Facial recognition is a strong violation of civil liberties.
Please explain. If you must show a photo ID to board a plane, how is comparing one's face to those of known criminals infringing on civil liberties.
...Where there is a will to break the law, there will always be a way. Facial recognition software doesn't address the issues of the 9/11 bombing...
So that means we should give in to the will of law breakers? We can argue all day that any precautionary measure can be circumvented. Put up a kryptonite shield between the cockpit and the passenger area. Then our favorite terrorist group seeds the airlines with their own pilots. There is NO single easy answer to this problem. Nothing can prevent the actions of fanatics on a suicide mission, we can only hope to make it extremely difficult for them. You said it yourself, where there is a will, there is a way.
EXACTLY. The programming broadcast by a media company is their voice, and it is not only their right, but their responsibility to edit their programming to conincide with the message they want to convey. If they feel certain songs are inapropriate given the state of things, it is well within their right to remove those songs from rotation.
Corporate radio (except for howard stern) is crap anyway. Go listen to a college radio station, or NPR.
How is facial recognition at an airport (or any place where security is of the utmost importance) any sort of an infringement on anyones civil liberties? Show me where it says that airline passengers have the "civil liberty" to remain anonymous when boarding an aircraft. It is a federal regulation to show proper ID when boarding a plane. Unfortunately this is easilly circumvented (fake ID, airport drone simply goes through the motions) Using a computer system to facilitate an identity check is no different as far as civil liberties are concerned.
The statement "...there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help." is just plain ignorant. If the USPS can use OCR to identify the addresses scribbled all over the letters we send much more effectively and efficiently than a handful of workers ever could, why the hell would you think this COULDN'T work in an airport?
I have to admit I don't know much about the accuracy of a facial regognition system. But if that is the issue, why not go all out and require ALL passengers to go through a retina or fingerprint scan. Require passports on domestic flights. "You wanna fly, get a passport complete with ret scan" No one is forcing you to get on a plane.
This may have been more pertinent back when I paid $500 for the latest and greatest Intel Pentium II-400. Now with Intel and AMD duking it out in the "Great American PC Price War" it is more of a non-issue really. Back when Intel was the only reliable chip manufacturer (Yes I did try one of them Cyrixes) they could set any price they wanted, and the premium for the top of the heap cpu was ~$200 or more. Right after I spent $500 for my chip, every tech savy bargain hunter in the world bought a celeron 300a and overclocked it to 500mhz or greater. You could get more performance for significantly less money.
Now the 1.4g Athlon I just bought (to replace my aging p2-400 which incidently goes for $58 now) cost just over $150. Sure I could have saved $30 and gone with the next one down, or even saved $80 and gotten a 1g. But come on, $80 only fills my gas tank 3 times.
Now I totally understand if you are talking about spending $568 for a P4-1.8g, or $326 for a P4-1.7g, ($242 markup for.1g) or anything P4, for that matter. Damn those things are expensive. But if the rich gotta-have-its out there don't mind paying for it, thats fine with me. That's why they sell a wide range of cpu's instead of just one. The huge profits from the high end make up for the R&D and other overhead. Honestly how much do you think Intel makes from selling a Celeron 600 for $35?
"de-facto standard" DNE "best tool for the job"
on
Dan Gillmor on WinXP
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· Score: 1
Market competition in the USA is not "may the best product win". Microsoft has taken their market share and status as the "defacto standard" in OS, office productivity, and internet browsing (and soon multimedia and ISP) software through successful advertising legally questionable (ala "monopoly" & "anti-trust") actions. By bundling OEMs with the latest version of Office (through discounts and incentives) and IE, and by introducing incompatibilities with competitors' products, users are basically forced to use MS "everthing" to be compatible with the rest of the world. Their products are arguably not any better than the alternatives, but ther marketing strategies certainly are.
I personally am not too fond of MS software, but use Win2k, Office2k and XP everyday because I need to.
There are two main advantages of this technology: (potentially) ultra-low loss, and increased bandwidth. The increased bandwidth is due to the nature of this type of waveguide to have low to zero dispersion, while the "band-gap" allows for a wider range of wavelengths to be used for WDM.
