I think that's a great idea. Put all the Survivor people on the iceberg, set it adrift, and then wait for it and everyone on it to disappear in the ocean never to be seen nor heard from again.
An even better idea would be to use politicans though.
That just goes to show how much sway the big boys hold in America. Here in the UK, about the only DVD player manufacturer who persisted with region-locking was... Sony. Surprise surprise.
Part of the reason is that DVD's of movies have tended to come out in region 1 first. What has changed is that there are also now DVD's of TV series, because of a quirk in the way TV operates in the US, it's perfectly possible for these DVD's to appear last in region 1. (Even when the series was actually made in North America in the first place.)
It's a common misconception, usually "supported" by pointing to badly flawed implementations like CSS, that all DRM will quickly be cracked and subsequently not really matter to those in the know.
With copyright terms currently lasting in the order of a century "quickly" can mean "within 20 years".
For well designed systems running on an equally well designed TC platform this is definetely not the case.
The only way such a system can reasonably be expected to work is if it can be expected to protect information for most of a copyright term. The easiest way to do this would be to drastically reduce copyright terms though...
That's fine, but don't pretend it is anything more than that. A solved sudoku is worth nothing. An unfortunate amount of Open Source 'software' is worth the same.
The same applies to a sizable proportion of proprietary software. Especially when it comes to "Government IT Projects". The difference is that worthless proprietary software tends to cost money.
Does something go into public domain just because it is posted somewhere for free (example: Usenet):
Anything which applied to Usenet or a website would also apply to TV and radio broadcasts. Possibly even to any form of publication.
False. Nothing modern and creative is in the public domain anymore unless the owner explicitly puts it in the public domain(*). Explicitly, as in you have a note from the author/owner saying, "I grant this to the public domain." Those exact words or words very much like them.
There is even some concern that current copyright law allows for works to be subsequently removed from the public domain (if they are still within their original copyright term).
It seems to me that you or I would be charged with assault if I was taped doing what the police officer was doing, regardless of the context. Or are you suggesting that there might be a context where a non-police officer would be able to punch a subdued person in the face numerous times?
What if the person being punched was a police office (including if they were off duty or otherwise out of uniform.)
If anything, I'd think that video in squad cars would reduce the possibility of police brutality, since the cops know that they are being recorded on video, and an allegedly beaten person can get that video.
If these cameras are under police control they just might happen to malfunction. How easy is it likely to be for someone in police custody to get hold of said recordings too?
India has one of the world's largest gaps between the richest and the poor. Literally hundreds of millions of people in the country are starving.
Hardly a problem unique to India, even the richest countries have people who are starving and homeless.
There are oases of IT work in the biggest cities surrounded by people living in shacks who, due to the social and educational systems of the country, have absolutely no chance at upwards mobility.
Is a "trailer" much of an improvement of a "shack"?
Rocketry has more immediate applications. India's neighbours Pakistan and China are both nuclear and India has been in shooting wars with both of them not long ago. A civilian space program can give you a cover to develop lots of technology useful for the military.
However quite a few of the things you'd need to build for a manned space program are of little use to the military. Warheads are rather more robust than humans, they also don't need to breath, drink or eat.
Also, there was a lot of experimentation involved in the first space exploration that doesn't need to be done again. We know how to make space suits, and, thanks mainly to the Russians, we know a lot about the effects of long-term zero-gravity trips on the human body.
Not that a trip to the Moon (and back) involves especially long periods of zero-gravity. There is also a lot of existing knowlage about docking vehicles in space. Even if the Indians were to use a different approach from that of the US with respect to getting their stuff to the Moon.
Technology hinders election integrity. How can you beat the integrity of a paper vote system, where the ballots are removed from sealed ballot boxes and counted immediately at the close of polling, with scrutineers from each party watching? There's very little scope for mischief.
It depends what the technology is. "Voting machines" remove transparancy from the process. Whereas having video cameras view the ballot box increases transparancy. Another userful technological addition would be to have ballot boxes which lock unless a camera is getting a picture of the ballot box... (Box is fitted with set of IR LEDs which display random patterns.)
