Your parents wouldn't have, my parents would. If a young child doesn't mind, no problem, but when these things get more sophiscated....
The other problem is that many parents are either 'overprotective' or some are just 'assholes'. Many of these parents are in a position to force these on their 13-15 year old children. Personally, my parents would have been able to do it up until I was about 15 and grew the balls to stand up to their tyranny, but that IS personal, and most parents wouldn't do that, but there is that parental abuse threat there.
Here's the issue. There is a large potential for abuse, but as all of us know, potential is no reason to outlaw something. I do feel, however, that it is irresponsible and unnecessary to use such devices.
And lastly, as far as kidnapping goes, it is EXTREMELY rare. For those of you who think its likely turn off the television until you are resonsible enough to realize that television, and the news, is more concerned with making money than informing you. They like to blow things out of proportion and twist facts and figures to make it seem as if things are much worse off than they are. Oh, why? Because it keeps you tuning in to see what surprising evils have happened today and keeps their money rolling in. Once again, you are more likely to be hit by lightning than have your child kidnapped, and though they'd like you to beleive different, you're more likely to die in a nuclear meltdown than be hit by lightning. (And nobody's been hit twice without an extrenous reason, such as holding a metal rod for a cult practice).
My original post was going to be too long and disorganized so I cut it down to the finer points:
Its as simple as this, I wouldn't want one of these, and thus I wouldn't want my kid to have to have one. Defying the rules is part of human nature, and if you never do it you won't have any boundaries. You have to let your children make their own choices between right and wrong now, or they will be unable to when its most important. Foster their growth, protect them, and catch them smoking those cigarettes in the woods. Just don't sink to the level where you force a constant monitoring device onto them, its wrong to put them in that situation. As for the future, what happens when these come with audio and video? All these devices will accomplish is breeding children who are unable to cope with reality or socialize with their peers.
Neutrons and Protons are both made up of 3 Quarks, or so we beleive. There is no way to yet tell if quarks in turn are made up of a smaller particle, or if electrons are either. But, the idea is, what if gravity is not inheritant to protons or neutrons themselves, or maybe not even to quarks, but to smaller subdivisions that remain unknown to us. Subdivisions that we can, in turn, effect by applying a force. The truth is, we do not now, and may never, know the exact makeup of 'matter' or the effects that we may be able to have on it. But, just because this seems unrealisitic, and it may well be, doesn't mean we should necessarily discard it so readily. Keep an open mind and we may discover amazing things, close it too soon and we'll stagnate.
No
You cannot legally sue the United States government without explicit permission from the government to sue. This means, you could try to sue them (it) but chances are that it would be pigeon-holed like thousands of others are every year.
Your only hope would be to create a kind of media frenzy, in which case the government would be unable to deny your 'right' to sue. Meaning, that if they did, the public outrage would be great enough that the nasty law of not sueing the government would very likely be thrown away. This causes problems when every guy decides that the government ran over their foot so they can sue for $500,000 and even if they don't win cost tax payers quite a sum of money (yes, I'm argueing the law does have some place, even if it is often misused or abused).
So, if you can somehow get the media interested in battling bad copy-rights, which isn't likely (disney, aol-timewarner and so on), you might stand some signifiant chance, assuming you have the time and money to follow it through to the end. If you don't, however, it would in turn set a bad precedent which would make it that much harder for someone with a different claim, even if a much better one, to file a suit.
A better idea would be a board under the Patent Office that could gather public feedback before rubber stamping a patent, and then later check claims of misuse or irrelevancy. But, of course, getting that to happen would be even harder than suing them.
My reply to Congress is as follows:/*Please do not copy, send a unique, thought out reply of your own. It will have greater impact.*/
You must realize that government mandated hardware and/or software would isolate the United States market. If we enact such a law companies based in the US are likely to face much difficulty in exporting their products, and a mandate, such as that suggested by Senator Hollings, would ban much, if not all, of imports from foreign markets. As technological integration proceeds this will continue to affect more areas of out market, from Computers to Cellphones to Watches. Thus, we would find ourselves cut off from some, if not most, of foreign technological innovation, and we would lose almost all ability to market our wares abrouad. This action is very detrimental to both the economy of the United States, and the innovation of the world as a whole, and it is my recommendation that you at least rethink, if not kill this bill before this detrimental legislature comes to pass./*Damn, incomplete sentence. Always reread*/
One problem I noticed with this article is that the author is under the impresion that you need a CCNA certification before you can get a CCNP certification, or a CCNP before a CCIE. This, flatly, isn't true. I met more than one person who has gone stright to CCIE when I went up for a litle session with Cisco in their Northern Virginia offices. The truth is that if you know your shit you can go straight to the CCIE without any other certification (but if you don't know it you're out quite a bit of money).
