Haha, that's true. Wouldn't THAT be a slap in the face? Well, at least you would be a martyr for The Cause(tm).
If you wanted to be really tricky, and again only if the list were true, you could argue that you were practicing your first ammendment rights in taking a stand against the evil corporate censorship. I bet you could get a judge to buy it. Besides, you weren't charging money for them.
Not that I believe this list is true, which I don't, but if it were, this list would make excellent input to your favorite Gnutella client, don't rest until you've downloaded all of them.
If you're interested in a little geektavisim, you could then burn all the MP3s to CD audio and distribute them for free at all Clear Channel(TM) events with some propaganda stating how evil they are and how they've banned these (whichever 13 or so are on the CD) and other songs, include the list if you like.
I know, I was so blind suggesting that we do something, you had the answer all the time: let's PRAY!
Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe if we pray a little bit, God will make the bad guys stop.
No, that probably won't work... hmm... let's have some peace talks. Yeah, I bet that would do it. We have some peace talks, come up with a new peace accord and PUFF! all our problems are solved!
No, that probably won't work either. Hmmm... let's apologize for 2000 years of ethnic strife and religious fighting. Yeah, we can prostrate ourselves before these people, tell them that we are sorry for things that we caused 2000 years ago (blindly ignoring the fact that our country isn't even 300 years old). Yes, that will do it! Maybe we'll look so pathetic, that they will stop.
Well, probably not. How about we send them AID!! Yeah, ship them money! If we start giving bin Laden a bunch of money, if we buy him off he'll stop. That could actually work! Well, at least until we STOP paying a FUCKING MURDERER.
Well, we could kill him.... Make him bleed a little bit. We descend on him like the wrath of God and send him to hell where he belongs. Maybe he'll stop then. Yeah, he will, but shoot, that would be politically uncorrect. We CAN'T just going around killing people. We can't bring mass murders to justice without a trial.
Well, mother-fuck! I'm out of ideas, what do YOU propose we do?
All in favor of losing their rights, please do nothing.
From your post
we should do NOTHING in terms of retaliation.
What exactly, do you believe in?
Do you propose that we have a trial for some people we can't get ahold of in Afganistan. Do you supose that those people will turn themselves and submit to our court system? Let a judge give Bin Laden a life sentence from his courtroom in New Orleans. That will probably stop him from doing it again. Right?
The fact is, due process of law is something we afford people accused of civil/criminal transgressions. What has happened today, was, wether you would like to admit it or not, an act of war. You do not kill thousands of civilians in America and be ranked as a common thug. The person responsible for this is not just a criminal. This is now a military leader. A military strike is the only way to deal with such people.
, but we, the American People, have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
No, actually, we don't.
but freedom of speech means freedom of speech for everyone
Yes, freedom of speech should be universal. Let Bin Laden come on/. and I will discuss wether the US is the devil or not with him. If he shows his face in USENET, I'd be glad to let him speak his peace. But when his speech degrades into killing thousands of my countrymen in a cowardly but yet MILITARY attack, I think it's clear that we shouldn't need to afford him a trial, we should have him eating shrapnel.
That was not an analogy, it was to demonstrate that this person would not stand up for himself in a severe situation, but would rather prefer to talk his way out of it. And i was correct, he has admitted that he would not shoot.
Wow, that was a scathing slight! OH NO, he won't respond to me! The guy who called me a cunt and thinks my family should be shot think **I** am a troll. Look in the mirror, buddy.
No, I don't think the strong should prey on the weak. I think the strong should protect the weak. In this case, the strong is our government, and the weak is our people. The only way our people can be protected is to remove those who would harm us.
If you want to go back to the school yard example: innocent people are the wimpy kid, terrorists are the bully, and the government is our big brother who's gonna kick the bullies ass. This is how peace is maintained at school, and as unfortunate as it is, history has shown that this is how peace is maintained in the world.
I guess your bitter experience involved you giving a half-hearted attempt to defend yourself that merely angered your bully and prompted him to hurt you even more.
*I* speak from experience, if you had done it RIGHT and really HURT the mother-fucker, he would have never bothered you again.
