We are the United States. You will be assimilated into our American culture. We have analyzed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished. Resistance is futile.
The idea has definitely been discussed. It would seem very irresponsible to travel unarmed in pirate-infested waters such as near Somalia. However, it's not clear where this attack took place. It should be relatively safe to ship through the north Pacific or north Atlantic. I'd also expect the Southern Ocean is pretty safe because there isn't too much down there.
There's an article from the Christian Science Monitor that does a really good job of explaining the issues with protecting ships. It says that if crews are armed, pirates may retaliate if fired upon, injuring the crew or damaging the ship. Similarly, they believe that having specific armed security on ships will result in pirates getting more powerful weapons and firing from a distance. In short, they don't want to create an arms race with the pirates. There are other measures to protect ships, though they're somewhat expensive. I'd guess that shipping companies don't want to spend the money to protect ships traveling in areas where pirates aren't common.
Actually, the NBA (and college basketball) definition of when the game ends makes more sense for basketball. The NHL's definition makes more sense for hockey.
In hockey, the definition of a goal is that the entire puck must cross the goal line. Requiring a game clock overlay isn't perfect, but it's almost never an issue because goals aren't that frequent and you don't usually have last second shots in a period. If the rule was like basketball, the puck would have to leave the shooter's stick before the end of the period. There are enough deflections that totally obvious at normal speed to be a problem. What looks like a goal initially could be disallowed because of an apparent deflection. Also, what happens if the shot leaves the stick before the period ends but it hits the goalie right after the clock is at zero and bounces in? That's a goal at any other time, but it would have touched a player after the clock expired. It's easier to require that the puck cross the goal line.
In basketball, there are orange LED strips that show when time expires. As long as the ball leaves the shooter's hand before the light goes on, it's a shot. It's not subjective at all, nor does it require a game clock overlay. As long as the game clock is correct, you simply have to see if the ball leaves the hand before the light turns on. It's almost always very obvious in the replays. If the ball had to go through the hoop before time expired, you'd have to determine at what point it's actually a field goal. Does it have to completely pass through the bottom of the net? Does the top of the ball have to be below the hoop? Does the widest part of the ball have to be below the hoop (more than halfway down)? Does it have to be partly inside the rim? Does it simply have to be above the cylinder? You'd have to position cameras to get just the right camera angle for some of those. You'd actually have more controversy than you do now.
Normally if the game clock doesn't start, officials just whistle and stop play. If the error isn't significant enough for the officials to catch it in real time, perhaps it shouldn't be reviewed at all. As long as a person has to start the clock, there's going to be some margin of error between when the player touches the ball and when the clock starts. If we reviewed every inbound pass in the final minute of a close game, it would destroy any flow to the game and make it unwatchable.
Let's say the ball is inbounded with 5.0 seconds left, enough time for the player to dribble and get an open shot. Let's say the clock doesn't start until 0.8 seconds after the ball is touched. The player dribbles and gets off a shot with what appears to be 0.6 seconds left. After replay, it's determined it actually took 5.2 seconds to get the shot off and the basket is waved off. The player taking the shot is basing the decision of when to shoot on the game clock that's shown in multiple places. Because of the error by the officials, and a small one at that, the basket doesn't count. That seems really unfair to me. And yet it's a completely realistic scenario. That's why I think such reviews should have to be a real time decision by the officials, initiated by blowing the play dead.
You're mostly right. However, in the NBA, the timekeeper doesn't have to react to the officials' whistles being blown. The whistles automatically stop the clock as soon as they're blown. Also, the clock is started when an on-court official presses a button on their belt. That's no longer done at the scorer's table. Generally an official on the court will have a better view of when the clock should start. I'm not certain if this is done for resetting the shot clock, though; I think that's still done at the scorer's table.
The bill the Senate voted on is HR 644, which simply references existing law and indicates that the moratorium on internet taxes is to be made permanent. Here's the text of the existing law. From reading it, it seems clear that it refers both to wired and wireless internet connections, so I'm interested in where you see otherwise. This is what I see, as it defines internet access:
(4) Internet.-The term 'Internet' means collectively the myriad of computer and telecommunications facilities, including equipment and operating software, which comprise the interconnected world-wide network of networks that employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or any predecessor or successor protocols to such protocol, to communicate information of all kinds by wire or radio.
I think the real issue is whether it's still really a telecommunications service, which I think is questionable. The major carriers generally only provide plans now that include data and it's treated as a single package. It seems like providers such as Verizon basically give away unlimited talk and text and charge for data use. I'm not sure that really qualifies for an exemption from the law, which reads:
(D) Internet access service.-The term 'Internet access service' means a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the Internet and may also include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package of services offered to consumers. The term 'Internet access service' does not include telecommunications services, except to the extent such services are purchased, used, or sold by a provider of Internet access to provide Internet access.
Forgive me if this is a stupid question. Lots of jurisdictions impose taxes on cell phone service. Where I live right now does so. I have LTE, in which everything (voice, texts, data) is sent as data. Essentially it's purely an internet connection. If Congress makes it illegal for anyone to tax internet access, wouldn't this also cover wireless services? For previous generations of wireless technology, it could be argued that the portions not sent as data were what was being taxed. That doesn't seem to be the case for LTE where it's all data. Unless there's some specific exemption for wireless services that I'm not aware of, shouldn't this mean that my city imposing a tax for cell phone services on me is illegal under federal law?
GPS isn't the problem here. Perhaps I'm being pedantic when I say that, but it needs to be said. If it were the problem, it would likely be obvious; the location fix would be totally wrong and the directions wouldn't make any sense. It might say to turn where there's no place to turn or, quite possibly, indicate you're not on a road at all when you actually are. The real problem is a combination of software issues, poor design, and user error.