They also seem to completely ignore the CCDA (design) and CCDP that can still culminate in a CCIE. And, as a sidenote, I was told that noone has all 3 CCIE certifications, though a couple guys had all of them when there were only 2.
There is no way in hell an AOL employee is going to just come out and say that they wouldn't use AOL if they could, even if its true. I would really like to see where you got that quote from, but as of now, its seems like you're bullshitting because you don't like AOL.
The bells have been broken up for years and the only result has been the degradation of technology. We need the new small guys to step up to the plate and create something new and different and stop relying on the old outdated equipment the bells are using to continue to dominate the markets. The only way systems will be secure is if you create new, secure systems that are designed specifically to be secure. There will never be a completely secure system, at least not any time soon, but let's innovate and put a little more effort into improving or recreating what we have. Finally the VoIP guys are starting to create bigger and better methods and systems that require less bandwidth, are more reliable, and are more secure than the current system. The innovation is coming, but I've played with Cisco's VoIP system and I can tell you that even with their CCIEs there were a few weaknesses that were prominent in the new systems, though I admit that it isn't finished yet. The point is, as long as the new companies rise up to challenge the bells with the bells own equipment nothing is going to happen. There will be no improvement, no innovation, and there will be more exploits and increased knowledge of these systems that can be exploited.
Actually, my school has quite a few smart boards. They are gradually integrating them into every class. I use one in Calculus, Computer Science, and Networking while others use them in some English, Science, and Social Studies classes also.
The things aren't cheap, and the projectors cost even more (the light bulbs start at $400) but the ability to post notes from class online at a site ironically known as blackboard is a nice little extra. In the long run, they're fairly unnecessary, but nice. Our school just likes to show off (wireless network and such).
How about companies like namezero who let you register a doamin name for free and then after a year make you pay them. You can't take your registration needs elsewhere because now they own your domain name even though they have no claim to it other than you, and you no longer want to use their services. So, what about getting the domain that you've been using fairly back without having to use that company that you foolishly started up with?
Sorry, I just made this mistake and namezero happens to be telling me they'll take away my domain if I don't pay even though it hasn't been anywhere near the year that I was promised. And I don't know what choice I will have other than pay them because my domain is now in their name. Aren't they basically squatting because they know there is a buyer, me, who wants the domain?
This is a very one sided view meant to persuade you to how right they are and how wrong everyone else is. To that end, it did a good job, it bent the truth, straight out lied, and used lots of non-sensical tidbits such as "the very premise of the Internet is that no one can predict how it will develop". If you can figure out how to mod me -50 go for it, but I'm saying it anyway.
But, it is not a good read if you want to understand the real issues and maybe get a look at the other side of the coin. The music industry is an unnecessary middle man, on which I agree. But all music should be free, there's something thats a little different. Artists work hard to create music that we listen to and they wrote it and should be able to control it as they see fit. Consumers cannot be trusted to use the music they pay for solely to create their own copies, its just not going to happen. Redistributing music over the internet does hurt artists to a degree, and people will quickly point out all the good effects like exposure to new audiences, but the truth is that it abuses the contract that you and the artist have made. He has worked long and hard to create this thing of beauty and you have paid a price to listen to it unlimited by anything else. But people don't pay the price, they download hours on hours of music and never buy anything except blank cds.
You'll see the other side come up with all these arguments about, "they can make all their revenue off concerts" when they shouldn't have to, or "we should be able to make our own copies" when consumers constantly abuse this right. It all comes down to how the artists themselves want to distribute their music. If they decide to hand it out and go play a shitload of concerts, then good for them. If they decide that people should *gasp* compensate them for a song they've worked long and hard on, thats their choice. If you don't like it then don't listen to their music. What, you really like their new song? Well, they did not have to spend countless hours writing it and should be somehow compensated for their work.
