camera tech is starting to get scary - who knows, soon you'll have very high res miniture (i dont know how the physics will work with small lenses and hi-resolution but it would be simple to scatter many cameras around a room and link them up) cameras with powerful software behind them. You usually wont even know they're there, but they will be able to deduce many of your biometrics (iris, height, face, clothes, how you move etc and ofcourse where you were looking) and if any of that information happened to be in.. i dunno an airport security databases, it would be able to look you up in seconds. Walk into any building and the person behind the desk would instantly know if you had anything from a bad credit record to a bank-robbing charge. If you were banned from one place you could be banned from 1000's more. Of course it could also be used on planes, but what happens if you check out the air hostess? or the guy?
Judging from the advertising industry on the net, it think they might have something a bit different in mind.. How about a hovering billboard that knows who you are and what you like to buy and where your looking. It will spot you and suddenly fly in front of you and move everywhere your eyes go (that it can go too) for afew minutes until you buy something or lash out and hit it - at which point it will call the police..
I think the case will sway in Reals favour - if it was an free/open project to "allow people to setup iPod compatable music stores that delivered FairPlay content" it would be shot down in seconds, the programmers would have been locked up before you could say DMCA but the fact that its another company will give them an edge (because they can still keep the 'technology' 'secret' where as 'open source hippie commies' cant be trusted). Reverse engineering is legal for what they are doing - making their product compatable with Apples and im sure any anti-monopoly laws would agree too. Apple could claim it was secret and that it violated the DMCA (hell even garage door-opener companies have cited the DMCA) but i still reckon it would go to Real in a close call, if it did it would certainly be good for us - it would be a test case for many things and would push the balance, the court would have to come out and say "corporations can break the DMCA sometimes but you cant just to make Linux DVD players" etc. Plus it would open the door a bit for open source fair-play drm apps - letting you play WMV etc with a key, but using it to violate copyright would still be illigal (sounds reasonable?)
Never thought id back Real in anything but the whole thing is a joke and Apple is taking the piss with their "Hacker tactics" bullshit, what does that even mean? Im pretty sure Real didn't *hack* into Apple servers and screw them over, so they must be talking about the other type of hacking - ie reverse engineering, finding out how things work, experimenting and exploring etc. That's not illegal or immoral and its the only way science and technology can move forward so what are they saying? burn the witches? ban innovation? fuck them. If they want to talk about dodgy business tactics then fine, that would at least sound a bit more realistic, but both companies have no ethics so im happy to sit and watch them fight it out.
Yes its true the press have restrictions, but they certainly arnt bitches to the government. Just look at the BBC, by your logic they should be the worst of all - they would probably have to start each news program with "Good evening and God save the Queen, tonight: Is Tony Blair the most loved man in Britain? find out why the public says 'yes!', Still absolutely no-one killed in Iraq, certainly no US or British soldiers, and absolutely totally 100% no Iraqi kids, and find out why you shouldnt be reading any of Michael Moores evil books" Instead I look at CNN and Fox and see them sucking up to Bush like they were.. i dunno.. run by his best friends? US soldiers' coffins? no-way, Michael Moore - i remember one news woman on CNN say something like "I dunno why we wasted a whole [news] block on that" about his film. Stupid White Men wasn't even released because the publisher said "We don't need books like that right now" i guess they dont need best sellers eh? Actually a page from that was censored from the UK version which pissed me off, luckely he just stuck it on his website. George Michael got in trouble in the US for his cartoon-style music video, over here thats a regular show (some great sketches on Bush "Sir, its time for your briefing" "duhhhhh?" (General takes out pink disney clock and holds it up) "Sir, what time is it?" "Errm.. Its mousy time!!" ROFL
Royal family go around doing their own thing, they only get reported on if theres a juicy scandel,
Not sure what the times/laws are but the closing time for serving alcohol varies depending on what license your place has so most bars/clubs are open into the morning.
The problem here is the phone carriers. They are blood sucking assholes who would charge you 40p a minute to breathe if they thought they could. These hoes make a tremendous profit because they just set up towers and reap in the cash. They dont give a crap if your call sounds like ass or your text message takes 24 hours to deliver. The only thing they've ever conceded to is carrying free emergency calls and i bet they charge you for that behind your back! Get rid of them. They're the middle men and like the RIAA they should soon become obsolete. Phones starting to come with wifi could potentially create free or super cheap networks in some areas and people are used to fast free (flat rate) net access so we'll be demanding that off the phone companies soon too!
