make sure to read that both ways... not only should a computer-savvy person be perfectly capable of doing this, there shouldn't be anything in the way to STOP them from doing this. They SHOULD be able to do this. Being able to access a drive's contents externally can save your ass if you hose the O/S / boot sector / whatever. Getting around basic password systems that are only meant to prevent unauthorized access when already in the same system is something that is -by design-. If you don't want the contents available even if hooked up to a secondary machine, or even to forensics, then you should encrypt the thing (keeping in mind that if you then screw something up, you may be SOL.)
...seeing as most Slashdot users think every 'artist's works should never be copyrighted anyway - that any image, sound file, movie clip, etc. on the web is fair game for taking and using however they see fit, including verbatim, and that 'artist's should just find some other line of work if they want fair appropriation or - daresay - compensation for their work...
The GPL License is based largely on copyright. You violate the license, you enter the domain of copyright. You violate copyright, you can be sued up the wazoo - or something.
So for those GPL projects where original authors of pieces of code can no longer be found (the same that hold back, say, Linux from going to some other license, or newer GPL license), no copyright can be established. Ergo, the code can be included in, and released with, locked down software. The GPL may be violated, but that in itself just brings things to the copyright table - and since no copyright can be ascertained over the code involved, the company walks.
I could be mistaken, though.. I hope I am.
I also hope that this doesn't get pushed through - as mentioned before, it just screws over the little guy... again.
Anybody who uses encryption wisely knows that they should guard the key with their life (not literally), not just from being stolen but also from being -lost-. That typically includes keeping a second set of the keys (protection against loss; unless both sites are hit at the same time) somewhere only you know about (protection from targeted theft) in a way that makes it nigh impossible to determine what they're for (protection from random theft); or just useless once realized they're compromised (change the keys, change the location, move on).
Encryption is pointless if the key itself is stored with the encrypted content (as various media protections show), and dangerous if the key can be 'lost'.
Anyway - yes, elderly, even those with fatal diseases, still get expensive treatment. My grandfather got cancer treatment right up to his death in the middle 80's. My grandmother got a new hip at 96 (she's now 101 - go granny), even though she's not really all that mobile to begin with (has to get around with a walker on wheels - vroom). If she -wanted- to, she could get an electric wheelchair - no cost. For some extra, she can get a 'scootmobiel'. It's like a trike, but less sporty, and has a compartment for groceries.
So no, they don't get told "no".
On the other hand, they do get told their realistic options. My grandfather was told that he would likely not recover; which was true enough; and he chose to get the treatments anyway and died a withered old man who was really not my grandfather anymore. His choice, but there are plenty who choose not to get the treatments.
In addition, in Socialist The Netherlands, a good portion will choose the exact opposite: euthanasia - legally.
For what it's worth - I haven't made an insurance claim since in well over 15 years, yet I pay a high premium every year. Do I feel this is 'unfair'? No. If it means some kid from a poor family getting hit by an uninsured driver can still get his leg fixed, then I -gladly- pay my premium. ( Note that the Dutch insurance system changed a year or two ago and less goes through the government now, and more through the insurance companies; with a minimum level of insurance from each insurance company for the same price we used to pay the government in our taxes. Of course most insurance companies don't really offer that minimum, luring people with supposed extras, and thus we all actually end up paying more while actually getting much the same coverage. Huh. )
Then again, your life has been made a little bit more fair by the existence of glasses. You dealt with that by buying glasses. How much do they cost... 2, 3-figure sum? Affordable, even to get replacements, I'm sure.
Now you need a lung transplant. How do you deal with that, if you can't get insurance because the insurance company determined at birth that you would be predisposed to whatever lung ailment and excluded you from insurance for it, and you most certainly can't afford the procedure (~$300k). I suppose one way to deal with it is to just go ahead and die.
At that point, however, you might as well just terminate pregnancies of those who are predisposed to certain afflictions, even if the only reason to do so is because just as they're predisposed to get the affliction, they're predisposed not to be able to afford the procedure later in life.
"The question is what do we allow? Discrimination against obese people, smokers, alcoholics?"
I don't see how it is a hop/skip/jump away from afflictions of -choice- (obesity is debatable, as that can have medical and heck, genetical, factors) to afflictions in which you, at least, had no particular choice. Perhaps your parents did (did your mom booze up during her pregnancy - d'oh?), but you yourself didn't get a whole lot of say in that and shouldn't become a victim of it.
Insurances already 'discriminate' against so many things. Didn't wear your seatbelt? There goes a good chunk of your payout, if not -all of it-. Over here in NL, smokers -do- pay a higher premium as well.. why not? Not only are they at a higher risk of cancer (insert "my grandfather smoked 3 packs a day and lived to be 94!" anecdotal evidence here), but they're putting everybody else at that higher risk as well (or, if nothing else, afflict those with asthma and generally stink up the place).
On the flip side - There's a life payout company in NL that gives a -higher- payout to smokers. Why? Because smokers do pay a higher premium, while they live less long. So they figure they should get a higher payout each month than non-smokers. Makes sense to me.
