Actually, this is incorrect, and the space it falls in has nothing to do with the space it falls through (except for wind resistance). The large shock is created by the velocity coming to a stop or even reversing itself in a near-negligible time.
The "very small space" I referred to is the amount of space available for acceleration (which depends on the amount the colliding objects flex under the impact -- that's why the surface hardness matters), not the total falling distance. The collision time is, of course, a function of this distance for a given collision velocity (a direct linear function, if we assume constant acceleration). /.
Surely there is some legal procedure for him to say something to the effect of: "I was babbling like an idiot because my brain was fried, and I blew off the offers to quit becuase didn't realize how far gone I was -- let's tear that up and start over?"
Unless and until he files such a request, that deposition is Valenti's legal position behind which he stands. /.
It wouldn't just the NRA working from inside the White House...it would be Microsoft as well.
They could collaborate on the ultimate FPS game.... /.
Re:My favorite quote...
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 2
(Nearly half) of Napster users...described the nature of its impact on their music purchases in a way which either explicitly indicated or suggested that Napster displaces CD sales
In other news, nearly half of all students were found to have below-average grades. This pattern remained consistent throughout all studied populations, with the single exception of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. /.
I mean, one should think that the MPAA would be hammering on this as well, that DeCSS takes away region codes, but their expert witness says it is irrelevant.
On the contrary, the last thing the MPAA wants to do is admit that DeCSS has applications that seem perfectly legitimate to the man on the street and/or fall within traditional fair use doctrine.
Let slip the fact that the stakes are the MPAA's ability to preserve market cartelization (region coding) and push extra advertizing (fast-forward lockout), not the ability to curtail bootlegging, and they lose the PR part of the political battle. /.
Bablefish or any other online translator could handle legal mumbo jumbo. You could feed it an entire court proceeding and all bablefish would have to say is: "That guy is screwed!"
Anybody else remember the bit in Asimov's Foundation where a logical analysis of the "assurances" offered by a visiting Imperial lord revealed that he had spent an entire week saying absolutely nothing? /.
Gaming, given the storytelling inherent in video and computer games, is perhaps the most vital new cultural form emanating from cyberspace.
Far be it from me to challenge the many months of historical perspective behind this statement, but gaming with storytelling elements was old when the VIC-20 was new.
I am reminded of an Asimov story ("A Perfect Fit") about a convicted criminal whose sentence was psychological conditioning which rendered him unable to use any kind of computer equipment (in a society where this was about as disabling as being illiterate in the present-day world).
While that part was offstage in the Asimov story, I can't help but think that if this were really done then other spammers would start advertising tapes of the one who got caught receiving his Clockwork Orange treatment. It would be like the pick-pockets working the crowd watching a pick-pocket being hanged. /.
Just as a foreword, i hate spam just as much as anybody else. however, i don't think spam should be illegal (just as junk snail-mail is not illegal).
*Sigh* One more time:
1. Junk snail-mail is paid for by the sender out of his own pocket. 2. Junk e-mail is paid for by the recipient out of stolen bandwidth and the increase in ISP fees caused by spam-related overhead.
also, i don't think that impersonation, in all cases, is illegal. suppose, for example, that you dressed up as richard nixon (just to pick a name out of the air) for halloween. suppose also that you ran about in your costume doing all sorts of embarrasing or shameful things. clearly, reasonable people would not take you for the real nixon.
If you went around gluing flyers to people's front doors (a meatspace analogy to spamming, in that it involves conversion of other people's property and creation of a public nuisance to spread your message), then concealing one's identity would be an aggrivating factor.
In addition, your analogy fails because recognizing that someone wearing a Nixon halloween mask is not really Nixon is much easier than spotting a forged header. One does not need any special technical skill to distinguish a cheap mask from a human face, or to know that the real Richard M. Nixon is taking the eternal dirt nap. /.
True democracy cannot exist unless it is... b) pervasive, so that the vote is carried into every part of society, whether organization, production, education, etc.,... e) tolerant of dissent and disagreement, both of which are necessary for a healthy society
These two are mutually exclusive -- the more "pervasive" the vote (i.e. the fewer areas in which an individual can blow off the majority and do what he wants) the less room is left for any form of dissent. /.
In a libertarian state, would I, for example, have the freedom to create state regulation of industry?
Yes. You can go off and set up the People's Republic of The South Forty (or however much land you could legitimately obtain) and regulate the industries there to your heart's content.
Of course, they would be free to leave, which I expect is exactly what would happen. /.
Note: this is not, classicly speaking, a conspiracy theory. An orthodox conspiracy theory must include the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in the conspiracy, since of course any conspiracy (possibly excepting Brutus and Marc Antony doing in Julius Caesar) includes the BATF.
You're a couple of steps behind in the evolution of conspiracy theory. By the mid-90s, it was the Federal Emergency Management Agency that had to be included in any self-respecting conspiracy theory (see the X-Files movie. Now, the mantle is passing to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. /.
