Hold on there, friend - what is or is not "Fair Use" is not Netflix's decision!!! That's a matter for the government to decide (whether we, or Netflix, or anybody else, agree with their decision is irrelevant). The Supreme Court of the US ruled almost 25 years ago that "time-shifting" DOES fall within "Fair Use". Therefore, what this hacker has done absolutely falls within that ruling (in the US). What's more, even if he were to break it futher still and remove all time locks (including the expiry) from the content, it would still be Fair Use - and your established right as a US citizen (or visiting foreign national, if you are one).
I'm not sure about the latest round of exemptions for the DMCA, but it might even be legal there as well.
That's not to say that you can legally sell it, copy it for your friends, etc. - this only applies to the time-shifting aspect of the crack.
Quoth below: ["If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.
And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters: "Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!" but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said: "If the're not guilty, why are they running?"
Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.
But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.
They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.]
The comparison isn't valid. You need to re-read your Hofstadter.
The paradox in "This statement is false." is only a paradox when viewed from a higher-order than the statement itself. (Cf. Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem.) Within the rules of the system, the statement is correct. (Id est, it follows the syntax of English.) It isn't until you parse the statement from a different level (i.e., the logical self-reference, context, and 'meaning' of the words) that the apparent paradox becomes important.
If you apply this same logic to the big rock/moving context, it doesn't have the same property - namely, it isn't self-referential. "Can God make a number so big that God couldn't compute with it?" doesn't HAVE a meaning within its own system, therefore the same logic can only be applied from an outside system. But since God (by definition) must exist outside of all of the systems He created, there isn't a higher-order system by which to apply it! So the apparent paradox breaks down - it satisfies all the rules inherent in its own system.
There is also another, simpler answer. The essence of the question "Can God create a rock so big that God could not move it?" can be reformulated (IMO in a more complete manner) as, "Is an omnipotent being capable of limiting its own power?" So we could ask, "Could God (again, by definition, Mr. Omnipotent) create a rock, and then limit His own power such that He could not lift it?", to which the answer is of course, 'yes'.
While I believe you are essentially correct, remember that there really is a LARGE number of things that human beings find, biologically, to be deadly.
The real worst-case scenario would be for something which evolved under a very different evolutionary order, something which might be benevolent or even beneficient under that order, would find our biology hospitable, while we found it simultaneously virulent. Then it would be similar to cane toads and rabbits in Australia, or Dutch Elm and Chinese Chestnut fungus in the US. If something WERE to find us an acceptable host, it could eliminate human beings (or cows or birds) in a remarkably short time.
There is no general requirement from the SEC for public company personnel to be fingerprinted. This practice is different for investment firms and the like - even contractors of investment houses are fingerprinted.
All bank employees must (by law) be "bondable", which requires fingerprinting.
Interestingly (and perhaps much more disturbingly), the fingerprinting is required ONLY to check against known past criminal activity (read: unsolved crimes and known criminals). There is no requirement for the fingerprints to be kept once the individual has passed the test (though the PATRIOT ACT may have changed this requirement, I'm not sure). Unfortunately however, the inexcusably sorry state of US privacy law does not require any company or agency (government or private) to delete or destroy the fingerprint records, even at the request of the individual. So like it or not, the OP's sister's fingerprints will now be part of the massive fingerprint analysis database.
Forrester, Gartner, and IDG all offer advanced comparison data from industry surveys against which you can measure your own company. (Help desk costs per call, fully-loaded employee per hour, etc.)
Then you implement some sort of metric to use in the comparison. ITIL, COBIT, ISO 17799, and a host of others are available as frameworks you can use, or you can design your own. So you start taking measurements, compile the metrics, and compare.
[How much does a password reset cost? How much does it cost to terminate a sysadmin? How many staff hours are required to clean a virus infection on one machine? On all machines? &c, &c.]
I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a Fortune 1000 company that doesn't use some form of this - it's how most companies compare themselves against the industry.
There's even a GPS module available for the PSP. It's an amazing little device.
But there are three major problems with it: 1) There is no way to output the video to an external device (mentioned in the article); 2) The UMD format is proprietary, closed, and unavailable to anyone who does not have a licensing agreement with Sony; 3) Sony has gone severely out of their way, in an escalating battle, to keep users from hacking the unit. Even now it requires taking advantage of a vulnerability in third-party applications to load a downgraded firmware to allow homebrew applications to run.