I don't know anything about Brazilian law - so somebody who does might clue the rest of us in, but...
In most countries the deal is that if you know somebody is a pedophile (convicted or registered by choice - rare as that may be), then a case worker gets to know 'their every move' as it is, including online dealings. If the caseworker thinks the person has a MySpace account and wants access to it - that case worker can order the person to reveal their login details. If the person then refuses, they can get a court order for MySpace to reveal the details of the account. MySpace could then opt to refuse, but that'll get them in a world of hurt.
Seems to me that the brazilian authorities didn't even do the Court Order thing: "Authorities had threatened Google with criminal and civil lawsuits if it did not comply with opening the restricted online photo albums of users under suspicion." 'Comply with opening' under court order? Then yes, Google should get suits against it. 'Comply with opening' under an informal request? Uh, no.
But to get back to the subject.. what's worse is that this isn't even people who they know are pedophiles.. they're just suspected... "The US Internet giant delivered 3,261 files to a Brazilian senate commission" - that's 3,261 people they suspect might be pedophiles. "Torres said he believed Google's data would incriminate around 200 pedophiles." - That's 200 they think actually will be found guilty of violating laws against pedophilia. That's more than 3,000 people whose 'private'* information they have but don't actually expect to get any convictions of; either by lack of solid evidence or simply because those people are innocent. So what happens to their data? (Other than the obvious screening for other possible illegal behavior)
To top it off, Google plans on making this fully automatic in the future. "Google... negotiate a wide-ranging deal that would see the US company systematically providing data on suspect Orkut users to Brazilian authorities." Lovely.
* remember, once it's written down anywhere, it's no longer private - no matter what that little "Private" checkbox on Orkut, MySpace, FaceBook, etc. says.
That might work if they boot it up -first- before stealing it... but let's consider that a highly unlikely scenario.
So the perp steals the computer, goes to some other location, boots it up (presumably), sees your message and.. for the sake of argument, let's say he really believes that the GPS position is acquired and transmitted.
The perp will then do what? A. yawn and sell it to a perp with higher tech skills to either determine whether it's fake or take out the GPS module / etc. B. freak out and toss the computer. C. kindly return it to its rightful owner
You might be hoping for C, but let's face it... C is the least likely option there.
So you're out of your computer and your fake message did nothing.
Let's, just for kicks, assume you really -did- have a GPS+cell in there and you did get the coordinates of... well of what? A. nearest overpass B. nearest dark alley C. some internet cafe D. a computer 'chop shop' E. the perp's home address
You're hoping for E, possibly D, but, again, not very likely. But at least if it continues transmitting its position, you could possibly recover your laptop in the end.
I suspect they mean that you can go to any ol' net cafe and do those things. That still requires using a computer, but doesn't require you to have one. Whether that's practical or not is a different matter altogether.
I'll just reply to myself seeing as you can't reply to 4 people at once.
Get some math me - thanks, will do. Oh wait, math doesn't have anything to do with what I said.
Electoral College - 'll demonstrate, and point out why I'm not comparing it directly to shareholder stakes but to the general concept.
Here's the deal... I know that in shares, people with more shares have more swing. I'm certainly not disputing.
I'm also guessing that for whatever reason, they decided to say that each share would be termed to have a 'vote' - I haven't looked into terminology, but what the hey.
However, in plain ol' English, I've never seen an object make a vote. Let alone a virtual object. There have not been 83,843,501 conscious decisions made my 83,843,501 people that say "screw you, Microsoft".
Say you're going out to a movie with 3 other people. You and 2 others vote for Movie A, the remaining guy votes for Movie B. 4 votes in total, 3 for Movie A. Clear cut enough, no? But now that one guy says "yeah, but I'm paying, so Movie B it is". Fair enough (and let me stress that - fair enough, I'm not arguing that in the case of the shareholder have a 6% share and that -that- is what matters. Heck, didn't I even point that out in my post?), but just because he has greater swing does not mean that suddenly he has 4 votes while you 3 other guys have zero votes. Your votes may be meaningless, the other guy may always get his vote's way regardless of what you other 3 guys vote, but the actual vote count does not change.
And so the electoral college. I'll leave that to you guys to figure out what I meant - I obviously didn't make myself clear enough before:)
"This is actually 83,843,501 votes AGAINST the current MSFT offer."
Uhm, no. it's 1 vote. 1 vote which happens to have a 6% share of the total, or 83,843,501 shares. That doesn't make it 83,843,501 votes.
As much fun as movies make it to say that somebody has 1 million reasons (dollars) to kill somebody, you shouldn't apply that to general life. If nothing else, the U.S. electoral college should have taught you that.
If you saw the IMAX 3D, then you got the standard polarized version (one left projector with vertical polarization, one right projector with horizontal polarization, and matching cheapo glasses).
If you saw the other one (RealD?), then you got a fancy set of glasses that had to be initialized first to match the current rotation angles for single-lens single projector, which projects both fields at once with rotating polarization. More than likely, you have to give those back (I did; NL). The main advantage is that you don't have to keep your head level... you can rest your head on your SO's shoulder and still enjoy the 3D effect instead of it being lost, muddied or getting ghost images.