No, I do not agree whole-hearted with everything I've said above. But there is another side to the issue. Realize that this is a persuasive opinion piece and only shows an over dramasized and inaccurate version of one side of the story.
One subject that is avoided, and when hit upon is looked down on, is that sometimes vendors refuse to respond and reporters release information publicly. If a vendor is unresponsive and refuses to do anything about a vulnerability there is usually very little a reporter can do to get that vulnerability fixed. If there is no vendor receipt a coordinator should be contacted. If there is still no response then the vendor should be notified that if there is no resonable reply that indicates effort to fix the vulnerability then information about the vulnerability will be released publicly after a grace period of about 15 days (long enough for a reply but short enough to decrease those vulnerable). If they are still unresponsive then the responsible thing to do is to get the information out there and to make an effort to force them to fix the vulnerability. This method should be avoided if at all possible because it causes a quick and less thought out fix to the problem. It is, however, better than leaving the vulnerability open to others who have discovered the vulnerability or will do so and exploit the unknowing users.
There is a difference between a virus and an animal. A virus is a Non-Livin protein sack with DNA inside. As far as we know these just seemed to occasionally develope in animals and sometimes they are very prolific. They have nothing to give back and their eradication will not upset other species. The fly on the other side has food it eats and things that eat it. If it is completely erradicated a balance may be upset and it isn't something we want to just jump into. One obvious result will be the increase of cattle, good, that will increase the pace of desertification, bad. It may also lead to an increase of other insects who share prey with the flies who may in turn eat all the cattle's food and thus reduce the livestock further, which of course will halt desertification but ruin livelihoods. So, my suggestion is that this is a very gradual process aimed to reduce the population of the flies with a watch for negative effects. If it is possible to eliminate the flies entirely without any negative results than go for it. But you may find that the flies developed into that niche for a reason.
Until the population reaches 0...
So basically they've decided to erradicate an entire species because they 'got in our way'. Noone else have a problem with this? I just hope we don't meet any aliens who decide that we are getting in the way of their population of earth and steralize my ass.
Let's start taking some god damn responsibility and stop fucking with nature like this. There must be some natural predators for these flys that will also be dying down, at least until their population can survive on other prey. Those other prey will in turn increase because of the decrease in predators....
This is what we call a good idea gone bad. Fine, trim down their populations, but don't god damn kill off the entire race. It will likely have consequences that we haven' thought of.
Oh, and these aren't mutants. The DNA probably isn't being modified at all. If it were, they would be mutants, kinda. Chances are that not all of their DNA would be mutated, like not in every cell and definately not mutated the same in every cell. If they could reproduce and pass on sperm with mutated DNA then yes, you would have mutant offspring. But they're infertile so that isn't going to be happening either.
No, democracy IS good in all situations and all places. Just go read the history books they give you in school. THe United States is never wrong. We didn't invade Mexico, they attacked us! We didn't destroy the way of life in the Philipines, we helped them grow as a country. The US is never wrong and democracy is always right. Damn that Marx fellow and all his clever ideas about working together for a common good. Damn that country that rules over a billion people and manages to do a good job. Its all bullshit commie lies.
Do you know how much memory it would take to store every detail of every 100th of a second? No time soon is there going to be a being that can stock pile infinate amounts of knowledge to be recalled at its leisure. It may get to the point where our ability to hold memory in a limited space makes your scenario entirely impossible unless there was a massive database. And of course it would have to be solely dedicated to one or two bots.
Just take a look around you. Look at every detail, feel the different temperatures on every point on your body, the slight breeze from the air conditioner and the slight warmth from the light (well, if you would turn on the lights). Listen to the minuteist buzz and taste the inside of you mouth. There's just too much information to process all at once (our heralded brains can't even manage it) and to archive every instance?
What makes them beleive that these fossilized footprints are directly related to a scorpion that they have no other proof of?
They talk about finding the fossil and how it means there was a giant scorpion, but not once does it say why they beleive that these trails were left by some giant scorpion. Why do these two long blobs automatically belong to a giant scorpion? Did they find a fossil? Was there some semblance between these footprints and a common day scorpion? They find an impression of a giant tail? I see absolutely 0 in any way tieing the footprints to a scorpion.
Whether or not iridium can compete on its own, it can always resale the use of its satelites for a wonderful profit.
