All these half-baked anti-terrorist inventions are just not going to work. The only way to deal with the problem is to build somesort of time-machine so that after the terrorist attack, the government could send some agent back say.. 7 days, then they could give an advanced warning and name the culprits before they actually commit the crime. Failing that, you could find some people who could see into the future and predict who was going to commit a terrorist attack before it happened. Or you could have cameras _everywhere_ whatching everyones every move all the time so that anyone even discussing a terrorist attack would be found out instantly...
You think it already, u dont need a computer
on
The Buttocks Have It
·
· Score: 1
The seat itself will not make a fundamental assessment of the mental or physical state of its load but will merely point out the discrepancies, leaving it to the cabin staff to work out whether 45B is jumpy because they're scared of flying or because they're planning to take over the plane.
So basically if they are a young male of middle-eastern appearance. You dont need a computer to help you be more racist.
Damn airlines [1] do everything they can to avoid the simple fact that their seats are too small, and too close together. What will it take, a class action lawsuit? Just give passengers enough room (36" pitch is reasonable, not the appalling 30" on some flights) and people will not feel the need to get up in the middle of the flight, hijack the plane and crash it into a building to relieve the stress.
[1] Except United in "economy plus" and most American planes, though AA is reducing room again on some flights. If only the 9-11 attackers had paid for decent seats.
Face it, the only reason that HTML/XML/LaTeX or whatever simple suitable format hasnt been chosen as standard (even though its so bloody obvious that it should) is because they dont have DRM.
DRM Capability: Although end-users prefer not to purchase ebooks protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management), publishers are certainly interested in the DRM capability of the universal ebook format. Thus, the universal ebook format must allow inclusion of DRM protection technologies as needed.
Its obvious that the author of that article has no idea about DRM, any slashdotter will tell them that DRM is pointless, if you can read it you can copy it, if one copy gets made a million get made etc.
Even if the publishing companies decide otherwise, everyone else will probably just rip books into HTML or something. Im sure most companies such as Microsoft or Adobe would love to have invented an all-purpose, DRM equipped publishing medium - tough, HTML/plain-text etc. lives on:)
Oh they want to respect tivo? but tivo doesnt give a monkeys about upgrading software without asking users permission and disabling features. As far as im concerned screw them they are selling hardware,they are trying to sell a service. Take advantage, buy the hardware hack it until your hearts content. These companies dont respect us, we shouldnt respect them. Who gives a f*ck really, mod me down if you want i have the karma.
ok lets assume its not going to be easy to shoot these down (well the same level of difficulty as running into an exchange and shooting all the equipment). Lets also assume that 18 of these will be able to give enough bandwidth for the whole country, even if one fails from the odd lightning strike/plane hit/microsoft-based on board system crash. And maybe people will not mind seeing these things up (it will just look like a blimp thats not going anywhere - like in ms flight sim;) and lets also assume, just for the sake of it, that this whole thing will work even in bad weather and they'll manage to get the funding for it and the spectrum and that no-one will be able to jam it- Assuming all that is ok: erm no nevermind.
I thought the prime time for ripping CD's and DVD's was as soon as you got them out of the box? that way there are fewer scratches and less chances of errors (ok modern error correction is pretty good but still..) So this is another pointless technology? well atleast now people will have a real reason to "backup for personal use"
Is he just patenting malicious code?
on
Prince of Pop-ups
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is all total crap. All his patents are laughable and rely on system specifics - ie, windows and IE. HTML (lets forget about flash shall we) is a completely open system. Your computer requests it, it is sent to your computer, your computer deals with it as you wish. This effectively means that if you dont want your own computer to do something, then it wont.
All you need is the correct algorithm to process the HTML/Java whatever in the right way so that it doesn't bother you with pop-ups, audio or whatever. Has anyone invented or patented a method of blocking malicious code? yes its called a virus scanner (or virus scanner packaged as an ad-filter) and it just so happens that HTML and Java are a hell of allot easier to deal with than _real_ malicious code.