They will NOT eventually go away, if they know you are only a half-ass in defending yourself, or know that you won't do it all, you are tempting no, *INVITING* them to continue abusing you.
I don't advocate striking innocent civilians, or bombing prominent muslim holy places as someone suggested. But if you (and i'm saying 'you', not in addressing you personally, but a person in general) live in a para-military terrorist camp, you are prepared to die for your belief. It is time to make that happen.
What would you do if someone were holding a gun at your head? If you had the opportunity, would you shoot them first, or would you wait to hear his point of view, apologize for making them angry at you, say you're sorry for making them so mad that they would hold a gun at your head?
The fact of the matter is that in some cases you have to fight fire with fire.
Because attacking innocent civilians simply because you disagree with them, is *wrong*.
Those are your words, not mine. Were all 50 THOUSAND of the people in the WTC or were they not, innocent civilians? Yes, it is wrong to kill innocent civilians because you disagree with them. It is *NOT* wrong to kill hostile terrorists who have killed your countrymen.
You, my friend, are the fucking cunt. Unless it is clear that you will not put up with this shit, you are going to have it on your plate for lunch everyday. It's just like standing up to the school yard bully. If he thinks you won't resist, he'll take your lunch money everyday. If you pop him in the nose once, and knows you will do it the next time he comes around, you will never hear from him again.
Apparently, there are about 4 terrorist organizations that are capable of hijacking 3x airliners and piloting them into major cities within 30 minutes of eachother. I don't think there is much reason to figure out which of these 4 are responsible, bomb them all. This is the only way to send the correct message.
In the wake of this tragedy, I think we need to examine the repercussions.
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
This is bull-shit. When colombian drug dealers killed DEA agent, Kiki Camarena, the DEA broke down every suspected drug dealer's door with or without evidence of any crimes. The DEA fucked them up really good. Since that time, DEA agents have led charmed lives. In many cases DEA agents are in peril, but only live because the Druggies know better than to touch a DEA agent for the repercussions. In the same light, it is clear to me and should be to everyone else that a serious strike against ALL possible/suspected terrorist organizations will send a similar message.
I think we should consider the movie "The Siege" with Denzel Washington. In the movie, following three or four terrorist attacks the city of New York was brought to a standstill. They declared Marshall Law. This was the effect on one city. In real life, with todays terrorist attacks, most state universities were shut down, many, many businesses all over the nation are closed. Lots of people will begin to live in fear.
This is, of course, what the terrorists want. When we begin to live in fear, we have betrayed the principles of our very country. We must strike back at these and all terrorists. We must send a message to this sick and twisted community that the US will not stand for this.
Beyond whatever reprisals the President decides to launch. I think we will begin to see some other serious repercussions. Do you think air travel will be the same? I thought it was very strict as it was. We may have to submit to cavity searches before too long.
Here's an interesting issue and one that is well to debate on Slashdot. It is said on just about all the major news networks that there has been an intelligence breakdown. That the terrorists use sophisticated encryption measures and that our intelligence agencies are under-funded and don't have the ability to keep tabs on the terrorists. Question: would you be willing to trade your personal privacy for maybe some further measure of security from terrorists? Would you grant the people running Carnivore greater rights into your life in order to perhaps prevent more events like this? Is the encryption export ban such a bad thing when stacked against 50,000 people's lives?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
I don't know if we should put up with a greater intelligence presence. I know that is what we will experience. That is pretty clear. But what is obvious to me is that we must rise above this, we must not live in fear, and we must make these sons-of-bitches PAY for what they've done to assure that they can never do it again.
In the wake of this tragedy, I think we need to examine the repercussions.
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
This is bull-shit. When colombian drug dealers killed DEA agent, Kiki Camarena, the DEA broke down every suspected drug dealer's door with or without evidence of any crimes. The DEA fucked them up really good. Since that time, DEA agents have led charmed lives. In many cases DEA agents are in peril, but only live because the Druggies know better than to touch a DEA agent for the repercussions. In the same light, it is clear to me and should be to everyone else that a serious strike against ALL possible/suspected terrorist organizations will send a similar message.
