Actually, I agree with you *in principle*. In the long term view, you're right. We've killed millions total, several hundred thousand in the Civil War alone.
However, I am not speaking of casualties and I'm not speaking in the long term, I'm speaking of cost. When someone baits us by saying "Way to go America, 4 more dead.." or some such blather, I have to point out that those 4, like soldiers, sailors, airmen, firemen, policemen and so on chose to risk their lives. The people in the World Trade Center did not and should rightly be considered victims.
When a cop pulls over a guy on the side of the road, he's taking his life in his own hands. He runs a very serious risk of getting shot or killed (I know, my cousin was killed in just such an incident). When a cop goes into a training exercise to learn how to deal with those situations, he also could get killed. If a cop gets killed in training, do we include him in the list of those killed by drive by shootings? No. Why not? After all, the only reason he was there in the first place was to deal with a potential shooting situation.
One thing that does tick me off is the term "Collateral Damage." It used to mean unintentional damage to physical assets as a result of actions against intended targets. Now it means innocent people killed by accident. A person is not "Collateral," a person who is killed or injured is a victim, friend or enemy, intentional or not.
"This comment posted as LDOPA1 because when I criticize, it's generally supported by fact. Occasionally I lose Karma, but more often I gain Karma. I'm willing to risk Karma for what I believe."
And the UN agency in afghanistan that was clearing those up just got bombed by the US. Way to go. 4 deaths. 4 more victims of terrorism.
Considering that those cruise missiles were fired for a tremendous distance (definately beyond the line of sight), the fact that they got as close to their original target as they did is quite remarkable, I think. In case you didn't know, the original target was a Taliban communications tower.
Moreover, those people (Americans) knew the situation they were in. They had the ability to leave when the rest of the UN left, but they chose not to. They chose to carry on making the land a bit safer for those who might find themselves atop a landmine. Frankly, they each are heros and deserve recognition as such, at least as much as the firefighters and police who lost their lives in New York. Like those firefighters and police, the UN staff risked their lives to help those who could not help themselves.
When you compare those 4 accidental deaths against roughly 6000 murders and 44,000 attempted murders, I think it's a small price to pay. If I were one of the 4, I would die happy knowing I did what I could when I could.
I completely agree with the columnist on this one. I just recently upgraded my video and sound cards.
When I installed the sound card (SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer 5.1*), it installed a "Creative Control Panel" on startup (without asking) and reassociated all of my sound files with the Creative player (.mp3, mp2,.ram,.wav etc..) again, without asking. Okay, fine. I reassociated all of the files back to the player I use (BTW, this happened before when I installed the software for my Rio). No big deal.
I move ahead and install the new video card.
The video card is an ATI Radeon DDR 64Mb model (yeah baby!) When I installed the driver software for the video card, it added a "quick launch" bar on my desktop (without asking) and reassociated DVD playback with the new DVD application (which sucks). In addition, it reassociated.AVI,.MPG,.MPEG,.ASF,.MOV,.RAM and a host of other video files to the ATI applications. This video player works pretty well (as you would expect for a video card manufacturer) but it didn't pick up the 6000 or so codecs I've downloaded for Media Player. Okay, reassociate the files BACK! Great. While I'm doing this, I decide to play an mp3 or two. Hey, what do you know, I have to reassociate the SOUND files again, too! They are now associated with the ATI media player.
This whole process took a couple of hours (including a screwup that should have been warned against, see the footnote). The hardware change took a grand total of 20 minutes (including opening and closing the case twice), but the drivers and getting my system working the way I like it again took several hours. If I hadn't had those hours, I'd still be using ATI and Creative's players.
And don't get me started on Quicktime... Nothing like getting the "Upgrade Later" question with EVERY file.
*If you already have a Sound Blaster Live! and you're going to replace it with a different model (like a SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1), make SURE you've COMPLETELY uninstalled the old one first (drivers too! Remove the device from the device manager.)
You're right. I'm constantly amazed at how people continue to make machines do things that they were never designed to do! I can just imagine the next article on/.:
"MVS/JCL running on a Nokia Cell Phone!"
On a side note, this can't be too bad: I've LONG been using Craftsman flathead screwdrivers for pry bars, chisels and wedges... If it'll take the punishment and it'll save you a few bucks, I don't see why not...
Re:Imperial vs. Metric: SERIOUSLY OFFTOPIC!
on
Biking @ 80 MPH
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· Score: 2, Funny
My car gets 30 rods to the hog's head and I'm happy that way!!!
Well, it would be a Pocket SGI, wouldn't it? Palm OS with 1024 bit math! I can just imagine the sales pitch:
"How many times have you been sitting on the bus, in need of some quick supercomputing? You're 20 minutes from the office and you just need to solve Planck's Theorem RIGHT NOW. That's why you need the Palm 2.5e+12!"
If that's your worry, consider how successful the GameBoy has been at wiping out game consoles.
That's definately not my worry, it was just an observation. Good point though...
Each has it's use, if you're looking only at sophistication then you're probably overlooking the obvious...
I'm not looking for sophistication, I'm looking at the percieved need for high sophistication. You make my point quite well for me - I only use my PDA for a couple of things. I don't need it to play MPEG movies. The single most useless app on my Palm Pilot Vx (not a wireless Palm, if you didn't know) is the email utility. I'm not going to be scribbling a reply at the bus stop to an email I retrieved while I was at my desktop. I could probably have typed a reply in the time it took me to hot-sync and get the email in the first place.