You could say this man is patenting virus methods or something like that, if it was a outlook-express visual basic script i dont think the patent office would see it in quite the same way? If not then let me be the first to invent a method of advertising that involves emailing itself to everyone on your address book.
"...to track friendly and enemy units, from the headquarters to inside individual tanks. Talk about total information awareness!"
Yes i can see how that works - they trackfriendly British planes and tanks, and shoot them anyway! Then busy-Bush gets some PR to make everyone aware of how sorry they ar(nt)...
"remove all references to Blackboard and its Transaction System from any website, power point presentation, seminar handouts, or any other promotional materials"
Why so Microsoft centric? does that mean they can use OpenOffice.org "Impress" presentation slides instead? Does that also mean Microsoft can sue the lawers for use of their trademark in their document?
Can someone explain the speakers that vibrate the windscreen? When i first saw it i just thought it must be CG or mixed, but to be completely real is amazing. The speakers just dont look real though... But this certainly has to be the best car advert ive ever seen. It really makes a change from all those stupid "mix together lots of random shots of a car driving by with music and happy people" adverts.
If no-one wants to look at child porn, why block it in the first place? Trying to block _anything_ on the Internet is against the spirit of free speech. The 'free speech' of child pornography isn't the problem - the problem is the fact the people take the pictures and abuse the children, stop that at its source and thats the end of the problem. If the government thinks that allowing people access to the sites will make them want to abuse children themselves (which actually sounds like a reasonable theory to me) then surely that proves that freedom of speech is inherently flawed and thus the basis of American belief - that natural law/capitalism is the best is flawed. Is it? or am i completely wrong here, i don't live in America so im not too sure.
oh yeah and to answer your question - its so people can make sure that legal websites have not been added to the list in 'error' or in bribes
Does the EFF count as a charity affiliated with terrorists? Dimitry Skylarov was arrested and held unfairly too - he was obviously antiamerican so anyone who donated to the EFF is too and should be arrested. While they are at it, the FBI might also want to look into all those politicians who have sold weapons to terrorists or saddam or have shares in companies that have been affiliated with terrorists.
Me too, im sure me and allot of other people are already criminals in the USA - personally, ive already "threatened" the president and burnt the flag, so im for the chair if i ever set foot there.
Here are the comments that slashdot removed because i suggested that a laser gun could be used to kill bush, (you might have to take the %20's out if it wraps to a new line):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28127&thresh ol d=-1&commentsort=1&tid=126&mode=nested&cid=3023341
Re:DRM in the free software spirit
on
Open Source DRM
·
· Score: 1
Micropayments are a good idea aslong as they work - thats the hardpart, a system that can deal with all those millions of transactions smoothly and securly. with an advisory system like that on say a Windows platform will give you a very effective solution. Most people wont know or care to switch the system off and will probably click yes by accident a couple of times (if not out of kindness). Couple this with yes/no buttons that randomly switch places (every second) and your well on your way to being rich.
I was wondering about this too, i think in the world of dumb business ideas they figured that the "cost" of writing the software to implement this feature wouldn't be worth it.
Nice to know what sort of people they give guns and weapons of mass-destruction too these days (as well as saddam). I feel safer already in the knowledge that this war is being fought by at-least one _man_ that thinks he's better than me. Yes i have to admit that im only interested in looking after number one. If a biological weapon hits london i know at least i will be safe in my protection suit.. oh i dont have one, how could someone so self centred forget to by a suit??
Is it even possable to release a currently under-developement chip, the surrounding fully tested hardware, and enough games and software for people to want to buy all in one year? Oh and also make the adverts with cars hitting deer and strange-ass talking ducks?
