26% have voiced their opinion that "neural networks used to help pick players" should be banned.
That would be one interesting rule. What counts as a neural network? Most current neural networks are either heavily centralized or mildly useful. I'm sure they would stretch the definition to cover most "computing devices"!
And, how would they know? It's hard enough trying to find out which players use steroids. Are computing devices going to become contraband?
Lastly, what would be the point of the law? Is it to give bad prospects better chances? Is it the first step in outlawing meticulous stat keeping?
Really, I'm not too surprised. Remember, the average poll taker is probably a MSN subscriber.
Since theaters and studios are not going to upgrade to 70mm for all movies, digital is good.
Well, I live in Champaign, and went to Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival this year. I heard Ebert talk a lot about how much bull the movie industry uses to sell movies. Our little historic theatre here was donated about $6000 (IIRC) this last year, so that they would have a 70mm projector for Ebert's festival. Why can't a modern theater afford this?
When a theater charges me $13 so that I can watch a 2 hour movie (thats $7 admission, $6 refreshments), I expect the latest technology! If the going price for a 70mm projector is only $6000, then the multiplexes should easily be able to put one in every other theater! Instead, they expect us not to care.
I've stayed away from the multiplexes for quite a while. I won't be seeing EP2 tonight, because I won't settle for the service they give. I'll be traveling an hour tomorrow to see it at the Lorraine Theatre in the tiny town of Hoopeston. That 1922 theatre has a large screen (unlike the multiplexes), and is the only theatre in downstate Illinois with 8-channel sound.
Many people might agree with your statement, but only out of ignorance. I have to agree with Ebert on this one. Anti-progress is never good.
I used to buy CD's. But, I stopped when the music industry started creating copy-protected CD's. I don't want to support the RIAA, and have only bought independantly-released disks since the Charlie Pride debacle came out. I haven't really missed them. I have enough old music to keep me happy.
I generally feal guilty about grabbing mp3s where I haven't bought the disk. But even a goody-two shoes like me doesn't feel guilty about copying a disk with this dumb copy-protection stuff. I figure that if I wanted the music enough to buy it the CD, I still couldn't because it won't work with my OS (linux).
And since then my music has been limited to what discs have been copy-protected. I hate country, so Charlie Pride wasn't anything I was interested. Boy bands are a similair story.
But NOW I CAN STEAL CELINE DION! And, if other posters are correct, then I can steal the Ep2 soundtrack without feeling guilty!!!
Well, the two congressmen were republicans. Generally the conservatives stand against government legislation whenever possible.
So, if you discuss these types of issues with a republican, remind them that government has never been able to solve social problems.
If you're discussing these issues with a democrat, then tell them that there are "greater evils caused by man!" They usually won't dare disagree with you on that one...
You all are talking about throwing hardware at the situation (booby traps, knives, and rocket launchers).
I have a software solution. Create a login screen that explains what the user is agreeing to by logging on. Make sure that "installing unauthorized software incurs a $100,000 fine" and "This machine is to be used for educational purposes only."
Alternatively, you could print up an agreement, and tape it to the table, near the machine. Then write "Click here to accept", and draw an arrow to the power button.
Professor Freund said that his team had "tantalizing evidence" that as much as 1,000 litres of hydrogen may be trapped in each cubic metre of rock.
This basically means that any particular volume of rock contains its own volume (at atmospheric pressume, presumably) in hydrogen.
As soon as I saw that, I checked the date on the article. The whole thing sounded like an April Fool's joke, and that seemed to be the "Ok, let's make it obvious" point of the article.
He suggests that euthanasia will soon be allowed for clones. You think it's improbable.
The article mentions that there's about a 4% chance of deformation. I'm guessing that's a low estimate. The scientist is trying to sell people on the idea, so he's going to say something that sounds good. What if 5 of the next 20 cloned humans are badly deformed?
If we don't "slide down the slippery slope", then those deformed children will be kept alive. Cloning of humans will be discouraged, because of the poor success rate (4% is a poor success rate too, IMNSHO), but it will still happen. Fertility drugs are discouraged for women who are fertile, yet they're abused from time to time too.
