It would seem that if anyone puts up illegal material than the ISP could also be sued, since they now are saying (essentially, despite what the new revised terms say) that they own the content. And after all, if you own a copyright, would you prefer to go after an ISP with lots of money, or a college student who can only afford 98 billion dollars... err, I mean, nevermind, you know what I mean.:)
Instead of a standalone PVR, setup your old computer (you do have at least two, right?) with a cheap ati tv capture card, and then tape all your kids shows on it. This is what I do and my son loves it. He is almost two now and I record every Dragon Tales for him. He has over 30 recorded now.
The best part is, my wife and I (well, my wife really) can now watch our shows on TV and our son can just go sit at the computer with the volume not too high and watch his shows. When I bought the TV capture card my wife said (as with all my computer purchases) "Do we really need that?" But once I showed her what we could do with it, she was overjoyed.
I'd also recommend that you buy some computers cases with locking covers if you leave the cases on the floor. Before I did my son almost destroyed a couple CD-RWs.
Get lots of locks for your cabinets, drawers, etc. Get some tethers (once the kid is big enough) to secure furniture to the wall.
Enjoy your new little friend. Mine are a lot of fun so far!:)
I used to belong to emusic (when they had the big They Might Be Giants selections, got a free TMBG pullover fleece out of the sign up deal too). I was very happy with it. Small price to pay for all the music I got. I would still belong but now that I no longer have broadband at home (moved) the amount of music I am able to download is not worth the price/time.
Come on, that is a foolish argument. If you are calling people and asking them "are you willing and able to take the time to take a survey right now?" You are already removing any randomness from your data. First you are only getting those people who OWN phones. You are also only going to get those people who have nothing better to do than talk to you at the instant that you call. As such you will talk to many more jobless people than those who work long hours, many more single people than those watching active small children, etc.
Sorry, but if you want truly random data, you'll have to work a lot harder than picking up the nearest phone book to get it.
As for whether the public needs more statistics, I don't think so. According to my calculations, I have actually listened to and understood 0.7% of statistics that are spewed at me daily from the television. Of those 0.01% have proven useful to me in my life.:)
...because I never have to worry about them having my size (a rare occurance) or my color/style.
You worry about them having your size? I'd be more worried about them not having my size personally.
Of course I can just picture it now, you glancing over your shoulder nervously, clicking on the availabile sizes buttons. Sweat trickling down your cheek as the page loads. Your look of horror and utter despair as your realize that once again, Eddie Bauer DOES have a medium available! Oh the humanity!
Really, I'm not trying to nitpick your grammar. Mine sucks anyway. I just thought the whole picture was so funny. Than again, maybe it was just me.
I worked with Dr. Yorke when I was going to UMCP. I also was good friends with his son in high school and was his roommate for the first year of college (hey Rob!). I must say that this is very nice. Dr. Yorke was one of the nicest professors I met at college. A funny guy too, always nice to be around, and good to work for.
Of course I had no freaking clue what his work was really about. All I remember was his software used to draw fractals from mathmatical equations (here is the book with included cd-rom) Dynamics: Numerical Explorations. His math stuff was always way over my head, after all I'm just a computer geek.
When you hear about something like this, it is really nice to know that the person who won really deserved to win (not in a technical sense mind you, like I said I have no clue about that, but in a karmic sort of way.)
This isn't news for nerds, it is news for marketing geeks. And those two groups are certaintly not the same!
Really though, this is nothing new. It is just using old technology to try to make people buy more of something that everyone needs less of (put your own link to children becoming fat on soda/pop/cola/coke here please).
While some people may wax poetic out of goat cheese made from swiss monks
I truly hope that the people you hang out with get there goat cheese made by swiss monks, and not made from swiss monks. There truly aren't enough swiss monks to go around to make all that goat cheese I eat on my pizza!
He didn't say there were ONLY 4. He just said there were 4. So he is correct, in a way.:)
Re:Why can't we think for ourselves?
on
Ready, Steady, Evolve
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Let me preface this by saying that I do believe in God (after thinking everything through and deciding for myself)
Just because evolution was taught as truth in high school and college, and it allows you to live your life any way that you want without concern for life after death or accountability to a higher power doesn't mean that you should buy it.