I always wondered what the dangers of the internet are. But yes now i can see, sending bits that make up dct blocks of jpeg picture data is as dangerous as abusing childeren. I didnt realise it before, but i understand now that anyone that sees one of these images - even for a second, will be drawn by their power and immeadiately feel compelled to go and find a child to take dodgy pictures of. I really think that all governments should be forced to read the World of Ends Public Draft. Unless of course they've already censored that site.
If the police raid someone isnt it standard for them to take all the equipment with them? Otherwise whats the point of even going there, they could just phone up and demand the details? If they did take the equipment how does the ISP survive?
Talking of future predictions. I've had a bugger of a time finding websites with all those old 50's articles. I remember around 2000 there were lots of them and newspapers were reprinting them etc. I think even slashdot had a story on it, but i cant find that or much stuff on future predictions from the past. Where can i find them? (apart from that site in the story which was mostly pictures)
We dont get enough telemarketers in the UK, the ones I do get are mostly charities, and i dont have the heart to have fun with them. I want more telemarketing people that i can screw with, i once had a double glazing salesman say "thanks for wasting my time" after i had him on for 10 mins. My ultimate goal is to give one a heart attack but thats very hard to do over the phone. I guess if i had them calling all the time it would get boring and piss me off.
I thought that free speech had been proven from the DVD CSS trial? When people start printing t-shirts and making music and pictures to spread information then you cant do much.. well unless your the US government that is. As i understand mod chips are just PIC's or AVR's etc which are programmed and sold. What happens if you just distribute the source code - isnt that protected speech? Maybe the DOJ should go after microchip.com for their evil? Or, what about just arresting the people that mod their consoles? what about the people that actually pirate games? Well if your going down that road then your going to have to arrest the people who build/sell the cd/dvd copying equipment and software. Also while your at it your really gonna have to put a stop to these "home made" PIC programmers. You cant just make laws that break protected freedoms and then choose to enforce them on only a few people. That would be like targeting a country for war because they had a really bad dictator in power, when declaring the war would be illigal and there were several other dictators around that were even worse anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
All these half-baked anti-terrorist inventions are just not going to work. The only way to deal with the problem is to build somesort of time-machine so that after the terrorist attack, the government could send some agent back say.. 7 days, then they could give an advanced warning and name the culprits before they actually commit the crime. Failing that, you could find some people who could see into the future and predict who was going to commit a terrorist attack before it happened. Or you could have cameras _everywhere_ whatching everyones every move all the time so that anyone even discussing a terrorist attack would be found out instantly...
The seat itself will not make a fundamental assessment of the mental or physical state of its load but will merely point out the discrepancies, leaving it to the cabin staff to work out whether 45B is jumpy because they're scared of flying or because they're planning to take over the plane.
So basically if they are a young male of middle-eastern appearance. You dont need a computer to help you be more racist.
Damn airlines [1] do everything they can to avoid the simple fact that their seats are too small, and too close together. What will it take, a class action lawsuit? Just give passengers enough room (36" pitch is reasonable, not the appalling 30" on some flights) and people will not feel the need to get up in the middle of the flight, hijack the plane and crash it into a building to relieve the stress.
[1] Except United in "economy plus" and most American planes, though AA is reducing room again on some flights. If only the 9-11 attackers had paid for decent seats.
Face it, the only reason that HTML/XML/LaTeX or whatever simple suitable format hasnt been chosen as standard (even though its so bloody obvious that it should) is because they dont have DRM.
:)
DRM Capability: Although end-users prefer not to purchase ebooks protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management), publishers are certainly interested in the DRM capability of the universal ebook format. Thus, the universal ebook format must allow inclusion of DRM protection technologies as needed.
Its obvious that the author of that article has no idea about DRM, any slashdotter will tell them that DRM is pointless, if you can read it you can copy it, if one copy gets made a million get made etc.
