2) just assume that content is being traded illegally without checking (as we've seen before) and just send spurious DMCA notices until internet 2 is beaten into submission.
Actually, that's pretty much out of the question.
If may suprise you to hear this, but a lot of universities actually have law schools. Some of them have really good law schools. Besides having tons of good lawyers, they also have LOTS of money. The annual budget of my alma mater is a TEN figure amount.
If you want to see an example of this in action, look at the Gallery of CSS Descramblers.
Sure the MPAA, would LOVE to have it taken down, but CMU has the actual resources to beat them in court, and a reputation that will get them taken seriously.
It's not like taking on some schmo making $30K/year or going after an organization that you can paint to be a bunch of criminal anarchists (2600).
There's no real point to cracking it if you have a legal version.
Bullshit.
There are TONS of reasons to crack a game you already bought.
Normally, I might try to have just a *tiny* bit more tact, but it's obvious you didn't even put even a couple seconds of thought into it.
Just a few reason off the top of my head:
Want to listen to a CD
Lost the CD
Don't even have a CD drive at the moment
Copy protection is broken (happens more than you would think)
Don't want to have to haul around six fucking dongles and a book of CDs with your frickin laptop
Game runs faster
Don't like giving out free demographic info
Don't have a 'net connection
Behind a firewall
...and that's just the beinning, I'm sure I could keep going.
And when it happens, what then? You'll have less than zero recourse. "Yes, I want to sue this guy because the illegal program he wrote to crack the protection on this software nuked my email."
First off, if I buy drugs from you, IT'S STILL NOT LEGAL FOR YOU TO SHOOT ME IN THE FACE. Second, cracks were 100% legal before the DMCA, even after the DMCA (which I expect will be thrown out eventually, since it gives publishers de-facto infinate copyright) there are provisions specficlly within the DMCA to allow of interoperability, etc so as to allow people to make software they've purchased work with their computer. Third, I don't need to admit that you actually damaged my computer to get you in trouble, besides pending anti-spyware legislation, one could be prosecuted for fraud/misrepresentation, etc.
I hate software licensing as much as anyone on/., but when a company like Valve goes out of their way to offer something in exchange for the authentication hassle - they deserve a fair shake.
WTF!
A. They're ALREADY successful.
B. They could just not be jerks about it let you use the software you've already purchased.
Why do they desserve something? Why not make a rational decision instead of pretending you owe them something? It's obvious they don't think they owe you anything.
IANAL, or an electrical engineer, but it would not be that hard to put your little GPS unit / antenna for said GPS unit inside a metal box / farraday cage and no jamming would be needed.
But that's so obvious it seems like they'd have some way to get you for it. An easy way would be tapping the vehicle speed sensor. How are you going to explain driving 1,000 miles and never getting GPS recption? That's one long tunnel.
Better idea than the simulator. Just build a small miliwatt jammer. Power it off of you cigarete lighter. You'll have way more than enough power to jam the RF dignals from the GPS sats and make it so that it can't tall where you are. Simpler to build too.
A jammer would be illegal to build, operate, or sell (throughout the entire US). A simulator could be freely sold. Even if California banned them, you could sell them in Oregon.
Right. Then we'll get a few smart people to develope a means of faking the mileage and paying next to nil. Not only will it not work, but it's not fair. I live in CA and am frankly sick of all the car-related restrictions that we have to abide by!
Actually there already is a way to fake it, it's called a "satellite constellaion simulator."
As far as the GPS receiver knows it's seeing real satellites, but it's really just cabled into a very complex Rf generator. The only problem is it will set you back a quarter of a million dollars, and takes up six full-length 19" rack spaces. Still, it's possible though.
Using one of those, I've made a GPS receiver believe that it's 1994 and halfway around the world. Heck, you could even fake errors (telling the GPS unit you driving at mach 2 while in low earth orbit).
I live in CA and am frankly sick of all the car-related restrictions that we have to abide by!
I feel for you. California has the stupidest rules I've every heard of (CARB). Your politicians are completly out of their fucking minds. You can't even modify your fricking AIR INTAKE there.
I'd almost be tempted to help design a cheap SCS just to help screw over these asshole politicians. In quantity, you could probably knock down both the size and cost of the device by orders of magnitude since it wouldn't need to be mil-certified test equipment anymore.
