Don't know if you can turn it off, nor do I think I would want to. Its actually very useful if you need to move across tile or metal quietly. For example, to move across a metal grate without alerting the guards and without burning up one of your moss arrows, crouch, hold down the walk button (Shift by default), and tap the forward button. The goal is to move forward a little bit without the normal dip that happens when creeping along. When that dip happens you will make a small clank and alert the guards. With a bit of practice you can cover a large tile/metal floor without making a sound, and without using a moss arrow. Its a bit slow, but as they say paitence is a virtue, and a very important one in the Thief games.
Sounds like me, I was sneaking my way through one of the levels in Thief 2, concentrating on keeping quiet (As in the above poster, I had a habit of being very quite myself when playing). When suddenly, my roommate (who was at his own computer off to my right) sneezed loudly, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Its amazing how the Thief games draw you in.
Oh ya, I saw the pic with the torch carrying guard and suddenly felt a need to go find a better shadow to hide in. This is really gonna make the game much harder. No more hiding just around a corner waiting for the guard to bliethly pass you , then blackjacking them. No more flatening against a wall in a hall as the guard strolls past just a foot or two from you.
The other thing I really would love to see added, is the guards noticing doors being left open, or opening in front of them. I don't know how many times I would use the little bit of dark shadow in a doorway to hide as the guard walked towards me and then around a corner. It was useful, but not very realistic.
Lastly, I hope they don't overdo it with the mechanical guards/cameras. I'm playing through Thief 2 right now, and the shear number of mechanical thingies is annoying. Some of the environments really just seem to be modern buildings with a medieval motif applied. I realize that this is supposed to be a somewhat steampunk genere, but there's no point in overdoing it with the technology.
Of course, I will be buying this game, but I wonder if there will be any sort of level editor/toolkit for making my own level and/or modding how things look to change the genere. I always thought that using the Thief engine/ideas would make for a relly cool game based on a ninja. Especially if it could be set up to run as a co-op multiplayer.
Re:Apple's (& RIAA's) long-term plan
on
The Law and P2P
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· Score: 2, Interesting
RIAA now has the business model it wants, though Apple gets a small cut, in that instead of people paying $17 a few times a year for a cd, they now have them automatically paying $240 a year. Cell-phone pricing syndrome has everyone blissfully unaware that they are paying way more than they ever wanted to in the first place and the RIAA uses the extra dough to have public executions of P2P software engineers.
This is not automatically true. I remeber when AOL did this sort of switch (yes, I was at one time an AOL'er, I'm sorry, I have learned better now). When I first started with AOL they gave you so many hours per month, and then charged you for any extra hours you used. And with Neverwinter Nights(the original) still running on AOL, I burned out those hours pretty quick, but since I didn't have the money to pay for extra hours, I forced myself to not run over. Then they introduced the $20 all you want method, and people went nuts (me included). It was hell trying to connect to a server, all of the modems in my area were clogged constantly. But when I did connect, oh baby. Since I was in high school at the time, and not working, I would play NWN all night and day during the summer and weekends. I was on constantly, and so was everyone else in my area. It stayed this way for as long as I stayed on AOL. Then, sadly, they killed NWN. By that time I had pretty much seen that I didn't want to be on AOL anymore and cancled my subscription shortly thereafter (I had a job by this point, and was paying for the subscription to feed my addiction).
Moral of the story, a flat rate is not always going to be overcharging. If there is enough value in the service people may well get their money's worth out of it. But as the customer, you have to decide which type of pricing will be right for you. Will it be cheaper to pay per song, or flat rate per month (assuming that gets offered). Me, I'll try and stick with the per song rate, my roomate on the other hand would be a good candidate for the flat rate idea. We'll just have to see where this goes.
Re:Nifty Apple Service
on
The Law and P2P
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I hope that Apple sees the chance to pull in some extra revenue, and ports this to PC. I doubt anyone would switch to a Mac just because of iTunes, but it'd give them an extra stream of cash if they let PC users share in the goodness.
From the Article: Meanwhile, Apple has announced that it is adding additional music to its library, and will introduce a version of its service for Windows machines by year-end.
There you go...
While $10 is still higher than I'd spend for most craptacular CDs, it is a reasonable fee. I'd love to be able to just download the new Metallica CD as soon as it comes out, legitimately.
I'll just be glad to be able to download just the couple of songs that I want from a CD, and not have to pay for the filler crap. This is one of the reasons I don't buy many CD's, there is usually 1 or 2 songs I want on the CD, and the rest is mediocre at best. I often wait for a "Greatest Hits" type CD from a band before I'll buy one of their CD's, and even then I try to get it cheap/used. Call me a skinflint if you want, but I don't think of $20 as a small amount of money that I can just throw around, I want to get a good value for it. And $15-$20 for a new CD with a handful of songs that I like is just not a good value. Now $1 for a song I do like, now that's a pretty good deal.