Sony really did cut themselves off at the knees on this one. Had they embraced their users instead of trying to control every little thing they did, it could have been a huge success.
And I would say that finding a stable orbit around the moon is only six times* as hard as finding a stable orbit around the earth, and we've managed to do that quite handily.
Absolutely right. Why would someone work for a company which would do such a thing in the first place? Face the fact that if they can't get the sales pitch right BEFORE you come on board, it's not going to get any better once you're on the payroll!
ALTHOUGH...
As I understand the law (not being an attorney myself, of course), you do have some legal recourse... anyone that makes an offer (written, verbal, or otherwise) that you have accepted and relied on (to your detriment if they don't hold up their end of the bargain) has entered into a legally binding contract, and you are entitled to hold them to the terms of the original agreement. The person who first made you the offer was acting as an official representative of the company, and you were negotiating in good faith relying on their promise. They are obligated to give you what they promised, or you can sue.
But really now, do you honestly want to work for a company: -that can't keep its hiring practices straight? -where one hand doesn't know or care what the other is doing? -that has to lie to you just to get you to accept the offer? -is willing to renege on even the most simple of promises? -thinks you're not worth dealing honestly with BEFORE you're an employee?
If you answered "yes" to any of the following questions, you should just accept the new offer and accept your honorary 'Dilbert' pin.
Re:Hammer, Feather, Freefall on the Moon: Revisite
on
5 Strangest Materials
·
· Score: 2, Informative
So what you're saying is while there's a theoretical difference between the impact timings, the practical effect likely couldn't be measured. Makes sense.
Re:Hammer, Feather, Freefall on the Moon: Revisite
on
5 Strangest Materials
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I can't tell if your post is hyperbole or not.
So straight up - does the hammer really hit the ground first? Replacing the hammer and feather with larger bodies - say, one (as the hammer's stand-in) which is the same mass as the moon, and the other (the feather's double) which is 1/10th the mass of the moon, it seems obvious that the more massive body will impact first, as it does have a significantly larger bearing on the moon.
...HOWEVER...
Does the hammer's insignificant size relative to the moon negate any realistic gravitational influence it may have? Or for that matter, does the term 'significantly larger' really apply to the hammer and feather?
I think the 3-body dynamics may be so small at that scale as to be nearly nullified - I would suspect that the gravitational pull of the hammer on the moon would move it less than the diameter of an atom required to change the timing of the impact of the two objects. [Unless one is counting the impact of the electron shells prior to the impact of the nucleus, in which case I suspect the preponderance of heavier (atomic weight-wise) elements in the hammer, with correspondingly more electrons, necessitating population of the "larger" d- or f-shells, would be first. But again, it's not the gravitational influence of the mass of the hammer that would be the deciding factor...]
I have taken refined sugar completely out of my diet. In fact, I try to stay away from simple cabohydrates in most forms.
When I eat something with sugar in it nowadays, within an hour I find myself biting my nails, fidgeting, tapping my feet or bouncing my legs. It's exceedingly strange behavior given that I'm normally fidget-free, and often times I have to think hard to remember that I ate sugar. It's a direct-effect, and I've seen it too many times to think it's anything but a 1:1.
That said, kids today eat something like twice the sugar kids ate 50 years ago. Their systems are so full of sugar most times that I can't help but imagine that adding extra sugar doesn't affect them - they're already high on it!
We should do an experiment: take a child who has very low exposure to sugar and give them a whole candy bar, then sit back and watch. I'd be willing to bet that child's behavior would change drastically. Then give a kid who eats tons of sugar every day a candy bar; I think that child's behavior would hardly change at all. Without a biblio for the study you cited, I can't speak to their methods or controls, but I'd be interested to see if they accounted for 'normal' sugar consumption. Do you have a link or text?
Holy cow. Replace every instance of 'Bush' in that article with 'Kennedy' and the story doesn't change a bit.
Another American family political dynasty. Who'da thunkit?
Seriously, the Bush bashing is getting old. It only works if you really expected something better from them in the first place. Can you honestly say that you do?
I don't plan on buying a TV in the traditional sense next - I'm going to get a projector instead. They're portable, the viewing angle is never a consideration (since all the light is reflected to the viewer) and you can get as big a picture as you could possibly desire. There's nothing quite like watching a Monday night football game on the side of your neighbor's house!