It WOULD be cool to have Delorme Maps on my Palm. I wouldn't even need the GPS module you can get for the Visor.
Gimme a PDA that does what I need, does it well, and does it when I need it, and I'm a happy camper.
That brings up a thought - Does the Pocket PC OS have a Blue-Screen-Of-Death? I'd love to see a photo of one... (the BSOD, I mean)
My favorite off of the hardware page is the Symbol PPT 2800, which has some impressive stats but also looks like a Star Trek prop as well..
On the other hand, the Casio E-200 seems to have expandability locked down with a Type II slot, a PC card slot and a memory slot.
For cool, the "O2 xpda" listed on the Pocket PC Thoughts homepage takes the prize. Jason Dunn says "I'm at a total loss here...who knows what this device is? Is this the BT device I've heard rumblings about?" I have a thought. I'd bet that this is related to MIT's Oxygen Project, profiled in this article from Scientific American.
The copyright is cannot be enforced. First of all, it requires that Magnum Opus copyright all combinations of tone lengths for all combinations. In other words, because Magnum Opus has copyrighted a phone number (555-1212) in chordal quarter notes, all I have to do is play a half note for the last (or first or third... ) digit.
I still think it would be worth it to get at telemarketers. ("Would you like to buy life insurance?" "Sure, I'll have plenty of money after you pay me the $100,000 US for playing my symphony. You should've bought a performance license.")
On that note, does that mean that my email address can be copyrighted? Does that mean I can sue spammers for using my email address without permission?
Seriously, according to this page on the Franklin Pierce Law Center's website, the copyright is unenforcable on the face of it because it violates the "Fair Use" portion of copyright law. That part states:
Fair use.
Fair use is one of the most important, and least clear cut, limits to copyright. It permits some use of others' works even without approval. But when? Words like "fair" or "reasonable" cannot be precisely defined, but here are a few benchmarks.
Uses that advance public interests such as criticism, education or scholarship are favored -- particularly if little of another's work is copied. Uses that generate income or interfere with a copyright owner's income are not. Fairness also means crediting original artists or authors. (A teacher who copied, without credit, much of another's course materials was found to infringe.)
Commercial uses of another's work are also disfavored. For example, anyone who uses, without explicit permission, others' work to suggest that they endorse some commercial product is asking for trouble! Yet, not all commercial uses are forbidden. Most magazines and newspapers are operated for profit; that they are not automatically precluded from fair use has been made clear by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Point two: Hydrogen is NOWHERE NEAR dense enough to use as an airliner fuel. You'd need all the room in the entire ship including the cabin taken up with hydrogen tanks, and then some, in order to fly cross country.
Excuse me, but the Space Shuttle uses a combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen to assist its scramble to 7 miles/second (approx. 25,000 mph). Granted, that push is assisted by a couple of solid fuel rockets, but the shuttle's gross weight (including fuel and payload) is up to 2250 tons. Each of those rocket boosters work for only 2 minutes of the 44 minute ascent. The remaining ascent is done solely by hydrogen/oxygen mix.
Most of the fuel mass is oxygen, even though it occupies only a fraction of the volume (19,000 cubic feet of LOX, verus 53,000 cubic feet of chilled liquid hydrogen). Gram for Gram, you cannot beat the energy of hydrogen.
Keep in mind, the SUN is powered by hydrogen.
I think it most likely is dense enough to use as hydrogen fuel, especially as it can be chilled and compressed...
Can you name a single company or organization that would be interested in putting forth the effort to prove or disprove this if they have absolutely NO bias? Even "independent" research companies are paid by SOMEBODY.
Okay, maybe it's not fair to imply that a research company is biased just because they're paid to investigate something. But I will stand by this: NOBODY would publish the results if the results didn't support the position they were hoping to prove.
Can you imagine it? "Red Hat, the leading provider of Linux distributions today announced the results of a 3 year long survey which conclusively proves that 'Gnome Sucks!' and 'Windows Rulez!!'"
Yes, but that's because twins have unique fingerprints and have a legal identity. A clone has no legal identity, and the birth of a twin isn't a felony.
Keep in mind, the hinge pin of my argument is the law that states (paraphrased) that if anyone dies during or as a direct result of the commission of a felony, or the attempted commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. I believe it's actually capital murder, but I'm not sure.
The cloning of yourself (or anyone else, for that matter) is currently a felony. So the person who performs the cloning is guilty of any crime that occurs as a direct result of that felony. So if a clone kills someone, the cloner is responsible. And because clones have no legal separate identity (not yet, anyway), they cannot be held accountable for their actions because the cloner is the one who's guilty (double jeopardy). In other words, they would be trying the same person twice for the same crime.
Unfortunately, not only does DNA decay at a slow put perceptible rate, it also decays natuarally while alive.
Every time a cell divides, the end caps for the DNA strand split too. While the caps themselves are very long (30% of the length of the DNA itself), there comes a time when the cap isn't long enough to divide again. When this happens, the DNA unravels and the cell dies. It's a natural anti-aging mechanism.
This is why "Dolly" (the cloned sheep) has a cellular life older than Dolly herself. If you look at Dolly's DNA, you'll see that all of the genes are the same as the adult's, right down to the end-caps. Those end-caps can only divide the same number of times as the parent DNA could divide (-1 for the cloning effort) because the cloned cells "inherited" the end-caps from the old cells. These end caps are called "Teleromes" and scientists have known about them for a long time.
