I thought I'd have a look at the last page of the 1300 posts so far. It's like a car wreck, you know you shouldn't look, but you have to take a peek.
Yes, it's predictable that any article with the word "evolution" in it draws the same old posts from the same people over and over and over... which of course if you're selling pageviews is great. Articles like this can just be ignored, but the problem is when the story actually has some substance, like the one a few months ago about the discovery of a new form of ancestral bird. But if you looked at the comments, the first five pages was all about the Bible, the Kansas Board of Education, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All of which should have been modded down as off-topic, but much of which was "+5 Insightful" becasue a moderator agreed with it. A total waste of time all around (except, of course, for Slashdot's advertising manager.)
All I know is that on the day they were found, there was no mention of them at all when at least one other news outlet did mention them.... technically, we did find some, so people aren't that stupid for telling a pollster that we did.
Make up your mind. If the story was downplayed (either because it was trivial, or bias, or conspiracy, doesn't matter), then hardly any of those people who told pollsters they believed WMD were found knew this "fact". So were they clairvoyant or stupid in agreeing with it? (Even if you assume one single shell constitutes WMD stockpiles.) Similar numbers agreed, and still agree probably, that Saddam was behind 9/11, despite no evidence ever being presented.
Two members of a military bomb squad were treated for minor exposure, but no serious injuries were reported.... Two former weapons inspectors Hans Blix and David Kay said the shell was likely a stray weapon that had been scavenged by militants and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles of such weapons.
One single shell is not a weapon of MASS destruction. Just about any explosive bomb could do more harm. It's certainly not a justification for the invasion. The point is not that Iraq had sarin at one time; it's documented that they usd it on the Kurds, but whether they had it as part of their arsenal. If there had been a hidden stockpile, there would have been many more than this one incident since.
The software is Bingo Card Creator, which makes bingo cards principally for elementary school teachers... My best guess is that the spike was caused by that whole being on the front page of a major warez site thing.
Do you imagine any Warez Dude actually used your Bingo card Creator? These are the kind of guys who collect gigabytes of software just for bragging rights, and to swap with others like baseball cards. Or do you think that elementary school teachers were searching Astalavista for cracks?
It's undoubtedly annoying, but in this case it seems unlikely any of your market was lost. I hope the bandwidth wasn't expensive, but that seems to be the only loss.
So, instead of sending your search results to Google to be recorded, you're sending them to both Google and some unknown third-party?
Explain to me how giving some stranger all your search results will protect your privacy, Slashdot.
Because it's not the same third party (proxy) each time. It can be a chain of them if you're sufficiently paranoid (and patient). And Google gets a proxy address only; it can't link that to your other searches.
Just saying "the FBI has a massive file on so-and-so" is just FUD, because unless you're somebody important they'll never bother to use it, and even for imporant people like Einstein they never did.
They certainly did use their files to intimidate. How do you think J Edgar Hoover remained head of the FBI for 50 years? He blackmailed politicians, either directly or just by letting them know he had all their dirty laundry on file.
It's also important to note that they're not tieing the searches to you, they're tieing your searches to each other.
Regardless of their intent, thay have failed to take steps to make it impossible to make that link. The data exists, and is in the United States and subject to seizure by the US government, or by a court order; or theft or accidental exposure. They have an opportunity to make a real "Don;t be evil" action here, by anonymising the data, but have deliberately sidestepped it and ask us just to trust them.
othing is free, you pay for google with your tracking data and your eyes looking at advertisements. Pay up for what you use!,/I>
If Google wanted to, they could simply require you to log in, explicitly or via a cookie, before making any searches. They don't require you to identify yourself, it's not dishonest not to.
with Yahoo mail you have to pay
Incorrect. I get POP3 for free.
It depends which country you're in. It used to be like that for all Yahoo domains, but a few years ago they started withdrawing the "free POP for ads" deal. Now you have to pay about $20/year to get that and other features for yahoo.com and most other Yahoo domains. I think Yahoo.ca and Yahoo.co.uk are still free.