In any case, neither option (euthanasia or deformed children) is good. You live in a dream world if you think that guy's worry is implausible. It certainly is worth discussing. I think you, sir, are the troll.
A big problem with his solution:
on
When Elephants Dance
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Blockquoth the article:
3. Prohibit any corporation from owning a copyright. Corporations create nothing; they?re consensual hallucinations and exist at our pleasure. I don?t know about you, but I?m not much pleased any more.
Ok, who's the "author" of a movie? Is it the writer? The director? The editor? Or, maybe one of the major actors?
I guess that the director can only go into business for himself. No company can own the copyright, so he has to use his personal budget for funding the film. If it flops, he has to declare personal bankruptcy, instead of letting some corporation absorb the hit. How is this supposed to make things better?
I agree with the rest of the article. It's the first time I've seen this stated so well. I'm just curious about how he expects this last point to work.
ps: He should run the Demoroniser over his MS-Word documents before publishing them to the web!
I remember asking a very learned man why space exploration was important. We have yet find anything on the moon, or any planet that adds to our daily lives.
His response: "The technology we've developed due to NASA projects is huge, and mostly unmeasurable. For example, the VCR your parents own would not be possible without technology we developed in our quest to explore outer space."
This is sad. Today the tables have turned.
We wouldn't be able to explore the moons of Jupitor if it wasn't for the technology we developed to make some sappy chick-flick.
Our thirst for entertainment has become paramount, and all else is now secondary!
Where I work, we need computing power for 2 things: 1. Running builds 2. Simulating embedded processors (ARM, mcore) for testing our product.
We have a mix of Sun workstations and x86 linux boxen. We just got one of the new-ish SunBlade1000 for trial (single 900Mhz processor, 1GB RAM).
While the Sunblade kills the competition (1Ghz Pentium4 w/linux) in build times, it's actually slightly slower with the simulations (which were, ironically, developed natively for SUN architecture!)
So, before you think about getting one of these puppies for your own pad, you better find some published benchmarks specific to your needs. There's no magic bullet.
Now if it were only like this version of pong!
on
To The Pain
·
· Score: 2
This might seem odd for a senior member of the Democratic Party, which usually styles itself a friend of the little guy, and it can?t simply be explained away as an eccentricity his - Hollings was joined by Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts, both of whom are heavily reliant on entertainment-industry money (with Kerry sure to become even more so if he runs for President in 2004, as expected).
How is this surprising for the democratic party? Generally, they are the ones that think that a free market can't solve its own problems.
Creating more laws and restrictions is the way that business is done, for him and his colleauges.
Here you can play with a simulation of the full phone. You can practice making, and receiving calls (the assumption being that once you use it, you'll think you need one!)
If you choose not to press "skip intro", I challenge you to make it through the whole intro without laughing. Keep your headphones on.
If it can really pick up signals with few enough errors to be usable, then I want to use it for networking! Some posts here claim that it can easily do 10MBit/sec. What's stopping someone from making an array of them, for high speed wireless access?
Actually, now that I think of it, that must have been what all those big clunky lights were on ST:TOS. Networking of the future!
"The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software," Mundie said.
I agree. The GPL is too restrictive, and should give way to the LPGL, or freeBSD-type licenses.
I had no idea that Mundie felt the same way! What a surprise!
It's been a couple days; I'm curious as to how much attention is still being paid to this thread. Will I be taking the three point karma hit? It's now been 7 more days. Let's see what happens.
BTW, this is ontopic because it addresses the question asked by roystgnr. If you doubt me, look at the Parent
If you are human moderator that wants to mark me down, please use the "Overrated" selection. If you mark me down as "off-topic", I'll assume you're script-ki33ie.
I have to disagree. Probably everyone else has moved on (from this discussion), but I'm still here.
I think that AOL is no longer trying for the clueless user's market. They already have it nailed. They don't have to change much to keep them loyal. Just provide the same crappy content, and commercials on networks once in a while, and they keep what they already have.
