Because it can maybe help people understand that "But isn't open source!" isn't some magic statement that means a piece of software is secure, bug free, and non-evil. Review and testing is important, not just of the code (and for non-obvious things) but of the final compiled product too. That you have the code doesn't mean there isn't a problem, even if you glanced at it doesn't mean there's no problem.
We'll actually get to see a bit in a year or so, as there are some bigger games coming to Linux. A few Kickstarter titles have pledged Linux support as there were some vocal calls for it from backers.
I think though that Linux users are going to be a little disappointed with the results. The graphics driver situation with regards to hardware OpenGL support is pretty bad in Linux. The only driver that seems to support current features, in hardware, without blowing up is the binary nVidia driver.
So the games may well came to Linux, but only run if you have an nVidia card and if you load the binary driver. That is not likely to please the Linux community at large, but there may be no real other option. It is one thing to do a game with fairly simplistic graphics (rendering wise) that just uses SDL or something, it is quite another to make a game that uses current 3D hardware features.
Now a dedicated set of hardware/software like a defined "Steam Box" could solve that of course... But then that's not really gaming for Linux, that's a videogame console that happens to run Linux.
Indy in the context of computer games just means done outside of the publishing industry. Most games, particularly big budget games, are financed and controlled through publishers. A company like EA, MS, 2K, etc puts up the money, either to a studio they own or another studio, to make a game. They then own all the rights and distribution for it.
Indy games are when a company, or maybe just a programmer, goes and makes their own game, no publishers involved. The size and budget can really vary. For example one of the games, listed, FTL, was written by two dudes in China, and they hired another guy to do the music. On the flip side there is a game like Wasteland (not yet released) that has a sizable studio behind it, but is entirely financed through Kickstarter and thus is independent of any publishers.
It's not so much a question of professional vs not, but a question of funding and development models. You can see professional and unprofessional results in both cases. You probably see more unprofessional results with indy games since, well, anyone can release an indy game you just need to write one and stick it on the net.
The main difference though is assets and homogeneity. Games from publishers with big budgets have more assets than indy games, like full voice acting, higher detail art, all that kind of thing. They can afford more of it so they have more of it. They also tend to be more homogeneous. There's a big outlay of money, thus a big risk, so publishers want to stick with formulas proven to work. They are unlikely to take too many risks, do too much different.
You have to remember that Slashdot is full of drama queens and liars, particularly when it comes to issues like the TSA. The TSA is 6 buckets of useless, no question, and due to the low pay and culture of non-accountability, there are people in it who abuse their position. There are plenty of real stories of people getting harassed for no reason, theft by agents, and all kinds of shit like that. However they are actually the minority of incidents. Unsurprisingly "guy passes through security without incident," is not a news story.
So the news on this continues, and people are working to fight against it and have it changed. Makes sense, we shouldn't put up with bullshit from our government. We should push to have things made better. Even though the problems are in the minority, that doesn't mean they are ok. Things need to be fixed.
But then you get on to Slashdot, and combine that with a culture of immaturity, US hate (including from many US citizens), and exaggeration/lying. That leads to what you see. People make up stories about how evil things are, and how they'd "never travel to the US" even though they've probably never thought about it anyhow (overseas travel is still the exception, not the rule for most people). They cry on about how horrible it is and how every person is screwed over.
No truth to it, of course, but that doesn't matter.
Your experience is fairly typical. Most people don't have much trouble. I travel to Canada once or twice a year, and inside the US occasionally, and never have had any problems. Of course I'm white and speak with a Neutral American accent (think CNN) so I'm willing to say that may help.
My experience has varied based on the person I'm talking to. Sometimes, I'll walk by the border with maybe two questions (I am a dual citizen, so I carry a passport from both countries). Other times, they ask a bunch of questions, some rather silly I guess to try and trip people up or whatever. Regardless, after a couple minutes I go on by.
Same shit with the TSA. Sometimes I find agents friendly and smiling, other times I find them looking like they hate their job. Same with Canadian security. Sometimes they seem to know what they are doing, other times they are clueless (in Canada the X-ray agent searched my bag because she didn't recognize my Sonicare toothbrush, and was rather embarrassed when she found it and realized that's what it was and that she hadn't recognized it).
Overall our experience are pretty common, and you can see that just by standing in an airport and watching people go through security. There are outliers, of course, and we should work to get rid of that. Nobody should ever be harassed (you'll never get it down to 0 but that doesn't mean we don't try). But the people on Slashdot whining and bitching they'd never go to the US are just drama queens.
Talk about total false equivalence. First not only are they completely different kinds of acts, rape has a real victim, piracy does not, but indeed the business model can very well induce piracy.
Let me give you an example: I discovered some little French cartoons called Minuscule. It is some funny anthropomorphic 3D rendered insects overlaid on live photography extremely well. I found it charming, and knew my mother would be delighted. That it was French in origin matters not at all as there is no speech, just sound effects. The rights were owned by Disney, by the way.
So I set out to buy her a DVD for Christmas. It was not for sale, DVD or download, anywhere in the US or Canada. Apparently it has never been redone in NTSC format, it was PAL only. Not a problem, I have the video software necessary to do such a remaster. So I found it in France on their site. No English anywhere, the whole site was in French. With the help of Google, I translate it and give it my info. It is going to be stupid expensive to get, like 10 Euro from the DVD but then 20 Euro to ship it. Fine, I'm ok with that, mom will love it.