It upsets me that so many people who believe in God imply that simply because someone does not believe in God they cannot have any true morals or ethics. I did not believe in God through most of high school and college, yet (I believe) I was a very moral person. I did not drink, did not do drugs, worked hard, tried not to lie (though I was somewhat less successful in that regard:) ). This was all because I felt a bond to my common man, not because I feared reprisal in the afterlife. How were my morals any less real than the morals of those who 'do right' because their God tells them to? Belief in God in no way equates or even implies morality or ethics. Look at the Sept. 11th hijackers. They most likely believed very strongly in God. You could argue that they didn't follow God's teachings, but the point is that they believed they were.
I realize that this is going to get modded down, but it frustrates me that so many people who pull this "I'm an intellectual therefore I believe in evolution not God" crap are actually simple drones of the left. Think for yourself, will ya?
(Note, I have moderator access, but I think responding is much better to this than modding down) I am sure there are just as many drones on the right who simply believe in God because it is easier. Most Christians (the majority of religious people in America) have not read the Torah, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. Why is this? Is it because they know after reading the Bible that nothing else can possibly be correct? They may say that to themselves, but I doubt it is the truth. I find it much more likely that the Bible is what they were brought up with, and it is simply easier to follow what they already know as opposed to working to figure out what they can truly put their faith in.
I find it perplexing that many people take the time to diligently study the religion they were brought up to know, yet few take even scant moments to study the countless other religions in this world. Well, no, it doesn't really perplex me. It saddens me.
Whilst the point about non-IE browsers not being able to access the site is valid, the fact it takes 5.5 hours over a modem is not. It's not Microsofts fault people are using a 56k modem or that it's not under 50k!
The point is that they could have made this update available in a small (20k I would think) download. Instead they decided to make life easier for themselves and harder for those wishing to install JUST this update, by including this small change inside one of their huge service packs. What if someone wanted this update, but did not want the new updated version of micrsoft product X that is in the service pack? They are out of luck I guess.
I'm unsure about the $9.99 for a CD point myself - the proposed settlement didn't mention anything about them having to forcibly give it to anyone and this price is no different to their usual practises.
They are not being asked to forcibly give it to anyone. However, since Microsoft is the one that broke the law, THEY should be the ones to pay to make amends for their crimes, not consumers who were already hurt by Microsoft's business practices.
The real point is this: Microsoft has been found to have committed illegal monopolistic practices with their operating system. They are still in court debating whether the agreement they reached with the DOJ is acceptable. Microsoft should be bending over backwards to at least look like they are adhearing to the letter and spirit of the agreement. That would go a long way towards helping Microsoft in their case. However, Microsoft is instead just going on with business as usual. Doing the very minimum they are required to do to possibly come in line with the DOJ agreement. If this is how Microsoft acts while they are still in court, imagine how they will act if the judge says the DOJ agreement stands? I hope the judge is considering this right now.
I realize you were trying to be funny, but since this is not funny by any stretch of the imagination, I figured I would ignore your lame attempt at humor.
You figured you would ignore their lame attempt at humor? Well, your attempt failed. You replied to their lame attempt at humor. Don't worry, it happens to a lot of us. Just remember, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!:)
I would suggest you revise your plan, I'd look closely at the possiblity of moving item 5 to occur before item 4. Otherwise, I doubt they could retire on the bit of spit they'd make selling their stock options AFTER all the user base left.:)
I SECOND THIS, THERE SHOULD BE A REQUIREMENT THAT ALL SENTENCES MUST USE THE GENERALLY ACCEPTED USE OF CAPITALIZATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATION. I DON'T KNOW WHY LAWYERS LIKE TO MAKE EVERYTHING EVEN HARDER TO READ THAN IT NORMALLY IS.
Hmmmm, actually maybe lawyers just get really pumped up while writing the documents. I can just see it now: (Lawyer 1) Oh yeah! I NAILED another EULA Joe! (Lawyer 2) Oh baby! I can tell, look at all your caps man! (Lawyer 1) Yeah, whoever was outside my office MUST have heard me screaming about the henceforths, and the hereafters, and the forthwiths. (Lawyer 2) Hell, who DOESN'T feel like yelling about those! (Lawyer 1) Well, I gotta go work on some warning labels on toys advising consumers not to stick them in different orifices. (Lawyer 2) Rock on man!