Buy Cuba. I'm sure Fidel would sell for no more than $10 billion.... Give the DOJ the finger from 90 miles off Florida's coast.
They could put up a giant fist with a cigar sticking up between the two middle fingers. That would simultaneously serve as an advertisement for one of their new sidelines and an especially pungent gesture toward Clinton. /.
Assuming true anonymity were possible, the person harmed has no recourse. It is almost impossible to "un-prove" something.
First of all, true anonymity is certainly possible. If I were so inclined, it would be simple enough for me to post an AC message declaring "K33FA IZ A D00FUS" instead of tearing apart your position using facts and logic.
As for "recourse", it is impossible in any case to refute every hare-brained notion that someone might circulate. Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of credibility -- which is the advantage of this post over the random insult described in the previous paragraph. /.
The government's relation to the Net has historically been hostile (surely I need not bore you with the standard list of government abuses in the way of censorship, surveillance, infringement of fair-use rights, etc). Naturally, those people who use the Net and pay attention to politics (i.e. the people who bother to vote in Net polls) aren't going to be filled with warm fuzzy feelings toward government. /.
Here are a few examples of how this would work in other areas of law:
First Amendment: You register a copy of your typewriter/printer output with the government so they can figure out who wrote something, but they only investigate if a crime is committed. Honest....
Second Amendment: You register your guns, but you have a right to keep and bear them. Nope, no prelude no confiscation, really....
Fourth Amendment: You let the police install WebCams in your house, but they aren't allowed to use them without a warrant. Cross their hearts and hope to die....
Obviously, the Seagrams-head's notion is as unacceptable as any of the above /.
Simple: the "memory duty" is not something to be done by shops, even internet shops, which are mere money institution
You do realize that your sneer against a "mere money institution" carries overtones of both of the great waves of totalitarianism to sweep over Europe this century, don't you?
One of the Nazis' standard lines of anti-Semitic propaganda was that the Jews poisoned the nation with "soulless commerce", and I need hardly comment on the Communist view of free-market transactions. /.
I heard someone (George Will?) on a talking-head show describe Nazi and Soviet memorabilia as "pornography of violence". Ultimately, it comes down to the same free-speech question as pornography of sex. /.
this is not the french govt suing. Yahoo is sued by 2 anti-racist organizations
A French court actually took this nonsense seriously enough to issue an injunction. Thus, the discredit for such nonsense attaches itself to the court (and the government it represents) as well as to the original plantiff. /.
And let's not forget there are many cases where trading mp3s and files can be legal, fair and a benefit to everyone, artist included.
Legal, fair, and a benefit to the artist and his audience... but not a benefit to everyone. Specifically, it is not a benefit to the people who have an inside track on the old-model distribution system. Hence, the current bruhaha. /.
Consider the medium of transfering, say, *me* from one city to another. If I choose to use an airplane, I be subjected to a metal detactor, a possible search and my luggage will be sniffed at by dogs. Why? Because other people have used flight for illegal purposes (terrorism and transporting drugs).
By this "logic", a Gestapo raid is not the fault of the Gestapo or the Nazi government, but the fault of other people who hid Jews in the attic. (Yes, I'm Godwinizing. Deal with it.)
If the government starts imposing restrictions on how I use the Internet, I am going to blame Napster, not the law makers.
If you're going to openly reject the fundamental principles of causality and personal responsibility, moderating you down would be "Redundant". /.
Slashdot Mirror
The "very small space" I referred to is the amount of space available for acceleration (which depends on the amount the colliding objects flex under the impact -- that's why the surface hardness matters), not the total falling distance. The collision time is, of course, a function of this distance for a given collision velocity (a direct linear function, if we assume constant acceleration).
/.
What planet is IBM labs on, that this kind of acceleration happens in 3 feet? Would the surface of the sun even provide this much G force?
The shock is when it lands with a delta vee equal to its falling velocity (or more, if it bounces) in a very small space.
/.
Unless and until he files such a request, that deposition is Valenti's legal position behind which he stands.
/.
After all the "click of death" reports on some of the earlier ZIP drives, I wonder which marketing genius thought of that product name....
/.
They could collaborate on the ultimate FPS game....
/.
In other news, nearly half of all students were found to have below-average grades. This pattern remained consistent throughout all studied populations, with the single exception of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.
/.
On the contrary, the last thing the MPAA wants to do is admit that DeCSS has applications that seem perfectly legitimate to the man on the street and/or fall within traditional fair use doctrine.
Let slip the fact that the stakes are the MPAA's ability to preserve market cartelization (region coding) and push extra advertizing (fast-forward lockout), not the ability to curtail bootlegging, and they lose the PR part of the political battle.
/.
Anybody else remember the bit in Asimov's Foundation where a logical analysis of the "assurances" offered by a visiting Imperial lord revealed that he had spent an entire week saying absolutely nothing?
/.
That message would set off my scam alarm. To be sure of getting a report, it would need to be built into the boxen.
/.
