I did read your link, and found it a quite facinating piece of science fiction. The links I listed were just the first few that turned up in a search. Here, try this one for a more comprehensive rebuttal of the creationist arguments.
Sorry, but there is just way too much evidence for an old Earth than a young one.
I have no idea how lethal a 3.9 is but it must be a hell of a lot better for places like LA then a 8.
As someone who lives with earthquakes (Southern California), I think I can speak with a little bit of knowledge. A 3.9 is a, "huh, why is that light swaying?" earthquake. A few dishes that are sitting in a very precarious spot might fall and break, but no one is going to really notice. For those of us used to living with them, I wouldn't expect much reaction until at least a 5; a 6 which is close, or a 6.5 might actually get me to head for a doorway, assuming it lasts for more than a couple seconds.
Why is it that people seem to get so worked up over earthquakes? The ground rumbles for a bit, and the bigger ones make for a good ride. The chances of being in a big one, close enough to the epicenter to matter, and being in a structure which collapses, are really small. Yes, there is some danger, but it's probably less then the dangers or breathing the air in LA.
You're viewing this all wrong. Those leftie news people are terrorists. They are questioning the One True Government. Attempting to report anything negative about the current government and/or administration undermines the authority of the government, and makes it harder to protect you from terrorists. If the government didn't clamp down on these people many True Americans might die, and the terrorists would have won.
Or, the other solution is to figure out a way to automate this process, get a bunch of people with modded Xboxes together, and start rolling through every possible serial number. Get eveyone banned, and force MS to start over. The liberal use of proxies would probably help this a bit.
In windows this will take that 1 tech an entire day or more travelling to each laptop. 3 techs if you want to get it done without overtime.
Um, bullshit.
Its basically the same process either way. Configure one laptop, sysprep, image, and deploy on the rest. Then, if you have any changes, you deploy them through Active Directory.
Yes, Linux does have advantages, but let's not going lying about how "hard" it is to administer Windows. Getting a bunch of laptops/desktops, with the same hardware/software up and running is easy with imaging, no matter which OS you choose. Where the difference is, is after they are running. With MS, you have to deal with patching regularly, which can be a nuciance, though SMS helps with this. Viruses are a problem, though again a good enterprise solution will have this sorted in no time. The main problem for keeping a system running is the interface between the chair and the keyboard; and this can be mitigated by liberal use of policies. Linux will help here, as the default would be to lock people out of installing software, but if you're in an environment where you want your users to be able to install software, they're gonna have the root password to the box, and they're gonna use it.
Yes, Linux is more stable and secure by default, this is why the FTP server I just built for my office is running Debian. But on the desktop, easy of use, which includes transitioning people from Windows; supporting nearly anything "out of the box"; and central password/authentication management are going to be killer apps for businesses. Yes, some companies could go back to a server and thin client setup, thus having central management; but this still leaves a lot of companies out in the cold. And <insert dieity here> forbid that whatever storage array you have all of this working off of goes tits-up (I've been dealing with this particular problem all week, its a sore spot at the moment).
Linux is making inroads on the desktop, and this is a very good thing. With any luck the developers who are working on it (thank you guys) pay attention to articles like this one. If the goal of Linux is to be a serious competitor to Windows, these types of things are going to have to happen.
At my previous job we would work 10 hours days regularly, deal with customers yelling as us because a product was broken. Which we really couldn't disagree with becuase we had told the company it was broken before it shipped, but it had to be out by that date because some salesman asshat decided to promise it to the customer on that date without consulting engineering and/or integration; and, of course, the company would never miss a ship date and make the salesman look like the idiot he was.
This all got worse as the company did worse and worse, and its stock slipped under a buck. Not only did the company not offer stock options, no one would have touched them anyway. The real kicker was that we had not seen a raise in three years, but we had seen several CEO's (6, I think) get hired, serve for a short bit and then be let go with a generous severance package. In the end, the company did a re-organization and tried to get the Customer Support and Integration departments to move to San Antonio, Texas (I live in Southern California), with the exception of the least trained tech, everyone told them, "hell, no". As for myself, they offered me a somewhat ambigious position in the Engineering department, which was to stay in So. Cal. I was to do software testing and development (at a very basic level), support the local network, and whatever else they threw my way. Oh, and I would have to field support calls that the utterly untrained staff in San Antonio couldn't handle (a.k.a. all of them). I was told that I would get some sort of raise out of this, but for 4 months running, and right down to the last month before the re-organization was finalized, no one could give me any sort of number. So, I found a job elsewhere. I started at a higher pay, by a pretty good jump, the stress is way, way, way lower, and I actually enjoy what I am doing. Plus, the prospect of regular raises are much higher.