It depends how you look at it: Gentoo is more time consuming to get up and running, but once you have a working system maintenance is trivial. Installing new software is trivial.
So yes it takes a little more time at first, but you don't have to manually download and spend a day in dependency hell just to have the newest version of mplayer. (I've been there.)
I used to use RH and it was a royal pain in the ass when you wanted that new version of X. With Gentoo, I spend much lest time doing rountine upkeeping than I ever did with redhat. If you use linux every day, you don't want to be stuck with the same version of Gaim for six months, you want the new features.
Now comes the biggest problem. How will the plug-in communicate with others to do searches? Inter-client communications can only be done via the basic IMs that are sent between users.
You're making it harder than it really is.
All the software needs gaim for is to establish the initial connection.
It just needs to send out one message that says: "Hi, I'm running the foobar application and my ip address is: 255.255.255.255"
Of course, you don't want to send that Im to everyone on the list, so you would all set a flag in your profile, something like "I'm running the foobar plugin."
This way, the "Hi" message only gets sent to those who are actually running the software.
Obviously there'd be more to the software than that, but those are the only things that I would actually send through the AIM server.
"Authentication, searching, up/downloads, etc could all happen via direct connections.
Legally, they're called differnet things but practially, it's the same concept:
You can't claim exclusive rights to something you didn't create.
If you want to patent the use of technique X in field Y, you better be the first person to use it.
If you want to trademark word X in field Y, there better not be anyone else using it.
"Prior art" in patent law automatically does a blow to your patent (assuming it is the same thing).
In the same sense that the common useage of a term can blow your trademark.
Trademark law does not require uniqueness.
It does WITHIN CONSTRAINTS just like patent law.
If your trademark isn't unique when you pick it's then your trademark itself becomes a deliberate attempt to confuse the consumer, they very thing trademark law is supposed to prevent.
You don't have to be the absolute first person to use every concept in your patent, nor do you have to be the first to use your trademark, but it DOES have to be unique. If someone else is using "your" trademark before you, in a reasonably similar field, the court is not going to protect it.
Try starting a company called "Harley Davidson Motorcycles" for example.
Unlike patent law, prior existence of other examples does not itself render the mark invalid.
Actually it does.
If a term is already being used to describe something you can't suddenly claim it to be your trademark.
For instance, you can't decide you want to make Beer (tm) beer.
If someone can show examples of where your trademark was already an industry standard term for the product/service/whatever you stand an extremely good chance of losing it.
This is why Microsoft settled with Lindows.
If they had let the case continue, they stood a very good chance of losing since "Windows" was already common computer terminology.
Although the terminology used is not identical, both patents and trademark require "uniqueness". You can't just claim rights to something that wasn't your idea.
Smart engineers are able to solve problems. With that type of thinking, we wouldn't have cars, airplanes, semiconductor plants, etc. "Murphy always wins" is a cop-out for not actually looking at the REAL risks involved. "Smart engineers" actually do the work to look at the REAL risks instead of just spouting slogans...they leave that to management.
I'm not that much worried about power plant accidents. What worries me is that nobody has yet found anything to do with the wastes. Oh and there's no really sure way of stocking tons of wastes for centuries either.
Why isn't there?
Just because you say it, doesn't make it true.
Hell, look at the pyramids, they seem to have held up allright and I'd like to think we've managed to improve our construction techniques over thousands of years.
Sadly, this is what it always comes down to. Objections to nuclear power aren't backed up by reasonable thought, but rather assuming something and claiming that assumption is the only possible answer.
Last time I saw a post like this is was claiming that the risk of running a plant was just too high. Nevermind the person couldn't actually quantify the risk or compare it to anything else. Nevermind that all the actual studies that honestly look at the issue find it to be less dangerous than a typical coal power plant.
You can buy a handheld SpyFinder. Here's a customer review with a discussion of how it works. It uses two lasers, one on the optical axis and one slightly off it, run alternately at a few Hz. Things that have focusing optics followed by a flat reflective surface (which includes most cameras) will blink. Ordinary shiny things will not.
They call it an "Avian Dissuader®" but I call it FRICKING HILARIOUS!
So is their write-up: It is a Class IIIb laser with the right optics to create a concentrated beam that does not leave birds guessing.
What do they mean it doesn't leave birds guessing? It sure leaves me guessing.