I do see some very strange routes that come out of some mapping software. I live in a city that's mostly a grid with some major north-south and east-west roads. If I plan my own route, I'll tend to stay on those main roads. That makes sense because the speed limits tend to be higher, there are fewer uncontrolled intersections, and the stoplights will be timed such that you're less likely to hit red lights on those roads. Mapping software often plots a course that zigzags through the streets. I suppose the software projects it saves a few seconds, but I'm not convinced it's the optimal route. I make trips east to St. Louis from time to time, and Google Maps gives me some bizarre alternate routes. If I'm heading east on I-70, an alternate route that follows I-64 (or if you're from St. Louis it's Highway 40) makes sense. It's probably a time difference of a minute or two. However, many times the alternate route offered involves taking some state highway down to I-44 or something like that, which can add an hour to the trip. I have no clue why this is a logical alternate route, but it's what the software finds. Thankfully I know not to consider those routes.
Poor design can be an issue. If it's easy for the user to select the wrong destination, that's a big problem. That certainly sounds like the case here in the linked story. If the user can't easily verify that the destination entered is really where they want to go, then poor design can be to blame.
That said, none of this is a substitute for common sense. If a route looks really strange or if the estimated time seems way too long, that's because it probably is. Driving for two days and crossing international borders for a trip that's supposed to be two hours long cannot simply be blamed on mapping software. The user is an idiot. At minimum, you have to cross two international borders to get from Belgium to Croatia. Quite possibly it was more than two, which should have been a huge warning sign that the user was too foolish to pay attention to.
GPS is a wonderful tool. I tend not to rely heavily on it to give me precise directions. I tend to follow the approximate route if it looks reasonable to me. I also use it to tell me where I am and roughly how long it is until the next turn and when I need to watch for particular road signs. That said, it's no substitute for common sense, knowing how to read a map, and watching the signs along the road.
A fraudulent return means the IRS won't accept your legitimately filed return. As a result, you'll need to prove your identity to the IRS, and then wait a lengthy amount of time for them to process your return. This happened to my parents and it took a few months for them to get their refund. If the IRS owes you a refund, you won't get it for a long time. While you're not liable for the fraudulent return, you'll have to wait a long time for your refund and it's quite a hassle. Also, a substantial amount of federal money is spent on fraud and waste. As a taxpayer, a portion of your money is wasted by fraudulent refunds. While I'm not necessarily opposed to most taxation, I have no interest in paying any taxes where the money ends up going to fraudsters.
The IRS really should assign everyone PINs or, preferably, better security. There's no good reason that additional security is restricted to people in Georgia, Florida, or those who have suffered tax-related identity theft. Also, why not simply maintain a registry of public keys for individuals? Require tax returns to be filed electronically and digitally sign them using the private key of individuals. As long as people don't allow anyone access to their private keys, this could prevent a lot of the problem. Why we're still using SSNs for identity information in the 21st century is beyond me. They were supposed to serve one purpose and one purpose only -- an identifier to track people's contributions to social security.
The solar plant is near Ouarzazate, which I estimate is about 300 miles from the southern tip of Spain. It's on the edge of the Sahara Desert, which should be a good location for more sunshine. Ouarzazate gets a little over 3,400 hours of sunshine per year while Gibraltar gets about 400 hours less. Also, as you go poleward, the sunlight is spread over a wider area, meaning that it's less intense at any given location. Gibraltar is at the southern tip of Spain, so this gets more pronounced if you go farther north. If you go north to Madrid, you can subtract roughly another 200-250 hours of sunlight each year while being nearly ten degrees latitude farther north. There's also a whole lot less seasonal variation in the amount of sunlight at Ouarzazate than at either location in Spain, making it more suitable for a constant supply of electricity that doesn't require being supplemented by something else.
The solar plant is actually at a great location, so it probably makes sense for Spain to by their electricity from Morocco than to build their own solar plant. In cold enough climates, the electricity demand might be high enough during winter that, if it can't be met with solar, it would be necessary to build another type of plant to supplement it or to buy the electricity from another country. It's much more cost-effective to have the plant in Morocco.
Pluto is getting colder. It has a highly eccentric orbit and right now that's taking Pluto farther from the Sun. As a result, temperatures will decrease on Pluto.
Actually, NASA used the term "float" to describe it because the water ice is less dense than the ice dominated by nitrogen. So, yes, the icebergs are floating.
There's plenty of outrage in the threads. Very little is based on facts and logic.
The methodology in this story set telemetry to "basic" instead of disabling it. Other features that are part of Windows' out of the box experience weren't disabled. The services that connect out weren't fully disabled, not even close. The router was configured to log and block outgoing connections. Even legitimate and desired services will retry failed connections and probably try different hosts. Ever take a look in Linux when yum can't contact a mirror? It doesn't just give up; it tries lots of other mirrors until either the list is exhausted or it finds one that works. This is desirable behavior, especially for essential services like Windows Update. Not trying different hosts would make the system vulnerable to a denial of service attack against a single host. The statistics reported were completely inflated by the chosen methodology, one in which telemetry wasn't even fully disabled. Other users have reported that fully disabling telemetry and shutting down non-essential services does reduce the outbound traffic to only Windows Update.
Regarding Android and Google, you actually brought it up in a post you made. I don't see anyone arguing that Google not respecting privacy justifies Microsoft not doing so. That's a straw man, which is a logical fallacy. The real issue is directing outrage mostly at Microsoft when there are plenty of others who deserve criticism for their practices.
You also make this very angry statement: "The second is to use a goddamned iPhone, which everyone pretends is just as bad on privacy but it really isn't. This isn't a great argument point, however- Apple is perpetually one patch away from having ruinous privacy policies, because they are such a proprietary solution." If this is actually a valid argument, it renders any of your criticism of Microsoft completely invalid. If you don't like Windows invading your privacy, you have the option to install Linux. Unlike your statement that Apple could modify their privacy policy at any time, that doesn't hold true for Linux. There are so many distros that even if a few chose to egregiously invade privacy, there are still a multitude of alternatives. Furthermore, open source software that engages in questionable behavior or makes poor licensing decisions tends to be forked. If your statement is true, then your criticism of Microsoft is invalid because you have choices like Linux, FreeBSD, or to buy a Mac. In fact, considering all the different distros, you have far more choices with a desktop OS than you do with phones.