I think we should consider the movie "The Siege" with Denzel Washington. In the movie, following three or four terrorist attacks the city of New York was brought to a standstill. They declared Marshall Law. This was the effect on one city. In real life, with todays terrorist attacks, most state universities were shut down, many, many businesses all over the nation are closed. Lots of people will begin to live in fear.
This is, of course, what the terrorists want. When we begin to live in fear, we have betrayed the principles of our very country. We must strike back at these and all terrorists. We must send a message to this sick and twisted community that the US will not stand for this.
Beyond whatever reprisals the President decides to launch. I think we will begin to see some other serious repercussions. Do you think air travel will be the same? I thought it was very strict as it was. We may have to submit to cavity searches before too long.
Here's an interesting issue and one that is well to debate on Slashdot. It is said on just about all the major news networks that there has been an intelligence breakdown. That the terrorists use sophisticated encryption measures and that our intelligence agencies are under-funded and don't have the ability to keep tabs on the terrorists. Question: would you be willing to trade your personal privacy for maybe some further measure of security from terrorists? Would you grant the people running Carnivore greater rights into your life in order to perhaps prevent more events like this? Is the encryption export ban such a bad thing when stacked against 50,000 people's lives?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
I don't know if we should put up with a greater intelligence presence. I know that is what we will experience. That is pretty clear. But what is obvious to me is that we must rise above this, we must not live in fear, and we must make these sons-of-bitches PAY for what they've done to assure that they can never do it again.
Actually.... I could. Depending on the subject matter, for many 3D models I can get something nicer done more quickly by 'coding' it directly in POV-Ray [povray.org] script. This of course depends on the subject matter, but just because one person finds one way faster doesn't mean that another person won't be faster a different way. Just sometimes I'd go with 3DS or Strata, other's I'd just code by hand. And sometimes I'd write a custom C program to make the model. It just all depends.
My point exactly, some people CAN do it, and prefer to. Some physicists can also do advanced calculus in their heads, some pilots can fly around the country without using any navigational aids. It's easier and more convenient for these people, like you claim. The real point is not whether it can be done or not, but rather WHO can do it. You will find that the vast majority of people prefer to use the tools that are available to solve a problem.
When I mentioned that you would not program a complex model (i'm thinking along the line of the chick from Final Fantasy, or even just the SIGGRAPH teakettle, anything more complex than several boxes and triangles and quads) using code I was bringing up the use of tools. You would not use a sharpened stone to cut something if you had a knife lying around. You would not use a stone to drive a nail when there is a hammer, would you? Of course not.
Actually.... I could. Depending on the subject matter
You could, I could too... if I put the thought into it. There is a right tool for the right job. Any physist is smart enough to do the calculus in his head, but the vast majority of them are also humble enough to know that actually breaking out the old calculator once in a while isn't a sign of weakness.
My main realm of endeavor is web programming, I've done some stuff with some websites that I can't believe I was able to pull off. PHP, PERL, ASP, whatever, I can do it and well. When it comes to the HTML output of my scripts, I can code HTML like it was english. I can make tables, forms, anything. Does that mean that I'm too elite to whip out the trusty old Dreamweaver? No, I'll still break it out for fragments of what I need. Why? I could do it by hand. Probably just as fast, but messing with that crap while making it look right distracts from my real purpose of scripting. I use the tools that are available. Some tools are better suited for certain jobs. Thet people that say I will never use a GUI development tool because I can do it all in Vi are missing the big picture.
You can do anything with command line that you can do with GUI. BUT, with CLI or line by line programming you can't design other GUIs as nicely. You can still do it, piece of cake... but to make a really good GUI with standard programming, takes a LOT of time and a LOT of effort. With a tool like Visual Basic(ugh! VB sucks!) your GUIs and forms are easy to design and manipulate. You can make the same forms and GUIs with C++ or Java but it will take you longer, it's much harder to do complex things and lots of times your design will LOOK awkward.
You wouldn't make a complex 3d model of anything programming polygons... you could. Java3D and OpenGL have ways for this. But to get something that LOOKS decent takes a program like 3DS MAX. You can then use THOSE models in your OpenGL app.
In the same vein, making a GUI would be better suited to a GUI programming tool, with the backend being designed with real code.