I hit checkout and the first English ever pops up, it says basically "We are not allowed to sell this to your country."
So fuck them, I pirated it. I went out of my way to buy a copy, far more than was reasonable, and still got shut down. They had decided this "wasn't for the US market" and I wasn't allowed to have it.
That is what people are talking about. Now Game of Thrones is a somewhat lesser case, but still. To watch it, online or not, you have to have an HBO subscription. To have an HBO subscription you have to have cable TV, and a pretty expensive package at that. The minimum here is $60/month before taxes to get the package needed to have HBO, which is then an additional fee. That's a lot of damn money.
What if someone does not need or want (and maybe can't afford) cable TV, but would be willing to pay for an HBO subscription, or be willing to pay to get episodes of the show? Nope, sorry, they won't do that. You shell out a ton for cable or you go to hell.
So it is very realistic to talk about that pushing people to pirate. Compare that to, say, South Park. Here when an episode launches on TV, you can view it free (with ads) online. You can also buy the episodes ala carte at Amazon, or get everything but the most current season as part of a Netflix subscription. They make it very easy to watch it, even if you do not wish to have a cable plan that includes Comedy Central.
Some people pirate things just because they can, or because they won't pay for anything. However others pirate because getting it legit is very expensive, or perhaps flat out impossible legally.
You also can't really argue any harm when someone pirates something that they could not buy otherwise. There isn't even any theoretical harm: They could not spend money on it, so there isn't even a theoretical loss.
So yes, all currencies are just theoretical constructs, they have value purely because we believe they do. Yes even in the case of things like gold coins. If the world suddenly decided to stop taking a currency, it would cease to be one. Money is only money if you can spend it, and money is only money if people do spend it.
However the difference is that US dollars are legal tender in the US. What that means is the government requires taxes to be paid in them, and so all of the country's residents who pay taxes, which is most adults that aren't retired, have to get US dollars to do so. Speaking of the retirement thing, it is also the currency that the government pays out to retirees. Also, the government requires it to be accepted for all debts. So if you owe someone in the US money, they have to accept its value in US dollars to settle the debt. They cannot require you to get another currency.
That little reality means that there will always be a good deal of interest in US dollars so long as the US exists. There are even more factors that make it much, much more desirable and useful, but so long as it is what you use to do business with the government and to settle debts, it is what will get used all over.
Same deal in other countries. If you move to Canada, you'll find you need Canadian dollars. There is a good deal of acceptance of US dollars there since there is a lot of tourism and the US dollar has a sort of special status as the world's reserve currency, but you can't function entirely in them. The Canadian government wants to be paid in Canadian dollars and you'll encounter other agencies that are the same. The fact that it is a national currency keeps it going.
More or less, national currencies are backed by the economy of that nation. Because of that economy, they are useful and valuable to at least the people in that nation.
Bitcoin has none of that. It is just some geeks faffing about that read Cryptonomicon and thought it was a guide, not a work of fiction. Very, very few places accept it, and they just use it for payments, they immediately convert it to a real currency. It fluctuates as much or more than a thinly traded stock, any currency that fluctuated like it did would be said to be in extreme crisis. It's value is almost entirely based on speculation. That means that for its value to hold or increase, the hype and speculation needs to continue. If it vanishes, the price will crash, perhaps down to zero.
Real currencies that actually get used as currencies don't need hype to keep them going.
One (or more than one) of the editors/staff is in to it and thus they push it here. Bitcoin is only valuable so long as people keep giving a shit and buying in to it. If suddenly everyone ignored it, the value would drop to zero. It has no national economy behind it, there are no taxes you can pay with it, there is no reason to hold it unless you are playing the bubble game with it. So those in Bitcoins need it to keep getting hype.
Or, go move to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or other similar place with effectively no government and see how unlimited liberty really works. Turns out that when there's no regulation, when people can do whatever they please you get a lot of people who's idea of "freedom" is "the freedom to oppress, kill, and harm others."
There's a reason why free nations actually end up needing a government, laws, regulations, and all that kind of shit. You have to keep people form shitting on the rights of others. If you don't, some people will, it is just the way humans are.
Some security is necessary if we want individual liberty, and if we want to be able to live and enjoy that liberty. That does not mean that all security is good, that we should trade off liberty for no reason (like with the TSA, which isn't even useful security wise and is just a dong and pony show) but stop quoting this like it is some kind of maxim, like we should just toss out all regulation and let people do whatever the fuck they want. We can see, time and time again, in history what happens when that goes on. the result is not good.
Some of the time I most value is time spent with my family, particularly my parents since they are aging and it isn't something I'm going to be able to do forever. I have nothing to show for it, I take home with me nothing but memories, and yet I value those memories highly.
I'll never understand the attitude I see online sometimes where people value only actually creating something, or accomplishing something. That as though if you aren't spending your time building something, fixing something, creating something, etc you are just useless.
On the contrary, I find that much of my time spent with non-tangible results to be of value. Even simple personal things. If I spend a weekend lazing around, playing video games, petting my kitty, sleeping in, and so on I have nothing to show for it. However I enjoy it, and I feel relaxed and happy, so how can you call that worthless?