Re:Non-infringing uses?
on
The Law and P2P
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Each was a part of the ruling. In the Grokster/Morpheus (G/M for brevity) ruling it was found that the programs from G/M did have significant non-infringing uses, but this in itself does not free them from the Contributory/Vicarious infringment charge by itself. They also had to show that they did not have a right and responsibility to police the network. This is where the distributed nature of the network came into play. G/M have really no way to watch over what is traded on the network, they do not, in fact, control it really. They have no way to kick off a user who is abusing the network. As such, the judge in the case found that they did not have a right and responsibility to police the network. It was the combination of the two things that made for the not-guilty ruling. If either test had failed, then G/M would have been shut down, just like Napster.
Actually, I don't mind the ads on/. For one, they are pretty well targeted at my interests. Plus, slashdot is good enough that I am willing to support it by clicking through on ads on a semi-regular basis. Its still the way I get to the thinkgeek site.
I just hope the sword battles are as cool as they were in the first couple of PoP games.
The one thing I have found to be a huge disappointment in most recent games that involve sword fighting, no skill. In the original PoP games it took a lot of careful timing of blocking and striking to actually score a hit. If you just ran around jumping and mashing buttons you died, fast. This was actually pulled off quite well in the PoP 3D which came out a while ago. You had to be careful during a fight. The opposite is the reason I really didn't like Jedi Knight 2, you whipped out your light saber and started running and jumping and swinging franticly. No skill, hell you couldn't even control the block. I realize this is what Yoda did in the second movie (which I just found sad), but couldn't we at least pretend that we realize that this sort of style would get you hacked to pieces in a real sword fight?
For me, this is the one thing Ubisoft has to get right for me to buy this game, the swordplay. If it just degenerates into frantic button mashing, then I'll won't bother with the game at all. We've got enough platform fighting games out there already, lets not ruin the PoP name by making it into another one.
I think its all a matter of perspective. You seem to view a web page as analogious to a magazine. The ads exists to keep the costs down, but it should still be paid for. However, there are others, myself included, which view the web as little more than a big bulletin board. Everyone is free to put whatever they want on it (within the bounds of the law). By doing so they are allowing people to view it, without any sort of obligation. While many web sites do inclde advertising content to try and make a little money in the process, I have never seen anything requesting/requiring that I view that content in order to access the site. If I do run across something of that nature, I will probably either leave the site or allow the content to show up.
While I realize that you may view this as immoral, please take a moment to realize that your opinion is not the only one. You are more than free to view my actions as immoral, if that is your wish. But name calling, and accusing me of a criminal act (which I belive is called slander) is not necessary. If you wish to try and claim the moral highground, you should at least make an attempt to sound like something other than a slavering lunatic.
Re:Use Mozilla .......
on
Prince of Pop-ups
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· Score: 5, Informative
Best solution I have found is to locate the advertising servers of the companies doing this crap, and blackhole them via your hosts file. I used to see this stuff all the time when reading the news on Yahoo!, but I have since managed to find most of their ad servers and redirect them to 127.0.0.1. Personally I keep a pretty long hosts file. If I find an ad/tracking server I simply add it to my hosts file. And ya, I run Mozilla as well.
the article implies that an image would be part of the response, such as ticketmaster's please type the word in the picture into the box.
I give it about a month before someone figures out a way to use something similar to OCR technology to bypass this sort of thing. If this sort of challenge/response idea becomes very wide spread, the spammers will suddenly have a huge need to find a way around it, and they have the money to throw at it. It will eventually fail, just like every other filter out there. SPAM is here to stay, the best we can do is fight it constantly, and never respond to it, but even still we will never win.
Hear, hear! Going to be doing the same way. As much as it goes against my conscience, I feel that voting against Bush will be better for the country than voting for the Libertarians. I feel that Bush is doing this nation harm, and that he needs to be thrown out of office at the next election.
Amen.
I have to admit, its partly my fault, I voted for Bush, he sacred me less than Gore. Boy, did I ever get taken in. I don't intend to make this mistake again, I'm voting democrat next election. Hell, if given the same choices again, I'll pick Gore this time, he can't be this bad.
As for the marijuana issue, I think the best approach is to get a massive run to try to get drug decriminalization measures on the ballot next presidential election. Part of the reason Nevada's decriminalization measure failed was because of the fact that the DEA and ONDCP could use their massive propoganda machine in one place to confuse the voters into thinking that this would be a harmful measure. Were every state to have a ballot measure simultaneously, those efforts would be diluted. Yes, most of such measures would probably fail, but at the same time, if just one state passes decriminalization measures, the shaky deck of cards the drug war is based upon could begin to collapse.