Even if the publishing companies decide otherwise, everyone else will probably just rip books into HTML or something. Im sure most companies such as Microsoft or Adobe would love to have invented an all-purpose, DRM equipped publishing medium - tough, HTML/plain-text etc. lives on
Oh they want to respect tivo? but tivo doesnt give a monkeys about upgrading software without asking users permission and disabling features. As far as im concerned screw them they are selling hardware,they are trying to sell a service. Take advantage, buy the hardware hack it until your hearts content. These companies dont respect us, we shouldnt respect them. Who gives a f*ck really, mod me down if you want i have the karma.
ok lets assume its not going to be easy to shoot these down (well the same level of difficulty as running into an exchange and shooting all the equipment). Lets also assume that 18 of these will be able to give enough bandwidth for the whole country, even if one fails from the odd lightning strike/plane hit/microsoft-based on board system crash. And maybe people will not mind seeing these things up (it will just look like a blimp thats not going anywhere - like in ms flight sim;) and lets also assume, just for the sake of it, that this whole thing will work even in bad weather and they'll manage to get the funding for it and the spectrum and that no-one will be able to jam it- Assuming all that is ok: erm no nevermind.
I thought the prime time for ripping CD's and DVD's was as soon as you got them out of the box? that way there are fewer scratches and less chances of errors (ok modern error correction is pretty good but still..) So this is another pointless technology? well atleast now people will have a real reason to "backup for personal use"
This is all total crap. All his patents are laughable and rely on system specifics - ie, windows and IE. HTML (lets forget about flash shall we) is a completely open system. Your computer requests it, it is sent to your computer, your computer deals with it as you wish. This effectively means that if you dont want your own computer to do something, then it wont.
All you need is the correct algorithm to process the HTML/Java whatever in the right way so that it doesn't bother you with pop-ups, audio or whatever. Has anyone invented or patented a method of blocking malicious code? yes its called a virus scanner (or virus scanner packaged as an ad-filter) and it just so happens that HTML and Java are a hell of allot easier to deal with than _real_ malicious code.
You could say this man is patenting virus methods or something like that, if it was a outlook-express visual basic script i dont think the patent office would see it in quite the same way? If not then let me be the first to invent a method of advertising that involves emailing itself to everyone on your address book.
"...to track friendly and enemy units, from the headquarters to inside individual tanks. Talk about total information awareness!"
Yes i can see how that works - they track friendly British planes and tanks, and shoot them anyway! Then busy-Bush gets some PR to make everyone aware of how sorry they ar(nt)...
ROFL
"remove all references to Blackboard and its Transaction System from any website, power point presentation, seminar handouts, or any other promotional materials"
Why so Microsoft centric? does that mean they can use OpenOffice.org "Impress" presentation slides instead? Does that also mean Microsoft can sue the lawers for use of their trademark in their document?
Can someone explain the speakers that vibrate the windscreen? When i first saw it i just thought it must be CG or mixed, but to be completely real is amazing. The speakers just dont look real though... But this certainly has to be the best car advert ive ever seen. It really makes a change from all those stupid "mix together lots of random shots of a car driving by with music and happy people" adverts.
If no-one wants to look at child porn, why block it in the first place? Trying to block _anything_ on the Internet is against the spirit of free speech. The 'free speech' of child pornography isn't the problem - the problem is the fact the people take the pictures and abuse the children, stop that at its source and thats the end of the problem. If the government thinks that allowing people access to the sites will make them want to abuse children themselves (which actually sounds like a reasonable theory to me) then surely that proves that freedom of speech is inherently flawed and thus the basis of American belief - that natural law/capitalism is the best is flawed. Is it? or am i completely wrong here, i don't live in America so im not too sure.
oh yeah and to answer your question - its so people can make sure that legal websites have not been added to the list in 'error' or in bribes
Does the EFF count as a charity affiliated with terrorists? Dimitry Skylarov was arrested and held unfairly too - he was obviously antiamerican so anyone who donated to the EFF is too and should be arrested. While they are at it, the FBI might also want to look into all those politicians who have sold weapons to terrorists or saddam or have shares in companies that have been affiliated with terrorists.
