High-quality instruments are indeed expensive, but they tend to last a lifetime if well cared for. Most professions have substancial equipment costs associated with them (i.e. mechanics). While I love music, and wish that musicans were, in gerneral, better compensated, the instrument cost is a small percentage of their total costs.
Many professionals buy instruments as status symbols or collector pieces rather than focusing purely on sound quality. For example, I can purchase an absolutely stellar violin for two to three thousand -- easily good enough to perform anywhere in the world on. Or I can spend a million or more for a Stradivarius. Despite the mythology, a 2k instrument can compare very favorably in sound quality, the Straivarius is just a status symbol.
My wife played jazz Saxophone professionally. Her instrument (a Selmer) retails for about 5k new, but can be had for ~3k lightly used. I used to play guitar professionally, and just bought the nicest instrument I've ever laid hands on for about 2.5k form a Canadian luthier named Trevor Kronbauer. Most other instruments (except basses, harps, and grand pianos) fall into the same price range. The instrument cost isn't the problem, the 20k annual salaries are!
I worked for Lockheed for about five years, and I have no difficulty believing this story. I wouldn't fly in a plane they built (unless it came from the skunk works!).
I have to wonder, as I read these accounts, if RH would have been justified in the use of deadly force. Admittedly, I'm one of those gun-toting Montanans, but I think he had justification. At least in this state, if I verbally threaten to harm a person, it's considered simple assault. If I show up with a mob of my friends, it lends signficant credibility to the threat.
Now, let's assume I've had my property damaged, gotten a number of harrassing phone calls emails etc. Basically, I've been wronged, repeadly, by an identifiable group. Then, one day, I have a mob of folks in front of my house, screaming on a megaphone about how they're going to kill my family. I would consider this a "credible threat". It's a lot more evidence than Bush needs to wage a WAR for goodness sake. I'd call the cops and tell them to get their butts over to my house, because if one of these bozo's so much as rattles the doorknob I'm opening fire.
Seriously, at some point the threat is real, and you DON'T have to wait for them to act if they've given you cause to fear for your life. Besides, these zealots are happy to operate outside the law to make a point, they should be delighted to be martyr's for the cause, right? Kill a half-dozen or so and let the jury figure it out.
Thanks for taking the time to post. I think you've been very self-effacing and humble. We ALL make mistakes (I knocked over a picher of water at a nice resteraunt last night!). Losing an iPod isn't a problem, being treated like a criminal by an out-of-control government IS a problem, and one that I fear is becoming all to common. Thank you for bringing it to our attention, MAYBE if the sheeple wake up we can vote the current bozo's out of office before Bush decides to suspend elections and declare himself emperor. Tim, you rock!
First, my son just wrecked his second car in under a month, so I'm well aware of the dangers to both children and property. Second, he's almost 19, and hasn't had so much as parking ticket in the previous three years.
That said, I see a lot of comments here that are obviously from young folks that have never raised a child. Every child is different, and trust isn't a boolean operation, it's a float. I've never had to worry about my son getting in fights, doing drugs, or making out with his girlfriends -- he's been exemplary in all these areas. I trust him more than most adults, and we have a great relationship. On the other hand, he likes to drive fast. I DON'T trust his decision making when he's driving (especially with friends) because he likes to show off.
The bottom line is that everybody has areas where they excel, and areas where they need some help. I trust my daughter's driving, but worry about her choice in friends. My co-worker is a Window's genius, but I wouldn't trust him to patch Solaris. A parent's job isn't to trust blindly, it's to extend trust when it's deserved. My son is a great guy, and it would be nice to let him take the car for the weekend, knowing I'd get an IM/email anytime the car went over 75mph. In some cases this device could be beneficial. After all, your kid might be on the road the next time my kid gets behind the wheel -- wouldn't we both feel better if he weren't going 120 mph?
If I, as a consumer, am to bear the cost of having this nifty device installed on my car, then it needs to benefit me. I agree with a previous poster that this COULD be a benefit in the case of the agressive, lying, loudmouth trying to blame you for his defective driving. I also worry about the police, FBI and whoever else havesting this data for other purposes.
How about if the data were stored on flash memory -- just a normal memory card in a socket by the other fuses. Store the data in a simple, delimited ASCII format, and overwrite as needed. Have the files digitally signed by the black box, and watermarked with a time-stamp to verify the authenticity of the data. Now, in the event of an accident, I can decide wether to pop the flash and step on it, or use it as evidence. It's my data, collected by my black-box, I can do what I want to with it. In addition, now when I want to see what the nitrous-boost does to my acceleration, I can just add a larger memory card (to allow recording minutes rather than seconds of data), take my car to the track, and then view the results on my home computer. Having accelerometers etc. in a car is potentially very useful for performance tuning IF I COULD USE THE DATA.