Embryonic Stems cells have a store of hormones that allow them to grow new Teleromes. In this, they are different from normal, adult cells. In addition, Stem cells (both Adult and Embryonic) have the unique ability to become any type of cell in the whole organism. The type of cells they become seems to depend upon a complicated dance of hormones and environmental pressures. Without the hormones present, the stem cells just divide without direction (similar to cancer). If they have the right hormones, they might become nerve cells (to make a brain) or heart muscle cells.
These two reasons are why embryonic stem cell study is incredibly important if we ever want to be able to grow new nerve cells (for victims of MS, Parkinsons, Alzhiemers or CNS injury), heart cells (for your grandfather), or liver cells (for your frat brother who's on his 5th St. Pauli Girl).
Of course, the whole idea of cloning raises a thousand questions. If you clone yourself (a felony) and your clone kills your friend, who's guilty? Law currently states that if a death occurs because of or during the commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. That means your clone goes free! Granted, you get the chair or the needle, but still the clone goes free! He (or she) cannot be prosecuted for anything that he or she does. What a way to create a terrorist nation! Think about it:
L-DOPA creates a clone of himself. He then promptly kills L-DOPA(1). L-DOPA claims he is a clone (there's no way to tell) and is thereby blameless (and L-DOPA(1) is dead). He then goes on to clone 50,000 new L-DOPA(2)'s, which then go on a hacking spree the world has never seen. Nobody can prosecute him or any of his clones. The "blame" lies with L-DOPA(1), and because of double jeopardy laws, none of the other L-DOPA's can be prosecuted either...
Good point. Okay, it'd get it's time from the local atomic clock broadcast...:) If you were anywhere that doesn't have one, you probably wouldn't care.
Alternatively, you could have a resetting fob on your keychain that would set the time. It'd have 4 buttons (+ hour, -hour, + minute, - minute). Of course, the fob would have to have a sliding cover to prevent accidental time setting...:)
A completely self-contained, reliable, artifical
heart available off-the-shelf and requiring no
external battery pack or management would be a
sea change in modern medicine.
I can just imagine the Tech Support Call for this one...
"Press 1 if you're having trouble installing your BeatFree Artificial Heart. Press 2 if your Heart will not start..."
Of course, that'll lead to all kinds of 911 calls...
"Help! My husband's heart isn't beating!!!"
"Ma'am, please calm down. If your would turn your husband over and look at the Service Tag on his left ass-cheek...."
"Ok, Ok! Here it is... 615-CU-OEM-5YE"
"Ma'am, I'm sorry but you'll have to call the vendor for support. You're husband has an OEM heart."
Or even better...
"Sir, your heart is working fine. You'll just need to replace the power supply!"
"How would I do that?"
"Well, take you wife into the bedroom...."
Seriously, this type of thing has been mentioned in numerous sci-fi novels as an imminent invention. I would love to get a wristwatch display installed underneath the skin on my left wrist, with luminous hands which glow through the skin. It would be cool, it'd never run out, you'd only have to set it once, you could upload new hand-designs onto it, and you'd only see it when you needed it. If it broke, it's a small incision, but it never breaks because it's under the skin. Sign me up!
Re:Biometrics are here... have been here for 6 yrs
on
Biometrics in Airports
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· Score: 1
Apparently things have changed with Viisage's FR products.. I appreciate the update. It certainly sounds like things have changed a bit, because the system I helped prototype definately wasn't fooled by makeup. Of course, it depends on the threshold levels (which used to be configurable, I don't know now).
Of course, we're not exactly talking about a machine playing jury, judge and executioner. It's an aid, a tool. The person would be checked by a trained professional with a copy of the top x photos they matched so that an assesment can be made.
Biometrics are here... have been here for 6 yrs...
on
Biometrics in Airports
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I worked for Viisage Technology for a couple of years, and they use a system in the building where two cameras scan for faces in the hallway (as you're approaching to enter) and if a face found matches one in the employee database, it unlocks the door.
It was sophisticated enough to identify me as me even when I was wearing my eyeglasses, and later, when I grew a goatee type beard and moustache. No ID code to enter, no badge to carry. If you didn't match anyone in the database, it would summon security and leave the doorslocked.
Having run their Technical Support Department for 2 years, I can tell you that the products not only work, but work very well. They use the facial recognition in Massachusetts at the Department of Transitional Assistance (Welfare) offices to identify those people obtaining multiple ID's under assumed names to weed out Welfare fraud.
We might be nice and borrow Pakistan's airspace just long enough to send over B-52s to drop leaflets warning civilians near targets to get out of the way, but that's it.
Except that morethan66% of the population can't read!!! (three references, I got bored finding more good ones...) Less than 16% of the women can read, they can't have an education, they can't hold a job. Propaganda won't work unless it's by word of mouth.
All of these statistics were gathered before the Taliban (who executes anyone that tries to teach women) was firmly in place. It has become even worse since...
Besides, it takes 3 years to train a soldier to do his (or her) job well.
The key word in that phrase is well. If you want to tell me that PFC Jack Hoff is an experienced fighting man, then I'll ask YOU to sit in a foxhole with him. Mind you, I'm not slamming Marines. The same hold true for all of the services. Flight training alone does not make an ace fighter pilot. It takes actual experience. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
Anyone can look up the length of training for any MOS (or Rating, if you're in the Navy). Some of them are 9 months (Navy Fire Controlman, for example, my rating). Go to any Staff Seargent or Master Chief and ask him if he (or she) thinks that someone straight out of boot camp and an occupational school is actually experienced. I can tell you right now that they will probably wet themselves laughing. That's where the term "Boot" came from to decribe an inexperienced soldier/sailor/airman.
