If this is what they mean by "augmented reality" then I must confess I am singularly unimpressed. Every single use case discussed in the summary is done better and much quicker with a simple top down map/gps interface like Google Maps.
But it's not On Your Iphone! That's what makes it augmented reality - because a feature that's been commonly available for years is "augmented" with the reality distortion field. TFS must have missed a bit off - it's "Augmented Reality Distortion Field", something that no other phones have.
I use my Iphone-like device to "augment" my reality with auditory information received as if by magic from someone not in the same room for me, which is then transmitted directly into my ear. The device features voice-control, to allow me to respond to the other person merely by speaking.
I haven't seen this on Slashdot yet - maybe we'll get a story when it's On Your Iphone.
I agree that left/right wing make no sense outside of economics, and that a separate scale is needed.
Although I still think it's reasonable to say that Labour moved to the right - not because of their authoritarianism, but purely on economic issues (e.g., ending higher education grants and introducing tuition fees - for years previously, the concern was that the "right wing" Conservative Government were reducing grants, yet they never went as far as Labour here).
Yes, thank you. I find it hilarious that say, any notion of having a minor part of the entire market partly contributed to by the Government, such as a national health service, suddenly makes you "socialist" (I guess all those private corporations in my European country, including the ones in healthcare, must be a figment of my imagination).
Doubly so, when you consider the vast amounts of money that the US Government puts into state-controlled defence, isn't considered a problem. Surely, defence should be left to corporations, right?
What on earth does any of that - demanding something be removed because it offends you - have to do with left wing economical views?
(Even if we take the more broader left/right wing definitions, if anything I'd argue that censorship over "offensive things" is usually more associated with conservative right wing views.)
And I find it hard to believe that the American media is "left-leaning" - don't get me wrong, personally I prefer capitalism as an economical model, but there's plenty of support for that in the US media, and just look at the hysteria over anything deemed to be "socialist".
Or are you one of those people who uses "left leaning" to mean "I disagree with them, and I use 'left' as an insult"? (Similar to Conservapedia's "Wikipedia has a liberal bias" nonsense.)
Indeed, they seem to love the "But downloading costs billions of dollars to the economy" line.
It's just a shame that this country is run by people who seem to lack even basic understanding of economics, and fall victim to the broken window fallacy.
(And in what way does the LOTR help the British film industry?)
On the contrary - if you were intentionally posting arguments you didn't believe in in order to start some argument, then that's precisely the situation that "troll" is appropriate.
If you genuinely believed what you wrote, then as much as we might have disagreed, that doesn't make you a troll.
So there's no "wooosh" for anyone modding you troll - on the contrary, they'd be well aware of your actual intent.
The blame eventually lies with the people hitting other people with broken glasses, since that's what this is targetted at.
The blame for people being hit lies with people who hit. The blame for passing stupid laws lies with the people who pass stupid laws - no matter who they cite as an excuse.
It doesn't need legislation though
Then we're all in agreement. I don't think anywhere is against using plastic glasses in venues where it seems sensible, the issue is using the law to require it (possibly even in pubs where there is no such trouble).
"the reason why the act should have been referred to the European commission is because it constitutes a restraint on intra-EU trade, in that it entails that videos or DVDs which have not been certificated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) cannot legally be imported from another EU country and then sold or rented in the UK."
Basically, I'm asking: is this bad lawmaking or just bad reporting?
I think the VRA is bad lawmaking in itself. And maybe if the VRA hadn't been rushed through in the first place as a result of kneejerk moral panicing over "video nasties", they wouldn't have made such sloppy errors.
Sadly it looks like we'll repeat it all over again, with scaremongering over "pr0n sold to children" and rushing it through with "emergency legislation".
OTOH, it is quite possible to actually see this kind of diversity.
Yes, indeed. If they make up 13.4%, then in a photo of 3, the probability of at least one black person being present is about 35%. Not more often than not - but nonetheless large enough that you'll see a fair number of black people in photos in advertising. Just because something is uncommon doesn't mean you'll never see it at all. With the large number of adverts, you'd expect to see plenty of non-white people.