I agree wholeheartedly. In my original post I mentioned a few nasty things that could come aboard a plane in a lunchbox. The possibility for harm is there. Nevertheless, I'd rather keep my freedoms and take my chances with the crazy terrorists. The course we're currently pursuing is to hand over our freedoms wholesale to a government that's already blatently corrupt and unresponsive to the will of the citizens in the hopes that they'll protect us. Humbug.
As I see it, Bush an co. want us to believe that they'll "protect freedom" by gathering it all up and storing in in a safe place until we need it again. No thanks! Bring on the terrorists, this administration is MUCH more frightening.
First, although I work as a geek (and have for years) I have an M.S. in chemistry, and a long-standing facination with explosives. I'm not an expert on the topic, but I've got more background than the average Joge. I'd like to underscore the text of the article, in that binary explosives are not as simple and elegant as Hollywood makes them out to be. Most of the ones that might be interesting are (like many explosives) extremely nitrogen rich. Good for storing energy, but most sniffers are looking for Nitrogen-rich compounds. You may as well try to get a block of Permatex aboard.
Another reader pointed out that, while the explosive scenario is problematic, incindiary devices are easy. A soup-can full of Potassium Permanganate and a rougly equal volume of Glycerine will make a heck of a blaze -- or a really nice igniter for a thermite bomb. I suspect all of these materials could be smuggled aboard (though I'm not about to try).
Another potential venue is nerve agents. Without going into any real detail, hydrofluoric acid is the foundation for several nasty nerve agents, some of which COULD be whipped up in the lav in just a few minutes. Probably not enough to kill the whole plane, and I'm assuming the pilots have a seperate air supply, but killing half the passengers on a loaded airliner might be good enough to interest a terrorist.
Then there's biological agents. Some years ago I worked with cyanotoxins, primarily anatoxin. Nasty stuff, and available at any nice warm, eutrophic lake in the U.S. I was playing around with extracting the toxin, and ended up with a protocol that used DMSO as a solvent to help seperate the toxin from cellular membranes. This stuff used to scare me to death -- a nice liquid that, if splashed on your skin (or clothing) would cause death in a matter of minutes. Imagine a squirt-gun or a water-balloon filled with this on a plane.
For the record, I'm far more frightened of the current Government that I am of terrorists, and I'd rather just take my chances that submit to the "protections" that are being provided. However, it doesn't take a lot of effort to come up with some plausible scenarious where a lunch-box might conceal some fairly deadly things.
I don't think it's just one faulty unit. I've had similar problems at work with several wireless setups. They seem to work fine, MOST of the time. Based on my experience, I think wired units are more reliable (and usually much cheaper) than their wireless equivilents. YMMV.
I recently spent well over $100 on a wireless keyboard and mouse. I can't remember the model, but it was Logitech's flagship model. (Disclaimer: I bought Logitech because I've had very good luck with their peripherials in the past, and I continue to use and enjoy their products.) Took it home, and installed it on the system my kids use for Warcraft. They were whining and moaning that the new keyboard kept killing them, so I took it for a drive (doing a bit of Java programming). They keyboard would "freeze" for a few seconds every now and again, and I got a few very strange unicode characters while typing on a standard keyboard (obviously some sort of transmission error). The mouse was much the same - fine most of the time, but occasionally it would freeze for several seconds.
Now, in programming, if I type an "A" and get some odd Cyrillic character instead I can see the error and fix it(though it's a pain), but I can certainly see why my kids didn't want to use this system for gaming. "Daddy, the evil hunter is shooting me, and my stupid mouse is locked up again!".
I tried moving the antenna, and replacing the batteries, but the performance remained the same. So, now I have a very sleek-looking wireless mouse and keyboard -- in a box. I went out the next day and purchased the nicest CORDED keyboard and mouse I could find.
As I write this (at work) my wireless Kensignton mouse is telling me it needs YET ANOTHER battery change. Hooray for wireless.
What your are not free to do is take a copyrighted work, make changes to it and sell the derivative work. The fact that all your customers purchased the original DVD is completely irrelevant. You are still selling a derivative work without the copyright holder's permission.
Either we're splitting metaphorical hairs, or I'm missing something. If these services were trying to sell the edited version as a "derivitive work", without requiring the purchase of the original material, they'd be simple pirates and this case would be a slam-dunk. But that's not what they're doing.
An aquaintance of mine uses one of these servies regularly. As he explained it, he basically sends a copy of a DVD to his editing service, and selects some options as to how strongly editied he'd like his version to be. The editing service then burns him a CD with the edited content. I can't remember whether they mail the original back, or destroy it, but it seems like it was destroyed.
What the customer is paying for is NOT the movie content (they are required to supply a purchased copy of the content), but the editing service. The difference between such a service and a one-off professional edit is only in the economy of scale; if many customers want the same editing performed, the unit cost is greatly reduced. If I hired a professional to do a one-off edit, they'd STILL have to burn me a new DVD (since you can't burn to the original disk). As I understand it, this decision says that copyright prohibits making that final copy without permission. This would apply equally to both the one-off editing request and these "sanitizing" services.