There's a lot of hostility in your post, but you haven't touched on the real issues. In my experience, during the initial setup of an Android phone, the user is presented with options to disable sending telemetry to Google. While the box is checked by default, it's brought to the user's attention. I'm not aware of that happening in Windows 10. Furthermore, the versions of Windows 10 that most users will upgrade to won't present them with an option to altogether disable telemetry. Android presents me an option during setup to fully disable telemetry; I always do so, and therefore Android's telemetry doesn't bother me.
Yes, what Microsoft is doing is quite a bit worse than what Google does. But it's not for any of the reasons you've stated. And this story is based on a false premise. Let's stick to the facts, please. There's more than enough to justifiably criticize Microsoft for.
Thank you for reading my post and replying. Unfortunately, I'm skeptical that things will actually change.
I've read many users who seem to share some of the views I'm going to express. During an acquisition like this, there's a short amount of time when goodwill is afforded to the new management. In order to maintain that, we expect to see actions. I understand that modifying the code running the site takes time and changes won't be immediate. I understand that tinkering with existing features needs to be done carefully and adding new features requires thoughtful consideration. I think most reasonable people understand that.
However, there are things that can be done right now to improve the site. They include communicating with the users and improving the quality of stories posted here. It's one thing to go around and acknowledge having read people's posts. It's another to really let people know what's going on. Two longtime editors, Soulskill and sampenzus, are no longer seem to be posting here. There's been no acknowledgement to the users about what's going on. Stories continue to be of poor quality, with even more typos and outright incorrect statements than before. Here's a list of some:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/02/06/1550249/even-with-telemetry-disabled-windows-10-talks-to-dozens-of-microsoft-servers: The methodology of this test makes the results bogus. Telemetry wasn't disabled (set to basic) and outgoing connections were blocked at the router encouraging Windows Update and other services to try new hosts. The claims made are totally false, which is truly embarrassing to have on Slashdot's front page. Perhaps it should have been obvious that the story was suspicious because a user named "Motherfucking Shit" submitted it.
Things like obvious problems with stories could be cleaned up right away. I'm sorry, there's a lot of talk, but I don't see much going on of substance. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm skeptical that things will change and I think a lot of other users are starting to feel that way, too.
Regardless, good luck with Slashdot, I wish you and Slashdot Media nothing but the best.
For those who don't want to visit Forbes, a site with a history of malware in their ads but insists that visitors disable ad blockers (and script blockers like Noscript)...
The technology is pretty damn cool, especially the adaptive optics to deal with atmospheric turbulence. It's worth a read, especially when you don't have to try to visit Forbes.
I really wish the Slashdot editors would stop letting this crap through. But because they do, it's a good service to everyone if users can provide alternate links that are better. In this case, there's a hell of a lot of good information on the actual GMTO site.
A separate official said that any agreement also would be designed to provide equal benefits for U.S. law enforcement and national security authorities in U.S. investigations.
"Such an agreement would ensure U.S. access to data stored in the United Kingdom in support of law enforcement, terrorism, and other transnational threat investigations and support our partners’ ability to investigate serious crime, as well as terrorism and other transnational threats on a reciprocal basis,'' that official said.
I get what you're saying, but it's a bigger issue if certain content is only broadcast at that resolution so it's never possible to copy it at any resolution. It's not clear to me if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were.
The premise is right that restrictions inconvenience users who aren't interested in piracy and probably drive many of them to piracy. There are many other issues, too. And this isn't limited to Japan. I don't know the specifics of Japan, but we have similar issues in the US. It's possible to record over the air programming, but cable is heavily locked down. Aside from local channels, which are still encrypted and require a cablecard to record, the copy control information (CCI) flag is typically set to copy once on most other channels. That's the case with Time Warner Cable, which is the second largest cable company in the US. While it's possible to record an analog HD copy, that sucks for many reasons. Anything digital requires a cablecard and only Windows Media Center is certified to obey the CCI flag. Thus the only systems that can view and record such content are those with WMC. With Microsoft discontinuing WMC, it's not clear that any current software (Windows 7/8.1 aren't really current now) can view this content. If you've recorded something with the CCI set to copy once and you have to reinstall the OS for some reason, the keys are lost and the content can no longer be played. It's a terrible solution. How about we get rid of this kind of DRM everywhere because it only punishes law abiding users and instead go after those who distributed pirated content by suing them for reasonable (not horribly inflated) damages?
I created a new account to start logging back in and posting. Here are some ideas:
1) The stories on here are quite a bit less interesting than they used to be. I realize that nobody will be interested in everything on here, but each story should be of interest to a large enough portion of your users to make it worthwhile. Track the number of views each story gets and share that information. Also, allow users to vote on stories posted as "interesting to me" or "not interesting to me" and share that information, too. Look for each type of story and figure out which ones don't get a lot of views and aren't interesting to many people. Perhaps aggregate that information by the tags assigned to each story. Don't post types of stories that aren't interesting to many people and don't get many views. Post more of types of stories that get lots of views and get voted up as interesting to more people.
2) Create an option to read the lowest rated posts first. Some people find trolls amusing and would like to read that stuff. But the real benefit is in Slashdot's own guidelines to moderators that they should read at -1 to mod up posts that have been unfairly modded down. It's easier to do this if you see the lowest rated posts first.
3) One of the abuses in the moderation system is the "overrated" and "underrated" mods. These exist so that if a post gets moderated up or down a lot in a short amount of time and the score is higher or lower than it should be, it can be corrected without labeling it a particular way. A good post that perhaps should be at +3 but gets modded to +5 shouldn't have to be modded troll or offtopic to correct it. That's where overrated and underrated come in. But they're also open to abuses because they don't show up in metamoderation. Essentially, you can moderate with impunity using those options. I'd suggest limiting overrated and underrated moderations to posts that have already been moderated at least twice. You can't use an underrated mod on a post that's at not at least two points below its initial score. You can't use an overrated mod on a post that's not at least two points above its initial score. Also, show the previous score of a comment in metamoderation and make these subject to metamoderation like everything.