And surely, the idea that any given picture must itself be proportionally representative of the population is itself poltically correct? If instead the participants are chosen independent of race, then you'll get some photos without any black people, and some photos where they are overrepresented. Let's be honest now - if someone was saying "black people are 13.4% of the population, so in our cast of 50 people, we need to have 6 or 7 black people", I bet we'd have people saying how politically correct that was...
Do you have evidence that non-white people are overrepresented in American media? If anything, I'd suspect the reverse.
The problem is that people ignore the large amounts of times a black person isn't shown, and on the few occasions where one is, it's "OMG, how PC!" Just because a group are in a minority, doesn't mean they are never seen at all.
I also bet that if someone Photoshopped a white person to be black, there'd be no end of screaming "It's PC gone mad" from people, rather than saying "But they're just trying to better represent and connect with their market".
Ah yes, I wondered how long it would be until we got someone throwing the "PC" claim.
Let's get this straight: if a photo happens to have an actual non-white person in it, that must be out of some "political correctness". But if someone decides to change someone's colour with Photoshop, giving a false and unrealistic representation of the scene, that's okay?
If they are really so concerned with being "completely realistic for Poland", perhaps they could, I dunno, get some actual Poles, rather than getting Americans who pretend to be Polish (if you need to fake it with Photoshop, I would hardly call that a "realistic" presentation of the scene).
Sad but true - I fear you are right. Whilst one might hope we've moved on from the video nasties and snuff film scares of the 1980s, recent laws like the "extreme porn law", and the fact that the media have already reacted entirely by scaremongering of "Now people can sell porn to young children", it wouldn't surprise me if any changes just make the law more draconian, as you say.
Place your bets:
* Classification to cover Internet videos too?
* Law to criminalise possession of unclassified works, to cover the "loophole" that people can download from abroad?
It's still OK to posses, or view privately, the film
True, though be careful it doesn't come under the ill-defined spanking new "extreme pr0n" law, which does cover private possession. I've no idea what's in Grotesque, though "sexual violence" (even if acted with consenting adults) is exactly the sort of thing this new law covers.
Indeed, the end of British civilization as we know it is at an end. Parents woke up this morning to find that pornographers are now beaming images directly into the minds of their children.
Only today I wandered into my local video store, hoping to find a copy of Grotesque, only to be confronted by a swarm of children, all rushing to buy copies of Terminator and Robocop. I overheard one child claiming how much of a novelty it was to buy DVDs in a shop, as opposed to just downloading them for free like they usually did.
If I'm really lucky, perhaps I'll be able to pick up an uncut copy of Buffy, before this emergency legislation is brought in.
One possibility is that the VRA was used against video pirates, on the basis that video pirates may typically have been selling unclassified films (e.g., imports, uncut versions). In the same way that the "extreme" porn law now apparently is. But it`s nonsense for the media to present it in this way, since piracy is clearly covered by other laws. And if a video pirate can overturn a conviction, IMO it serves the Government right for using the wrong law for the job.
Scaremongering about children watching porn and now video pirates seems like a blatant biased attempt to push the assumption that this law is necessary - something I strongly disagree with, when it comes to the aspects of adult censorship.
Indeed. The sad thing is that this angle is completely being ignored by the press, who are instead running with wild scaremongering of "OMG, now people will be able to sell porn to young children!!!111"
Whilst the VRA covers age ratings, it also makes it illegal to sell an unclassified work to anyone, period. And since the BBFC can refuse classification for films or games, it's this law that allows censorship for adults. It's also routine that cuts are required - the film gets approved, but in the UK only if material deemed unsuitable even for adults is removed. So for now, selling uncut films will be legal.
There are other aspects too: for example, various regulations surrounding R18 material (material which is given a classification, but is considered taboo enough that there are loads of regulations covering where and how it can be sold, even to adults - a curious oddity is that it's not even legal to order R18 material online from a UK supplier, desite the fact that you could happily order it from abroad).
The VRA was passed as a result of a moral panic in the 1980s over snuff films and video nasties. Those video nasties have now, since 2000, been legalised anyway as a result of a more relaxed BBFC. Will they take the opportunity to finally relax the law, and perhaps bring in something solely related at age limits?