This destroys our fair use rights. For example, I can buy a comic book and draw mustaches all over Superman. I can even charge you to draw mustaches all over YOUR copy of Superman. But, if I edit a DVD, I'm a criminal due to a very narrow interpretation of copyright (because I had to make a copy to preserve the changes rather than altering the original). Basically, due to a foible of electronic media, the public's rights are being handed to the big money corporations.
This article kind of insinuates that somehow these video companies are doing something shadly (like those other nasty pirates) by distributing movies without permission. Basically, they're offering a professional editing service.
There are many movies I can't watch as long as I try to uphold some moral principles. If I buy a copy of "Die Hard", (which is a great movie with very offensive language), why shouldn't I be able to take that copy and have a professional editing service remove/replace the language so that I can bring in into my home? The original copy I paid for is not re-distributed, it's destroyed, the editied copy is destined for private broadcast in my home, and I've paid a few extra bucks to alter the product to my specifications. It's like buying a car and paying a local garage to add the ubiquitous rear-spoiler and chrome muffler.
Apparently, removing swear words and nudity, (which is routinely done for television) violates the "artistic integrity" of the piece, and is a violation of copyright. This is very interesting, since both Television and Hollywood have stated that they will be moving to include more product-placement type ads in the future. Imagine the next summer's big blockbuster comes out, and has scenes like this:
scene: Heat-waves shimmer on a parched desert. Two people are walking slowly across it. hero: "I'm sorry, it was my arrogance that brought us to this. Our chances of survival are poor, and getting smaller. Maybe we should have had a Pepsi from that little roadside stand a few miles back." heroine: "Oh Rhet, I would rather perish from thirst, and have my lovely body consumed by ants than drink a nasty Pepsi. I'm a Coca-Cola girl, and I'll abide by my priciples or die in the attempt!" scene: Camera pans far left, where a distant, grungy, illumninated "Pepsi" sign glows over a shabby gas station. Camera slowly pans right, past the stumbling couple, continuing on to a glitzy night club with a huge "Coca-Cola" sign. Voiceover: "It's always been coke or nothing".
Now, when I buy the dvd, do I have to watch this drivel, or can I edit it out? Since most people aren't technically savvy enough to edit a dvd and burn a new copy, shouldn't they be allowed to pay someone else to remove this kind of dreck? This ruling says "no" -- goodbye fair use, welcome to a world where advertising is thrown at you from all directions, and shutting your eyes is a crime.
Cool, I learned something new. I never tried racking the slide partway. On the other hand, since the gun was the most unreliable, lame-brained piece I've held in twenty years, I only ran a couple boxes of shells through it before I got rid of it. Still, it is nice to know I didn't need to eject a round every time the %$#*(@#!! thing failed to fire. Thanks for the update!
Ah, Grasshopper.
Your math is sound, but your conclusion is foolish. A false positive is something which initially appears to be evidence of a "terrorist plot" <cue scary music>, but which, after further investigation is found to be benign. The current system never produces false positives. Whenever someone is suspected of any assication with a terrorist organization, they are arrested without a warrent, transported to a prison on foreign soil, and held without benefit of due process or civil rights. More importantly, the further investigation required to establish a false positive is not performed, ergo, no false positives.
In this way, the system catches a far larger number of "terrorists" than it otherwise would, and the politicians who designed it don't have to worry about the potential problem of the falsely charged (after all, it's impossible to prove one's innocence if you are not actually charged with anything). Better yet, this system can be adjusted to "catch" just enough people to convince the populace that they are in immininent danger from the many terrorists <more scare music> lurking in their midst, and that they need to immediately surrender their constitional rights to the police state for protection. It's perfect!
Gee, I wasn't going to mention the manufacturer of this particular pistol, but it looks like the other gun-nuts on slashdot have it figured out. Yup, it was the Springfield!;-)
Without going to too many details, I have a concealed carry permit, and exercise the right to both keep and bear arms on a regular basis. I also shoot for sport, and am reasonably good with a firearm. I once bought a high-end semi-auto pistol which has received man excellent reviews. The workmanship was of very high quality, but it had multiple safety devices, including one on the back of the handle and one on the trigger. Perhaps my hand is malformed, but about one shot in ten failed to discharge because my grip wasn't sufficiently firm on the back of the gun, or my finger was "too far" up the trigger. Worse, this gun was single action only, and a failed discharge dropped the hammer (which hit a falling-block safety rather than the firing pin). The upshot was that a failed shot required me to work the slide, wasting a round, to get back into firing position. I sold the gun in less than a week. What good is a gun that won't work when you need it?
I don't buy cheap guns, beater guns, or unsafe weapons. I can think of few things that make a gun more unsafe that FAILING to perform it's intended task in a life or death situation. I'll stick with my old, unsafe, and trustworthy pistols, thanks all the same.