I came across this site http://www.hdk-berlin.de/~rasca/xvidcap/ that seems to capture directly to single files, so you can skip going from the animated gif to single files step. Not sure if it is exactly what you want though, they say you need a fast machine for any largish size captures.
Besides, it's possible that they (the RIAA) could write or modify their own gnutella client that searches for all of the songs to appear on the Billboard Top 40 in the past five years and keep track of the IP addresses returned. If one particular IP address is sharing more than some magic number of those songs (100? 1000? 10000?), the red flag goes up and the ISP is notified.
Man, I was worried for a second! Glad I only listen to quality songs and none of the "top" 40 crap that most people allow themselves to be goaded into listening to!:)
Really though, I think that the big strength of p2p networks is the ability to get songs that it is almost impossible to get otherwise. I mean, try to find someplace you can get some obscure TV theme that you loved from your youth. Someone on a p2p network probably has it somewhere, as compared to going to your local CD store.
The real problem is the extension on copyright. If copyright expired after a reasonable amount of time (say one year after the work ceases to be available for sale, after the original authors death, or 20 years after creation, whichever comes first), then I think most people would be happy. There will always be some people who will try to steal, but I believe that vast majority of people want to be good citizens.
The original plan was to have two trainers dress up in panda costumes and act out appropriate sex scenes to help teach the pandas. However, one of the more depraved pandas tried to initiate a three-some and the plan was dropped.
You can get rid of all of this probability crap by just accepting that aliens actually started life on this planet. Say million and millions of years ago, some aliens were joy riding through the galaxy and saw a nicely forming planet and decided to start up their own personal "ant farm". They spice up our water/air/primordial-soup with some pre-life cake mix and then fly away. They tell all their friends to come and visit when they get the chance, you know, just to look in and see how things are going. Well, then we get visited by aliens for the next few billions years (assume they have long life spans, or collective memories).
Seems this scenario gets rid of all of his improbable probabilities. They started everything off, so they KNEW where to come to find us (well, not us, but whatever did come of their little project).
Heck, he convinced me, if aliens have visited us then aliens must have started life here. Everything else is just too unbelievable.
I had a bug with a microprocessor that will remane nameless. We were disabling interrupts around some code that modified a range of memory we were using to store characters received over the serial interface. The problem was, if a character arrived while interrupts were turned off, we'd get one more interrupt, and then none after that. So we lost incoming serial communications. Of course, it was difficult to find the problem because at our serial speed, and the small amount of processing that happened in the ISR, the problem only came up about once every few days!
We got around the problem by using some memory access routines that could write from the ISR at any time during the read operation without trouncing all over each other. And it was a better design anyway, so we weren't too upset.
You went to the movie theatre for How High, but not for LOTR, or Spider-Man?? Well, I guess if I had paid money to see How High I might be put off of movies for a while too.
Propaganda. Although any chemical lab can have accidents, having to work in secret does make it slightly more dangerous. Solution? Make meth lagal, and license labs to make it. That way, the govt can make sure all safety precautions are taken.
I think the problem is less that people have to work in secret to make the druges, and more that a lot of people who find this information on the internet and then try it out are just stupid.
Then the pain is caused by them SEEING the porn, not by my (hypothetically speaking) having a copy. Unless I was the one to show them the porn, I'm not responsible.
By publicly displaying the porn you would (or should, by my thinking) be responsible. You're argument is akin to me laying a mine in my yard, right next to the sidewalk, with a sign next to it that simply said "mine, don't touch." and then saying it was the seven year old's own fault he stepped on the mine. When you are doing something in a public forum (which the internet is) then there should be a greater degree of responsibility.