That kind of coverage is worth a pretty penny and it probably won't be hard to find someone willing to give them the hook up.
Its almost like the few years of developement of C by the few (relative) who use it can't compare to the thousands of years that languages have been developing. Damn.
There is no copyright on the name escalator anymore. Kleenex is coming close to the same thing. They are common, general terms.
Why should it be any different for technology? If something becomes common technology you should not be able to patent after the fact. If it gets to the point where everyone is using it without a patent then what right do you have to go back and say that everyone who has developed and built on unpatented technology can no longer use that technology.
You need to protect inventors and innovators to a point to encourage them to create. But letting something become a standard and then patenting it after the fact is wrong. You see many companies doing this today, where once something is accepted they decide that they created it and its only theirs. Then they make everyone pay for what others had developed and spread.
Europa Universalis had some new ideas, and you'll notice that people get really upset after a war lasts too long and its very difficult to annex large areas of a country (3 province max or everything). Only problem was this game is that it tends to take days on end at teh highest speed to finish a game, even if you're the first person to go out.
Many games are working on that problem and its something people are trying to get away from. The truth is that in reality the bigger army usully wins. So whats the solution? Make the costs of bulding an army increase as it gets larger. For example, if you have 90% of your population off fighting wars you'll have lower food production and your armies will starve, all together leaving you with less fighting ready units. Or create demoralizing effects of full scale war and increasing desertion and rebellion. Don't create ways around the demoralizing effects (woman's suffrage in civilization) because though it supplies a goal, it can undermine the realistic aspects of a game.
I'm sure there's other ways aroudn these problems, if just someone would put me in charge of creating an RTS:)
Not until everyone has a very long cryptographic signature will this be practical. That coupled with secure encryption to send the message without anyone reading it...
Its possible, even now, but people don't know what they need or have what they need. If everyone set up a really large RSA style set of keys we'd be set and ready to go (despite the difficulty of counting it).
The only problem is that the government would have to run a key depository thing and give signatures and such. Honestly, I think it is quite possible to set up a system now where this could be done by anyone wishing to do so.
Oh, and in 10 years someone might find a backdoor and look up your past votes or spend a long time breaking them or some such. There are other issues to work out, but maybe someone should be working them out damn it.
Oh, and sidenote. Mr Taco sir, its "too" as in also rather than "to" god damn it.
Well, if you figure you had 10000 people from Slashdot go and take that survey wouldn't it be a little one-sided of an opinion?
Number 1 answer for the first question was to learn everything we can about space...
Who do you imagine would be online taking a survey about space and put that on the bottom of their list?
The survey was not done in an unbiased manner and the enourmous influence that Slashdot had on it didn't help much. Just saying you might not want to trust the results as an accurate reflection of a larger group of people's will.
Read the damn faq once and shut the hell up. I see this quesion so many damn times. This is EXACTLY what the fact says:
Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!
Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.
Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!
I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?
So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.
Where does the government get off saying kids can't play games after 8? It seems to me the issue here isn't that they are playing games, its that they are playing violent games. The games people use, in conjunction with violent movies, as a scapegoat for the retards of society who go around shooting each other. I'm sure ALL of the hippest gangs frequent cyber cafes...
All I'm trying to say, is that this is not the governments place. This is where the parents should make decisions. If some kids are getting good grades and staying out of trouble then more luck to you. The thing that bothers me is the 'school night' thing. I'm 17 and I don't see the problem with me going out and playing some halflife on a 'school night'. Especially since I don't have classes that start until 3 hours after everyone else because its my senior year! These laws are understandable in some cases, but they shouldn't blanket everyone under 18.
At 17 I live on my own, support myself, pay rent, buy food, and whatnot on top of going to school. If I want to go play some fucking quake where the hell do people get off telling me I'm not responsible enough to? The truth is that I'm busy working and sleeping, but if one night I say screw it, I want to frag a couple hundred people before I go to sleep...
The governments of the country keep passing these laws that target minors. The problem is that there is a BIG difference between an 8 year old and a 17 year old, and sometimes the difference between a 17 and 18 year old is about a week. The laws shouldn't blanket all minors, and in our age where kids are smarter and work more at younger ages maybe people should rethink what being a minor really is and how appropriate the ages they choose are.