Just for giggles, here's a more complete version of the story.
Now it so happened in the days of old Yedo, as Tokyo was once called, that the storytellers told marvelous tales of the wit and wisdom of His Honorable Honor, Ooka Tadasuke.
This famous judge never refused to hear a complaint, even if it seemed strange or unreasonable. People sometimes came to his court with the most unusual cases, but Ooka always agreed to listen. And the strangest case of all was the famous Case of the Stolen Smell.
It all began when a poor student rented a room over a tempura shop - a shop where fried food could be bought. The student was a most likeable young man, but the shopkeeper was a miser who suspected everyone of trying to get the better of him. One day he heard the student talking with one of his friends.
"It is sad to be so poor that one can only afford to eat plain rice," the friend complained.
"Oh," said the student, "I have found a very satisfactory answer to the problem. I eat my rice each day while the shopkeeper downstairs fries his fish. The smell comes up, and my humble rice seems to have much more flavor. It is really the smell, you know, that makes things taste so good."
The shopkeeper was furious. To think that someone was enjoying the smell of his fish for nothing! "Thief!" he shouted, "I demand that you pay me for the smells you have stolen."
"A smell is a smell," the young man replied. "Anyone can smell what he wants to. I will pay you nothing!"
Scarlet with rage, the shopkeeper rushed to Ooka's court and charged the student with theft. Of course, everyone laughed at him, for how could anyone steal a smell? Ooka would surely send the man about his business. But to everyone's astonishment, the judge agreed to hear the case.
"Every man is entitled to his hour in court," he explained. "If this man feels strongly enough about his smell to make a complaint, it is only right that I, as city magistrate, should hear the case." He frowned at the amused spectators.
Gravely, Ooka sat on the dais and heard the evidence. Then he delivered his verdict.
"The student is obviously guilty," he said severely. "Taking another person's property is theft, and I cannot see that a smell is different from any other property."
The shopkeeper was delighted, but the student was horrified. He was very poor, and he owed the shopkeeper for three month's smelling. He would surely be thrown into prison.
"How much money have you?," Ooka asked him.
"Only five mon, Honorable Honor," the boy replied. "I need that to pay my rent, or I will be thrown out into the street."
"Let me see the money," said the judge.
The young man held out his hand. Ooka nodded and told him to drop the coins from one hand to the other.
The judge listened to the pleasant clink of the money and said to the shopkeeper, "You have now been paid. If you have any other complaints in the future, please bring them to the court. It is our wish that all injustices be punished and all virtue rewarded.
"But most Honorable Honor," the shopkeeper protested, "I did not get the money! The thief dropped it from one hand to the other. See! I have nothing." He held up his empty hands to show the judge.
Ooka stared at him gravely. "It is the court's judgement that the punishment should fit the crime. I have decided that the price of the smell of food shall be the sound of money. Justice has prevailed as usual in my court."
This reminds me of one of the legendary cases of the wise and just Ooka Tadasuke, a samuri magistrate/judge in feudal Japan. Here's the wikipedia summary:
One of the most famous stories is called "The Case of the Stolen Smell" where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavour his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.
So, I think the man should be forced to go to the stupid coffee shop, and wave a five-dollar bill around for a minute as "payment" for sitting in a public place siphoning off a few bits of bandwidth. One problem I see over and over again with computers and the law is that people want to equate ephemeral things like data streams with real property. Nothing was stolen, nobody was deprived of real goods. Perhaps I should find public wireless sites, then sue them for "attacking me with radio waves", or "pushing pornography".
LOL! A couple of years ago I was in the Seattle airport, and noticed an odd man who came into the common area, looked around carefully, then walked over and tucked an aluminum briefcase behind a row of chairs. Looking around again, he quickly left the area. His behavior seemed suspicious, and the briefcase was just sitting there, about fifty feet from me. I told a security guard about it, and found a seat a good deal further away to watch from.
The security guard called to another guard walking past and they both "snuck up" on the briefcase. They picked it up and shook it, listening carefully. They tried to open it, but it was locked. Then they took it through a locked door into some area in the back. I moved further away, waiting for a large explosion to rock the place, but nothing happened. I can't believe that the official protocol for handling possible explosive devices is to have two security-monkeys dissasemble the device in the public commons.
I feel cheated. Has anyone else here ever played with trembler switches, mercury switches, collapsable circuits etc? Some of my friends and I used to play amature bomb-squad and build "bombs" for one another to disarm (they triggered a buzzer instead of an explosion, but it was enough to make you jump!). Forget it, waste of time and effort. Just put a big red button on the outside of the bomb labled "Danger, do not press!" -- it's guaranteed to go off in a public place with at least two people holding it.
Bravo, well said. Perhaps next time you don your yellow Tyvek, I'll be wearing one beside you. Although, I though Superhero's were supposed to wear spandex. . . . Never mind, we're nerds, and that was an ugly visual! Tyvek it is!