Now the bad news, this technology is likely a few years off, for telecom anyway, and will certainly be more expensive than silica fiber, which is amazingly cheap these days. Not to mention that the main barrier to any improvements in the fiber part of fiber optic telecommunications is the huge installed base of single mode silica fiber. Installation/right-of-way is the currently biggest cost associated with fiber systems. There is alot of unused bandwidth out there right now and any service provider would be crazy to spend mucho dinero to replace silica with any new technology at this stage in the game.
For the near future, other applications can benefit greatly from this technology. Especially since hollow band-gap waveguides can transmit near, mid and far-IR energy as well. Medical and industrial IR laser applications are longing for a low-loss, high-power IR delivery system.
This is still a very exciting concept and I hope to see more from these guys in the future.
I'm sorry to say that shutting down Napster (if it even goes that far) will accomplish very little. Sure it would establish some sort of precedent about illegal distribution, but it really ends there. There will ALWAYS be people who pirate music, movies, software, etc. through the internet or in their living rooms. This is an inevitible fact. Another fact is that enforcing or policing the means of distribution is simply not possible without compromising the privacy and freedom that we all take for granted. This is why I am allowed to own a gun. Napster doesn't pirate music, people pirate music.
1) Shouldn't you really worry about the guys on the sidewalk selling copied cd's of your music for $5? They are truly stealing from you.
2) Since no one is going to shut down the internet for you, don't you think it is about time for the music industry to embrace it? Others have suggested offering mp3 downloads for a fee. This may reduce, but not stop piracy of studio recordings. There is still plenty of room for profit in merchandising and live shows. There are plenty of *honest* people, true fans who will purchase the artist's CD. And just as many fans who feel ripped off by buying your latest album only to find that they just paid ~$20 for 2 songs they might listen to only twice and can here on the radio about 5 times in any given hour. Consider this a rebellion against the overwhelming supply of "commodity" music on the market today. Give us a reason to pay for those limos you rockstars drive around in.
Corporate rockstars (not Napster) have made music a commodity.
I can almost see where they are coming from. I think he means that they want Napster Inc. aka "the machine" out of business. They feel that Napster Inc are insiting a revolution of sorts for their own profit and gain. The arguement is that Napster Inc is depriving established bands and their record labels of royalties while building the value of Napster as a company. Face it, all the recent media hype (partly fueled by Metallicrap) over Napster has done wonders for its popularity (and future value). They are simply worried about someone else getting rich off of their (and other artists') *hard* work.
My friend is a video artist and wants to submit her work to some galleries. Most of her videos are ~15 minutes each on s-vhs. We were thinking of putting them on CD so we can send them out to galleries and contacts. Any ideas what format (VCD?) to put the video in so they could be _easily_ viewed on PC, mac, etc.? Quality is a perhaps more of an issue than size. Also I was thinking of picking up an All-in-wonder for the capture duties.
I already have a PC that runs windows and plays windows games. Why the hell would I want another one that hooks up to the TV? At least on my windows box I can write my thesis, download porn , burn some cd's and even boot to linux.
I don't see why developers woule like the idea of porting windows games to a PC-ish, windows-ish console. Just release the friggin windows games! For all the crap linux people talk about windows, it sure has a hell of alot of decent games. (Counter-strike beta 6 comes out today)
I also own a PSX (can't play gran turismo 2 on a windows machine.) I will likely buy a PSX2 (gran turismo 2000 or somwthing like that should be out.) I will likely buy the next latest-and-greatest video card for my windows machine. I'm pretty sure I will NOT buy an X-Box.
In the College of Engineering at my university (Rutgers) it is forbidden to use linux on the network. "Multi-user systems are not permitted on the network since they are a security risk for the university and Computing Services can not possibly administer and support each system." They then told me that Solaris was OK to use, if and only if I gave them a root account. I wish they would take a similar approach/attitude.