Firstoff, fingerprint matching is completely different. There are *practically* an unlimited number of completely unique fingerprint patterns all with distinct easily quantifiable differences. If you get a finger-print, it will look like the one on record, and only the one on record. There are flaws every once in a while, but they are statistically no big deal.
Face recognition, however, is not so exact. There are not unlimited unique faces. That's a fact. People look alike ALL THE TIME. Don't try to tell me that you can tell the difference between Gary Busy and Nick Nolte all the time. I'm sure I look like about 30,000 other people on this planet. As do you. If you bring up ethnicity, there are similar problems, chinese people look chinese, white people look white, black people look black. I know you've thought to yourself (and it's a popular thing to stereotype), all those X people look alike. This software will do the same thing.
Also, on your point of a cop being able to recognize you from memory. Yes, a computer would be more accurate. But that is when your face is compared to a discrete number of criminals. The cop can only remember so many people's faces, and you probably don't look like any of them. The image database could contain millions upon millions of images. I guarantee you would look EXACTLY like one or more. So much so that it might be justified to bring you in. PLUS, a cop will see you once in a while, this thing could run your image 100 times a day. Eventually, the combination of light, reflection, angle, image quality will line up just right, and you WILL match someone. It's a fact.
I agree, we are not entitled to expectation of privacy. I (and you and everyone else) have video of me taken probably as much as any hollywood movie star when I go to the local quickee-mart, to K-mart, to just about anywhere. That doesn't bother me.
What bothers me is that someone is going to be sitting in a control desk, drinking coffee, when his terminal beeps an alarm that there is a pedophile loose in HIS store. He pulls up the profile and it's a real sick bastard, wanted in seven states. Looks just like the guy in the store. Well, he thinks, I better call for backup and 5 minutes later, a perfectly innocent man is taken into custody. They rough him up a little in the car, too, just for fun. And if he resists... even if he used to be innocent, now he looking at some serious charges.
I am sure that this scenario will happen MANY times over. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens MORE often than they take down legitimate criminals. Why? Because this technology CAN'T be perfect, nor even very close. There are over 6 billion people in the world, and of all of them, there can't be more than several thousand face types. Sure, you throw in several combinations of features and you can get pretty good but I think you would still be swinging at less than 50% accuracy with it and THAT's not good enough.
As computer geeks we all know that no matter how good the coders are that design the software, it still can and still WILL make mistakes.
And in things like this where having the same earlobes and chin as someone will get you taken down in a public place..... well, I wouldn't want it to happen to me.
My trebuchet
on
Fling-A-Keg
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In my high school physics class we were tasked with a project to construct an egg launcher. The idea was that the 5 or 6 groups were to build some apparatus for flinging an egg out 20 feet and hit a man-sized target.... well, actually, we were supposed to hit the teacher, who was really cool, that would stand 20 feet away in perfect confidence that no one had the aim to hit him.
The other groups were doing things with surgical tubing making slingshots and whatnot. My group modeled our launcher after a trebuchet. Actually, the device I had in mind I saw on 'Northern Exposure' that was powered by a truck that would pull a line and swing a huge arm around and fling a piano about 300 feet or so.
The device we ended up making was a rickety old POS made from several pulleys, a box of weights, a fulcrum made from some rebar and two really thick broomsticks. In the end we didn't hit the teacher, but we were the only group to get the egg PAST him. In fact, with some more weights we could have hurled that egg a DAMN far ways.
Besides the obvious military uses ala Rifts RPG or Cyberpunk imagine all the other nifty uses. Remember the loader in Aliens? Auto mechanics to grocery shelf-stockers to lumberjacks to construction workers and a hundred others would all make use of this.
I bet if you sat down to think about it, there are a *LOT* of really off the wall, and downright great uses.
It's happening as we sit and speak. Our crappy laws are becoming the models that the rest of the world is using. First it will be Canada and New Zealand, then on to Europe.
I've seen in other topics that some europeans are reluctant to get involved in the Free Dmitri debacle or have much of a stance on the DMCA. This is absurd, they must also take action to get rid of this stupid law while it's still young, before it spreads to their countries.
Some people say that open source is a virus, that's a lie. The DMCA is a virus! It will spread to the underside of every inch of the globe. It has to be stopped NOW!