Larger scale fraud includes collecting ballot envelopes from voters for delivery, and throwing out ones belonging to voters with the "wrong" registration.
In most parts of the world the only public information about voters is their name and address. The majority of people are not members of any political party and it's perfectly possible for someone to be a member of more than one party. The only information political parties on how people are likely to vote are their own membership lists and "canvas returns". If the US were to follow the rest of the planet both this kind of fraud and Gerrymandering would become considerably more difficult.
Plus if you want to nitpick, the price of postage could be considered a poll tax.
these pervs aren't in theatres propositioning kids (that's the rough equivalent to yelling FIRE in a theatre). They are at their computer discussing the nature of the laws and/or MAYBE how much they would "like" to yell FIRE in a theatre.
Discussing the nature of laws isn't illegal. If it was then Slashdot would be very hot water. The really disturbing thing is that a fairly obscure political group was able to do this. Further that their victim in this case was in a different country.
It should also be impossible to trace votes back to specific people. I think the simplest way to achieve this is to have the machine print the information entered by the voter, and then drop that print-out in a ballot box (which will cause the print-outs to get mixed up).
You'd still need a mechanism to ensure that ballot papers are difficult to forge. e.g. a non standard type/size of paper. Having the ballot paper embossed, stamped, punched, etc before the voter inserts it into the machine. N.B. one thing you certainly need to consider is the possibility of "ballot stuffing" by election officials.
If law enforcement really wanted to catch these pump-and-dump spammers it would be easy to do. Just investigate the people who have purchased large volumes of the penny stocks being spamvertised.
It should be possible for law enforcement to track down the vast majority of spammers. Even if they are purely fraudsters they still need to have somewhere to ask people to send money to.
So next time that you get an email saying that the have found 10 ways to remortgage your house, reply, tell them you have an average 3 bed in an average address with an average income and let them waste their time replying.
Some people do do this, e.g. with "Nigerian" fraudsters. Problem is that it can take rather a lot of time.
Why not ask them to send some brochures by snail mail - that will cost them money.
Maybe see how many sets you can get them to send out to the wrong address.
Actually that's quite wrong. The difference is that you're for some reason expecting the populous to be fighting a traditional war against the government (so they'll pick a nice green field to have it all out). Obviously the people with tanks and nukes will win and everything will go back to normal.
There havn't been that many "traditional wars" recently. Having nukes dosn't appear to have been much help to the US/UK in Iraq or Israel in Lebanon.
Thirdly, if an entire nation is revolting against itself, chances are at least some of the military are with them. How long do you think the tanks and missiles are going to stay in the government's hands?
It's just as bad for government if the military refuse to take sides at all. Most soldiers are reluctant to attack their own people and most officers know that ordering soldiers to do so is likely to be suicidal.
You mean Windows? You pay for a license. You don't buy the rights to use the software any way you want. You buy the rights to use it as are written in that long EULA. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Actually your rights are, in virtually all cases, different from those enumerated in any EULA. You have all applicable statute, case and common law rights. Even if the EULA were to explicitally say that you don't. Similarly any restrictions an EULA claimed to impose would need to have a basis in the "law of the land". There's also an issue of what happens when "you" are corporate person.
What it means is that, if you somehow get in a situation where Microsoft causes you real harm--like, say, Windows causes your PC to explode and kill your brother--you have to prove that it's so terrible the court needs to modify the contract. And if it's really that bad, there isn't a judge in the country that'll let the EULA stand.
If you were sueing Microsoft they'd be the defendent. Even if Microsoft could persuade the court to interpret their EULA as a contract, is there anywhere on the planet where a "no sue" clause in a contract would be valid? Indeed if Microsoft were to attempt to stand by this EULA they'd either have to either ignore the summons, pay the plaintiff (to avoid a default judgment) or hope the judge would believe their EULA.
LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
That says that you're agreeing you cannot (not will not) sue Microsoft for damages. That you do not have a right to bring your greivances before a court of law. Is is incorrect, and the EULA even says "may not apply in your state" a few lines down, but the original text is there nonetheless.