The problem with revolution is that the public will only resort to it when it is the least painful option for a critical mass of people.
For better or worse, we have a long way to go before we get there. Despite the trends we are seeing, we're still one of the best places to live on Earth. And that is precisely why it is so important to prevent these abuses of Liberty or correct them when they do happen, or we won't be what we are much longer.
(Seriously though, the little * next to the userID means the user is a/. subscriber, and gets to see the stories a little earlier than the rest of us. S/he had plenty of time to write it before posting was available.)
I second this opinion. Several soft drink companies here in the eastern US have perfected some very tasty flavored carbonated waters. (I'm inferring from the use of 'hospital' instead of 'the hospital' that the submitter is British; I have no idea if these sorts of drinks are available in the UK.)
Here are some links: Poland Spring makes some of the best flavored seltzer I've ever had. Raspberry Lime kicks ass and has become a staple of my diet (at least two litres daily). Lime, lemon, orange and plain are the other flavors and are good in decreasing order, IMHO. Adirondack is what I drink when I can't find Poland Spring around. They have a great raspberry lime and lemon-lime and are truly delicious. (And they're certified Kosher, if that makes a difference to you.)
The best part is that the flavors are more of an essence than a true additive, so they have -0- Calories, -0- sodium, -0- cabohydrates, and -0- fat.
They are awesome. I love them. As far as I am concerned, they are the perfect substitute for sugared sodas, but YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Hold on there, friend - what is or is not "Fair Use" is not Netflix's decision!!! That's a matter for the government to decide (whether we, or Netflix, or anybody else, agree with their decision is irrelevant). The Supreme Court of the US ruled almost 25 years ago that "time-shifting" DOES fall within "Fair Use". Therefore, what this hacker has done absolutely falls within that ruling (in the US). What's more, even if he were to break it futher still and remove all time locks (including the expiry) from the content, it would still be Fair Use - and your established right as a US citizen (or visiting foreign national, if you are one).
I'm not sure about the latest round of exemptions for the DMCA, but it might even be legal there as well.
That's not to say that you can legally sell it, copy it for your friends, etc. - this only applies to the time-shifting aspect of the crack.
O'Rly?
/. previously.
No, O'Reilly. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)
Here's something I wrote for my site a while ago. I also posted it to a similar discussion on
Quoth below:
["If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.
And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If the're not guilty, why are they running?"
Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.
But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.
They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.]
That's what YOUR grandparents said about anyone who listened to rock-and-roll.
They can legally stop you from taking photos on their premises. This site has a good pocket guide to photographers' rights.
The comparison isn't valid. You need to re-read your Hofstadter.
The paradox in "This statement is false." is only a paradox when viewed from a higher-order than the statement itself. (Cf. Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem.) Within the rules of the system, the statement is correct. (Id est, it follows the syntax of English.) It isn't until you parse the statement from a different level (i.e., the logical self-reference, context, and 'meaning' of the words) that the apparent paradox becomes important.
If you apply this same logic to the big rock/moving context, it doesn't have the same property - namely, it isn't self-referential. "Can God make a number so big that God couldn't compute with it?" doesn't HAVE a meaning within its own system, therefore the same logic can only be applied from an outside system. But since God (by definition) must exist outside of all of the systems He created, there isn't a higher-order system by which to apply it! So the apparent paradox breaks down - it satisfies all the rules inherent in its own system.
There is also another, simpler answer. The essence of the question "Can God create a rock so big that God could not move it?" can be reformulated (IMO in a more complete manner) as, "Is an omnipotent being capable of limiting its own power?" So we could ask, "Could God (again, by definition, Mr. Omnipotent) create a rock, and then limit His own power such that He could not lift it?", to which the answer is of course, 'yes'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Mons ter
That should explain everything.
I, for one, welcome our new flying spaghetti monster overlord.
While I believe you are essentially correct, remember that there really is a LARGE number of things that human beings find, biologically, to be deadly.
The real worst-case scenario would be for something which evolved under a very different evolutionary order, something which might be benevolent or even beneficient under that order, would find our biology hospitable, while we found it simultaneously virulent. Then it would be similar to cane toads and rabbits in Australia, or Dutch Elm and Chinese Chestnut fungus in the US. If something WERE to find us an acceptable host, it could eliminate human beings (or cows or birds) in a remarkably short time.