I don't think its as shakey as you think. Here in California we passed a measure legalizing marijuana for medical puproses. This, of course, has done nothing to stop people from being arrested. Drug laws are, after all, federal laws which therefore trump state laws. The only way this is going to ever get sorted out is if/when we get rid of the current incumbent congress and get some younger blood in there.
On a side note, I have never smoked pot, after my attempt at cigarettes a number of years back the idea of smoking anything still makes me queasy. But I'm all for the idea of letting people kill themselves if they feel the need to. Personally, I think we should just legalize pot oughtright, along with allowing cocaine and opiates to be served in specially regulated venues (kinda like a bar). Also, allow companies to setup farms to grow this stuff here. It'd create jobs, and it would drop the bottom out from under the drug cartels. Afterall, considering how easy this stuff would be to grow in quantity the price would fall like mad. But this is just my take on this "war on drugs".
Lastly, as for the article at hand, I think this is being blown out of proportion. Admitadlly the US govenment shouldn't be telling the Canadian government what to do, but I don't think this was the intent of this statement. It seems more like the State Department was expressing an opinion about the Canadian system. And, I seem to recall, that expressing an opinion is still allowed reguardless of which side of the border you live on. Or did I miss the memo?
Only if you promise to bomb DC while congress is in session, we'd be a hell of a lot better off down here without the aristorcats...er, congresscritters who are running the show. Oh, and if you catch Ashcroft and Bush we'll give you a few bonus points.
Not that I would advocate violence against anybody, but lets just say that I would make a point of talking through any minutes of silence we were supposed to observe for the "losses".
I don't think I would be calling this an iLoo, more like an iGoo. That is, after all, what this is going to be covered in. For goodness sake most portable toliets are nasty enough without adding gallons of sperm to the walls/keyboard. This is definatly not one of Microsoft's better ideas.
I like to think of myself as an indpendent with republican tendancies, so maybe I am as close to one as/. has. And, quite frankly, I have no idea what is running through the heads of the Bush administration. I don't know if they are truly this deluded to belive that this sort of thing will help us, of if they are just trying to grab more power. Perhaps both.
I would have to say that, at this point, George II is just simply running amok with no clue about what he is really doing, and the long term affects. Sadly, I must admit, I voted for the guy (he scared me less that Gore) but, it is a mistake which I do not intend to repeat. Even if the democrats run Gore against Bush again in 2004 I'll vote for Gore. Out of control enviromental policies can't be anywhere near as bad as what we are getting at the moment. I just really hope that the Democrats are smart enough to run someone who appears more moderate, that should allow them to capture enough votes to de-throne George II. Now if we could only get congressional term limits put into the Constitution we might get the government back to some semblance of serving the people again. (Sorry, just had to grind my personal axe.)
Are you stupid or something? I mean, really... You think that "If the govenment could round up everybody who had a positive reaction to a picture of Osama Bin Laden right now" they would do it? Fuck no. This technology may have that capability, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to do it. Just 'cause the technology exists doesn't mean we have to abuse it.
I agree, that we have a technology does not necessatate the govenment using it for such a purpose. However, history provides enough examples of well intentioned ideas being twisted to really bad purposes, I just think we should start worrying about this sort of thing now, rather than after some power mad ruler gets these types of ideas into his head.
All I'm saying is that it seems useful to have the ability to find patterns in people's thoughts; the technology can be used for good, such as mapping certain portions of the brain about which we know very little. You've got to be really freakin' paranoid if you think a useful tool like this spells an Orwellian future for the U.S. It's bad policy that invades privacy, not bad technology.
Actually, I do agree with you here. Its not technology that is the problem, its how its used. Technoloigy is not inherently good or bad, it simply is. People, on the other hand, do tend to be good bad, or usually selfish. And the idea of this type of thing being used against the populous, by the govenment, as some sort of thought-police type device worries me. I am not a tin-foil hat wearing paranoid, but I do value my privacy and don't see any advantage to this sort of use of this technology, but someone will. Do I think that this will happen overnight, or that the govenment is out to get me? No, but these sorts of things should be discussed rationally, and not simply dismissed as paranoid rantings.
And, just so you know, I'm familiar with everything you've mentioned as far as history is concerned. Fortunately for both of us, this country has learned from many of its mistakes, including the Japanese internment and Red Scare in the 1950's. That's why you don't see Arabs and Muslims living in the US being locked up simply because they're Arab or Muslim. And no one is going to rob you of your thoughts with this technology. Ever heard of the Constitution? We already have technology that can invade a person's privacy, but the Constitution includes amendments that protect an individual's personal privacy. And, as long as our government upholds the Consititution, your privacy won't be violated no matter what kind of technology exists.