Fuck no. In fact, we're hearing talk of "emergency legislation" (WTF? That's the sort of thing you'd associate with terrorism or war, not "But an under-18 might be able to watch Robocop"). And with the knee-jerk "OMG think of the children" angle being reported by the entire press - not just the tabloids, but also the broadsheets (the Guardian even have a nonsense article claiming that piracy is now legal! We wish...) and the BBC - you can bet that there'll be no debate. Indeed, in today's climate where the UK Government recently criminalised possession of some kinds of adult porn it doesn't like, my fear is that if they do decide to revisit the law, we'll actually end up with something even worse.
On top of that, we have the Government claiming that convictions under this non-existent law will still stand(!)
My first reponse to hearing this news was a big "ha ha", but the response from the press and seemingly anyone in power who matters has left me rather depressed about attitudes towards adult censorship in this country.
It's plainly clear to anyone who can read, and who actually reads the quoted text and my reply, that I'm not talking about the current situation.
So what on earth are you talking about? This is a thread about Wikipedia's planned new policy. If your rant is "plainly" not about Wikipedia, then why are you ranting about them here?
just as you don't seem to let reading comprehension stop you from making idiotic statements.
Citation needed. I provided mine; where're yours? At least give us links to where this allegedly happens - as I say here. I've no time for people who whine about alleged bad experiences on Wikipedia, but don't bother to link to the articles/history for us to even try to sort it out.
I take your point, although note that I've heard all of these criticisms (on both sides) here on Slashdot, so it's not just the traditional mainstream media they are caving to.
Some old boy network that is! (And note that the phrase does not simply mean literally "old", but refers to people who gain privileges through connections, which is not the case here either.)
(Personally I'm more annoyed at the way that sometimes I have to wait five minutes between every Slashdot post... I'm sure it wasn't always this way.)
Slashdot Mirror
If this is what they mean by "augmented reality" then I must confess I am singularly unimpressed. Every single use case discussed in the summary is done better and much quicker with a simple top down map/gps interface like Google Maps.
But it's not On Your Iphone! That's what makes it augmented reality - because a feature that's been commonly available for years is "augmented" with the reality distortion field. TFS must have missed a bit off - it's "Augmented Reality Distortion Field", something that no other phones have.
I use my Iphone-like device to "augment" my reality with auditory information received as if by magic from someone not in the same room for me, which is then transmitted directly into my ear. The device features voice-control, to allow me to respond to the other person merely by speaking.
I haven't seen this on Slashdot yet - maybe we'll get a story when it's On Your Iphone.
I agree that left/right wing make no sense outside of economics, and that a separate scale is needed.
Although I still think it's reasonable to say that Labour moved to the right - not because of their authoritarianism, but purely on economic issues (e.g., ending higher education grants and introducing tuition fees - for years previously, the concern was that the "right wing" Conservative Government were reducing grants, yet they never went as far as Labour here).
In the UK, it's 16. Unless you take a photo, in which case it magically becomes 18.
Yes, thank you. I find it hilarious that say, any notion of having a minor part of the entire market partly contributed to by the Government, such as a national health service, suddenly makes you "socialist" (I guess all those private corporations in my European country, including the ones in healthcare, must be a figment of my imagination).
Doubly so, when you consider the vast amounts of money that the US Government puts into state-controlled defence, isn't considered a problem. Surely, defence should be left to corporations, right?
What on earth does any of that - demanding something be removed because it offends you - have to do with left wing economical views?
(Even if we take the more broader left/right wing definitions, if anything I'd argue that censorship over "offensive things" is usually more associated with conservative right wing views.)
And I find it hard to believe that the American media is "left-leaning" - don't get me wrong, personally I prefer capitalism as an economical model, but there's plenty of support for that in the US media, and just look at the hysteria over anything deemed to be "socialist".
Or are you one of those people who uses "left leaning" to mean "I disagree with them, and I use 'left' as an insult"? (Similar to Conservapedia's "Wikipedia has a liberal bias" nonsense.)
We can always hope they forget to notify the EU, and then in 25 years' time it'll be legal again...
Indeed, they seem to love the "But downloading costs billions of dollars to the economy" line.
It's just a shame that this country is run by people who seem to lack even basic understanding of economics, and fall victim to the broken window fallacy.
(And in what way does the LOTR help the British film industry?)
On the contrary - if you were intentionally posting arguments you didn't believe in in order to start some argument, then that's precisely the situation that "troll" is appropriate.