I wouldn't call it 'circular polarizers', btw... tends to get confused with circular polarizers in photography which are just standard polarizers with another layer that 'de-polarizes' the result so that optical autofocus systems and such don't get confused.
Think of it - every live action movie is already in 3D by default - so why aren't -they- being recorded in 3D simply by sticking two cameras next to eachother? You could claim 'film costs', but compared to actor salaries that's a laugh, and the 'film cost' for CG movies would be there as well - you'll need more time to render the second perspective -or- more machines to render the second perspective so that you'll end up with the same timeframe.
Some shots are simply easy to plan as '2D' while difficult or impossible to do in stereoscopic vision.
I will say that it's easier in CG because you don't have to worry about the 'bulk' of an actual camera, but that's just about where the differences end.
So far any time somebody has complained, people have been quick to point out that either it wasn't marked as private clearly enough (apparently you need signs?), or that the city records didn't show it was private (o-kay), or that the people can just tell Google to remove them*, etc.
So why aren't 'we' going about this the other way - finding private properties and seeing if they are on Google's Street View.
Then tell the owners that they're on there.
Then see what their reactions are.
Sounds like something for a bored local TV station to me. Bored local TV stations, are you listening?
...to be safe from spammers using Google Mail... people should just -get- Google Mail themselves?
I don't know whether to just blink or to think that you discovered a Google strategy here; getting even more people over to Google Mail because there's less spam there; nevermind the fact that a portion of that spam is sent from their own servers(!) I suppose there wouldn't be a heck of a lot of incentive to do something about the spam accounts, then.
=====
Or maybe you're saying that Google should apply their spam filters for incoming mail to all outbound mail as well. That sounds a lot more sane anyway. If a legit message is flagged as possible spam, ask for user input (make sure this can't be automated too easily) on whether it's actually legit or not. Regardless of that response, if N messages in t time are flagged, have an engineer (okay, school kid) check it out and disable the account if necessary
...and this is a highly popular piece of OSS on Windows... Thunderbird and getting SMTP logs.
An SMTP server was giving me a vague error... I couldn't send mail because of it, but because I couldn't see any of the events leading up to it, just the last response, I was stuck.
So I figured I would turn on logging of commands sent/retrieved and check those out.
Best option: If you think it would be a configuration option in the UI - think again. It's how it should be, but it's not. Next best option: If you think it would be a configuration option in Tools > Options... > |Advanced| > General > [config editor...] (hideous in its own right) - think again. Next best option: If you think it would be a configuration option involving opening a.ini file, or even an XML file, using notepad - think again. Next best option: If you think it was a command-line parameter (that you could, arguably, edit into a shortcut if you fear the command line) - think again. Absolutely the worst option: If you think it's an environment variable - DING-dee-flipping-DING-DING, we have a winner.
Now I'm plenty computer-savvy, but environment variables? Really now. I just want Thunderbird to be able to optionally log the traffic. That's not something that should be an environment variable that I'd have to set again and again (or create a separate batch file + shortcut for, etc.). That's something that should be in the config editor at worst or be a checkbox in Tools > Options... > |Advanced| > General / Network & Disk Space. It's not like the dialog doesn't have room for it - what, with 1/5th of the dialog being -blank- at the bottom.
That said, I'm not lumping -all- OSS in with this particular bad experience (there's plenty of others)... some is very well-written and well-supported.
yeah... that stuff only works if you come to an understanding of what, exactly, constitutes an emergency... which is neigh-impossible to do. It's easier to tell them that you will ignore any "call me back" or "text me back" messages that don't have a reason stated, and that you may choose to put off reacting to some messages if the reason allows you to (or you just plain want to).
If that's something the sender gets upset over, that's really their problem, not yours.
( I do presume you'd treat others the same, of course )
People are remembered for many things... history will tell whether ol' Chuck will be remembered for his acting talents, his pro-NRA vocalism/etc. or his many other, but less noteworthy, accomplishments.
One is in computers / software / consumer electronics. The other is... well, it's a city.. and they're using it as a logo for a city and community effort to make NYC greener.
I'm sorry, but no - Apple's trademarked logo does not stand to be diluted from this any more than most of the other apple logos out there.
That said, I'm sure their lawyers feel differently and are erring on the safe side; defending their logo just-in-case... if they don't, they're screwed anyway. If they do.. at the most they're out some cash for the claims/judgment/etc. Just sad that they feel the need to feel differently in the first place.
"If every speed limit were set based on the natural speed of traffic"
then the natural speed of traffic would automatically climb above that new speed limit.
Perhaps the reason some speed limits are, say, 60 is because where you live, they expect everybody to go 10-15 over and so the maximum speed ends up being 75; which might have been their 'safe speed for this road' limit in the first place.
Set the limit to 75, and now you've got people going 90 on a road for which it's possibly not safe.