Slashdot Mirror
Your parents wouldn't have, my parents would. If a young child doesn't mind, no problem, but when these things get more sophiscated....
The other problem is that many parents are either 'overprotective' or some are just 'assholes'. Many of these parents are in a position to force these on their 13-15 year old children. Personally, my parents would have been able to do it up until I was about 15 and grew the balls to stand up to their tyranny, but that IS personal, and most parents wouldn't do that, but there is that parental abuse threat there.
Here's the issue. There is a large potential for abuse, but as all of us know, potential is no reason to outlaw something. I do feel, however, that it is irresponsible and unnecessary to use such devices.
And lastly, as far as kidnapping goes, it is EXTREMELY rare. For those of you who think its likely turn off the television until you are resonsible enough to realize that television, and the news, is more concerned with making money than informing you. They like to blow things out of proportion and twist facts and figures to make it seem as if things are much worse off than they are. Oh, why? Because it keeps you tuning in to see what surprising evils have happened today and keeps their money rolling in. Once again, you are more likely to be hit by lightning than have your child kidnapped, and though they'd like you to beleive different, you're more likely to die in a nuclear meltdown than be hit by lightning. (And nobody's been hit twice without an extrenous reason, such as holding a metal rod for a cult practice).
My original post was going to be too long and disorganized so I cut it down to the finer points:
Its as simple as this, I wouldn't want one of these, and thus I wouldn't want my kid to have to have one. Defying the rules is part of human nature, and if you never do it you won't have any boundaries. You have to let your children make their own choices between right and wrong now, or they will be unable to when its most important. Foster their growth, protect them, and catch them smoking those cigarettes in the woods. Just don't sink to the level where you force a constant monitoring device onto them, its wrong to put them in that situation. As for the future, what happens when these come with audio and video? All these devices will accomplish is breeding children who are unable to cope with reality or socialize with their peers.
Neutrons and Protons are both made up of 3 Quarks, or so we beleive. There is no way to yet tell if quarks in turn are made up of a smaller particle, or if electrons are either. But, the idea is, what if gravity is not inheritant to protons or neutrons themselves, or maybe not even to quarks, but to smaller subdivisions that remain unknown to us. Subdivisions that we can, in turn, effect by applying a force. The truth is, we do not now, and may never, know the exact makeup of 'matter' or the effects that we may be able to have on it. But, just because this seems unrealisitic, and it may well be, doesn't mean we should necessarily discard it so readily. Keep an open mind and we may discover amazing things, close it too soon and we'll stagnate.
No You cannot legally sue the United States government without explicit permission from the government to sue. This means, you could try to sue them (it) but chances are that it would be pigeon-holed like thousands of others are every year. Your only hope would be to create a kind of media frenzy, in which case the government would be unable to deny your 'right' to sue. Meaning, that if they did, the public outrage would be great enough that the nasty law of not sueing the government would very likely be thrown away. This causes problems when every guy decides that the government ran over their foot so they can sue for $500,000 and even if they don't win cost tax payers quite a sum of money (yes, I'm argueing the law does have some place, even if it is often misused or abused). So, if you can somehow get the media interested in battling bad copy-rights, which isn't likely (disney, aol-timewarner and so on), you might stand some signifiant chance, assuming you have the time and money to follow it through to the end. If you don't, however, it would in turn set a bad precedent which would make it that much harder for someone with a different claim, even if a much better one, to file a suit. A better idea would be a board under the Patent Office that could gather public feedback before rubber stamping a patent, and then later check claims of misuse or irrelevancy. But, of course, getting that to happen would be even harder than suing them.
My reply to Congress is as follows: /*Please do not copy, send a unique, thought out reply of your own. It will have greater impact.*/
You must realize that government mandated hardware and/or software would isolate the United States market. If we enact such a law companies based in the US are likely to face much difficulty in exporting their products, and a mandate, such as that suggested by Senator Hollings, would ban much, if not all, of imports from foreign markets. As technological integration proceeds this will continue to affect more areas of out market, from Computers to Cellphones to Watches. Thus, we would find ourselves cut off from some, if not most, of foreign technological innovation, and we would lose almost all ability to market our wares abrouad. This action is very detrimental to both the economy of the United States, and the innovation of the world as a whole, and it is my recommendation that you at least rethink, if not kill this bill before this detrimental legislature comes to pass. /*Damn, incomplete sentence. Always reread*/
One problem I noticed with this article is that the author is under the impresion that you need a CCNA certification before you can get a CCNP certification, or a CCNP before a CCIE. This, flatly, isn't true. I met more than one person who has gone stright to CCIE when I went up for a litle session with Cisco in their Northern Virginia offices. The truth is that if you know your shit you can go straight to the CCIE without any other certification (but if you don't know it you're out quite a bit of money). They also seem to completely ignore the CCDA (design) and CCDP that can still culminate in a CCIE. And, as a sidenote, I was told that noone has all 3 CCIE certifications, though a couple guys had all of them when there were only 2.