SHHHH! This is the next step in Bush's illegal surveillance of his subjects, er citizens. They've gotten all the auto manufacturers in include GPS tracking capability, but it's hard to tell exactly who's riding in a given car. Working with major footwear manufacturers, they're now going to low-jack your shoes! The low price-point is OBVIOUSLY to encourage millions of Americans to buy them, and the "pedometer" function, like on-Star, is a moderately-useful public interface to convince the people to buy.
Not that I'm paranoid - but I'm pretty sure George Bush is really a robot. He's the latest attempt by Pinky and the Brain to take over the world. Brain is obviously running the Robot (and I've seen better animatronics), so Pinky has to do the talking - just listen to his speeches and it all becomes clear!
It depends on the playback mechanism. Humming has been ruled legal, since it's a low-fidelity monophonic reproduction, and is convered under fair use as long as nobody hears you. If someone hears you humming, that's considered a public performance of the work, and royalties are owed.
If you speak the words of a song, you have violated to copyright on the lyrics, unless you're citing only a very small portion of the lyrics expressly for satire or educational purposes. The RIAA's lawyers take such offenses seriously, and are are not inclined to be generous in attributing fair use.
Internal playback raises a very good question. Although output-limited, your brain is a playback device with stereo, polyphonicand multitimbral capabilities sufficient for high-fidelity playback. It also allows time-shifting and features format independence. Distressingly, the RIAA has been unable, despite considerable primate-testing, to implement reliable DRM measures, although shock therapy has shown some promise. Since the device is capable of copyright infrigement and not ammenable to DRM, the device must be controlled. The RIAA is currently introducing legislation in congress that would require all humans to pay a royalty of $150,000 for every song they've ever heard, or face a manatory lobotomy to destroy unauthorized reproductions of the works in question.
Bravo, well said. This is one of the most articulate, well-reasoned responses I've read on Slashdot in a very long time. I'm adding you to my "friends" list so that I don't miss your future posts. Kudos.
One advantage of working in University chem labs, particularly on the biochem end of things is the ready availability of lots of reagent-grade bioactive compounds. Purified caffeine is readily available from chemical suppliers, and not terribly expensive. Caffeine is quite bitter, but most over-the-counter pills have some very nasty-tasting addatives to discourage just this sort of dumb behavior. One cavaet about reagent-grade caffeine: I haven't looked at the MSDS in some time, but I seem to recall that the LD50 drops dramatically for inhalation doses. Don't snort the stuff, and wear a respirator when working with it.
As an aside, I often wondered why junkies didn't inject purified neurotransmitters, until I had to buy some of them for my reserch. For a few thousand bucks you get a freeze-dried speck in a glass ampule. In contrast, caffiene was like fifty dollars for a several hundred grams.
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Many professionals buy instruments as status symbols or collector pieces rather than focusing purely on sound quality. For example, I can purchase an absolutely stellar violin for two to three thousand -- easily good enough to perform anywhere in the world on. Or I can spend a million or more for a Stradivarius. Despite the mythology, a 2k instrument can compare very favorably in sound quality, the Straivarius is just a status symbol.
My wife played jazz Saxophone professionally. Her instrument (a Selmer) retails for about 5k new, but can be had for ~3k lightly used. I used to play guitar professionally, and just bought the nicest instrument I've ever laid hands on for about 2.5k form a Canadian luthier named Trevor Kronbauer. Most other instruments (except basses, harps, and grand pianos) fall into the same price range. The instrument cost isn't the problem, the 20k annual salaries are!
I worked for Lockheed for about five years, and I have no difficulty believing this story. I wouldn't fly in a plane they built (unless it came from the skunk works!).
Now, let's assume I've had my property damaged, gotten a number of harrassing phone calls emails etc. Basically, I've been wronged, repeadly, by an identifiable group. Then, one day, I have a mob of folks in front of my house, screaming on a megaphone about how they're going to kill my family. I would consider this a "credible threat". It's a lot more evidence than Bush needs to wage a WAR for goodness sake. I'd call the cops and tell them to get their butts over to my house, because if one of these bozo's so much as rattles the doorknob I'm opening fire.
Seriously, at some point the threat is real, and you DON'T have to wait for them to act if they've given you cause to fear for your life. Besides, these zealots are happy to operate outside the law to make a point, they should be delighted to be martyr's for the cause, right? Kill a half-dozen or so and let the jury figure it out.
Thanks for taking the time to post. I think you've been very self-effacing and humble. We ALL make mistakes (I knocked over a picher of water at a nice resteraunt last night!). Losing an iPod isn't a problem, being treated like a criminal by an out-of-control government IS a problem, and one that I fear is becoming all to common. Thank you for bringing it to our attention, MAYBE if the sheeple wake up we can vote the current bozo's out of office before Bush decides to suspend elections and declare himself emperor. Tim, you rock!