What they want now is the people who have matured to a point they can see the smoke and mirrors. My aunt lives in rural Missouri, and here's from other parents in her child's school that Windows is an OS of problems. She called me up, and asked if I could build her a computer without Windows! If AOL can corner this market of disgruntled users, they'll keep there place as #1.
But, they don't have to charge for everything. IBM markets server solutions to businesses, using linux as a selling point. The OS is free, but the the support and hardware brings in profit. AOL can do the same. If they provide an OS for free that actually gives control to the user, people will love them. That's all they need to bring in business for their ISP.
Is that AOL's goal? Maybe. Maybe their goal is the world you envision. Maybe their goal is to discontinue RedHat, becaus they see it as a threat to their content control. Only time will tell.
"AOL buys RedHat" is a blockbuster headline, but doesn't really mean much without the rest of the story.
We don't know why they want it yet!
Certainly, the scenario you mentioned is possible, but probably not accurate. Look at how little happened to WinAmp, once it was bought.
RedHat is like a machete. Most kids in Panama know how to use a machete safely, and do daily. It's a kitchen tool to them. (I saw many kids with machete wounds while I was there!)
But, we're about to see a machete be passed to someone who can be irresponsible. They say they have a good use for it, but we don't trust them.
If RedHat becomes a newbie's OS, I'll still be happy. We'll watch in disbelief as diehard AOL customers will point and click their way through installation of their new OS, and call AOL with any tech-help questions they have. But, the good stuff will remain. If you want, you'll be able to install RedHat as a "desktop OS w/ developer support" and all the dancing zebras will disappear.
So, it's too early to make such judgements. I'm waiting until something official is said. Then, as if on cue, I'll release my flaring emotions. Right now, my emotions are too confused for me to release them yet.
How long until this is cracked? It seems inevitable, doesn't it?
Well, the CD must have a "low quality copy" of the music, where the ECC is all messed up. That's what you'll get when you play it in a low-tech cd player, that doesn't understand ECC.
When you put it in a CD-ROM drive, it will probably pop and hiss, because the computer is "smart enough" to use the ECC to "fix" the errors in the CD.
Someplace on the cd, there must be the missing information to turn the crackly output into something good. I'll bet it's encrypted somehow into the.exe player program that's on the CD.
If we can open that.exe, and find out exactly what it does, then we could make similair program that does the same thing for linux. I would call that "cracked".
Of course, the main benefit is that those of us who don't have Windows, could finally listen to our CD's in peace. Of course, it could be called a "copy protection circumvention device", so there's now a risk of being thrown in jail for making such harmless crack.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be one interesting rule. What counts as a neural network? Most current neural networks are either heavily centralized or mildly useful. I'm sure they would stretch the definition to cover most "computing devices"!
And, how would they know? It's hard enough trying to find out which players use steroids. Are computing devices going to become contraband?
Lastly, what would be the point of the law? Is it to give bad prospects better chances? Is it the first step in outlawing meticulous stat keeping?
Really, I'm not too surprised. Remember, the average poll taker is probably a MSN subscriber.
Now that it's out in the open, anything that would make that code usefull for defeating CSS would be illegal.
It will be hard to continue working as a software writer now that C compilers are illegal. But, I guess I'll just have to make do...
Well, I live in Champaign, and went to Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival this year. I heard Ebert talk a lot about how much bull the movie industry uses to sell movies. Our little historic theatre here was donated about $6000 (IIRC) this last year, so that they would have a 70mm projector for Ebert's festival. Why can't a modern theater afford this?
When a theater charges me $13 so that I can watch a 2 hour movie (thats $7 admission, $6 refreshments), I expect the latest technology! If the going price for a 70mm projector is only $6000, then the multiplexes should easily be able to put one in every other theater! Instead, they expect us not to care.
I've stayed away from the multiplexes for quite a while. I won't be seeing EP2 tonight, because I won't settle for the service they give. I'll be traveling an hour tomorrow to see it at the Lorraine Theatre in the tiny town of Hoopeston. That 1922 theatre has a large screen (unlike the multiplexes), and is the only theatre in downstate Illinois with 8-channel sound.