It seems to me to be a rather empty existence if you define your worth by nothing but what you make. I'm not saying don't take pride in things you create, I know I do (well, when they are good at least) but if your definition of self is only in what you make, then what does that really say? What is the point? If personal happiness and enjoyment don't matter, then why bother? If they do matter, then why define them so narrowly to only include the tangible?
Many hardcore lefties who have the tribal, partisan mentality of "My side good, other side bad," will keep blaming Bush for whatever is bad until there is another high enough profile Republican to blame, probably another president.
Same shit you see now from the righties. Obama has suddenly become the new favourite target for everything bad. Clinton was the favourite but now it is Obama. He's the newest, most powerful "other guy" so they dump all the bad shit at his feet.
Unfortunately, many humans are still very tribalistic and you see it in how they relate to politics. Their tribe, whatever they identify that as, are the good guys, the other tribe is the bad guys and thus all the bad things are the other guys fault.
That is a place where you see that level of volatility. Something that can be worth a ton one week, down a bunch the next, back up, back down, etc. Also has daily volatility like one. If you compare the charts to a thinly traded stock, it looks much more like that than a currency.
Also you'd have to see how reflexive the market would be for large amounts of exchange. You can buy or sell a billion dollars worth of USD, EUR, JPY and so on without much of a change in price. So if you have $1 Billion in Euros you can change it to $1 Billion in US Dollars pretty quickly and easily.
With Bitcoins? Probably not. You sell a whole bunch of them you are likely to find the market highly reflexive, meaning that the price will tank and you won't get near what you thought you would. So while you can sell a Bitcoin for around $90, you cannot likely sell 100,000 Bitcoins for $9,000,000, the price would swing down drastically and you'd get a lot less.
But there seems to be this misunderstanding that China can just "call in" the loans. They can't. US securities are sold for fixed periods of time. They pay off on a given date, period. There is no ability to call them due early.
So all someone can do who wishes to cash out early is to sell them on the open market, and of course if you dump a ton of them the price will crash meaning you'll take a sizable loss on your investment.
People really need to go and look at how public debt in the US works before they chatter about it. Too many think it is the US going to China The Loan Shark and begging for money on any terms. Quite the opposite, it is China buying US securities (denominated in US dollars, held and tracked in the US exchange) when they are auctioned off.
It is a fairly normal occurrence, and there are companies who have multiple ships for the express purpose of fixing breaks. You usually just don't hear about it unless it is accompanied by some kind of conspiracy theory. In reality, cables get damaged and fixed all the time. It happens often enough that it is usually not news.
That is real common with Christians, and indeed people of all faiths. Go to a church and try to get people to donate money for good works, and you'll get some but not much. Try to get the same people to donate for something to make the church more beautiful? They'll toss money your way.
A functional tracking system would be a good start. It isn't like the package market is something they just can't do. They just do a crap job of it so people use the other carriers all the time. The post office could and should improve their service and they'd probably see more use.
Either it isn't thought through, or it is chimera. The thing is if you what you are worried about it corrupt cop does something you record, they stop you, and take the recording away, encryption does fuck-all to stop that. The cops steal the gear, that is that.
The solution to that is a backup, or a fake item. A setup where the obvious camera isn't the one that records, or that there is a second SD card elsewhere that has a copy or something.
Encryption is only useful if he wants to be able to cover his tracks, and selectively release video. This is precisely what corrupt police like to do with their dash cams. They use them to protect themselves, but turn them off or "lose" the video when they are breaking the law.
So to me it implies that he probably like breaking traffic law, and doesn't want the evidence of that around, but still wants to be able to record things.
Encryption being on, or not on, devices is not because of any kind of backroom dealings and is all up to what a company feels it useful, and what they want to spend on it. There are popular devices out there with very good, as in the police can't bypass it, encryption. You can do it on an Android phone, the full device encryption is extremely robust. It is just a pain in the butt to use so most don't.
When a company considers providing encryption, and in what capacity, there is a few things they have to evaluate:
1) What does it cost? It isn't free. There is implementation and support time, if nothing else. Often there is more cost then that in that an additional chip has to be added to handle said encryption at a fast enough pace. While AES might not seem like much load on a desktop processor, it can hit a tiny embedded microcontroller hard.
2) How hard will it be for users to use it? The more difficult something is to use, the less people that will want it. If the encryption is something transparent that just happens as a natural function of the device, then cool. However if it requires entering a complex password every time you turn it on (as encryption like this would) then most users are not interested.
3) How easily can they fuck it up, and how badly? Remember that good crypto has no back door, no key recovery. So if someone forgets their password, and people do, all the time, they are fucked. This then can lead to rage against the company that made the product, hence why some companies will use a weak implementation with a backdoor they have to get people in.
4) How many people will give a shit? In a given market, this can vary. For some markets, security is important and people will deal with it. For others, they really don't care.
They then look at all that and decide if it is worth doing or not.
However there's lot of products out there with good crypto. If the government is preventing it through "backroom deals" they are doing a shitty job. As I said Android phones have a great implementation, as to Blackberries. Windows Pro and Enterprise editions have a solid FDE solution included, as well as per file encryption, and you can buy other solutions for a lot of the big vendors (Symantec, Sophos, etc). Lots of hardware is getting it implemented internally. You find many SAS disks can do on-disk encryption and LTO-5 units all do it.