4) Allow users with good karma to voluntarily make a post at 0 or -1. Sometimes it's worth correcting a bad post at -1 but you don't want to take a karma hit if someone mods you down for participating in that discussion. Or, perhaps, you want to post and alert moderators that someone is making abusive posts (especially goatse links or isn't posting in good faith) without getting modded down yourself.
5) Don't require users to login to see users' friends and foes. Don't require logging in to see how a post has been moderated. I see no reason for those requirements. Also, when you view how a post has been moderated, show the number of each type of moderation instead of percentages. Besides, the percentages are rounded to multiples of 10 so they often don't add up to 100% once you get more than three or so moderations. It just looks bad. Removing the login requirement and displaying the moderation count is far more transparent. Also, display which moderations have been done by editors and when are by ordinary users. Transparency is important and has been an issue in the past.
6) You've had a LOT of good suggestions for changes to this site. It's a lot of work to implement them, and probably a lot of money as well. I suspect there's a large enough following interested in this site that some users would be happy to implement suggestions for you. Slashdot's code used to be open source and was hosted on Sourceforge. That's pretty much a thing of the past for this site, and the only modern open source version is Soylent News' fork. It makes sense that a site that posts a lot of news about FOSS would be open source. It also benefits you if users contributem and I think some would. Please open the code back up.
Here's the actual MIT article: http://news.mit.edu/2016/hack-proof-rfid-chips-0203. It does a good job of explaining the concept. A side channel attack involves analyzing the behavior of the device during encryption to determine its cryptographic key. It's not easy to carry out such an attack, but it's possible. Yes, using a different key each time eliminates the possibility of a side channel at the expense of a new vulnerability, which is the pseudo-random number generator. Perhaps the PRNG is good enough to be less of a vulnerability than a side channel attack, but this is a case of replacing one vulnerability with a different one.
No doubt it's an improvement to use a new key each time a transaction is made. But such a system is only as good as the quality of the pseudo-random number generator. If it's predictable, it can be exploited. It adds another layer of defense, but it's not hack-proof.
I live in Europe and I'm aware that there such things as "right opinions" and "wrong opinions". Expressing the latter may have life-altering consequences and some of those are actually illegal. We Europeans are fine with this. There are thoughts that society is frankly better off without. Orthodoxy and conformity is safety.
I really hope you're being sarcastic, but I can't be certain and therefore I am replying. There are certain types of speech that are banned because they are truly harmful. Violent threats, making false claims to incite panic, libel, and slander are illegal either through criminal or civil law. There are good reasons for such speech to not be legally protected.
However, the only speech that needs to be protected is that which someone finds offensive. Speech that isn't offensive doesn't need protection because nobody will want to ban it. Calling into question societal norms, government actions, the activity of the wealthy and powerful, and the beliefs and practices of religions are all offensive to some people. While plenty of that speech is baseless or foolish, it deserves to be protected. The ability to restrict speech that someone finds offensive inevitably gets abused. Orthodoxy and conformity are the tools of dictatorships, not free societies.
With respect to the article at hand, Enigma finds statements by Bleeping Computer offensive. In the US, in order for the speech to be libelous, it must include false information. Simply offering an opinion that Enigma's software sucks is not libelous. Providing truthful evidence to support that opinion isn't libelous, either. It's only libelous if false statements are made. And damages can only be awarded if libel occurred and the plaintiff actually suffered demonstrable harm as a result. Opinions are not illegal, even when someone finds them offensive. It's also notoriously difficult to be awarded damages by courts for slander and libel. I think it's very unlikely that Enigma is successful in their lawsuit. It's far more likely that they go the way of SCO, cease to exist, and very quickly so.
I believe there will be two ways users are warned. One occurs upon attempting to visit a website with deceptive ads in Chrome, in which an interstitial is displayed warning the user that the site may engage in deceptive practices. The other is when clicking links to such websites when they show up in Google searches. This already occurs to some degree when alerts like "this site may be hacked" or "this site may harm your computer" are shown alongside search results.
As one of the other replies noted, utility patents should be about how to do something, not what to do. I don't really think articles of manufacture and compositions of matter apply to software. However, the categories of processes and machines seem to do so. If you design a unique and novel algorithm to do something useful, that seems to qualify as a process. Putting algorithms together in a truly unique and novel way would seem to qualify as a machine. As long as you're patenting how to actually accomplish something rather than patenting the outcome, it seems reasonable to me.
I agree that the length of patents is an issue, but I don't think it's easy to say that one patent is more novel than another, thus deserving longer protection. However, the term of 20 years from the earliest filing is probably not appropriate in some sectors. The reason a longer patent on a drug (a composition of matter) makes sense is because of the regulatory hurdles that have to be cleared before bringing a drug to production. On the other hand, 20 years in the software industry is an eternity and is much too long. I'd say that a drug deserves a patent from 17 years from the date of issuance. A software patent, however, might only deserve three or four years from the date of issuance. It really depends on the sector, the pace of innovation, and the time it takes to bring an idea to market.
I recognize that software is unique in that, aside from bandwidth or distribution media, the cost of production is essentially flat regardless of how much is produced. That's what enables the free (as in beer) model for software that really isn't viable for anything with a physical product. Of course, that's a problem for paying royalties that are typically per-product. I get why people call for eliminating software patents, but the consequence of that is to provide less incentive to conduct research. I can't think of a good way to simultaneously avoid both problems.
Not necessarily. If your business is research and development, licensing those patents to others for use in production and using the royalties to fund more r&d, that would run afoul of a requirement that the patent holder use their patents. I don't think it's an abuse, though, because you're contributing to innovation by conducting your own research. The business model makes sense; just because a business funds r&d doesn't mean they have the ability to bring those ideas to production. The abuse is from patent holders who neither conduct r&d nor produce anything, just wait for their patents to be infringed and then pounce with lawsuits.