That said, I see a lot of comments here that are obviously from young folks that have never raised a child. Every child is different, and trust isn't a boolean operation, it's a float. I've never had to worry about my son getting in fights, doing drugs, or making out with his girlfriends -- he's been exemplary in all these areas. I trust him more than most adults, and we have a great relationship. On the other hand, he likes to drive fast. I DON'T trust his decision making when he's driving (especially with friends) because he likes to show off.
The bottom line is that everybody has areas where they excel, and areas where they need some help. I trust my daughter's driving, but worry about her choice in friends. My co-worker is a Window's genius, but I wouldn't trust him to patch Solaris. A parent's job isn't to trust blindly, it's to extend trust when it's deserved. My son is a great guy, and it would be nice to let him take the car for the weekend, knowing I'd get an IM/email anytime the car went over 75mph. In some cases this device could be beneficial. After all, your kid might be on the road the next time my kid gets behind the wheel -- wouldn't we both feel better if he weren't going 120 mph?
How about if the data were stored on flash memory -- just a normal memory card in a socket by the other fuses. Store the data in a simple, delimited ASCII format, and overwrite as needed. Have the files digitally signed by the black box, and watermarked with a time-stamp to verify the authenticity of the data. Now, in the event of an accident, I can decide wether to pop the flash and step on it, or use it as evidence. It's my data, collected by my black-box, I can do what I want to with it. In addition, now when I want to see what the nitrous-boost does to my acceleration, I can just add a larger memory card (to allow recording minutes rather than seconds of data), take my car to the track, and then view the results on my home computer. Having accelerometers etc. in a car is potentially very useful for performance tuning IF I COULD USE THE DATA.
As I see it, Bush an co. want us to believe that they'll "protect freedom" by gathering it all up and storing in in a safe place until we need it again. No thanks! Bring on the terrorists, this administration is MUCH more frightening.
Another reader pointed out that, while the explosive scenario is problematic, incindiary devices are easy. A soup-can full of Potassium Permanganate and a rougly equal volume of Glycerine will make a heck of a blaze -- or a really nice igniter for a thermite bomb. I suspect all of these materials could be smuggled aboard (though I'm not about to try).
Another potential venue is nerve agents. Without going into any real detail, hydrofluoric acid is the foundation for several nasty nerve agents, some of which COULD be whipped up in the lav in just a few minutes. Probably not enough to kill the whole plane, and I'm assuming the pilots have a seperate air supply, but killing half the passengers on a loaded airliner might be good enough to interest a terrorist.
Then there's biological agents. Some years ago I worked with cyanotoxins, primarily anatoxin. Nasty stuff, and available at any nice warm, eutrophic lake in the U.S. I was playing around with extracting the toxin, and ended up with a protocol that used DMSO as a solvent to help seperate the toxin from cellular membranes. This stuff used to scare me to death -- a nice liquid that, if splashed on your skin (or clothing) would cause death in a matter of minutes. Imagine a squirt-gun or a water-balloon filled with this on a plane.
For the record, I'm far more frightened of the current Government that I am of terrorists, and I'd rather just take my chances that submit to the "protections" that are being provided. However, it doesn't take a lot of effort to come up with some plausible scenarious where a lunch-box might conceal some fairly deadly things.
I don't think it's just one faulty unit. I've had similar problems at work with several wireless setups. They seem to work fine, MOST of the time. Based on my experience, I think wired units are more reliable (and usually much cheaper) than their wireless equivilents. YMMV.
Now, in programming, if I type an "A" and get some odd Cyrillic character instead I can see the error and fix it(though it's a pain), but I can certainly see why my kids didn't want to use this system for gaming. "Daddy, the evil hunter is shooting me, and my stupid mouse is locked up again!".
I tried moving the antenna, and replacing the batteries, but the performance remained the same. So, now I have a very sleek-looking wireless mouse and keyboard -- in a box. I went out the next day and purchased the nicest CORDED keyboard and mouse I could find.
As I write this (at work) my wireless Kensignton mouse is telling me it needs YET ANOTHER battery change. Hooray for wireless.
Kind of reminds me of programming CORBA.
An aquaintance of mine uses one of these servies regularly. As he explained it, he basically sends a copy of a DVD to his editing service, and selects some options as to how strongly editied he'd like his version to be. The editing service then burns him a CD with the edited content. I can't remember whether they mail the original back, or destroy it, but it seems like it was destroyed.
What the customer is paying for is NOT the movie content (they are required to supply a purchased copy of the content), but the editing service. The difference between such a service and a one-off professional edit is only in the economy of scale; if many customers want the same editing performed, the unit cost is greatly reduced. If I hired a professional to do a one-off edit, they'd STILL have to burn me a new DVD (since you can't burn to the original disk). As I understand it, this decision says that copyright prohibits making that final copy without permission. This would apply equally to both the one-off editing request and these "sanitizing" services.