In all, the IT sector is still alive and kicking, you just have to keep trying; and don't be afraid to tell your current company to go fuck itself.
Sure, they differed on economic principals, Stalin wanted his government to own everything and run all the companies, Ashcroft wanted the coporations to own everything, and run the government. Though I would bet that Stalin would have been just as happy to have a capitalistic system under him, as long as he was in charge and could rule with an iron fist.
Where they show a particular similarity is on the way they approched dealing with criminals, take them off the streets, throw them in a hole and deny them any sort of due process. Yes, Stalin tended to just kill them, but I'm convinced that Ashcroft would have done the same if he thought he could get away with it. The guy seemed to have a wet dream about the US being a police state. The fact that he is now gone is a good thing for the US.
Personally, I find that CD's are just too expensive for me. I don't care that much about music, and can better spend that $15 elsewhere. Also, I just haven't found anything I really like in a while, though unlike most/. I blame this on my own narrow mindedness, and not the new music sucking. If the new music sucked so much, why does it sell so many copies? Most people tend to get stuck in a certain era of music, don't like the new stuff? Don't act suprised about it, you're getting old. Every generation tends to think that the next generation's music sucks, that's not going to change for you, you're not special, get over it.
Actually, what you have described is a good thing, and one of the ways the US government is supposed to work and evolve. The US government opperates on comprimise, in fact, all non-totalitarian governments do. This is because it is basically impossible for a group of 2 or more people to agree about everything, so comprimises are made. The position of a third party is that they wish to draw the comprimise in a particular direction; and, if they manage to reach a point that they have popular support, and force the comprimise in their direction, they have won. Further, it shouldn't be suprising that, at that point, they become one of the two major parties; the comprimise is nearer their side, and with it comes main-stream politics, those to whom it was closer before are now the fringe third party.
This is well pointed out in the example given by the parent. The Democrat position became popular, and the Whigs were marginalized, the Democrats are now a major party. This is what current third parties are hoping to emulate. If the Libertarians can gain some recognition, and start drawing the country's comprimise (in a braod sense) in the Libertarian direction, then they will have accomplished what they exist to do. If, as a result they become one of the major parties, even better, as it gives them more leverage to pull the comprimise in their direction. If their platform is absorbed by one of the major parties, the goal has still been obtained, as the changed party will pull the comprimise more towards the desired position than it had before. No matter what, incresed interest in third parties will affect the policies of the people in government to some degree.
Check your TOS, I was on Verizon for about 2 years, and decided to run a server. Since I actually care about following the rules sometimes, I checked out the TOS and they specifically state that you are not allowed to run a server. So I switched to DSL Extreme and have been very happy with my little web/ftp/mail server ever since. Though, I think you are right that they don't block any ports.
Generally speaking, no. Some ISP's will complain and threaten to cut you off if you use too much of your bandwidth, but some don't. For example, this month I've probably downloaded 100 gigs of data over my DSL line, plus uploads, and I haven't heard anything out of my ISP except them asking me to pay this months usual bill.
Heck no, they will use this as proof that all of their laws and tactics are working. Now, all they need to do is get copyright extended again to infinity-1 years, pass a much stronger version of the DMCA, get that INDUCE act passed and the world will be right.
It won't be impossible. That image has to come from somewhere. I highly doubt that it will be streamed live as that would jack up lag on people with slower connections, so its probably cached on your hard drive somewhere. Find those files and replace them. Now, this may be more difficult as the system may check the file against an md5sum, or some such, on the server side. This gets a little harder as you would have to reverse engineer the protocol, just enough to catch that request and send it what it expects. But you could still put something better in the place of an ad, like your favorite Playmate, or some such, suddenly the nice family game is filled with porn, isn't that cool.
The other option is that they will say, "damn the customer, stream this stuff". This too won't be impossible to get around. The data will probably come from a centralized source, the logistics of doing it otherwise would suck, figure out what that central source is, setup a proxy and spoof it. Again, point to your favorite porn folder and viola! interesting billboards.
Better yet, how long before someone figures out a way to hack the central repository, puts in pics from goatse.cx and everyone in the game gets goatse'd at once?