Microsoft is assuming, usually correctly, that people are ignorant about the "law of the land". Even the "may not apply (to you)" statement whilst factually correct appears to be intended to mislead.
Well, if you paid for a license of Vista, then you agreed to the EULA even if you read it after you bought it so you paid for it and you wanted it.
The provisions laid forth in the EULA are within the limits of the law.
Actually no. Most EULAs have never actually been tested in court. As well as containing clauses which voided by pre-existing law. Just because Microsoft sticks some text into their EULA does not make it legal.
..it's really hard to say if you are being sarcastic. Considering what has been happening in the US lately... and the fact that Greece is the birth place of democracy... and then the twist at the end..... *head explodes*
Actually it's Athens, as a city state, which developed the idea. Anyway Classical Athenean Democracy is very different in many ways from that practiced now. AFAIK no modern nation state has randomly selected juries carrying out executive and legislative functions of government.
I'm bored of the old Democracy/Republic debate here on/. Why don't we address the term: Representative. Maybe if society had a person on the ballot that was actually representative of the people, the actual values and interestes of the people would be protected. We usually have the wealthy elite on the ballot, guess who's interests are protected?
Actually there'd be at least two things in the way, getting on the ballot and getting elected. In the US even the former can prove difficult. Even once they manage that they'd be up against was is in effect an industry for getting people elected. There's a fundermental problem that the skills required to get elected may be very different from those to actually do the job. In some cases they may be mutually exculsive.
Arguably, having one section of Government be based in heridity is a good thing, as it allows them to make their decisions based on what is right, rather than what will win votes.
The important factor isn't that they are in that position due to their parents so much as they are not elected by popular ballot. Alternative methods such as random selection for a fixed term would be just as effective. Ironically a government made up entirely of elected members is likely to end up unrepresentative of the population in question.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's a great idea. Put all the Survivor people on the iceberg, set it adrift, and then wait for it and everyone on it to disappear in the ocean never to be seen nor heard from again.
An even better idea would be to use politicans though.
That just goes to show how much sway the big boys hold in America. Here in the UK, about the only DVD player manufacturer who persisted with region-locking was... Sony. Surprise surprise.
Part of the reason is that DVD's of movies have tended to come out in region 1 first. What has changed is that there are also now DVD's of TV series, because of a quirk in the way TV operates in the US, it's perfectly possible for these DVD's to appear last in region 1. (Even when the series was actually made in North America in the first place.)
It's a common misconception, usually "supported" by pointing to badly flawed implementations like CSS, that all DRM will quickly be cracked and subsequently not really matter to those in the know.
With copyright terms currently lasting in the order of a century "quickly" can mean "within 20 years".
For well designed systems running on an equally well designed TC platform this is definetely not the case.
The only way such a system can reasonably be expected to work is if it can be expected to protect information for most of a copyright term. The easiest way to do this would be to drastically reduce copyright terms though...
That's fine, but don't pretend it is anything more than that. A solved sudoku is worth nothing. An unfortunate amount of Open Source 'software' is worth the same.
The same applies to a sizable proportion of proprietary software. Especially when it comes to "Government IT Projects". The difference is that worthless proprietary software tends to cost money.
Does something go into public domain just because it is posted somewhere for free (example: Usenet):
Anything which applied to Usenet or a website would also apply to TV and radio broadcasts. Possibly even to any form of publication.
False. Nothing modern and creative is in the public domain anymore unless the owner explicitly puts it in the public domain(*). Explicitly, as in you have a note from the author/owner saying, "I grant this to the public domain." Those exact words or words very much like them.
There is even some concern that current copyright law allows for works to be subsequently removed from the public domain (if they are still within their original copyright term).
It seems to me that you or I would be charged with assault if I was taped doing what the police officer was doing, regardless of the context. Or are you suggesting that there might be a context where a non-police officer would be able to punch a subdued person in the face numerous times?
What if the person being punched was a police office (including if they were off duty or otherwise out of uniform.)