Perhaps we should start bombarding the ACLU with letters, faxes and emails asking them to take interest in this case. Considering that they are a HUGE civil rights organization, they would have some weight in this situation.
I don't suppose that it would take TOO many emails to get them to get their asses in gear.
Between April and December 2000, seven default installations of Red Hat 6.2 servers were attacked within three days of connecting to the Internet. Based on this, we estimate the life expectancy of a default installation of Red Hat 6.2 server to be less then 72 hours. The last time we attempted to confirm this, the system was compromised in less than eight hours. The fastest time ever for a system to be compromised was 15 minutes. This means the system was scanned, probed, and exploited within 15 minutes of connecting to the Internet. Coincidentlly, this was the first honeypot we ever setup, in March of 1999.
Holy Shit! Who painted the big red 'Crack me' sign on those servers?
I'd be interested to hear a sound sample, too. The provided text chusssh-chusssh-chusssh doesn't exactly convey "Hey look at me" like the article suggests.
Apparently this sound has some overwhelming draw to attract a human's attention and the best they can describe it is as "chusssh-chusssh-chusssh"?!
And that would be bad how? Bad for who? Bad for anybody? Cover of every newspaper sounds like a good idea.
I wasn't suggesting it was a bad idea, I was suggesting it was a GOOD idea. My point was that it would never happen!
I think it would be great if such an incident were to bring spotlight to this issue, but I can't ever picture any Russian police force having the nuts to arrest someone like that and have to face US pressure to let him out. I bet one phone call and the guy's out.... not even 20 minutes later.
But the day an Adobe executive is arrested in Russia for trafficking in an illegal fair-use circumvention device is the day the proverbial monkeys will fly out of my ass.
Could you imagine the shit storm that would result if an american businessman was held in russia for something like that? It would be an inernational incident. On the cover of every newspaper.
How about setting up the whole infected set of machines as a P2P network? Each machine remembers the computers that they have enfected and can pass messages between themselves.
Then when you're good and ready, you just tell any infected computer to launch, and it tells all the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, that is sick, tasteless and very insensitive, and I'm ashamed of it, but I think it's the funniest thing I've heard all week.
If you wanted to be really tricky, and again only if the list were true, you could argue that you were practicing your first ammendment rights in taking a stand against the evil corporate censorship. I bet you could get a judge to buy it. Besides, you weren't charging money for them.
If you're interested in a little geektavisim, you could then burn all the MP3s to CD audio and distribute them for free at all Clear Channel(TM) events with some propaganda stating how evil they are and how they've banned these (whichever 13 or so are on the CD) and other songs, include the list if you like.
Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe if we pray a little bit, God will make the bad guys stop.
No, that probably won't work... hmm... let's have some peace talks. Yeah, I bet that would do it. We have some peace talks, come up with a new peace accord and PUFF! all our problems are solved!
No, that probably won't work either. Hmmm... let's apologize for 2000 years of ethnic strife and religious fighting. Yeah, we can prostrate ourselves before these people, tell them that we are sorry for things that we caused 2000 years ago (blindly ignoring the fact that our country isn't even 300 years old). Yes, that will do it! Maybe we'll look so pathetic, that they will stop.
Well, probably not. How about we send them AID!! Yeah, ship them money! If we start giving bin Laden a bunch of money, if we buy him off he'll stop. That could actually work! Well, at least until we STOP paying a FUCKING MURDERER.
Well, we could kill him.... Make him bleed a little bit. We descend on him like the wrath of God and send him to hell where he belongs. Maybe he'll stop then. Yeah, he will, but shoot, that would be politically uncorrect. We CAN'T just going around killing people. We can't bring mass murders to justice without a trial.
Well, mother-fuck! I'm out of ideas, what do YOU propose we do?
All in favor of losing their rights, please do nothing.
From your post
we should do NOTHING in terms of retaliation.
What exactly, do you believe in?
Do you propose that we have a trial for some people we can't get ahold of in Afganistan. Do you supose that those people will turn themselves and submit to our court system? Let a judge give Bin Laden a life sentence from his courtroom in New Orleans. That will probably stop him from doing it again. Right?