In the case of dash cams? People don't want it. They don't want to have to key in a password each time they power on the camera (which is the only way it'd be secure). They WANT the footage to be accessible.
To me, it sounds like this guy is like the police themselves: He wants recordings, but only for the things he wants. He wants to be able to break the law, and not have people able to get that recording, but then get at other parts of the recording.
Encryption would help against corrupt law enforcement since they'd just take the camera/card. You'd want a backup, not encryption, unless the objective was for you and only you to be able to choose what people can see.
Putting a project on Kickstarter doesn't mean it'll magically get cash. It has to have a few things:
1) It has to be something people actually want. Just because you think your idea is really cool, doesn't mean that anyone else does. If people don't want it, then they aren't going to fund it. This can be a real issue as many people seem to think a knockoff or redo is something that people should get all excited about. So it has to be something of interest first and foremost, or it'll never happen.
2) People have to think you can deliver. If you have no credentials and look all disorganized, they won't feel confident their money will be well spent, and thus won't contribute. You have to be able to convince people that you can do what you say you can do. This is why projects that are done by known names (like videogames done by studios with a number of titles behind them) or projects that already have prototypes tend to have an easier time getting funding. People see that there is ability to deliver.
3) You have to get the word out. Some people sniff around Kickstarter every day, looking for stuff to fund. Most don't. They have to get notified about it. So they have to read about it on a website they look at. Publicity matters, if you don't have it, people will just never know, and thus will not contribute.
So it's all kinds of not surprising that many projects don't get funded. I've looked at plenty of projects and said "No thanks." Either I decided that it wasn't something I'd be interested in having, or I did not feel confident that they could deliver.
The police don't just go away. They have time and numbers on their side. Supposing these guys did hole up in their bunker and refuse entry, and supposing the police weren't willing to force (shaped charges will take out a bunker door no problem) it either because they were worried about hurting someone on the inside or worried the people inside were armed, they can just wait. All they have to do is cut all services, and set up a perimeter to block access in and out. Then just wait. They'll run out of supplies, probably sooner rather than later, and hunger and thirst are excellent motivators to surrender.
So no, they didn't "fend off" a SWAT team. Maybe one time the police came and wanted to look around, but lacked a warrant and they said "go away" and so the police did (more likely the whole story is bullshit) but that's it. Had the police really wanted in, they would have gotten in.
Police don't, as a general rule, have a good handle on the Internet. Yes the correct answer is to just cut off the access to this location. Cut the Internet off, they are done. This wouldn't be hard to do, but you have to know to do it and go and look and see who you have to talk to.
Of course it all sounds a little ridiculous given the "we can't get in to the bunker" thing. That is just them claiming it. In the real world, the police would probably get in fairly fast. I know that people think nuclear bunkers are impenetrable but they really aren't. They can deal with a nuclear blast, which is just an overpressure of so many PSI for so many seconds, not some dude with a cutting torch or shaped charges on the door.
1) You don't pay extra for voice mail and SMS on most networks. Maybe on some of the pre-pay small networks (who buy time for the bigger ones) but the plans these days seem to be all inclusive with those. Verizion, the company I'm with, only seems to have unlimited calls (to any number in the US at any time), and unlimited SMS. Also includes voicemail, 3-way calling, tethering, etc, etc. This is pretty standard near as I know.
2) Ireland is, as you say, a small country. It is just barely larger than West Virginia, which is the 41st state in size. The continental US is larger than the entirety of Europe. The plans we are talking about here offer calling, and roaming, around that entire area. What would it cost you to get a plan with unlimited calling (inbound and outbound, to all number) and roaming to Sweden, Spain, Germany, Italy, and so on?
I certainly won't say the US carriers are perfect, or even that good, but I think some of the people in the EU have a bit of a skewed view of just how large the US is and what area they are covering.
I said never unless they can work with metal. When that day comes, if they can make it strong enough, then maybe there is a concern. However to long as they are playing with plastic, they can't print a gun. There are no known plastics anywhere near the strength required for the action parts of a gun.
The problem with ceramics is they are too hard, and thus too brittle. Steel works because it is strong, but flexible. It has give to it. You can actually see parts on a gun flex at various times when fired (the bolt on an AK-47 tends to flex a bit on closing). The metal can take the stress, bend a bit, and return to shape.
Advanced ceramics are much harder, but thus more brittle. They don't give, until you suddenly hit the failure point and they shatter.
You can see this with ceramic knives. They are usually Zirconium oxide. They are great as they don't mess with the flavour of some foods, as metal does, basically never need to be sharpened, are wash to wash and so on. So why then are they not the one and only choice for good chefs? Because they are brittle. They are great for slicing veggies and so on, but you carve a turkey with them and you risk breaking them. They will stand solid at a point where steel will bend, but they will break at a point where steel is still bending and will return to shape.
Hence it is not a material suited to gun barrels. I've heard chatter of people that think it is a neat idea, I've never seen anyone demonstrate it wouldn't fail catastrophically after one shot.