This destroys our fair use rights. For example, I can buy a comic book and draw mustaches all over Superman. I can even charge you to draw mustaches all over YOUR copy of Superman. But, if I edit a DVD, I'm a criminal due to a very narrow interpretation of copyright (because I had to make a copy to preserve the changes rather than altering the original). Basically, due to a foible of electronic media, the public's rights are being handed to the big money corporations.
This article kind of insinuates that somehow these video companies are doing something shadly (like those other nasty pirates) by distributing movies without permission. Basically, they're offering a professional editing service.
There are many movies I can't watch as long as I try to uphold some moral principles. If I buy a copy of "Die Hard", (which is a great movie with very offensive language), why shouldn't I be able to take that copy and have a professional editing service remove/replace the language so that I can bring in into my home? The original copy I paid for is not re-distributed, it's destroyed, the editied copy is destined for private broadcast in my home, and I've paid a few extra bucks to alter the product to my specifications. It's like buying a car and paying a local garage to add the ubiquitous rear-spoiler and chrome muffler.
Apparently, removing swear words and nudity, (which is routinely done for television) violates the "artistic integrity" of the piece, and is a violation of copyright. This is very interesting, since both Television and Hollywood have stated that they will be moving to include more product-placement type ads in the future. Imagine the next summer's big blockbuster comes out, and has scenes like this:
scene: Heat-waves shimmer on a parched desert. Two people are walking slowly across it.
hero: "I'm sorry, it was my arrogance that brought us to this. Our chances of survival are poor, and getting smaller. Maybe we should have had a Pepsi from that little roadside stand a few miles back."
heroine: "Oh Rhet, I would rather perish from thirst, and have my lovely body consumed by ants than drink a nasty Pepsi. I'm a Coca-Cola girl, and I'll abide by my priciples or die in the attempt!"
scene: Camera pans far left, where a distant, grungy, illumninated "Pepsi" sign glows over a shabby gas station. Camera slowly pans right, past the stumbling couple, continuing on to a glitzy night club with a huge "Coca-Cola" sign.
Voiceover: "It's always been coke or nothing".
Now, when I buy the dvd, do I have to watch this drivel, or can I edit it out? Since most people aren't technically savvy enough to edit a dvd and burn a new copy, shouldn't they be allowed to pay someone else to remove this kind of dreck? This ruling says "no" -- goodbye fair use, welcome to a world where advertising is thrown at you from all directions, and shutting your eyes is a crime.
Cool, I learned something new. I never tried racking the slide partway. On the other hand, since the gun was the most unreliable, lame-brained piece I've held in twenty years, I only ran a couple boxes of shells through it before I got rid of it. Still, it is nice to know I didn't need to eject a round every time the %$#*(@#!! thing failed to fire. Thanks for the update!
Your math is sound, but your conclusion is foolish. A false positive is something which initially appears to be evidence of a "terrorist plot" <cue scary music>, but which, after further investigation is found to be benign. The current system never produces false positives. Whenever someone is suspected of any assication with a terrorist organization, they are arrested without a warrent, transported to a prison on foreign soil, and held without benefit of due process or civil rights. More importantly, the further investigation required to establish a false positive is not performed, ergo, no false positives.
In this way, the system catches a far larger number of "terrorists" than it otherwise would, and the politicians who designed it don't have to worry about the potential problem of the falsely charged (after all, it's impossible to prove one's innocence if you are not actually charged with anything). Better yet, this system can be adjusted to "catch" just enough people to convince the populace that they are in immininent danger from the many terrorists <more scare music> lurking in their midst, and that they need to immediately surrender their constitional rights to the police state for protection. It's perfect!
Gee, I wasn't going to mention the manufacturer of this particular pistol, but it looks like the other gun-nuts on slashdot have it figured out. Yup, it was the Springfield! ;-)
I don't buy cheap guns, beater guns, or unsafe weapons. I can think of few things that make a gun more unsafe that FAILING to perform it's intended task in a life or death situation. I'll stick with my old, unsafe, and trustworthy pistols, thanks all the same.
Now it so happened in the days of old Yedo, as Tokyo was once called, that the storytellers told marvelous tales of the wit and wisdom of His Honorable Honor, Ooka Tadasuke.
This famous judge never refused to hear a complaint, even if it seemed strange or unreasonable. People sometimes came to his court with the most unusual cases, but Ooka always agreed to listen. And the strangest case of all was the famous Case of the Stolen Smell.
It all began when a poor student rented a room over a tempura shop - a shop where fried food could be bought. The student was a most likeable young man, but the shopkeeper was a miser who suspected everyone of trying to get the better of him. One day he heard the student talking with one of his friends.
"It is sad to be so poor that one can only afford to eat plain rice," the friend complained.
"Oh," said the student, "I have found a very satisfactory answer to the problem. I eat my rice each day while the shopkeeper downstairs fries his fish. The smell comes up, and my humble rice seems to have much more flavor. It is really the smell, you know, that makes things taste so good."