Just what exactly do they expect the birds to do after you blind them with a laser? Fly south?
How exactly is the bird supposed to have any sort of stimulus-response reaction? It's not as if they know where that laser is coming from.
Not true. The filter will only increase the transmission of IR lightwaves.
Okay, first off the whole point of an IR filter would be to decrease transmission of IR lightwaves if it doesn't do that, IT IS NOT AN IR FILTER. I'm going to assume that you meant to say "reflection there".
Second, just because something filters at a certain wavelength, doesn't necessarily mean it does so by being reflective.
you can have a reflective filter, an absortive filter, or somewhere in between.
Why don't the theater owners strategically place high output infrared (LEDs) light sources behind the screens. Since most of the screens are full of holes, it should allow enough infrared light through to severly mess up the image recorded by the camcorders.
Because all you have to do is screw an IR filter on the front of the camera.
Yes, CCDs are sensitive to IR and UV, but camera shops sell filters for those ranges for precisely that reason.
Or more simply, since IR shows up on most video camcorders as white light (point a remote control at your camcorder as proof) put have a large number of flashing IR LEDs around and winthin the screen and make the recorded video unwatchable....
You realize that you can just screw an IR filter on the front of your camcorder, right?
$20 or so and that scheme becomes totally worthless.
You seem not to understand basics of economics, sorry.
You do not seems to understand that THERE IS MORE TO ECONOMICS THAN THE BASICS.
Instead of calling someone a moron because they aren't saying things that argee with what you learned in "Econ. for Dummies" THINK. Think about those rules you're treating as gospel and think about the examples I've given of them being totally off base.
On the contrary, they have to pay you exactly what you are worth, you are just worth a lot less than you think you are... Your worth (at least in $ terms) is defined by the market.
Not so. That's a really oversimplified view of economics.
Let's say an engineer can generate $100k/year worth of profit for me, after overhead. Let's say there are lots of engineers out there willing to work for $10k/year. How much are those people worth?
See the thing most economics classes neglect to point out is that by manipulating your costs and benfits you can pretty much get any answer you want while applying an oversimplified model to a complex situation.
Your comment reminds me of a joke:
Two economists are waliing down the street and one sees a $20 bill lying on the ground. He goes to pick it up and the other one calls out:
"Wait, don't bother!"
"Why not?"
"Well if it was worth pikcing up someone would have already done it."
See my point? In the REAL WORLD it IS possible to buy something for less than its worth.
A particular oversimplified view of the world might say that no one would ever leave a $20 bill on the ground unless it wasn't "worth" picking up, but that's an obviously silly assertion. In the real world things that are not economically "optimal" happen every day.
For a final example of the sillyness of your statement consider the worth of someone who is unemployed. Are they really worth $0/day?
Or, is unemployment itself an example of "market failure"?
See that's the funny thing here: The same theories that say that a person is worth what the market is willing to pay, also predict ZERO unemployment.
I'm not claiming the whole science of economics is BS, BTW. The points I'm making are (IMO) why there is an actual division between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
When you look at things on a large scale, it becomes painfully obvious that none of the models being used are actually "true". They're more like trying to fit a polynomial to a set of datapoints.
Unfortuately that link doesn't seem to come out and say it explicitly so here is a link that does.
My point was not that I had one specfic link debunking his, but that it is easy to find MANY links which back this up.
Here is the relevant quote:
At 2:16 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Fox became the first network to call Florida for Bush. Minutes later, CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN made the same call.
Hey, I messed up that first time around, but at least I frickin ATTEMPTED to provide evidence.
One of many sites de-bunking F911...
http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-i n-Fahrenheit-911.htm
Except that site doesn't provide any evidence proving that Fox was not the first to call it.
Geez first some guy gets to +5 insightful with absolutely NO evidence to back up his claim. Them a bunch of us provide links showing that he was indeed "making shit up".
Now an AC posts a link for an obviously biased site, that DOESN'T EVEN ADDRESS THE ISSUE AT HAND. That site provides no evidence supporting the claim that Fox was not the first to call it. As a matter of fact, it actually supports the claim:
Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.
If you're referring to 2000 Fox wasn't the first to call it. THat's another F911 fabrication.
Here's an idea, next time you're going to call someone a liar, why don't you link to some evidence so as to not look like a total wingnut?