Its a shame because we've come so far and yet we are so far away from the ultimate dream - connecting to anyone anywhere - its been possible for years tech wise but you still pay dark age prices. Fuck them totally. (Im extra pissed because o2 is charging me half a quid per text even tho im still in the bloody EU and i paid them _extra_ to get cheap roaming).
I think we all need to come together in this time of mourning. Maybe we can set up a fund to help these guys? I can see already allot of support and condolence on this thread. Our thoughts should be on DoubleClick and their families, it sickens me as to how a thing like this can happen, and i can only say, i hope the people responsible are caught and punished to the full extent of the law. All DoubleClick wanted to do, is help the world by DoSing millions of users around the world with banner and pop-up ads but now it could take them... minutes to get their systems back to normal.
Now would be a perfect time to come up with a digital tv standard to fix this - when theres violence/sex/profanity or whatever thing the FCC prudes like to censor it gets transmitted with a signal, your tv or add-on box gets the signal and depending how you've set it will either show everything as normal, or blank the audio/video or black out some of the screen - could be done at a dct block level without any major changes to the current standards, it could even be done on current analog, the only question is do you show the stuff by default and get a box to block it, or do you block it by default and get a box to see it. Its really that simple. Otherwise American TV will end up like TV in countries like Saudi Arabia. Already most of the world is laughing at you - when janet jackson gets interviewed they keep a still of the nipple shot in the background!
What a load of bollocks, you cant blame file-sharing because some incompetent people didn't look after their documents. That's blaming the messenger if ever i saw it. ROFL at the girl in the green dress (well barely) and "Due to the sensitivity of this material, some information has been blurred/blacked out."
If anything its a lesson to offices, agencies etc everywhere to take common sense secuirty measures. You have a legal right for your personal information to be kept secure by companies/orgs/etc that hold it so if they aint, then throw the book at them.
Those sort of things dont really need an OS, a microwave is a glorified timer and could be written in-house on something as simple as a PIC. I think the review is just for PDAs and other geeky gadgets that generally have some real meat inside (heh).
Just for fun, how about an all-in-one gadget? Most of the components in things are pretty small so i reckon you could make an all in one GPS, Multi-system mobile phone (including satelite?), Wireless (and Bluetooth and Infrared) Hard-drive, Camera (crappy little one if you have to) and maybe even have room to fit an FM radio and a transmitter and several useful I./O ports. And of course it would run Linux;) and have some essential software - media player, tetris, acoustic modem mode etc.. Afew years ago this would be far fetched but it should be do-able now surely? even if it was the size of an old brick-phone (and hopefully robust and water proof) it would be worth it and judging by the cost of most of the components it wouldnt be totally far-out expensive! I dream that one day I will be able to read slashdot anywhere on the face of the earth for practically no cost..
Election 2004: The Mickey Mouse Referendum
on
How To Lose An Election
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
CNN briefly mentions problems with electronic voting in general. I think in a years time, saying voting machines are flawed will be seen in the same light as UFO sighting or Elvis conspiracy. At the moment its on the kind of "Yeah, but what can you do?" level. Allot of companies and states have allot of money riding on this so its not in their interests to admit they screwed up, which is why its in the interests of the people to know exactly whats going on in the government at all times. Your politicians shouldn't be allowed to so much as hold a phone conversation with a major corporation without it being public or atleast in sight of several judges, and all over the desk instead of under. Maybe we should let juries leave the court and have little chats with the defence and prosecution, maybe go for a coffee? perhaps the jury would be interested in a free kitchen installation from the guy on the stand for murder? or perhaps he could install some new court voting machines? Well thats how the government works and its all legal?
Seriously school exams have more integrity than the presidential election!
Its the same as the old "NASA spends millions developing a special pen that can write properly in space, the Russians just use a pencil" story. You can tell some PHBs spend hours trying to come up with a powerpoint presentation to persuade states to use electronic voting instead of paper, and words like "synergy" "solution" and "ease of use" featured. I think most voting machines cost several thousend dollars.