Provided we brought it home, that is...
There is no general requirement from the SEC for public company personnel to be fingerprinted. This practice is different for investment firms and the like - even contractors of investment houses are fingerprinted.
All bank employees must (by law) be "bondable", which requires fingerprinting.
Interestingly (and perhaps much more disturbingly), the fingerprinting is required ONLY to check against known past criminal activity (read: unsolved crimes and known criminals). There is no requirement for the fingerprints to be kept once the individual has passed the test (though the PATRIOT ACT may have changed this requirement, I'm not sure). Unfortunately however, the inexcusably sorry state of US privacy law does not require any company or agency (government or private) to delete or destroy the fingerprint records, even at the request of the individual. So like it or not, the OP's sister's fingerprints will now be part of the massive fingerprint analysis database.
This is actually a HUGE industry.
Forrester, Gartner, and IDG all offer advanced comparison data from industry surveys against which you can measure your own company. (Help desk costs per call, fully-loaded employee per hour, etc.)
Then you implement some sort of metric to use in the comparison. ITIL, COBIT, ISO 17799, and a host of others are available as frameworks you can use, or you can design your own. So you start taking measurements, compile the metrics, and compare.
[How much does a password reset cost? How much does it cost to terminate a sysadmin? How many staff hours are required to clean a virus infection on one machine? On all machines? &c, &c.]
I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a Fortune 1000 company that doesn't use some form of this - it's how most companies compare themselves against the industry.
Hope that helps.
There's even a GPS module available for the PSP. It's an amazing little device.
But there are three major problems with it:
1) There is no way to output the video to an external device (mentioned in the article);
2) The UMD format is proprietary, closed, and unavailable to anyone who does not have a licensing agreement with Sony;
3) Sony has gone severely out of their way, in an escalating battle, to keep users from hacking the unit. Even now it requires taking advantage of a vulnerability in third-party applications to load a downgraded firmware to allow homebrew applications to run.
Sony really did cut themselves off at the knees on this one. Had they embraced their users instead of trying to control every little thing they did, it could have been a huge success.
Just where to do think geosync is??
It took the Apollo astronauts about two days to get to the MOON.
From the earth to the moon:~240 000 miles.
From the earth to geosync : ~26 000 miles.
So, how many MONTHS do you think it would take to get to Geosynchronous orbit...?
And I would say that finding a stable orbit around the moon is only six times* as hard as finding a stable orbit around the earth, and we've managed to do that quite handily.
*Think about that. You'll get it.
Absolutely right. Why would someone work for a company which would do such a thing in the first place? Face the fact that if they can't get the sales pitch right BEFORE you come on board, it's not going to get any better once you're on the payroll!
ALTHOUGH...
As I understand the law (not being an attorney myself, of course), you do have some legal recourse... anyone that makes an offer (written, verbal, or otherwise) that you have accepted and relied on (to your detriment if they don't hold up their end of the bargain) has entered into a legally binding contract, and you are entitled to hold them to the terms of the original agreement. The person who first made you the offer was acting as an official representative of the company, and you were negotiating in good faith relying on their promise. They are obligated to give you what they promised, or you can sue.
But really now, do you honestly want to work for a company:
-that can't keep its hiring practices straight?
-where one hand doesn't know or care what the other is doing?
-that has to lie to you just to get you to accept the offer?
-is willing to renege on even the most simple of promises?
-thinks you're not worth dealing honestly with BEFORE you're an employee?
If you answered "yes" to any of the following questions, you should just accept the new offer and accept your honorary 'Dilbert' pin.
That's ok, David Scott did it for him:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.clsout3.html
So what you're saying is while there's a theoretical difference between the impact timings, the practical effect likely couldn't be measured. Makes sense.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I can't tell if your post is hyperbole or not.
...HOWEVER...
So straight up - does the hammer really hit the ground first? Replacing the hammer and feather with larger bodies - say, one (as the hammer's stand-in) which is the same mass as the moon, and the other (the feather's double) which is 1/10th the mass of the moon, it seems obvious that the more massive body will impact first, as it does have a significantly larger bearing on the moon.
Does the hammer's insignificant size relative to the moon negate any realistic gravitational influence it may have? Or for that matter, does the term 'significantly larger' really apply to the hammer and feather?