Yes, there's roads on which the speed limit can be raised, and -should- be raised. But there's always a tireless few who make it a point to drive that 10-15mph faster than the limit, regardless of whether that limit is injust or not.
heck, if they tried to ticket everybody going, say, 5 over, then those getting caught will cry about getting ticketed for only 5mph over and tell the cops to "go catch murderers" or, in this particular case "go catch the ones going 15+ over".
Let's face it - the police, especially traffic police, can't win in the public eye, ever.
"I consider myself a courteous and defensive driver" okay...
"but I usually drive 10-20 over the speed limit." I think the people who are driving the speed limit, or slightly over, and you are closing up on at 20mph over the speed limit might disagree a bit with the "defensive" part there. If I drive 5 over the speed limit and somebody's popping up in my rear view mirror and getting noticeably closer with every glance, I'd consider you aggressive.
"Just once I would love to see a cop ticket the assholes who drive the speed limit in the left lane." Although I certainly agree that if somebody is driving right at, or just above, the speed limit, should move to the right lane when possible, I don't quite understand why they would be 'assholes' for staying on the left. Presumably, it would only be an issue for those who very much wish to speed (to the point of deserving a hefty speeding ticket) or police/ambulances/firetrucks when they have a good reason to be speeding. I can only assume that the aforementioned 'assholes' that drive at the speed limit would be courteous and defensive enough to try move aside in those cases.
"They are the ones who are a safety problem because they piss off myself" If a driver gets pissed off, and I do mean "pissed off" and not "slightly annoyed", by traffic circumstances, then I highly doubt they could maintain the "defensive" attitude in driving.
"and others who are trying to get by" By, again, speeding - and not just a little, but 10-20mph.
"so then we do something stupid to put you behind us." I didn't realize that others keeping to the speed limits, or slightly over, are an excuse for dangerous traffic behavior.
"I'm going to get around you eventually, whether I do so by passing safely on the left as intended or I have to zip around your dumb ass on the right." Combined with the "we do something stupid", I seriously question whether your perspective on just who, exactly, is the "asshole" in traffic is just.
--
Now if you wish to argue that many speed limits are too low - agreed. There's no reason I can't go over the Dutch A28 motoway at 140km/h ('bout 87) instead of 120km/h ('bout 75) if the road is reasonably clear, visibility is good, and road conditions themselves permit it. That's why I have petitioned, along with many others, to have variable speed limits, indicated above the roads. The government is very receptive to the idea as they had plans for variable speed limit indicators for other reasons (fog, roadwork, construction work near roads, accidents, etc.) planned anyway.
Until such a time as this is implemented, however, I'll just politely blink my headlights if I'm going 10kph over the speed limit while somebody in front of me in the left lane is going exactly the speed limit and can move to the right lane safely. If they do not wish to move, so be it; I'm the one speeding, not them, I should incur the down sides to that behavior.
In the end, however, there are far too many people who always want to go faster than others. So whether the speed limit is raised from 70 to 90 in your case, many will just go 100 or 110 instead and complain about those going 95.
my guess is that either... A. The joke is that there are no jokes, and the joke's on us for debating on every story whether it is a joke or not or B. The joke is all the Anastasia 'Russian bride' dating service ads all of a sudden (given the large number of AdBlock users, that joke would be lost on most).
If the latter is not a joke, then I do fear Slashdot's new ad policy:>
erm.... if he didn't notice it in the first place, then why would he have gone through the bother of screen-capturing it?
I realize that yes, once in video, you might not notice it -as much- as when you can compare two still frames. However, I'm willing to bet that if the guy put up full captures, you would not only easily be able to tell the difference between the two videos, even if viewed separately (rather than, say, side-by-side, or one right after the other in a loop)... but that if you -only- showed the lower bitrate version(s) to people, they would be quick to say "what's up with all the blockies?", especially on that music channel as that's even worse than youtube quality when youtube quality isn't done right.. and that's saying something.
But I can't prove it - I don't live in the U.S., I can't capture video from both those sources, etc.
On a side-note, as you mention NTSC - some NTSC S-VHS copies of movies are still better quality than their DVD counterparts precisely because of overzealous compression (typically due to the releasing company's desire to fill the DVD with a dozen other languages, their respective subtitles, original trailers, making ofs, interviews, etc. etc. so that space for the actual movie is reduced significantly from a DVD filled with -just- the movie). Yes, the colors are better on the DVD, and you get the DVD goodness of chapter selection/etc. but those MPEG blocks will ruin it anytime. You don't even have to look hard - any scene with reasonably high frequency video (spatially and temporally; think fields of wheat or grass, leaves of trees, sea/ocean shots) will painfully point them out for you.
At times? Seems to me that they're going back to exactly that format when it comes to iPhone software development. - must purchase the SDK - must pay Apple a share of the loot if you actually end up selling it (and Apple is free to say 'no')
Yes, I know, Apple deserves a share of the loot for hosting, distributing, blablabla. The problem is that you cannot and even -may- not offer your software via alternative distribution platforms.. like, say, your own website.