PCM is uncompressed audio, half your file size is probably the audio. Demultiplex the audio to a separate (.wav) file, encode it to even the highest quality AC3 or MP2 at 48000 sample rate; you'll save several gigs. PCM audio is used to make the AVI easier to edit and keep in synch, but you don't need that for playback.
There are a bunch of forums to get you going. Slashdot isn't one of them.
VideoHelp is one of the larger, and friendlier, ones, with links to tools and such. Afterdawn has a very good archive of software.
Simple, free, one-click solution:
DivxtoDVD. Fast and easy, quite good results.
If you want to get into it more, you need Avisynth (to load the AVI, scale it, apply filters); a video encoder (I like HCenc), an audio encoder (like BeSweet), an authoring app (like GUifor DVDAuthor, finally a burning app (use Nero or whatever came with your burner).
These are all free Windows software, you can do it all in Linux, but it's not so user-friendly. Most Mac users tend to use commercial software.
RIAA probably smacked around for selective defense of their copyright.
One does not lose copyright by failing to defend it (unlike trademarks); or "selectively" defending it. They might have a problem establishing damages if they were inconsistent, but again there are statutory damages for sopyright infringement.
propping up non-Muslim governments? When did we ever do that before 9/11?
Israel, 1947 passim, Iran, 1953. Iraq in the 1980s. Also the Saudi royal family is considered corrupt and decadent by more fundamentalists (like Osama).
They want us dead and they are going to try over and over and over.
If that's what you think, you'll have to commit genocide to make yourself safe.
Terrorism has a political objective; and Muslim terrorists broadly want to install Muslim governments (or governments that are more fundamentalist) in the countries where they live. They target Westerners only as a means to that end, to deter Western governments from propping up non-Muslim governments for instance. If you're inconvenienced, killed, afraid, lose civil liberties; they really don't care either way. If the US withdrew from the Middle East you wouldn't be attacked.
Don't think I'm endorsing terrorism, but you can't begin to do anything to prevent it if you don't understand their motives.
I live in Hong Kong. The typhoon was LAST week. Uprooted a few trees near my place. (Actually, There is another one en route, but it looks much less severe.)
That's overly simplistic, and as it's stated, demonstrably incorrect. Everyone can pirate Windows; pretty clearly, more than 5% actually do pay for it regardless.
That proves nothing, almost everyone is forced to buy Windows bundled with their PC in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it's predictable that any article with the word "evolution" in it draws the same old posts from the same people over and over and over... which of course if you're selling pageviews is great. Articles like this can just be ignored, but the problem is when the story actually has some substance, like the one a few months ago about the discovery of a new form of ancestral bird. But if you looked at the comments, the first five pages was all about the Bible, the Kansas Board of Education, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All of which should have been modded down as off-topic, but much of which was "+5 Insightful" becasue a moderator agreed with it. A total waste of time all around (except, of course, for Slashdot's advertising manager.)
Make up your mind. If the story was downplayed (either because it was trivial, or bias, or conspiracy, doesn't matter), then hardly any of those people who told pollsters they believed WMD were found knew this "fact". So were they clairvoyant or stupid in agreeing with it? (Even if you assume one single shell constitutes WMD stockpiles.) Similar numbers agreed, and still agree probably, that Saddam was behind 9/11, despite no evidence ever being presented.
According to the MSNBC source linked:
One single shell is not a weapon of MASS destruction. Just about any explosive bomb could do more harm. It's certainly not a justification for the invasion. The point is not that Iraq had sarin at one time; it's documented that they usd it on the Kurds, but whether they had it as part of their arsenal. If there had been a hidden stockpile, there would have been many more than this one incident since.Do you imagine any Warez Dude actually used your Bingo card Creator? These are the kind of guys who collect gigabytes of software just for bragging rights, and to swap with others like baseball cards. Or do you think that elementary school teachers were searching Astalavista for cracks?
