort, has led to the success of DNS (and TCP/IP, and HTTP, et cetera). Maybe a major change in the ecosystem will cause it to disappear (or be challenged in its niche) because it's simply not flexible enough to respond.
More probably, DNS is sufficiently simple and ubiquitous that it will continue to evolve as necessary in mostly minor ways while remaining as essentially recognizable to we dinosaurs of the internet era as the cockroach would be to the dinosaurs of the dinosaur era.
-Isaac
Re:DNS DNS DNS DNS
on
DNS Complexity
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Read this if:
A) You work with DNS regularly and want to know if you know enough for it to make some sense to you. (That's me)
B) You are thinking about implementing a DNS server.
Otherwise, move along, find something that might interest you, but take just a moment to reflect how difficult Internet life would be if DNS wasn't so well designed and crafted.
I admire Paul Vixie a real whole lot (from afar; when the day comes that I have something interesting to say to him directly I'll be sure to mention it but until then, I'm sure he gets enough email.) That said, this article isn't really interesting to someone who really does work intensively with DNS implementations, and for whom intermediate caching nameserver and client resolver behaviour on the wild-and-wooly internet is a matter of near-daily concern.
It's actually rather depressing insofar as it only confirms what those of us in this position have come to discover: that a system loosely defined has become an ecosystem incapable of complete definition. FTA: "Most of it is not written down anywhere, and some of it would still be considered arguable if you got two or three DNS implementers in a room to talk about it." Ain't that the truth.
No, this article should be read by smart technical users and managers who don't have much experience with DNS and who intuitively believe that the way DNS works in the real world is well-defined and handed down on high on stone tablets from some standards-making body - the sort of well-meaning people who haven't yet realized what "RFC" stands for, if you will. For these people, this article could be a useful eye-opener.
TV did not replace radio or the movies. Movies and radio did not replace stage shows. Smartphones have not replaced PDAs.
On planet Earth, these things did happen for the most part. TV turned radio into a niche product for the car and the clock radio where it had been the dominant mass medium and home entertainment. The movies did replace stage shows, literally - vaudeville houses became movie theatres practically en masse; the corpse of theatre as mass popular entertainment (Broadway) is just a tourist attraction. And, even on planet Nerdulon, smartphones have almost entirely replaced PDAs. I see more Treos today than I ever saw Palm V's in 1999-2000.
Just because there are horsedrawn buggies in Central Park doesn't mean the automobile didn't replace carriages.
I wish that the USA was this forgiving. We have a culture/media here that will latch on to any "indiscretion" and run with it for all we can - until the next juicy tidbit pops up. Especially if the subject is in any way evasive or defensive about it - that's like blood in the water for the sharks.
An optimist would say that Rudy Giuliani's national popularity represents a swing away from this mode. A pessimist would say he's getting a free pass because he's a Republican.
If they are blocking BoingBoing over the Mooninite issue,
Umm, I think the "Boston is banning Boing Boing because of the Mooninites" meme is just a joke (or at least I hope it is). The more logical explanation is that the ISP who runs Boston free wi-fi is using on of the many filtering services known to block Boing Boing.
So?
Who cares what the cause is when the effect is legitimate political speech being censored by the government?
AI sounds better than "Artificial Stupidity" but I think you're missing the point.
The goal isn't "create better losers," it's "create characters whose actions are lifelike." In the problem domain you specify (FPS and beat-em-ups), this can mean (among many other things) having computer players with a limited "view" of the game space, the ability to learn, and the ability to initiate actions that aren't directly coupled to the human player's inputs. This isn't easy even in such a limited (read: boring) problem space.
Now, get into RPGs and the like where language and manipulation of abstract concepts are important and you're really into the domain of difficult problems. We're still in an era where "if you bring item X to NPC Y and you've equipped Z then NPC Y smiles and gives you item ß" is hardcoded. Not all games are about shooting or beating up the computer player.
A Morse-operator's style was referred to as his "fist". This is referenced in Cryptonomicon.
I think this is a pretty nifty idea, and I'm surprised it hasn't been done before.
It won't be long before online fraudsters learn to copy users "fists."