Slashdot Mirror
make sure to read that both ways... not only should a computer-savvy person be perfectly capable of doing this, there shouldn't be anything in the way to STOP them from doing this. They SHOULD be able to do this. Being able to access a drive's contents externally can save your ass if you hose the O/S / boot sector / whatever. Getting around basic password systems that are only meant to prevent unauthorized access when already in the same system is something that is -by design-. If you don't want the contents available even if hooked up to a secondary machine, or even to forensics, then you should encrypt the thing (keeping in mind that if you then screw something up, you may be SOL.)
...seeing as most Slashdot users think every 'artist's works should never be copyrighted anyway - that any image, sound file, movie clip, etc. on the web is fair game for taking and using however they see fit, including verbatim, and that 'artist's should just find some other line of work if they want fair appropriation or - daresay - compensation for their work...
The GPL License is based largely on copyright. You violate the license, you enter the domain of copyright. You violate copyright, you can be sued up the wazoo - or something.
So for those GPL projects where original authors of pieces of code can no longer be found (the same that hold back, say, Linux from going to some other license, or newer GPL license), no copyright can be established. Ergo, the code can be included in, and released with, locked down software. The GPL may be violated, but that in itself just brings things to the copyright table - and since no copyright can be ascertained over the code involved, the company walks.
I could be mistaken, though.. I hope I am.
I also hope that this doesn't get pushed through - as mentioned before, it just screws over the little guy... again.
Anybody who uses encryption wisely knows that they should guard the key with their life (not literally), not just from being stolen but also from being -lost-. That typically includes keeping a second set of the keys (protection against loss; unless both sites are hit at the same time) somewhere only you know about (protection from targeted theft) in a way that makes it nigh impossible to determine what they're for (protection from random theft); or just useless once realized they're compromised (change the keys, change the location, move on).
Encryption is pointless if the key itself is stored with the encrypted content (as various media protections show), and dangerous if the key can be 'lost'.
you're funny.
Anyway - yes, elderly, even those with fatal diseases, still get expensive treatment. My grandfather got cancer treatment right up to his death in the middle 80's. My grandmother got a new hip at 96 (she's now 101 - go granny), even though she's not really all that mobile to begin with (has to get around with a walker on wheels - vroom). If she -wanted- to, she could get an electric wheelchair - no cost. For some extra, she can get a 'scootmobiel'. It's like a trike, but less sporty, and has a compartment for groceries.
So no, they don't get told "no".
On the other hand, they do get told their realistic options. My grandfather was told that he would likely not recover; which was true enough; and he chose to get the treatments anyway and died a withered old man who was really not my grandfather anymore. His choice, but there are plenty who choose not to get the treatments.
In addition, in Socialist The Netherlands, a good portion will choose the exact opposite: euthanasia - legally.
For what it's worth - I haven't made an insurance claim since in well over 15 years, yet I pay a high premium every year. Do I feel this is 'unfair'? No. If it means some kid from a poor family getting hit by an uninsured driver can still get his leg fixed, then I -gladly- pay my premium.
( Note that the Dutch insurance system changed a year or two ago and less goes through the government now, and more through the insurance companies; with a minimum level of insurance from each insurance company for the same price we used to pay the government in our taxes. Of course most insurance companies don't really offer that minimum, luring people with supposed extras, and thus we all actually end up paying more while actually getting much the same coverage. Huh. )
Then again, your life has been made a little bit more fair by the existence of glasses. You dealt with that by buying glasses. How much do they cost... 2, 3-figure sum? Affordable, even to get replacements, I'm sure.
Now you need a lung transplant. How do you deal with that, if you can't get insurance because the insurance company determined at birth that you would be predisposed to whatever lung ailment and excluded you from insurance for it, and you most certainly can't afford the procedure (~$300k). I suppose one way to deal with it is to just go ahead and die.
At that point, however, you might as well just terminate pregnancies of those who are predisposed to certain afflictions, even if the only reason to do so is because just as they're predisposed to get the affliction, they're predisposed not to be able to afford the procedure later in life.
"The question is what do we allow? Discrimination against obese people, smokers, alcoholics?"
I don't see how it is a hop/skip/jump away from afflictions of -choice- (obesity is debatable, as that can have medical and heck, genetical, factors) to afflictions in which you, at least, had no particular choice. Perhaps your parents did (did your mom booze up during her pregnancy - d'oh?), but you yourself didn't get a whole lot of say in that and shouldn't become a victim of it.
Insurances already 'discriminate' against so many things. Didn't wear your seatbelt? There goes a good chunk of your payout, if not -all of it-. Over here in NL, smokers -do- pay a higher premium as well.. why not? Not only are they at a higher risk of cancer (insert "my grandfather smoked 3 packs a day and lived to be 94!" anecdotal evidence here), but they're putting everybody else at that higher risk as well (or, if nothing else, afflict those with asthma and generally stink up the place).
On the flip side - There's a life payout company in NL that gives a -higher- payout to smokers. Why? Because smokers do pay a higher premium, while they live less long. So they figure they should get a higher payout each month than non-smokers. Makes sense to me.
I don't know anything about Brazilian law - so somebody who does might clue the rest of us in, but...