Here I provide a link where the New York Times states that Fox was the first to call it in 2000.
It was very easy to find.
Now why do you go try to find some ACTUAL EVIDENCE to back up your claim. Not a bunch of strawman, don't-address-the point-at-hard arguments from some nutcase like Ann Coulter, but a simple bit of evidence proving that Fox was not the first to call it.
If what you claim is true, you should have no trouble backing it up.
Constant attempts to one-dimensionalize views so people can be labelled easier.
You mean like ignoring that fact that/. articles are submitted by a diverse group of individuals?
Extreme, uncompromising views on these fake one-dimensional issues.
Like acting as though slashdot fucked up and now has their repuation tarnished?
One couldn't possibly take the more moderate view that investigating something and find a hypothesis to be untrue is not in itself a bad thing, and is arguably MUCH, MUCH better that never checking into anything.
For instance, open-source style politics was the reason Howard Dean was leading before the primaries. It allowed him to reach out to more people than he otherwise would have. In general the Internet is causing the voice of the people to be heard, and we should expect more Howard Dean-style campaigns in the future.
The funny thing is that Dean actually doesn't respect the freedom of speech the internet provides.
He wants to pass all sort of sweeping and stupid laws to "for the children".
God forbid there actually be a medium what adults may freely express their own minds because a child might somehow gain access to it.
I don't have a link at the moment but his ideas regarding internet censorship displayed both an astonishing disrespect for freedom of speech and a jaw-dropping failure to realize that the internet was not limited to just the US.
Ive never come across this 'EU rule' that says there must be a 2 year warranty. Infact, Id be very surprised, since most things Ive purchased in the EU has only come with a 1 year manufacturers warrenty.
And exactly how do you know the "Bubba Bandits" latest album isn't the next Bethoven's 9th? If they created a great work of art, are they less entitled to earn money from their work?
Somehow most people don't refer to Beethoven as "bubba".
Is a professor who writes a book on Rome not entitled to earn a wage from his efforts?
Actually it's really funny you should bring that up because there a HUGE difference between earning a "wage" for work you're actually doing and getting royalties on work you've already done. A wage certainly, but to coast for the rest of your life off one piece of work, how exactly is that inspiring the creation of new works?
I'm not arguing for the current systems non-expiring copyrights, but against the idea that illegal copying of copyrighted works is OK because "I wasn't going to buy it".
Sure, and I'm arguing that because copyright law is totally out of whack, "illegal copying of copyrighted works" isn't always a bad thing. You're trying to dismiss all of copyright's failures and just speak about illegal copying but THOSE FAILURES ARE THE REASON FOR MUCH OF THAT COPYING. It's a nonsensical division to make, like saying: "I don't want to talk about cars with leaky gas tanks, just cars that explode."
Do you not understand the concept of intellectual property?
Yes, I do....apparently much better than you.
Have you never heard the expression "Stealing their ideas"?
Yes, and I actually understand that it is a sort of figure of speech. It's actually impossible to "steal" an idea.
You argument makes as much sense as insisting that angels are small, because there's a saying about angels and pins.
Do you have trouble with the concept of negative numbers? Perhaps even the number 0?
Conceptually, no. Philisophically, no.
These are things that exist in peoples heads that lack a physical counterpart, yet are key to the functioning of a modern world.
Yes, and it's totally crazy to treat to those concepts as something that can be stolen. Try as I might, I simply will not be able to relieve you of those concepts.
For a minute, I pictured the Army's new class of robots being "stress tested" via shotgun fire. I was really wondering if that was such a good idea... I mean, who expects a machine to stand up to a hit from a shotgun?
I know this kills the joke, but there actually are gov't standards that require electronic equipment to withstand a shotgun blast.
Slashdot Mirror
2) just assume that content is being traded illegally without checking (as we've seen before) and just send spurious DMCA notices until internet 2 is beaten into submission.
Actually, that's pretty much out of the question.
If may suprise you to hear this, but a lot of universities actually have law schools. Some of them have really good law schools. Besides having tons of good lawyers, they also have LOTS of money. The annual budget of my alma mater is a TEN figure amount.
If you want to see an example of this in action, look at the Gallery of CSS Descramblers.
Sure the MPAA, would LOVE to have it taken down, but CMU has the actual resources to beat them in court, and a reputation that will get them taken seriously.