And, as a former Marine, I would state that any "talented computer hacker" who knows nothing about the actual operations of the military would be better off catching bullets than writing bugs.
Now I think I know why you're a former Marine. How long were you in? What was your MOS? I'd bet (and I'm not flaming here, I want to know) that you probably didn't make it past E-4. I say this because any Marine over E-4 that has had actual combat experience and has lost brothers in the fighting knows that a warm body catching bullets doesn't do a DAMN thing except hose the operation and make people sad. Frankly, that's why Squids call green Marines "Bullet Sponges." Lesson #1 in combat: The first casualty of combat is the battle plan.
Obligatory Navy-Marine joke: Why are bananas and Marines alike? They both die on the beach in bunches.. (Rimshot)
It appears that sun has been successfully/.'ed... I went to the pricing page, and got:
Configuration Error
1)
Error calling config servlet:
sunir.webdesk.common.checker.ConfigInternalExcepti on: Couldn't get sql connection.
When I finally did get the price ($4+ Million), I realized that the page also says "the Sun Fire[tm] 15K server helps redefine total cost of ownership in data center environments."
This is quite a salient point. In my very humble opinion, it seems to me that Government, Religion etc are in the business of controlling information and forming the way you think.
If you need any proof of this, remember that the government is now saying that they will not provide proof of Osama Bin Laden's involvement to other countries because the proof is "classified" (aka, a "Secret"). I would bet that they are using some form of encryption to keep prying eyes out. I don't believe there is any backdoor to their system so that we can check out this "proof" for ourselves. Does anyone know of one? I'm also quite sure that they don't have anybody checking the information to make sure that it doesn't contain plans to assasinate the president and overthrow the government. The FBI databases could be used to coordinate a coup.
Don't they report to us? Aren't we entitled to see this proof for ourselves before the government uses our money to finance a Crusade? Before you get your undies in a twist, face it. This is a Crusade. It happens to be that this Crusade is directed at a very select subset of the Muslim population, but it is a Crusade none-the-less.
Back to my point: Some religions tell you that there are things you can't read or listen to because they are sinful. What they really mean is that what you might actually hear or read something that will make you think for yourself and quite possibly deviate from what they've taught you.
I find it amusing that some people are horrified at some of the Taliban's (Yahoo Links and News) doctrines and don't even blink when they tell their kids that they can't listen to Ozzy Osbourne because it's a sin. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, the Taliban's particular interpretation of Islam and the Holy Qur'an prohibits women to teach, read, attend school or hold down a job.
I personally seeing all companies merging and we'll have say five or six stocks to choose from:
TEC (The Entertainment Company)
TSSC (The Stock and Securities Company)
TCC (The Communications Company)
TTC (The Technology Company)
TPC (The Porn Company)
TGC (The Government Company)
Who knows, maybe some more, but then eventually we'll only have...
OCP (Omni Consumer Products)
Personally, I can't wait to get my own ED-209. I think I'll paint it Lavender..
First of all, the "Justice" Department doesn't carry out justice. Our "Justice" system is based on the concept of Jurisprudence, which basically means that America has taken the stance that it is better to let someone go who actually did commit a crime rather than imprison (or kill!) someone who might not have. This is why we use the terms "Guilty" and "Not-Guilty" instead of "Guilty" and "Innocent."
"Not-Guilty" does not imply that the person did not actually commit a crime, just that the person does not fit the legal definition of "Guilty." That's exactly why O.J. Simpson is walking the street a free man today. They could not say that Orinthal J. Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldmann beyond any reasonable doubt.
That said, even Sklyarov's arrest and imprisonment is definately against the grain. He is being treated at Guilty without a trial. He entered a plea of "Not-Guilty," because while he may have committed a crime, he and his legal team belive that he is not accountable to the law (under the law) for his actions. Specifically, they belive the DMCA is flawed and inherently unsupportable.
My personal view of this should be quite obvious. For clarification purposes, I think the law is asinine. I don't think anyone has pointed out to the Justice Department that everyone who has a Web Browser (nay, a text editor, for that matter) is violating the DMCA. Section 117 of the law gives no exception for that kind of technology. The law specifically states that any computer program capable of displaying copyrighted material against the rules of the copyright is illegal. It makes no provision for the level of protection afforded. It could be argued that HTML is a form of copyright protection (i.e. META tags) as it obscures the text of the material. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that all it takes to make a copyright is to say "copyright 2001" and it's legally binding.
From the perspective desk, think of this: I can legally obtain, sell, and distribute the components to make nitrogen tri-iodide (a highly unstable explosive, don't try this at home kids). All I need is to go to my local Osco Drug, buy some Iodine crystals, househole ammonia and coffee filters, and bingo, I've got a HIGHLY explosive chemical that requires no fuse mechanism other than a rock, BB or anything else that'll impart a kinetic shock to the material (including fingers). I cannot go to jail for that. However, I can be fined up to $500,000 and get 25 years in jail for writing:
"UNLOCK COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS FROM SUBMITTED DOCUMENT" as soon as I write the compiler for this new language. Note, it's not illegal to write the compiler, just the words above.
Of course, under the DMCA, slashdot will be guilty of violating the DMCA for distributing that code, and everyone reading this message will be guilty too. Just as soon as I write that compiler.....
As yes, another case of diarhea of the brain. While I haven't the slightest clue about your ancestry (the topic of most flames), I think I do have some valuable insight what you're trying to say. I think you're trying to achieve one or more of the following:
1: You're trying to get a job as a pundit. You write sound bytes designed to raise the ire of anyone who bothers to listen with little or no substance.
or
2:You're trying to make up for the fact that you don't have anything to contribute and felt left out.