... negotiate a wide-ranging deal that would see the US company systematically providing data on suspect Orkut users to Brazilian authorities."
In most countries the deal is that if you know somebody is a pedophile (convicted or registered by choice - rare as that may be), then a case worker gets to know 'their every move' as it is, including online dealings. If the caseworker thinks the person has a MySpace account and wants access to it - that case worker can order the person to reveal their login details. If the person then refuses, they can get a court order for MySpace to reveal the details of the account. MySpace could then opt to refuse, but that'll get them in a world of hurt.
Seems to me that the brazilian authorities didn't even do the Court Order thing:
"Authorities had threatened Google with criminal and civil lawsuits if it did not comply with opening the restricted online photo albums of users under suspicion."
'Comply with opening' under court order? Then yes, Google should get suits against it. 'Comply with opening' under an informal request? Uh, no.
But to get back to the subject.. what's worse is that this isn't even people who they know are pedophiles.. they're just suspected... "The US Internet giant delivered 3,261 files to a Brazilian senate commission" - that's 3,261 people they suspect might be pedophiles. "Torres said he believed Google's data would incriminate around 200 pedophiles." - That's 200 they think actually will be found guilty of violating laws against pedophilia. That's more than 3,000 people whose 'private'* information they have but don't actually expect to get any convictions of; either by lack of solid evidence or simply because those people are innocent. So what happens to their data? (Other than the obvious screening for other possible illegal behavior)
To top it off, Google plans on making this fully automatic in the future. "Google
Lovely.
* remember, once it's written down anywhere, it's no longer private - no matter what that little "Private" checkbox on Orkut, MySpace, FaceBook, etc. says.
That might work if they boot it up -first- before stealing it... but let's consider that a highly unlikely scenario.
So the perp steals the computer, goes to some other location, boots it up (presumably), sees your message and.. for the sake of argument, let's say he really believes that the GPS position is acquired and transmitted.
The perp will then do what?
A. yawn and sell it to a perp with higher tech skills to either determine whether it's fake or take out the GPS module / etc.
B. freak out and toss the computer.
C. kindly return it to its rightful owner
You might be hoping for C, but let's face it... C is the least likely option there.
So you're out of your computer and your fake message did nothing.
Let's, just for kicks, assume you really -did- have a GPS+cell in there and you did get the coordinates of... well of what?
A. nearest overpass
B. nearest dark alley
C. some internet cafe
D. a computer 'chop shop'
E. the perp's home address
You're hoping for E, possibly D, but, again, not very likely. But at least if it continues transmitting its position, you could possibly recover your laptop in the end.
I suspect they mean that you can go to any ol' net cafe and do those things. That still requires using a computer, but doesn't require you to have one. Whether that's practical or not is a different matter altogether.
I'll just reply to myself seeing as you can't reply to 4 people at once.
:)
Get some math me - thanks, will do. Oh wait, math doesn't have anything to do with what I said.
Electoral College - 'll demonstrate, and point out why I'm not comparing it directly to shareholder stakes but to the general concept.
Here's the deal... I know that in shares, people with more shares have more swing. I'm certainly not disputing.
I'm also guessing that for whatever reason, they decided to say that each share would be termed to have a 'vote' - I haven't looked into terminology, but what the hey.
However, in plain ol' English, I've never seen an object make a vote. Let alone a virtual object. There have not been 83,843,501 conscious decisions made my 83,843,501 people that say "screw you, Microsoft".
Say you're going out to a movie with 3 other people. You and 2 others vote for Movie A, the remaining guy votes for Movie B. 4 votes in total, 3 for Movie A. Clear cut enough, no?
But now that one guy says "yeah, but I'm paying, so Movie B it is". Fair enough (and let me stress that - fair enough, I'm not arguing that in the case of the shareholder have a 6% share and that -that- is what matters. Heck, didn't I even point that out in my post?), but just because he has greater swing does not mean that suddenly he has 4 votes while you 3 other guys have zero votes. Your votes may be meaningless, the other guy may always get his vote's way regardless of what you other 3 guys vote, but the actual vote count does not change.
And so the electoral college. I'll leave that to you guys to figure out what I meant - I obviously didn't make myself clear enough before
"This is actually 83,843,501 votes AGAINST the current MSFT offer."
Uhm, no. it's 1 vote. 1 vote which happens to have a 6% share of the total, or 83,843,501 shares. That doesn't make it 83,843,501 votes.
As much fun as movies make it to say that somebody has 1 million reasons (dollars) to kill somebody, you shouldn't apply that to general life. If nothing else, the U.S. electoral college should have taught you that.
Depends on which you saw...
If you saw the IMAX 3D, then you got the standard polarized version (one left projector with vertical polarization, one right projector with horizontal polarization, and matching cheapo glasses).
If you saw the other one (RealD?), then you got a fancy set of glasses that had to be initialized first to match the current rotation angles for single-lens single projector, which projects both fields at once with rotating polarization. More than likely, you have to give those back (I did; NL). The main advantage is that you don't have to keep your head level... you can rest your head on your SO's shoulder and still enjoy the 3D effect instead of it being lost, muddied or getting ghost images.