Far be it from me to challenge the many months of historical perspective behind this statement, but gaming with storytelling elements was old when the VIC-20 was new.
Gaming != Computer Gaming, folks.
/.
While that part was offstage in the Asimov story, I can't help but think that if this were really done then other spammers would start advertising tapes of the one who got caught receiving his Clockwork Orange treatment. It would be like the pick-pockets working the crowd watching a pick-pocket being hanged.
/.
*Sigh* One more time:
1. Junk snail-mail is paid for by the sender out of his own pocket.
2. Junk e-mail is paid for by the recipient out of stolen bandwidth and the increase in ISP fees caused by spam-related overhead.
also, i don't think that impersonation, in all cases, is illegal. suppose, for example, that you dressed up as richard nixon (just to pick a name out of the air) for halloween. suppose also that you ran about in your costume doing all sorts of embarrasing or shameful things. clearly, reasonable people would not take you for the real nixon.
If you went around gluing flyers to people's front doors (a meatspace analogy to spamming, in that it involves conversion of other people's property and creation of a public nuisance to spread your message), then concealing one's identity would be an aggrivating factor.
In addition, your analogy fails because recognizing that someone wearing a Nixon halloween mask is not really Nixon is much easier than spotting a forged header. One does not need any special technical skill to distinguish a cheap mask from a human face, or to know that the real Richard M. Nixon is taking the eternal dirt nap.
/.
These two are mutually exclusive -- the more "pervasive" the vote (i.e. the fewer areas in which an individual can blow off the majority and do what he wants) the less room is left for any form of dissent.
/.
Yes. You can go off and set up the People's Republic of The South Forty (or however much land you could legitimately obtain) and regulate the industries there to your heart's content.
Of course, they would be free to leave, which I expect is exactly what would happen.
/.
You're a couple of steps behind in the evolution of conspiracy theory. By the mid-90s, it was the Federal Emergency Management Agency that had to be included in any self-respecting conspiracy theory (see the X-Files movie. Now, the mantle is passing to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
/.
They could put up a giant fist with a cigar sticking up between the two middle fingers. That would simultaneously serve as an advertisement for one of their new sidelines and an especially pungent gesture toward Clinton.
/.
***BZZZTTTT*** I'm sorry; that answer is not correct.
The correct answer is: The Supreme Court has upheld the right to anonymous speech in several cases (e.g. MacIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, Talley v. California).
Assuming true anonymity were possible, the person harmed has no recourse. It is almost impossible to "un-prove" something.
First of all, true anonymity is certainly possible. If I were so inclined, it would be simple enough for me to post an AC message declaring "K33FA IZ A D00FUS" instead of tearing apart your position using facts and logic.
As for "recourse", it is impossible in any case to refute every hare-brained notion that someone might circulate. Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of credibility -- which is the advantage of this post over the random insult described in the previous paragraph.
/.
Why do I always find the trolls right after using my last mod point?
/.
The government's relation to the Net has historically been hostile (surely I need not bore you with the standard list of government abuses in the way of censorship, surveillance, infringement of fair-use rights, etc). Naturally, those people who use the Net and pay attention to politics (i.e. the people who bother to vote in Net polls) aren't going to be filled with warm fuzzy feelings toward government.
/.
First Amendment: You register a copy of your typewriter/printer output with the government so they can figure out who wrote something, but they only investigate if a crime is committed. Honest....
Second Amendment: You register your guns, but you have a right to keep and bear them. Nope, no prelude no confiscation, really....
Fourth Amendment: You let the police install WebCams in your house, but they aren't allowed to use them without a warrant. Cross their hearts and hope to die....
Obviously, the Seagrams-head's notion is as unacceptable as any of the above
/.
You do realize that your sneer against a "mere money institution" carries overtones of both of the great waves of totalitarianism to sweep over Europe this century, don't you?
One of the Nazis' standard lines of anti-Semitic propaganda was that the Jews poisoned the nation with "soulless commerce", and I need hardly comment on the Communist view of free-market transactions.
/.
I heard someone (George Will?) on a talking-head show describe Nazi and Soviet memorabilia as "pornography of violence". Ultimately, it comes down to the same free-speech question as pornography of sex.
/.
A French court actually took this nonsense seriously enough to issue an injunction. Thus, the discredit for such nonsense attaches itself to the court (and the government it represents) as well as to the original plantiff.
/.
Legal, fair, and a benefit to the artist and his audience... but not a benefit to everyone. Specifically, it is not a benefit to the people who have an inside track on the old-model distribution system. Hence, the current bruhaha.
/.
By this "logic", a Gestapo raid is not the fault of the Gestapo or the Nazi government, but the fault of other people who hid Jews in the attic. (Yes, I'm Godwinizing. Deal with it.)
If the government starts imposing restrictions on how I use the Internet, I am going to blame Napster, not the law makers.
If you're going to openly reject the fundamental principles of causality and personal responsibility, moderating you down would be "Redundant".
/.