It's not like taking on some schmo making $30K/year or going after an organization that you can paint to be a bunch of criminal anarchists (2600).
Bullshit.
There are TONS of reasons to crack a game you already bought.
Normally, I might try to have just a *tiny* bit more tact, but it's obvious you didn't even put even a couple seconds of thought into it.
Just a few reason off the top of my head:
And when it happens, what then? You'll have less than zero recourse. "Yes, I want to sue this guy because the illegal program he wrote to crack the protection on this software nuked my email."
First off, if I buy drugs from you, IT'S STILL NOT LEGAL FOR YOU TO SHOOT ME IN THE FACE. Second, cracks were 100% legal before the DMCA, even after the DMCA (which I expect will be thrown out eventually, since it gives publishers de-facto infinate copyright) there are provisions specficlly within the DMCA to allow of interoperability, etc so as to allow people to make software they've purchased work with their computer. Third, I don't need to admit that you actually damaged my computer to get you in trouble, besides pending anti-spyware legislation, one could be prosecuted for fraud/misrepresentation, etc.
I hate software licensing as much as anyone on
WTF!
A. They're ALREADY successful.
B. They could just not be jerks about it let you use the software you've already purchased.
Why do they desserve something? Why not make a rational decision instead of pretending you owe them something? It's obvious they don't think they owe you anything.
IANAL, or an electrical engineer, but it would not be that hard to put your little GPS unit / antenna for said GPS unit inside a metal box / farraday cage and no jamming would be needed.
But that's so obvious it seems like they'd have some way to get you for it. An easy way would be tapping the vehicle speed sensor. How are you going to explain driving 1,000 miles and never getting GPS recption? That's one long tunnel.
Better idea than the simulator. Just build a small miliwatt jammer. Power it off of you cigarete lighter. You'll have way more than enough power to jam the RF dignals from the GPS sats and make it so that it can't tall where you are. Simpler to build too.
A jammer would be illegal to build, operate, or sell (throughout the entire US). A simulator could be freely sold. Even if California banned them, you could sell them in Oregon.
Right. Then we'll get a few smart people to develope a means of faking the mileage and paying next to nil. Not only will it not work, but it's not fair. I live in CA and am frankly sick of all the car-related restrictions that we have to abide by!
Actually there already is a way to fake it, it's called a "satellite constellaion simulator."
As far as the GPS receiver knows it's seeing real satellites, but it's really just cabled into a very complex Rf generator. The only problem is it will set you back a quarter of a million dollars, and takes up six full-length 19" rack spaces. Still, it's possible though.
Using one of those, I've made a GPS receiver believe that it's 1994 and halfway around the world. Heck, you could even fake errors (telling the GPS unit you driving at mach 2 while in low earth orbit).
I live in CA and am frankly sick of all the car-related restrictions that we have to abide by!
I feel for you. California has the stupidest rules I've every heard of (CARB). Your politicians are completly out of their fucking minds. You can't even modify your fricking AIR INTAKE there.
I'd almost be tempted to help design a cheap SCS just to help screw over these asshole politicians. In quantity, you could probably knock down both the size and cost of the device by orders of magnitude since it wouldn't need to be mil-certified test equipment anymore.
Gentoo's too damn time consuming for my tastes.
It depends how you look at it:
Gentoo is more time consuming to get up and running, but once you have a working system maintenance is trivial. Installing new software is trivial.
So yes it takes a little more time at first, but you don't have to manually download and spend a day in dependency hell just to have the newest version of mplayer. (I've been there.)
I used to use RH and it was a royal pain in the ass when you wanted that new version of X. With Gentoo, I spend much lest time doing rountine upkeeping than I ever did with redhat. If you use linux every day, you don't want to be stuck with the same version of Gaim for six months, you want the new features.
Now comes the biggest problem. How will the plug-in communicate with others to do searches? Inter-client communications can only be done via the basic IMs that are sent between users.
You're making it harder than it really is.
All the software needs gaim for is to establish the initial connection.
It just needs to send out one message that says:
"Hi, I'm running the foobar application and my ip address is: 255.255.255.255"
Of course, you don't want to send that Im to everyone on the list, so you would all set a flag in your profile, something like "I'm running the foobar plugin."
This way, the "Hi" message only gets sent to those who are actually running the software.