It'll take some doing, but this will be hacked, its just a matter of time. Afterall, the ads are being shown by an untrusted client, and if they are to be dynamic, there is going to be a way to change them (kind of the definition of dynamic). If there is a way to change them, someone will figure out how to do it.
I didn't read the article but i dont think its actually commercials, its just ads, like a billboard in the background, or a character wearing a certain brand, etc
<tin foil hat mode>
That's where it starts, soon they won't be satisfied with just static adds, they will want more, "in your face" type adds. Games will start to have adds on a quarter of the screen, then half. Next, they will pop up every time you frag someone, to try and play off the euphoric feeling you get from fragging. After that they will start to try to find ways to broadcast them into your dreams, and the the terrorists will have truly won.
</tin foil hat mode>
Ok, so that's a bit over the top, but I still don't think that advertisers will be satisfied in sitting passively in a world. They will want animations, sounds, and screen space. My only hope is that this whole thing falls falt, but it won't. Advertisers will go to nearly any length to build brand recognition, and being in games will do that. Moreover, people are stupid enough to help companies out in that area. Ever notice how people willingly become walking billboards for companies (i.e. wearing a t-shirt with a logo), and they usually pay for that priviledge. We might as well get used to the idea that games will be chock full of ads, its going to happen, and no amount of bitching is going to stop it.
Why not? you just need more people to count, as the population gets bigger the pool of people to get voluteers from gets larger proportionally. Plus, there is no reason that we have to have the results in the next morning. Most measures don't go into effect until the beginning of the next year (calander of fiscal, depending), elected seats don't change until the next calander year; basically, we have a couple of months to sort things out, if one is used counting votes, who cares? At the very least paper ballots leave a readily verifiable audit trail, and they also tend to leave evidence in the event of tampering.
Paper scales just fine, but the US is just too caught up in the idea that electronic voting will magically fix all of the issues we had in 2000. It won't it will simply change them. Besides which, I tend to think that a punch card ballot is a good intellegence test for voting, if you're too stupid to figure out how to punch a card correctly, and you are too lazy to learn, I don't want you to be deciding the direction of this country's leadership.
While I do agree with what you have said, I would ask the same question about the police officers; why should they fear being recorded? If all they are doing is routine police work, and not abusing thier authority, they should be happy to be recorded as it creates a record of thier legit activities. Moreover, since the public has entrusted them with special priviledges there is a very good reason for all of thier activities to be recorded. In all, if the siezures are about people taking pictures of police officers in public somthing is very wrong. If the police are going to try and use the idea of "no privacy in public" to record the activities of normal citizens, normals citizens should be allowed to record police officers in public, undercover or not.
One minor historical point, while the US has basically had a 2 party system from the get-go, the two parties have changed. Last I checked, the Whigs aren't on the ballot. This is what pushing a third party is really about, is trying to unseat one of the major 2. Failing that, if a third party can capture enough of the vote to get the attention of one of the major parties, it might just effect policy a bit. Sure, for the most part, third parties are the fringe of the political system, but that isn't always true.
I'll just do a quick "me too". I voted for Bush the first time, and have been regretting it for the past 3 years (I actually liked his first few months in office). Since the whole 9/11 thing Bush has changed from a mostly harmless conservative to a dangerous facist. The problem is, Kerry is a socialist and I don't much like that either, I just don't see socialism as a workable system. so I'm voting Libertarian this time, and might just convince my Republican father to do the same.
This is like the whole, prove God doesn't exist argument, it's bogus. Generally speaking, it is impossible to prove a negative, thus it generally falls for those on the positive side to provide proof. Granated, one can simply go on faith, but that is a poor way to convince people.
Nope. Err on the side of caution. Viobility does not life make. What if I was handicapped and could not survive without care from others. Would it be justifiable to kill me?
This is often done, ever hear of "unplugging" someone? It's little more than killing a person who is no longer able to care for themselves. This often involves removing a feeding tube and allowing the person to starve do death. Would it be OK then to deliver a fetus and put it on a bed and allow it to die?
Also, what is your view on normally terminated preganancies; otherwise known as miscarriages. When the woman's natural biological functions abort a fetus, should she be held responsible?
Yes, it is a life in the same exact way. If you ferilize an egg in a test tube and let it die, that does in fact make you a murderer.
See previous paragraph.
This is about truth, not philosophy or opinion or religion. If you are not seeking truth, you're doing something wrong. Perception does not dictate reality.