Yes, I predict the internet will be awash in "fisting" websites within the fortnight.
Die, die. Oh god, please die. What a terrible song. 9 minutes of hell. I concede nothing good about that song and curse the life and offspring of its creator. Blech.
So it's still possible to have music on Internet radio, just not RIAA music.
No. It's possible to have music on internet radio IF you as a webcaster have negotiated directly with the copyright owner for every piece of music you play. Otherwise, you're paying a license to SoundExchange, period. They administer the statutory license.
Creative commons is about all that's left, since negotiating with individual artists (and songwriters) for every track is likely to be cost prohibitive. A nice guy might try to undercut SoundExchange by striking deals with indie labels and artists and then brokering these licenses to indie webcasters, but that would require a pretty enormous up-front investment for uncertain return - especially since you could rely on the RIAA and SoundExchange pulling out all the stops to shut you down.
The whole point of this ruling *IS* to kill internet radio which poses the greatest threat to the vertically-integrated, homogeneous pop music environment that is the lifeblood of the RIAA. Without alternative venues for independent artists, the major label combine gets to pick the winners in the market. (Nevermind the detriment to the market itself - this is about controlling the whole pie, not the size of the pie.)
Sometimes I find myself wishing the RIAA got everything they ever wanted, if only to see how their market collapses. Then I realize it's already happening.
So you see, Senator Hatch has a rather personal stake in copyright law. I mean, if his works weren't protected by civil and criminal law unto 70 years after his death, he'd have no incentive to create anything.
Now is the time for all good Americans to stand up and say "NO!" to the political hacks at NASA (appointed by the criminal Bush regime) who want to steal Earth's precious angular momentum. And for what? A so-called scientific mission costing millions of dollars? There are millions of starving children on Earth, and they can't eat spectroscopic data!
Using a gravitational slingshot around the Earth to accelerate this craft puts every human being on Earth at risk of falling space junk! And slowing Earth's orbit around the sun will lengthen our year - and you know what that means. Yep, more global warming, as more sunshine will reach Earth every year after this spacecraft passes.
No! We must speak up and not allow this mission to proceed! Not in our name!
How long before the individual owns nothing, though everything is owned? How long before it is a legal fact that all "ownership" (even of the very air we breathe) is exercised by corporations rather than individuals or publics?
These legal tactics are older than the hills. Books in the USA once had EULAs (until SCOTUS decided Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus establishing the doctrine of first sale). Proponents of so-called unbundled rights have had mixed results in recent years - DMCA passed, UCC Article 2B/UCITA mostly failed.
Defending common-sensical notions like "putting money down on the counter and walking out with a box constitutes a sale of a product" and "contract terms not visible at time of sale are unenforceable" is bound to be an eternal battle because some businesses will always be lobbying against them in the hopes of making money. There is no endgame where individuals win once and for all, nor where all consumer protections are finally repealed - the pendulum is bound to swing back and forth in response to competing pressures.
Slashdot Mirror
No. There are strict liability crimes that have no mens rea requirement. Statutory rape is the classic example, along with public welfare violations like parking tickets, etc.
-Isaac
Good for you. I do. I also object that they collect and store my clicks non-anonymously.
Got a series 1, I guess?
I'd love to see the page in the manual documenting this. Oh, wait...
Even my shitty iguide-based cable co dvr meets this bar.
Get bent.
-Isaac
If Tivo really gave customers what they wanted, they wouldn't be collecting and selling clickstreams, they wouldn't be pushing ads into the UI, they'd have a 30-second skip (without a hack) and auto commercial skipping.
They offer only a shinier UI. Functionality and privacy-wise, they're every bit as bad as the cablecos.
Yeah, you try that. Let me know how it works out for you.
-Isaac
If you put $10 into this slot machine and it gave you $1 in credit, you'd be up shit creek. If you put $100 in and it gave you $0 credit, you'd be lucky to get the casino to comp your breakfast because you're sure as hell not getting $100 back.
!sympathy here.
Having looked into it somewhat more seriously, the skilled migration category is a pipedream unless you want to wait 4 years or more for your visa. That's how long the backlog of applications is.