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We are the United States. You will be assimilated into our American culture. We have analyzed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished. Resistance is futile.
The idea has definitely been discussed. It would seem very irresponsible to travel unarmed in pirate-infested waters such as near Somalia. However, it's not clear where this attack took place. It should be relatively safe to ship through the north Pacific or north Atlantic. I'd also expect the Southern Ocean is pretty safe because there isn't too much down there.
There's an article from the Christian Science Monitor that does a really good job of explaining the issues with protecting ships. It says that if crews are armed, pirates may retaliate if fired upon, injuring the crew or damaging the ship. Similarly, they believe that having specific armed security on ships will result in pirates getting more powerful weapons and firing from a distance. In short, they don't want to create an arms race with the pirates. There are other measures to protect ships, though they're somewhat expensive. I'd guess that shipping companies don't want to spend the money to protect ships traveling in areas where pirates aren't common.
Actually, the NBA (and college basketball) definition of when the game ends makes more sense for basketball. The NHL's definition makes more sense for hockey.
In hockey, the definition of a goal is that the entire puck must cross the goal line. Requiring a game clock overlay isn't perfect, but it's almost never an issue because goals aren't that frequent and you don't usually have last second shots in a period. If the rule was like basketball, the puck would have to leave the shooter's stick before the end of the period. There are enough deflections that totally obvious at normal speed to be a problem. What looks like a goal initially could be disallowed because of an apparent deflection. Also, what happens if the shot leaves the stick before the period ends but it hits the goalie right after the clock is at zero and bounces in? That's a goal at any other time, but it would have touched a player after the clock expired. It's easier to require that the puck cross the goal line.
In basketball, there are orange LED strips that show when time expires. As long as the ball leaves the shooter's hand before the light goes on, it's a shot. It's not subjective at all, nor does it require a game clock overlay. As long as the game clock is correct, you simply have to see if the ball leaves the hand before the light turns on. It's almost always very obvious in the replays. If the ball had to go through the hoop before time expired, you'd have to determine at what point it's actually a field goal. Does it have to completely pass through the bottom of the net? Does the top of the ball have to be below the hoop? Does the widest part of the ball have to be below the hoop (more than halfway down)? Does it have to be partly inside the rim? Does it simply have to be above the cylinder? You'd have to position cameras to get just the right camera angle for some of those. You'd actually have more controversy than you do now.
Normally if the game clock doesn't start, officials just whistle and stop play. If the error isn't significant enough for the officials to catch it in real time, perhaps it shouldn't be reviewed at all. As long as a person has to start the clock, there's going to be some margin of error between when the player touches the ball and when the clock starts. If we reviewed every inbound pass in the final minute of a close game, it would destroy any flow to the game and make it unwatchable.
Let's say the ball is inbounded with 5.0 seconds left, enough time for the player to dribble and get an open shot. Let's say the clock doesn't start until 0.8 seconds after the ball is touched. The player dribbles and gets off a shot with what appears to be 0.6 seconds left. After replay, it's determined it actually took 5.2 seconds to get the shot off and the basket is waved off. The player taking the shot is basing the decision of when to shoot on the game clock that's shown in multiple places. Because of the error by the officials, and a small one at that, the basket doesn't count. That seems really unfair to me. And yet it's a completely realistic scenario. That's why I think such reviews should have to be a real time decision by the officials, initiated by blowing the play dead.
You're mostly right. However, in the NBA, the timekeeper doesn't have to react to the officials' whistles being blown. The whistles automatically stop the clock as soon as they're blown. Also, the clock is started when an on-court official presses a button on their belt. That's no longer done at the scorer's table. Generally an official on the court will have a better view of when the clock should start. I'm not certain if this is done for resetting the shot clock, though; I think that's still done at the scorer's table.
The bill the Senate voted on is HR 644, which simply references existing law and indicates that the moratorium on internet taxes is to be made permanent. Here's the text of the existing law. From reading it, it seems clear that it refers both to wired and wireless internet connections, so I'm interested in where you see otherwise. This is what I see, as it defines internet access:
(4) Internet.-The term 'Internet' means collectively the myriad of computer and telecommunications facilities, including equipment and operating software, which comprise the interconnected world-wide network of networks that employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or any predecessor or successor protocols to such protocol, to communicate information of all kinds by wire or radio.
I think the real issue is whether it's still really a telecommunications service, which I think is questionable. The major carriers generally only provide plans now that include data and it's treated as a single package. It seems like providers such as Verizon basically give away unlimited talk and text and charge for data use. I'm not sure that really qualifies for an exemption from the law, which reads:
(D) Internet access service.-The term 'Internet access service' means a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the Internet and may also include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package of services offered to consumers. The term 'Internet access service' does not include telecommunications services, except to the extent such services are purchased, used, or sold by a provider of Internet access to provide Internet access.
Forgive me if this is a stupid question. Lots of jurisdictions impose taxes on cell phone service. Where I live right now does so. I have LTE, in which everything (voice, texts, data) is sent as data. Essentially it's purely an internet connection. If Congress makes it illegal for anyone to tax internet access, wouldn't this also cover wireless services? For previous generations of wireless technology, it could be argued that the portions not sent as data were what was being taxed. That doesn't seem to be the case for LTE where it's all data. Unless there's some specific exemption for wireless services that I'm not aware of, shouldn't this mean that my city imposing a tax for cell phone services on me is illegal under federal law?
GPS isn't the problem here. Perhaps I'm being pedantic when I say that, but it needs to be said. If it were the problem, it would likely be obvious; the location fix would be totally wrong and the directions wouldn't make any sense. It might say to turn where there's no place to turn or, quite possibly, indicate you're not on a road at all when you actually are. The real problem is a combination of software issues, poor design, and user error.