If anything, I'd think that video in squad cars would reduce the possibility of police brutality, since the cops know that they are being recorded on video, and an allegedly beaten person can get that video.
If these cameras are under police control they just might happen to malfunction. How easy is it likely to be for someone in police custody to get hold of said recordings too?
India has one of the world's largest gaps between the richest and the poor. Literally hundreds of millions of people in the country are starving.
Hardly a problem unique to India, even the richest countries have people who are starving and homeless.
There are oases of IT work in the biggest cities surrounded by people living in shacks who, due to the social and educational systems of the country, have absolutely no chance at upwards mobility.
Is a "trailer" much of an improvement of a "shack"?
Rocketry has more immediate applications. India's neighbours Pakistan and China are both nuclear and India has been in shooting wars with both of them not long ago. A civilian space program can give you a cover to develop lots of technology useful for the military.
However quite a few of the things you'd need to build for a manned space program are of little use to the military. Warheads are rather more robust than humans, they also don't need to breath, drink or eat.
Exactly, so why is this necessary then?
They would have far better scientific equipment than the Americans. Maybe they intend to go to different parts of the Moon or stay for longer.
Also, there was a lot of experimentation involved in the first space exploration that doesn't need to be done again. We know how to make space suits, and, thanks mainly to the Russians, we know a lot about the effects of long-term zero-gravity trips on the human body.
Not that a trip to the Moon (and back) involves especially long periods of zero-gravity.
There is also a lot of existing knowlage about docking vehicles in space. Even if the Indians were to use a different approach from that of the US with respect to getting their stuff to the Moon.
Technology hinders election integrity. How can you beat the integrity of a paper vote system, where the ballots are removed from sealed ballot boxes and counted immediately at the close of polling, with scrutineers from each party watching? There's very little scope for mischief.
It depends what the technology is. "Voting machines" remove transparancy from the process. Whereas having video cameras view the ballot box increases transparancy. Another userful technological addition would be to have ballot boxes which lock unless a camera is getting a picture of the ballot box... (Box is fitted with set of IR LEDs which display random patterns.)
Larger scale fraud includes collecting ballot envelopes from voters for delivery, and throwing out ones belonging to voters with the "wrong" registration.
In most parts of the world the only public information about voters is their name and address. The majority of people are not members of any political party and it's perfectly possible for someone to be a member of more than one party. The only information political parties on how people are likely to vote are their own membership lists and "canvas returns".
If the US were to follow the rest of the planet both this kind of fraud and Gerrymandering would become considerably more difficult.
Plus if you want to nitpick, the price of postage could be considered a poll tax.
Don't they use pre-paid envelopes?
these pervs aren't in theatres propositioning kids (that's the rough equivalent to yelling FIRE in a theatre). They are at their computer discussing the nature of the laws and/or MAYBE how much they would "like" to yell FIRE in a theatre.
Discussing the nature of laws isn't illegal. If it was then Slashdot would be very hot water.
The really disturbing thing is that a fairly obscure political group was able to do this. Further that their victim in this case was in a different country.
It should also be impossible to trace votes back to specific people. I think the simplest way to achieve this is to have the machine print the information entered by the voter, and then drop that print-out in a ballot box (which will cause the print-outs to get mixed up).
You'd still need a mechanism to ensure that ballot papers are difficult to forge. e.g. a non standard type/size of paper. Having the ballot paper embossed, stamped, punched, etc before the voter inserts it into the machine.
N.B. one thing you certainly need to consider is the possibility of "ballot stuffing" by election officials.
If law enforcement really wanted to catch these pump-and-dump spammers it would be easy to do. Just investigate the people who have purchased large volumes of the penny stocks being spamvertised.
It should be possible for law enforcement to track down the vast majority of spammers. Even if they are purely fraudsters they still need to have somewhere to ask people to send money to.
I doubt anyone cares enough to do it, though.
As with corporate crime...
So next time that you get an email saying that the have found 10 ways to remortgage your house, reply, tell them you have an average 3 bed in an average address with an average income and let them waste their time replying.