Slashdot Mirror
It would seem that if anyone puts up illegal material than the ISP could also be sued, since they now are saying (essentially, despite what the new revised terms say) that they own the content. And after all, if you own a copyright, would you prefer to go after an ISP with lots of money, or a college student who can only afford 98 billion dollars... err, I mean, nevermind, you know what I mean. :)
Instead of a standalone PVR, setup your old computer (you do have at least two, right?) with a cheap ati tv capture card, and then tape all your kids shows on it. This is what I do and my son loves it. He is almost two now and I record every Dragon Tales for him. He has over 30 recorded now.
:)
The best part is, my wife and I (well, my wife really) can now watch our shows on TV and our son can just go sit at the computer with the volume not too high and watch his shows. When I bought the TV capture card my wife said (as with all my computer purchases) "Do we really need that?" But once I showed her what we could do with it, she was overjoyed.
I'd also recommend that you buy some computers cases with locking covers if you leave the cases on the floor. Before I did my son almost destroyed a couple CD-RWs.
Get lots of locks for your cabinets, drawers, etc. Get some tethers (once the kid is big enough) to secure furniture to the wall.
Enjoy your new little friend. Mine are a lot of fun so far!
Green? Wouldn't that need to be indigo/violet to have a better wavelength than blue? (Ahhh, good 'ole ROYGBIV!)
I used to belong to emusic (when they had the big They Might Be Giants selections, got a free TMBG pullover fleece out of the sign up deal too). I was very happy with it. Small price to pay for all the music I got. I would still belong but now that I no longer have broadband at home (moved) the amount of music I am able to download is not worth the price/time.
Come on, that is a foolish argument. If you are calling people and asking them "are you willing and able to take the time to take a survey right now?" You are already removing any randomness from your data. First you are only getting those people who OWN phones. You are also only going to get those people who have nothing better to do than talk to you at the instant that you call. As such you will talk to many more jobless people than those who work long hours, many more single people than those watching active small children, etc.
:)
Sorry, but if you want truly random data, you'll have to work a lot harder than picking up the nearest phone book to get it.
As for whether the public needs more statistics, I don't think so. According to my calculations, I have actually listened to and understood 0.7% of statistics that are spewed at me daily from the television. Of those 0.01% have proven useful to me in my life.
You worry about them having your size? I'd be more worried about them not having my size personally.
Of course I can just picture it now, you glancing over your shoulder nervously, clicking on the availabile sizes buttons. Sweat trickling down your cheek as the page loads. Your look of horror and utter despair as your realize that once again, Eddie Bauer DOES have a medium available! Oh the humanity!
Really, I'm not trying to nitpick your grammar. Mine sucks anyway. I just thought the whole picture was so funny. Than again, maybe it was just me.
I worked with Dr. Yorke when I was going to UMCP. I also was good friends with his son in high school and was his roommate for the first year of college (hey Rob!). I must say that this is very nice. Dr. Yorke was one of the nicest professors I met at college. A funny guy too, always nice to be around, and good to work for.
Of course I had no freaking clue what his work was really about. All I remember was his software used to draw fractals from mathmatical equations (here is the book with included cd-rom) Dynamics: Numerical Explorations. His math stuff was always way over my head, after all I'm just a computer geek.
When you hear about something like this, it is really nice to know that the person who won really deserved to win (not in a technical sense mind you, like I said I have no clue about that, but in a karmic sort of way.)
Congratulations Dr. Yorke.
This isn't news for nerds, it is news for marketing geeks. And those two groups are certaintly not the same!
Really though, this is nothing new. It is just using old technology to try to make people buy more of something that everyone needs less of (put your own link to children becoming fat on soda/pop/cola/coke here please).
While some people may wax poetic out of goat cheese made from swiss monks
I truly hope that the people you hang out with get there goat cheese made by swiss monks, and not made from swiss monks. There truly aren't enough swiss monks to go around to make all that goat cheese I eat on my pizza!
He didn't say there were ONLY 4. He just said there were 4. So he is correct, in a way. :)
Let me preface this by saying that I do believe in God (after thinking everything through and deciding for myself)
:) ). This was all because I felt a bond to my common man, not because I feared reprisal in the afterlife. How were my morals any less real than the morals of those who 'do right' because their God tells them to? Belief in God in no way equates or even implies morality or ethics. Look at the Sept. 11th hijackers. They most likely believed very strongly in God. You could argue that they didn't follow God's teachings, but the point is that they believed they were.