The only way in in a reasonable timeframe is to have a job offer and go through the provincial nomination process (assumes the job offer's in a PNP-eligible occupation) - this only takes 4-6 months. Good luck finding an employer willing to offer you a job, file the necessary paperwork proving they tried to hire a Canadian first, and then wait that long for you to start. A company like Microsoft (or, more likely, Suncor or Shell Canada) might be willing to do this if you're a true rockstar and they really need your skillset. Otherwise, lots of luck to you.
I believe 'meshing' here is referring to the seamless handoff of calls between GSM and WiFi, not that the phones form or use an adhoc WiFi mesh network. Agreed, not the right choice of words.
The real hotness about these phones: you can use them at any wifi hotspot in the world without roaming charges. That's a killer feature.
-Isaac
That seems dubious to me. If this were Somalia or Russia, there'd be no lawyers involved because granny would have been gunned down on the sidewalk.
The legal system might too often be a tool of oppression against the powerless, but it sure beats the other kind of oppression. You know, the kind with bullets.
-Isaac
You are either a liar, or you haven't flown through LAX in a long time. Nobody who's ever transited the TBIT would ever write this.
LAX is a ridculously dysfunctional airport - easily the worst on the west coast.
-Isaac
Why not? The current occupants of the executive branch of the US government are way ahead of you there.
The law is merely a bludgeon now, to be wielded against the relatively powerless. Even in this case, notice the plaintiff is a 46-year-old "retired real-estate investor" - that's code for wealthy gadabout. Most people wouldn't even have the time to pursue this case in small-claims court and would just have to take the loss.
Respect for the law is earned by the legal system reflecting a consensus understanding of the social contract. Some say the law doesn't reflect the social contract anymore - others say "fuck you, i didn't sign no social contract." Somehow, they're both right.
-Isaac
"Depressing" is the wrong word here - though it can certainly be frustrating to continually confront problems that wouldn't be problems if DNS weren't such a losely-defined protocol. When the scales truly fall from one's eyes, though, one realizes that it's not coincidental that the widely-adopted protocols of the internet are all simple and, mostly, loosely defined and easy to implement. Natural selection, of a sort, has led to the success of DNS (and TCP/IP, and HTTP, et cetera). Maybe a major change in the ecosystem will cause it to disappear (or be challenged in its niche) because it's simply not flexible enough to respond.
More probably, DNS is sufficiently simple and ubiquitous that it will continue to evolve as necessary in mostly minor ways while remaining as essentially recognizable to we dinosaurs of the internet era as the cockroach would be to the dinosaurs of the dinosaur era.
-Isaac
I admire Paul Vixie a real whole lot (from afar; when the day comes that I have something interesting to say to him directly I'll be sure to mention it but until then, I'm sure he gets enough email.) That said, this article isn't really interesting to someone who really does work intensively with DNS implementations, and for whom intermediate caching nameserver and client resolver behaviour on the wild-and-wooly internet is a matter of near-daily concern.
It's actually rather depressing insofar as it only confirms what those of us in this position have come to discover: that a system loosely defined has become an ecosystem incapable of complete definition. FTA: "Most of it is not written down anywhere, and some of it would still be considered arguable if you got two or three DNS implementers in a room to talk about it." Ain't that the truth.
No, this article should be read by smart technical users and managers who don't have much experience with DNS and who intuitively believe that the way DNS works in the real world is well-defined and handed down on high on stone tablets from some standards-making body - the sort of well-meaning people who haven't yet realized what "RFC" stands for, if you will. For these people, this article could be a useful eye-opener.
-Isaac
On planet Earth, these things did happen for the most part. TV turned radio into a niche product for the car and the clock radio where it had been the dominant mass medium and home entertainment. The movies did replace stage shows, literally - vaudeville houses became movie theatres practically en masse; the corpse of theatre as mass popular entertainment (Broadway) is just a tourist attraction. And, even on planet Nerdulon, smartphones have almost entirely replaced PDAs. I see more Treos today than I ever saw Palm V's in 1999-2000.
Just because there are horsedrawn buggies in Central Park doesn't mean the automobile didn't replace carriages.