And if the govenment had been worried about upholding the Constitution in the listed instances none of those things would have happened either. But, they did happen. While in theroy we should not have to worry about our government comming and trampling our rights, we should always remember that there really is very little holding them back. If enough people in govenment got behind this sort of idea again a piece of paper is not going to do the slightest thing to stop them.
My whole point was that, by looking at history, we can see a really bad pattern of the government getting out of control on occasions. And to dismiss the idea that it will get out of control again is ludicrious. It has happened, nothing in human nature has changed to prevent it from happeneing again, it may be in 20 years or 200 years, but eventually it will happen. The only way we will ever delay it happening is for people to keep a constant eye on the government, and not let it chip away at our rights.
The artcle also mentioned that they were sharing copyrighted files from their own machines. This alone, should be enough to get them nailed on copyright infringement. As for their indexing service, it probably shouldn't have been treated as a infringement tool, unless of course, it didn't have significant non-infringing uses. Which, it would seem from the article, that copyright infringment (a.k.a. provinding easy access to copyright items), was its primary purpose.
While I do belive that these guys were doing what was alleged, there is still a part of me that can't help but feel that the RIAA is getting exactly what it deserves when people copy their songs. Oh well, so much for absolute morals.
And here I thought that history was still a required corse in high school.
If you don't know the possible down sides to people having information about your beliefs, however circumspect, please go read up on WWII, specifically German concentration camps and US concentration camps. (Yup, the US had them for people of Japaneese descent). Also, read up about the "red scare" in the 50's and the way people were treated for actually beliving that communism wasn't so bad. It wasn't a popular belief, but whatever happened to political freedom?
The problem is that, I should be able to belive and think as I wish, and this technology endangers that. If the govenment could round up everybody who had a positive reaction to a picture of Osama Bin Laden right now, do really think they wouldn't try it? The problem with something like this, and allowing it to be done to people, is that eventually someone with enough power is going to try and misuse it. The best time to stop that sort of thing is before it starts. The average person needs to have a trained response to this sort of thing that rejects it as being intrusive.
I think text ads are also less annoying. Let's face it, the main reason most of us don't put up with pop-up/under ads is that they are disruptive to what we are trying to accomplish. So, Mozilla is now my browser and I have an extensive hosts file.
Banner ads have the same problem, only less so. They are disruptive, especially the big flashy ones. They are a nusance. Even ignoring the java crap and degridation of load times, many ads I would just as soon not see, so I filter them out. Not all of them, mind you, I do leave the ads on slashdot turned on, as they are somewhat targeted.
This is where the text ad comes in. Its not obtrusive, assuming the font isn't 100 point and red. Its usually not disruptive to what I am doing, it just kinda blends into the page. So, there is no reason to try and block it. But that's just my take on it.
Obviously, the immediate upshot is that -- miracle of miracles -- Stephen Wilson won't ever see another case brought by either cartel.
Nope, this is a civil case, either side can appeal. This one isn't over yet, and won't be until it hits the Supreme Court. Afterall, do you really think the content cartels are just going to take their lawyers and go home?
It is not this judges job to decide if the DMCA is good or bad or unconstitutional.
Alright, its been a bit since high school, but I seem to recall that it is exactly the job of the judical system to decide if a law is unconstitutional. If not, who is doing that job now?
I realize that it generally falls to the supreme court to make such a ruling, but a lower court can also make such a ruling, though this can be appealed.
As for good and bad, you're right they are not supposed to care about that, only constitutional/unconstitutional. And then, interpretation.
But that makes me wonder, does searching for the ability to download a file violate copyright? How does this judgement apply to slightly more centralized p2p networks?
In this case, the judge decided that the defendants had neither the right or ability to disconnect a user who was infringing. Further, they did not provide material support for infringing. Neither of the defendants had any control over the network itself, removing users is not really possible for them, and other than providing a client to connect to the network, they do no provide any sort of service for finding anything, it is all done between the peer nodes.
In the case of Napster, since they had a centralized server, they had the right and ability to disconnect a user, further, they maintained an index, on their servers, which listed copyrighted songs and was used by users to find copyrighted songs. Thus they were providing material support to the infringers, and were therefore guilty of contributory infringement.
Since it would seem you haven't, I would recommend reading the judgement. Its suprisingly accessable for this sort of thing, and gives a really good explanation as to why this case was different than Napster, and what the tests are for contributory and/or vicarious copyright infringemetn are.