Many people might agree with your statement, but only out of ignorance. I have to agree with Ebert on this one. Anti-progress is never good.
I generally feal guilty about grabbing mp3s where I haven't bought the disk. But even a goody-two shoes like me doesn't feel guilty about copying a disk with this dumb copy-protection stuff. I figure that if I wanted the music enough to buy it the CD, I still couldn't because it won't work with my OS (linux).
And since then my music has been limited to what discs have been copy-protected. I hate country, so Charlie Pride wasn't anything I was interested. Boy bands are a similair story.
But NOW I CAN STEAL CELINE DION! And, if other posters are correct, then I can steal the Ep2 soundtrack without feeling guilty!!!
Things are looking better all the time!
So, if you discuss these types of issues with a republican, remind them that government has never been able to solve social problems.
If you're discussing these issues with a democrat, then tell them that there are "greater evils caused by man!" They usually won't dare disagree with you on that one...
I have a software solution. Create a login screen that explains what the user is agreeing to by logging on. Make sure that "installing unauthorized software incurs a $100,000 fine" and "This machine is to be used for educational purposes only."
Alternatively, you could print up an agreement, and tape it to the table, near the machine. Then write "Click here to accept", and draw an arrow to the power button.
It's used by that annoying redirect to /dev/null that he created.
As soon as I saw that, I checked the date on the article. The whole thing sounded like an April Fool's joke, and that seemed to be the "Ok, let's make it obvious" point of the article.
You can know what subjects the girl will be good with before she does!
You can understand why she doesn't obey you!
You can know which boys she'll find attractive!
All this, and more can be yours! All it costs is $299.95 per attempt.
And, for a limited time, the first 20 attempts are free!
What do you have to lose, except your individuality?
He suggests that euthanasia will soon be allowed for clones. You think it's improbable.
The article mentions that there's about a 4% chance of deformation. I'm guessing that's a low estimate. The scientist is trying to sell people on the idea, so he's going to say something that sounds good. What if 5 of the next 20 cloned humans are badly deformed?
If we don't "slide down the slippery slope", then those deformed children will be kept alive. Cloning of humans will be discouraged, because of the poor success rate (4% is a poor success rate too, IMNSHO), but it will still happen. Fertility drugs are discouraged for women who are fertile, yet they're abused from time to time too.
In any case, neither option (euthanasia or deformed children) is good. You live in a dream world if you think that guy's worry is implausible. It certainly is worth discussing. I think you, sir, are the troll.
I guess that the director can only go into business for himself. No company can own the copyright, so he has to use his personal budget for funding the film. If it flops, he has to declare personal bankruptcy, instead of letting some corporation absorb the hit. How is this supposed to make things better?
I agree with the rest of the article. It's the first time I've seen this stated so well. I'm just curious about how he expects this last point to work.
ps: He should run the Demoroniser over his MS-Word documents before publishing them to the web!
His response: "The technology we've developed due to NASA projects is huge, and mostly unmeasurable. For example, the VCR your parents own would not be possible without technology we developed in our quest to explore outer space."
This is sad. Today the tables have turned.
We wouldn't be able to explore the moons of Jupitor if it wasn't for the technology we developed to make some sappy chick-flick.
Our thirst for entertainment has become paramount, and all else is now secondary!
Where I work, we need computing power for 2 things:
1. Running builds
2. Simulating embedded processors (ARM, mcore) for testing our product.
We have a mix of Sun workstations and x86 linux boxen. We just got one of the new-ish SunBlade1000 for trial (single 900Mhz processor, 1GB RAM).
While the Sunblade kills the competition (1Ghz Pentium4 w/linux) in build times, it's actually slightly slower with the simulations (which were, ironically, developed natively for SUN architecture!)
So, before you think about getting one of these puppies for your own pad, you better find some published benchmarks specific to your needs. There's no magic bullet.
http://www.novagate.net/~riff42/pong.swf
How is this surprising for the democratic party? Generally, they are the ones that think that a free market can't solve its own problems.