Just because evolution was taught as truth in high school and college, and it allows you to live your life any way that you want without concern for life after death or accountability to a higher power doesn't mean that you should buy it.
It upsets me that so many people who believe in God imply that simply because someone does not believe in God they cannot have any true morals or ethics. I did not believe in God through most of high school and college, yet (I believe) I was a very moral person. I did not drink, did not do drugs, worked hard, tried not to lie (though I was somewhat less successful in that regard
I realize that this is going to get modded down, but it frustrates me that so many people who pull this "I'm an intellectual therefore I believe in evolution not God" crap are actually simple drones of the left. Think for yourself, will ya?
(Note, I have moderator access, but I think responding is much better to this than modding down)
I am sure there are just as many drones on the right who simply believe in God because it is easier. Most Christians (the majority of religious people in America) have not read the Torah, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. Why is this? Is it because they know after reading the Bible that nothing else can possibly be correct? They may say that to themselves, but I doubt it is the truth. I find it much more likely that the Bible is what they were brought up with, and it is simply easier to follow what they already know as opposed to working to figure out what they can truly put their faith in.
I find it perplexing that many people take the time to diligently study the religion they were brought up to know, yet few take even scant moments to study the countless other religions in this world. Well, no, it doesn't really perplex me. It saddens me.
Whilst the point about non-IE browsers not being able to access the site is valid, the fact it takes 5.5 hours over a modem is not. It's not Microsofts fault people are using a 56k modem or that it's not under 50k!
The point is that they could have made this update available in a small (20k I would think) download. Instead they decided to make life easier for themselves and harder for those wishing to install JUST this update, by including this small change inside one of their huge service packs. What if someone wanted this update, but did not want the new updated version of micrsoft product X that is in the service pack? They are out of luck I guess.
I'm unsure about the $9.99 for a CD point myself - the proposed settlement didn't mention anything about them having to forcibly give it to anyone and this price is no different to their usual practises.
They are not being asked to forcibly give it to anyone. However, since Microsoft is the one that broke the law, THEY should be the ones to pay to make amends for their crimes, not consumers who were already hurt by Microsoft's business practices.
The real point is this: Microsoft has been found to have committed illegal monopolistic practices with their operating system. They are still in court debating whether the agreement they reached with the DOJ is acceptable. Microsoft should be bending over backwards to at least look like they are adhearing to the letter and spirit of the agreement. That would go a long way towards helping Microsoft in their case. However, Microsoft is instead just going on with business as usual. Doing the very minimum they are required to do to possibly come in line with the DOJ agreement. If this is how Microsoft acts while they are still in court, imagine how they will act if the judge says the DOJ agreement stands? I hope the judge is considering this right now.
I realize you were trying to be funny, but since this is not funny by any stretch of the imagination, I figured I would ignore your lame attempt at humor.
:)
You figured you would ignore their lame attempt at humor? Well, your attempt failed. You replied to their lame attempt at humor. Don't worry, it happens to a lot of us. Just remember, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!
What would I give up to KEEP my broadband? Hell, where do I GET my broadband in the first place??
I would suggest you revise your plan, I'd look closely at the possiblity of moving item 5 to occur before item 4. Otherwise, I doubt they could retire on the bit of spit they'd make selling their stock options AFTER all the user base left. :)
I agree, I started reading the book ("Footfall") and eventually just stopped. Didn't interest me in the least.
I SECOND THIS, THERE SHOULD BE A REQUIREMENT THAT ALL SENTENCES MUST USE THE GENERALLY ACCEPTED USE OF CAPITALIZATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATION. I DON'T KNOW WHY LAWYERS LIKE TO MAKE EVERYTHING EVEN HARDER TO READ THAN IT NORMALLY IS.
Hmmmm, actually maybe lawyers just get really pumped up while writing the documents. I can just see it now:
(Lawyer 1) Oh yeah! I NAILED another EULA Joe!
(Lawyer 2) Oh baby! I can tell, look at all your caps man!
(Lawyer 1) Yeah, whoever was outside my office MUST have heard me screaming about the henceforths, and the hereafters, and the forthwiths.