Oh and, IANAL, I just like to be informed on this sort of thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't know if you can turn it off, nor do I think I would want to. Its actually very useful if you need to move across tile or metal quietly. For example, to move across a metal grate without alerting the guards and without burning up one of your moss arrows, crouch, hold down the walk button (Shift by default), and tap the forward button. The goal is to move forward a little bit without the normal dip that happens when creeping along. When that dip happens you will make a small clank and alert the guards. With a bit of practice you can cover a large tile/metal floor without making a sound, and without using a moss arrow. Its a bit slow, but as they say paitence is a virtue, and a very important one in the Thief games.
Sounds like me, I was sneaking my way through one of the levels in Thief 2, concentrating on keeping quiet (As in the above poster, I had a habit of being very quite myself when playing). When suddenly, my roommate (who was at his own computer off to my right) sneezed loudly, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Its amazing how the Thief games draw you in.
Oh ya, I saw the pic with the torch carrying guard and suddenly felt a need to go find a better shadow to hide in. This is really gonna make the game much harder. No more hiding just around a corner waiting for the guard to bliethly pass you , then blackjacking them. No more flatening against a wall in a hall as the guard strolls past just a foot or two from you.
The other thing I really would love to see added, is the guards noticing doors being left open, or opening in front of them. I don't know how many times I would use the little bit of dark shadow in a doorway to hide as the guard walked towards me and then around a corner. It was useful, but not very realistic.
Lastly, I hope they don't overdo it with the mechanical guards/cameras. I'm playing through Thief 2 right now, and the shear number of mechanical thingies is annoying. Some of the environments really just seem to be modern buildings with a medieval motif applied. I realize that this is supposed to be a somewhat steampunk genere, but there's no point in overdoing it with the technology.
Of course, I will be buying this game, but I wonder if there will be any sort of level editor/toolkit for making my own level and/or modding how things look to change the genere. I always thought that using the Thief engine/ideas would make for a relly cool game based on a ninja. Especially if it could be set up to run as a co-op multiplayer.
RIAA now has the business model it wants, though Apple gets a small cut, in that instead of people paying $17 a few times a year for a cd, they now have them automatically paying $240 a year. Cell-phone pricing syndrome has everyone blissfully unaware that they are paying way more than they ever wanted to in the first place and the RIAA uses the extra dough to have public executions of P2P software engineers.
This is not automatically true. I remeber when AOL did this sort of switch (yes, I was at one time an AOL'er, I'm sorry, I have learned better now). When I first started with AOL they gave you so many hours per month, and then charged you for any extra hours you used. And with Neverwinter Nights(the original) still running on AOL, I burned out those hours pretty quick, but since I didn't have the money to pay for extra hours, I forced myself to not run over. Then they introduced the $20 all you want method, and people went nuts (me included). It was hell trying to connect to a server, all of the modems in my area were clogged constantly. But when I did connect, oh baby. Since I was in high school at the time, and not working, I would play NWN all night and day during the summer and weekends. I was on constantly, and so was everyone else in my area. It stayed this way for as long as I stayed on AOL. Then, sadly, they killed NWN. By that time I had pretty much seen that I didn't want to be on AOL anymore and cancled my subscription shortly thereafter (I had a job by this point, and was paying for the subscription to feed my addiction).
Moral of the story, a flat rate is not always going to be overcharging. If there is enough value in the service people may well get their money's worth out of it. But as the customer, you have to decide which type of pricing will be right for you. Will it be cheaper to pay per song, or flat rate per month (assuming that gets offered). Me, I'll try and stick with the per song rate, my roomate on the other hand would be a good candidate for the flat rate idea. We'll just have to see where this goes.
I hope that Apple sees the chance to pull in some extra revenue, and ports this to PC. I doubt anyone would switch to a Mac just because of iTunes, but it'd give them an extra stream of cash if they let PC users share in the goodness.
From the Article:
Meanwhile, Apple has announced that it is adding additional music to its library, and will introduce a version of its service for Windows machines by year-end.
There you go...
While $10 is still higher than I'd spend for most craptacular CDs, it is a reasonable fee. I'd love to be able to just download the new Metallica CD as soon as it comes out, legitimately.
I'll just be glad to be able to download just the couple of songs that I want from a CD, and not have to pay for the filler crap. This is one of the reasons I don't buy many CD's, there is usually 1 or 2 songs I want on the CD, and the rest is mediocre at best. I often wait for a "Greatest Hits" type CD from a band before I'll buy one of their CD's, and even then I try to get it cheap/used. Call me a skinflint if you want, but I don't think of $20 as a small amount of money that I can just throw around, I want to get a good value for it. And $15-$20 for a new CD with a handful of songs that I like is just not a good value. Now $1 for a song I do like, now that's a pretty good deal.