I do see some very strange routes that come out of some mapping software. I live in a city that's mostly a grid with some major north-south and east-west roads. If I plan my own route, I'll tend to stay on those main roads. That makes sense because the speed limits tend to be higher, there are fewer uncontrolled intersections, and the stoplights will be timed such that you're less likely to hit red lights on those roads. Mapping software often plots a course that zigzags through the streets. I suppose the software projects it saves a few seconds, but I'm not convinced it's the optimal route. I make trips east to St. Louis from time to time, and Google Maps gives me some bizarre alternate routes. If I'm heading east on I-70, an alternate route that follows I-64 (or if you're from St. Louis it's Highway 40) makes sense. It's probably a time difference of a minute or two. However, many times the alternate route offered involves taking some state highway down to I-44 or something like that, which can add an hour to the trip. I have no clue why this is a logical alternate route, but it's what the software finds. Thankfully I know not to consider those routes.
Poor design can be an issue. If it's easy for the user to select the wrong destination, that's a big problem. That certainly sounds like the case here in the linked story. If the user can't easily verify that the destination entered is really where they want to go, then poor design can be to blame.
That said, none of this is a substitute for common sense. If a route looks really strange or if the estimated time seems way too long, that's because it probably is. Driving for two days and crossing international borders for a trip that's supposed to be two hours long cannot simply be blamed on mapping software. The user is an idiot. At minimum, you have to cross two international borders to get from Belgium to Croatia. Quite possibly it was more than two, which should have been a huge warning sign that the user was too foolish to pay attention to.
GPS is a wonderful tool. I tend not to rely heavily on it to give me precise directions. I tend to follow the approximate route if it looks reasonable to me. I also use it to tell me where I am and roughly how long it is until the next turn and when I need to watch for particular road signs. That said, it's no substitute for common sense, knowing how to read a map, and watching the signs along the road.
A fraudulent return means the IRS won't accept your legitimately filed return. As a result, you'll need to prove your identity to the IRS, and then wait a lengthy amount of time for them to process your return. This happened to my parents and it took a few months for them to get their refund. If the IRS owes you a refund, you won't get it for a long time. While you're not liable for the fraudulent return, you'll have to wait a long time for your refund and it's quite a hassle. Also, a substantial amount of federal money is spent on fraud and waste. As a taxpayer, a portion of your money is wasted by fraudulent refunds. While I'm not necessarily opposed to most taxation, I have no interest in paying any taxes where the money ends up going to fraudsters.
The IRS really should assign everyone PINs or, preferably, better security. There's no good reason that additional security is restricted to people in Georgia, Florida, or those who have suffered tax-related identity theft. Also, why not simply maintain a registry of public keys for individuals? Require tax returns to be filed electronically and digitally sign them using the private key of individuals. As long as people don't allow anyone access to their private keys, this could prevent a lot of the problem. Why we're still using SSNs for identity information in the 21st century is beyond me. They were supposed to serve one purpose and one purpose only -- an identifier to track people's contributions to social security.
The solar plant is near Ouarzazate, which I estimate is about 300 miles from the southern tip of Spain. It's on the edge of the Sahara Desert, which should be a good location for more sunshine. Ouarzazate gets a little over 3,400 hours of sunshine per year while Gibraltar gets about 400 hours less. Also, as you go poleward, the sunlight is spread over a wider area, meaning that it's less intense at any given location. Gibraltar is at the southern tip of Spain, so this gets more pronounced if you go farther north. If you go north to Madrid, you can subtract roughly another 200-250 hours of sunlight each year while being nearly ten degrees latitude farther north. There's also a whole lot less seasonal variation in the amount of sunlight at Ouarzazate than at either location in Spain, making it more suitable for a constant supply of electricity that doesn't require being supplemented by something else.
The solar plant is actually at a great location, so it probably makes sense for Spain to by their electricity from Morocco than to build their own solar plant. In cold enough climates, the electricity demand might be high enough during winter that, if it can't be met with solar, it would be necessary to build another type of plant to supplement it or to buy the electricity from another country. It's much more cost-effective to have the plant in Morocco.
By the way, the original plan was to build the plant with European funding and supply the electricity to Europe, but the partners in Europe pulled out requiring the African Development Bank and the government of Morocco to save the project. Obviously the approach made sense to Europe at one point and, now that the plant is being built, might still be lucrative to them.
Pluto is getting colder. It has a highly eccentric orbit and right now that's taking Pluto farther from the Sun. As a result, temperatures will decrease on Pluto.
Actually, NASA used the term "float" to describe it because the water ice is less dense than the ice dominated by nitrogen. So, yes, the icebergs are floating.
There's plenty of outrage in the threads. Very little is based on facts and logic.
The methodology in this story set telemetry to "basic" instead of disabling it. Other features that are part of Windows' out of the box experience weren't disabled. The services that connect out weren't fully disabled, not even close. The router was configured to log and block outgoing connections. Even legitimate and desired services will retry failed connections and probably try different hosts. Ever take a look in Linux when yum can't contact a mirror? It doesn't just give up; it tries lots of other mirrors until either the list is exhausted or it finds one that works. This is desirable behavior, especially for essential services like Windows Update. Not trying different hosts would make the system vulnerable to a denial of service attack against a single host. The statistics reported were completely inflated by the chosen methodology, one in which telemetry wasn't even fully disabled. Other users have reported that fully disabling telemetry and shutting down non-essential services does reduce the outbound traffic to only Windows Update.
Regarding Android and Google, you actually brought it up in a post you made. I don't see anyone arguing that Google not respecting privacy justifies Microsoft not doing so. That's a straw man, which is a logical fallacy. The real issue is directing outrage mostly at Microsoft when there are plenty of others who deserve criticism for their practices.
You also make this very angry statement: "The second is to use a goddamned iPhone, which everyone pretends is just as bad on privacy but it really isn't. This isn't a great argument point, however- Apple is perpetually one patch away from having ruinous privacy policies, because they are such a proprietary solution." If this is actually a valid argument, it renders any of your criticism of Microsoft completely invalid. If you don't like Windows invading your privacy, you have the option to install Linux. Unlike your statement that Apple could modify their privacy policy at any time, that doesn't hold true for Linux. There are so many distros that even if a few chose to egregiously invade privacy, there are still a multitude of alternatives. Furthermore, open source software that engages in questionable behavior or makes poor licensing decisions tends to be forked. If your statement is true, then your criticism of Microsoft is invalid because you have choices like Linux, FreeBSD, or to buy a Mac. In fact, considering all the different distros, you have far more choices with a desktop OS than you do with phones.