Obviously there'd be more to the software than that, but those are the only things that I would actually send through the AIM server.
"Authentication, searching, up/downloads, etc could all happen via direct connections.
You are not at all talking about the same thing.
Legally, they're called differnet things but practially, it's the same concept:
You can't claim exclusive rights to something you didn't create.
If you want to patent the use of technique X in field Y, you better be the first person to use it.
If you want to trademark word X in field Y, there better not be anyone else using it.
"Prior art" in patent law automatically does a blow to your patent (assuming it is the same thing).
In the same sense that the common useage of a term can blow your trademark.
Trademark law does not require uniqueness.
It does WITHIN CONSTRAINTS just like patent law.
If your trademark isn't unique when you pick it's then your trademark itself becomes a deliberate attempt to confuse the consumer, they very thing trademark law is supposed to prevent.
You don't have to be the absolute first person to use every concept in your patent, nor do you have to be the first to use your trademark, but it DOES have to be unique. If someone else is using "your" trademark before you, in a reasonably similar field, the court is not going to protect it.
Try starting a company called "Harley Davidson Motorcycles" for example.
Unlike patent law, prior existence of other examples does not itself render the mark invalid.
Actually it does.
If a term is already being used to describe something you can't suddenly claim it to be your trademark.
For instance, you can't decide you want to make Beer (tm) beer.
If someone can show examples of where your trademark was already an industry standard term for the product/service/whatever you stand an extremely good chance of losing it.
This is why Microsoft settled with Lindows.
If they had let the case continue, they stood a very good chance of losing since "Windows" was already common computer terminology.
Although the terminology used is not identical, both patents and trademark require "uniqueness". You can't just claim rights to something that wasn't your idea.
1. Its too expensive,
/. posted related to nuclear power.
Tell that to France. They have a GREAT nuclear program, AND lower energy costs. The generate over 75% of their electricity from nuclear power.
2. Smart engineers know Murphy always wins.
Smart engineers are able to solve problems. With that type of thinking, we wouldn't have cars, airplanes, semiconductor plants, etc. "Murphy always wins" is a cop-out for not actually looking at the REAL risks involved. "Smart engineers" actually do the work to look at the REAL risks instead of just spouting slogans...they leave that to management.
3. Nuclear proliferation.
Pretty much a non-issue, I'm not a nuclear scientist but this particular point was debunked very well during the last story
4. Compared to alternative energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, etc.), it's less commercially viable with far more risks.
This really falls under #1. Just like #1 you're not really backing up these claims. For example, solar power is definately NOT cheaper than nuclear power on any meaningful scale.
5. Large monolithic power plants take years to build, the investment makes no sense without government subsidies
That's a policy issue not a technical one. Let the gov't build the plants then. It's not as if the gov't doesn't already subsidize utilities.
Nuclear power: old complex clunky mainframe, prone to bugs.
Pure FUD. Modern nuclear power plants are very safe. You percieve the risk to be greater than it actually is.
Solar power: wireless handheld with worldwide networking
Solar power is NOT PRACTICAL. Solar panels simply do not put out enough power per square meter to be able to meet out energy needs, period.
"To even come close to supplying our energy needs we would need about 500 plants which would require (figuring maintenance roads and access) 25,000 square miles of ground which is equal to the surface area of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and New Jersey combined."
I'm not that much worried about power plant accidents. What worries me is that nobody has yet found anything to do with the wastes. Oh and there's no really sure way of stocking tons of wastes for centuries either.
Why isn't there?
Just because you say it, doesn't make it true.
Hell, look at the pyramids, they seem to have held up allright and I'd like to think we've managed to improve our construction techniques over thousands of years.
Sadly, this is what it always comes down to. Objections to nuclear power aren't backed up by reasonable thought, but rather assuming something and claiming that assumption is the only possible answer.
Last time I saw a post like this is was claiming that the risk of running a plant was just too high. Nevermind the person couldn't actually quantify the risk or compare it to anything else. Nevermind that all the actual studies that honestly look at the issue find it to be less dangerous than a typical coal power plant.
You can buy a handheld SpyFinder. Here's a customer review with a discussion of how it works. It uses two lasers, one on the optical axis and one slightly off it, run alternately at a few Hz. Things that have focusing optics followed by a flat reflective surface (which includes most cameras) will blink. Ordinary shiny things will not.