The shopkeeper was furious. To think that someone was enjoying the smell of his fish for nothing! "Thief!" he shouted, "I demand that you pay me for the smells you have stolen."
"A smell is a smell," the young man replied. "Anyone can smell what he wants to. I will pay you nothing!"
Scarlet with rage, the shopkeeper rushed to Ooka's court and charged the student with theft. Of course, everyone laughed at him, for how could anyone steal a smell? Ooka would surely send the man about his business. But to everyone's astonishment, the judge agreed to hear the case.
"Every man is entitled to his hour in court," he explained. "If this man feels strongly enough about his smell to make a complaint, it is only right that I, as city magistrate, should hear the case." He frowned at the amused spectators.
Gravely, Ooka sat on the dais and heard the evidence. Then he delivered his verdict.
"The student is obviously guilty," he said severely. "Taking another person's property is theft, and I cannot see that a smell is different from any other property."
The shopkeeper was delighted, but the student was horrified. He was very poor, and he owed the shopkeeper for three month's smelling. He would surely be thrown into prison.
"How much money have you?," Ooka asked him.
"Only five mon, Honorable Honor," the boy replied. "I need that to pay my rent, or I will be thrown out into the street."
"Let me see the money," said the judge.
The young man held out his hand. Ooka nodded and told him to drop the coins from one hand to the other.
The judge listened to the pleasant clink of the money and said to the shopkeeper, "You have now been paid. If you have any other complaints in the future, please bring them to the court. It is our wish that all injustices be punished and all virtue rewarded.
"But most Honorable Honor," the shopkeeper protested, "I did not get the money! The thief dropped it from one hand to the other. See! I have nothing." He held up his empty hands to show the judge.
Ooka stared at him gravely. "It is the court's judgement that the punishment should fit the crime. I have decided that the price of the smell of food shall be the sound of money. Justice has prevailed as usual in my court."
This reminds me of one of the legendary cases of the wise and just Ooka Tadasuke, a samuri magistrate/judge in feudal Japan. Here's the wikipedia summary:
One of the most famous stories is called "The Case of the Stolen Smell" where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavour his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.
So, I think the man should be forced to go to the stupid coffee shop, and wave a five-dollar bill around for a minute as "payment" for sitting in a public place siphoning off a few bits of bandwidth. One problem I see over and over again with computers and the law is that people want to equate ephemeral things like data streams with real property. Nothing was stolen, nobody was deprived of real goods. Perhaps I should find public wireless sites, then sue them for "attacking me with radio waves", or "pushing pornography".
The security guard called to another guard walking past and they both "snuck up" on the briefcase. They picked it up and shook it, listening carefully. They tried to open it, but it was locked. Then they took it through a locked door into some area in the back. I moved further away, waiting for a large explosion to rock the place, but nothing happened. I can't believe that the official protocol for handling possible explosive devices is to have two security-monkeys dissasemble the device in the public commons.
I feel cheated. Has anyone else here ever played with trembler switches, mercury switches, collapsable circuits etc? Some of my friends and I used to play amature bomb-squad and build "bombs" for one another to disarm (they triggered a buzzer instead of an explosion, but it was enough to make you jump!). Forget it, waste of time and effort. Just put a big red button on the outside of the bomb labled "Danger, do not press!" -- it's guaranteed to go off in a public place with at least two people holding it.
All best,
Mike
Not that I'm paranoid - but I'm pretty sure George Bush is really a robot. He's the latest attempt by Pinky and the Brain to take over the world. Brain is obviously running the Robot (and I've seen better animatronics), so Pinky has to do the talking - just listen to his speeches and it all becomes clear!
If you speak the words of a song, you have violated to copyright on the lyrics, unless you're citing only a very small portion of the lyrics expressly for satire or educational purposes. The RIAA's lawyers take such offenses seriously, and are are not inclined to be generous in attributing fair use.
Internal playback raises a very good question. Although output-limited, your brain is a playback device with stereo, polyphonicand multitimbral capabilities sufficient for high-fidelity playback. It also allows time-shifting and features format independence. Distressingly, the RIAA has been unable, despite considerable primate-testing, to implement reliable DRM measures, although shock therapy has shown some promise. Since the device is capable of copyright infrigement and not ammenable to DRM, the device must be controlled. The RIAA is currently introducing legislation in congress that would require all humans to pay a royalty of $150,000 for every song they've ever heard, or face a manatory lobotomy to destroy unauthorized reproductions of the works in question.
Bravo, well said. This is one of the most articulate, well-reasoned responses I've read on Slashdot in a very long time. I'm adding you to my "friends" list so that I don't miss your future posts. Kudos.
As an aside, I often wondered why junkies didn't inject purified neurotransmitters, until I had to buy some of them for my reserch. For a few thousand bucks you get a freeze-dried speck in a glass ampule. In contrast, caffiene was like fifty dollars for a several hundred grams.