I wouldn't call it 'circular polarizers', btw... tends to get confused with circular polarizers in photography which are just standard polarizers with another layer that 'de-polarizes' the result so that optical autofocus systems and such don't get confused.
Because it's not as easy as you think it is.
Think of it - every live action movie is already in 3D by default - so why aren't -they- being recorded in 3D simply by sticking two cameras next to eachother?
You could claim 'film costs', but compared to actor salaries that's a laugh, and the 'film cost' for CG movies would be there as well - you'll need more time to render the second perspective -or- more machines to render the second perspective so that you'll end up with the same timeframe.
Some shots are simply easy to plan as '2D' while difficult or impossible to do in stereoscopic vision.
I will say that it's easier in CG because you don't have to worry about the 'bulk' of an actual camera, but that's just about where the differences end.
So far any time somebody has complained, people have been quick to point out that either it wasn't marked as private clearly enough (apparently you need signs?), or that the city records didn't show it was private (o-kay), or that the people can just tell Google to remove them*, etc.
So why aren't 'we' going about this the other way - finding private properties and seeing if they are on Google's Street View.
Then tell the owners that they're on there.
Then see what their reactions are.
Sounds like something for a bored local TV station to me. Bored local TV stations, are you listening?
...to be safe from spammers using Google Mail... people should just -get- Google Mail themselves?
I don't know whether to just blink or to think that you discovered a Google strategy here; getting even more people over to Google Mail because there's less spam there; nevermind the fact that a portion of that spam is sent from their own servers(!) I suppose there wouldn't be a heck of a lot of incentive to do something about the spam accounts, then.
=====
Or maybe you're saying that Google should apply their spam filters for incoming mail to all outbound mail as well. That sounds a lot more sane anyway.
If a legit message is flagged as possible spam, ask for user input (make sure this can't be automated too easily) on whether it's actually legit or not.
Regardless of that response, if N messages in t time are flagged, have an engineer (okay, school kid) check it out and disable the account if necessary
...and this is a highly popular piece of OSS on Windows... Thunderbird and getting SMTP logs.
.ini file, or even an XML file, using notepad - think again.
An SMTP server was giving me a vague error... I couldn't send mail because of it, but because I couldn't see any of the events leading up to it, just the last response, I was stuck.
So I figured I would turn on logging of commands sent/retrieved and check those out.
Best option: If you think it would be a configuration option in the UI - think again. It's how it should be, but it's not.
Next best option: If you think it would be a configuration option in Tools > Options... > |Advanced| > General > [config editor...] (hideous in its own right) - think again.
Next best option: If you think it would be a configuration option involving opening a
Next best option: If you think it was a command-line parameter (that you could, arguably, edit into a shortcut if you fear the command line) - think again.
Absolutely the worst option: If you think it's an environment variable - DING-dee-flipping-DING-DING, we have a winner.
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html
Now I'm plenty computer-savvy, but environment variables? Really now. I just want Thunderbird to be able to optionally log the traffic. That's not something that should be an environment variable that I'd have to set again and again (or create a separate batch file + shortcut for, etc.). That's something that should be in the config editor at worst or be a checkbox in Tools > Options... > |Advanced| > General / Network & Disk Space. It's not like the dialog doesn't have room for it - what, with 1/5th of the dialog being -blank- at the bottom.
That said, I'm not lumping -all- OSS in with this particular bad experience (there's plenty of others)... some is very well-written and well-supported.
yeah... that stuff only works if you come to an understanding of what, exactly, constitutes an emergency... which is neigh-impossible to do. It's easier to tell them that you will ignore any "call me back" or "text me back" messages that don't have a reason stated, and that you may choose to put off reacting to some messages if the reason allows you to (or you just plain want to).
If that's something the sender gets upset over, that's really their problem, not yours.
( I do presume you'd treat others the same, of course )
People are remembered for many things... history will tell whether ol' Chuck will be remembered for his acting talents, his pro-NRA vocalism/etc. or his many other, but less noteworthy, accomplishments.
One is in computers / software / consumer electronics. The other is... well, it's a city.. and they're using it as a logo for a city and community effort to make NYC greener.
I'm sorry, but no - Apple's trademarked logo does not stand to be diluted from this any more than most of the other apple logos out there.
That said, I'm sure their lawyers feel differently and are erring on the safe side; defending their logo just-in-case... if they don't, they're screwed anyway. If they do.. at the most they're out some cash for the claims/judgment/etc. Just sad that they feel the need to feel differently in the first place.
"If every speed limit were set based on the natural speed of traffic"
then the natural speed of traffic would automatically climb above that new speed limit.
Perhaps the reason some speed limits are, say, 60 is because where you live, they expect everybody to go 10-15 over and so the maximum speed ends up being 75; which might have been their 'safe speed for this road' limit in the first place.
Set the limit to 75, and now you've got people going 90 on a road for which it's possibly not safe.