And, as is usually the case in people who say they are searching for "truth" they have no clue what they are doing. Truth is relative based on belief. Realistically, we have no way to prove at what point a fetus is concious. Murder is a made up concept, it's simply something which society, at large, has decided is a good idea to hold society together. Your, and everyone else's, rights are also made up concepts. You do not have a "right to life", if you did there would be more to stop someone killing you than a piece of paper and a general agreement. You can be killed at any time, it is just because a lot of people agree that stading for this would be bad that anything happens to the person who kills you. "Liberty" is the same thing, even in American history we have plenty of proof that this is another right which someone has because of a general agreement.
What I am getting at here is that any rights which are assigned to people exist only because of broad agreement. Considering the wide range of opinions on when life begins, there is no absolute "truth" as you so quickly claim to your side. The only things that exist are facts.
We know some sort of biological process begins at conception, which often results in a viable organism. Other than that, we don't have proof of anything.
Now, should abortion be allowed? Well, this is a philosophical question. Since we cannot prove to any extent that consiousness has taken hold at any stage of the preganacy this is something we have to take on faith; which puts us firmly in the realm of religion and philosophy.
Please quit pushing your views are truth, when they are just as unfounded as any other views.
Hypothetically, this would be ok. The problem is, that it can never happen. At some point the data will be abused. Now, as long as the punishment is severe enough that it scares any but the most determined away, and the system for tracking access if very good, it might still be palitable.
For example, every time a person accesses the system, their name, and DNA/fingerprint/other biometric data is logged. If it is found that they are accessing the system without a warrant, or under false pretenses, etc. They are stripped of all priviledges (e.g. police officer is thrown off the force, permanatly), and tossed in jail for 20 years (minimum, no parole, no time off, etc.). I might not be as opposed to this idea, but I doubt any of that will be put in place.
Extreme care is taken to ensure that these systems are not used to identify and monitor individuals.
This is that part that the article's author was complaining about, and is something that is unavoidable. Consider for a moment how such a system will have to work, if it will track individual vehicles. Is it going to be tied to a license plate number? If so, it's trivial to trace it back to a specific person. Just a unique random id? Still not a problem, if you look at more than a few days worth of data on a particular vehicle, it would be very easy to come up with it's home, which gives you an address, and that links you back to a person. The only way that this can possibly not invade a person's privacy, is by not tracking individual vehicles, and I will bet that is not going to happen.
Now, this isn't to say that tracking individuals is all bad. As long as there is very strenious judicial oversight, and very, very, very (yes, I wrote that three times on purpose, let me add one more for emphasis), very harsh penalties for a breach of trust, it might actually do what it's being advertised for, without the privacy problem. Unfortunatly, considering that several large coporations seem to be hot on this idea, you can bet that the data is going to be available to too many people to actually prevent privacy intrusions.
Before I would ever allow this type of system to be in a car I own, I would need a lot of stuff to reassure me that it is more than just another way for the government and industry to invade my privacy.
Introduce a 'loser pays' system and people can sue as much as they want... but they won't do so unless they have a real case and aren't just relying on the jury being retards.
The problem with a "loser pays" systems, is that it will have a chilling effect on some of the smaller cases, which are probably right but are facing a big enough opponent, that they may still lose due to "the jury being retards". For example, if you had a good case against Microsoft, perhaps they infringed on a valid patent you held, would you take them to court? Granted, you are in the right, but with the lawyers they have, and the war chest they can bring to the party, they will probably litigate you into the dirt, and then you have to pay them back for the priviledge.
As for a better option, I don't really have one. I've been kicking around the idea, in my head, of what would happen if we were to socialize the legal system? Basically, each side is given a lawyer by the state (picked at random from a pool of lawyers qualified in the area), and a certain amount of money alloted for each side of the case. You may have all of the outside legal advisors you want, but when you walk into the court room, the only lawyer you have to represent you is the one appointed for you.
Of course, the cost of such a system would be enormous. You might have to impliment a "loser pays" system on top of this, the problems of which would hopefully be mitigated by the playing field being closer to even. Or, you would need some sort of system to filter cases, such that the plantiff would have to submit, in writing, an overview of their case, and it would be reviewed by a team of lawyers and field specialist to figure out if it stands a chance.
In all, its still just a rough idea that I have been toying with during my commute in the morning, and has about the same chance of implimentation as me beging crowned dictator of the world. Hey, I can dream.
Slashdot Mirror
I did read your link, and found it a quite facinating piece of science fiction. The links I listed were just the first few that turned up in a search. Here, try this one for a more comprehensive rebuttal of the creationist arguments.