There's a lot of hostility in your post, but you haven't touched on the real issues. In my experience, during the initial setup of an Android phone, the user is presented with options to disable sending telemetry to Google. While the box is checked by default, it's brought to the user's attention. I'm not aware of that happening in Windows 10. Furthermore, the versions of Windows 10 that most users will upgrade to won't present them with an option to altogether disable telemetry. Android presents me an option during setup to fully disable telemetry; I always do so, and therefore Android's telemetry doesn't bother me.
Yes, what Microsoft is doing is quite a bit worse than what Google does. But it's not for any of the reasons you've stated. And this story is based on a false premise. Let's stick to the facts, please. There's more than enough to justifiably criticize Microsoft for.
I've read many users who seem to share some of the views I'm going to express. During an acquisition like this, there's a short amount of time when goodwill is afforded to the new management. In order to maintain that, we expect to see actions. I understand that modifying the code running the site takes time and changes won't be immediate. I understand that tinkering with existing features needs to be done carefully and adding new features requires thoughtful consideration. I think most reasonable people understand that.
However, there are things that can be done right now to improve the site. They include communicating with the users and improving the quality of stories posted here. It's one thing to go around and acknowledge having read people's posts. It's another to really let people know what's going on. Two longtime editors, Soulskill and sampenzus, are no longer seem to be posting here. There's been no acknowledgement to the users about what's going on. Stories continue to be of poor quality, with even more typos and outright incorrect statements than before. Here's a list of some:
Things like obvious problems with stories could be cleaned up right away. I'm sorry, there's a lot of talk, but I don't see much going on of substance. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm skeptical that things will change and I think a lot of other users are starting to feel that way, too.
Regardless, good luck with Slashdot, I wish you and Slashdot Media nothing but the best.
For those who don't want to visit Forbes, a site with a history of malware in their ads but insists that visitors disable ad blockers (and script blockers like Noscript)...
Here are a few links with more information than you'll get from Ethan's article, plus they don't require disabling ad blockers:
http://www.space.com/31079-giant-magellan-telescope-groundbreaking-travelogue.html
http://gizmodo.com/the-giant-magellan-telescopes-fourth-mirror-melting-is-1736954773
http://www.gmto.org/resources/
The technology is pretty damn cool, especially the adaptive optics to deal with atmospheric turbulence. It's worth a read, especially when you don't have to try to visit Forbes.
I really wish the Slashdot editors would stop letting this crap through. But because they do, it's a good service to everyone if users can provide alternate links that are better. In this case, there's a hell of a lot of good information on the actual GMTO site.
A separate official said that any agreement also would be designed to provide equal benefits for U.S. law enforcement and national security authorities in U.S. investigations.
"Such an agreement would ensure U.S. access to data stored in the United Kingdom in support of law enforcement, terrorism, and other transnational threat investigations and support our partners’ ability to investigate serious crime, as well as terrorism and other transnational threats on a reciprocal basis,'' that official said.
I get what you're saying, but it's a bigger issue if certain content is only broadcast at that resolution so it's never possible to copy it at any resolution. It's not clear to me if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were.
The premise is right that restrictions inconvenience users who aren't interested in piracy and probably drive many of them to piracy. There are many other issues, too. And this isn't limited to Japan. I don't know the specifics of Japan, but we have similar issues in the US. It's possible to record over the air programming, but cable is heavily locked down. Aside from local channels, which are still encrypted and require a cablecard to record, the copy control information (CCI) flag is typically set to copy once on most other channels. That's the case with Time Warner Cable, which is the second largest cable company in the US. While it's possible to record an analog HD copy, that sucks for many reasons. Anything digital requires a cablecard and only Windows Media Center is certified to obey the CCI flag. Thus the only systems that can view and record such content are those with WMC. With Microsoft discontinuing WMC, it's not clear that any current software (Windows 7/8.1 aren't really current now) can view this content. If you've recorded something with the CCI set to copy once and you have to reinstall the OS for some reason, the keys are lost and the content can no longer be played. It's a terrible solution. How about we get rid of this kind of DRM everywhere because it only punishes law abiding users and instead go after those who distributed pirated content by suing them for reasonable (not horribly inflated) damages?
1) The stories on here are quite a bit less interesting than they used to be. I realize that nobody will be interested in everything on here, but each story should be of interest to a large enough portion of your users to make it worthwhile. Track the number of views each story gets and share that information. Also, allow users to vote on stories posted as "interesting to me" or "not interesting to me" and share that information, too. Look for each type of story and figure out which ones don't get a lot of views and aren't interesting to many people. Perhaps aggregate that information by the tags assigned to each story. Don't post types of stories that aren't interesting to many people and don't get many views. Post more of types of stories that get lots of views and get voted up as interesting to more people.
2) Create an option to read the lowest rated posts first. Some people find trolls amusing and would like to read that stuff. But the real benefit is in Slashdot's own guidelines to moderators that they should read at -1 to mod up posts that have been unfairly modded down. It's easier to do this if you see the lowest rated posts first.
3) One of the abuses in the moderation system is the "overrated" and "underrated" mods. These exist so that if a post gets moderated up or down a lot in a short amount of time and the score is higher or lower than it should be, it can be corrected without labeling it a particular way. A good post that perhaps should be at +3 but gets modded to +5 shouldn't have to be modded troll or offtopic to correct it. That's where overrated and underrated come in. But they're also open to abuses because they don't show up in metamoderation. Essentially, you can moderate with impunity using those options. I'd suggest limiting overrated and underrated moderations to posts that have already been moderated at least twice. You can't use an underrated mod on a post that's at not at least two points below its initial score. You can't use an overrated mod on a post that's not at least two points above its initial score. Also, show the previous score of a comment in metamoderation and make these subject to metamoderation like everything.