Should I be surprised that you've decided not to be identified?
Seriously, I am hurt and offended that you don't take pleasure in reading my poignant commentary about the current state of the not-com economy. You have to admit that the acronymati do get bounced around more often than superball.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I agree with you *in principle*. In the long term view, you're right. We've killed millions total, several hundred thousand in the Civil War alone.
However, I am not speaking of casualties and I'm not speaking in the long term, I'm speaking of cost. When someone baits us by saying "Way to go America, 4 more dead.." or some such blather, I have to point out that those 4, like soldiers, sailors, airmen, firemen, policemen and so on chose to risk their lives. The people in the World Trade Center did not and should rightly be considered victims.
When a cop pulls over a guy on the side of the road, he's taking his life in his own hands. He runs a very serious risk of getting shot or killed (I know, my cousin was killed in just such an incident). When a cop goes into a training exercise to learn how to deal with those situations, he also could get killed. If a cop gets killed in training, do we include him in the list of those killed by drive by shootings? No. Why not? After all, the only reason he was there in the first place was to deal with a potential shooting situation.
One thing that does tick me off is the term "Collateral Damage." It used to mean unintentional damage to physical assets as a result of actions against intended targets. Now it means innocent people killed by accident. A person is not "Collateral," a person who is killed or injured is a victim, friend or enemy, intentional or not.
"This comment posted as LDOPA1 because when I criticize, it's generally supported by fact. Occasionally I lose Karma, but more often I gain Karma. I'm willing to risk Karma for what I believe."
And the UN agency in afghanistan that was clearing those up just got bombed by the US. Way to go. 4 deaths. 4 more victims of terrorism.
Considering that those cruise missiles were fired for a tremendous distance (definately beyond the line of sight), the fact that they got as close to their original target as they did is quite remarkable, I think. In case you didn't know, the original target was a Taliban communications tower.
Moreover, those people (Americans) knew the situation they were in. They had the ability to leave when the rest of the UN left, but they chose not to. They chose to carry on making the land a bit safer for those who might find themselves atop a landmine. Frankly, they each are heros and deserve recognition as such, at least as much as the firefighters and police who lost their lives in New York. Like those firefighters and police, the UN staff risked their lives to help those who could not help themselves.
When you compare those 4 accidental deaths against roughly 6000 murders and 44,000 attempted murders, I think it's a small price to pay. If I were one of the 4, I would die happy knowing I did what I could when I could.
I completely agree with the columnist on this one. I just recently upgraded my video and sound cards.
When I installed the sound card (SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer 5.1*), it installed a "Creative Control Panel" on startup (without asking) and reassociated all of my sound files with the Creative player (.mp3, mp2,
I move ahead and install the new video card.
The video card is an ATI Radeon DDR 64Mb model (yeah baby!) When I installed the driver software for the video card, it added a "quick launch" bar on my desktop (without asking) and reassociated DVD playback with the new DVD application (which sucks). In addition, it reassociated
This whole process took a couple of hours (including a screwup that should have been warned against, see the footnote). The hardware change took a grand total of 20 minutes (including opening and closing the case twice), but the drivers and getting my system working the way I like it again took several hours. If I hadn't had those hours, I'd still be using ATI and Creative's players.
And don't get me started on Quicktime... Nothing like getting the "Upgrade Later" question with EVERY file.
*If you already have a Sound Blaster Live! and you're going to replace it with a different model (like a SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1), make SURE you've COMPLETELY uninstalled the old one first (drivers too! Remove the device from the device manager.)
You're right. I'm constantly amazed at how people continue to make machines do things that they were never designed to do! I can just imagine the next article on /.:
"MVS/JCL running on a Nokia Cell Phone!"
On a side note, this can't be too bad: I've LONG been using Craftsman flathead screwdrivers for pry bars, chisels and wedges... If it'll take the punishment and it'll save you a few bucks, I don't see why not...
My car gets 30 rods to the hog's head and I'm happy that way!!!
Well, it would be a Pocket SGI, wouldn't it? Palm OS with 1024 bit math! I can just imagine the sales pitch:
"How many times have you been sitting on the bus, in need of some quick supercomputing? You're 20 minutes from the office and you just need to solve Planck's Theorem RIGHT NOW. That's why you need the Palm 2.5e+12!"
If that's your worry, consider how successful the GameBoy has been at wiping out game consoles.
That's definately not my worry, it was just an observation. Good point though...
Each has it's use, if you're looking only at sophistication then you're probably overlooking the obvious...
I'm not looking for sophistication, I'm looking at the percieved need for high sophistication. You make my point quite well for me - I only use my PDA for a couple of things. I don't need it to play MPEG movies. The single most useless app on my Palm Pilot Vx (not a wireless Palm, if you didn't know) is the email utility. I'm not going to be scribbling a reply at the bus stop to an email I retrieved while I was at my desktop. I could probably have typed a reply in the time it took me to hot-sync and get the email in the first place.
It WOULD be cool to have Delorme Maps on my Palm. I wouldn't even need the GPS module you can get for the Visor.
Gimme a PDA that does what I need, does it well, and does it when I need it, and I'm a happy camper.
That brings up a thought - Does the Pocket PC OS have a Blue-Screen-Of-Death? I'd love to see a photo of one... (the BSOD, I mean)
Oh yeah - How exactly is what I wrote flamebait?