It's undoubtedly annoying, but in this case it seems unlikely any of your market was lost. I hope the bandwidth wasn't expensive, but that seems to be the only loss.
Because it's not the same third party (proxy) each time. It can be a chain of them if you're sufficiently paranoid (and patient). And Google gets a proxy address only; it can't link that to your other searches.
They certainly did use their files to intimidate. How do you think J Edgar Hoover remained head of the FBI for 50 years? He blackmailed politicians, either directly or just by letting them know he had all their dirty laundry on file.
Regardless of their intent, thay have failed to take steps to make it impossible to make that link. The data exists, and is in the United States and subject to seizure by the US government, or by a court order; or theft or accidental exposure. They have an opportunity to make a real "Don;t be evil" action here, by anonymising the data, but have deliberately sidestepped it and ask us just to trust them.
If Google wanted to, they could simply require you to log in, explicitly or via a cookie, before making any searches. They don't require you to identify yourself, it's not dishonest not to.
Incorrect. I get POP3 for free.
It depends which country you're in. It used to be like that for all Yahoo domains, but a few years ago they started withdrawing the "free POP for ads" deal. Now you have to pay about $20/year to get that and other features for yahoo.com and most other Yahoo domains. I think Yahoo.ca and Yahoo.co.uk are still free.
I use HCenc. Also free.
But not humungous monitors; ergonomic chairs, all kinds of joysticks.
PCM is uncompressed audio, half your file size is probably the audio. Demultiplex the audio to a separate (.wav) file, encode it to even the highest quality AC3 or MP2 at 48000 sample rate; you'll save several gigs. PCM audio is used to make the AVI easier to edit and keep in synch, but you don't need that for playback.
The free version only encodes MPEG1; i.e. VCDs, not DVDs.
GuiforDVDauthor. Free, simple. Can make menus or just autoplay.
I can't seem to find a good answer with the typical google searches
Start here. It has a a lot of links to other authoring tools if you don't like gfd.
HCenc is free and pretty good, if not extremely fast (if used in "best" mode, which I always do).
Simple, free, one-click solution: DivxtoDVD. Fast and easy, quite good results.
If you want to get into it more, you need Avisynth (to load the AVI, scale it, apply filters); a video encoder (I like HCenc), an audio encoder (like BeSweet), an authoring app (like GUifor DVDAuthor, finally a burning app (use Nero or whatever came with your burner).
These are all free Windows software, you can do it all in Linux, but it's not so user-friendly. Most Mac users tend to use commercial software.
Well, it was good enough for The Terminator.
One does not lose copyright by failing to defend it (unlike trademarks); or "selectively" defending it. They might have a problem establishing damages if they were inconsistent, but again there are statutory damages for sopyright infringement.
Israel, 1947 passim, Iran, 1953. Iraq in the 1980s. Also the Saudi royal family is considered corrupt and decadent by more fundamentalists (like Osama).
If that's what you think, you'll have to commit genocide to make yourself safe.
Terrorism has a political objective; and Muslim terrorists broadly want to install Muslim governments (or governments that are more fundamentalist) in the countries where they live. They target Westerners only as a means to that end, to deter Western governments from propping up non-Muslim governments for instance. If you're inconvenienced, killed, afraid, lose civil liberties; they really don't care either way. If the US withdrew from the Middle East you wouldn't be attacked.
Don't think I'm endorsing terrorism, but you can't begin to do anything to prevent it if you don't understand their motives.
I live in Hong Kong. The typhoon was LAST week. Uprooted a few trees near my place. (Actually, There is another one en route, but it looks much less severe.)
And Jack Bauer has only 24 hours to stop them.
In the real world, can you give any exampls of such a layered threat?
When the "trusted computing" platform becomes the standard. Then the "dongle" is in a chip on your motherboard.
That proves nothing, almost everyone is forced to buy Windows bundled with their PC in the US.
Keyboard drawers have been around for decades; the cables are inside the desk, as good as cordless without battery hassles.