Each was a part of the ruling. In the Grokster/Morpheus (G/M for brevity) ruling it was found that the programs from G/M did have significant non-infringing uses, but this in itself does not free them from the Contributory/Vicarious infringment charge by itself. They also had to show that they did not have a right and responsibility to police the network. This is where the distributed nature of the network came into play. G/M have really no way to watch over what is traded on the network, they do not, in fact, control it really. They have no way to kick off a user who is abusing the network. As such, the judge in the case found that they did not have a right and responsibility to police the network. It was the combination of the two things that made for the not-guilty ruling. If either test had failed, then G/M would have been shut down, just like Napster.
Damn, nice link, thanks. I reposted it in my journal entry about my hosts file.
Actually, I don't mind the ads on /. For one, they are pretty well targeted at my interests. Plus, slashdot is good enough that I am willing to support it by clicking through on ads on a semi-regular basis. Its still the way I get to the thinkgeek site.
If you post your hosts file as a Journal entry, I'll befriend you.
:-)
Done, it should show up as my most recent entry in my journal. All you needed to do was ask, I'm always happy to share.
I just hope the sword battles are as cool as they were in the first couple of PoP games.
The one thing I have found to be a huge disappointment in most recent games that involve sword fighting, no skill. In the original PoP games it took a lot of careful timing of blocking and striking to actually score a hit. If you just ran around jumping and mashing buttons you died, fast. This was actually pulled off quite well in the PoP 3D which came out a while ago. You had to be careful during a fight. The opposite is the reason I really didn't like Jedi Knight 2, you whipped out your light saber and started running and jumping and swinging franticly. No skill, hell you couldn't even control the block. I realize this is what Yoda did in the second movie (which I just found sad), but couldn't we at least pretend that we realize that this sort of style would get you hacked to pieces in a real sword fight?
For me, this is the one thing Ubisoft has to get right for me to buy this game, the swordplay. If it just degenerates into frantic button mashing, then I'll won't bother with the game at all. We've got enough platform fighting games out there already, lets not ruin the PoP name by making it into another one.
I think its all a matter of perspective. You seem to view a web page as analogious to a magazine. The ads exists to keep the costs down, but it should still be paid for. However, there are others, myself included, which view the web as little more than a big bulletin board. Everyone is free to put whatever they want on it (within the bounds of the law). By doing so they are allowing people to view it, without any sort of obligation. While many web sites do inclde advertising content to try and make a little money in the process, I have never seen anything requesting/requiring that I view that content in order to access the site. If I do run across something of that nature, I will probably either leave the site or allow the content to show up.
While I realize that you may view this as immoral, please take a moment to realize that your opinion is not the only one. You are more than free to view my actions as immoral, if that is your wish. But name calling, and accusing me of a criminal act (which I belive is called slander) is not necessary. If you wish to try and claim the moral highground, you should at least make an attempt to sound like something other than a slavering lunatic.
Best solution I have found is to locate the advertising servers of the companies doing this crap, and blackhole them via your hosts file. I used to see this stuff all the time when reading the news on Yahoo!, but I have since managed to find most of their ad servers and redirect them to 127.0.0.1. Personally I keep a pretty long hosts file. If I find an ad/tracking server I simply add it to my hosts file. And ya, I run Mozilla as well.
the article implies that an image would be part of the response, such as ticketmaster's please type the word in the picture into the box.
I give it about a month before someone figures out a way to use something similar to OCR technology to bypass this sort of thing. If this sort of challenge/response idea becomes very wide spread, the spammers will suddenly have a huge need to find a way around it, and they have the money to throw at it. It will eventually fail, just like every other filter out there. SPAM is here to stay, the best we can do is fight it constantly, and never respond to it, but even still we will never win.
Hear, hear! Going to be doing the same way. As much as it goes against my conscience, I feel that voting against Bush will be better for the country than voting for the Libertarians. I feel that Bush is doing this nation harm, and that he needs to be thrown out of office at the next election.
Amen.
I have to admit, its partly my fault, I voted for Bush, he sacred me less than Gore. Boy, did I ever get taken in. I don't intend to make this mistake again, I'm voting democrat next election. Hell, if given the same choices again, I'll pick Gore this time, he can't be this bad.
As for the marijuana issue, I think the best approach is to get a massive run to try to get drug decriminalization measures on the ballot next presidential election. Part of the reason Nevada's decriminalization measure failed was because of the fact that the DEA and ONDCP could use their massive propoganda machine in one place to confuse the voters into thinking that this would be a harmful measure. Were every state to have a ballot measure simultaneously, those efforts would be diluted. Yes, most of such measures would probably fail, but at the same time, if just one state passes decriminalization measures, the shaky deck of cards the drug war is based upon could begin to collapse.