All this is beside the point though, 3D printers can no more work with ceramics than they can with metal at this point.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it can maybe help people understand that "But isn't open source!" isn't some magic statement that means a piece of software is secure, bug free, and non-evil. Review and testing is important, not just of the code (and for non-obvious things) but of the final compiled product too. That you have the code doesn't mean there isn't a problem, even if you glanced at it doesn't mean there's no problem.
We'll actually get to see a bit in a year or so, as there are some bigger games coming to Linux. A few Kickstarter titles have pledged Linux support as there were some vocal calls for it from backers.
I think though that Linux users are going to be a little disappointed with the results. The graphics driver situation with regards to hardware OpenGL support is pretty bad in Linux. The only driver that seems to support current features, in hardware, without blowing up is the binary nVidia driver.
So the games may well came to Linux, but only run if you have an nVidia card and if you load the binary driver. That is not likely to please the Linux community at large, but there may be no real other option. It is one thing to do a game with fairly simplistic graphics (rendering wise) that just uses SDL or something, it is quite another to make a game that uses current 3D hardware features.
Now a dedicated set of hardware/software like a defined "Steam Box" could solve that of course... But then that's not really gaming for Linux, that's a videogame console that happens to run Linux.
Indy in the context of computer games just means done outside of the publishing industry. Most games, particularly big budget games, are financed and controlled through publishers. A company like EA, MS, 2K, etc puts up the money, either to a studio they own or another studio, to make a game. They then own all the rights and distribution for it.
Indy games are when a company, or maybe just a programmer, goes and makes their own game, no publishers involved. The size and budget can really vary. For example one of the games, listed, FTL, was written by two dudes in China, and they hired another guy to do the music. On the flip side there is a game like Wasteland (not yet released) that has a sizable studio behind it, but is entirely financed through Kickstarter and thus is independent of any publishers.
It's not so much a question of professional vs not, but a question of funding and development models. You can see professional and unprofessional results in both cases. You probably see more unprofessional results with indy games since, well, anyone can release an indy game you just need to write one and stick it on the net.
The main difference though is assets and homogeneity. Games from publishers with big budgets have more assets than indy games, like full voice acting, higher detail art, all that kind of thing. They can afford more of it so they have more of it. They also tend to be more homogeneous. There's a big outlay of money, thus a big risk, so publishers want to stick with formulas proven to work. They are unlikely to take too many risks, do too much different.
You have to remember that Slashdot is full of drama queens and liars, particularly when it comes to issues like the TSA. The TSA is 6 buckets of useless, no question, and due to the low pay and culture of non-accountability, there are people in it who abuse their position. There are plenty of real stories of people getting harassed for no reason, theft by agents, and all kinds of shit like that. However they are actually the minority of incidents. Unsurprisingly "guy passes through security without incident," is not a news story.
So the news on this continues, and people are working to fight against it and have it changed. Makes sense, we shouldn't put up with bullshit from our government. We should push to have things made better. Even though the problems are in the minority, that doesn't mean they are ok. Things need to be fixed.
But then you get on to Slashdot, and combine that with a culture of immaturity, US hate (including from many US citizens), and exaggeration/lying. That leads to what you see. People make up stories about how evil things are, and how they'd "never travel to the US" even though they've probably never thought about it anyhow (overseas travel is still the exception, not the rule for most people). They cry on about how horrible it is and how every person is screwed over.
No truth to it, of course, but that doesn't matter.
Your experience is fairly typical. Most people don't have much trouble. I travel to Canada once or twice a year, and inside the US occasionally, and never have had any problems. Of course I'm white and speak with a Neutral American accent (think CNN) so I'm willing to say that may help.
My experience has varied based on the person I'm talking to. Sometimes, I'll walk by the border with maybe two questions (I am a dual citizen, so I carry a passport from both countries). Other times, they ask a bunch of questions, some rather silly I guess to try and trip people up or whatever. Regardless, after a couple minutes I go on by.
Same shit with the TSA. Sometimes I find agents friendly and smiling, other times I find them looking like they hate their job. Same with Canadian security. Sometimes they seem to know what they are doing, other times they are clueless (in Canada the X-ray agent searched my bag because she didn't recognize my Sonicare toothbrush, and was rather embarrassed when she found it and realized that's what it was and that she hadn't recognized it).
Overall our experience are pretty common, and you can see that just by standing in an airport and watching people go through security. There are outliers, of course, and we should work to get rid of that. Nobody should ever be harassed (you'll never get it down to 0 but that doesn't mean we don't try). But the people on Slashdot whining and bitching they'd never go to the US are just drama queens.
Talk about total false equivalence. First not only are they completely different kinds of acts, rape has a real victim, piracy does not, but indeed the business model can very well induce piracy.
Let me give you an example: I discovered some little French cartoons called Minuscule. It is some funny anthropomorphic 3D rendered insects overlaid on live photography extremely well. I found it charming, and knew my mother would be delighted. That it was French in origin matters not at all as there is no speech, just sound effects. The rights were owned by Disney, by the way.
So I set out to buy her a DVD for Christmas. It was not for sale, DVD or download, anywhere in the US or Canada. Apparently it has never been redone in NTSC format, it was PAL only. Not a problem, I have the video software necessary to do such a remaster. So I found it in France on their site. No English anywhere, the whole site was in French. With the help of Google, I translate it and give it my info. It is going to be stupid expensive to get, like 10 Euro from the DVD but then 20 Euro to ship it. Fine, I'm ok with that, mom will love it.