The fact is, due process of law is something we afford people accused of civil/criminal transgressions. What has happened today, was, wether you would like to admit it or not, an act of war. You do not kill thousands of civilians in America and be ranked as a common thug. The person responsible for this is not just a criminal. This is now a military leader. A military strike is the only way to deal with such people.
, but we, the American People, have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
No, actually, we don't.
but freedom of speech means freedom of speech for everyone
Yes, freedom of speech should be universal. Let Bin Laden come on /. and I will discuss wether the US is the devil or not with him. If he shows his face in USENET, I'd be glad to let him speak his peace. But when his speech degrades into killing thousands of my countrymen in a cowardly but yet MILITARY attack, I think it's clear that we shouldn't need to afford him a trial, we should have him eating shrapnel.
That was not an analogy, it was to demonstrate that this person would not stand up for himself in a severe situation, but would rather prefer to talk his way out of it. And i was correct, he has admitted that he would not shoot.
No, I don't think the strong should prey on the weak. I think the strong should protect the weak. In this case, the strong is our government, and the weak is our people. The only way our people can be protected is to remove those who would harm us.
If you want to go back to the school yard example: innocent people are the wimpy kid, terrorists are the bully, and the government is our big brother who's gonna kick the bullies ass. This is how peace is maintained at school, and as unfortunate as it is, history has shown that this is how peace is maintained in the world.
*I* speak from experience, if you had done it RIGHT and really HURT the mother-fucker, he would have never bothered you again.
They will NOT eventually go away, if they know you are only a half-ass in defending yourself, or know that you won't do it all, you are tempting no, *INVITING* them to continue abusing you.
I don't advocate striking innocent civilians, or bombing prominent muslim holy places as someone suggested. But if you (and i'm saying 'you', not in addressing you personally, but a person in general) live in a para-military terrorist camp, you are prepared to die for your belief. It is time to make that happen.
The fact of the matter is that in some cases you have to fight fire with fire.
Because attacking innocent civilians simply because you disagree with them, is *wrong*.
Those are your words, not mine. Were all 50 THOUSAND of the people in the WTC or were they not, innocent civilians? Yes, it is wrong to kill innocent civilians because you disagree with them. It is *NOT* wrong to kill hostile terrorists who have killed your countrymen.
You, my friend, are the fucking cunt. Unless it is clear that you will not put up with this shit, you are going to have it on your plate for lunch everyday. It's just like standing up to the school yard bully. If he thinks you won't resist, he'll take your lunch money everyday. If you pop him in the nose once, and knows you will do it the next time he comes around, you will never hear from him again.
Apparently, there are about 4 terrorist organizations that are capable of hijacking 3x airliners and piloting them into major cities within 30 minutes of eachother. I don't think there is much reason to figure out which of these 4 are responsible, bomb them all. This is the only way to send the correct message.
In the wake of this tragedy, I think we need to examine the repercussions.
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
This is bull-shit. When colombian drug dealers killed DEA agent, Kiki Camarena, the DEA broke down every suspected drug dealer's door with or without evidence of any crimes. The DEA fucked them up really good. Since that time, DEA agents have led charmed lives. In many cases DEA agents are in peril, but only live because the Druggies know better than to touch a DEA agent for the repercussions. In the same light, it is clear to me and should be to everyone else that a serious strike against ALL possible/suspected terrorist organizations will send a similar message.
I think we should consider the movie "The Siege" with Denzel Washington. In the movie, following three or four terrorist attacks the city of New York was brought to a standstill. They declared Marshall Law. This was the effect on one city. In real life, with todays terrorist attacks, most state universities were shut down, many, many businesses all over the nation are closed. Lots of people will begin to live in fear.
This is, of course, what the terrorists want. When we begin to live in fear, we have betrayed the principles of our very country. We must strike back at these and all terrorists. We must send a message to this sick and twisted community that the US will not stand for this.
Beyond whatever reprisals the President decides to launch. I think we will begin to see some other serious repercussions. Do you think air travel will be the same? I thought it was very strict as it was. We may have to submit to cavity searches before too long.