To true, im sick and tired of games that waste your time, making you complete boring repetitive tasks or sending you back to the very beginning of levels because the only way to complete them is to know before-hand what you're going to come up against. If I want boring repetitive ill go work on a production line, If I want frustration i'll go back to school! The last game I played that did this was Manhunt, I got quite far but then realised it was total crap, I don't play a game to be told to go get a fucking can of petrol and drag it across a map, only to repeat 4 times because i cant get my gun out in time. Games that let you do anything and use your imagination (to complete a general goal or otherwise) instead of following a pre-set path are the way forward. Story lines and games are incompatible because if you stick someone in a level and tell them the only way out is to do this and that then they might as well be watching a film, except films dont stop every 10 minutes to repeat the scene.
I had never even heard of the song before I saw this (not in US), gotta be the best production quality of any flash animation ever! and they've given the song free advertising and as far as i can tell its in exactly the spirit of the original song, what are these people complaining about?
At the end of the day, ive seen it, you've seen it, they've seen it, and if it gets taken down it will be back on numerous other sites, emails or file-sharing networks. With internet memes there are no cease and desists. How about a copyright law that says even if you dont agree to the use someone wants to put your copyrighted work to, you still have no choice but to accept it and take their pre-defined royalty payment? or am i on crack?
Big deal, he'll probably get off lightly. Now if he had been filming in a cinema.. oooooh nooo, what is it? 3-5 years for a first offence? Wow im being negative here, but yeah i wonder if the MPAA will have anything on this? of course they wouldnt want the good name of DVD to be tainted, similar to how a certain group stopped lighters and matches getting on the no-fly list...
If taco is truly a Bush loving PATRIOT of his country he will delete this whole story right NOW and just walk away! Obviously this so-called American has NO regard for his country, he is a TRAITOR! Anyone who loves America will surely mod me up!
The PATRIOT Act is more than a tool against conventional 'terrorists', a terrorist is also ANY un-American and those who would question our great leader (yes even though i am not currently an American i still consider George W Bush a great leader of the freedom loving world) how can you question a law that keeps your CHILDREN safe at night? Maybe he hates children too? for fucks sake will someone PLEASE think of the children here!?
Slashdot Mirror
camera tech is starting to get scary - who knows, soon you'll have very high res miniture (i dont know how the physics will work with small lenses and hi-resolution but it would be simple to scatter many cameras around a room and link them up) cameras with powerful software behind them. You usually wont even know they're there, but they will be able to deduce many of your biometrics (iris, height, face, clothes, how you move etc and ofcourse where you were looking) and if any of that information happened to be in.. i dunno an airport security databases, it would be able to look you up in seconds. Walk into any building and the person behind the desk would instantly know if you had anything from a bad credit record to a bank-robbing charge. If you were banned from one place you could be banned from 1000's more. Of course it could also be used on planes, but what happens if you check out the air hostess? or the guy?
Judging from the advertising industry on the net, it think they might have something a bit different in mind.. How about a hovering billboard that knows who you are and what you like to buy and where your looking. It will spot you and suddenly fly in front of you and move everywhere your eyes go (that it can go too) for afew minutes until you buy something or lash out and hit it - at which point it will call the police..
bloody right! plus you dont want to burn those big flags you get from tourist stands - they're all made of nylon? so they melt and make bad smells.
I think the case will sway in Reals favour - if it was an free/open project to "allow people to setup iPod compatable music stores that delivered FairPlay content" it would be shot down in seconds, the programmers would have been locked up before you could say DMCA but the fact that its another company will give them an edge (because they can still keep the 'technology' 'secret' where as 'open source hippie commies' cant be trusted). Reverse engineering is legal for what they are doing - making their product compatable with Apples and im sure any anti-monopoly laws would agree too. Apple could claim it was secret and that it violated the DMCA (hell even garage door-opener companies have cited the DMCA) but i still reckon it would go to Real in a close call, if it did it would certainly be good for us - it would be a test case for many things and would push the balance, the court would have to come out and say "corporations can break the DMCA sometimes but you cant just to make Linux DVD players" etc. Plus it would open the door a bit for open source fair-play drm apps - letting you play WMV etc with a key, but using it to violate copyright would still be illigal (sounds reasonable?)
Never thought id back Real in anything but the whole thing is a joke and Apple is taking the piss with their "Hacker tactics" bullshit, what does that even mean? Im pretty sure Real didn't *hack* into Apple servers and screw them over, so they must be talking about the other type of hacking - ie reverse engineering, finding out how things work, experimenting and exploring etc. That's not illegal or immoral and its the only way science and technology can move forward so what are they saying? burn the witches? ban innovation? fuck them. If they want to talk about dodgy business tactics then fine, that would at least sound a bit more realistic, but both companies have no ethics so im happy to sit and watch them fight it out.