I hit checkout and the first English ever pops up, it says basically "We are not allowed to sell this to your country."
So fuck them, I pirated it. I went out of my way to buy a copy, far more than was reasonable, and still got shut down. They had decided this "wasn't for the US market" and I wasn't allowed to have it.
That is what people are talking about. Now Game of Thrones is a somewhat lesser case, but still. To watch it, online or not, you have to have an HBO subscription. To have an HBO subscription you have to have cable TV, and a pretty expensive package at that. The minimum here is $60/month before taxes to get the package needed to have HBO, which is then an additional fee. That's a lot of damn money.
What if someone does not need or want (and maybe can't afford) cable TV, but would be willing to pay for an HBO subscription, or be willing to pay to get episodes of the show? Nope, sorry, they won't do that. You shell out a ton for cable or you go to hell.
So it is very realistic to talk about that pushing people to pirate. Compare that to, say, South Park. Here when an episode launches on TV, you can view it free (with ads) online. You can also buy the episodes ala carte at Amazon, or get everything but the most current season as part of a Netflix subscription. They make it very easy to watch it, even if you do not wish to have a cable plan that includes Comedy Central.
Some people pirate things just because they can, or because they won't pay for anything. However others pirate because getting it legit is very expensive, or perhaps flat out impossible legally.
You also can't really argue any harm when someone pirates something that they could not buy otherwise. There isn't even any theoretical harm: They could not spend money on it, so there isn't even a theoretical loss.
So yes, all currencies are just theoretical constructs, they have value purely because we believe they do. Yes even in the case of things like gold coins. If the world suddenly decided to stop taking a currency, it would cease to be one. Money is only money if you can spend it, and money is only money if people do spend it.
However the difference is that US dollars are legal tender in the US. What that means is the government requires taxes to be paid in them, and so all of the country's residents who pay taxes, which is most adults that aren't retired, have to get US dollars to do so. Speaking of the retirement thing, it is also the currency that the government pays out to retirees. Also, the government requires it to be accepted for all debts. So if you owe someone in the US money, they have to accept its value in US dollars to settle the debt. They cannot require you to get another currency.
That little reality means that there will always be a good deal of interest in US dollars so long as the US exists. There are even more factors that make it much, much more desirable and useful, but so long as it is what you use to do business with the government and to settle debts, it is what will get used all over.
Same deal in other countries. If you move to Canada, you'll find you need Canadian dollars. There is a good deal of acceptance of US dollars there since there is a lot of tourism and the US dollar has a sort of special status as the world's reserve currency, but you can't function entirely in them. The Canadian government wants to be paid in Canadian dollars and you'll encounter other agencies that are the same. The fact that it is a national currency keeps it going.
More or less, national currencies are backed by the economy of that nation. Because of that economy, they are useful and valuable to at least the people in that nation.
Bitcoin has none of that. It is just some geeks faffing about that read Cryptonomicon and thought it was a guide, not a work of fiction. Very, very few places accept it, and they just use it for payments, they immediately convert it to a real currency. It fluctuates as much or more than a thinly traded stock, any currency that fluctuated like it did would be said to be in extreme crisis. It's value is almost entirely based on speculation. That means that for its value to hold or increase, the hype and speculation needs to continue. If it vanishes, the price will crash, perhaps down to zero.
Real currencies that actually get used as currencies don't need hype to keep them going.
One (or more than one) of the editors/staff is in to it and thus they push it here. Bitcoin is only valuable so long as people keep giving a shit and buying in to it. If suddenly everyone ignored it, the value would drop to zero. It has no national economy behind it, there are no taxes you can pay with it, there is no reason to hold it unless you are playing the bubble game with it. So those in Bitcoins need it to keep getting hype.
Or, go move to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or other similar place with effectively no government and see how unlimited liberty really works. Turns out that when there's no regulation, when people can do whatever they please you get a lot of people who's idea of "freedom" is "the freedom to oppress, kill, and harm others."
There's a reason why free nations actually end up needing a government, laws, regulations, and all that kind of shit. You have to keep people form shitting on the rights of others. If you don't, some people will, it is just the way humans are.
Some security is necessary if we want individual liberty, and if we want to be able to live and enjoy that liberty. That does not mean that all security is good, that we should trade off liberty for no reason (like with the TSA, which isn't even useful security wise and is just a dong and pony show) but stop quoting this like it is some kind of maxim, like we should just toss out all regulation and let people do whatever the fuck they want. We can see, time and time again, in history what happens when that goes on. the result is not good.
Some of the time I most value is time spent with my family, particularly my parents since they are aging and it isn't something I'm going to be able to do forever. I have nothing to show for it, I take home with me nothing but memories, and yet I value those memories highly.
I'll never understand the attitude I see online sometimes where people value only actually creating something, or accomplishing something. That as though if you aren't spending your time building something, fixing something, creating something, etc you are just useless.
On the contrary, I find that much of my time spent with non-tangible results to be of value. Even simple personal things. If I spend a weekend lazing around, playing video games, petting my kitty, sleeping in, and so on I have nothing to show for it. However I enjoy it, and I feel relaxed and happy, so how can you call that worthless?