Here's an interesting issue and one that is well to debate on Slashdot. It is said on just about all the major news networks that there has been an intelligence breakdown. That the terrorists use sophisticated encryption measures and that our intelligence agencies are under-funded and don't have the ability to keep tabs on the terrorists. Question: would you be willing to trade your personal privacy for maybe some further measure of security from terrorists? Would you grant the people running Carnivore greater rights into your life in order to perhaps prevent more events like this? Is the encryption export ban such a bad thing when stacked against 50,000 people's lives?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
I don't know if we should put up with a greater intelligence presence. I know that is what we will experience. That is pretty clear. But what is obvious to me is that we must rise above this, we must not live in fear, and we must make these sons-of-bitches PAY for what they've done to assure that they can never do it again.
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
This is bull-shit. When colombian drug dealers killed DEA agent, Kiki Camarena, the DEA broke down every suspected drug dealer's door with or without evidence of any crimes. The DEA fucked them up really good. Since that time, DEA agents have led charmed lives. In many cases DEA agents are in peril, but only live because the Druggies know better than to touch a DEA agent for the repercussions. In the same light, it is clear to me and should be to everyone else that a serious strike against ALL possible/suspected terrorist organizations will send a similar message.
I think we should consider the movie "The Siege" with Denzel Washington. In the movie, following three or four terrorist attacks the city of New York was brought to a standstill. They declared Marshall Law. This was the effect on one city. In real life, with todays terrorist attacks, most state universities were shut down, many, many businesses all over the nation are closed. Lots of people will begin to live in fear.
This is, of course, what the terrorists want. When we begin to live in fear, we have betrayed the principles of our very country. We must strike back at these and all terrorists. We must send a message to this sick and twisted community that the US will not stand for this.
Beyond whatever reprisals the President decides to launch. I think we will begin to see some other serious repercussions. Do you think air travel will be the same? I thought it was very strict as it was. We may have to submit to cavity searches before too long.
Here's an interesting issue and one that is well to debate on Slashdot. It is said on just about all the major news networks that there has been an intelligence breakdown. That the terrorists use sophisticated encryption measures and that our intelligence agencies are under-funded and don't have the ability to keep tabs on the terrorists. Question: would you be willing to trade your personal privacy for maybe some further measure of security from terrorists? Would you grant the people running Carnivore greater rights into your life in order to perhaps prevent more events like this? Is the encryption export ban such a bad thing when stacked against 50,000 people's lives?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
I don't know if we should put up with a greater intelligence presence. I know that is what we will experience. That is pretty clear. But what is obvious to me is that we must rise above this, we must not live in fear, and we must make these sons-of-bitches PAY for what they've done to assure that they can never do it again.
My point exactly, some people CAN do it, and prefer to. Some physicists can also do advanced calculus in their heads, some pilots can fly around the country without using any navigational aids. It's easier and more convenient for these people, like you claim. The real point is not whether it can be done or not, but rather WHO can do it. You will find that the vast majority of people prefer to use the tools that are available to solve a problem.
When I mentioned that you would not program a complex model (i'm thinking along the line of the chick from Final Fantasy, or even just the SIGGRAPH teakettle, anything more complex than several boxes and triangles and quads) using code I was bringing up the use of tools. You would not use a sharpened stone to cut something if you had a knife lying around. You would not use a stone to drive a nail when there is a hammer, would you? Of course not.
Actually.... I could. Depending on the subject matter
You could, I could too... if I put the thought into it. There is a right tool for the right job. Any physist is smart enough to do the calculus in his head, but the vast majority of them are also humble enough to know that actually breaking out the old calculator once in a while isn't a sign of weakness.
My main realm of endeavor is web programming, I've done some stuff with some websites that I can't believe I was able to pull off. PHP, PERL, ASP, whatever, I can do it and well. When it comes to the HTML output of my scripts, I can code HTML like it was english. I can make tables, forms, anything. Does that mean that I'm too elite to whip out the trusty old Dreamweaver? No, I'll still break it out for fragments of what I need. Why? I could do it by hand. Probably just as fast, but messing with that crap while making it look right distracts from my real purpose of scripting. I use the tools that are available. Some tools are better suited for certain jobs. Thet people that say I will never use a GUI development tool because I can do it all in Vi are missing the big picture.