You aren't paying $5. Student fees/computer fees/tuition/and maybe even tax dollars pay for the university wide liscence. Your $5 only lets you get a copy for your personal use. It's the same at my university. If your machine is on the network you can install and use any of the software that's in the computer labs. You just have to run the keyclient. If you're not on the network you can get a CD for a small fee. But we pay $100 a semester in computer fees and even more in other student fees. They (and other software companies) do offer eductional discounts on software purchased through the university book store, but nothing is $5.
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Facial recognition is a strong violation of civil liberties.
...Where there is a will to break the law, there will always be a way. Facial recognition software doesn't address the issues of the 9/11 bombing...
Please explain. If you must show a photo ID to board a plane, how is comparing one's face to those of known criminals infringing on civil liberties.
So that means we should give in to the will of law breakers? We can argue all day that any precautionary measure can be circumvented. Put up a kryptonite shield between the cockpit and the passenger area. Then our favorite terrorist group seeds the airlines with their own pilots. There is NO single easy answer to this problem. Nothing can prevent the actions of fanatics on a suicide mission, we can only hope to make it extremely difficult for them. You said it yourself, where there is a will, there is a way.
EXACTLY. The programming broadcast by a media company is their voice, and it is not only their right, but their responsibility to edit their programming to conincide with the message they want to convey. If they feel certain songs are inapropriate given the state of things, it is well within their right to remove those songs from rotation.
Corporate radio (except for howard stern) is crap anyway. Go listen to a college radio station, or NPR.
Go read the salon article.
How is facial recognition at an airport (or any place where security is of the utmost importance) any sort of an infringement on anyones civil liberties? Show me where it says that airline passengers have the "civil liberty" to remain anonymous when boarding an aircraft. It is a federal regulation to show proper ID when boarding a plane. Unfortunately this is easilly circumvented (fake ID, airport drone simply goes through the motions) Using a computer system to facilitate an identity check is no different as far as civil liberties are concerned.
The statement "...there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help." is just plain ignorant. If the USPS can use OCR to identify the addresses scribbled all over the letters we send much more effectively and efficiently than a handful of workers ever could, why the hell would you think this COULDN'T work in an airport?
I have to admit I don't know much about the accuracy of a facial regognition system. But if that is the issue, why not go all out and require ALL passengers to go through a retina or fingerprint scan. Require passports on domestic flights. "You wanna fly, get a passport complete with ret scan" No one is forcing you to get on a plane.
This may have been more pertinent back when I paid $500 for the latest and greatest Intel Pentium II-400. Now with Intel and AMD duking it out in the "Great American PC Price War" it is more of a non-issue really. Back when Intel was the only reliable chip manufacturer (Yes I did try one of them Cyrixes) they could set any price they wanted, and the premium for the top of the heap cpu was ~$200 or more. Right after I spent $500 for my chip, every tech savy bargain hunter in the world bought a celeron 300a and overclocked it to 500mhz or greater. You could get more performance for significantly less money.
.1g) or anything P4, for that matter. Damn those things are expensive. But if the rich gotta-have-its out there don't mind paying for it, thats fine with me. That's why they sell a wide range of cpu's instead of just one. The huge profits from the high end make up for the R&D and other overhead. Honestly how much do you think Intel makes from selling a Celeron 600 for $35?
Now the 1.4g Athlon I just bought (to replace my aging p2-400 which incidently goes for $58 now) cost just over $150. Sure I could have saved $30 and gone with the next one down, or even saved $80 and gotten a 1g. But come on, $80 only fills my gas tank 3 times.
Now I totally understand if you are talking about spending $568 for a P4-1.8g, or $326 for a P4-1.7g, ($242 markup for
I personally am not too fond of MS software, but use Win2k, Office2k and XP everyday because I need to.
There are two main advantages of this technology: (potentially) ultra-low loss, and increased bandwidth. The increased bandwidth is due to the nature of this type of waveguide to have low to zero dispersion, while the "band-gap" allows for a wider range of wavelengths to be used for WDM.
Now the bad news, this technology is likely a few years off, for telecom anyway, and will certainly be more expensive than silica fiber, which is amazingly cheap these days. Not to mention that the main barrier to any improvements in the fiber part of fiber optic telecommunications is the huge installed base of single mode silica fiber. Installation/right-of-way is the currently biggest cost associated with fiber systems. There is alot of unused bandwidth out there right now and any service provider would be crazy to spend mucho dinero to replace silica with any new technology at this stage in the game.