Yes its true the press have restrictions, but they certainly arnt bitches to the government. Just look at the BBC, by your logic they should be the worst of all - they would probably have to start each news program with "Good evening and God save the Queen, tonight: Is Tony Blair the most loved man in Britain? find out why the public says 'yes!', Still absolutely no-one killed in Iraq, certainly no US or British soldiers, and absolutely totally 100% no Iraqi kids, and find out why you shouldnt be reading any of Michael Moores evil books"
Instead I look at CNN and Fox and see them sucking up to Bush like they were.. i dunno.. run by his best friends? US soldiers' coffins? no-way, Michael Moore - i remember one news woman on CNN say something like "I dunno why we wasted a whole [news] block on that" about his film. Stupid White Men wasn't even released because the publisher said "We don't need books like that right now" i guess they dont need best sellers eh?
Actually a page from that was censored from the UK version which pissed me off, luckely he just stuck it on his website.
George Michael got in trouble in the US for his cartoon-style music video, over here thats a regular show (some great sketches on Bush
"Sir, its time for your briefing"
"duhhhhh?"
(General takes out pink disney clock and holds it up)
"Sir, what time is it?"
"Errm.. Its mousy time!!"
ROFL
Royal family go around doing their own thing, they only get reported on if theres a juicy scandel,
Not sure what the times/laws are but the closing time for serving alcohol varies depending on what license your place has so most bars/clubs are open into the morning.
Thats to tame the hard-nuts who go smashing up stuff after football, and those guys can take it (ROFL at Rugby vs American Football).
Normally this award is reserved for the British
;)
Yeah, well atleast we can still swear on TV, drink at 18, protest without being pepper sprayed and burn our (and your) flags
The problem here is the phone carriers. They are blood sucking assholes who would charge you 40p a minute to breathe if they thought they could. These hoes make a tremendous profit because they just set up towers and reap in the cash. They dont give a crap if your call sounds like ass or your text message takes 24 hours to deliver. The only thing they've ever conceded to is carrying free emergency calls and i bet they charge you for that behind your back! Get rid of them. They're the middle men and like the RIAA they should soon become obsolete. Phones starting to come with wifi could potentially create free or super cheap networks in some areas and people are used to fast free (flat rate) net access so we'll be demanding that off the phone companies soon too!
Its a shame because we've come so far and yet we are so far away from the ultimate dream - connecting to anyone anywhere - its been possible for years tech wise but you still pay dark age prices. Fuck them totally. (Im extra pissed because o2 is charging me half a quid per text even tho im still in the bloody EU and i paid them _extra_ to get cheap roaming).
I think we all need to come together in this time of mourning. Maybe we can set up a fund to help these guys? I can see already allot of support and condolence on this thread. Our thoughts should be on DoubleClick and their families, it sickens me as to how a thing like this can happen, and i can only say, i hope the people responsible are caught and punished to the full extent of the law. All DoubleClick wanted to do, is help the world by DoSing millions of users around the world with banner and pop-up ads but now it could take them... minutes to get their systems back to normal.
(My spell checker is down)
Now would be a perfect time to come up with a digital tv standard to fix this - when theres violence/sex/profanity or whatever thing the FCC prudes like to censor it gets transmitted with a signal, your tv or add-on box gets the signal and depending how you've set it will either show everything as normal, or blank the audio/video or black out some of the screen - could be done at a dct block level without any major changes to the current standards, it could even be done on current analog, the only question is do you show the stuff by default and get a box to block it, or do you block it by default and get a box to see it. Its really that simple. Otherwise American TV will end up like TV in countries like Saudi Arabia. Already most of the world is laughing at you - when janet jackson gets interviewed they keep a still of the nipple shot in the background!
What a load of bollocks, you cant blame file-sharing because some incompetent people didn't look after their documents. That's blaming the messenger if ever i saw it. ROFL at the girl in the green dress (well barely) and "Due to the sensitivity of this material, some information has been blurred/blacked out."
If anything its a lesson to offices, agencies etc everywhere to take common sense secuirty measures. You have a legal right for your personal information to be kept secure by companies/orgs/etc that hold it so if they aint, then throw the book at them.