(Lawyer 2) Hell, who DOESN'T feel like yelling about those!
(Lawyer 1) Well, I gotta go work on some warning labels on toys advising consumers not to stick them in different orifices.
(Lawyer 2) Rock on man!
I came across this site http://www.hdk-berlin.de/~rasca/xvidcap/ that seems to capture directly to single files, so you can skip going from the animated gif to single files step. Not sure if it is exactly what you want though, they say you need a fast machine for any largish size captures.
Besides, it's possible that they (the RIAA) could write or modify their own gnutella client that searches for all of the songs to appear on the Billboard Top 40 in the past five years and keep track of the IP addresses returned. If one particular IP address is sharing more than some magic number of those songs (100? 1000? 10000?), the red flag goes up and the ISP is notified.
:)
Man, I was worried for a second! Glad I only listen to quality songs and none of the "top" 40 crap that most people allow themselves to be goaded into listening to!
Really though, I think that the big strength of p2p networks is the ability to get songs that it is almost impossible to get otherwise. I mean, try to find someplace you can get some obscure TV theme that you loved from your youth. Someone on a p2p network probably has it somewhere, as compared to going to your local CD store.
The real problem is the extension on copyright. If copyright expired after a reasonable amount of time (say one year after the work ceases to be available for sale, after the original authors death, or 20 years after creation, whichever comes first), then I think most people would be happy. There will always be some people who will try to steal, but I believe that vast majority of people want to be good citizens.
The original plan was to have two trainers dress up in panda costumes and act out appropriate sex scenes to help teach the pandas. However, one of the more depraved pandas tried to initiate a three-some and the plan was dropped.
You can get rid of all of this probability crap by just accepting that aliens actually started life on this planet. Say million and millions of years ago, some aliens were joy riding through the galaxy and saw a nicely forming planet and decided to start up their own personal "ant farm". They spice up our water/air/primordial-soup with some pre-life cake mix and then fly away. They tell all their friends to come and visit when they get the chance, you know, just to look in and see how things are going. Well, then we get visited by aliens for the next few billions years (assume they have long life spans, or collective memories).
Seems this scenario gets rid of all of his improbable probabilities. They started everything off, so they KNEW where to come to find us (well, not us, but whatever did come of their little project).
Heck, he convinced me, if aliens have visited us then aliens must have started life here. Everything else is just too unbelievable.
I had a bug with a microprocessor that will remane nameless. We were disabling interrupts around some code that modified a range of memory we were using to store characters received over the serial interface. The problem was, if a character arrived while interrupts were turned off, we'd get one more interrupt, and then none after that. So we lost incoming serial communications. Of course, it was difficult to find the problem because at our serial speed, and the small amount of processing that happened in the ISR, the problem only came up about once every few days!
We got around the problem by using some memory access routines that could write from the ISR at any time during the read operation without trouncing all over each other. And it was a better design anyway, so we weren't too upset.
You went to the movie theatre for How High, but not for LOTR, or Spider-Man?? Well, I guess if I had paid money to see How High I might be put off of movies for a while too.
I'd hate for Linux to underestimate this [the importance of public perception], and go the way of BeOS and OS/2.
WHAT? That's what happened to OS/2! Damn those Nazis. Attempted genocide, AND killing off a fine OS. Will they never learn??
Propaganda. Although any chemical lab can have accidents, having to work in secret does make it slightly more dangerous. Solution? Make meth lagal, and license labs to make it. That way, the govt can make sure all safety precautions are taken.
I think the problem is less that people have to work in secret to make the druges, and more that a lot of people who find this information on the internet and then try it out are just stupid.
Then the pain is caused by them SEEING the porn, not by my (hypothetically speaking) having a copy. Unless I was the one to show them the porn, I'm not responsible.
By publicly displaying the porn you would (or should, by my thinking) be responsible. You're argument is akin to me laying a mine in my yard, right next to the sidewalk, with a sign next to it that simply said "mine, don't touch." and then saying it was the seven year old's own fault he stepped on the mine. When you are doing something in a public forum (which the internet is) then there should be a greater degree of responsibility.