You wouldn't make a complex 3d model of anything programming polygons... you could. Java3D and OpenGL have ways for this. But to get something that LOOKS decent takes a program like 3DS MAX. You can then use THOSE models in your OpenGL app.
In the same vein, making a GUI would be better suited to a GUI programming tool, with the backend being designed with real code.
Face recognition, however, is not so exact. There are not unlimited unique faces. That's a fact. People look alike ALL THE TIME. Don't try to tell me that you can tell the difference between Gary Busy and Nick Nolte all the time. I'm sure I look like about 30,000 other people on this planet. As do you. If you bring up ethnicity, there are similar problems, chinese people look chinese, white people look white, black people look black. I know you've thought to yourself (and it's a popular thing to stereotype), all those X people look alike. This software will do the same thing.
Also, on your point of a cop being able to recognize you from memory. Yes, a computer would be more accurate. But that is when your face is compared to a discrete number of criminals. The cop can only remember so many people's faces, and you probably don't look like any of them. The image database could contain millions upon millions of images. I guarantee you would look EXACTLY like one or more. So much so that it might be justified to bring you in. PLUS, a cop will see you once in a while, this thing could run your image 100 times a day. Eventually, the combination of light, reflection, angle, image quality will line up just right, and you WILL match someone. It's a fact.
THAT bothers me, and it should bother you too.
What bothers me is that someone is going to be sitting in a control desk, drinking coffee, when his terminal beeps an alarm that there is a pedophile loose in HIS store. He pulls up the profile and it's a real sick bastard, wanted in seven states. Looks just like the guy in the store. Well, he thinks, I better call for backup and 5 minutes later, a perfectly innocent man is taken into custody. They rough him up a little in the car, too, just for fun. And if he resists... even if he used to be innocent, now he looking at some serious charges.
I am sure that this scenario will happen MANY times over. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens MORE often than they take down legitimate criminals. Why? Because this technology CAN'T be perfect, nor even very close. There are over 6 billion people in the world, and of all of them, there can't be more than several thousand face types. Sure, you throw in several combinations of features and you can get pretty good but I think you would still be swinging at less than 50% accuracy with it and THAT's not good enough.
And in things like this where having the same earlobes and chin as someone will get you taken down in a public place..... well, I wouldn't want it to happen to me.
The other groups were doing things with surgical tubing making slingshots and whatnot. My group modeled our launcher after a trebuchet. Actually, the device I had in mind I saw on 'Northern Exposure' that was powered by a truck that would pull a line and swing a huge arm around and fling a piano about 300 feet or so.
The device we ended up making was a rickety old POS made from several pulleys, a box of weights, a fulcrum made from some rebar and two really thick broomsticks. In the end we didn't hit the teacher, but we were the only group to get the egg PAST him. In fact, with some more weights we could have hurled that egg a DAMN far ways.
That was a fun project.
I bet if you sat down to think about it, there are a *LOT* of really off the wall, and downright great uses.
I've seen in other topics that some europeans are reluctant to get involved in the Free Dmitri debacle or have much of a stance on the DMCA. This is absurd, they must also take action to get rid of this stupid law while it's still young, before it spreads to their countries.
Some people say that open source is a virus, that's a lie. The DMCA is a virus! It will spread to the underside of every inch of the globe. It has to be stopped NOW!
I don't suppose that it would take TOO many emails to get them to get their asses in gear.
Holy Shit! Who painted the big red 'Crack me' sign on those servers?
Apparently this sound has some overwhelming draw to attract a human's attention and the best they can describe it is as "chusssh-chusssh-chusssh"?!
I wasn't suggesting it was a bad idea, I was suggesting it was a GOOD idea. My point was that it would never happen!
I think it would be great if such an incident were to bring spotlight to this issue, but I can't ever picture any Russian police force having the nuts to arrest someone like that and have to face US pressure to let him out. I bet one phone call and the guy's out.... not even 20 minutes later.
Could you imagine the shit storm that would result if an american businessman was held in russia for something like that? It would be an inernational incident. On the cover of every newspaper.
Then when you're good and ready, you just tell any infected computer to launch, and it tells all the rest.