Do you actually have one?
I would be doubtful as to the usefulness of that product given the only other item for sale is a high power laser pointer for ticking off birds.
WTF!?
They call it an "Avian Dissuader®" but I call it FRICKING HILARIOUS!
So is their write-up:
It is a Class IIIb laser with the right optics to create a concentrated beam that does not leave birds guessing.
What do they mean it doesn't leave birds guessing? It sure leaves me guessing.
Just what exactly do they expect the birds to do after you blind them with a laser? Fly south?
How exactly is the bird supposed to have any sort of stimulus-response reaction? It's not as if they know where that laser is coming from.
Not true. The filter will only increase the transmission of IR lightwaves.
Okay, first off the whole point of an IR filter would be to decrease transmission of IR lightwaves if it doesn't do that, IT IS NOT AN IR FILTER. I'm going to assume that you meant to say "reflection there".
Second, just because something filters at a certain wavelength, doesn't necessarily mean it does so by being reflective.
you can have a reflective filter, an absortive filter, or somewhere in between.
Why don't the theater owners strategically place high output infrared (LEDs) light sources behind the screens. Since most of the screens are full of holes, it should allow enough infrared light through to severly mess up the image recorded by the camcorders.
Because all you have to do is screw an IR filter on the front of the camera.
Yes, CCDs are sensitive to IR and UV, but camera shops sell filters for those ranges for precisely that reason.
Or more simply, since IR shows up on most video camcorders as white light (point a remote control at your camcorder as proof) put have a large number of flashing IR LEDs around and winthin the screen and make the recorded video unwatchable....
You realize that you can just screw an IR filter on the front of your camcorder, right?
$20 or so and that scheme becomes totally worthless.
You seem not to understand basics of economics, sorry.
You do not seems to understand that THERE IS MORE TO ECONOMICS THAN THE BASICS.
Instead of calling someone a moron because they aren't saying things that argee with what you learned in "Econ. for Dummies" THINK. Think about those rules you're treating as gospel and think about the examples I've given of them being totally off base.
On the contrary, they have to pay you exactly what you are worth, you are just worth a lot less than you think you are... Your worth (at least in $ terms) is defined by the market.
Not so. That's a really oversimplified view of economics.
Let's say an engineer can generate $100k/year worth of profit for me, after overhead. Let's say there are lots of engineers out there willing to work for $10k/year. How much are those people worth?
See the thing most economics classes neglect to point out is that by manipulating your costs and benfits you can pretty much get any answer you want while applying an oversimplified model to a complex situation.
Your comment reminds me of a joke:
Two economists are waliing down the street and one sees a $20 bill lying on the ground. He goes to pick it up and the other one calls out:
"Wait, don't bother!"
"Why not?"
"Well if it was worth pikcing up someone would have already done it."
See my point? In the REAL WORLD it IS possible to buy something for less than its worth.
A particular oversimplified view of the world might say that no one would ever leave a $20 bill on the ground unless it wasn't "worth" picking up, but that's an obviously silly assertion. In the real world things that are not economically "optimal" happen every day.
For a final example of the sillyness of your statement consider the worth of someone who is unemployed. Are they really worth $0/day?
Or, is unemployment itself an example of "market failure"?
See that's the funny thing here:
The same theories that say that a person is worth what the market is willing to pay, also predict ZERO unemployment.
I'm not claiming the whole science of economics is BS, BTW. The points I'm making are (IMO) why there is an actual division between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
When you look at things on a large scale, it becomes painfully obvious that none of the models being used are actually "true". They're more like trying to fit a polynomial to a set of datapoints.
Unfortuately that link doesn't seem to come out and say it explicitly so here is a link that does.
My point was not that I had one specfic link debunking his, but that it is easy to find MANY links which back this up.
Here is the relevant quote:
At 2:16 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Fox became the first network to call Florida for Bush. Minutes later, CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN made the same call.
Hey, I messed up that first time around, but at least I frickin ATTEMPTED to provide evidence.
One of many sites de-bunking F911... http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-i n-Fahrenheit-911.htm
Except that site doesn't provide any evidence proving that Fox was not the first to call it.
Geez first some guy gets to +5 insightful with absolutely NO evidence to back up his claim. Them a bunch of us provide links showing that he was indeed "making shit up".