My favorite off of the hardware page is the Symbol PPT 2800, which has some impressive stats but also looks like a Star Trek prop as well..
On the other hand, the Casio E-200 seems to have expandability locked down with a Type II slot, a PC card slot and a memory slot.
For cool, the "O2 xpda" listed on the Pocket PC Thoughts homepage takes the prize. Jason Dunn says "I'm at a total loss here...who knows what this device is? Is this the BT device I've heard rumblings about?" I have a thought. I'd bet that this is related to MIT's Oxygen Project, profiled in this article from Scientific American.
Yeah, but where will the PDA wars end? They're getting so sophisticated that soon I'll be able to chuck my desktop....
The copyright is cannot be enforced. First of all, it requires that Magnum Opus copyright all combinations of tone lengths for all combinations. In other words, because Magnum Opus has copyrighted a phone number (555-1212) in chordal quarter notes, all I have to do is play a half note for the last (or first or third... ) digit.
I still think it would be worth it to get at telemarketers. ("Would you like to buy life insurance?" "Sure, I'll have plenty of money after you pay me the $100,000 US for playing my symphony. You should've bought a performance license.")
On that note, does that mean that my email address can be copyrighted? Does that mean I can sue spammers for using my email address without permission?
Seriously, according to this page on the Franklin Pierce Law Center's website, the copyright is unenforcable on the face of it because it violates the "Fair Use" portion of copyright law. That part states:
Fair use.
Fair use is one of the most important, and least clear cut, limits to copyright. It permits some use of others' works even without approval. But when? Words like "fair" or "reasonable" cannot be precisely defined, but here are a few benchmarks.
Uses that advance public interests such as criticism, education or scholarship are favored -- particularly if little of another's work is copied. Uses that generate income or interfere with a copyright owner's income are not. Fairness also means crediting original artists or authors. (A teacher who copied, without credit, much of another's course materials was found to infringe.)
Commercial uses of another's work are also disfavored. For example, anyone who uses, without explicit permission, others' work to suggest that they endorse some commercial product is asking for trouble! Yet, not all commercial uses are forbidden. Most magazines and newspapers are operated for profit; that they are not automatically precluded from fair use has been made clear by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Point two: Hydrogen is NOWHERE NEAR dense enough to use as an airliner fuel. You'd need all the room in the entire ship including the cabin taken up with hydrogen tanks, and then some, in order to fly cross country.
Excuse me, but the Space Shuttle uses a combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen to assist its scramble to 7 miles/second (approx. 25,000 mph). Granted, that push is assisted by a couple of solid fuel rockets, but the shuttle's gross weight (including fuel and payload) is up to 2250 tons. Each of those rocket boosters work for only 2 minutes of the 44 minute ascent. The remaining ascent is done solely by hydrogen/oxygen mix.
Most of the fuel mass is oxygen, even though it occupies only a fraction of the volume (19,000 cubic feet of LOX, verus 53,000 cubic feet of chilled liquid hydrogen). Gram for Gram, you cannot beat the energy of hydrogen.
Keep in mind, the SUN is powered by hydrogen.
I think it most likely is dense enough to use as hydrogen fuel, especially as it can be chilled and compressed...
Can you name a single company or organization that would be interested in putting forth the effort to prove or disprove this if they have absolutely NO bias? Even "independent" research companies are paid by SOMEBODY.
Okay, maybe it's not fair to imply that a research company is biased just because they're paid to investigate something. But I will stand by this: NOBODY would publish the results if the results didn't support the position they were hoping to prove.
Can you imagine it? "Red Hat, the leading provider of Linux distributions today announced the results of a 3 year long survey which conclusively proves that 'Gnome Sucks!' and 'Windows Rulez!!'"
Don't think so...
Yes, but that's because twins have unique fingerprints and have a legal identity. A clone has no legal identity, and the birth of a twin isn't a felony.
Keep in mind, the hinge pin of my argument is the law that states (paraphrased) that if anyone dies during or as a direct result of the commission of a felony, or the attempted commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. I believe it's actually capital murder, but I'm not sure.
The cloning of yourself (or anyone else, for that matter) is currently a felony. So the person who performs the cloning is guilty of any crime that occurs as a direct result of that felony. So if a clone kills someone, the cloner is responsible. And because clones have no legal separate identity (not yet, anyway), they cannot be held accountable for their actions because the cloner is the one who's guilty (double jeopardy). In other words, they would be trying the same person twice for the same crime.
Is that any clearer?
Unfortunately, not only does DNA decay at a slow put perceptible rate, it also decays natuarally while alive.
:)
Every time a cell divides, the end caps for the DNA strand split too. While the caps themselves are very long (30% of the length of the DNA itself), there comes a time when the cap isn't long enough to divide again. When this happens, the DNA unravels and the cell dies. It's a natural anti-aging mechanism.
This is why "Dolly" (the cloned sheep) has a cellular life older than Dolly herself. If you look at Dolly's DNA, you'll see that all of the genes are the same as the adult's, right down to the end-caps. Those end-caps can only divide the same number of times as the parent DNA could divide (-1 for the cloning effort) because the cloned cells "inherited" the end-caps from the old cells. These end caps are called "Teleromes" and scientists have known about them for a long time.
Embryonic Stems cells have a store of hormones that allow them to grow new Teleromes. In this, they are different from normal, adult cells. In addition, Stem cells (both Adult and Embryonic) have the unique ability to become any type of cell in the whole organism. The type of cells they become seems to depend upon a complicated dance of hormones and environmental pressures. Without the hormones present, the stem cells just divide without direction (similar to cancer). If they have the right hormones, they might become nerve cells (to make a brain) or heart muscle cells.