I don't think its as shakey as you think. Here in California we passed a measure legalizing marijuana for medical puproses. This, of course, has done nothing to stop people from being arrested. Drug laws are, after all, federal laws which therefore trump state laws. The only way this is going to ever get sorted out is if/when we get rid of the current incumbent congress and get some younger blood in there.
On a side note, I have never smoked pot, after my attempt at cigarettes a number of years back the idea of smoking anything still makes me queasy. But I'm all for the idea of letting people kill themselves if they feel the need to. Personally, I think we should just legalize pot oughtright, along with allowing cocaine and opiates to be served in specially regulated venues (kinda like a bar). Also, allow companies to setup farms to grow this stuff here. It'd create jobs, and it would drop the bottom out from under the drug cartels. Afterall, considering how easy this stuff would be to grow in quantity the price would fall like mad. But this is just my take on this "war on drugs".
Lastly, as for the article at hand, I think this is being blown out of proportion. Admitadlly the US govenment shouldn't be telling the Canadian government what to do, but I don't think this was the intent of this statement. It seems more like the State Department was expressing an opinion about the Canadian system. And, I seem to recall, that expressing an opinion is still allowed reguardless of which side of the border you live on. Or did I miss the memo?
Only if you promise to bomb DC while congress is in session, we'd be a hell of a lot better off down here without the aristorcats...er, congresscritters who are running the show. Oh, and if you catch Ashcroft and Bush we'll give you a few bonus points. Not that I would advocate violence against anybody, but lets just say that I would make a point of talking through any minutes of silence we were supposed to observe for the "losses".
I don't think I would be calling this an iLoo, more like an iGoo. That is, after all, what this is going to be covered in. For goodness sake most portable toliets are nasty enough without adding gallons of sperm to the walls/keyboard. This is definatly not one of Microsoft's better ideas.
I like to think of myself as an indpendent with republican tendancies, so maybe I am as close to one as /. has. And, quite frankly, I have no idea what is running through the heads of the Bush administration. I don't know if they are truly this deluded to belive that this sort of thing will help us, of if they are just trying to grab more power. Perhaps both.
I would have to say that, at this point, George II is just simply running amok with no clue about what he is really doing, and the long term affects. Sadly, I must admit, I voted for the guy (he scared me less that Gore) but, it is a mistake which I do not intend to repeat. Even if the democrats run Gore against Bush again in 2004 I'll vote for Gore. Out of control enviromental policies can't be anywhere near as bad as what we are getting at the moment. I just really hope that the Democrats are smart enough to run someone who appears more moderate, that should allow them to capture enough votes to de-throne George II. Now if we could only get congressional term limits put into the Constitution we might get the government back to some semblance of serving the people again. (Sorry, just had to grind my personal axe.)
Are you stupid or something? I mean, really... You think that "If the govenment could round up everybody who had a positive reaction to a picture of Osama Bin Laden right now" they would do it? Fuck no. This technology may have that capability, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to do it. Just 'cause the technology exists doesn't mean we have to abuse it.
I agree, that we have a technology does not necessatate the govenment using it for such a purpose. However, history provides enough examples of well intentioned ideas being twisted to really bad purposes, I just think we should start worrying about this sort of thing now, rather than after some power mad ruler gets these types of ideas into his head.
All I'm saying is that it seems useful to have the ability to find patterns in people's thoughts; the technology can be used for good, such as mapping certain portions of the brain about which we know very little. You've got to be really freakin' paranoid if you think a useful tool like this spells an Orwellian future for the U.S. It's bad policy that invades privacy, not bad technology.
Actually, I do agree with you here. Its not technology that is the problem, its how its used. Technoloigy is not inherently good or bad, it simply is. People, on the other hand, do tend to be good bad, or usually selfish. And the idea of this type of thing being used against the populous, by the govenment, as some sort of thought-police type device worries me. I am not a tin-foil hat wearing paranoid, but I do value my privacy and don't see any advantage to this sort of use of this technology, but someone will. Do I think that this will happen overnight, or that the govenment is out to get me? No, but these sorts of things should be discussed rationally, and not simply dismissed as paranoid rantings.
And, just so you know, I'm familiar with everything you've mentioned as far as history is concerned. Fortunately for both of us, this country has learned from many of its mistakes, including the Japanese internment and Red Scare in the 1950's. That's why you don't see Arabs and Muslims living in the US being locked up simply because they're Arab or Muslim. And no one is going to rob you of your thoughts with this technology. Ever heard of the Constitution? We already have technology that can invade a person's privacy, but the Constitution includes amendments that protect an individual's personal privacy. And, as long as our government upholds the Consititution, your privacy won't be violated no matter what kind of technology exists.