If you genuinely believed what you wrote, then as much as we might have disagreed, that doesn't make you a troll.
So there's no "wooosh" for anyone modding you troll - on the contrary, they'd be well aware of your actual intent.
The blame eventually lies with the people hitting other people with broken glasses, since that's what this is targetted at.
The blame for people being hit lies with people who hit. The blame for passing stupid laws lies with the people who pass stupid laws - no matter who they cite as an excuse.
It doesn't need legislation though
Then we're all in agreement. I don't think anywhere is against using plastic glasses in venues where it seems sensible, the issue is using the law to require it (possibly even in pubs where there is no such trouble).
An iPod? But don't they know that when you copy your legally bought CDs onto an mp3 player, you're stealing???
Surely, though, an EEC Directive can only govern issues pertaining to trade between EU countries?
This issue does affect trade, because it means the UK was banning material that was legal in other EU countries. From http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/aug/26/video-recordings-act :
"the reason why the act should have been referred to the European commission is because it constitutes a restraint on intra-EU trade, in that it entails that videos or DVDs which have not been certificated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) cannot legally be imported from another EU country and then sold or rented in the UK."
Basically, I'm asking: is this bad lawmaking or just bad reporting?
I think the VRA is bad lawmaking in itself. And maybe if the VRA hadn't been rushed through in the first place as a result of kneejerk moral panicing over "video nasties", they wouldn't have made such sloppy errors.
Sadly it looks like we'll repeat it all over again, with scaremongering over "pr0n sold to children" and rushing it through with "emergency legislation".
Just an additional note on some good coverage on this - there's a good article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/aug/26/video-recordings-act
Yes it is, goto requires a label, and thus requires someone reading your code to go hunting for it.
How is this different to "Calling a function requires you to go hunting for that function"?
OTOH, it is quite possible to actually see this kind of diversity.
Yes, indeed. If they make up 13.4%, then in a photo of 3, the probability of at least one black person being present is about 35%. Not more often than not - but nonetheless large enough that you'll see a fair number of black people in photos in advertising. Just because something is uncommon doesn't mean you'll never see it at all. With the large number of adverts, you'd expect to see plenty of non-white people.
And surely, the idea that any given picture must itself be proportionally representative of the population is itself poltically correct? If instead the participants are chosen independent of race, then you'll get some photos without any black people, and some photos where they are overrepresented. Let's be honest now - if someone was saying "black people are 13.4% of the population, so in our cast of 50 people, we need to have 6 or 7 black people", I bet we'd have people saying how politically correct that was...
Do you have evidence that non-white people are overrepresented in American media? If anything, I'd suspect the reverse.
The problem is that people ignore the large amounts of times a black person isn't shown, and on the few occasions where one is, it's "OMG, how PC!" Just because a group are in a minority, doesn't mean they are never seen at all.
I also bet that if someone Photoshopped a white person to be black, there'd be no end of screaming "It's PC gone mad" from people, rather than saying "But they're just trying to better represent and connect with their market".
Ah yes, I wondered how long it would be until we got someone throwing the "PC" claim.
Let's get this straight: if a photo happens to have an actual non-white person in it, that must be out of some "political correctness". But if someone decides to change someone's colour with Photoshop, giving a false and unrealistic representation of the scene, that's okay?
If they are really so concerned with being "completely realistic for Poland", perhaps they could, I dunno, get some actual Poles, rather than getting Americans who pretend to be Polish (if you need to fake it with Photoshop, I would hardly call that a "realistic" presentation of the scene).
Sad but true - I fear you are right. Whilst one might hope we've moved on from the video nasties and snuff film scares of the 1980s, recent laws like the "extreme porn law", and the fact that the media have already reacted entirely by scaremongering of "Now people can sell porn to young children", it wouldn't surprise me if any changes just make the law more draconian, as you say.
Place your bets:
* Classification to cover Internet videos too?
* Law to criminalise possession of unclassified works, to cover the "loophole" that people can download from abroad?
It's still OK to posses, or view privately, the film
True, though be careful it doesn't come under the ill-defined spanking new "extreme pr0n" law, which does cover private possession. I've no idea what's in Grotesque, though "sexual violence" (even if acted with consenting adults) is exactly the sort of thing this new law covers.