For the near future, other applications can benefit greatly from this technology. Especially since hollow band-gap waveguides can transmit near, mid and far-IR energy as well. Medical and industrial IR laser applications are longing for a low-loss, high-power IR delivery system.
This is still a very exciting concept and I hope to see more from these guys in the future.
-Dan
I'm sorry to say that shutting down Napster (if it even goes that far) will accomplish very little. Sure it would establish some sort of precedent about illegal distribution, but it really ends there. There will ALWAYS be people who pirate music, movies, software, etc. through the internet or in their living rooms. This is an inevitible fact. Another fact is that enforcing or policing the means of distribution is simply not possible without compromising the privacy and freedom that we all take for granted. This is why I am allowed to own a gun. Napster doesn't pirate music, people pirate music.
1) Shouldn't you really worry about the guys on the sidewalk selling copied cd's of your music for $5? They are truly stealing from you.
2) Since no one is going to shut down the internet for you, don't you think it is about time for the music industry to embrace it? Others have suggested offering mp3 downloads for a fee. This may reduce, but not stop piracy of studio recordings. There is still plenty of room for profit in merchandising and live shows. There are plenty of *honest* people, true fans who will purchase the artist's CD. And just as many fans who feel ripped off by buying your latest album only to find that they just paid ~$20 for 2 songs they might listen to only twice and can here on the radio about 5 times in any given hour. Consider this a rebellion against the overwhelming supply of "commodity" music on the market today. Give us a reason to pay for those limos you rockstars drive around in.
Corporate rockstars (not Napster) have made music a commodity.
I can almost see where they are coming from. I think he means that they want Napster Inc. aka "the machine" out of business. They feel that Napster Inc are insiting a revolution of sorts for their own profit and gain. The arguement is that Napster Inc is depriving established bands and their record labels of royalties while building the value of Napster as a company. Face it, all the recent media hype (partly fueled by Metallicrap) over Napster has done wonders for its popularity (and future value). They are simply worried about someone else getting rich off of their (and other artists') *hard* work.
My friend is a video artist and wants to submit her work to some galleries. Most of her videos are ~15 minutes each on s-vhs. We were thinking of putting them on CD so we can send them out to galleries and contacts. Any ideas what format (VCD?) to put the video in so they could be _easily_ viewed on PC, mac, etc.? Quality is a perhaps more of an issue than size. Also I was thinking of picking up an All-in-wonder for the capture duties.
I already have a PC that runs windows and plays windows games. Why the hell would I want another one that hooks up to the TV? At least on my windows box I can write my thesis, download porn , burn some cd's and even boot to linux.
I don't see why developers woule like the idea of porting windows games to a PC-ish, windows-ish console. Just release the friggin windows games! For all the crap linux people talk about windows, it sure has a hell of alot of decent games. (Counter-strike beta 6 comes out today)
I also own a PSX (can't play gran turismo 2 on a windows machine.) I will likely buy a PSX2 (gran turismo 2000 or somwthing like that should be out.) I will likely buy the next latest-and-greatest video card for my windows machine. I'm pretty sure I will NOT buy an X-Box.
In the College of Engineering at my university (Rutgers) it is forbidden to use linux on the network. "Multi-user systems are not permitted on the network since they are a security risk for the university and Computing Services can not possibly administer and support each system." They then told me that Solaris was OK to use, if and only if I gave them a root account. I wish they would take a similar approach/attitude.
You aren't paying $5. Student fees/computer fees/tuition/and maybe even tax dollars pay for the university wide liscence. Your $5 only lets you get a copy for your personal use. It's the same at my university. If your machine is on the network you can install and use any of the software that's in the computer labs. You just have to run the keyclient. If you're not on the network you can get a CD for a small fee. But we pay $100 a semester in computer fees and even more in other student fees. They (and other software companies) do offer eductional discounts on software purchased through the university book store, but nothing is $5.