Creating more laws and restrictions is the way that business is done, for him and his colleauges.
Moderation totals: +5 troll
If you choose not to press "skip intro", I challenge you to make it through the whole intro without laughing. Keep your headphones on.
He can't even get the network right. The 3rd paragraph says it's TDMA. The specs (copied from Motorola's page) show it to be tri-band GSM.
$649
Actually, now that I think of it, that must have been what all those big clunky lights were on ST:TOS. Networking of the future!
I agree. The GPL is too restrictive, and should give way to the LPGL, or freeBSD-type licenses. I had no idea that Mundie felt the same way! What a surprise!
It doesn't seem to work on my browser. Good luck!
It's been a couple days; I'm curious as to how much attention is still being paid to this thread. Will I be taking the three point karma hit?
It's now been 7 more days. Let's see what happens.
BTW, this is ontopic because it addresses the question asked by roystgnr. If you doubt me, look at the Parent
If you are human moderator that wants to mark me down, please use the "Overrated" selection. If you mark me down as "off-topic", I'll assume you're script-ki33ie.
I have to disagree. Probably everyone else has moved on (from this discussion), but I'm still here.
I think that AOL is no longer trying for the clueless user's market. They already have it nailed. They don't have to change much to keep them loyal. Just provide the same crappy content, and commercials on networks once in a while, and they keep what they already have.
What they want now is the people who have matured to a point they can see the smoke and mirrors. My aunt lives in rural Missouri, and here's from other parents in her child's school that Windows is an OS of problems. She called me up, and asked if I could build her a computer without Windows! If AOL can corner this market of disgruntled users, they'll keep there place as #1.
But, they don't have to charge for everything. IBM markets server solutions to businesses, using linux as a selling point. The OS is free, but the the support and hardware brings in profit. AOL can do the same. If they provide an OS for free that actually gives control to the user, people will love them. That's all they need to bring in business for their ISP.
Is that AOL's goal? Maybe. Maybe their goal is the world you envision. Maybe their goal is to discontinue RedHat, becaus they see it as a threat to their content control. Only time will tell.
"AOL buys RedHat" is a blockbuster headline, but doesn't really mean much without the rest of the story.
We don't know why they want it yet!
Certainly, the scenario you mentioned is possible, but probably not accurate. Look at how little happened to WinAmp, once it was bought.
RedHat is like a machete. Most kids in Panama know how to use a machete safely, and do daily. It's a kitchen tool to them. (I saw many kids with machete wounds while I was there!)
But, we're about to see a machete be passed to someone who can be irresponsible. They say they have a good use for it, but we don't trust them.
If RedHat becomes a newbie's OS, I'll still be happy. We'll watch in disbelief as diehard AOL customers will point and click their way through installation of their new OS, and call AOL with any tech-help questions they have. But, the good stuff will remain. If you want, you'll be able to install RedHat as a "desktop OS w/ developer support" and all the dancing zebras will disappear.
So, it's too early to make such judgements. I'm waiting until something official is said. Then, as if on cue, I'll release my flaring emotions. Right now, my emotions are too confused for me to release them yet.
How long until this is cracked? It seems inevitable, doesn't it?
.exe player program that's on the CD.
.exe, and find out exactly what it does, then we could make similair program that does the same thing for linux. I would call that "cracked".
Well, the CD must have a "low quality copy" of the music, where the ECC is all messed up. That's what you'll get when you play it in a low-tech cd player, that doesn't understand ECC.
When you put it in a CD-ROM drive, it will probably pop and hiss, because the computer is "smart enough" to use the ECC to "fix" the errors in the CD.
Someplace on the cd, there must be the missing information to turn the crackly output into something good. I'll bet it's encrypted somehow into the
If we can open that
Of course, the main benefit is that those of us who don't have Windows, could finally listen to our CD's in peace. Of course, it could be called a "copy protection circumvention device", so there's now a risk of being thrown in jail for making such harmless crack.
Gone are the days of fair use.