And if the govenment had been worried about upholding the Constitution in the listed instances none of those things would have happened either. But, they did happen. While in theroy we should not have to worry about our government comming and trampling our rights, we should always remember that there really is very little holding them back. If enough people in govenment got behind this sort of idea again a piece of paper is not going to do the slightest thing to stop them.
My whole point was that, by looking at history, we can see a really bad pattern of the government getting out of control on occasions. And to dismiss the idea that it will get out of control again is ludicrious. It has happened, nothing in human nature has changed to prevent it from happeneing again, it may be in 20 years or 200 years, but eventually it will happen. The only way we will ever delay it happening is for people to keep a constant eye on the government, and not let it chip away at our rights.
The artcle also mentioned that they were sharing copyrighted files from their own machines. This alone, should be enough to get them nailed on copyright infringement. As for their indexing service, it probably shouldn't have been treated as a infringement tool, unless of course, it didn't have significant non-infringing uses. Which, it would seem from the article, that copyright infringment (a.k.a. provinding easy access to copyright items), was its primary purpose.
While I do belive that these guys were doing what was alleged, there is still a part of me that can't help but feel that the RIAA is getting exactly what it deserves when people copy their songs. Oh well, so much for absolute morals.
And here I thought that history was still a required corse in high school.
If you don't know the possible down sides to people having information about your beliefs, however circumspect, please go read up on WWII, specifically German concentration camps and US concentration camps. (Yup, the US had them for people of Japaneese descent). Also, read up about the "red scare" in the 50's and the way people were treated for actually beliving that communism wasn't so bad. It wasn't a popular belief, but whatever happened to political freedom?
The problem is that, I should be able to belive and think as I wish, and this technology endangers that. If the govenment could round up everybody who had a positive reaction to a picture of Osama Bin Laden right now, do really think they wouldn't try it? The problem with something like this, and allowing it to be done to people, is that eventually someone with enough power is going to try and misuse it. The best time to stop that sort of thing is before it starts. The average person needs to have a trained response to this sort of thing that rejects it as being intrusive.
I think text ads are also less annoying. Let's face it, the main reason most of us don't put up with pop-up/under ads is that they are disruptive to what we are trying to accomplish. So, Mozilla is now my browser and I have an extensive hosts file.
Banner ads have the same problem, only less so. They are disruptive, especially the big flashy ones. They are a nusance. Even ignoring the java crap and degridation of load times, many ads I would just as soon not see, so I filter them out. Not all of them, mind you, I do leave the ads on slashdot turned on, as they are somewhat targeted.
This is where the text ad comes in. Its not obtrusive, assuming the font isn't 100 point and red. Its usually not disruptive to what I am doing, it just kinda blends into the page. So, there is no reason to try and block it. But that's just my take on it.
It sounds like you need to get laid and relax a bit.
Obviously, the immediate upshot is that -- miracle of miracles -- Stephen Wilson won't ever see another case brought by either cartel.
Nope, this is a civil case, either side can appeal. This one isn't over yet, and won't be until it hits the Supreme Court. Afterall, do you really think the content cartels are just going to take their lawyers and go home?
It is not this judges job to decide if the DMCA is good or bad or unconstitutional.
Alright, its been a bit since high school, but I seem to recall that it is exactly the job of the judical system to decide if a law is unconstitutional. If not, who is doing that job now?
I realize that it generally falls to the supreme court to make such a ruling, but a lower court can also make such a ruling, though this can be appealed.
As for good and bad, you're right they are not supposed to care about that, only constitutional/unconstitutional. And then, interpretation.
But that makes me wonder, does searching for the ability to download a file violate copyright? How does this judgement apply to slightly more centralized p2p networks?
In this case, the judge decided that the defendants had neither the right or ability to disconnect a user who was infringing. Further, they did not provide material support for infringing. Neither of the defendants had any control over the network itself, removing users is not really possible for them, and other than providing a client to connect to the network, they do no provide any sort of service for finding anything, it is all done between the peer nodes.
In the case of Napster, since they had a centralized server, they had the right and ability to disconnect a user, further, they maintained an index, on their servers, which listed copyrighted songs and was used by users to find copyrighted songs. Thus they were providing material support to the infringers, and were therefore guilty of contributory infringement.
Since it would seem you haven't, I would recommend reading the judgement. Its suprisingly accessable for this sort of thing, and gives a really good explanation as to why this case was different than Napster, and what the tests are for contributory and/or vicarious copyright infringemetn are.
Oh and, IANAL, I just like to be informed on this sort of thing.