Sorry, but there is just way too much evidence for an old Earth than a young one.
He might have read a couple of the rebuttals:
1
2
I have no idea how lethal a 3.9 is but it must be a hell of a lot better for places like LA then a 8.
As someone who lives with earthquakes (Southern California), I think I can speak with a little bit of knowledge. A 3.9 is a, "huh, why is that light swaying?" earthquake. A few dishes that are sitting in a very precarious spot might fall and break, but no one is going to really notice. For those of us used to living with them, I wouldn't expect much reaction until at least a 5; a 6 which is close, or a 6.5 might actually get me to head for a doorway, assuming it lasts for more than a couple seconds.
Why is it that people seem to get so worked up over earthquakes? The ground rumbles for a bit, and the bigger ones make for a good ride. The chances of being in a big one, close enough to the epicenter to matter, and being in a structure which collapses, are really small. Yes, there is some danger, but it's probably less then the dangers or breathing the air in LA.
You're viewing this all wrong. Those leftie news people are terrorists. They are questioning the One True Government. Attempting to report anything negative about the current government and/or administration undermines the authority of the government, and makes it harder to protect you from terrorists. If the government didn't clamp down on these people many True Americans might die, and the terrorists would have won.
Its a poor attempt to borrow a Germanic language pattern. For some reason, German is cool.
Or, the other solution is to figure out a way to automate this process, get a bunch of people with modded Xboxes together, and start rolling through every possible serial number. Get eveyone banned, and force MS to start over. The liberal use of proxies would probably help this a bit.
In windows this will take that 1 tech an entire day or more travelling to each laptop. 3 techs if you want to get it done without overtime.
Um, bullshit.
Its basically the same process either way. Configure one laptop, sysprep, image, and deploy on the rest. Then, if you have any changes, you deploy them through Active Directory.
Yes, Linux does have advantages, but let's not going lying about how "hard" it is to administer Windows. Getting a bunch of laptops/desktops, with the same hardware/software up and running is easy with imaging, no matter which OS you choose. Where the difference is, is after they are running. With MS, you have to deal with patching regularly, which can be a nuciance, though SMS helps with this. Viruses are a problem, though again a good enterprise solution will have this sorted in no time. The main problem for keeping a system running is the interface between the chair and the keyboard; and this can be mitigated by liberal use of policies. Linux will help here, as the default would be to lock people out of installing software, but if you're in an environment where you want your users to be able to install software, they're gonna have the root password to the box, and they're gonna use it.
Yes, Linux is more stable and secure by default, this is why the FTP server I just built for my office is running Debian. But on the desktop, easy of use, which includes transitioning people from Windows; supporting nearly anything "out of the box"; and central password/authentication management are going to be killer apps for businesses. Yes, some companies could go back to a server and thin client setup, thus having central management; but this still leaves a lot of companies out in the cold. And <insert dieity here> forbid that whatever storage array you have all of this working off of goes tits-up (I've been dealing with this particular problem all week, its a sore spot at the moment).
Linux is making inroads on the desktop, and this is a very good thing. With any luck the developers who are working on it (thank you guys) pay attention to articles like this one. If the goal of Linux is to be a serious competitor to Windows, these types of things are going to have to happen.
At my previous job we would work 10 hours days regularly, deal with customers yelling as us because a product was broken. Which we really couldn't disagree with becuase we had told the company it was broken before it shipped, but it had to be out by that date because some salesman asshat decided to promise it to the customer on that date without consulting engineering and/or integration; and, of course, the company would never miss a ship date and make the salesman look like the idiot he was.
This all got worse as the company did worse and worse, and its stock slipped under a buck. Not only did the company not offer stock options, no one would have touched them anyway. The real kicker was that we had not seen a raise in three years, but we had seen several CEO's (6, I think) get hired, serve for a short bit and then be let go with a generous severance package. In the end, the company did a re-organization and tried to get the Customer Support and Integration departments to move to San Antonio, Texas (I live in Southern California), with the exception of the least trained tech, everyone told them, "hell, no". As for myself, they offered me a somewhat ambigious position in the Engineering department, which was to stay in So. Cal. I was to do software testing and development (at a very basic level), support the local network, and whatever else they threw my way. Oh, and I would have to field support calls that the utterly untrained staff in San Antonio couldn't handle (a.k.a. all of them). I was told that I would get some sort of raise out of this, but for 4 months running, and right down to the last month before the re-organization was finalized, no one could give me any sort of number. So, I found a job elsewhere. I started at a higher pay, by a pretty good jump, the stress is way, way, way lower, and I actually enjoy what I am doing. Plus, the prospect of regular raises are much higher.