These two reasons are why embryonic stem cell study is incredibly important if we ever want to be able to grow new nerve cells (for victims of MS, Parkinsons, Alzhiemers or CNS injury), heart cells (for your grandfather), or liver cells (for your frat brother who's on his 5th St. Pauli Girl).
Of course, the whole idea of cloning raises a thousand questions. If you clone yourself (a felony) and your clone kills your friend, who's guilty? Law currently states that if a death occurs because of or during the commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. That means your clone goes free! Granted, you get the chair or the needle, but still the clone goes free! He (or she) cannot be prosecuted for anything that he or she does. What a way to create a terrorist nation! Think about it:
L-DOPA creates a clone of himself. He then promptly kills L-DOPA(1). L-DOPA claims he is a clone (there's no way to tell) and is thereby blameless (and L-DOPA(1) is dead). He then goes on to clone 50,000 new L-DOPA(2)'s, which then go on a hacking spree the world has never seen. Nobody can prosecute him or any of his clones. The "blame" lies with L-DOPA(1), and because of double jeopardy laws, none of the other L-DOPA's can be prosecuted either...
Not to mention the tax implications...
Good point. Okay, it'd get it's time from the local atomic clock broadcast... :) If you were anywhere that doesn't have one, you probably wouldn't care.
:)
Alternatively, you could have a resetting fob on your keychain that would set the time. It'd have 4 buttons (+ hour, -hour, + minute, - minute). Of course, the fob would have to have a sliding cover to prevent accidental time setting...
A completely self-contained, reliable, artifical
heart available off-the-shelf and requiring no
external battery pack or management would be a
sea change in modern medicine.
I can just imagine the Tech Support Call for this one...
"Press 1 if you're having trouble installing your BeatFree Artificial Heart. Press 2 if your Heart will not start..."
Of course, that'll lead to all kinds of 911 calls...
"Help! My husband's heart isn't beating!!!"
"Ma'am, please calm down. If your would turn your husband over and look at the Service Tag on his left ass-cheek...."
"Ok, Ok! Here it is... 615-CU-OEM-5YE"
"Ma'am, I'm sorry but you'll have to call the vendor for support. You're husband has an OEM heart."
Or even better...
"Sir, your heart is working fine. You'll just need to replace the power supply!"
"How would I do that?"
"Well, take you wife into the bedroom...."
Seriously, this type of thing has been mentioned in numerous sci-fi novels as an imminent invention. I would love to get a wristwatch display installed underneath the skin on my left wrist, with luminous hands which glow through the skin. It would be cool, it'd never run out, you'd only have to set it once, you could upload new hand-designs onto it, and you'd only see it when you needed it. If it broke, it's a small incision, but it never breaks because it's under the skin. Sign me up!
Apparently things have changed with Viisage's FR products.. I appreciate the update. It certainly sounds like things have changed a bit, because the system I helped prototype definately wasn't fooled by makeup. Of course, it depends on the threshold levels (which used to be configurable, I don't know now).
Of course, we're not exactly talking about a machine playing jury, judge and executioner. It's an aid, a tool. The person would be checked by a trained professional with a copy of the top x photos they matched so that an assesment can be made.
I worked for Viisage Technology for a couple of years, and they use a system in the building where two cameras scan for faces in the hallway (as you're approaching to enter) and if a face found matches one in the employee database, it unlocks the door.
It was sophisticated enough to identify me as me even when I was wearing my eyeglasses, and later, when I grew a goatee type beard and moustache. No ID code to enter, no badge to carry. If you didn't match anyone in the database, it would summon security and leave the doors locked.
Having run their Technical Support Department for 2 years, I can tell you that the products not only work, but work very well. They use the facial recognition in Massachusetts at the Department of Transitional Assistance (Welfare) offices to identify those people obtaining multiple ID's under assumed names to weed out Welfare fraud.
The kind of access system they have in their entry could be used in an airport entry to identify a suspected terrorist trying to move about the country and alert security. It's pretty close to an Orwelian concept, except this type of monitoring would definately have oversight by a committee or White House office to prevent civil rights abuses.
I personally am against the idea on principle, but sometimes one principle takes precedence over another.
We might be nice and borrow Pakistan's airspace just long enough to send over B-52s to drop leaflets warning civilians near targets to get out of the way, but that's it.
Except that more than 66% of the population can't read!!! (three references, I got bored finding more good ones...) Less than 16% of the women can read, they can't have an education, they can't hold a job. Propaganda won't work unless it's by word of mouth.
All of these statistics were gathered before the Taliban (who executes anyone that tries to teach women) was firmly in place. It has become even worse since...
Besides, it takes 3 years to train a soldier to do his (or her) job well.
The key word in that phrase is well. If you want to tell me that PFC Jack Hoff is an experienced fighting man, then I'll ask YOU to sit in a foxhole with him. Mind you, I'm not slamming Marines. The same hold true for all of the services. Flight training alone does not make an ace fighter pilot. It takes actual experience. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
Anyone can look up the length of training for any MOS (or Rating, if you're in the Navy). Some of them are 9 months (Navy Fire Controlman, for example, my rating). Go to any Staff Seargent or Master Chief and ask him if he (or she) thinks that someone straight out of boot camp and an occupational school is actually experienced. I can tell you right now that they will probably wet themselves laughing. That's where the term "Boot" came from to decribe an inexperienced soldier/sailor/airman.