Yes, there's roads on which the speed limit can be raised, and -should- be raised. But there's always a tireless few who make it a point to drive that 10-15mph faster than the limit, regardless of whether that limit is injust or not.
heck, if they tried to ticket everybody going, say, 5 over, then those getting caught will cry about getting ticketed for only 5mph over and tell the cops to "go catch murderers" or, in this particular case "go catch the ones going 15+ over".
Let's face it - the police, especially traffic police, can't win in the public eye, ever.
"I consider myself a courteous and defensive driver"
okay...
"but I usually drive 10-20 over the speed limit."
I think the people who are driving the speed limit, or slightly over, and you are closing up on at 20mph over the speed limit might disagree a bit with the "defensive" part there. If I drive 5 over the speed limit and somebody's popping up in my rear view mirror and getting noticeably closer with every glance, I'd consider you aggressive.
"Just once I would love to see a cop ticket the assholes who drive the speed limit in the left lane."
Although I certainly agree that if somebody is driving right at, or just above, the speed limit, should move to the right lane when possible, I don't quite understand why they would be 'assholes' for staying on the left. Presumably, it would only be an issue for those who very much wish to speed (to the point of deserving a hefty speeding ticket) or police/ambulances/firetrucks when they have a good reason to be speeding. I can only assume that the aforementioned 'assholes' that drive at the speed limit would be courteous and defensive enough to try move aside in those cases.
"They are the ones who are a safety problem because they piss off myself"
If a driver gets pissed off, and I do mean "pissed off" and not "slightly annoyed", by traffic circumstances, then I highly doubt they could maintain the "defensive" attitude in driving.
"and others who are trying to get by"
By, again, speeding - and not just a little, but 10-20mph.
"so then we do something stupid to put you behind us."
I didn't realize that others keeping to the speed limits, or slightly over, are an excuse for dangerous traffic behavior.
"I'm going to get around you eventually, whether I do so by passing safely on the left as intended or I have to zip around your dumb ass on the right."
Combined with the "we do something stupid", I seriously question whether your perspective on just who, exactly, is the "asshole" in traffic is just.
--
Now if you wish to argue that many speed limits are too low - agreed. There's no reason I can't go over the Dutch A28 motoway at 140km/h ('bout 87) instead of 120km/h ('bout 75) if the road is reasonably clear, visibility is good, and road conditions themselves permit it. That's why I have petitioned, along with many others, to have variable speed limits, indicated above the roads. The government is very receptive to the idea as they had plans for variable speed limit indicators for other reasons (fog, roadwork, construction work near roads, accidents, etc.) planned anyway.
Until such a time as this is implemented, however, I'll just politely blink my headlights if I'm going 10kph over the speed limit while somebody in front of me in the left lane is going exactly the speed limit and can move to the right lane safely. If they do not wish to move, so be it; I'm the one speeding, not them, I should incur the down sides to that behavior.
In the end, however, there are far too many people who always want to go faster than others. So whether the speed limit is raised from 70 to 90 in your case, many will just go 100 or 110 instead and complain about those going 95.
my guess is that either...
:>
A. The joke is that there are no jokes, and the joke's on us for debating on every story whether it is a joke or not
or
B. The joke is all the Anastasia 'Russian bride' dating service ads all of a sudden (given the large number of AdBlock users, that joke would be lost on most).
If the latter is not a joke, then I do fear Slashdot's new ad policy
erm.... if he didn't notice it in the first place, then why would he have gone through the bother of screen-capturing it?
I realize that yes, once in video, you might not notice it -as much- as when you can compare two still frames. However, I'm willing to bet that if the guy put up full captures, you would not only easily be able to tell the difference between the two videos, even if viewed separately (rather than, say, side-by-side, or one right after the other in a loop)... but that if you -only- showed the lower bitrate version(s) to people, they would be quick to say "what's up with all the blockies?", especially on that music channel as that's even worse than youtube quality when youtube quality isn't done right.. and that's saying something.
But I can't prove it - I don't live in the U.S., I can't capture video from both those sources, etc.
On a side-note, as you mention NTSC - some NTSC S-VHS copies of movies are still better quality than their DVD counterparts precisely because of overzealous compression (typically due to the releasing company's desire to fill the DVD with a dozen other languages, their respective subtitles, original trailers, making ofs, interviews, etc. etc. so that space for the actual movie is reduced significantly from a DVD filled with -just- the movie). Yes, the colors are better on the DVD, and you get the DVD goodness of chapter selection/etc. but those MPEG blocks will ruin it anytime. You don't even have to look hard - any scene with reasonably high frequency video (spatially and temporally; think fields of wheat or grass, leaves of trees, sea/ocean shots) will painfully point them out for you.
At times? Seems to me that they're going back to exactly that format when it comes to iPhone software development.
- must purchase the SDK
- must pay Apple a share of the loot if you actually end up selling it (and Apple is free to say 'no')
Yes, I know, Apple deserves a share of the loot for hosting, distributing, blablabla. The problem is that you cannot and even -may- not offer your software via alternative distribution platforms.. like, say, your own website.