Now an AC posts a link for an obviously biased site, that DOESN'T EVEN ADDRESS THE ISSUE AT HAND. That site provides no evidence supporting the claim that Fox was not the first to call it. As a matter of fact, it actually supports the claim:
Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.
If you're referring to 2000 Fox wasn't the first to call it. THat's another F911 fabrication.
Here's an idea, next time you're going to call someone a liar, why don't you link to some evidence so as to not look like a total wingnut?
Here I provide a link where the New York Times states that Fox was the first to call it in 2000.
It was very easy to find.
Now why do you go try to find some ACTUAL EVIDENCE to back up your claim. Not a bunch of strawman, don't-address-the point-at-hard arguments from some nutcase like Ann Coulter, but a simple bit of evidence proving that Fox was not the first to call it.
If what you claim is true, you should have no trouble backing it up.
Constant attempts to one-dimensionalize views so people can be labelled easier.
/. articles are submitted by a diverse group of individuals?
You mean like ignoring that fact that
Extreme, uncompromising views on these fake one-dimensional issues.
Like acting as though slashdot fucked up and now has their repuation tarnished?
One couldn't possibly take the more moderate view that investigating something and find a hypothesis to be untrue is not in itself a bad thing, and is arguably MUCH, MUCH better that never checking into anything.
For instance, open-source style politics was the reason Howard Dean was leading before the primaries. It allowed him to reach out to more people than he otherwise would have. In general the Internet is causing the voice of the people to be heard, and we should expect more Howard Dean-style campaigns in the future.
The funny thing is that Dean actually doesn't respect the freedom of speech the internet provides.
He wants to pass all sort of sweeping and stupid laws to "for the children".
God forbid there actually be a medium what adults may freely express their own minds because a child might somehow gain access to it.
I don't have a link at the moment but his ideas regarding internet censorship displayed both an astonishing disrespect for freedom of speech and a jaw-dropping failure to realize that the internet was not limited to just the US.
Ive never come across this 'EU rule' that says there must be a 2 year warranty. Infact, Id be very surprised, since most things Ive purchased in the EU has only come with a 1 year manufacturers warrenty.
Why not do a google search?
Here's a link that refers to just such a two year warranty.
I would guess that the required warranty period varies with device and/or cost, but it does seem like there is a rule out there somewhere.
And exactly how do you know the "Bubba Bandits" latest album isn't the next Bethoven's 9th? If they created a great work of art, are they less entitled to earn money from their work?
Somehow most people don't refer to Beethoven as "bubba".
Is a professor who writes a book on Rome not entitled to earn a wage from his efforts?
Actually it's really funny you should bring that up because there a HUGE difference between earning a "wage" for work you're actually doing and getting royalties on work you've already done. A wage certainly, but to coast for the rest of your life off one piece of work, how exactly is that inspiring the creation of new works?
I'm not arguing for the current systems non-expiring copyrights, but against the idea that illegal copying of copyrighted works is OK because "I wasn't going to buy it".
Sure, and I'm arguing that because copyright law is totally out of whack, "illegal copying of copyrighted works" isn't always a bad thing. You're trying to dismiss all of copyright's failures and just speak about illegal copying but THOSE FAILURES ARE THE REASON FOR MUCH OF THAT COPYING. It's a nonsensical division to make, like saying: "I don't want to talk about cars with leaky gas tanks, just cars that explode."
Do you not understand the concept of intellectual property?
Yes, I do....apparently much better than you.
Have you never heard the expression "Stealing their ideas"?
Yes, and I actually understand that it is a sort of figure of speech. It's actually impossible to "steal" an idea.
You argument makes as much sense as insisting that angels are small, because there's a saying about angels and pins.
Do you have trouble with the concept of negative numbers? Perhaps even the number 0?
Conceptually, no. Philisophically, no.
These are things that exist in peoples heads that lack a physical counterpart, yet are key to the functioning of a modern world.
Yes, and it's totally crazy to treat to those concepts as something that can be stolen. Try as I might, I simply will not be able to relieve you of those concepts.
For a minute, I pictured the Army's new class of robots being "stress tested" via shotgun fire. I was really wondering if that was such a good idea... I mean, who expects a machine to stand up to a hit from a shotgun?
I know this kills the joke, but there actually are gov't standards that require electronic equipment to withstand a shotgun blast.