There is no way in hell an AOL employee is going to just come out and say that they wouldn't use AOL if they could, even if its true. I would really like to see where you got that quote from, but as of now, its seems like you're bullshitting because you don't like AOL.
The bells have been broken up for years and the only result has been the degradation of technology. We need the new small guys to step up to the plate and create something new and different and stop relying on the old outdated equipment the bells are using to continue to dominate the markets. The only way systems will be secure is if you create new, secure systems that are designed specifically to be secure. There will never be a completely secure system, at least not any time soon, but let's innovate and put a little more effort into improving or recreating what we have. Finally the VoIP guys are starting to create bigger and better methods and systems that require less bandwidth, are more reliable, and are more secure than the current system. The innovation is coming, but I've played with Cisco's VoIP system and I can tell you that even with their CCIEs there were a few weaknesses that were prominent in the new systems, though I admit that it isn't finished yet. The point is, as long as the new companies rise up to challenge the bells with the bells own equipment nothing is going to happen. There will be no improvement, no innovation, and there will be more exploits and increased knowledge of these systems that can be exploited.
Actually, my school has quite a few smart boards. They are gradually integrating them into every class. I use one in Calculus, Computer Science, and Networking while others use them in some English, Science, and Social Studies classes also. The things aren't cheap, and the projectors cost even more (the light bulbs start at $400) but the ability to post notes from class online at a site ironically known as blackboard is a nice little extra. In the long run, they're fairly unnecessary, but nice. Our school just likes to show off (wireless network and such).
Similar tangant but...
How about companies like namezero who let you register a doamin name for free and then after a year make you pay them. You can't take your registration needs elsewhere because now they own your domain name even though they have no claim to it other than you, and you no longer want to use their services. So, what about getting the domain that you've been using fairly back without having to use that company that you foolishly started up with?
Sorry, I just made this mistake and namezero happens to be telling me they'll take away my domain if I don't pay even though it hasn't been anywhere near the year that I was promised. And I don't know what choice I will have other than pay them because my domain is now in their name. Aren't they basically squatting because they know there is a buyer, me, who wants the domain?
This is a very one sided view meant to persuade you to how right they are and how wrong everyone else is. To that end, it did a good job, it bent the truth, straight out lied, and used lots of non-sensical tidbits such as "the very premise of the Internet is that no one can predict how it will develop". If you can figure out how to mod me -50 go for it, but I'm saying it anyway.
But, it is not a good read if you want to understand the real issues and maybe get a look at the other side of the coin. The music industry is an unnecessary middle man, on which I agree. But all music should be free, there's something thats a little different. Artists work hard to create music that we listen to and they wrote it and should be able to control it as they see fit. Consumers cannot be trusted to use the music they pay for solely to create their own copies, its just not going to happen. Redistributing music over the internet does hurt artists to a degree, and people will quickly point out all the good effects like exposure to new audiences, but the truth is that it abuses the contract that you and the artist have made. He has worked long and hard to create this thing of beauty and you have paid a price to listen to it unlimited by anything else. But people don't pay the price, they download hours on hours of music and never buy anything except blank cds.
You'll see the other side come up with all these arguments about, "they can make all their revenue off concerts" when they shouldn't have to, or "we should be able to make our own copies" when consumers constantly abuse this right. It all comes down to how the artists themselves want to distribute their music. If they decide to hand it out and go play a shitload of concerts, then good for them. If they decide that people should *gasp* compensate them for a song they've worked long and hard on, thats their choice. If you don't like it then don't listen to their music. What, you really like their new song? Well, they did not have to spend countless hours writing it and should be somehow compensated for their work.