4) Allow users with good karma to voluntarily make a post at 0 or -1. Sometimes it's worth correcting a bad post at -1 but you don't want to take a karma hit if someone mods you down for participating in that discussion. Or, perhaps, you want to post and alert moderators that someone is making abusive posts (especially goatse links or isn't posting in good faith) without getting modded down yourself.
5) Don't require users to login to see users' friends and foes. Don't require logging in to see how a post has been moderated. I see no reason for those requirements. Also, when you view how a post has been moderated, show the number of each type of moderation instead of percentages. Besides, the percentages are rounded to multiples of 10 so they often don't add up to 100% once you get more than three or so moderations. It just looks bad. Removing the login requirement and displaying the moderation count is far more transparent. Also, display which moderations have been done by editors and when are by ordinary users. Transparency is important and has been an issue in the past.
6) You've had a LOT of good suggestions for changes to this site. It's a lot of work to implement them, and probably a lot of money as well. I suspect there's a large enough following interested in this site that some users would be happy to implement suggestions for you. Slashdot's code used to be open source and was hosted on Sourceforge. That's pretty much a thing of the past for this site, and the only modern open source version is Soylent News' fork. It makes sense that a site that posts a lot of news about FOSS would be open source. It also benefits you if users contributem and I think some would. Please open the code back up.
Here's the actual MIT article: http://news.mit.edu/2016/hack-proof-rfid-chips-0203. It does a good job of explaining the concept. A side channel attack involves analyzing the behavior of the device during encryption to determine its cryptographic key. It's not easy to carry out such an attack, but it's possible. Yes, using a different key each time eliminates the possibility of a side channel at the expense of a new vulnerability, which is the pseudo-random number generator. Perhaps the PRNG is good enough to be less of a vulnerability than a side channel attack, but this is a case of replacing one vulnerability with a different one.
No doubt it's an improvement to use a new key each time a transaction is made. But such a system is only as good as the quality of the pseudo-random number generator. If it's predictable, it can be exploited. It adds another layer of defense, but it's not hack-proof.
I live in Europe and I'm aware that there such things as "right opinions" and "wrong opinions". Expressing the latter may have life-altering consequences and some of those are actually illegal. We Europeans are fine with this. There are thoughts that society is frankly better off without. Orthodoxy and conformity is safety.
I really hope you're being sarcastic, but I can't be certain and therefore I am replying. There are certain types of speech that are banned because they are truly harmful. Violent threats, making false claims to incite panic, libel, and slander are illegal either through criminal or civil law. There are good reasons for such speech to not be legally protected.
However, the only speech that needs to be protected is that which someone finds offensive. Speech that isn't offensive doesn't need protection because nobody will want to ban it. Calling into question societal norms, government actions, the activity of the wealthy and powerful, and the beliefs and practices of religions are all offensive to some people. While plenty of that speech is baseless or foolish, it deserves to be protected. The ability to restrict speech that someone finds offensive inevitably gets abused. Orthodoxy and conformity are the tools of dictatorships, not free societies.
With respect to the article at hand, Enigma finds statements by Bleeping Computer offensive. In the US, in order for the speech to be libelous, it must include false information. Simply offering an opinion that Enigma's software sucks is not libelous. Providing truthful evidence to support that opinion isn't libelous, either. It's only libelous if false statements are made. And damages can only be awarded if libel occurred and the plaintiff actually suffered demonstrable harm as a result. Opinions are not illegal, even when someone finds them offensive. It's also notoriously difficult to be awarded damages by courts for slander and libel. I think it's very unlikely that Enigma is successful in their lawsuit. It's far more likely that they go the way of SCO, cease to exist, and very quickly so.
I believe there will be two ways users are warned. One occurs upon attempting to visit a website with deceptive ads in Chrome, in which an interstitial is displayed warning the user that the site may engage in deceptive practices. The other is when clicking links to such websites when they show up in Google searches. This already occurs to some degree when alerts like "this site may be hacked" or "this site may harm your computer" are shown alongside search results.
As one of the other replies noted, utility patents should be about how to do something, not what to do. I don't really think articles of manufacture and compositions of matter apply to software. However, the categories of processes and machines seem to do so. If you design a unique and novel algorithm to do something useful, that seems to qualify as a process. Putting algorithms together in a truly unique and novel way would seem to qualify as a machine. As long as you're patenting how to actually accomplish something rather than patenting the outcome, it seems reasonable to me. I agree that the length of patents is an issue, but I don't think it's easy to say that one patent is more novel than another, thus deserving longer protection. However, the term of 20 years from the earliest filing is probably not appropriate in some sectors. The reason a longer patent on a drug (a composition of matter) makes sense is because of the regulatory hurdles that have to be cleared before bringing a drug to production. On the other hand, 20 years in the software industry is an eternity and is much too long. I'd say that a drug deserves a patent from 17 years from the date of issuance. A software patent, however, might only deserve three or four years from the date of issuance. It really depends on the sector, the pace of innovation, and the time it takes to bring an idea to market. I recognize that software is unique in that, aside from bandwidth or distribution media, the cost of production is essentially flat regardless of how much is produced. That's what enables the free (as in beer) model for software that really isn't viable for anything with a physical product. Of course, that's a problem for paying royalties that are typically per-product. I get why people call for eliminating software patents, but the consequence of that is to provide less incentive to conduct research. I can't think of a good way to simultaneously avoid both problems.
Not necessarily. If your business is research and development, licensing those patents to others for use in production and using the royalties to fund more r&d, that would run afoul of a requirement that the patent holder use their patents. I don't think it's an abuse, though, because you're contributing to innovation by conducting your own research. The business model makes sense; just because a business funds r&d doesn't mean they have the ability to bring those ideas to production. The abuse is from patent holders who neither conduct r&d nor produce anything, just wait for their patents to be infringed and then pounce with lawsuits.