It seems to me to be a rather empty existence if you define your worth by nothing but what you make. I'm not saying don't take pride in things you create, I know I do (well, when they are good at least) but if your definition of self is only in what you make, then what does that really say? What is the point? If personal happiness and enjoyment don't matter, then why bother? If they do matter, then why define them so narrowly to only include the tangible?
Many hardcore lefties who have the tribal, partisan mentality of "My side good, other side bad," will keep blaming Bush for whatever is bad until there is another high enough profile Republican to blame, probably another president.
Same shit you see now from the righties. Obama has suddenly become the new favourite target for everything bad. Clinton was the favourite but now it is Obama. He's the newest, most powerful "other guy" so they dump all the bad shit at his feet.
Unfortunately, many humans are still very tribalistic and you see it in how they relate to politics. Their tribe, whatever they identify that as, are the good guys, the other tribe is the bad guys and thus all the bad things are the other guys fault.
Do remember the Internet has a long and perfect memory of claims you make.
That is a place where you see that level of volatility. Something that can be worth a ton one week, down a bunch the next, back up, back down, etc. Also has daily volatility like one. If you compare the charts to a thinly traded stock, it looks much more like that than a currency.
Also you'd have to see how reflexive the market would be for large amounts of exchange. You can buy or sell a billion dollars worth of USD, EUR, JPY and so on without much of a change in price. So if you have $1 Billion in Euros you can change it to $1 Billion in US Dollars pretty quickly and easily.
With Bitcoins? Probably not. You sell a whole bunch of them you are likely to find the market highly reflexive, meaning that the price will tank and you won't get near what you thought you would. So while you can sell a Bitcoin for around $90, you cannot likely sell 100,000 Bitcoins for $9,000,000, the price would swing down drastically and you'd get a lot less.
But there seems to be this misunderstanding that China can just "call in" the loans. They can't. US securities are sold for fixed periods of time. They pay off on a given date, period. There is no ability to call them due early.
So all someone can do who wishes to cash out early is to sell them on the open market, and of course if you dump a ton of them the price will crash meaning you'll take a sizable loss on your investment.
People really need to go and look at how public debt in the US works before they chatter about it. Too many think it is the US going to China The Loan Shark and begging for money on any terms. Quite the opposite, it is China buying US securities (denominated in US dollars, held and tracked in the US exchange) when they are auctioned off.
It is a fairly normal occurrence, and there are companies who have multiple ships for the express purpose of fixing breaks. You usually just don't hear about it unless it is accompanied by some kind of conspiracy theory. In reality, cables get damaged and fixed all the time. It happens often enough that it is usually not news.
That is real common with Christians, and indeed people of all faiths. Go to a church and try to get people to donate money for good works, and you'll get some but not much. Try to get the same people to donate for something to make the church more beautiful? They'll toss money your way.
A functional tracking system would be a good start. It isn't like the package market is something they just can't do. They just do a crap job of it so people use the other carriers all the time. The post office could and should improve their service and they'd probably see more use.
Either it isn't thought through, or it is chimera. The thing is if you what you are worried about it corrupt cop does something you record, they stop you, and take the recording away, encryption does fuck-all to stop that. The cops steal the gear, that is that.
The solution to that is a backup, or a fake item. A setup where the obvious camera isn't the one that records, or that there is a second SD card elsewhere that has a copy or something.
Encryption is only useful if he wants to be able to cover his tracks, and selectively release video. This is precisely what corrupt police like to do with their dash cams. They use them to protect themselves, but turn them off or "lose" the video when they are breaking the law.
So to me it implies that he probably like breaking traffic law, and doesn't want the evidence of that around, but still wants to be able to record things.
Encryption being on, or not on, devices is not because of any kind of backroom dealings and is all up to what a company feels it useful, and what they want to spend on it. There are popular devices out there with very good, as in the police can't bypass it, encryption. You can do it on an Android phone, the full device encryption is extremely robust. It is just a pain in the butt to use so most don't.
When a company considers providing encryption, and in what capacity, there is a few things they have to evaluate:
1) What does it cost? It isn't free. There is implementation and support time, if nothing else. Often there is more cost then that in that an additional chip has to be added to handle said encryption at a fast enough pace. While AES might not seem like much load on a desktop processor, it can hit a tiny embedded microcontroller hard.
2) How hard will it be for users to use it? The more difficult something is to use, the less people that will want it. If the encryption is something transparent that just happens as a natural function of the device, then cool. However if it requires entering a complex password every time you turn it on (as encryption like this would) then most users are not interested.
3) How easily can they fuck it up, and how badly? Remember that good crypto has no back door, no key recovery. So if someone forgets their password, and people do, all the time, they are fucked. This then can lead to rage against the company that made the product, hence why some companies will use a weak implementation with a backdoor they have to get people in.
4) How many people will give a shit? In a given market, this can vary. For some markets, security is important and people will deal with it. For others, they really don't care.
They then look at all that and decide if it is worth doing or not.
However there's lot of products out there with good crypto. If the government is preventing it through "backroom deals" they are doing a shitty job. As I said Android phones have a great implementation, as to Blackberries. Windows Pro and Enterprise editions have a solid FDE solution included, as well as per file encryption, and you can buy other solutions for a lot of the big vendors (Symantec, Sophos, etc). Lots of hardware is getting it implemented internally. You find many SAS disks can do on-disk encryption and LTO-5 units all do it.