In all, the IT sector is still alive and kicking, you just have to keep trying; and don't be afraid to tell your current company to go fuck itself.
Sure, they differed on economic principals, Stalin wanted his government to own everything and run all the companies, Ashcroft wanted the coporations to own everything, and run the government. Though I would bet that Stalin would have been just as happy to have a capitalistic system under him, as long as he was in charge and could rule with an iron fist.
Where they show a particular similarity is on the way they approched dealing with criminals, take them off the streets, throw them in a hole and deny them any sort of due process. Yes, Stalin tended to just kill them, but I'm convinced that Ashcroft would have done the same if he thought he could get away with it. The guy seemed to have a wet dream about the US being a police state. The fact that he is now gone is a good thing for the US.
Like who, Joseph Stalin is dead?
Personally, I find that CD's are just too expensive for me. I don't care that much about music, and can better spend that $15 elsewhere. Also, I just haven't found anything I really like in a while, though unlike most /. I blame this on my own narrow mindedness, and not the new music sucking. If the new music sucked so much, why does it sell so many copies? Most people tend to get stuck in a certain era of music, don't like the new stuff? Don't act suprised about it, you're getting old. Every generation tends to think that the next generation's music sucks, that's not going to change for you, you're not special, get over it.
Actually, what you have described is a good thing, and one of the ways the US government is supposed to work and evolve. The US government opperates on comprimise, in fact, all non-totalitarian governments do. This is because it is basically impossible for a group of 2 or more people to agree about everything, so comprimises are made. The position of a third party is that they wish to draw the comprimise in a particular direction; and, if they manage to reach a point that they have popular support, and force the comprimise in their direction, they have won. Further, it shouldn't be suprising that, at that point, they become one of the two major parties; the comprimise is nearer their side, and with it comes main-stream politics, those to whom it was closer before are now the fringe third party.
This is well pointed out in the example given by the parent. The Democrat position became popular, and the Whigs were marginalized, the Democrats are now a major party. This is what current third parties are hoping to emulate. If the Libertarians can gain some recognition, and start drawing the country's comprimise (in a braod sense) in the Libertarian direction, then they will have accomplished what they exist to do. If, as a result they become one of the major parties, even better, as it gives them more leverage to pull the comprimise in their direction. If their platform is absorbed by one of the major parties, the goal has still been obtained, as the changed party will pull the comprimise more towards the desired position than it had before. No matter what, incresed interest in third parties will affect the policies of the people in government to some degree.
Check your TOS, I was on Verizon for about 2 years, and decided to run a server. Since I actually care about following the rules sometimes, I checked out the TOS and they specifically state that you are not allowed to run a server. So I switched to DSL Extreme and have been very happy with my little web/ftp/mail server ever since. Though, I think you are right that they don't block any ports.
Generally speaking, no. Some ISP's will complain and threaten to cut you off if you use too much of your bandwidth, but some don't. For example, this month I've probably downloaded 100 gigs of data over my DSL line, plus uploads, and I haven't heard anything out of my ISP except them asking me to pay this months usual bill.
Heck no, they will use this as proof that all of their laws and tactics are working. Now, all they need to do is get copyright extended again to infinity-1 years, pass a much stronger version of the DMCA, get that INDUCE act passed and the world will be right.
It won't be impossible. That image has to come from somewhere. I highly doubt that it will be streamed live as that would jack up lag on people with slower connections, so its probably cached on your hard drive somewhere. Find those files and replace them. Now, this may be more difficult as the system may check the file against an md5sum, or some such, on the server side. This gets a little harder as you would have to reverse engineer the protocol, just enough to catch that request and send it what it expects. But you could still put something better in the place of an ad, like your favorite Playmate, or some such, suddenly the nice family game is filled with porn, isn't that cool.
The other option is that they will say, "damn the customer, stream this stuff". This too won't be impossible to get around. The data will probably come from a centralized source, the logistics of doing it otherwise would suck, figure out what that central source is, setup a proxy and spoof it. Again, point to your favorite porn folder and viola! interesting billboards.
Better yet, how long before someone figures out a way to hack the central repository, puts in pics from goatse.cx and everyone in the game gets goatse'd at once?