And, as a former Marine, I would state that any "talented computer hacker" who knows nothing about the actual operations of the military would be better off catching bullets than writing bugs.
Now I think I know why you're a former Marine. How long were you in? What was your MOS? I'd bet (and I'm not flaming here, I want to know) that you probably didn't make it past E-4. I say this because any Marine over E-4 that has had actual combat experience and has lost brothers in the fighting knows that a warm body catching bullets doesn't do a DAMN thing except hose the operation and make people sad. Frankly, that's why Squids call green Marines "Bullet Sponges." Lesson #1 in combat: The first casualty of combat is the battle plan.
Obligatory Navy-Marine joke: Why are bananas and Marines alike? They both die on the beach in bunches.. (Rimshot)
It appears that sun has been successfully /.'ed... I went to the pricing page, and got:
i on: Couldn't get sql connection.
Configuration Error
1)
Error calling config servlet:
sunir.webdesk.common.checker.ConfigInternalExcept
When I finally did get the price ($4+ Million), I realized that the page also says "the Sun Fire[tm] 15K server helps redefine total cost of ownership in data center environments."
Talk about an understatement!
This is quite a salient point. In my very humble opinion, it seems to me that Government, Religion etc are in the business of controlling information and forming the way you think.
If you need any proof of this, remember that the government is now saying that they will not provide proof of Osama Bin Laden's involvement to other countries because the proof is "classified" (aka, a "Secret"). I would bet that they are using some form of encryption to keep prying eyes out. I don't believe there is any backdoor to their system so that we can check out this "proof" for ourselves. Does anyone know of one? I'm also quite sure that they don't have anybody checking the information to make sure that it doesn't contain plans to assasinate the president and overthrow the government. The FBI databases could be used to coordinate a coup.
Don't they report to us? Aren't we entitled to see this proof for ourselves before the government uses our money to finance a Crusade? Before you get your undies in a twist, face it. This is a Crusade. It happens to be that this Crusade is directed at a very select subset of the Muslim population, but it is a Crusade none-the-less.
Back to my point: Some religions tell you that there are things you can't read or listen to because they are sinful. What they really mean is that what you might actually hear or read something that will make you think for yourself and quite possibly deviate from what they've taught you.
I find it amusing that some people are horrified at some of the Taliban's (Yahoo Links and News) doctrines and don't even blink when they tell their kids that they can't listen to Ozzy Osbourne because it's a sin. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, the Taliban's particular interpretation of Islam and the Holy Qur'an prohibits women to teach, read, attend school or hold down a job.
TEC (The Entertainment Company)
TSSC (The Stock and Securities Company)
TCC (The Communications Company)
TTC (The Technology Company)
TPC (The Porn Company)
TGC (The Government Company)
Who knows, maybe some more, but then eventually we'll only have...
OCP (Omni Consumer Products)
Personally, I can't wait to get my own ED-209. I think I'll paint it Lavender..
"Not-Guilty" does not imply that the person did not actually commit a crime, just that the person does not fit the legal definition of "Guilty." That's exactly why O.J. Simpson is walking the street a free man today. They could not say that Orinthal J. Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldmann beyond any reasonable doubt.
That said, even Sklyarov's arrest and imprisonment is definately against the grain. He is being treated at Guilty without a trial. He entered a plea of "Not-Guilty," because while he may have committed a crime, he and his legal team belive that he is not accountable to the law (under the law) for his actions. Specifically, they belive the DMCA is flawed and inherently unsupportable.
My personal view of this should be quite obvious. For clarification purposes, I think the law is asinine. I don't think anyone has pointed out to the Justice Department that everyone who has a Web Browser (nay, a text editor, for that matter) is violating the DMCA. Section 117 of the law gives no exception for that kind of technology. The law specifically states that any computer program capable of displaying copyrighted material against the rules of the copyright is illegal. It makes no provision for the level of protection afforded. It could be argued that HTML is a form of copyright protection (i.e. META tags) as it obscures the text of the material. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that all it takes to make a copyright is to say "copyright 2001" and it's legally binding.
From the perspective desk, think of this: I can legally obtain, sell, and distribute the components to make nitrogen tri-iodide (a highly unstable explosive, don't try this at home kids). All I need is to go to my local Osco Drug, buy some Iodine crystals, househole ammonia and coffee filters, and bingo, I've got a HIGHLY explosive chemical that requires no fuse mechanism other than a rock, BB or anything else that'll impart a kinetic shock to the material (including fingers). I cannot go to jail for that. However, I can be fined up to $500,000 and get 25 years in jail for writing:
"UNLOCK COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS FROM SUBMITTED DOCUMENT" as soon as I write the compiler for this new language. Note, it's not illegal to write the compiler, just the words above.
Of course, under the DMCA, slashdot will be guilty of violating the DMCA for distributing that code, and everyone reading this message will be guilty too. Just as soon as I write that compiler.....
As yes, another case of diarhea of the brain. While I haven't the slightest clue about your ancestry (the topic of most flames), I think I do have some valuable insight what you're trying to say. I think you're trying to achieve one or more of the following:
1: You're trying to get a job as a pundit. You write sound bytes designed to raise the ire of anyone who bothers to listen with little or no substance.
or
2:You're trying to make up for the fact that you don't have anything to contribute and felt left out.
Should I be surprised that you've decided not to be identified?
Seriously, I am hurt and offended that you don't take pleasure in reading my poignant commentary about the current state of the not-com economy. You have to admit that the acronymati do get bounced around more often than superball.