In the case of dash cams? People don't want it. They don't want to have to key in a password each time they power on the camera (which is the only way it'd be secure). They WANT the footage to be accessible.
To me, it sounds like this guy is like the police themselves: He wants recordings, but only for the things he wants. He wants to be able to break the law, and not have people able to get that recording, but then get at other parts of the recording.
Encryption would help against corrupt law enforcement since they'd just take the camera/card. You'd want a backup, not encryption, unless the objective was for you and only you to be able to choose what people can see.
Putting a project on Kickstarter doesn't mean it'll magically get cash. It has to have a few things:
1) It has to be something people actually want. Just because you think your idea is really cool, doesn't mean that anyone else does. If people don't want it, then they aren't going to fund it. This can be a real issue as many people seem to think a knockoff or redo is something that people should get all excited about. So it has to be something of interest first and foremost, or it'll never happen.
2) People have to think you can deliver. If you have no credentials and look all disorganized, they won't feel confident their money will be well spent, and thus won't contribute. You have to be able to convince people that you can do what you say you can do. This is why projects that are done by known names (like videogames done by studios with a number of titles behind them) or projects that already have prototypes tend to have an easier time getting funding. People see that there is ability to deliver.
3) You have to get the word out. Some people sniff around Kickstarter every day, looking for stuff to fund. Most don't. They have to get notified about it. So they have to read about it on a website they look at. Publicity matters, if you don't have it, people will just never know, and thus will not contribute.
So it's all kinds of not surprising that many projects don't get funded. I've looked at plenty of projects and said "No thanks." Either I decided that it wasn't something I'd be interested in having, or I did not feel confident that they could deliver.
The police don't just go away. They have time and numbers on their side. Supposing these guys did hole up in their bunker and refuse entry, and supposing the police weren't willing to force (shaped charges will take out a bunker door no problem) it either because they were worried about hurting someone on the inside or worried the people inside were armed, they can just wait. All they have to do is cut all services, and set up a perimeter to block access in and out. Then just wait. They'll run out of supplies, probably sooner rather than later, and hunger and thirst are excellent motivators to surrender.
So no, they didn't "fend off" a SWAT team. Maybe one time the police came and wanted to look around, but lacked a warrant and they said "go away" and so the police did (more likely the whole story is bullshit) but that's it. Had the police really wanted in, they would have gotten in.
Police don't, as a general rule, have a good handle on the Internet. Yes the correct answer is to just cut off the access to this location. Cut the Internet off, they are done. This wouldn't be hard to do, but you have to know to do it and go and look and see who you have to talk to.
Of course it all sounds a little ridiculous given the "we can't get in to the bunker" thing. That is just them claiming it. In the real world, the police would probably get in fairly fast. I know that people think nuclear bunkers are impenetrable but they really aren't. They can deal with a nuclear blast, which is just an overpressure of so many PSI for so many seconds, not some dude with a cutting torch or shaped charges on the door.
1) You don't pay extra for voice mail and SMS on most networks. Maybe on some of the pre-pay small networks (who buy time for the bigger ones) but the plans these days seem to be all inclusive with those. Verizion, the company I'm with, only seems to have unlimited calls (to any number in the US at any time), and unlimited SMS. Also includes voicemail, 3-way calling, tethering, etc, etc. This is pretty standard near as I know.
2) Ireland is, as you say, a small country. It is just barely larger than West Virginia, which is the 41st state in size. The continental US is larger than the entirety of Europe. The plans we are talking about here offer calling, and roaming, around that entire area. What would it cost you to get a plan with unlimited calling (inbound and outbound, to all number) and roaming to Sweden, Spain, Germany, Italy, and so on?
I certainly won't say the US carriers are perfect, or even that good, but I think some of the people in the EU have a bit of a skewed view of just how large the US is and what area they are covering.
I said never unless they can work with metal. When that day comes, if they can make it strong enough, then maybe there is a concern. However to long as they are playing with plastic, they can't print a gun. There are no known plastics anywhere near the strength required for the action parts of a gun.
The problem with ceramics is they are too hard, and thus too brittle. Steel works because it is strong, but flexible. It has give to it. You can actually see parts on a gun flex at various times when fired (the bolt on an AK-47 tends to flex a bit on closing). The metal can take the stress, bend a bit, and return to shape.
Advanced ceramics are much harder, but thus more brittle. They don't give, until you suddenly hit the failure point and they shatter.
You can see this with ceramic knives. They are usually Zirconium oxide. They are great as they don't mess with the flavour of some foods, as metal does, basically never need to be sharpened, are wash to wash and so on. So why then are they not the one and only choice for good chefs? Because they are brittle. They are great for slicing veggies and so on, but you carve a turkey with them and you risk breaking them. They will stand solid at a point where steel will bend, but they will break at a point where steel is still bending and will return to shape.
Hence it is not a material suited to gun barrels. I've heard chatter of people that think it is a neat idea, I've never seen anyone demonstrate it wouldn't fail catastrophically after one shot.
All this is beside the point though, 3D printers can no more work with ceramics than they can with metal at this point.