I think the 3-body dynamics may be so small at that scale as to be nearly nullified - I would suspect that the gravitational pull of the hammer on the moon would move it less than the diameter of an atom required to change the timing of the impact of the two objects. [Unless one is counting the impact of the electron shells prior to the impact of the nucleus, in which case I suspect the preponderance of heavier (atomic weight-wise) elements in the hammer, with correspondingly more electrons, necessitating population of the "larger" d- or f-shells, would be first. But again, it's not the gravitational influence of the mass of the hammer that would be the deciding factor...]
So.... anybody care to do the math?
Ok, so it's roughly 1/100th the size of Rhode Island.
Or approximately the same area as the town of 65,000 in which I grew up.
I have taken refined sugar completely out of my diet. In fact, I try to stay away from simple cabohydrates in most forms.
When I eat something with sugar in it nowadays, within an hour I find myself biting my nails, fidgeting, tapping my feet or bouncing my legs. It's exceedingly strange behavior given that I'm normally fidget-free, and often times I have to think hard to remember that I ate sugar. It's a direct-effect, and I've seen it too many times to think it's anything but a 1:1.
That said, kids today eat something like twice the sugar kids ate 50 years ago. Their systems are so full of sugar most times that I can't help but imagine that adding extra sugar doesn't affect them - they're already high on it!
We should do an experiment: take a child who has very low exposure to sugar and give them a whole candy bar, then sit back and watch. I'd be willing to bet that child's behavior would change drastically. Then give a kid who eats tons of sugar every day a candy bar; I think that child's behavior would hardly change at all. Without a biblio for the study you cited, I can't speak to their methods or controls, but I'd be interested to see if they accounted for 'normal' sugar consumption. Do you have a link or text?
Holy cow. Replace every instance of 'Bush' in that article with 'Kennedy' and the story doesn't change a bit.
Another American family political dynasty. Who'da thunkit?
Seriously, the Bush bashing is getting old. It only works if you really expected something better from them in the first place. Can you honestly say that you do?
I always got to AVS Forum and Projector Central for information on technology and reviews, etc.
I don't plan on buying a TV in the traditional sense next - I'm going to get a projector instead. They're portable, the viewing angle is never a consideration (since all the light is reflected to the viewer) and you can get as big a picture as you could possibly desire. There's nothing quite like watching a Monday night football game on the side of your neighbor's house!
The problem with revolution is that the public will only resort to it when it is the least painful option for a critical mass of people.
For better or worse, we have a long way to go before we get there. Despite the trends we are seeing, we're still one of the best places to live on Earth. And that is precisely why it is so important to prevent these abuses of Liberty or correct them when they do happen, or we won't be what we are much longer.
what is the point of privacy ... if you are dead
What's the point of being alive without Liberty?
It wasn't an idle statment when Patrick Henry said Give me Liberty or give me Death!
It is better to live free than die a slave.
Privacy is a fundamental key to Liberty. Without the fundamental right to privacy, Liberty cannot exist.
That's true. But Liberty is supposed to be secure by design, and that's what's frightening about all this.
Hmmm, perhaps it wasn't written by a human...?
/. subscriber, and gets to see the stories a little earlier than the rest of us. S/he had plenty of time to write it before posting was available.)
---
(Seriously though, the little * next to the userID means the user is a
Looks like it's the appropriately named "Hero Shrew"
I second this opinion. Several soft drink companies here in the eastern US have perfected some very tasty flavored carbonated waters. (I'm inferring from the use of 'hospital' instead of 'the hospital' that the submitter is British; I have no idea if these sorts of drinks are available in the UK.)
Here are some links:
Poland Spring makes some of the best flavored seltzer I've ever had. Raspberry Lime kicks ass and has become a staple of my diet (at least two litres daily). Lime, lemon, orange and plain are the other flavors and are good in decreasing order, IMHO.
Adirondack is what I drink when I can't find Poland Spring around. They have a great raspberry lime and lemon-lime and are truly delicious. (And they're certified Kosher, if that makes a difference to you.)
The best part is that the flavors are more of an essence than a true additive, so they have -0- Calories, -0- sodium, -0- cabohydrates, and -0- fat.
They are awesome. I love them. As far as I am concerned, they are the perfect substitute for sugared sodas, but YMMV.