Some people do do this, e.g. with "Nigerian" fraudsters. Problem is that it can take rather a lot of time.
Why not ask them to send some brochures by snail mail - that will cost them money.
Maybe see how many sets you can get them to send out to the wrong address.
Actually that's quite wrong. The difference is that you're for some reason expecting the populous to be fighting a traditional war against the government (so they'll pick a nice green field to have it all out). Obviously the people with tanks and nukes will win and everything will go back to normal.
There havn't been that many "traditional wars" recently. Having nukes dosn't appear to have been much help to the US/UK in Iraq or Israel in Lebanon.
Thirdly, if an entire nation is revolting against itself, chances are at least some of the military are with them. How long do you think the tanks and missiles are going to stay in the government's hands?
It's just as bad for government if the military refuse to take sides at all. Most soldiers are reluctant to attack their own people and most officers know that ordering soldiers to do so is likely to be suicidal.
You mean Windows? You pay for a license. You don't buy the rights to use the software any way you want. You buy the rights to use it as are written in that long EULA. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Actually your rights are, in virtually all cases, different from those enumerated in any EULA. You have all applicable statute, case and common law rights. Even if the EULA were to explicitally say that you don't. Similarly any restrictions an EULA claimed to impose would need to have a basis in the "law of the land". There's also an issue of what happens when "you" are corporate person.
What it means is that, if you somehow get in a situation where Microsoft causes you real harm--like, say, Windows causes your PC to explode and kill your brother--you have to prove that it's so terrible the court needs to modify the contract. And if it's really that bad, there isn't a judge in the country that'll let the EULA stand.
If you were sueing Microsoft they'd be the defendent. Even if Microsoft could persuade the court to interpret their EULA as a contract, is there anywhere on the planet where a "no sue" clause in a contract would be valid?
Indeed if Microsoft were to attempt to stand by this EULA they'd either have to either ignore the summons, pay the plaintiff (to avoid a default judgment) or hope the judge would believe their EULA.
LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
That says that you're agreeing you cannot (not will not) sue Microsoft for damages. That you do not have a right to bring your greivances before a court of law. Is is incorrect, and the EULA even says "may not apply in your state" a few lines down, but the original text is there nonetheless.
Microsoft is assuming, usually correctly, that people are ignorant about the "law of the land". Even the "may not apply (to you)" statement whilst factually correct appears to be intended to mislead.
Well, if you paid for a license of Vista, then you agreed to the EULA even if you read it after you bought it so you paid for it and you wanted it. The provisions laid forth in the EULA are within the limits of the law.
Actually no. Most EULAs have never actually been tested in court. As well as containing clauses which voided by pre-existing law.
Just because Microsoft sticks some text into their EULA does not make it legal.
..it's really hard to say if you are being sarcastic. Considering what has been happening in the US lately... and the fact that Greece is the birth place of democracy... and then the twist at the end..... *head explodes*
Actually it's Athens, as a city state, which developed the idea. Anyway Classical Athenean Democracy is very different in many ways from that practiced now. AFAIK no modern nation state has randomly selected juries carrying out executive and legislative functions of government.
I'm bored of the old Democracy/Republic debate here on /. Why don't we address the term: Representative. Maybe if society had a person on the ballot that was actually representative of the people, the actual values and interestes of the people would be protected. We usually have the wealthy elite on the ballot, guess who's interests are protected?
Actually there'd be at least two things in the way, getting on the ballot and getting elected. In the US even the former can prove difficult. Even once they manage that they'd be up against was is in effect an industry for getting people elected.
There's a fundermental problem that the skills required to get elected may be very different from those to actually do the job. In some cases they may be mutually exculsive.
Arguably, having one section of Government be based in heridity is a good thing, as it allows them to make their decisions based on what is right, rather than what will win votes.
The important factor isn't that they are in that position due to their parents so much as they are not elected by popular ballot. Alternative methods such as random selection for a fixed term would be just as effective.
Ironically a government made up entirely of elected members is likely to end up unrepresentative of the population in question.