Me too, im sure me and allot of other people are already criminals in the USA - personally, ive already "threatened" the president and burnt the flag, so im for the chair if i ever set foot there.
h ol d=-1&commentsort=1&tid=126&mode=nested&cid=3023341
Here are the comments that slashdot removed because i suggested that a laser gun could be used to kill bush, (you might have to take the %20's out if it wraps to a new line):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28127&thres
Micropayments are a good idea aslong as they work - thats the hardpart, a system that can deal with all those millions of transactions smoothly and securly. with an advisory system like that on say a Windows platform will give you a very effective solution. Most people wont know or care to switch the system off and will probably click yes by accident a couple of times (if not out of kindness). Couple this with yes/no buttons that randomly switch places (every second) and your well on your way to being rich.
I was wondering about this too, i think in the world of dumb business ideas they figured that the "cost" of writing the software to implement this feature wouldn't be worth it.
Nice to know what sort of people they give guns and weapons of mass-destruction too these days (as well as saddam). I feel safer already in the knowledge that this war is being fought by at-least one _man_ that thinks he's better than me. Yes i have to admit that im only interested in looking after number one. If a biological weapon hits london i know at least i will be safe in my protection suit.. oh i dont have one, how could someone so self centred forget to by a suit??
So will this make car navigation systems useless in cities where accuracy is needed? Hopefully we'll get the European GPS system sometime soon..
I think i saw something on this technology on Tomorrow's World ages ago, anyone else remember? I would check but the sites down..
Is it even possable to release a currently under-developement chip, the surrounding fully tested hardware, and enough games and software for people to want to buy all in one year? Oh and also make the adverts with cars hitting deer and strange-ass talking ducks?
Now thats productivity
I always wondered what the dangers of the internet are. But yes now i can see, sending bits that make up dct blocks of jpeg picture data is as dangerous as abusing childeren. I didnt realise it before, but i understand now that anyone that sees one of these images - even for a second, will be drawn by their power and immeadiately feel compelled to go and find a child to take dodgy pictures of. I really think that all governments should be forced to read the World of Ends Public Draft. Unless of course they've already censored that site.
If the police raid someone isnt it standard for them to take all the equipment with them? Otherwise whats the point of even going there, they could just phone up and demand the details? If they did take the equipment how does the ISP survive?
Talking of future predictions. I've had a bugger of a time finding websites with all those old 50's articles. I remember around 2000 there were lots of them and newspapers were reprinting them etc. I think even slashdot had a story on it, but i cant find that or much stuff on future predictions from the past. Where can i find them? (apart from that site in the story which was mostly pictures)
We dont get enough telemarketers in the UK, the ones I do get are mostly charities, and i dont have the heart to have fun with them. I want more telemarketing people that i can screw with, i once had a double glazing salesman say "thanks for wasting my time" after i had him on for 10 mins. My ultimate goal is to give one a heart attack but thats very hard to do over the phone. I guess if i had them calling all the time it would get boring and piss me off.
I thought that free speech had been proven from the DVD CSS trial? When people start printing t-shirts and making music and pictures to spread information then you cant do much.. well unless your the US government that is. As i understand mod chips are just PIC's or AVR's etc which are programmed and sold. What happens if you just distribute the source code - isnt that protected speech? Maybe the DOJ should go after microchip.com for their evil? Or, what about just arresting the people that mod their consoles? what about the people that actually pirate games? Well if your going down that road then your going to have to arrest the people who build/sell the cd/dvd copying equipment and software. Also while your at it your really gonna have to put a stop to these "home made" PIC programmers. You cant just make laws that break protected freedoms and then choose to enforce them on only a few people. That would be like targeting a country for war because they had a really bad dictator in power, when declaring the war would be illigal and there were several other dictators around that were even worse anyway.