-Isaac
An optimist would say that Rudy Giuliani's national popularity represents a swing away from this mode. A pessimist would say he's getting a free pass because he's a Republican.
-Isaac
Don't forget gas! Gas and plasma and vacuum. Vanishingly little of space is actually dust, rocks, and craters, really.
But there's plenty of gas.
-Isaac
So?
Who cares what the cause is when the effect is legitimate political speech being censored by the government?
-Isaac
AI sounds better than "Artificial Stupidity" but I think you're missing the point.
The goal isn't "create better losers," it's "create characters whose actions are lifelike." In the problem domain you specify (FPS and beat-em-ups), this can mean (among many other things) having computer players with a limited "view" of the game space, the ability to learn, and the ability to initiate actions that aren't directly coupled to the human player's inputs. This isn't easy even in such a limited (read: boring) problem space.
Now, get into RPGs and the like where language and manipulation of abstract concepts are important and you're really into the domain of difficult problems. We're still in an era where "if you bring item X to NPC Y and you've equipped Z then NPC Y smiles and gives you item ß" is hardcoded. Not all games are about shooting or beating up the computer player.
-Isaac
It won't be long before online fraudsters learn to copy users "fists."
Yes, I predict the internet will be awash in "fisting" websites within the fortnight.
-Isaac
Die, die. Oh god, please die. What a terrible song. 9 minutes of hell. I concede nothing good about that song and curse the life and offspring of its creator. Blech.
-Isaac
No. It's possible to have music on internet radio IF you as a webcaster have negotiated directly with the copyright owner for every piece of music you play. Otherwise, you're paying a license to SoundExchange, period. They administer the statutory license.
Creative commons is about all that's left, since negotiating with individual artists (and songwriters) for every track is likely to be cost prohibitive. A nice guy might try to undercut SoundExchange by striking deals with indie labels and artists and then brokering these licenses to indie webcasters, but that would require a pretty enormous up-front investment for uncertain return - especially since you could rely on the RIAA and SoundExchange pulling out all the stops to shut you down.
-Isaac
The whole point of this ruling *IS* to kill internet radio which poses the greatest threat to the vertically-integrated, homogeneous pop music environment that is the lifeblood of the RIAA. Without alternative venues for independent artists, the major label combine gets to pick the winners in the market. (Nevermind the detriment to the market itself - this is about controlling the whole pie, not the size of the pie.)
Sometimes I find myself wishing the RIAA got everything they ever wanted, if only to see how their market collapses. Then I realize it's already happening.
-Isaac
Orrin Hatch isn't just some bought-off Senator - he's also a successful recording artist!
http://www.hatchmusic.com/
So you see, Senator Hatch has a rather personal stake in copyright law. I mean, if his works weren't protected by civil and criminal law unto 70 years after his death, he'd have no incentive to create anything.
-Isaac
Make ads the content. Problem solved. (MTV was founded on this business model.)
-Isaac
Now is the time for all good Americans to stand up and say "NO!" to the political hacks at NASA (appointed by the criminal Bush regime) who want to steal Earth's precious angular momentum. And for what? A so-called scientific mission costing millions of dollars? There are millions of starving children on Earth, and they can't eat spectroscopic data!
Using a gravitational slingshot around the Earth to accelerate this craft puts every human being on Earth at risk of falling space junk! And slowing Earth's orbit around the sun will lengthen our year - and you know what that means. Yep, more global warming, as more sunshine will reach Earth every year after this spacecraft passes.
No! We must speak up and not allow this mission to proceed! Not in our name!
-Isaac
These legal tactics are older than the hills. Books in the USA once had EULAs (until SCOTUS decided Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus establishing the doctrine of first sale). Proponents of so-called unbundled rights have had mixed results in recent years - DMCA passed, UCC Article 2B/UCITA mostly failed.
Defending common-sensical notions like "putting money down on the counter and walking out with a box constitutes a sale of a product" and "contract terms not visible at time of sale are unenforceable" is bound to be an eternal battle because some businesses will always be lobbying against them in the hopes of making money. There is no endgame where individuals win once and for all, nor where all consumer protections are finally repealed - the pendulum is bound to swing back and forth in response to competing pressures.
-Isaac