No, I do not agree whole-hearted with everything I've said above. But there is another side to the issue. Realize that this is a persuasive opinion piece and only shows an over dramasized and inaccurate version of one side of the story.
One subject that is avoided, and when hit upon is looked down on, is that sometimes vendors refuse to respond and reporters release information publicly. If a vendor is unresponsive and refuses to do anything about a vulnerability there is usually very little a reporter can do to get that vulnerability fixed. If there is no vendor receipt a coordinator should be contacted. If there is still no response then the vendor should be notified that if there is no resonable reply that indicates effort to fix the vulnerability then information about the vulnerability will be released publicly after a grace period of about 15 days (long enough for a reply but short enough to decrease those vulnerable). If they are still unresponsive then the responsible thing to do is to get the information out there and to make an effort to force them to fix the vulnerability. This method should be avoided if at all possible because it causes a quick and less thought out fix to the problem. It is, however, better than leaving the vulnerability open to others who have discovered the vulnerability or will do so and exploit the unknowing users.
There is a difference between a virus and an animal. A virus is a Non-Livin protein sack with DNA inside. As far as we know these just seemed to occasionally develope in animals and sometimes they are very prolific. They have nothing to give back and their eradication will not upset other species. The fly on the other side has food it eats and things that eat it. If it is completely erradicated a balance may be upset and it isn't something we want to just jump into. One obvious result will be the increase of cattle, good, that will increase the pace of desertification, bad. It may also lead to an increase of other insects who share prey with the flies who may in turn eat all the cattle's food and thus reduce the livestock further, which of course will halt desertification but ruin livelihoods. So, my suggestion is that this is a very gradual process aimed to reduce the population of the flies with a watch for negative effects. If it is possible to eliminate the flies entirely without any negative results than go for it. But you may find that the flies developed into that niche for a reason.
Until the population reaches 0...
So basically they've decided to erradicate an entire species because they 'got in our way'. Noone else have a problem with this? I just hope we don't meet any aliens who decide that we are getting in the way of their population of earth and steralize my ass.
Let's start taking some god damn responsibility and stop fucking with nature like this. There must be some natural predators for these flys that will also be dying down, at least until their population can survive on other prey. Those other prey will in turn increase because of the decrease in predators....
This is what we call a good idea gone bad. Fine, trim down their populations, but don't god damn kill off the entire race. It will likely have consequences that we haven' thought of.
Oh, and these aren't mutants. The DNA probably isn't being modified at all. If it were, they would be mutants, kinda. Chances are that not all of their DNA would be mutated, like not in every cell and definately not mutated the same in every cell. If they could reproduce and pass on sperm with mutated DNA then yes, you would have mutant offspring. But they're infertile so that isn't going to be happening either.
No, democracy IS good in all situations and all places. Just go read the history books they give you in school. THe United States is never wrong. We didn't invade Mexico, they attacked us! We didn't destroy the way of life in the Philipines, we helped them grow as a country. The US is never wrong and democracy is always right. Damn that Marx fellow and all his clever ideas about working together for a common good. Damn that country that rules over a billion people and manages to do a good job. Its all bullshit commie lies.
Do you know how much memory it would take to store every detail of every 100th of a second? No time soon is there going to be a being that can stock pile infinate amounts of knowledge to be recalled at its leisure. It may get to the point where our ability to hold memory in a limited space makes your scenario entirely impossible unless there was a massive database. And of course it would have to be solely dedicated to one or two bots.
Just take a look around you. Look at every detail, feel the different temperatures on every point on your body, the slight breeze from the air conditioner and the slight warmth from the light (well, if you would turn on the lights). Listen to the minuteist buzz and taste the inside of you mouth. There's just too much information to process all at once (our heralded brains can't even manage it) and to archive every instance?
What makes them beleive that these fossilized footprints are directly related to a scorpion that they have no other proof of?
They talk about finding the fossil and how it means there was a giant scorpion, but not once does it say why they beleive that these trails were left by some giant scorpion. Why do these two long blobs automatically belong to a giant scorpion? Did they find a fossil? Was there some semblance between these footprints and a common day scorpion? They find an impression of a giant tail? I see absolutely 0 in any way tieing the footprints to a scorpion.