It'll take some doing, but this will be hacked, its just a matter of time. Afterall, the ads are being shown by an untrusted client, and if they are to be dynamic, there is going to be a way to change them (kind of the definition of dynamic). If there is a way to change them, someone will figure out how to do it.
I didn't read the article but i dont think its actually commercials, its just ads, like a billboard in the background, or a character wearing a certain brand, etc
<tin foil hat mode>
That's where it starts, soon they won't be satisfied with just static adds, they will want more, "in your face" type adds. Games will start to have adds on a quarter of the screen, then half. Next, they will pop up every time you frag someone, to try and play off the euphoric feeling you get from fragging. After that they will start to try to find ways to broadcast them into your dreams, and the the terrorists will have truly won.
</tin foil hat mode>
Ok, so that's a bit over the top, but I still don't think that advertisers will be satisfied in sitting passively in a world. They will want animations, sounds, and screen space. My only hope is that this whole thing falls falt, but it won't. Advertisers will go to nearly any length to build brand recognition, and being in games will do that. Moreover, people are stupid enough to help companies out in that area. Ever notice how people willingly become walking billboards for companies (i.e. wearing a t-shirt with a logo), and they usually pay for that priviledge. We might as well get used to the idea that games will be chock full of ads, its going to happen, and no amount of bitching is going to stop it.
Why not? you just need more people to count, as the population gets bigger the pool of people to get voluteers from gets larger proportionally. Plus, there is no reason that we have to have the results in the next morning. Most measures don't go into effect until the beginning of the next year (calander of fiscal, depending), elected seats don't change until the next calander year; basically, we have a couple of months to sort things out, if one is used counting votes, who cares? At the very least paper ballots leave a readily verifiable audit trail, and they also tend to leave evidence in the event of tampering.
Paper scales just fine, but the US is just too caught up in the idea that electronic voting will magically fix all of the issues we had in 2000. It won't it will simply change them. Besides which, I tend to think that a punch card ballot is a good intellegence test for voting, if you're too stupid to figure out how to punch a card correctly, and you are too lazy to learn, I don't want you to be deciding the direction of this country's leadership.
While I do agree with what you have said, I would ask the same question about the police officers; why should they fear being recorded? If all they are doing is routine police work, and not abusing thier authority, they should be happy to be recorded as it creates a record of thier legit activities. Moreover, since the public has entrusted them with special priviledges there is a very good reason for all of thier activities to be recorded. In all, if the siezures are about people taking pictures of police officers in public somthing is very wrong. If the police are going to try and use the idea of "no privacy in public" to record the activities of normal citizens, normals citizens should be allowed to record police officers in public, undercover or not.
One minor historical point, while the US has basically had a 2 party system from the get-go, the two parties have changed. Last I checked, the Whigs aren't on the ballot. This is what pushing a third party is really about, is trying to unseat one of the major 2. Failing that, if a third party can capture enough of the vote to get the attention of one of the major parties, it might just effect policy a bit. Sure, for the most part, third parties are the fringe of the political system, but that isn't always true.
I'll just do a quick "me too". I voted for Bush the first time, and have been regretting it for the past 3 years (I actually liked his first few months in office). Since the whole 9/11 thing Bush has changed from a mostly harmless conservative to a dangerous facist. The problem is, Kerry is a socialist and I don't much like that either, I just don't see socialism as a workable system. so I'm voting Libertarian this time, and might just convince my Republican father to do the same.
Can you prove there is no consciousness?
This is like the whole, prove God doesn't exist argument, it's bogus. Generally speaking, it is impossible to prove a negative, thus it generally falls for those on the positive side to provide proof. Granated, one can simply go on faith, but that is a poor way to convince people.
Nope. Err on the side of caution. Viobility does not life make. What if I was handicapped and could not survive without care from others. Would it be justifiable to kill me?
This is often done, ever hear of "unplugging" someone? It's little more than killing a person who is no longer able to care for themselves. This often involves removing a feeding tube and allowing the person to starve do death. Would it be OK then to deliver a fetus and put it on a bed and allow it to die?
Also, what is your view on normally terminated preganancies; otherwise known as miscarriages. When the woman's natural biological functions abort a fetus, should she be held responsible?
Yes, it is a life in the same exact way. If you ferilize an egg in a test tube and let it die, that does in fact make you a murderer.
See previous paragraph.
This is about truth, not philosophy or opinion or religion. If you are not seeking truth, you're doing something wrong. Perception does not dictate reality.