Indeed, the end of British civilization as we know it is at an end. Parents woke up this morning to find that pornographers are now beaming images directly into the minds of their children.
Only today I wandered into my local video store, hoping to find a copy of Grotesque, only to be confronted by a swarm of children, all rushing to buy copies of Terminator and Robocop. I overheard one child claiming how much of a novelty it was to buy DVDs in a shop, as opposed to just downloading them for free like they usually did.
If I'm really lucky, perhaps I'll be able to pick up an uncut copy of Buffy , before this emergency legislation is brought in.
The Guardian have made this claim too - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/25/video-piracy-damages-1984-act - but I'm still sceptical (especially as the media often just copy stories from each other).
One possibility is that the VRA was used against video pirates, on the basis that video pirates may typically have been selling unclassified films (e.g., imports, uncut versions). In the same way that the "extreme" porn law now apparently is. But it`s nonsense for the media to present it in this way, since piracy is clearly covered by other laws. And if a video pirate can overturn a conviction, IMO it serves the Government right for using the wrong law for the job.
Scaremongering about children watching porn and now video pirates seems like a blatant biased attempt to push the assumption that this law is necessary - something I strongly disagree with, when it comes to the aspects of adult censorship.
Indeed. The sad thing is that this angle is completely being ignored by the press, who are instead running with wild scaremongering of "OMG, now people will be able to sell porn to young children!!!111"
Whilst the VRA covers age ratings, it also makes it illegal to sell an unclassified work to anyone, period. And since the BBFC can refuse classification for films or games, it's this law that allows censorship for adults. It's also routine that cuts are required - the film gets approved, but in the UK only if material deemed unsuitable even for adults is removed. So for now, selling uncut films will be legal.
There are other aspects too: for example, various regulations surrounding R18 material (material which is given a classification, but is considered taboo enough that there are loads of regulations covering where and how it can be sold, even to adults - a curious oddity is that it's not even legal to order R18 material online from a UK supplier, desite the fact that you could happily order it from abroad).
The VRA was passed as a result of a moral panic in the 1980s over snuff films and video nasties. Those video nasties have now, since 2000, been legalised anyway as a result of a more relaxed BBFC. Will they take the opportunity to finally relax the law, and perhaps bring in something solely related at age limits?
Fuck no. In fact, we're hearing talk of "emergency legislation" (WTF? That's the sort of thing you'd associate with terrorism or war, not "But an under-18 might be able to watch Robocop"). And with the knee-jerk "OMG think of the children" angle being reported by the entire press - not just the tabloids, but also the broadsheets (the Guardian even have a nonsense article claiming that piracy is now legal! We wish...) and the BBC - you can bet that there'll be no debate. Indeed, in today's climate where the UK Government recently criminalised possession of some kinds of adult porn it doesn't like, my fear is that if they do decide to revisit the law, we'll actually end up with something even worse.
On top of that, we have the Government claiming that convictions under this non-existent law will still stand(!)
My first reponse to hearing this news was a big "ha ha", but the response from the press and seemingly anyone in power who matters has left me rather depressed about attitudes towards adult censorship in this country.
It's plainly clear to anyone who can read, and who actually reads the quoted text and my reply, that I'm not talking about the current situation.
So what on earth are you talking about? This is a thread about Wikipedia's planned new policy. If your rant is "plainly" not about Wikipedia, then why are you ranting about them here?
just as you don't seem to let reading comprehension stop you from making idiotic statements.
Quoted for the irony.
Citation needed. I provided mine; where're yours? At least give us links to where this allegedly happens - as I say here. I've no time for people who whine about alleged bad experiences on Wikipedia, but don't bother to link to the articles/history for us to even try to sort it out.
I take your point, although note that I've heard all of these criticisms (on both sides) here on Slashdot, so it's not just the traditional mainstream media they are caving to.
The date is rather short, IIRC. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels#Autoconfirmed_users - for most cases, it's 4 days, and having made 10 edits.
Some old boy network that is! (And note that the phrase does not simply mean literally "old", but refers to people who gain privileges through connections, which is not the case here either.)
(Personally I'm more annoyed at the way that sometimes I have to wait five minutes between every Slashdot post... I'm sure it wasn't always this way.)