Whether or not iridium can compete on its own, it can always resale the use of its satelites for a wonderful profit.
That kind of coverage is worth a pretty penny and it probably won't be hard to find someone willing to give them the hook up.
Its almost like the few years of developement of C by the few (relative) who use it can't compare to the thousands of years that languages have been developing. Damn.
There is no copyright on the name escalator anymore. Kleenex is coming close to the same thing. They are common, general terms. Why should it be any different for technology? If something becomes common technology you should not be able to patent after the fact. If it gets to the point where everyone is using it without a patent then what right do you have to go back and say that everyone who has developed and built on unpatented technology can no longer use that technology. You need to protect inventors and innovators to a point to encourage them to create. But letting something become a standard and then patenting it after the fact is wrong. You see many companies doing this today, where once something is accepted they decide that they created it and its only theirs. Then they make everyone pay for what others had developed and spread.
Europa Universalis had some new ideas, and you'll notice that people get really upset after a war lasts too long and its very difficult to annex large areas of a country (3 province max or everything). Only problem was this game is that it tends to take days on end at teh highest speed to finish a game, even if you're the first person to go out. Many games are working on that problem and its something people are trying to get away from. The truth is that in reality the bigger army usully wins. So whats the solution? Make the costs of bulding an army increase as it gets larger. For example, if you have 90% of your population off fighting wars you'll have lower food production and your armies will starve, all together leaving you with less fighting ready units. Or create demoralizing effects of full scale war and increasing desertion and rebellion. Don't create ways around the demoralizing effects (woman's suffrage in civilization) because though it supplies a goal, it can undermine the realistic aspects of a game. I'm sure there's other ways aroudn these problems, if just someone would put me in charge of creating an RTS:)
Not until everyone has a very long cryptographic signature will this be practical. That coupled with secure encryption to send the message without anyone reading it...
Its possible, even now, but people don't know what they need or have what they need. If everyone set up a really large RSA style set of keys we'd be set and ready to go (despite the difficulty of counting it).
The only problem is that the government would have to run a key depository thing and give signatures and such. Honestly, I think it is quite possible to set up a system now where this could be done by anyone wishing to do so.
Oh, and in 10 years someone might find a backdoor and look up your past votes or spend a long time breaking them or some such. There are other issues to work out, but maybe someone should be working them out damn it.
Oh, and sidenote. Mr Taco sir, its "too" as in also rather than "to" god damn it.
Well, if you figure you had 10000 people from Slashdot go and take that survey wouldn't it be a little one-sided of an opinion?
Number 1 answer for the first question was to learn everything we can about space...
Who do you imagine would be online taking a survey about space and put that on the bottom of their list?
The survey was not done in an unbiased manner and the enourmous influence that Slashdot had on it didn't help much. Just saying you might not want to trust the results as an accurate reflection of a larger group of people's will.
Read the damn faq once and shut the hell up. I see this quesion so many damn times. This is EXACTLY what the fact says: Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!
Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.
Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!
I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?
So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.
Where does the government get off saying kids can't play games after 8? It seems to me the issue here isn't that they are playing games, its that they are playing violent games. The games people use, in conjunction with violent movies, as a scapegoat for the retards of society who go around shooting each other. I'm sure ALL of the hippest gangs frequent cyber cafes...
All I'm trying to say, is that this is not the governments place. This is where the parents should make decisions. If some kids are getting good grades and staying out of trouble then more luck to you. The thing that bothers me is the 'school night' thing. I'm 17 and I don't see the problem with me going out and playing some halflife on a 'school night'. Especially since I don't have classes that start until 3 hours after everyone else because its my senior year! These laws are understandable in some cases, but they shouldn't blanket everyone under 18.
At 17 I live on my own, support myself, pay rent, buy food, and whatnot on top of going to school. If I want to go play some fucking quake where the hell do people get off telling me I'm not responsible enough to? The truth is that I'm busy working and sleeping, but if one night I say screw it, I want to frag a couple hundred people before I go to sleep...
The governments of the country keep passing these laws that target minors. The problem is that there is a BIG difference between an 8 year old and a 17 year old, and sometimes the difference between a 17 and 18 year old is about a week. The laws shouldn't blanket all minors, and in our age where kids are smarter and work more at younger ages maybe people should rethink what being a minor really is and how appropriate the ages they choose are.