And, as is usually the case in people who say they are searching for "truth" they have no clue what they are doing. Truth is relative based on belief. Realistically, we have no way to prove at what point a fetus is concious. Murder is a made up concept, it's simply something which society, at large, has decided is a good idea to hold society together. Your, and everyone else's, rights are also made up concepts. You do not have a "right to life", if you did there would be more to stop someone killing you than a piece of paper and a general agreement. You can be killed at any time, it is just because a lot of people agree that stading for this would be bad that anything happens to the person who kills you. "Liberty" is the same thing, even in American history we have plenty of proof that this is another right which someone has because of a general agreement.
What I am getting at here is that any rights which are assigned to people exist only because of broad agreement. Considering the wide range of opinions on when life begins, there is no absolute "truth" as you so quickly claim to your side. The only things that exist are facts.
We know some sort of biological process begins at conception, which often results in a viable organism. Other than that, we don't have proof of anything.
Now, should abortion be allowed? Well, this is a philosophical question. Since we cannot prove to any extent that consiousness has taken hold at any stage of the preganacy this is something we have to take on faith; which puts us firmly in the realm of religion and philosophy.
Please quit pushing your views are truth, when they are just as unfounded as any other views.
Hypothetically, this would be ok. The problem is, that it can never happen. At some point the data will be abused. Now, as long as the punishment is severe enough that it scares any but the most determined away, and the system for tracking access if very good, it might still be palitable.
For example, every time a person accesses the system, their name, and DNA/fingerprint/other biometric data is logged. If it is found that they are accessing the system without a warrant, or under false pretenses, etc. They are stripped of all priviledges (e.g. police officer is thrown off the force, permanatly), and tossed in jail for 20 years (minimum, no parole, no time off, etc.). I might not be as opposed to this idea, but I doubt any of that will be put in place.
Extreme care is taken to ensure that these systems are not used to identify and monitor individuals.
This is that part that the article's author was complaining about, and is something that is unavoidable. Consider for a moment how such a system will have to work, if it will track individual vehicles. Is it going to be tied to a license plate number? If so, it's trivial to trace it back to a specific person. Just a unique random id? Still not a problem, if you look at more than a few days worth of data on a particular vehicle, it would be very easy to come up with it's home, which gives you an address, and that links you back to a person. The only way that this can possibly not invade a person's privacy, is by not tracking individual vehicles, and I will bet that is not going to happen.
Now, this isn't to say that tracking individuals is all bad. As long as there is very strenious judicial oversight, and very, very, very (yes, I wrote that three times on purpose, let me add one more for emphasis), very harsh penalties for a breach of trust, it might actually do what it's being advertised for, without the privacy problem. Unfortunatly, considering that several large coporations seem to be hot on this idea, you can bet that the data is going to be available to too many people to actually prevent privacy intrusions.
Before I would ever allow this type of system to be in a car I own, I would need a lot of stuff to reassure me that it is more than just another way for the government and industry to invade my privacy.
Introduce a 'loser pays' system and people can sue as much as they want... but they won't do so unless they have a real case and aren't just relying on the jury being retards.
The problem with a "loser pays" systems, is that it will have a chilling effect on some of the smaller cases, which are probably right but are facing a big enough opponent, that they may still lose due to "the jury being retards". For example, if you had a good case against Microsoft, perhaps they infringed on a valid patent you held, would you take them to court? Granted, you are in the right, but with the lawyers they have, and the war chest they can bring to the party, they will probably litigate you into the dirt, and then you have to pay them back for the priviledge.
As for a better option, I don't really have one. I've been kicking around the idea, in my head, of what would happen if we were to socialize the legal system? Basically, each side is given a lawyer by the state (picked at random from a pool of lawyers qualified in the area), and a certain amount of money alloted for each side of the case. You may have all of the outside legal advisors you want, but when you walk into the court room, the only lawyer you have to represent you is the one appointed for you.
Of course, the cost of such a system would be enormous. You might have to impliment a "loser pays" system on top of this, the problems of which would hopefully be mitigated by the playing field being closer to even. Or, you would need some sort of system to filter cases, such that the plantiff would have to submit, in writing, an overview of their case, and it would be reviewed by a team of lawyers and field specialist to figure out if it stands a chance.
In all, its still just a rough idea that I have been toying with during my commute in the morning, and has about the same chance of implimentation as me beging crowned dictator of the world. Hey, I can dream.