Those sort of things dont really need an OS, a microwave is a glorified timer and could be written in-house on something as simple as a PIC. I think the review is just for PDAs and other geeky gadgets that generally have some real meat inside (heh).
Darwinian survival of the fittest just cant keep up any more! ;)
Could we use this space pen for paper ballots?
Just for fun, how about an all-in-one gadget? Most of the components in things are pretty small so i reckon you could make an all in one GPS, Multi-system mobile phone (including satelite?), Wireless (and Bluetooth and Infrared) Hard-drive, Camera (crappy little one if you have to) and maybe even have room to fit an FM radio and a transmitter and several useful I./O ports. And of course it would run Linux;) and have some essential software - media player, tetris, acoustic modem mode etc.. Afew years ago this would be far fetched but it should be do-able now surely? even if it was the size of an old brick-phone (and hopefully robust and water proof) it would be worth it and judging by the cost of most of the components it wouldnt be totally far-out expensive! I dream that one day I will be able to read slashdot anywhere on the face of the earth for practically no cost..
CNN briefly mentions problems with electronic voting in general. I think in a years time, saying voting machines are flawed will be seen in the same light as UFO sighting or Elvis conspiracy. At the moment its on the kind of "Yeah, but what can you do?" level. Allot of companies and states have allot of money riding on this so its not in their interests to admit they screwed up, which is why its in the interests of the people to know exactly whats going on in the government at all times. Your politicians shouldn't be allowed to so much as hold a phone conversation with a major corporation without it being public or atleast in sight of several judges, and all over the desk instead of under. Maybe we should let juries leave the court and have little chats with the defence and prosecution, maybe go for a coffee? perhaps the jury would be interested in a free kitchen installation from the guy on the stand for murder? or perhaps he could install some new court voting machines? Well thats how the government works and its all legal?
Seriously school exams have more integrity than the presidential election!
Its the same as the old "NASA spends millions developing a special pen that can write properly in space, the Russians just use a pencil" story. You can tell some PHBs spend hours trying to come up with a powerpoint presentation to persuade states to use electronic voting instead of paper, and words like "synergy" "solution" and "ease of use" featured. I think most voting machines cost several thousend dollars.
To true, im sick and tired of games that waste your time, making you complete boring repetitive tasks or sending you back to the very beginning of levels because the only way to complete them is to know before-hand what you're going to come up against. If I want boring repetitive ill go work on a production line, If I want frustration i'll go back to school! The last game I played that did this was Manhunt, I got quite far but then realised it was total crap, I don't play a game to be told to go get a fucking can of petrol and drag it across a map, only to repeat 4 times because i cant get my gun out in time. Games that let you do anything and use your imagination (to complete a general goal or otherwise) instead of following a pre-set path are the way forward. Story lines and games are incompatible because if you stick someone in a level and tell them the only way out is to do this and that then they might as well be watching a film, except films dont stop every 10 minutes to repeat the scene.
I had never even heard of the song before I saw this (not in US), gotta be the best production quality of any flash animation ever! and they've given the song free advertising and as far as i can tell its in exactly the spirit of the original song, what are these people complaining about?
At the end of the day, ive seen it, you've seen it, they've seen it, and if it gets taken down it will be back on numerous other sites, emails or file-sharing networks. With internet memes there are no cease and desists. How about a copyright law that says even if you dont agree to the use someone wants to put your copyrighted work to, you still have no choice but to accept it and take their pre-defined royalty payment? or am i on crack?
Big deal, he'll probably get off lightly. Now if he had been filming in a cinema.. oooooh nooo, what is it? 3-5 years for a first offence? Wow im being negative here, but yeah i wonder if the MPAA will have anything on this? of course they wouldnt want the good name of DVD to be tainted, similar to how a certain group stopped lighters and matches getting on the no-fly list...
what president? ;)
Just typical, i could have downloaded all that and now its gonna be taken down and ill have to wait ages on bit torrent :\
If taco is truly a Bush loving PATRIOT of his country he will delete this whole story right NOW and just walk away! Obviously this so-called American has NO regard for his country, he is a TRAITOR! Anyone who loves America will surely mod me up!
The PATRIOT Act is more than a tool against conventional 'terrorists', a terrorist is also ANY un-American and those who would question our great leader (yes even though i am not currently an American i still consider George W Bush a great leader of the freedom loving world) how can you question a law that keeps your CHILDREN safe at night? Maybe he hates children too? for fucks sake will someone PLEASE think of the children here!?